Kansas City Chiefs: Four biggest takeaways at the bye week

What have we learned about the Kansas City Chiefs at their Week 10 bye?

After nine games this season, the Kansas City Chiefs sit at 8-1 on the season with seven left in the regular season. While the Chiefs are the favorites to win the division, the Raiders are still just a few games behind, so the Chiefs can’t let up when they return from their bye.

The schedule down the stretch won’t be the easiest, but this team has shown that they can compete with the “big dogs” of the league. We’ll get to that more in a bit though, as we tackle what we’ve learned about the defending Super Bowl champions so far in their Run It Back tour.

Defense has taken a step back

This time last year was when we saw the Chiefs defense turn things around and help get them to the point where they could be looked at as Super Bowl contenders. While the defense hasn’t been bad this year, they’re not at the same level they were in the back half of the season.

The passing defense has been pretty good, actually ranking in the top ten as far as yards per game goes. It’s the run defense that has struggled, currently allowing the fifth most rushing yards per game. We saw this firsthand, as Christian McCaffrey did whatever he wanted to do against KC’s defense last week and Teddy Bridgewater ran for the first down on a 4th and 14 in a pathetic display by the Chiefs D.

Again, the Chiefs defense isn’t bad, but they’re not where they need to be if they want to run it back this year. The Panthers showed that it’s possible to move the football with ease against this defense and that’s a team who’s ultimately going to finish the season under .500 and have a top 10 draft pick. Just imagine how badly a playoff team will be able to expose this Chiefs defense.