Chiefs DC Steve Spagnuolo assesses lack of pass rush after Week 3
Following the Kansas City Chiefs’ second straight loss, defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo spoke to reporters about the state of his defense. His group has proven to be abysmal in the red zone, ineffective in coverage, and seemingly unable to pressure the quarterback. They showed slight improvement against the run in Week 3, but it wasn’t significant enough to forgive the poor start to the season.
The time for a fix was weeks ago, and Spagnuolo made no bones about the defense’s poor performance. Asked to make a general evaluation, the coordinator was noticeably frustrated with his players and their performance.
“Yeah, I don’t know. It’s funny, sometimes I feel like we’re quite a ways away,” Spagnuolo said of the unit, “But I will say this, when I talk with the guys tomorrow, I’m going to tell them that there’s a lot of good snaps in there. There was a lot of good football played, but in this league against a really good team in a close game maybe when your offense is struggling a little bit, it might be three plays that makes the difference. The one that sticks out in my mind is the 42-yard completion, that explosive pass play. We didn’t survive that.”
Perhaps one of the most surprising aspects of the defense’s collapse has been the total lack of a consistent pass rush. The coaching staff moved Chris Jones to defensive end in the offseason to help provide an edge threat opposite 2019 signing Frank Clark, but haven’t seen the results they hoped for so far this season.
When a question about the blitz game came up in his press conference, specifically related to the recent absence of Clark, Spagnuolo admitted he recognizes the problems at play. He did praise second-year defensive end, Mike Danna, for his ability to fill in as a capable backup.
“It has come in spurts,” Spagnuolo said of the pass rush, “Maybe it’s been a little inconsistent, but I’ll tell you what I think Mike Danna did a great job yesterday, the sack he had was just a relentless sack. We had some other ones where we were right there, I know Chris [Jones] had one where he pushed the tackle into the quarterback one time. There’s other ones that stick out a bit where we were just there, we’re just missing a little bit. Part of that comes back to I’m not sure we’ve had enough of those downs and distances… we had more yesterday with the third downs where we could really pin our ears back and come after the quarterback. And I felt early that we did a good job of it. Let’s not forget when Chris [Jones] draws a holding penalty that’s almost as effective as getting [to the quarterback].”
Watching two games squirt right out of reach in the final minutes has put Kansas City on edge ahead of their matchup against the Eagles. With a lot of season in front of them, the Chiefs have enough time to prove they’re still the team to beat in the NFL. They will still need to find some answers quickly to problems that could prove to be the deciding factor in their quest to make a third straight Super Bowl.
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