Kansas City Chiefs defense still trying to do too much

Two thirds of the way into the season and the Kansas City Chiefs are still trying to do too mcuh.

Several times this year Romeo Crennel has blamed the Chiefs struggles on the players trying to do too much, not doing their own job first before trying to help others.

Two weeks ago the Chiefs defense was sound against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Last Sunday they lost that momentum in a 28-6 loss to the Bengals. What happened?

Defensive coordinator Gary Gibbs blamed some of it on doing too much.

"Well as we watched the tape and the players realized that we had three or four just basically busted coverages where we're playing man coverage and we had individuals leave their man and we had everybody covered if we just stay with our man we allow the rest to take its toll, we would've been alright," Gibbs said, via quotes sent out by the Chiefs. "But every scoring drive we had one critical mistake in that situation, they all occurred on third down."

That seems like that's been happening all year long. The Chiefs play well for five out of six plays on the drive, but that one play is a long touchdown run.

"At the end of the day you can't have those kind of coverage breakdowns," Gibbs continued. "That just kills you. And it wasn't anything complicated, it was just us trying to do, at times, too much. You've heard RAC say this many times before, we need to do our job first and then we can help. At the end of the day we need to do our job."

Romeo Crennel summed it up similarly: "Our system is in place and we play our system, and when we do what we're supposed to do, we play decent football. When we forget to do what we're supposed to do, then we give up plays."

This defense is not much different than the ones that finished ranked in the top 12 like the last two years. A piece here or there is different, like Dontari Poe at nose tackle and the revolving door at left cornerback, but most of that same defense is here. That tells me that something else must be going on here. The "What happened to the Chiefs defense?" story line will be something we dissect this offseason. A defense shouldn't get this bad this quick. (Hint: offensive turnovers have a lot to do with it.)

Ironically, most people would probably say the Chiefs defense isn't doing enough, not doing too much.