Are we Fredo no longer?

So after looking at all the preseason stats, I discovered something that I find amazing.  Or at least interesting.  Well, ok, I was bored and procrastinating on my schoolwork, and this was an excuse to not do it, all right?   You shook it out of me.  I DID find something though.  But allow me to start off by pointing out the obvious about our defense.

It's been really bad for a while now.  And not just bad in the normal sense of the word, but terribly, epically bad.  The only way I can describe being a Chiefs fan the last few years is this;  remember the look on Fredo's face when Michael told him that he "knew it was him all along"?  That is what our Chiefs defense has had us feeling every Sunday for the last few years.  We were Fredo.  

With the arrival of Romeo Crennel, we've had some hope given to us.  However, the failure to take a NT or LB early in the draft left many of us feeling a little let down, including myself.  After all, as the ridiculously overused saying goes, "coaches coach and players play".  Now, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer (I'm a spoon, actually), but what I get from that saying is that a DC can only do so much with limited talent on the field.  And given how bad our defense was last year, we know that we have limited talent.

Or do we?

Let's take a look at our DC from last year, Clancy Pendergast.  As we all know, he was the defensive coordinator for the Arizona Cardinals in 2008.  And boy howdy (yeah, I said boy howdy), were they bad on defense.  Bad enough that they were only ranked one place above us in points allowed.  And that's bad.  There's two specific things I want to focus on here, points allowed and sacks.  In 2008 the Cards allowed 26.6 ppg, and had 31 sacks.  

As I've said, the ppg allowed was one of the worst in the league, and the sacks put them right in the middle of the pack.

Move forward to 2009.  The Cardinals now give up 20.3 ppg, moving them up from 25th to 15th in league rankings, and accumulate 43 sacks, which moves them up from 15th to 6th.

Both marked improvements.  And this was from a team that was moving from Pendy's "hybrid" defense to a more traditional 3-4 defense.  Adjustments are always tough, and they flourished (relatively speaking).  Not too bad, right?  They must have added some serious talent to make an upward move like that, right?

Well, no.  They changed CB (from Roderick Hood to Bryant McFadden).  And they had a couple of their bench guys from 2008 playing full time (Calais Campbell at DE, Clark Haggans at RILB).  So really, the only player upgrade they had was at CB, and McFadden (while decent) is no world-beater.

So what changed?  Well, I think you know...

I've said this before, but I'm putting it out there in more detail today just to confirm what we already knew.  Clancy Pendergast is a terrible, terrible defensive coordinator.  His old team gave up an entire touchdown less and had an additional dozen sacks just by... well, NOT having him as a defensive coordinator.  The old "addition by subtraction" method rings true here in a huge way.

Now he's out of KC.  And Crennel's in.  Now I don't know how we're going to be on defense this year, but after looking at our preseason (yes, I am indeed coming to the point.  You made it!), I saw a reason for hope.

In roughly 7 quarters of action, our first team defense has given up two touchdowns.  Two.  One of those was on a drive that started on our own 22 (thanks, JC.  I love you, but wow was that an ugly play).  The other was on a 53 yard play that, while discouraging, was basically a fluke play enabled with a RARE misstep by Brandon Flowers.  

Now, to be fair, Aaron Rodgers may have changed that last night, but we can't talk about what never happened.  We can only talk about what HAS happened.  And what's happened is that our first team defense has given up two TD's in almost 2 full games of action!

And it's not like this has been against complete and total scrubs.  Atlanta has a talented offense, and so does Philly.  Even taking Rodgers (I know, that's a big deal, but still) out, the Packers have an excellent group of receivers.  And we gave up one touchdown to those teams.  And again, that lone TD came after our defense was put in a terrible position on our own 22.

What does this mean?  Maybe nothing.  But I know that when I see our defense on the field now I'm watching our guys to make plays, not waiting for the other team to make them.  This Chief fan, at least, is no longer Fredo.