As the Chiefs gear up for Week 4 of the regular season against the Detroit Lions, Chiefs’ assistant coaches met with the media on Thursday. They spoke on things like individual players and their respective coaching responsibilities.
Here are some takeaways from what they had to say:
Steve Spagnuolo wants to play to defenders strengths
“I think we found out that his best spot is up there close to the line of scrimmage covering guys. We want to play to a guy’s strength. The thing I like about Bree (Bashaud Breeland) that I said to him yesterday in our meeting before walkthrough, is that I thought he had a pretty good game and he said ‘Nah, I didn’t have a good game, I caught the ball twice,’ because he was going with 15 (Marquise Brown) quite a bit and he did actually get two catches. I thought we did a nice job containing him because he can be a problem. Going back to what you’re saying, I think Bree’s attitude has been terrific, he’s more confident, the guys are getting more confident together. Hopefully, that continues.” – DC Steve Spagnuolo
This is such a refreshing change from Bob Sutton’s rigid defensive philosophy. I love that Spagnuolo is comfortable putting players in the best position to succeed. He’s not trying to plug a square peg into a round hole and just roll with it. As Spagnuolo noted, this is also helping the players, like Bashaud Breeland, get comfortable and confident with their assignments. That’ll only continue as the season progresses and they get more snaps under their belts.
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There’s something to “Mr. Consistent” nickname for Darrel Williams
“I will say this – and I’m not trying to sound arrogant when I say this – I wasn’t surprised by his performance at all. That’s just who Darrel Williams is. He’s ‘Mr. Consistent.’ He was that way at LSU. It was one of the main reasons why we targeted him. We thought that he would be good enough to be a priority free agent. But if you watch him over the years and over the last season, he was on the practice squad, then he comes up and does all of the things that he does. But also, if you just pay attention and watch him work in practice, it’s not by chance that things happen on gameday. This kid prepares himself. He understands what it takes to be a professional.” – OC Eric Bieniemy
When you have Bieniemy and Andy Reid calling Williams the same nickname, that’s saying something. “Mr. Consistent” appears to be a name that has followed Williams around through his college days at LSU. Something that the Chiefs could see when they pursued him as an undrafted free agent. The way he practices, the way he prepares and the way that he plays all have to do with that nickname according to coach Bieniemy.
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WR group is ready if more injuries occur
“To me, everybody works hard, and everybody’s journey is different. Byron had a different journey than Mecole (Hardman), or Sammy (Watkins) or Tyreek (Hill). But everybody is here and capable of going out and being successful within this offense with what we’re asking each of the guys to do. Byron, he took advantage of his opportunity in the game and made a reception and I’m just as confident in him as any other guy that we have going out there. I just think that we as a group of receivers, we study the whole entire playbook, we know every position and that’s how I coach them, and they take that to heart. They go home and look at stuff and understand different things, so everybody is interchangeable. If somebody can’t go, it’s next man up and we continue to roll with what we got.” – WR coach Greg Lewis
Depth concerns at the WR position seem to have faded as some players have stepped up in the place of the injured Tyreek Hill. Lewis is confident in his unit, despite the different journeys they’ve had to get to this point. That includes Byron Pringle, who was elevated from the practice squad ahead of Week 2. He knows that his guys are deep into the playbook and interchangeable at a moment’s notice. That’s why everyone is able to come in and find success in this offense so easily.
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Corner play will continue to improve as players get more experience
“They’re learning. When you look at the group of guys, Tyrann Mathieu is the one who has had the most experience back there. You look at (Charvarius) Ward, really not many games under his belt, his first couple of games were here towards the end of the season. Having an opportunity to come into a (Steve) Spagnuolo defense can be a little bit challenging for you, understanding where to make the plays, but we got a couple of games under our belt and they understand where those plays are supposed to be made. We made a few. We left a few out on the football field, but I think they’re honing in and finally understanding how they fit into this defense. Seeing those guys running around and not a lot of guys just running wide open, free, down the football field. Guys are in phase. Just a couple of rookie mistakes here and there we’ve seen through the course of the season and I think they’ll only get better.” – CB coach Sam Madison
A big concern for this team has been the CB play, but coach Madison is seeing signs of improvement. He’s seeing that improvement from some of the younger guys like Charvarius Ward that don’t have a lot of game experience under their belt. He’s seeing guys come in and master the Steve Spagnuolo defense a little better. The key thing is just to keep at it, stick to the fundamentals and hopefully come up with more plays than you leave on the field.
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Defensive line depth has proven useful
“It’s been good for us. We’ve got a bunch of guys in there, a bunch of guys contributing productively. It’s been good to be able to get everybody involved. It’s been good to keep guys fresh. We faced some situations over those weeks, obviously the heat down in Jacksonville and chasing Lamar Jackson a week ago, where having available bodies and a number of bodies and using our depth has been an advantage for us, I believe.” – DL coach Brendan Daly
Even though there haven’t been any dominant sack performances like Chiefs fans have been used to seeing, Daly is happy with his defensive line. Particularly, the depth of the group has been useful to the team. You look at Week 1 down in Jacksonville with insane temperatures. Then this past week you have Lamar Jackson who requires defensive linemen to do a little bit more running. Having that strong rotation helps so that you don’t have guys getting worn down. You’ll always have a fresh pair of legs to put in there.
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Improvements can always be made in the run game
“We take a lot of pride in running the ball around here, as well as being able to throw it. A lot of times when we call runs, we’re throwing it with the whole RPO thing here. To be able to watch those backs run as tough as they did the other day, and a couple of those plays were blocked well, too, against as good of a run defense that you’ll see, that felt good. We’re always looking at, ‘Gosh, what do we have to do better?’ There is stuff out there that we can improve upon.” – OL coach Andy Heck
The running game hasn’t been off to a huge start for the Chiefs so far, ranking 22nd in rushing yards per game. Coach Heck takes pride in his ability to teach both run and pass-blocking equally. He’s not terribly concerned with the lack of a ground game from the Chiefs, because they’re still winning games and making plays in the run game when they need to. However, Heck thinks there are always things that can be done better and improvements that can be made.
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