The Kansas City Chiefs are playing complementary football. Those are Todd Haley's words not mine. Haley talked a bit about "complementary football" on Monday after the Chiefs 42-20 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars.
He says that happens when one side of the ball steps it up when the other side is struggling. He didn't mean to say that the offense or defense was struggling but said the idea of complementary football ties into the whole team aspect.
Haley used the fourth down call as an example. The Chiefs decided to go for it on fourth and three in Jaguars territory. They didn't get it giving the ball back to Jacksonville in the fourth quarter down one score. Haley says complementary football is what the defense did after that. That could have been a negative situation, Haley says, but they stopped the Jaguars (after one big play) and got the ball back and the offense drove down the field after that.
It's like the two sides play off of each other really well. When one side is down -- like the defense last week against Houston -- the other side steps it up (yes, bad example because they lost that game).
Haley has really played up the team aspect of football and minimized the individual stuff. Everything just fits really well with the Chiefs. The way they're built just makes sense. They're big on the defensive line to stop the run and they're strong on offense running the ball. That's the way you have to play when you don't want/expect your quarterback to throw for 400 yards every game.
"We are becoming a team," Haley said after the game. "I might say that we are a team right now and are just trying to be a good team. We’re not there yet."
By the way, the headline to this story isn't exactly accurate. The Chiefs rise to a team -- perhaps even a good team -- wasn't exactly slow. I think it came faster than any of us thought.