Craig Stout: Chris Jones has been lining up at DE a TON at OTAs.
 

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Honestly, I’d rather keep him along the interior where he is elite. But Stout mentioned that the base DL is Jones and Clark on the edges with Reed and Nnadi along the interior.

That’s a big risk the team is taking, and the early returns in spot duty last year were not encouraging.

But Stout mentions that Jones has slimmed down a ton as well, clearly prepared to take a stronger role at RDE.

Maybe the most important thing to watch for our defense.

He also mentions Humphrey is your starting center.

What do we have here?

More of the ****ing idiot Direckshun questioning a great coaching staff and front office.

Buck up, buddy. Life is too short to track literally one internet stranger and shit on him all the time.

Agree with Direck. I’d rather leave him
Inside where we know without a doubt he’s elite.

Only a ****ing moron thinks that Jones will be playing outside on passing downs. This is simply a way to get your best 4 (Clark, Nnadi, Reed, Jones) on early downs. That’s all.

In no way is it a “big risk” either, considering it’s not permanent/irreversible.

This is for run downs...

The Chiefs think they can get something from Taco Charlton in pass downs, he had a 20% pressure rate last year which is really good.

Jones needs to completely remake his run defense if that’s the case.

He will still slide down into DT for passing downs.

Your thread is at the top of the page, and somehow that means I’m “tracking” you?

All I’m doing is pointing out a pattern of you starting threads that are almost always questioning either the staff or FO, which is the best in the business.

If you don’t want to be called out for being an idiot, try learning something for once.

The logic Stout trotted out is that Reed is actually a good pass rusher and a stout run defender, whereas Jones gives you a ton more pressure-ability on the edge than anybody else on the roster.

Which, I don’t know, sure.

I don’t know what talent Jones has that translates to the edge. But maybe the weight loss unlocks dormant abilities I didn’t know about it.

I think I’m comfortable with the balance I’ve struck.

This is really no big surprise, pretty much assumed it would happen when we signed Reed. Nnadi is the best run defender on the roster and this is really about putting your best guys on the field as much as possible. Our best 3 lineman happen to all be DTs so you adjust accordingly.

He’ll play outside on 1st and 2nd down and move inside with Reed on passing downs. It makes sense.

Unless the Chiefs are going to sign an end this is inevitable. They are sitting there with a ton of DT depth while DE doesn't have that.

Kaindoh isn't ready..Taco probably shouldn't get massive reps because of his injury past so you're now at Clark and Danna.

and maybe they like Ward, he flashed in week 17.

And I am pretty sure they'll sign a vet before the season starts, too.

Ward is probably the least talked about guy that we should all be discussing more for 2021.

He absolutely flashed in that week 17 game.

Does he make the roster right now?

Yes, no question.

Unless they sign a veteran, he’s probably a lock.

Didn't Jones say some stuff implying that he preferred to play DE when we switched to the 4-3?

He’s been saying it for two years.

Aren't all downs passing downs in today's nfl?

Agree.

As soon as they signed Reed, this was a logical prediction.

I think we'll see a lot of Jones at LE early in games, on 1st downs. Once the Chiefs have a lead of 2+ scores or on 2nd and 3rd down, we'll see Jones kick inside with Reed and Charlton on the edge.

I think it can actually wreck a lot of defenses. I'm excited to see it.

No.

DE's get paid more than DTs.

Holy **** I trust Steve Spags over anyone whatever he thinks we should do go for it. ****ing sounds like a plan to me.

I don't see any issue with it on run downs, even though I hope they mix it up there and slide him inside sometimes. His last year rushing as a 5-tech he did get 15.5 sacks, so I don't think moving out is a problem, and brings about the question if they'll run more of a 4-3 Under that not only fits the collective players better but that Clark and Reed both know intimately.

To be honest, it probably also improves the interior run-stopping. I'm sure he slides inside on obvious passing downs, where he's got that power to get to the QB quickly and they put Taco or Danna on the outside.

You have the worst football opinions on this board. You realize that right?

Unless we sign Houston or Ingram, I see this as our best option. We should be pretty good against the run with that lineup. Then we can bump Jones inside for Nnadi and sub Taco in on 2nd & long / 3rd down.

He’s already making 20m/year being elite in the interior.

It's not technically the actual edge, but he had multiple years of double digit sacks lining up at DE in Sutton's 3-4. And for all intents and purposes, his role and responsibilities would look pretty darn similar for the downs in which he's playing 4-3 DE-- soak up double teams from the tackle/guard, and if possible, shed those assholes and make a play, which is what he's excels at.

Justin Tuck in Spagnuolo's Giants teams was also unfamiliar with 4-3 end at one point in his career until they had him in there on certain downs for the better of the rotation. Lo and behold, guys who are the NFL's best interior rushers can also do damage at DE if asked, and then you got to see fresher players at the other DL positions as a result. And frankly, Jones is a better player than Justin Tuck was.

Think of how good Chris Jones is and ask yourself if there's ANY spot on the DL that couldn't use his amazing athletic gifts. Now move him around all the time. Or play him according to matchups if the opposing offense has a weak link against Jones' strengths as a player. ****... put Jones at ****ing CB if it means we're going to get the best possible defense. I don't care. And I think that's what Spags is really in tune with.

God, this guy was so clutch in the Niners Super Bowl.

Facts! He had like three straight batted balls in the fourth quarter. Jones ****ing shows up in big games. He’s well worth the 20 mil

I think the DL is going to be great this year. I also think people may be sleeping a little on Tim Ward. I think he makes a big leap this season.

But to the point in the OP. No, I have zero concerns about where they line up Jones. He’s a certified soul crusher no matter what spot he occupies. That sort of thing should be one of the least of our worries. I love the thought of Jones, Nnadi and Reed playing together.

Hells to the yes to all of this. Plus, with LB in Bolton and Gay who are effective blitz guys, a 43 under alignment makes a lot of sense and gives the Chiefs a lot of options.

DE snaps for CJ is not a new concept. Spag gave him snaps there the past 2 years. If memory serves, the risk/downside was that CJ had some opportunity with contain.

Maybe we will learn that Chris Jones can line up at DE in certain situations and create havoc.
That's what OTAs and preseason is all about.
Dont get your panties all in a bunch again sbtaylor. You're not always right in spite of what you believe. :shake:

I don't think you can peg him either way (DE or DT). He's going to be all over the place as long as he can go 3 downs. True enough his real value is inside on 3rd and long, but let the young bucks take that pounding on 1st and 2nd.

My only fear would be if he lost too much weight and lost leverage against some real fatties on the Oline.

3rd and long---yes.

3rd and short he becomes Donnie Edwards

I’d imagine they put him at de sparingly

I know people say that a Defense like the 85' Bears and the 00' Ravens would be impossible today.

But... if a team was able to assemble a line like that? Yeesh.

Usually the difficulty is that a defense built like that takes away from the ability to have a good to great offense.

I think the Bears offense was much better than the Ravens. If I remember correctly, the Ravens couldn't do shit on offense and they won a lot of games with low scores.

The Bears still had Willie Gault and Walter Payton. Thats pretty ****ing good.

Oh it's way more than one. o:-)

The problem is, they don't let defenses take people's heads off anymore.

Without reading a single comment yet; I’d like to remind everyone here. Hali was a 4-3 DE that could never be a good 3-4 OLB.

Now I start reading.

Lol. Are we a base something over something else? Asking the madden players...

Like with all other position changes, we will see.

But, I’ll take CJ anywhere on the line. In strategy, use what you have to create confusion, challenges, mismatches anywhere and everywhere you have that flexibility. What’s the question again???????

Yea I have no problems with this. Donald is a future hall of fee and may be the best defensive player ever and then you have Jones who is also a future hall of famer and a game changer

Whew!!!! For a second I didn’t think this was a possibility.

Ward flashed against the Saints too. Kid has something if he can develope it.

And when Jones shows up he ****ing wrecks shit.


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This is a textbook case of recency bias.

Aaron Donald is a great player. Aaron Donald isn't even close to being the best defensive player ever. NOT. EVEN. CLOSE.

Bruce Smith and Reggie White were both better than Donald. Aaron Donald has to play a lot more, at a high level, to get close to Smith, and Reggie White never met an offensive lineman he couldn't toss to the side, or knock on their ass.

Then there is Lawrence Taylor. I don't really have to explain this one.

Speaking of LT, if you want to talk about dominance, Deion Sanders was a true shut down corner from his 1st day in the league until his last. For almost every single game of his career, the opposing QB basically wrote off the receiver Deion was covering.

Is Aaron Donald a better defensive player than Ed Reed? Than Charles Woodson? Than Ray Lewis? Is Aaron Donald even a better defensive player than JJ Watt?

Recency bias is why people try to say that LeBron is better than MJ. He isn't, and probably never will be. But, people forget, or people don't even know in the first place, exactly how Jordan dominated the NBA, and how much he dominated other Hall of Fame players. I always suggest that people use YouTube to see how much better MJ really was than everyone else.

Aaron Donald is absolutely, and very obviously a future HOF inductee. And he gets a lot of media push because he is so talented, and rightfully so, but if Lawrence Taylor or Reggie White were playing in today's media climate, they would arguably get twice as much hype from the talking heads.



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Agree on the recency bias. John Randle did what Aaron Donald is doing starting 30 years ago. No doubt Donald is a great player but best ever is a stretch. He has company at the top of the DT list, much less across all positions.

Good. I think we have 3 solid guys who can rotate around at DT. Not any dominant 3tech's but what's his name, the new guy from Seattle, he's a pretty damned good pass rusher. Nadi is solid vs. the run and occupies blockers. Saunders is athletic, still needs to get better, but can also help on passing downs.

I think this is the most talent we've had on the D line since Ford/Houston/Hali were in their primes...

Yeah there is a long list of better football players than Aaron Donald that were household names. I don't think he will be remembered as much as some of the greats that are still talked about.

yep.

This whole "don't worry, he'll just jump back inside on passing downs" is flawed if Jones loses a bunch of weight to fully commit to DE.

If he's heavy, he's going to be slow at DE. We saw that when they tried it before. If he's light, then he gets pushed around on the inside.


Is there an ideal weight that fits for both positions? I hope so.

I am sure the numbers don't match, but John Randle from Minnesota had several years where he was one of the best defensive players, and I don't think that Aaron Donald is significantly better than Randle.

I am not saying they are exactly equal, but I would compare Donald to Randle way before I put him in the best defensive player ever conversation.

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There was a time when some thought JJ Watt was going to be the best ever. Guys can break down in a hurry.

Donald has to stay productive for a long damn time to even be in the conversation.

I think you’ll be able to make a VERY strong case for him being a starter on an All Time Defense though. He’s pretty incredible.

Dominating now (especially on defense) is more impressive than dominating decades ago.

FWIW, Pro Football Reference has Donald listed as 7th on their Hall of Fame monitor amongst DTs. Not sure how they handle that for guys who played before sacks were kept as an official stat.

Still pretty crazy for a guy who’s only played 7 seasons.

Anyone with a link to some Tim Ward film from said games? I guess i never noticed.

Can't stay on the field. Charlton is a waste of a roster spot.

Um, there's no balance here at all.

Every thread you start lately is tinged with doubt and worry.

Shrug.

https://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=338474

:bravo:

You have 1. Time for more.

And that 1 was hours AFTER he posted this thread and said he’s comfortable with his “balance”

LMAO

I really don't get some people.

What are the reasons we lost the SB?

1) Orange parking cones would've slowed down the Bucs pass rush better than the guys we had out there
2) Officials decided to call PI if a defensive player so much as looked at a WR wrong.

So Veach goes out and completely rebuilds the offensive line.

Now we're really worried about 'what if they play Jones at DE'.

Good lord, people.

We fixed problem #1. Can't do much about #2.

Does anybody really think that barring a rash of key injuries this isn't a team poised for another SB run? Because it is.

Well, our front 7 got it's dick kicked in as well, but that was overshadowed by the offensive issues.

They did what they could.

I think I’m just going to post what I’m going to post and you can choose to critique the posting style of an Internet stranger or you can live with it.

You go ahead and do you. I'm not suggesting you shouldn't post. If you want to whine about everything, go ahead. I'm not going to stop you. I'm also not going to keep my mouth shut, either.

We all have our things.

That’s fair.

Maybe, if you're arguing nuances of positions but I'd argue you're wrong in this assumption.

DTs and ERs that rack up big sack totals now probably wouldn't have done the same 30 years ago when there was a larger focus on running the football. That's what makes what John Randle did in terms of sacks just a tad bit more impressive than what Donald has done, in my mind. If Donald plays as long, he surely passes Randle in sacks but he will have a lot more passing plays against him to have pulled it off. That and I think you look at the type of more complete DT you had to be at that point to stop the rushing attacks. So, the way Donald dominates is not the same and not necessarily equivalent to the past.

I think, when you look at the off-ball linebacker in today's NFL then yes, it's a harder game that requires better coverage skills and more speed/quickness than in the past. The days of thumpers that will damn near kill you over the middle and fire downhill often to attack the run are pretty well a thing of the past. Today's linebackers are dominant in different ways. You don't get to see the big, smashing hits and nasty players going toe-to-toe with offensive guards much but you do get to see a more athletic player do great things in stringing out and stopping outside zone and covering bigger TEs in space and so forth. Is it less impressive at how dominant a player was 30 years ago at the position? I don't think so. I couldn't imagine guys like Fred Warner, Darius Leonard, and Deion Jones having been the players they are now in the 70's and 80's. I certainly doubt they would have made it as linebackers.

The list goes on, right. Just different times, different player types, highly evolved offenses, etc. It's always hard to say "best player of all time" at any position. We don't really know how good player x would be in place of player y if they played in opposite eras.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Steve Spagnuolo said they will play Chris Jones on the outside, and it sounds as though it will be quite a bit. That&#39;s been assumed. Now it&#39;s been said.</p>&mdash; Sam McDowell (@SamMcDowell11) <a href="https://twitter.com/SamMcDowell11/status/1400517410948583433?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 3, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Spags, just said with Chris Jones, the amount he may slide out to DE in a given week could be determined by who the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/chiefs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#chiefs</a> are playing.</p>&mdash; James Palmer (@JamesPalmerTV) <a href="https://twitter.com/JamesPalmerTV/status/1400517671175680005?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 3, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

This podcast with Craig, Matt and Kent talks all about this in detail




But what they say about LB is even crazier.


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I started it when they start talking about Hitchens

Not surprising about Hitchens, many of us have said the same thing. The ability to call Spags' defense in real time from the field cannot be underestimated.

I didn't like the Bolton pick and was convinced how good he is but also I thought either Gay or Bolton would eventually be Hitchens' replacement.


If he gets another contract then I have to say I don't really understand the Bolton pick when Terrace Marshall was on the board. I trust Veach and maybe Marshall's injury is bad? We'll see I guess

I honestly thought Bolton would replace Hitchens but maybe they plan on playing Bolton on the weak side?

It's silly season.

It's a BIG assumption that Hitchens is going to get another contract just because his new LB coach said some nice things about him.

Especially when they have 2 young LB in the room they probably want to model themselves after Hitchens.

Nobody is assuming it, just talking about it

He tracks a few.

LMAO

And what are you doing right now quoting an old post that had nothing to do with you? Clearly, most people agree with me in regards to Direckshun. You care to actually dispute that?

You don’t even post much in the Lounge....

Hitchens is gone after this year and Bolton was drafted to be his replacement. It couldn’t be more obvious.