FanPost

Chiefs Can Cover the AFC West

It used to suck to be a Chiefs fan around this time of year because of bone-headed draft decisions made by Carl Peterson, lethargic inactivity in free-agency, and lagging questions about long-term deficiencies in the roster.

Right now it sucks to be a Chiefs fan because the season seems like its decades away and we have every reason to be excited about what our team can do next season.

One of those many things (many others of which have been detailed in previous fan posts) is our ability to match-up well defensively against pass-catchers in the AFC West. More specifics after the jump.

This off-season, our secondary got a lot better. The rest of the division's receivers got worse (or at least not a lot better in the case of Oakland). We picked-up Eric Berry at S and Javier Arenas at nickle. Their talent combined with Flowers/Carr's development and experience at CB means that the coverage element of our pass-defense should be much improved.

Here is who I assume -- for the purposes of this post -- will be starting for us:

CB1 -- Flowers

CB2 -- Carr

CB3 -- Arenas

S -- Berry

S -- Jon McGraw/Page/Lewis

That second safety spot is clearly up for grabs but becomes harder for opposing offenses to exploit that position with good players lined-up at other spots.

Here's who they will have to cover in division games and their 2009 stat lines.

1. Charger

Antonio Gates rec 79 yds 1157 avg 14.6 long 56 td 8

Floyd 45 776 17.2 53 1

Naanee 24 242 10.1 23 2

Craig Davis? 6 52 8.7 11 0

*Vincent Jackson 68 1167 17.2 55 9

*(1 Game if they don't trade him).

Gates is clearly their best receiver. But missing Jackson is going to complicate his role in the offense because Jackson was the one who would loosen coverage with deep routes when teams would over-cover Gates underneath. If Jackson gets left on an island in press coverage, he's going to beat that guy with his strength and get deep. So without Jackson, the question is can Malcolm Floyd be that guy to loosen underneath coverage? I think not -- at least not by the first week of the regular season. I think the MO's gotta be don't let Gates beat you by himself and make Malcolm Floyd out-perform Flowers on the outside or some other random player beat Carr or Arenas when they spread the field. The bolts could be a tough spot with this Jackson situation because they didn't draft a single wide-out. Not to mention that Tamba Hali may find it easier to get past Tra Thomas than McNeill.

2. Broncos

Jabar Gaffney 54 732 13.6 49 2

Eddie Royal 37 345 9.3 20 0

Daniel Graham 28 289 10.3 24 1

Thomas, Demaryius (rookie)

Brandon Marshall was obviously the best player in the Broncos receiving core. He's gone. So is their best tight-end, Tony Scheffler. Daniel Graham will catch some passes but is more of a run-blocker. One could argue that the result from our last game against the Broncos indicates that they can pass without Marshall (Orton threw for 413 and Gaffney caught 14 for 213 yards). But I think that had more to do with confused coverage at the slot position -- something Arenas was drafted to help fix. And Orton still threw 3 picks which I think was an indication that his lack of arm-strength makes it hard to put the ball in the right spot at the right time without a guy like Marshall to physically dominate his man and get position on the ball.

3. Raiders

Zach Miller 66 805 12.2 86 3

Murphy 34 521 15.3 75 4

Heyward-Bey 9 124 13.8 24 1

Schilens 29 365 12.6 25 2

The biggest improvement the Raiders made to their receiving core was to make sure that Jamarcus Russell wasn't the one throwing them the ball anymore. Aside from that, they added Jacoby Ford who may play some slot but still has bad hands and does a lot of body-catching. While their younger receivers may make some improvements and Jason Cambell is definitely an improvement, I don't see Heyward-Bey turning into a superstar this year given that he was still dropping easy, easy passes last season.

Here are a few other glass-is-half-full-things to keep in mind:

1. Coverage sacks are cool and could one day start happening in KC on a regular basis.

2. Almost all of our secondary I mentioned above as starters are solid tacklers which limits opposition YAC.

3. The addition of Berry and Arenas give us more blitzing threats in the secondary as well, creating more playbook flexibility.

Although I may paint a rosey picture above, coverage is just one part of pass-defense. If we can cover, Hali is still going to have to make long strides next season as a pass-rusher to make sure that our coverage doesn't have to blanket the receivers for 15 seconds every passing play. We will also need other players to make some contributions to our ability to pressure the QB.

But I think there are very good indications that Hali will make those strides and that our pass-defense, particularly vs. spread packages, will be very good in AFC West games.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Arrowhead Pride's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of Arrowhead Pride writers or editors.