Kansas City Chiefs: 3 things to watch vs Ravens in Week 3

2. Kansas City’s Run Defense

Jackson and Mahomes are going to be the main attraction with all eyes glued to them, but the run defense is just as important to the Chiefs success (or failure) this Sunday.

The Ravens offense is one that mauls you play after play. They will bang their head against you all day, tiring you out until they are ripping off chunk play after chunk play. They also have a great play action passing game off of it. When the Ravens are running the ball well, and teams have to prepare for the mobility of Jackson, big plays can be ripped off on the back end and cause havoc for your defense.

Hopefully, the Chiefs will get veteran Mike Pennell back this week. Pennel was serving a two game suspension to start the year, but returned to the team and looks to add a big body in the middle of the Chiefs defense.

Pennel was a big reason the Chiefs run defense was able to find itself last year, and adding him to a defense that has been hit with some injuries is going to be big when you have to play an offense as physical as Baltimore.

The notion that Lamar Jackson can’t throw is outdated. He has proved that his passing is more than enough, and it has looked even better each year of his career. That doesn’t mean that the formula still isn’t to make Jackson throw as much as possible.

Baltimore really looks to run the ball first, and then have you account for it and beat you with big plays downfield. Just because Jackson has improved as a passer doesn’t mean you still don’t want to force him to throw as much as possible.

If the Chiefs are able to stop the run and build any sort of lead, Baltimore is just going to have to play a brand of offense that they don’t want too. It doesn’t mean they can’t, but you always want to be able to get a team out of rhythm and knock them out of their own comfort zones.