Chiefs’ Defense a Lot More Significant Than Patrick Mahomes’s Sidecar

This is the best unit Chris Jones has played on, and it showed against the Bills in the biggest moments to put Kansas City in its sixth consecutive AFC championship game.

The game was at two minutes, and it was time for Chris Jones.

He’d gone back and forth with his coaches on the idea, and he knew they were right. But the Kansas City Chiefs’ five-time All-Pro defensive tackle had also played in enough playoff games (17) and NFL games (140) to know that timing mattered, patience could pay off and, when the stakes were high, he’d be able to meet the moment when it came.

“The whole game, I was on the inside,” Jones told me in a quiet moment, with the victor’s locker room mostly emptied out. “The second down was a second-and-long. My coaches had been telling me to go outside and contain the outside the whole game. I was like, We’re not ready yet. It needed to be a critical situation because if I showed it too early in the game, they were going to be able to adjust to it. Later on in the game, I took that opportunity.

Jones made one of the biggest plays in the game late in the fourth quarter to help seal the Chiefs' win :: Jamie Germano/Rochester Democrat and Chronicle/USA TODAY Network

“I knew I had to contain him. I was fortunate enough to bull him into the quarterback.”

At the snap of that second-and-9, Jones was lined up on Buffalo Bills left tackle Dion Dawkins’s outside shoulder. There was no adjustment, or help. Jones walked Dawkins back into Josh Allen’s lap. Dawkins bumped into his quarterback just hard enough to alter the throw, and leave Allen’s bid to hit Khalil Shakir—coming open in the middle of the Chiefs’ end zone for what would’ve, maybe should’ve, been a 26-yard touchdown—a few yards short.

The play showed two things, and the first is the obvious. That on these sorts of stages, in those kinds of high-leverage moments, the edges are razor thin. In this case, simply where a defensive lineman was lined up created just enough of a matchup problem to prevent a go-ahead touchdown, setting the stage for Tyler Bass’s fate-sealing, 44-yard miss two plays later.

And there’s what it says about the Chiefs’ defense, a crew no one has quite paid enough attention to amid all the hand-wringing over the state of Mahomes’s skill-position talent.

Jones is in his eighth season, and he’s always been the type of smart, resourceful player he was on that particular snap, deep into the fourth quarter of a second-round playoff game. The difference this year is that just about every other player with him in that defensive huddle is that type of guy, too. And that made all the difference in what was billed as, and looked early on like, another Patrick Mahomes–Josh Allen playoff shootout.

Mahomes, to be clear, played great Sunday night. But he didn’t need as many Superman moments in this one as he has in the past against Allen. He hasn’t really needed as many of those all year. Because his defense is the best he’s ever had.

And that smart, resourceful, clutch unit that’s come to embody the qualities of its leader and best player—the same way the Chiefs’ offense has done with Mahomes when it’s at its best—showed up when it mattered most Sunday. Which, make no mistake, was the difference in a 27–24 win that puts Kansas City in its sixth consecutive AFC title game.

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We’re down to just two Sundays left in the 2024 postseason, and left with a lot to dig through after a wild weekend (and week) in the league. So in this week’s takeaways, we’ll cover …

• What the San Francisco 49ers’ style of victory Saturday night said about the team.

• Just how complete a team the Baltimore Ravens have proved to be.

• Dan Campbell’s faith in his Detroit Lions locker room.

• Plenty from the coaching carousel.

But we’re starting with a (surprise!) defensive-driven Chiefs win.

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Chiefs linebacker Drue Tranquill quiets the Bills' crowd late in the fourth quarter.  :: Mark Konezny/USA TODAY Sports

Five of the six Chiefs defenders who played the most in Sunday’s divisional playoff were drafted by Kansas City GM Brett Veach and his personnel department over the past four years. All of those players are still on rookie contracts. For them and the rest of the crew inhabiting that huddle, what unfolded Sunday started back in OTAs in May.

Coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, a veteran of 24 NFL seasons who’s been calling defenses in the league for more than a decade and a half, has told people of late that this is the deepest well of high-IQ players he’s ever worked with. They’re versatile. They’re mentally agile. And while Spagnuolo knew he had the makings of something like this a year ago in 2022, he was also dealing with the fact that a lot of those heady players were exceedingly young, with a good chunk of the guys doing the heavy lifting still playing out their rookie years.

With all of that established, what came back off the Super Bowl win over the Philadelphia Eagles was different.

“It was Day 1 of OTAs—we’re just out there practicing, not even doing much, and the communication from that Super Bowl game to there was night and day,” second-year corner and first-team All-Pro Trent McDuffie says. “We had guys, [Bryan] Cook was back there in the post [safety role] talking. I was doing stuff. We were doing things that last year we could never do. Me rotating to the post, me rotating to the half.”

As Spagnuolo saw that happening, he saw the potential to really unlock his scheme in a way it hadn’t previously been opened in Kansas City.

The communication was there; the on-field brainpower was there; and the versatility would come. McDuffie could play inside and out, blitz and cover. Fourth-year L’Jarius Sneed had blossomed into a corner capable of taking the other team’s best receiver, and matching up in the slot or outside. Sixth-year safety Justin Reid, a 2022 free-agent signing, could move up and play linebacker. Fourth- and third-year linebackers Willie Gay and Nick Bolton could blitz and cover, too.

And as the pieces started to coalesce, the players and coaches started to challenge each other to do more in the spring, so the defense would be capable of doing more in the fall.

“That just goes back to the chemistry that we have,” McDuffie says. “This offseason, I think guys really worked at trusting each other, that communication and everything like that. When it comes to playoff time, the details, things like that, become more important. To be able to have guys out there trusting each other and just know what each other are going to do, it’s huge.”

Andy Reid texted late Sunday, as the team made its way back to Missouri, that what stands out about the defense to him is how close they are (“They truly like each other”). And that only made it easier for all of them to keep chipping away at making the defense more and more voluminous through the offseason program and into training camp.

In time, the older guys started to see what those shared qualities, and the group’s collective malleability and intellect in particular, could add up to.

“Sneed, McDuffie, Nick Bolton,” Andy Reid texted, “We have guys that understand ball, and we know the system.”

That understanding, in time, became the foundation for so much more.

“You try and make it hard to know where pressure’s coming from,” Justin Reid says. “Sometimes, I show down. I’m trying to get the protection turned to me so that we can send something on the strong side, and vice versa. Sometimes, they show pressure on the strong side, that way it can open it up for me. We don’t care who gets the credit.

“When you have versatility, plus unselfishness, you’re able to have a defense like we have right now because you’re able to put guys in different spots.”

And adjust as need be, which was exactly what happened Sunday.

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Allen rushed for 51 yards in the first half, but was held to only 21 in the second half.  :: Jamie Germano/Rochester Democrat and Chronicle/USA TODAY Network

The Chiefs had to adjust after the first half against Buffalo went nowhere close to plan. The Bills had ripped off 124 yards on the ground. Josh Allen was efficient in throwing for 111 yards. Buffalo had controlled the ball, with a commanding 19:07 to 10:53 time-of-possession edge, and scored on three of its four possessions before the break on drives of 14, 11 and 12 plays.

“We made some adjustments at halftime because they had a really good game plan for us coming out,” Andy Reid said. “They ran a lot of the problem plays that we had throughout the year. They ran some plays from the first game we played them. They ran some plays that Green Bay ran against us. We recognized some of them, and we made the appropriate adjustments. They were moving the ball.”

In particular, Spagnuolo tweaked Kansas City’s run fronts to try to squeeze Buffalo’s backs back inside toward the linebackers—the Bills had gotten the Chiefs on perimeter runs consistently in the first half—even though some of the players didn’t like it, and wanted to keep playing more man. But the veteran coordinator also leaned more into Kansas City’s zone looks to get more eyes on Allen and prevent him from running like he had over the game’s first 30 minutes.

After rushing for 124 yards in the first half, with Allen accounting for 51, the Bills managed only 58 in the second half, with the quarterback held to 21. As a result, Buffalo’s second- and third-and-manageables became second- and third-and-longs.

Meanwhile, in the passing game, Spagnuolo resolved to tap further into his players’ ability to disguise, and show multiple looks, those things that were born on the practice fields in the spring, and those things that could be weaponized by the run defense creating more long-yardage situations.

McDuffie was hesitant to say afterward that the Chiefs confused Allen, because, “Josh is a hell of a quarterback. He knows how to read a defense.” But at the very least, they didn’t, and weren’t going to, make it easy on him.

“Once they made some throws, [we wanted] to force Josh to think about it,” McDuffie says. “I feel like we did a good job at that.”

And just as Jones’s feel for the game, and moment, came up big for the defense, the constant spinning of the dial from Spagnuolo to the players, and from the players in showing one look and giving another, eventually took its toll on the Bills.

On a third-and-12, with 10:49 left, on the Bills’ second-to-last possession with the ball at their own 18-yard line, the Chiefs collected that toll. They gave Allen one look, and rolled into another. So a shot to Trent Sherfield down the field that looked like it’d be there was not, and the Bills had to punt.

“That was a whole defense where we were showing pressure, and then I dropped back to safety,” McDuffie says. “Our safety ran to the left half. We showed Cover 2 and then played Cover 4. It’s hard for a quarterback to read that once he snaps it. We were holding our disguise to like five seconds, four seconds. I was running out there super late. Just being able to hold that and not giving these great quarterbacks easy reads is huge for us.”

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Mahomes threw for 215 yards, his third-lowest total over 16 career playoff starts :: Mark Konezny/USA TODAY Sports

The misfire to Sherfield. The bump on the throw to Shakir. In games like these, with quarterbacks like these, those wind up being the difference.

So while everyone was focused on the guys throwing the ball, and Bass missing a kick, and what Travis Kelce’s girlfriend, Taylor Swift, and older brother Jason were up to in a stadium suite, the real story of this AFC divisional playoff was unfolding, and devolved into a fourth-quarter slugfest.

There are Chiefs teams of the recent past, to be sure, that would've been out of their element in such a circumstance. This Chiefs team was not. And they aren’t because of the group that has long run shotgun to Mahomes and the offense. But over the past nine months, the defense has become a lot more significant than a sidecar—and at a time when that offense actually needed them to be just that.

“J Reid, he can play linebacker, safety. LJ [Sneed]’s played nickel before, been on the outside. Trent plays nickel sometimes, plays on the outside. You got Chamarri [Conner], where he comes in, plays linebacker sometimes, plays nickel, plays safety,” Bolton says. “It’s those guys, and it’s a testament to Coach Spags and the coaching staff to get guys prepared all the way through training camp to now.”

Eight months after those much warmer days of OTAs, Mahomes threw for 215 yards, his third-lowest total over 16 career playoff starts, and that was plenty. The defense got two three-and-outs to start the fourth quarter, and the stop to force Bass’s miss to finish it, and make a statement about how far the group had come.

When I asked Jones whether this was the best defense he’d ever played on, he responded, “I would definitely say that.” And it’s for the same reasons, well, everyone gave.

“You look at the team we’ve got on defense. We’ve got an All-Pro nickel who can go out and be a No. 2 corner. We’ve got our No. 1 cornerback who can travel with anybody in this league,” Jones says. “That shows you how special that back end is. Trent McDuffie can go play nickel and corner. Also, Sneed started off playing nickel, and he transitioned to a corner. Those two significant pieces on our defense speak volumes.

“Then you’ve got the guys up front. You’ve got Charles Omenihu, who missed four games, come in and have seven sacks for us. He can play inside and out. You got George Karlaftis, who we’ve asked multiple times to get at the zero nose on the three-man rush, who last week, caused havoc on Tua [Tagovailoa] to force a throw outside. We got so many guys that can do so many things. That’s what makes this defense so good, because of the versatility of players.”

Then, Jones adds, with a smile, pulling a sweater on to head back into the cold, “Spags is a wizard. I hope he doesn’t get a head coaching job. Hoping he stays with me forever.”

Jones, of course, is a free agent, and one who missed a lot of the offseason embroiled in a contract dispute. As such, he only came back in September to see all the progress his young teammates had made. A lot of people have figured this’ll be his last run as a Chief.

But much has changed since last year in Kansas City. Even if the results haven’t.