Midterm report card for Kansas City Chiefs in 2020 regular season

People love to complain about the Chiefs defense, and I won’t bothering denying that I am typically one of those people, but I am giving the Chiefs defense higher marks than you might imagine. The Chiefs woes at stopping the running game have bled over into this season, and have been a recurring issue for several years now.

The linebacking core definitely will have to step it up to go against the running competition it will face in the final stretch of games and into the playoffs. Tackling seems to be an issue. There are far too many broken tackles, or tackles missed entirely.

During the Panthers game, we saw many chunk plays courtesy of Christian McCaffrey and a Chiefs defense that never really did find a consistent way to wrangle him. That being said, this is obviously a very disciplined squad.

The defensive line has been practicing a great lack of social distancing when it comes to opposing quarterbacks. The Chiefs are ranked No. 13 in the league in yards allowed, which is middle of the pack, but they are ranked No. 6 in the league in points allowed.

There is a reason that yards are not on the score board, because games are not won by yards traveled, but by points scored. Obviously yards is how you eventually reach those points, but if no scoring takes place, then those yards mean nothing.

Those praises being sung, unfortunately the Chiefs defense does usually keep the opposing teams in games, really only fully stuffing teams such as the Broncos, Jets, and a very depleted Patriots team. Because of this, the Chiefs defense grades pretty well, but I certainly hope to see some improvement when the Chiefs face offenses such as the Saints, Bucs and Raiders for a second time.