One of the biggest jobs that newly appointed GM John Dorsey and HC Andy Reid will have coming into the draft and free agency is to identify the key weaknesses on both sides of the ball. While the defense appeared to play with more fire as the season went on, they were still very exposed as a team that was very easy to pass against and gain first downs on.

via blogs.kansas.com

From a personal standpoint, I thought Eric Berry was one of the biggest single player weaknesses of the 2012 Kansas City Chiefs defense. At the beginning of the year he was not doing a good job in coverage at all, giving up a lot of yards and TD's to opposing TE's and slot receivers. Before the draft I was calling for current Seahawk Earl Thomas to be drafted instead of Eric Berry. Berry is a vicious tackler and a hell of a team player, but he is not nearly as strong as Earl Thomas in coverage.

Our defensive backs unit as a whole left something to be desired last year. With the amount teams passed against us, we still only managed 7 interceptions in 16 games. That is good for the lowest INT total in the NFL, several teams had 3 times that total (21+). The defensive backs unit gave up 29 TD's and only managed 7 INT's. If you would like a reason we were so bad last year, you don't need to look much further than this unit.

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Pass rushing was another big underachiever. While we are improving at getting to the QB with LB's Justin Houston and Tamba Hali, we're still at the bottom of the pack when it comes to sacks in a season. The better teams have nearly double the Chiefs total of 27. A lack of pressure on the QB is probably the 2nd biggest problem behind the defensive backs, in my opinion.

In a league where passing is King, we cannot continue finding our strengths in defending the run. Defending the pass is much more important, and something the Chiefs haven't been doing well lately.

What do you guys feel is the Chiefs biggest defensive weakness coming into 2013?