How the Chiefs’ defense went from Legion of Whom? to Legion of Boom! overnight

Before 2021, the last team to hold its opponents to less than 10 points per game in four of five games was the 2014 Seahawks, in their third of four years leading the NFL in scoring defense — something no other team has done in the Super Bowl era.

Last Sunday, after holding the Raiders in a vise in a 48-9 beatdown, the 2021 Chiefs became the first team to accomplish that four-in-five stretch since the Legion of Boom pulled it off. Steve Spagnuolo’s defense held the Packers to seven points in Week 9, the Raiders to 14 points in Week 10, the Cowboys to nine points in Week 11, the Broncos to nine points in Week 13, and the Raiders to nine points in Week 14. Outside of the Broncos, that’s a bunch of generally high-powered offenses that turn very normal when they meet this defense.

Interestingly enough, the Chiefs’ defense bottomed out in the second half of the 2020 season, dropping from 14th to 29th in Defensive DVOA, and the uptick wasn’t nearly as significant in 2019, the team’s Super Bowl-winning season, when the defense moved from 16th to 11th. This season? The Chiefs ranked 28th in Defensive DVOA in Weeks 1-9, and only the Patriots have a better Defensive DVOA since Week 10. They’re third in Defensive DVOA behind the Patriots and Cowboys since Week 6, so this isn’t an in-season blip that can be ignored.

This is a new level of greatness for a defense that has been able to take risks because the Chiefs’ offense was so explosive. Which makes this turnaround even more impressive, because for the most part, the Chiefs’ offense has been anything but. That offense has seen a nice uptick from 11th to fourth in the second half of the 2021 season, but the second half of the season also includes a two-game stretch against the Cowboys and Broncos in which Patrick Mahomes failed to throw a touchdown pass. If the second half of the season didn’t also include a two-game roll against the Raiders in which Mahomes threw seven touchdown passes and no interceptions, it’s hard to say where the 9-4 Chiefs would be.

(Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports)

Where the 9-4 Chiefs are right now is at the top of the AFC West, one game ahead of the Chargers, who they face this Thursday night. The Chargers beat the Chiefs, 30-24, in Week 3, but Justin Herbert and friends will face an entirely different threat this time around. That defense is the key to the team’s six-game winning streak after a 3-4 start, and it’s worth investigating what changed, and why this is no flash in the pan.

The Kansas City Chiefs are now led by their defense, as if 2021 wasn’t already weird enough.

How the heck did this happen?

Everyone's healthy.

(Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports)

The Chiefs had their share of injury woes on defense early in the season, and when asked in mid-November why things had turned around, Spagnuolo pointed to the healthy return of several key players as the primary factor.

“The first thing I’d say is I try not to go down the turnaround road.,” Spagnuolo said. “The only reason I say this is because I don’t want it to turn the other way. Listen, it feels better in the continuity realm. I’m trying to go back to where we struggled a little bit and I know that in the period [cornerback] Charvarius Ward was out, [defensive lineman] Chris [Jones] has dealt with the wrist for a long time, you know, Melvin Ingram coming here I think has been a huge plus for us, [defensive end] Frank [Clark] was banged up. I’m not trying to blame it on injuries, but it always feels better or seems to come together when you can have some consecutive weeks of the same guys.

“Now, do we put a couple of wrinkles in every week? Yeah, so it’s not doing the same thing all the time, but the gist of what we do, the 70-75 percent, and when you can get a volume of reps underneath your belt with the same guys, talking to the same guy. You know what I’m saying? To me, that would be the biggest thing, in my opinion.”

Melvin Ingram: With or without you...

(Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports)

On November 2, the Steelers traded edge-rusher Melvin Ingram to the Chiefs for a 2022 sixth-round draft pick. When Pittsburgh signed Ingram as free agent in July, I was totally convinced that the veteran would complete a defense that finished first in Defensive DVOA in 2020.

That didn’t happen. Ingram was unhappy about playing time, and he made that public, and the Chiefs were wisely ready to pounce. How much has Ingram changed this defense? Well, the numbers aren’t all about him, but this is pretty indicative.

Ingram had 246 snaps for the Steelers, with one sack, 18 total pressures, and six stops. He’s had 171 snaps with the Chiefs, amassing two sacks, 14 total pressures, and four stops. So, the base numbers aren’t that different, which just goes to show that you can’t always count on metrics to tell the whole story. Because, as Spagnuolo recently said of his newest addition, there are things that show up on tape that may not register elsewhere.

“He’s playing angry,” Spags said before the second Raiders game. “I say that to him all the time. I say, ‘You play angry, and I love it, you’ve got everybody else getting angry too.’ He’s had a couple plays, there was one even in the Raiders game the last time where he just knocks people around, and I think that’s contagious and that helps us. There are times you write about the sacks, that’s not just about sacks, it’s if he’s demanding a double team or if he’s driving somebody into the quarterback, the quarterback’s got to move his feet and then he falls into somebody else. So, those kinds of things are what we’re getting and it’s helping. It’s helping a lot.

“That wasn’t meant to say that we didn’t have that, but I just think the more guys you can get like that, the better. It’s contagious, I think. I really do.”

Spagnuolo may have been the only guy getting angry before Ingram showed up. But on this sack of Derek Carr with 13:26 left in the first quarter, you can see how much of a problem Ingram [No. 24] is for the Raiders’ offensive line as he jumps multiple gaps to meet Chris Jones (No. 95] at the quarterback.

If you want metrics that are more representative of Ingram’s impact on this defense, consider that without Ingram on the field this season, Kansas City has allowed an EPA of 0.1. With Ingram on the field? -0.32. Without him, the Chiefs were league-average at best. With him, no quarterback or running back is safe.

The Chiefs allow a full yard less per carry (5.2 to 4.2) with Ingram, their opponent blown block pressure rate has improved from 11.8% to 18.8%, their opponent blown block sack rate has improved from 2.4% to 4.3%, and their opponent blown block stuff rate has gone from 3.8% to 11.4%.

Those aren’t just transformative numbers. Those are “Bordering on Defensive Player of the Year” numbers.

Chris Jones is back where he belongs.

(Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports)

Here’s another idea I thought was great before the season that didn’t quite work out: Spagnuolo’s decision to move Chris Jones from one of the NFL’s best multi-gap disruptors to more of an edge role.

Again, whoops. Jones can be a force wherever he lines up, but outside of Aaron Donald, there isn’t a better 3-tech lineman in the league, and the numbers back that up.

As a primary outside guy, Jones grabbed two sacks in the season opener against the Browns, but there was a pretty decent drought after that. Jones missed Weeks 5 and 6 with a wrist injury, and the time off Spagnuolo the opportunity to make the right choice — putting Jones back inside for the most part where he belongs. In Weeks 1-4, Jones played 181 snaps at end or outside linebacker, and just 19 snaps at defensive left or right tackle. From Week 7 on, he’s played 157 snaps inside the tackles, 88 snaps over the tackles, and just 53 snaps outside. Jones had three sacks and 33 total pressures in the first four weeks of the season. Upon his return and relocation, Jones has gone off, with five sacks and 40 total pressures.

This included Jones’ 3.5-sack game against the Cowboys (it should have been four; fellow interior lineman Jarran Reed played cleanup on the final Dak Prescott takedown)…

…and Jones was also responsible for the tipped pass that allowed cornerback L’Jarius Sneed to pick Prescott off.

This season, on just 146 pass-rushing snaps from the 3-tech position, Jones has amassed 4.5 sacks, 13 quarterback hurries, nine quarterback hits, two knockdowns, two batted passes, and three holding penalties drawn.

Yes, the addition of Ingram was huge, and everybody returning to health has also been a big factor. But moving Jones back inside where he belongs? There’s no way this defense shows anywhere near this level of improvement without that.

“It’s fun,” Jones said after the Cowboys game. “Football is fun. Winning is fun. Playing with those guys, up-front is fun. The back end played exceptional today. I think the game ball should go to the backend. They played so exceptionally that they made the quarterback hold the ball and we were able to affect the quarterback and he couldn’t go to his first read. The back end played really, really good today.”

From front to back, the entire defense is aligned just about perfectly.

Everybody is contributing... even Daniel Sorensen!

(Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports)

Yes, even the Chiefs’ easiest target on defense is getting things done since his teammates have come back healthy, and Spagnuolo has wisely reduced Sorensen’s playing time. The hybrid linebacker/safety is better as a rotational asset than a full-time liability, as we discovered (and Tyrann Mathieu repeatedly showed us) early in the season.

Against the Broncos, Sorensen was in the right place at the right time for the pick-six of quarterback Teddy Bridgewater. Who woulda thunk it?

Sorensen isn’t the only one stepping up. Sneed missed the second Raiders game because his brother, T’Qarontarion Harrison, who basically raised Sneed, was killed last Friday in Louisiana. While Sneed was attending to family matters, Mike Hughes, the former Vikings first-round pick and a disappointment in Minnesota for the most part, stepped up right away — literally. On the first play of the game, Jarran Reed forced a fumble from Raiders running back Josh Jacobs, and Hughes was right there to run it back 23 yards for a touchdown.

Hughes also forced two fumbles in the game, and he’s forced four in the 2021 season. There was this pop-out of a Hunter Renfrow catch recovered by Tyrann Mathieu…

…and this strip of a Zay Jones catch, recovered by Juan Thornhill.

“He is on our mind a lot,” Mathieu said of Sneed. “Anytime somebody loses somebody that close to them, I feel like most of us can relate to that. We just wanted to play for him today and his family. I felt like we did that. I feel like we started the game with some L’Jarius energy. We kept it going throughout the game.”

Hughes, who found out he would start in Sneed’s place the night before the game, had no problem being ready.

“Those guys were carrying the ball pretty low,” Hughes said of the Raiders. “I saw some soft spots and I took my shot. It worked out in the end. It is always good to create turnovers and get them off the field. That is all that matters.

“My mindset is always to come wherever the team needs me. That is how I try to approach the game, no matter where they try to put me. It is going to help the team. That is all that matters.”

And that, as a defense, is how you create a winning mentality.

How far can the Chiefs go with this defense?

(Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports)

“I don’t want to jinx anything, because we want to keep doing it,” Spagnuolo said Monday, when asked when he last had a defense this synced together. “The answer to your question, the only other one that pops into my mind is in 2019 — I think we had back-to-back three-point games because I remember somebody saying that it was the first time [head coach] Andy [Reid] had a team that had that. So, it’s great. The other thing is we can’t take it with us for this game. We’re hoping to duplicate that, but I do think this offense we’re getting ready to play is one of the better ones we’re going to play all year long. I really feel that way. I’m glad the guys have done what they’ve done. When it’s all said and done, it really does come down to points allowed. That’s what we’re most focused on.”

The next game presents a series of challenges — Thursday night against the Chargers means defending Justin Herbert, who has finally been freed this season as a ridiculous deep-ball thrower.

“Every time I turn the tape on, I’m amazed by how good he is,” Spagnuolo said of Herbert. “Accurate. He’s big. He’s athletic, really smart. He’s the whole package. I have a lot of respect for Derek Carr, but this guy is going to be a real challenge for us, and I know our guys expect that. He makes that whole thing go. This is one of the elite quarterbacks, in my opinion.”

Another potential problem is that Jones has been placed on the reserve/COVID list. That’s a major loss, but again, this team has a lot of depth in the pass rush. From the inside, Reed is more than capable of blowing things up, and Tershawn Wharton teamed with Frank Clark for this sack of Derek Carr.

The Chargers are the next opponent, then the Steelers, Bengals, and Broncos to finish off the regular season. Then, another trip to the postseason for the two-time defending AFC champs, who are winning in ways we most certainly did not expect.

Yes, the defense is the thing in Kansas City now.

Boom.

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