Andy Reid thinks Defense is ready

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

https://chiefswire.usatoday.com/2018...son-right-now/

By: Wesley Roesch | 21 hours ago

Chiefs coach Andy Reid seems to be much more confident in his defense than the fans are right now.

Many folks believe Kansas City needs to focus on defense in the 2018 draft, filling holes like safety, cornerback and defensive line. It doesn’t appear that Reid agrees.

During Monday’s presser, Reid said that he thinks the Chiefs could step in and play right now. He doesn’t think the Chiefs have many holes to fill in the draft so they can select the best player available instead.


BJ Kissel
✔
@ChiefsReporter
Andy Reid says he believes the #Chiefs are one of the few teams that could step out and play right now. Don't need to fix "holes" in draft. Basically, can take the best player regardless of position.


Terez A. Paylor
✔
@TerezPaylor
Reid on what the Chiefs learned about their 2017 defensive scheme after self-scouting themselves: "I know how solid the scheme is. We've been a pretty good defensive unit over the years here. So I trust we'll be right back on that and rolling."


Reid on carrying five running backs for the time being: “Let’s have some competition there and see what happens.”

Reid emphasizing he doesn’t believe the #Chiefs have to draft for need after some of the offseason moves made. “Don’t have to force one,” he says.

This is an interesting take but it’s not far off from what I expected from Chiefs brass. The team has clearly been focusing on the offense rather than the defense during free agency. I wouldn’t be shocked to see them add more receivers, tight ends or offensive linemen high in the draft next week.


From a logical standpoint, I’ll have to disagree with Reid about the defense not having holes. Obviously Reid knows way more than I do about football and his team but I don’t feel comfortable with David Amerson at cornerback and Eric Murray/Daniel Sorensen at safety. Those guys have the potential to play well but have all struggled recently.

The return of safety Eric Berry should help the defense turn things around though, as could the possible return of a healthy linebacker
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Ragland and Jones lost weight and ready to kick ass!

https://chiefswire.usatoday.com/2018...ing-offseason/

Several Chiefs defensive players are taking steps to get leaner and faster.

During Monday’s presser, Chiefs defensive lineman Chris Jones and linebacker Reggie Ragland both said they shed some weight during the offseason.

Jones said he lost 25 pounds, turning fat into muscle, while Ragland dropped 10 pounds in order to improve his coverage.

Tom Martin
✔
@TomKCTV5
Chris Jones says he’s dropping weight, “turning fat into muscle.” Says he could play more on the outside this year.


Matt Derrick
@mattderrick
Reggie Ragland says he’s dropped about 10 pounds. Trying to take better care of himself so he can be faster in coverage and chasing running backs.

It’s awesome to see some of the Chiefs’ top defensive players work so hard to keep improving their bodies and their game. Jones looks great and his weight loss is very noticeable based on the photos (seen above). Jones dropping some pounds could be the difference-maker when he goes after opposing quarterbacks.

Ragland shedding weight in order to improve his coverage is interesting. Ragland has been known as more of a run-stuffer in the pros but the Chiefs signed linebacker Anthony Hitchens to be their top run defender. Ragland’s weight loss and added speed could mean he’ll see more looks as a coverage linebacker on passing downs

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ALL players showed up for voluntary camp. The Mahomes effect ?

It doesn’t look like there will be a no-show controversy this year for the Chiefs.

The first day of Kansas City’s offseason workouts was Monday, and everyone on the team showed up according to coach Andy Reid. That includes safety Eric Berry and linebacker Justin Houston, two players who didn’t show up to organized team activities last year.


Terez A. Paylor
✔
@TerezPaylor
Andy Reid says Eric Berry, Travis Kelce and Justin Houston are present for the start of offseason workouts


BJ Kissel
✔
@ChiefsReporter
#Chiefs coach Andy Reid said everyone is here, as well.


Reid added that it was good to have the leaders of the locker room present on the first day. Many agree, as shown last year after several fans and media members were upset that Berry, Houston and former Chiefs cornerback Marcus Peters didn’t show up for OTAs. Reid acknowledged several times last year that OTAs were voluntary, although he did seem a bit annoyed when asked about it.

Of course, there’s still a possibility that a player decides to skip OTAs, but considering the backlash last year it seems unlikely. That’s probably a good thing anyway because, like Reid said, the leaders of the locker room need to be there.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by wazu

If Reid believes our offense is going to leap that far forward then it is a tremendous indictment of Alex Smith.

Or a tremendous vindication of Mahomes' generational skillset. . .

Or a tremendous indictment of Reid's predictive skills. . . .

Looking at Mahomes, I'd say the former.

Looking at Reid's prediction for the defense, doubt creeps the preponderance of the evidence toward the latter.

[Halfcan]

Originally Posted by JakeF

We traded a Pro Bowl cornerback for Fuller.

We lost several defensive players before signing Hitchens.

Now, I believe that 90% of our draft is going to be defense. I imagine Veach is planning on having tons of young, athletes on defense learning while our offense keeps us in games scoring points. The problem is that Mahomes is still a n00b. This season is going to be ugly if Mahomes struggles even a tiny bit.

Fans on here way over value Peters. Yes, he created turnovers-lots of them- but on the flip side did not even try to tackle. Peters was burned a lot too, plus the PI calls, plus the Unsportsmanlike conduct calls, plus the anthem nonsense, plus kicking the football in the stands, plus yelling at refs, fans, and coaches, plus wearing stupid Black Panther gear in the locker room. Obviously, the Chiefs were glad to get rid of him and feel the team is better for it. But all we see on here- D is going to suck without Peters. It sucked with him.

Mahomes won't be perfect, but I bet he won't have a mid-season long slump like the last guy did. Or go an entire season without completing a TD to a WR.

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

Originally Posted by Halfcan

Fans on here way over value Peters. Yes, he created turnovers-lots of them- but on the flip side did not even try to tackle. Peters was burned a lot too, plus the PI calls, plus the Unsportsmanlike conduct calls, plus the anthem nonsense, plus kicking the football in the stands, plus yelling at refs, fans, and coaches, plus wearing stupid Black Panther gear in the locker room. Obviously, the Chiefs were glad to get rid of him and feel the team is better for it. But all we see on here- D is going to suck without Peters. It sucked with him.

Mahomes won't be perfect, but I bet he won't have a mid-season long slump like the last guy did. Or go an entire season without completing a TD to a WR.

[O.city]

Turnovers are pretty important for a defense I'd think.

[oldman]

Originally Posted by CoMoChief

Berry is back, but will he be the same ol EB? We will see. This is a big "IF" the Chiefs may have to face this season. If he's not the old EB, the secondary (and really, the D as a whole) is going to be in shit loads of trouble.

No Marcus Peters. Say what you want, but he caused TO's and won the Chiefs game(s) on his play alone on more than 1 occasion. His playmaking ability is not going to be replaced/replicated etc. Yeah we got Fuller via AS trade, but he's not better than Peters, regardless of what PFF says. Amerson is ass and Nelson isn't much better.

DJ was a leader. Some things dont show up on the stat sheet. His presence will be greatly missed.

DL still has major holes, lacks a quality starting rotation and depth and can't stop the run. Who's the Chiefs NT? Jones is down to 280ish. Lots of problems need to be addressed here. Of course the draft is coming up, but unless the Chiefs draft the next Aaron Donald, this is going to be a problem all season IMO.

Andy Reid is either drunk or is doing his best trying to indirectly convince people that the D won't be complete shit so they'll buy season tix. Chiefs are going to have to score 30-40ppg if they plan on making the playoffs. I just don't see where the Chiefs upgraded at any position other than EB possibly returning to old form and getting younger at ILB.

And lets not forget how ****ing bad the Chiefs pass rush is. KPass? Project FAIL? Dominant days of Houston are long gone? Ford sucks/can't stay healthy choose your pick? Zombo And if the pass rush sucks the secondary is going to suck that much more.

I pretty much agree with your assessment with the exception of Kpass. I think he just needs more reps and he'll be a force.

While we may be able to score 30 per game, I never want to see a repeat of the DICK years. It doesn't matter if you score 50, if the other team scores 51, you lose. Load up on D, Andy!

[tmax63]

Being able to stop the run and cover receivers is rather important too. MP's "ole" tackling skills and penalties balanced out his turnover production in my book. Amerson is better than the trash they got rid of. DJ's leadership will be missed but he had lost most of his playing time by the end of the season. I'd love to see him come back as a LB coach.

[chiefzilla1501]

Andy is the king of coachspeak. So whatever. But I do wish he could support Sutton and be optimistic while also acknowledging "it has to be better." "it has to be different." seems disinterested in holding Sutton accountable. Bad personnel or not, his scheme was too often just utterly lost.

In a separate interview reid said we need to go back to blitzing more. So at least there's that....

[FloridaMan88]

Andy Reid saying that the "defense is ready" a week before the NFL Draft where the Chiefs are expected to focus on defense and have been rumored to be interested in trading up to draft a cornerback.

Andy's weak attempt at a pre-draft smokescreen apparently.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by Halfcan

Fans on here way over value Peters. Yes, he created turnovers-lots of them- but on the flip side did not even try to tackle. Peters was burned a lot too, plus the PI calls, plus the Unsportsmanlike conduct calls, plus the anthem nonsense, plus kicking the football in the stands, plus yelling at refs, fans, and coaches, plus wearing stupid Black Panther gear in the locker room. Obviously, the Chiefs were glad to get rid of him and feel the team is better for it. But all we see on here- D is going to suck without Peters. It sucked with him.

Mahomes won't be perfect, but I bet he won't have a mid-season long slump like the last guy did. Or go an entire season without completing a TD to a WR.

The D didn't suck with peters when the D made sense. Sure peters brought the scheme down some, but the scheme brought peters down a lot moreso. From a coverage standpoint he was terrific. About as well as you could expect in a scheme where the pass rush forces mistakes and forces you to cover for a million hours man on man. The defense will probably be better and that's mostly because of scheme. The defense would improve even moreso with peters in it. Fair point to ask if his attitude is worth it, but there's no doubt he's a huge loss for the defense even with his shortcomings. We had a ball hawking corner and we decided the best use for him was to sit back in dime even when we knew it was hurting our pass rush? We don't trust peters against the run so our solution was to throw more dbacks on to the field.. Suttons scheme was a big issue last year and I hope that gets fixed.

[Chris Meck]

ILB play will be better. DL play is at least equal, though I think slightly better. CB play I would say slightly better OVERALL; slightly less in the turnover rate but better in tackling and teamwork. Safety should be better with Berry returning and Golden. OLB should improve simply by the experience gained by KPass; unless they missed entirely on him in the draft-and it doesn't seem that they think so as they did not pursue any OLB in FA.

I don't get the gloom and doom. They didn't stand pat at any level. And we still have the draft to go.

[Chris Meck]

I just want disruption. I hate it when I feel like a defense is just sitting back and waiting to see what the offense is going to do. I just want disruptive players.

[jjchieffan]

Originally Posted by Chris Meck

ILB play will be better. DL play is at least equal, though I think slightly better. CB play I would say slightly better OVERALL; slightly less in the turnover rate but better in tackling and teamwork. Safety should be better with Berry returning and Golden. OLB should improve simply by the experience gained by KPass; unless they missed entirely on him in the draft-and it doesn't seem that they think so as they did not pursue any OLB in FA.

I don't get the gloom and doom. They didn't stand pat at any level. And we still have the draft to go.

The doom and gloom is over the Peter's trade. This isn't called overreaction planet for nothing. Everyone who is upset about the Peter's trade are the same ones that are predicting a bad defense. Those and the one's screaming for Sutton's head. But I'm really not sure that he was the problem. That defense scheme absolutely destroyed the Pats week 1. But that scheme was designed with Eric Berry as the key to it's success. When we lost Berry, the scheme was failing. I think that this year will be better for the defense as well. I think that Berry's return, as well as the improvement at ILB will transform our defense. We will be better against the run and maybe about the same against the pass.

[Naptown Chief]

I'm sure it's been mentioned before..
I doubt any coach is going to come out and say "Sorry folks, D is going to suck this year." Nor would I anticipate them saying "We're looking to snag 2 CBs, an NT and a S" a week before the draft. They're well aware of our needs, we're well aware of our needs, and the other teams are aware of our needs.

The optimist in me is HOPING they know something we don't. Maybe this group is ready as is, minus a few depth pieces. I won't hold my breath, but it sure as hell isn't going to take away from the fact that we FINALLY drafted a franchise caliber qb. I think I need to contact a doctor because I've had an erection lasting longer than 4 hours. I'm going on 12 months.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by jjchieffan

The doom and gloom is over the Peter's trade. This isn't called overreaction planet for nothing. Everyone who is upset about the Peter's trade are the same ones that are predicting a bad defense. Those and the one's screaming for Sutton's head. But I'm really not sure that he was the problem. That defense scheme absolutely destroyed the Pats week 1. But that scheme was designed with Eric Berry as the key to it's success. When we lost Berry, the scheme was failing. I think that this year will be better for the defense as well. I think that Berry's return, as well as the improvement at ILB will transform our defense. We will be better against the run and maybe about the same against the pass.

I'm a fan of what Sutton did most of his years. But he looked lost last year. We can blame it all we want on talent. This defense didn't look nearly as bad in the past when we had far less talent. Let's not forgot our defense almost carried us to the playoffs in a year where we lost berry and dj in week 1 with Sean Smith and Gaines as our top 2 corners. The scheme was a big part of the problem. Reid sold us that the scheme will be different. He better be right.

[Red Dawg]

Andy is high on crack. Defense is ready? Like hell it is.