Chiefs LB Anthony Hitchens shares thoughts on defense’s slow start
A tough Week 2 performance for the Kansas City Chiefs has them at 1-1 heading into their matchup against the Chargers. Their offense has kept pace with the prolific production of years past, but has also faltered in crunch time due to lacking play from the defense on the other side. With several key games ahead and the meat of their schedule looming, improvement is needed to remain relevant through January.
Kansas City needs as much help as they can get against the run, which will start with better play from their linebacker corps which has disappointed in the first two matchups of the season. Led by veteran Anthony Hitchens, the middle of the Chiefs’ defense is reeling after a bad game against 2019 MVP Lamar Jackson. The group aims to improve against Justin Herbert and Los Angeles on Sunday.
Hitchens spoke to the media ahead of Thursday’s practice, telling reporters that the necessity of stopping the run is a function of the run-first blueprint that has become key to beating Kansas City for less accomplished teams.
“In order to keep our offense off the field and Pat [Patrick Mahomes], you want to run the ball, you want to kill the time and milk it and make it a long quarter,” Hitchens explained. “That’s what teams are deciding to do and the only thing we can do right now is try to get better at it. Obviously, we haven’t been playing our best in our run defense, but we haven’t in years past and we flipped it around. So, it’s just going to be another challenge for us. We get out there early, do walkthroughs before practice and just try to get it right. We’ve got a bunch of right guys; we’re working at it. All you can do is work at it. We won’t know if it worked or not until Sunday, so we just keep working at it and keep improving.”
As the quarterback of the Chiefs’ defense, Hitchens is in a unique position to be the primary force behind getting things back on track. He went on to layout the gameplan moving forward, emphasizing that communication will be key, and that it all starts with a steady pass rush.
“We’ve got some different guys in different positions. We’ve got younger guys playing,” Hitchens said of the early performances. “T-5 [Tyrann Mathieu] didn’t really play. He was our communication guy on the back end the first game and he [came] back. We’ve also got a couple of new guys like J [Jarran] Reed upfront, we’ve got Nick Bolton playing a lot of snaps. So, the timing and culture and guys just echoing things and feeding off each other and things like that.
“We’ll get that down, that’s my least worry for me as a player. As a defense, I think our main focus is right now, stopping this run, making it 2nd and long, 3rd and long so we can let our rushers rush. We don’t have many sacks. The reason why is because it’s 3rd and 2 and 1st or 3rd and 3, they can run or pass. We just have to correct that aspect so we can let Chris [Jones] and Frank [Clark] just takeoff and sack the quarterback.”
Under Hitchens’ guidance, Kansas City’s defense is officially in a boom or bust scenario that could dominate the Chiefs’ discourse all season. He has the influence and know-how to help fix the glaring issues on defense. He is also on a contract that necessitates that he steps up in a big way for the team this year. A big game against Los Angeles could prove to be the turnaround fans are hoping for after having their hopes of a perfect season crushed last week at M&T Bank Stadium.
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