Meet the no-name 2014 Chiefs D -- hard to bend, almost impossible to break
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Fact: Of the 40 best-tackling safeties in the National Football League, the Kansas City Chiefs regularly feature three of them. That's according to ProFootballFocus.com, and it's tied with Tennessee for tops in the circuit.
In 269 combined run snaps, defensive ends Allen Bailey and Jaye Howard have yet to miss a stop. PFF credits inside linebacker Josh Mauga with just two missed rush tackles on 198 running snaps, and defensive partner James-Michael Johnson with just one miss of a receiver tackle in 148 passing snaps.
"Whether it's shooting free throws or (tackling), you've got to take a lot of pride in that," Chiefs defensive coordinator Bob Sutton tells FOXSportsKansasCity.com. "(You say) 'I'm good at this, I can do this,' you know? And every guy here is going to miss some. But you want to limit the misses and in a way, you want to know, 'If am going to miss, I'm going to miss him this way, I'm not missing them on this side.' Because that's understanding the leverage, the help."
The 2014 Chiefs -- 6-3 and on the inside track for back-to-back playoff appearances for the first time since 1994-95 -- are something of a statistical outlier defensively, a collective (but fun) anomaly. The Andy Gang goes into Week 11's tilt with Seattle second in the NFL in scoring defense (16.8 points per game allowed), and No. 1 in passing yardage allowed (205.3) but just 20th in rushing yardage surrendered (115.6 per game).
Last year's formula for the postseason was clear-cut: A careful offense, create hell on defense through sacks, turnovers forced and momentum-changing plays on special teams. In terms of "toxic differential" -- in which you add the differential of turnovers to the differential of pass plays of 25 yards or more achieved versus those surrendered to the differential of rush plays of 10 yards or more achieved versus those given up -- the Chiefs ranked seventh in the NFL in 2013 (plus-13).
This season? They're 24th (minus-11). Among the bottom 10 NFL teams in toxic differential, the Chiefs are the only club with a winning record.
And yet the Andy Gang still gets off the field when it has to, more often than not. Why? Third-down and red-zone victories. Takeaways are way, way down, but situational "wins" and fundamentals are way, way up: The Chiefs are third in the NFL in lowest opponent third-down conversion rate (34.5 percent), behind only Indianapolis and Detroit. The Chiefs are 10th in fewest yards after catch allowed per game (113.8) after ranking 24th in that category (140.6) last fall. They've allowed 37 runs of more than 10 yards -- 30th out of 32 in the NFL -- but have yet to surrender a rushing touchdown.
In fact, the smaller the field they've had to defend, the better the Chiefs have performed as a unit. Kansas City ranks second in the league in percentage of touchdowns allowed per red-zone trip by the opponent (42.31 percent, or less than half), and first in fewest opponent red-zone touchdowns per game (1.2).
"We've been able to stay very cohesive and I think that's the biggest thing," says safety Kurt Coleman, one of the newest pieces in Sutton's defensive backfield. "We're just out there fighting. And we don't have many big names, big egos, and that's honestly what makes this team, this back group, something special.
"And we couldn't be No. 1 (in pass yardage allowed) if we didn't have a great pass rush; I mean, we've got some guys really coming at the quarterback, which makes our job easier. But it works hand in hand: They're getting sacks and we're covering guys and not giving up the big explosive plays."
It's a two-pronged deal. Outside linebackers Justin Houston and Tamba Hali and those 25 team sacks speak for themselves, but the other end of the equation has picked up the rope, too. In open space, by and large, the Chiefs tackle. Oh, it's boring and basic and assumed, sure, but it's the only explanation we can come up with that strings all these widely variant statistical rankings together somehow.
"I think those are really big factors," Sutton says. "One, you want to take the ball away, one way or another -- you physically take it away or you take it away on downs, possessions. However you do that, it's important. And then the part (about) the yardage is affected a lot by just what you're saying, the reduction of big plays. There are some big plays that tackling's got nothing to do with -- I mean, a ball's thrown over his head, a broken coverage or whatever. But the ones that you can prevent by tackling are really important. And that comes from a lot of things."
Tackling, like free-throw shooting or the mid-range jumper in basketball, is becoming something of a lost art in an NFL where practice contact has been limited over the years and rule changes have, at the same time, favored the passing game and the offense. The irony, of course, is the more you have guys playing in space, defending spread attacks, the more important a skill they're allowed to do less of in practice -- full-on tackling -- becomes in the game.
"And that's the biggest thing," Coleman says. "Guys are going to catch the ball. It's what they do when they catch the ball. And we've been able to rally and make the tackle right when they catch it."
Sutton preaches a two-step process. The first is technique, something a player can consciously work on regardless of what they're wearing or what the contact rules are on that given day; tackling form is tackling form, regardless of whether you get to replicate it at full speed out on the practice field.
The second part is awareness. Namely: Who am I tackling? Where am I on the field relative to the rest of my teammates?
Flip through our photo album of Chiefs cheerleaders.
"Ultimately, really, a good player and a good defense, you understand where your help is," Sutton explains. "You know (that) if I'm the last line, or I'm the last guy, I've got to do something.
"If a screen pass comes and I'm the furthest, widest element of the D, I've got to get that screen back in, because that's where all the pursuit's coming. If I don't, I've taken these guys who've busted their tails and just said, 'Hey, sorry.' And that's why it's very important understanding that."
And the metrics sort of love them for it. ColdHardFootballFacts.com tracks more than two dozen team new-school football statistics, including one it calls "bendability" -- a fancy term for the ratio of a team's yards per point allowed or, as the site terms it, "smart, efficient, well-coached teams." The Chiefs, despite all those disparate parts, despite a secondary that's been without safety Eric Berry for most of the campaign, rank No. 5 there after nine games, just ahead of Baltimore and behind only Arizona, Cleveland and Detroit.
"We've just got a bunch of hungry (guys) like animals out there that just want to get that meat with blood on it," defensive back Ron Parker says. "We just want to go out there and eat. We've just got a group of hungry young guys. We do a good job of working together, communicating, talking, and that puts us in position to make plays out there for one another."
It's a collective effort, a collective meld of instincts and smarts, a hive mind on the same page, preaching the same gospel from the same book. And this one gets more interesting by the chapter.
You can follow Sean Keeler on Twitter at @SeanKeeler or email him at seanmkeeler@gmail.com.
