From what I see,

1) Zero Containment

Our ends have failed to do something taught in highschool, and arguably the easiest thing to do in football period. Force the run inside. Nothing worse than watching a runningback bounce it outside and take the rock another 5 yards before we tackle him.

2) Running Lanes Remain Open

Our linebackers seem to sit 3 yards deep in the runninglanes, not only giving up the 3 yards (obviously) , but ultimatly give the runningback room to actually make a move on a linebacker as opposed to going head on in a gap. This can be blamed on coaching as well because it too is such a simple part of football.

3)Zero Pressure on Passing Downs

Do I actually need to explain this? No.

And Finally,

4)Poor Tackling

Our linebackers miss more tackles than our rookie cornerbacks, not exactly a good thing. Broken tackles are a thing of highschool and Adrian Peterson, not an everydown fact of life like they have become for the Chiefs. Solving this problem alone would probably knock 100 yards off of the total offense.

This is just my take, their is most definetly more to it.

…is that with the injuries the past few weeks the defense not only has been full of scrubs in various positions that can’t play as well as the regulars but also the defensive schemes and play calling has HAD to be more simple and “vanilla” so these new players know what theyre doing…which is debatable….

I think the poor tackling is a result of overemphasizing stripping the ball. Once these guys figure out that the first guy to the ball has to take control of the runner and it is the assisting tackler’s job to go for the strip, the tackling and takeaways will improve. You can’t effectively wrap up if you are frantically slapping at the ball.

One problem is the huge amount of injuries, I don’t think I have ever seen a team this injured in a season. We can’t even start the same guys two weeks in a row so the players do not trust the guy next to them to make the play, thus not keeping their assignment.

Tampa 2 – I have never liked this D, the weaknesses are too well documented and you need stellar players at certain positions to run it well. We need to do on D what we did on the O, that is we need to design a defense that plays to our best players strenghts. That is what Gun did his first trip here and was starting to do under Vermeil.

Pride – Edwards will not let Gun run something different because Herm is known for the Tampa 2 and it would look bad if he can’t get it running. Also, Allen was a Vermeil player Hali was an Edwards player; I think Edwards truely believed that Hali was just as good as Allen if he played on the QBs blind side. Herm just needs to check his pride and take some responsibilty for this failure.

The coaches deserve the blame. How else can you explain it. Yeah we have had injuries but they cut a couple of players that could have helped on the defensive side. We improved the last couple of years and now we are worse than when Vermeil was here.

Our defense has been getting better consistently since 2004.

Last year we were 13th the year before that 16th.

This year we are horrible. Last year wasn’t that bad let’s look at what has changed.

Head coach? NO
D Coordinator? NO
players? YES
You can’t make the argument that Herm is the problem with the defense because as long as he has been here the d has been improving except for this year. Injuries and the loss of Jared Allen is the main problem.

Another thing about Gunther that confuses me is that he was an extremely effective linebackers coach with Tennessee. They were consistently a top 5 run defense during Gun’s years as a coach there and were #1 his last year. Interestingly, in 2004, their run D plummeted.

Now, the fact that we’ve pumped so many people out of the draft toward defense in the last 7 years is disturbing. But if you want to point the finger somewhere, here are your options:

1. Insufficient talent – Carl Peterson
2. Insufficient coacing – Gunther Cunningham
3. Insufficient Scheme – Herm Edwards

I don’t necessarily believe the Cover 2 is flawed, but something needs to get settled. Either Herm needs to bring in a better Tampa 2 style coach or he needs to let Gunther design the defensive gameplan. Herm obviously gave Chan more freedom this year and it had very good results.

it’s like you read my mind. everyone has said something to the effect that the two biggest holes are at end and middle linebacker, undoubtedly the two most important positions in a cover 2 scheme. without a pass rush, the zone is just an umbrella, and dumpoffs and/or mistakes are common. the solution to no 4 man pass rush? gunther cunningham of the 1990s. BLITZ BLITZ BLITZ. i think we have two VERY talented young corners that we can trust enough in man coverage to send 5-7 guys on lots of passing downs. (the safeties are another issue)….but it has been said a million times, without a pass rush, any NFL quarterback will pick apart a defense. this is a timeless lesson, and it would take an aggressive defense to get that rush with out talent, and it has appeared herm just loves the cover 2 too much to let that happen.

I agree to a certain extent that Gun needs to be allowed to run his scheme, but it seems like the players are also beginning to tune him out to a degree.

Here’s a question to follow yours:

Since Herm appears to have taken his influence out of the Offense, and if the Defense succeeds when he takes his influence out of it, why would Herm not be fired on the spot?

That would leave Herm to only be a motivator (questionable given the many flat and uninspired performances over the years) and a game manager (proven inability).

So, Herm, what exactly would you say you do here?

Succinct and eloquent post we couldn’t agree with more.

The jury’s still out in our mind on Gun as well. If you look at this in a holistic and personal way: the loss of Jared Allen (in hopes that Hali or Dorsey would put up marginally close to slightly inferior numbers) has really been debilitating; the whole Harris situation is embarrassing (why’d we take him in the first place, why couldn’t we manage to get a trade for him, why was he too unprofessional to do his job regardless of the team’s record?); and then we get this whole crop of unknowns at LB (Flowers & Carr seem to be working out why wasn’t anything done other than LJ this offseason?).

The basic problem seems to be “who’s calling the shots personnel and scheme wise?”

Honestly, if Dorsey dramatically improves (a big if), we fill the DE question (a big question), and we put the same effort into drafting LBs as we did drafting corners this year, this defense could dramatically improve. The biggest long-term looming problem is our lack of faith in this scheme and an identity.

People bitch about the defense only being 13th last year? I think that alone proves that Gun has what it takes.

How many three and outs by the offense last year? How many points per game did the offense average? What was their average time of possession? (I’m sure someone will look up these stats for me, I’m too lazy ;)

What about special teams? How many touchdowns did they produce? What was opponents’ average field position? How many missed field goals?

My point here is that the defense shouldered the weight of that inept team. They got no help whatsoever from the other two units. They held up their end of the bargain by allowing the team to be in almost every game.

8 of the 12 losses were by 10 points or less. 4 of those 8 were by 5 points or less. An offense and PK that could have put just 10 more points on the board would have left Kansas City at 12-4. But the main reason for winning would have been…you guessed it: Gunther Cunningham’s defense.

Or at least abstract?

There are a TON of good points on this post, but a lot of people keep talking about the almighty 13th ranked D last year. That number was the biggest load of shite I’ve seen outside of Al Davis saying, well pretty much anything. That D was friggin horrible. The only reason that it was ranked 13th was because every team the Chiefs faced pulled out their starting QB’s in order to shove the ball up the gut of the D like a suppository. The fact that there are 7 NEW STARTERS a year later tell you how strong the best D that Gun/Herm/Carl ever put together should say everything. I have no problem with people defending Gun, but that stat is complete BS.