Last season, Chicago Bears edge-rusher Khalil Mack had six sacks, no quarterback hits, and 22 quarterback hurries in an injury-abbreviated season. The veteran played in just seven games for the Bears in 2021, which was one of approximately 375,182 things that went south for the team under Matt Nagy in Nagy’s final season as head coach.
It was also Mack’s final season with the Bears. On March 10, Chicago traded him to the Los Angeles Chargers for a 2022 second-round pick and 2023 sixth-round pick. It’s light compensation for a guy who can still get it done when healthy, but Mack was still dealing with the effects of the foot injury in the 2022 preseason, so it was difficult to know how he’d pop out of the gate for his new team when he faced his first NFL team, the Las Vegas Raiders, in Week 1.
Mack destroyed any questions about his effectiveness at age 31 just as he destroyed Derek Carr and the Raiders’ passing game. In a 24-19 Chargers win, Mack had three sacks, one quarterback hit, and one quarterback hurry. He was trolling both of the Raiders’ offensive tackles, and putting him in Brandon Staley’s defense with Joey Bosa as his bookend seems almost unfair.
Mack’s most impactful play came with two minutes left in the game. The Raiders had fourth-and-8 from their own 35-yard line, and if they didn’t convert, the game was over.
Mack (No. 52) made that happen; he ended the game with this sack in which he just bull-rushed left tackle Kolton Miller (the Raiders’ one credible offensive lineman) right into his quarterback.
Fast-forward to Thursday Night Football, when the Chargers take on the Kansas City Chiefs. We’ve already talked about how Staley and the Chargers might have trouble with Andy Reid’s new-look offense, but Mack is a player for which Reid and offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy could be up nights trying to figure out a counter.
“We’ve been preparing for this game for a long time,” Bieniemy said this week. “I hate to say this, but I guess I gotta welcome Mr. Khalil Mack back to the AFC West. I really don’t like saying that and inviting him back [laughter], but he’s a heck of a player.”
Why is this a problem for the Chiefs? Watch that sack again. Carr didn’t get sacked because his offensive line fell apart; he got sacked because the Chargers plastered his receivers all over the field, and Carr didn’t have an easy opening where he could distribute the ball.
If the Chargers are able to plaster Mahomes’ receivers in this fashion (as impressive as Mahomes’ receivers are), left tackle Orlando Brown isn’t the best guy to have blocking your blind side on an extended play. Brown gave up six sacks last season, and all six of them came with pressure on the back half of the arc. Mack lined up on the defensive right side on 71% of his snaps against the Raiders, so this is an Orlando Brown problem.
On this sack allowed to Cincinnati’s Trey Hendrickson in the AFC Championship game, Brown was too tentative with his hands, which negated his ability to turn with Hendrickson as he moves to Mahomes. That’s where Hendrickson gained the advantage with his speed to the pocket. And since the Bengals dropped seven defenders into coverage, Mahomes didn’t have an escape hatch.
Brown allowed two of those sacks against the Titans in Week 7, and we’re about to see more late in the down losses. Against Harold Landry, Brown was a bit slow in his kick-step, and Landry was able to blow right by him. Once again, Mahomes didn’t have anything obviously open downfield, which forced him to try and extend the play.
The sack given up to Bud Dupree showed similar issues — both in coverage and in pressure.
“Sure, that’s a great challenge,” Reid said this week, when asked if he was looking forward to how Brown would deal with Mack and Bosa. “He loves that, though. He’s very energetic when it comes to challenges. He wants to be the best and so this gives him – these are the things the merit badges that you get of you take care of business there. So that’s a big challenge you know for our tackles, but again, that’s why we’re in this business.”
It’s nice that Brown is very energetic when it comes to challenges, but it he hasn’t worked on sealing the back half of the arc, he might be far less so as the game goes along.
Perhaps the answer is for the Chiefs to chip Mack with a running back or a tight end in one of their new-look heavy personnel packages, but if that’s necessary, that’s one fewer target for Mahomes.
Another problem with chipping Mack when he’s at his best? As Casey Stengel once said on another matter, “They say it can’t be done, but it don’t always work.”
Mack’s second sack against the Raiders was proof of this. Just ask Miller and halfback Brandon Bolden (No. 34), who each found themselves in the dryer once Mack got going after them. Mack threw Bolden aside like the proverbial sack of potatoes, and he just zoomed by Miller for the takedown.
Anytime you can complicate the picture for Patrick Mahomes with pressure tied to coverage, you’re in pretty good shape. The Chargers, with their new defensive weapon in Khalil Mack, seem specifically well-suited to do just that.