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Kansas City Chiefs defense will need to do some dancing vs. Pittsburgh Steelers

The KC Chiefs defense will be the best the Steelers face this year.

John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports

There's the good news and the bad news.

The good news is that the Kansas City Chiefs will be the best defense the Pittsburgh Steelers have played this year. If you go by points allowed, the Chiefs are tied with the Buffalo Bills for the NFL's fourth best defense giving up 18.1 points per game.

The Steelers have played two defenses currently in the top 10 -- Baltimore Ravens (twice) and Cincinnati Bengals. The first meeting with the Ravens, Pittsburgh scored just six points. That's the sort of result the Chiefs are hoping for.

Unfortunately for the Chiefs, the Steelers six-point game came way back in Week 2. The Steelers played the Ravens again in November and the Bengals just two weeks ago. In each game, the Steelers scored over 40 points. That's the bad news. We know that a game with the Steelers scoring over 40 points probably means the Chiefs are losing.

The key to this game, as it is every week, is the Chiefs putting the Steelers in a position to pass as much as possible. That takes away the Chiefs weakness, which is run defense, and focuses on their strength, which is the pass rush and secondary. That means being especially good on first and second down to force obvious passing situations. The Chiefs will want to avoid third and short and hope for third and long where they can unleash Tamba Hali and Justin Houston.

That's something they want to do every week ... it's just especially important this week with the playoffs on the line.

What I'm saying is, the Chiefs need a lot of dancing on Sunday.

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