On Sunday, Jones proved to the whole world he’s one of the league’s most disruptive interior defenders.
The Panthers may not be in total rebuild mode. There are major changes coming to both sides of the ball, though.
One area that may see a ton of turnover is the interior of the defensive line. Kawann Short isn’t going anywhere, but the same can’t be said for anybody else at the position. Dontari Poe could be a cap casualty and Vernon Butler, Gerald McCoy and Kyle Love will all become free agents next month. So, the team may need some fresh blood.
Kansas City picked Jones (6-foot-6, 310 pounds) in the second round of the 2016 NFL draft. Since then, he’s played in 61 games, totaling 33 sacks, 72 quarterback hits, 37 tackles for a loss, seven forced fumbles, two interceptions and 20 pass breakups. For the 2019 season, Pro Football Focus gave Jones an 89.5 pass rush grade.
Pros:
On Sunday, Jones showed the whole world he’s one of the league’s most disruptive interior defenders. He helped pressure Jimmy Garoppolo into throwing his now-infamous desperation interception. Jones also batted down three of Garoppolo’s passes at the line of scrimmage. At just 25 years old, it looks like Jones could be an elite iDL for a long time.
Cons:
Jones is a respectable run defender, but he has room to improve. That’s nitpicking, though. The only thing not to like about Jones’ game is how much it’s going to cost to sign him. In the unlikely event the Chiefs allow him to leave, Jones will cash in on the open market. While he won’t get Aaron Donald money, Jones will command at least as much as J.J. Watt, Fletcher Cox or Grady Jarrett, who are averaging around $17 million a year.
Probability: Low
Jones would be a dream signing for the Panthers. However, there are too many teams with far more cap space for them to really compete.
Patrick Mahomes came away with Super Bowl LIV’s Most Valuable Player award, but there was one Chiefs player more deserving of the award.
MIAMI — Eli Manning’s recent retirement had me thinking about the two Super Bowls Manning’s Giants won — Super Bowls XLII and XLVI — and the weight his performances had in those wins. Unless a quarterback throws up all over himself on the field, quarterbacks will always lead the charge when it comes to Most Valuable Player awards in the season’s biggest game, and Manning was, for the most part, perfectly adequate.
In those two Super Bowls, Manning combined for 49 completions in 74 attempts for 551 yards, three touchdowns and one interception. He had great throws in both Super Bowls — the David Tyree helmet catch in Super Bowl XLII, and this insane 38-yard completion to receiver Mario Manningham on the Giants’ game-winning drive in the second Super Bowl win. That’s still one of the best throws I’ve ever seen.
Not unlike Patrick Mahomes’ performance in Super Bowl LIV, really. Mahomes was a turbo-charged version of Manning, completing 26 of 42 passes for 286 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions. He also added nine rushing plays for 29 yards and a touchdown. Like Manning in his day, Mahomes had a couple of crucial shot plays — a 44-yard pass to wide receiver Tyreek Hill with 7:13 left in the game, and a 38-yard completion to receiver Sammy Watkins with 3:58 remaining — and those plays were the difference-makers that erased the two picks when it came to Mahomes’ MVP equity.
All well and good — I wrote yesterday that Mahomes was utterly brilliant when he had to be. But was he the most valuable Chiefs player in that game? The argument can be made for at least three other players.
Right tackle Mitchell Schwartz allowed exactly zero total pressures — no sacks, no quarterback hits, and no quarterback hurries — on 52 pass-blocking snaps against San Francisco’s furious pass rush, per Pro Football Focus. It was an astonishing performance that the tape backs up.
Running back Damien Williams gained 104 yards and scored a touchdown on 17 carries, and his was the five-yard touchdown reception with 2:44 left in the game that put the Chiefs up, 24-20, for the lead they would never lose again.
But the guy I’ll choose is defensive lineman Chris Jones. And the reason I brought up the Manning comparison is that, in both of those Giants Super Bowls, defensive lineman Justin Tuck could have — and probably should have — been the MVP. It was Tuck, over and over, who pushed the middle of New England’s offensive line in both games, forcing Tom Brady out of the preferred vantage point he gets when he steps up in the pocket to throw. And it was Tuck who forced the intentional grounding penalty in Super Bowl XLVI that gave the Giants two points with a safety because Brady heaved the ball out of his own end zone. Tuck had two sacks, two quarterback hits, and a forced fumble in XLII. He had two sacks, two tackles for loss, and three quarterback hits in XLVI. In both games, he was the game-wrecker who made the difference.
(Andrew Mills/THE STAR-LEDGER via USA TODAY Sports)
Another interesting connection is that the guy who ran the Giants’ defense in XLII was Steve Spagnuolo, the Chiefs’ current defensive coordinator. When Spagnuolo took the Kansas City job before the 2019 season, it’s easy to imagine him watching Jones’ tape and thinking to himself, I’ve got my next Justin Tuck.
If that was indeed the theory, the theory proved true — though Jones, the fourth-year man from Mississippi State who has been one of the league’s more consistent interior disruptors over the last three seasons — wreaked his particular havoc in different ways. In Super Bowl LIV, Jones was credited with no tackles, one assist, no sacks, no quarterback hits, and three passes defensed. If you looked at the stat sheet, you might imagine Jones dropping back into zone blitzes and deflecting balls in coverage.
But that’s not what happened. Jones’ three pass defensed were all tipped passes at the line of scrimmage, and he was absolutely brilliant at disrupting 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo in that regard.
The first deflection came with 5:27 left in the game, and the 49ers up 20-17 with second-and-5 at their own 25-yard line. Jones (No. 95) isn’t going to get to Garoppolo in time to create pressure, so instead, he drops and deflects.
The second deflection came with 1:49 left in the game, the Chiefs now up 24-20, the 49ers with first-and-10 at their own 49-yard line. Once again, Jones is a primary point of focus for the 49ers’ offensive line, preventing him from collapsing the pocket. So again, Jones gets his hand up, and San Francisco has to go back to the drawing board.
The third deflection came on the very next play, and this one almost ended the game for good. Jones got the heel of his hand on a Garoppolo burner, and cornerback Kendall Fuller nearly came away with an interception.
The 49ers failed to score on either of those drives as the Chiefs were busy scoring three touchdowns in a five-minute stretch in the last 6:13 of the game. Without Jones’ efforts, it could well have been a very different story
But wait, as they say, there’s more! PFF gave Jones credit for just one quarterback pressure, but it provided a huge result. With 14:15 left in the first half, Garoppolo tried to get the ball out under pressure — first from Jones, and then from defensive lineman Mike Pennel. Instead, Garoppolo threw up a prayer that was intercepted by cornerback Bashaud Breeland.
“You’re at the point in the season where sacks don’t really count and they don’t matter,” Jones said after the game on a virtuoso performance that sadly left him lacking on the stat sheet. “As long as you affect the game in any type of way, that’s what matters. As long as you can put your team in a position to go out there and make a stop, that’s what matters. Sacks, tackles, none of that matters.”
Chris Jones is exactly correct, and his words bring his performance into more specific relief. The tape does an even more convincing job. And if you want to look at players who had a dominant effect on the result of Super Bowl LIV without the negative plays created by their quarterbacks, Chris Jones — just as could have been said of Justin Tuck — should have received more serious consideration.
Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar previously covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”
Did the NFL just defer to a QB, like they always do?
The Super Bowl MVP always seems to be a quarterback. The NFL defers to their signal-callers in moments of uncertainty for the award. A defender only wins the honor, if he really deserved it. And if a running back or receiver goes off, he might win it, too.
Even though Patrick Mahomes had two interceptions in the Super Bowl, he won the MVP, largely because of his fourth quarter performance and three total touchdowns (two passing, one rushing). Considering how dominant Mahomes was in that fourth quarter, he made himself a very strong candidate for the award. Still, he may not have been the best player in the game. Here are a few others that deserved stronger consideration.
Chris Jones, DT, Chiefs
The defensive tackle had just one tackle and no sacks. But he finished with three pass deflections, and he was in on Jimmy Garoppolo when the quarterback threw his first interception in the first quarter. Jones plays a position that doesn’t get much love — he eats space in the middle of Kansas City’s defense. But his three pass breakups were a game-high. He has long been one of the league’s best interior defenders. He played like it on Sunday.
His deflection on second-and-5 may have saved the game for the Chiefs. George Kittle was wide open in the middle of the field with Terrell Suggs in coverage — it should have been a big play. Jones made sure it wasn’t.
Man, if Jimmy can just flip it to Deebo here — wide open in the flat — it’s an even steeper climb for the Chiefspic.twitter.com/3tZLo8hJox
He was a game-changer and a steady offensive presence for the entire game. The 49ers were so intent upon stopping Patrick Mahomes that they gave up easy yards for Williams, whose 38-yard touchdown run proved to be a back-breaker.
Williams rushed for 6.1 yards per carry in the Super Bowl after running at 3.2 yards per carry in the previous two playoff games. Considering how excellent the 49ers had been against the run, Williams seemed likely to again be a non-factor. Yet he stepped way up, with help from the offensive line and fullback Anthony Sherman. Apparently on the touchdown run, Sherman told Williams in the huddle: “Follow me, I don’t care what you do, follow me.” That’s exactly what Williams did.
Has #chiefs RB Damien Williams gone to bed yet? Which of his two touchdowns were his favorite? And who was the life of the party last night after the game? All of right here from @gmfb on @nflnetwork this morning. pic.twitter.com/j7cGltLRnU
But then there were Williams’ contributions in the passing game, with four receptions for 29 yards and a touchdown, the go-ahead score in the fourth quarter. Without a doubt, Mahomes facilitated the Chiefs’ win. He couldn’t have done it without Williams’ production. An argument could be made that Williams, because of his steady play, was more deserving of the award.
Deebo Samuel, WR, 49ers
Since we’re weighing hypotheticals, let’s dive into the top performers for San Francisco. Had they won the game, Samuel would have been an easy option for the NFL. Samuel finished the game with three carries for 53 yards and five catches for 39 yards. When they got the ball in Samuel’s hands, he was an explosive playmaker. And even when the 49ers offense couldn’t run the ball well at the very start of the game, Samuel managed to generate first downs on the ground.
The one problem? His last touch came with roughly five minutes left in the third quarter. That was just about when the Chiefs mounted their comeback. San Francisco needed someone to step up — that’s when Samuel went missing.
DeForest Buckner, DE, 49ers
He was one of the biggest reasons why Mahomes couldn’t get going until the fourth quarter. He had six tackles, 1.5 sacks and three quarterback hits. Mahomes was having issues when San Francisco got pressure with just four rushers, and Buckner may have been the toughest 49ers lineman to block on Sunday night. Perhaps he didn’t get credit because he didn’t make a truly game-changing play. Still, his body of work was impressive.
Kyle Juszczyk, FB, 49ers
The fullback has long been an impressive contributor for the run-heavy 49ers. His abilities as a lead blocker and pass protector are paramount in San Francisco’s game plan, but Juszczyk showed why the 49ers gave him such a big contract. He had more receiving yards than George Kittle. Juszczyk had three catches for 39 yards and a touchdown — and he nearly scored another when he brought the ball to the 1-yard line for a Raheem Mostert touchdown. Juszczyk didn’t carry the ball, but he led the way for a 49ers offense that averaged 6.4 yards per carry.
The 49ers had Patrick Mahomes right where they wanted him. And then they found out what the rest of the NFL already knows.
MIAMI — Before tonight, Patrick Mahomes had thrown two or more interceptions in an NFL game exactly three times: Against the Rams, Jaguars, and Patriots, all in the 2018 season. Before tonight, Patrick Mahomes had never thrown a postseason interception. Before tonight, to make Patrick Mahomes look mortal, you basically had to hope he’d leave the field. Before tonight, Patrick Mahomes had never faced a defense that had him bamboozed as the San Francisco 49ers’ defense did.
And yet, even with the 49ers up, 20-10 going into the second half of the fourth quarter, there wasn’t a single individual on the Chiefs’ sideline who didn’t believe their quarterback wouldn’t lead them to victory in Super Bowl LIV.
Because there is Patrick Mahomes and there is everybody else, and the 49ers learned that the hard way tonight. The Chiefs scored three touchdowns in a five-minute stretch in their usual whipsaw fashion, ending with Damien Williams’ 38-yard touchdown run with 1:12 left in the game, and that was the proverbial dagger in Kansas City’s 31-20 victory. It was the franchise’s first Super Bowl victory in 50 years. Mahomes, who finished the game with 26 completions in 42 attempts for 286 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions, became at age 24, the youngest Super Bowl MVP in the game’s history.
(Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports)
Give it to the 49ers’ ravenous-for-a-while defense, though — they did everything they could to beat Mahomes and his explosive offense into submission. They sacked Mahomes four times, created four tackles for loss, bombarded him with eight quarterback hits, and seemed to have him on their radar for a pressure on every snap. At the half, Mahomes had been restricted to throwing mostly short passes, he told me, because the 49ers’ pass rush made it that way. And hearing Mahomes say that a defense bent him to its will is a highly unusual event.
“That was just how the game turned out,” he said. “Those guys were getting upfield — obviously that’s a lot of great defensive linemen, and they were covering downfield. So, we hit some short stuff, and when I saw their safeties coming up [in the box], we tried to take some shots later on in the game.”
(Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports)
The 49ers did vary their usual Cover-3 and Cover-4 looks, and defensive coordinator Robert Saleh dialed some great stuff up to try and — well, if not confuse Mahomes, to at least delay his usual deadly responses when it’s time to make deep throws. Over and over, while the pressure was closing in, San Francisco would vary its safety looks — presenting Mahomes with single-high pre-snap looks to then morph into two-high concepts — and at times, vice-versa. The vice was closing for a while.
Limited to 12 completions in 18 attempts for 104 yards in the first half, Mahomes tried to take his shots later on. It did not always go well. He threw one interception to linebacker Fred Warner on a weird read on an attempt to receiver Tyreek Hill…
…and then, another pass to Hill bounced off the target and landed in the hands of cornerback Tarvarius Moore — a guy who had played a total of 155 coverage snaps all season.
It was the first interception of Moore’s career, the first time Mahomes had thrown more than one pick in a game since Week 11 of the 2018 season, and San Francisco’s resulting touchdown made the game 20-10, and seemed to put the thing in the bag for a defense that had Mahomes on the ropes.
Of course, every team the Chiefs have played in the playoffs thought they had the Chiefs on the ropes. The Texans had a 24-0 lead in the divisional round, and lost. The Titans had a 10-0 lead in the conference championship round, and lost. The 49ers had 10-0 and 20-10 leads, and then all hell broke loose.
It could be that like Rocky Balboa, Mahomes is the kind of fighter who has to get hit a few times before he wakes up, and then, he just starts beating the living daylights out of the defense unfortunate enough to be on the other side of the equation.
“That team, that’s kind of how they’ve been all year,” 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan said. “They’re not a team that does it every drive. They get a little bit hot and cold. They can score very fast. That’s why there were two playoff games where they were cold to start and they were down, and by halftime, they fixed it in both games. That’s how the team is. That team doesn’t do it every time, but it was a matter of time.”
Shanahan, the Falcons’ offensive coordinator in their infamous 28-3 collapse against the Patriots in Super Bowl LI at the end of the 2016 season, now has to deal with the reality of another blown double-digit lead in a Super Bowl.
For the Chiefs, such handicaps seem like minor obstacles at best, as long as Mahomes is on their side.
Kansas City defensive tackle Chris Jones, who deflected three Jimmy Garoppolo passes and might have taken the Defensive MVP award if such a thing was given in the Super Bowl, sounded like a cross between a Baptist preacher and Muhammad Ali when describing his quarterback, and the belief his teammates have in him.
“There was no doubt in my mind we were gonna win,” Jones exhorted. “We went down 10, the game went a little shifty up and down, but there wasn’t a doubt in my mind. We got ‘MVPat’ on our side. We’ve got the fastest and best receiver corps IN THE LEAGUE [emphasis very much his]. And our defense? Sack Nation, baby! They’re gonna make a movie about this!”
When they do, the turning point of the plot will inevitably be Mahomes’ 44-yard completion to Hill with 7:13 left in the game. The Chiefs had third-and-15 at that point, still down 20-10, and
“They were playing this kind of robber coverage all game long, where the safety was coming down and robbing our deep crossing routes. We had a good play call on where [tight end Travis] Kelce did a little stutter deep cross. We had Tyreek getting one-on-one with that safety, and the biggest thing is that we needed really good protection. It was a long route. It was actually the same play we ran against New England in the playoffs last year [the 2018 AFC Championship game], getting him down the sideline. We had great protection, I put it out there, and Tyreek made a great play.”
Patrick Mahomes' 44-yard completion to Tyreek Hill (on 3rd & 15) traveled 57.1 yards in the air, Mahomes' longest completed pass by air distance this season.#SBLIV | Powered by @awscloudpic.twitter.com/WrtEarc4VT
All-22 tape from that New England game shows how the Chiefs and Hill (at the top of the screen) confounded the Patriots with it. Hill was in the outside slot in both instances; the Chiefs just flipped the play this time around.
Another kill shot was the 38-yard completion to receiver Sammy Watkins with 3:58 left in the game. Watkins beat cornerback Richard Sherman downfield on a straight press coverage matchup — the kind Sherman usually wins.
“I just knew it was one-on-one from film study,” Watkins said. “On a play where he was covering [Packers receiver] Davante Adams], I saw [Sherman] coming off an inside release when he’d been playing heavy outside the whole game. I knew Pat could make the throw, and that’s why we work on those types of situations.”
That put the ball on the San Francisco 10-yard line, and the Chiefs scored the go-ahead touchdown three plays later on a five-yard pass to running back Damien Williams.
Sherman was as quiet after the game as you’ll ever hear him; that Watkins touchdown certainly weighed on his mind, as did several others he and the rest of the 49ers will replay over and over in their heads all offseason. But there was no shame in San Francisco’s performance; they simply came up against a quarterback who is uniquely engineered to pull victory out of the jaws of defeat at a level and with a frequency we may never have seen before.
Earlier this week, Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner told me that Mahomes may become the most complete quarterback the NFL has ever seen. As sloppy as this performance was at times, it was actually a huge part of that progression. Mahomes faced an absolutely elite defense that had his number, and in the end, it still didn’t matter.
Patrick Mahomes was going to win this game, and as long as he believed it to be so, the belief would become reality. That he can wrap something as hard as winning a Super Bowl around that displays, more than ever, how uniquely incredible he is.
Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar previously covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”
The New Orleans Saints will be watching pending free agents like Chiefs DL Chris Jones and 49ers WR Emmanuel Sanders in Super Bowl LIV.
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The New Orleans Saints will be bystanders during Super Bowl LIV, but the title game between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers gives them an opportunity to do some advance scouting — both teams are on the Saints’ schedule for 2020. However, it’s also a time for the Saints to get a last look at several veteran players headed for free agency in March, providing possible upgrades for New Orleans. Here are four names we’ll be watching
49ers WR Emmanuel Sanders
Sanders is someone who’s been on New Orleans’ radar for a long time, going back to his first brush with free agency after starting his career with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Sanders’ talents were on full display in this year’s Saints-49ers boat race, in which the crafty route-runner caught 7 of 9 targets for a season-high 157 receiving yards. He’s exactly what the Saints need opposite Michael Thomas. The questions surround whether the 49ers will allow him to test free agency after trading multiple draft picks for him, and how much attention he’ll receive on the free agent market as one of the few proven quantities available.
49ers DL Arik Armstead
Just 26, Armstead would be a great boost to an already-stout Saints defensive line — but he won’t be added so easily. Armstead broke out in 2019 with 10 sacks and 54 total tackles, taking advantage of the extra attention drawn by teammates like DeForest Buckner, Dee Ford, and Nick Bosa. He figures to be one of the highest-paid defensive tackles on the market, and the Saints would only consider signing him if they’re comfortable letting co-starters David Onyemata and Sheldon Rankins leave during this coming signing period and the next, respectively.
Chiefs CB Bashaud Breeland
The Saints will make changes to the cornerback position; they have to, with just three corners under contract right now in Marshon Lattimore, Janoris Jenkins, and Patrick Robinson. Breeland would make sense as a starting-quality option who might be cheaper than high-priced veterans Jenkins and Robinson, but the Saints could struggle to fit all three of them under the salary cap (not to mention Lattimore’s looming big contract extension). It is a little concerning that Breeland is already on his third team in as many years with Kansas City.
Chiefs DL Chris Jones
This is the same situation as Armstead, but moreso: Jones has been one of the NFL’s best defenders in recent years, racking up 24.5 sacks in his last 29 games. He’d be an easy fit in New Orleans at the three-technique spot, which Onyemata is set to vacate in free agency. While Shy Tuttle is natural fill-in for Onyemata while Rankins continues to rehab from another lower-leg injury (in a contract year, no less), Jones would be such a big addition that Tuttle could remain a rotational piece, which might be his best usage right now. But will the Saints break the bank for Jones, or any other high-priced free agents?
Chris Jones and Matt Moore are among players the Jets should avoid that will be playing in Super Bowl LIV down in Miami, Fla.
The Jets haven’t exactly been the wisest of spenders in free agency over the past couple of years.
That’s why Mike Maccagnan is no longer in charge and Joe Douglas will shortly begin his first offseason of calling the shots. With team officials most likely tuning in to Sunday’s big game, they need to also make a list of players that just don’t make sense for Gang Green. It’s not necessarily that they’re bad players, but more so that the Jets don’t have the cap or roster flexibility to add them in free agency.
Yesterday, the Jets Wire made a list of six players the Jets should target in free agency. This time around, we will take a look at five players the Jets should avoid come March.
Chiefs: DL Chris Jones
(AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
While Chris Jones could be an intriguing option to supplement the Jets 3-4 scheme, they don’t have the luxury to add a player of Chris Jones’ caliber on the defensive line.
Jones is a versatile three-down lineman, who played at defensive end before Kansas City’s switch to a 4-3 base scheme this past offseason. In 2018, Jones recorded 15.5 sacks. Only 26, Jones seems like a likely candidate for a big payday on the open market, especially if he is able to help Kansas City raise the Lombardi Trophy on Sunday.
The former second-rounder has been tremendous at stopping the run and also has a knack for getting after opposing quarterbacks. In 13 games played this season, Jones totaled nine sacks to go along with 36 tackles and 20 quarterback hits.
It’s not to say that Jones wouldn’t be an excellent addition to their defensive front, but the Jets have too many other glaring needs at the moment. The additions of Henry Anderson and Quinnen Williams make Jones a luxury that New York simply can’t afford until they address the outside linebacker and cornerback positions first.
Colts should watch these players in Super Bowl LIV.
The big game is almost here. When the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs battle it out in Miami for the Lombardi Trophy in Super Bowl LIV, the whole world will be watching.
That includes the Indianapolis Colts, who have already begun preparing for the offseason. Part of that preparation is finding out which free agents to go after when the new league year begins in March. There are a few they should keep an eye on during the big game.
Here are four impending free agents the Colts should watch in Super Bowl LIV:
Mark Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
DT Chris Jones, Kansas City Chiefs
The Colts desperately need help at the interior defensive line position and Jones will be one of the biggest free-agent targets across the entire league. How invested the Colts will be this offseason remains to be seen, but Jones should be one of their top priorities.
Though he didn’t have an elite season, Jones was solid in most regards. Where it matters most, he recorded 9.0 sacks. That would be a huge boost to the Colts defense from the three-technique. Even with his size (6’6, 310), he could side over and play some nose tackle if needed as well.
The Colts got close to nothing with their interior pass rush and Chris Ballard has made it clear that is the position that drives the defense. If Jones hits the market, he should be one of the top targets.
The Chiefs come into Super Bowl LIV with a defense that is better than people think, and they’re ready to prove the doubters wrong.
It was just Tuesday of Super Bowl week, and Chiefs linebacker Reggie Ragland was already fed up with people questioning his team’s defense. When I spoke with him about several members of that defense, and Ragland mentioned that every one of them had a chip on their shoulder, I asked him about the collective chip, and where it came from.
“Oh, yeah. Because we were talked about… everyone was saying some of the worst things possible about this defense. And we just steadily kept running and fighting as a whole. People still want to count us out, to this day. That’s why we love each other, and why we’re so tight. Because we don’t care what anybody says about us.”
Well, they do. And the skepticism regarding Kansas City’s ability to stop Kyle Shanahan’s multi-faceted schemes in Super Bowl LIV is not entirely without merit. This was a team that suffered a heartbreaking loss to the Patriots in the 2018 AFC Championship game when they couldn’t stop Bill Belichick’s crew from scoring the game-winning touchdown in overtime. New England converted three third-and-10 plays on that fateful drive, Patrick Mahomes never got a chance, to respond, and all of a sudden, the Chiefs were off on an off-season reset.
Defensive coordinator Bob Sutton was fired, replaced by Steve Spagnuolo, perhaps best known as the guy who designed the defensive game plans that upset a historically great Patriots offense in Super Bowl XLII. Spagnuolo’s combinations of exotic pressures and interesting coverages were a balm to a Chiefs defense that was out-manned and out-schemed too often in 2018.
Not that things took off right away. Through the 2019 season’s first nine weeks, Kansas City allowed 14 touchdowns and had just six interceptions, though their seven dropped interceptions (tied with Cincinnati for the league lead) was a precursor of better things to come. Kansas City allowed 7.02 yards per attempt, and an opposing QBR of 90.50. Not the worst in the league in any of these departments, but hardly the kind of defense Spagnuolo or head coach Andy Reid wanted. Their opponent completion rate of 62.96% ranked 11th-best in the league.
But from Weeks 10-17, the Chiefs tied with the Ravens for the fewest passing touchdowns allowed with seven, and picked off 10 passes — tied with the Falcons, Browns, Colts, Saints, and Dolphins for the most in that span. They also had seven dropped picks in the second half of the season. Only the Steelers, Packers, and Ravens allowed a lower completion percentage than Kansas City’s 57.36%.
The Chiefs allowed 6.22 yards per attempt — only the Ravens, 49ers, and Steelers were better, and only the Steelers have allowed a lower QBR than Kansas City’s 68.72. The Chiefs’ defensive Positive Play Rate (the percentage of plays in which an opposing offense has Expected Points Added over zero) dropped from 46% to 42%.
Chiefs linebacker Reggie Ragland has made it clear: It’s time for people to respect his defense. {Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports)
Football Outsiders’ Weighted DVOA, which tracks a team’s opponent-adjusted efficiency through the entire season, but places higher weights on a team’s performance from Week 7 on, and amplifies it as the season goes along, has Kansas City’s defense with a corresponding uptick heading into the Super Bowl.
Yes, the Chiefs allowed the Texans to go up on them 24-0 in the divisional round, and then spotted the Titans 10 points to start the 2019 AFC Championship game, but not all of those disasters were on the defense, and Spagnuolo’s crew was able to shut it down when it counted. Now, they face a 49ers team that has hidden quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo through most of the playoffs, and presents a problem with their highly-effective running game for a defense that finished 29th against the run in Football Outsiders’ defensive metrics.
Defensive lineman Chris Jones, who will help to anchor the inside of Kansas City’s run defense — and generally does so at an elite level — shared Ragland’s awareness of, and animosity for, those who would doubt his efforts.
“I’ve had a chip on my shoulder since I came into this league,” said the four-year veteran, who made his first Pro Bowl in 2019. “That’s what gives me an edge, and what keeps me going. The doubters. The naysayers. The people who don’t believe. The critics. The analysts who say the Chiefs don’t have enough — that’s what keeps me going.”
If the 49ers aren’t taking Kansas City’s defense seriously, it sure doesn’t sound like it.
“I see a good defense,” fullback Kyle Juszczyk told me on Tuesday. “I see a good front seven. I have a ton of respect for their linebackers. Every one of those guys is a challenge in the run game. They’re all very good at taking on blocks, and that’s something I’m going to have to deal with. Also, a guy like Frank Clark can really… he can just change games. He’s very disruptive. And then, you look in the secondary with Tyrann Mathieu, who really plays everywhere. He’s almost a position-less player, because he plays in the nickel, he plays safety, he plays dime linebacker. He’s their chess piece on defense, so it really makes it tough to predict what kind of defensive personnel they’re in with him, because he can play so many of those different roles.”
For Spagnuolo, who was last seen in the NFL as the Giants’ defensive coordinator and interim head coach in 2017, the year off in 2018 was a time to recharge his batteries, spend his Mondays watching tape at NFL Films with NFL Matchup producer Greg Cosell, and getting a sense of how to make a modern defense go in different ways.
“It was quite the challenge, and yet very rewarding, being away from the game. It was an emotional challenge, but the reward was, you got a chance to sit back and see things big-picture. When you get in the middle of things, and you’re wrapped up in the week-to-week football, that’s your focus. When you’re out of it, you can see the game of football [in a different way]. I was living outside of Philadelphia, so it was a 40-minute drive to NFL Films. I had access to all the games, and I chose to study things I maybe didn’t get a chance to do. My background is mostly in coaching linebackers and defensive backs, so I spent a lot of time looking at the defensive line.
“And a lot of it was situational football — looking at teams that are really good on third down, really good in red zone. I just took a bunch of notes, and accumulated a lot of knowledge. So, when I got the chance that I did, I would be able to share that film with the players and the coaches. So, that’s been a real asset, that library of film.”
So, when Spagnuolo took over Kansas City’s defense, it wasn’t just about acquiring high-ticket players like Frank Clark and Tyrann Mathieu — it was also about creating the best opportunities for existing players to succeed — something that had not always been done on Sutton’s watch.
“He’s put guys in the right positions to make plays,” Ragland said of Spagnuolo. “He’s found everybody a role so they can make plays. Small role, or a big role. Like blitzing with me at times, and putting me in coverage at times, he made me a better player this year by doing that. He just put us in positions to be successful.”
For Spagnuolo, that was a fairly easy call.
“We came in with an initial system, because you’ve got to begin somewhere,” the coach recalled. “That’s your foundation and your beginning. And you slot the guys where you think they best fit. But you find that it takes being in the heat of the battle – in the game – to find out where the guys fit.
“Reggie was a really good example, and it’s a credit to Reggie, too. People thought Reggie was slotted as a MIKE linebacker. It’s what he did at Alabama. He could have done that for us, too, but it was apparent to us that Anthony Hitchens fit that a little better. And Reggie, going back to Alabama film and looking at things he’d done for us, had a unique ability to do things as a pass-rusher. I didn’t know that coming here, but we figured it out as we went along.
“If you go back and watch Alabama tape, they did that with him. We recognized that, he embraced it, and we’ve been able to do that along the way. It’s helped us.”
Spagnuolo said that while it’s not one player who’s primarily responsible for the defensive turnaround, it’s hard not to cite Mathieu, signed in the offseason after he was cut by the Cardinals in March, 2018 when he wouldn’t take a pay cut, and then spent a season with the Texans. One more guy with a chip on his shoulder, but as Spagnuolo pointed out, Mathieu has used his past to bring a formidable football ethic to the conversation.
Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has created an environment in which every defensive player can strive to his full potential. Tyrann Mathieu (No. 32) leads the way. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
“To me, it’s his elite competitiveness and his desire for perfection. If he makes a mistake, you’re gonna know he’s made a mistake because he’ll let you know. He’ll get frustrated, and want to repeat it [the play], and ask if we can do that again until we get it right. I think that’s the mark of any professional, no matter what business you’re in – somebody who strives to be perfect. There can be a downside to that, but for him, all the other guys recognize that he wants to do it right,
“I don’t think it’s one player, one coach, or one anybody. But one guy can have an effect on every other guy, and when they start to elevate what they’re doing, it permeates, and it just goes like that. It’s the ripple effect, and I think Tyrann has that. But I don’t think it was any one guy. I credit the guys who were here a year ago, went through that tough loss, and being that close, and then embracing the newness.”
The newness of the Chiefs’ defensive improvement, as undersold as it has been, is something Chris Jones would like you all to know about. When I asked him if his defense was about to shock the world, he looked at me with an intensity that would make any quarterback nervous, and said definitively:
“We will.”
From the coaches on down, Kansas City’s defense believes together. The players I’ve talked to are far more comfortable talking about others then themselves. And the extent to which they’ve been downplayed, when the statistics and tape in the second half of the season tells a different story, has made for a whole lot of irritated Chiefs.
Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar previously covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”
Dak Prescott heads a list of 20 candidates for the NFL’s franchise and tags.
When all else failed in negotiations in past years, NFL teams had the option of using either the franchise tag or transition tag to keep a player they didn’t want walking away as a free agent. This year is a little different. In the final year of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, teams are allowed to use both the franchise and transition tags.
The tags can be designated between Feb. 25 and March 10. There are two types of franchise tags, exclusive and non-exclusive. A player with the non-exclusive franchise tag can negotiate with other teams. If an offer is received from outside, the current team has the option to match the offer or receive two first-round draft picks as compensation. The franchise tag is calculated by the average of the top five salaries at a given position or 120 percent of the player’s salary from last year (whichever number is greater).
The transition tag is valued at an average of the top 10 salaries at the player’s position or 120 percent of his salary from the previous year. There’s one big difference between the franchise and transition tags. With the transition tag, the current team receives no compensation if it elects to not match an offer from another team.
Some players, such as New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees, New England quarterback Tom Brady and Seattle defensive end Jadeveon Clowney have language in their contracts that forbids the use of franchise and transition tags.
Let’s take a look at the top candidates for franchise or transition tags in 2020:
20. James Bradberry, CB, Carolina Panthers
Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports
General manager Marty Hurney has told Bradberry the team wants to keep him. That makes sense because Bradberry is Carolina’s best cornerback in a division that features receivers Julio Jones, Michael Thomas, Chris Godwin and Mike Evans. But there’s a potential problem on the horizon. Former Carolina coach Ron Rivera is now in Washington and Bradberry was one of his favorites. The best way to box out Rivera may be to franchise Bradberry.
If the Dallas Cowboys were paying attention, they can take some valuable lessons away from the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers.
It has been 25 years since the Dallas Cowboys have made a Super Bowl appearance, a silly amount of time for fans to wait, especially in this era of social media where rival fans are quick to point it out. The teams has had its chances since the turn of the century, but have yet to find their path to the big game.
Meanwhile, the best the NFL had to offer was on display this past weekend as the AFC and NFC crowned their champions. The Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers went about building their teams in different manners and with different agendas, but proved to have found successful formulas. Here’s what was gleaned from their makeups which the Cowboys should be able to learn from moving forward.
Having a stud defensive tackle helps…
The Chiefs have a well-rounded team, and while the offense gets most of the credit, their defense came on during the season. A big part of their success against the Tennessee Titans was because of DT Chris Jones’ work in the middle of the defense.
Jones pressured QB Ryan Tannehill and helped slow down running Derrick Henry. Jones only had two tackles, but he collapsed the pocket allowing teammates to get sacks and dominated the middle of the field.
The Cowboys haven’t had a defensive tackle with Jones’ ability in quite some time. There have been flashes from David Irving and Maleik Collins, but they’ve been getting pushed around at DT the last few years in Rod Marinelli’s scheme. That needs to change, the defense needs a real player in the trenches that can rush the passer and be stout in the run game.
Spoiler alert: Jones will be a free agent this offseason, though he is likely a franchise tag recipient.
… and so does having a great safety
Tyrann Mathieu had an outstanding game, leading the Chiefs with nine tackles, a pass defensed and a tackle for a loss. The veteran safety was all over the field; he lined up in the slot, played the deep middle and was strong in run support.
Safety is another spot the Cowboys have neglected recently. The defense desperately needs to address the position with a high draft pick or by adding a good player in free agency to end the spiral of inconsistency at safety.
Being aggressive on offense
Chiefs head coach Andy Reid and offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy run one of the best offenses in the NFL. The duo remained aggressive, no matter the score, against the Titans. The Chiefs passed heavily on first and second down, and when protecting the lead late, they still threw, trying to put the game away.
The Cowboys would be wise to be aggressive and throw more on early downs to be more efficient. Running the ball with RB Ezekiel Elliott can still be a featured part of the offense, but getting ahead of the down and distance by throwing on first down has shown to be effective.
Building the defensive line
No team has invested more along their defensive line than the San Francisco 49ers.
The unit boats four first-round picks from the past five drafts and it paid off against the Green Bay Packers. The defense line harassed Aaron Rodgers all game, sacking him twice and forcing a turnover on a fumble.
The Cowboys did the opposite, buying stock in the offensive line. It’s been a success to build the next great wall in Dallas, but it’s time to invest in the defensive line more heavily. The Cowboys need more than mid-to-late round picks or signing average Joes in free agency to make their defense better.
DeMarcus Lawrence was a heavy investment, but other first or second-round picks (Taco Charlton, Trysten Hill) haven’t paid off. Maliek Collins is a free agent, as is 2019 trade acquisition Robert Quinn. Outside of that, the unit is a collection of Day 3 picks and castoffs from other organizations. It showed last season.
Signing the right free agent veterans
Richard Sherman had a great season in 2019 and that has continued into the playoffs. The veteran CB had an interception in the divisional round against the Minnesota Vikings and backed that performance up with another one in the conference championship game. Matthieu’s impact on the Chiefs has been well documented.
Aside from trading for Quinn, the Cowboys rarely go after top-shelf veteran players in free agency. Sherman hit the open market in 2018 and the Cowboys didn’t seem to have much interest. Kansas City outbid Dallas for the services of WR Sammy Watkins in 2018.
Dallas would be wise to be open to add veteran players who have good resumes in the league. The Cowboys don’t need to have interest in all these types of players, but knowing they can be helpful to the team’s success would be a good start. Finding the right ones, would be even better.
You can chat with or follow Ben on twitter @BenGrimaldi.
