A Look Ahead To The Chiefs

by Adam T on Sep 10, 2007 12:40 PM CDT in News

The Kansas City Chiefs official site has posted a look ahead to their meeting with the Bears next week.

THE MATCH-UP
Kansas City travels to the Windy City for the first time since `99 as the Chiefs visit Chicago for the Bears home opener at Soldier Field. The Chiefs are coming off a 20-3 loss at Houston (9/9). Meanwhile, the defending NFC Champions are 0-1 after suffering a 14-3 setback at San Diego (9/9). Kansas City is seeking to avoid an 0-2 start for the second straight year, while Chicago hasn't opened a season with two straight losses since 2003.

The Chiefs and Bears both concluded their 2006 campaigns with playoff losses to the Indianapolis Colts. Kansas City dropped a 23-8 decision in an AFC Wild Card Game, while the Bears suffered a 29-17 setback in Super Bowl XLI. Both Chiefs head coach Herm Edwards and Bears head coach Lovie Smith are disciples of Colts head coach Tony Dungy. Edwards first worked as a scout with KC while Dungy was a Chiefs assistant coach and then joined Smith as a member of Dungy's Tampa Bay staff from `96-00. Edwards departed Tampa to coach the N.Y. Jets in 2001, the same year Smith joined the Rams as that club's defensive coordinator.

Both Edwards and Smith are building defenses in the images of Dungy's vaunted Tampa Bay squads. Smith's Bears posted a 13-3 regular season mark in 2006 thanks to a defense that forced a league-high 44 takeaways. Chicago led the NFC by permitting just 15.9 ppg and ranked second in the conference in total defense (294.1 ypg). In Kansas City, the improving Chiefs defense allowed 19.7 ppg a year ago to rank 11th in the NFL and are seeking their first top 10 finish in that category since leading the league in that category at 14.5 ppg in `97.

Offensively, the Chiefs and Bears both rely on punishing ground games. Two-time Pro Bowl RB Larry Johnson established a franchise record with 1,789 rushing yards in 2006 as Kansas City ranked ninth in the league, averaging 133.9 rushing ypg. For Chicago, RB Cedric Benson takes over the role as feature back in 2007 after he and RB Thomas Jones combined for 1,857 rushing yards a year ago.

After opening the season with back-to-back road contests, Kansas City returns to Arrowhead next week for its home opener vs. Minnesota (9/23). The Bears host Dallas next Sunday night at Soldier Field (9/23).

While most of this is useless information here is what I know.

If the Bears can stymie an offense like the Chargers there is no way the Chiefs are going to do anything with that vanilla offense they will be bringing in.

Larry Johnson? I've got 25 yards by LT that says he is toast. And 12 of those yards are cheap end of half yards.

Huard and Gonzo? Gonzo you are one of the greats, but you and Huard don't compare.

Defense? If Rex and company can't get going against this team, we are in for a long year.

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Comments

Mike Brown ...

I don't think people appreciate how solid our run defense is when he is in the game. I saw him all over the place before he got hurt, especially on running plays, making hard hits or assists. Since he's most likely out for this game, maybe for good this year, I do think that will be a significant loss, even with all the firepower we still have on the D-line and with the Linebacking crew. So I'm not positive that Johnson will have as bad of a time as LT had.

I wouldn't ever go out to hurt anybody deliberately - unless it was, you know, important, like a league game or something. - Dick Butkus

by iowaBear on Sep 10, 2007 1:21 PM CDT reply actions

Neither Arch or Brown

were fantastic at coverage, but both are good against the run. Having Arch in there should help Brown's loss from being devastating. It just will come down to Manning stepping up.

by Adam T on Sep 10, 2007 2:04 PM CDT up reply actions

Brown out for season

according to nfl.com:

http://www.nfl.com/news/story?id=09000d5d802385a8&template=with-video&confirm=true

It's a loss, for sure, Mike Brown is one of my favorite players to watch.

But I don't feel as worried as I did last year, I think Archuleta at SS and Manning at FS isn't as big a drop-off as we experienced last year.

But I feel for Brown... bad luck.

by vince on Sep 10, 2007 2:16 PM CDT up reply actions

shit

Dusty was fired up yesterday, would have been a real help this year.

hopefully arch and manning step up.

strange that they are specific about dusty but not brown.

by mike b on Sep 10, 2007 2:22 PM CDT up reply actions

Archuleta at SS and Manning at FS isn't as big

Agreed.

I believe that this is actually one of the reasons they went and got Achuleta in the off season.
Brown was not going to be a "sure thing" to last the entire season with his past injury status.
And there's no way you could expect him to be...the injuries he's been through have all been MAJOR.

Manning already filled in last year....Not as good as Brown but certainly adequate for the most part.

And now this year with the addition of Archuleta at SS, the Bears should be okay.

Better WITH Brown? - without a doubt.
But not catastrophic without him.

Who woulda thought?

by BlueBear on Sep 10, 2007 6:59 PM CDT up reply actions

While I sort of agree....

...I think Harris's loss was much more devastating. Too lazy to look it up, but I think the numbers show that to be true: the Bears were still above-average against the run with Brown out, but pretty bad once Harris went down.

Of course, who they played in between injuries needs to be factored in. As I said, I'm lazy.

by tyger1147 on Sep 10, 2007 10:21 PM CDT up reply actions