Is this the cutting edge?

Have you guys had enough time to bask in our new team speed yet? I can wait a few days, if you need more. Me, I’ve been nourishing myself on team speed during the day and using it for shelter at night. Tomorrow I’m gonna grill steaks on it. I love this stuff. You can use it for anything!

All joking aside, the Chiefs will head into the 2010 season with what looks like an excellent secondary. The unit will have good talent and depth pretty much across the board.  It certainly should.  The Chiefs have used a lot of draft picks on the secondary in recent years. Pollard and Page (and Marcus Maxey) in 2006, Flowers, Carr and DaJuan Morgan in 2008, Donald Washington in 2009 and now, of course, Berry, Arenas and Lewis this year. That’s a high first round pick, three seconds, a third, a fourth, three fifths and a seventh spent on defensive backs in our last five drafts. The regime may have changed, but the focus on the back of the defense hasn’t.

I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing.  A lot of those picks have worked out quite well*.  This just isn’t at all what I expected from Scott Pioli.  I thought for sure he was a trenches-first guy.  Everyone did.  Yet here we are heading into season two with essentially the same front seven as last year.  The same front seven that couldn’t stop the run or rush the passer.  Linebackers must not factor into team speed, because ours have got to be the slowest in the league.  Yes, our secondary should be very good.  But make no mistake, this draft strategy was a huge gamble.

*I still can’t help but dream about what this group could look like with Bernard Pollard in the mix. I would kill to see him and Berry play next to each other. Pollard may not have been great in coverage, but his impact on a defense is undeniable. It’s hard for me to let this go. Cutting Pollard is still a serious black mark on Pioli’s resume.

According to our fearless leaders, and Todd Haley in particular, drafting these defensive backs is part of an intentional adjustment to what has become a pass-first league.  I want to give the Chiefs some credit for that, because recognizing an adjustment is necessary, or even that this is a pass-first league, is a step in the right direction.  Our last coach sure as hell never took that step.  Herm spent his entire three years here talking about running the ball and stopping the run.  In the process, he became the architect of a team with a clownishly outdated offense and the worst pass-rush in league history.  The lesson is clear: ignore the passing game and your team will fail.  Apparently Scott Pioli and Todd Haley have learned that lesson.  It seems elementary, but I’m not taking it for granted.  These guys are better than the last guys.

The problem is, there is always more than one lesson to be learned.  Our defense next season is going to count on Glenn Dorsey, Tamba Hali, Derrick Johnson, and a good young secondary.  Does that sound familiar to you?  It should.  It’s exactly what our defense in 2008 (Herm’s last season) was counting on.  Sure, we’ve switched to a 3-4.  But the secondary is a strength and the front seven is a weakness.  Sometimes the more things change, the more they….I farted.

I think this defense will be better than Herm’s last.  There are numerous logical reasons to think so.  Several key players are entering their prime.  That horrid defensive line has been mostly disassembled.  Romeo Crennel is a superior coordinator to Gunther Cunningham.  And Eric Berry has more talent than anyone EPK Construction* ever drafted.  So yes, this defense should be better.  But how much?  You have to admit, things haven’t changed that much on that side of the ball.  And even the changes look vaguely familiar.  How different is Cory Mays from Pat Thomas really?  Something tells me Shaun Smith does a hell of a Tank Tyler impression.  And you know Ron Edwards does a good Ron Edwards impression.

*For new readers, EPK Construction is my name for the rebuilding team of Edwards, Peterson and Kuharich.  I feel compelled to point that out every once in a while.  I suffer from a surprising amount of paranoia that people don’t understand all the stupid nicknames here.

The Chiefs, essentially, plan to neutralize the passing game with coverage.  I don’t know if that’s possible in the NFL.  Stopping the pass is about getting to the quarterback.  Other than Tamba Hali, we don’t have anyone in the starting lineup who can do that.  Our entire starting defensive line combined for one sack last year. Dare mention that on a message board and you’ll be confronted by homers screaming about how 3-4 linemen aren’t supposed to get sacks, they’re supposed to eat up blockers so the linebackers can get sacks.  Fine.  Mike Vrabel had 2 sacks last year.  Our starting inside linebackers combined for zero.  Either the linemen weren’t doing their jobs, or the linebackers weren’t good enough.  Either way, the problem wasn’t addressed.  Counting on vast improvement from Dorsey and Tin Man seems like a fools’ hope.  The inescapable conclusion, to me, is that our pass rush isn’t likely to be very good, and as such, our defense will probably struggle. 

Hopefully I’m wrong and the new team speed secondary (TSS?) will keep opposing quarterbacks and receivers stymied.  It’s possible.  New truths are created and discovered all the time in the NFL.  Maybe a good secondary trumps a good pass rush, and Scott Pioli and Todd Haley have figured that out sooner than everyone else.  Personally, I’m gonna be hoping like hell Dorsey has a few more Denver moments and either Alex Magee or Andy Studebaker blossoms into a legitimate pass-rushing threat.  As I see it, those are our only chances of actually slowing down an opponent’s passing game, no matter how good our secondary.

And that’s where its at, with Big Hatt.

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