Those expecting wholesale changes out of the Kansas City Chiefs defense are out of luck. The Chiefs, after giving up 38 points to the Jets last week, won’t make big changes to their defense this week against the Raiders without Marcus Peters. At least that’s what they’re saying.
“It doesn’t change dramatically,” Chiefs defensive coordinator Bob Sutton said on Thursday. “You guys have asked me a thousand times about why doesn’t he shadow, why doesn’t Marcus do this, and it is because our system is set up so. Certainly, Marcus is a really good football player and we will miss him, but it is just part of football. Whether it is injury or whatever. We can’t really change this late and really do much different than what we would do. Guys stepping up and got to play their tails off.”
Key sentence there: We can’t really change this late and really do much different than what we would do. The Chiefs can’t completely change the way they play defense this late in the season. It’s not like they have all day to practice on the field. There are limits with what they can do and how much they can actually practice in pads. So I get that wholesale changes can’t happen.
That said ... don’t you have to do something different? Is the solution just play better (on both sides of the ball)? The Chiefs defense had a better showing the last couple of weeks (the Giants and Bills games) so it’s not like they’re not capable of playing well. They’ve done it and they’ve done it recently but this Raiders offense is better than the Giants and Bills so I don’t know if you can expect another performance like that.
Like everything else with the Chiefs this year, the defense has two extremes. Either they’re giving up 38 points or they’re holding a team to 10 points. We’ll see which one we get on Sunday.