Dean: Herm's plan is simple; be more like the Bears
Rick Dean
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — After watching the offense struggling to get out first gear, the special teams missing a chip-shot field goal and the defense giving up way too many third-down conversions and one huge passing play, Chiefs fans asked a common question after last week’s season-opening stinker in Houston.
This is Herm Edwards’ blueprint for the future?
Clearly, losing 20-3 with breakdowns in all three phases isn’t what Edwards had in mind when he arrived in Kansas City last year with the announced goal of reshaping the Chiefs.
So much for stating the obvious.
We thought we had some understanding of Edwards’ philosophy before heading to Houston.
In condensed form, it involved winning the battle for field position with a defense that allows few points and forces turnovers, thus putting the offense in position to score. Offensively, Edwards wanted a conservative attack that did not put the defense in harm’s way with turnovers and which scored at least three points on any venture into the red zone.
Well, that capsule is close. But Edwards this week provided a more detailed look at his grand plan, his idea of what the Chiefs will be after another year of remodeling.
Edwards, quite simply, wants the Chiefs to look like the Chicago Bears, the NFC champion of 2006 and Kansas City’s opponent Sunday at Soldier Field.
Edwards clearly likes the team put together by Lovie Smith, a friend and coaching compatriot from their days together on Tony Dungy’s staff in Tampa Bay.
“He’s built that team like the model we had in Tampa. They built it through defense,” Edwards said. “They took the ball away 44 times last year. Athird of their points were set up by the defense. They have a mindset to play defense to give the offense a short field. They’re not very complicated.”
The Bears lack offensive firepower, but their stifling, turnover-forcing defense means Smith’s offense doesn’t have to be like Dungy’s in Indianapolis — though Chicago would have fared better in the Super Bowl with Dungy’s offense. What team wouldn’t?
But few teams are blessed with the Indy offense, so coaches like Edwards and Smith approach things differently.
“Everybody wants all these bells and whistles, like it’s Christmas,” Edwards said. “I would love to have an offense that scores 30 points a game, but most offenses don’t do that. But if we could score 24 a game, we could win a lot of games. If we had scored 24 points every game last year, we’d have been 14-2.”
This year, however, the standing gag says the Royals may score 24 in fewer games than it takes the Chiefs. And while Edwards believes his offense will be on track eventually — such as when it scored 41 points in a Week Three route of San Francisco last year — until then he’s banking on a defense that keeps the Chiefs competitive in a low-scoring game.
“Most offenses are not going to go 80 yards every time,” he noted. “That’s why you have to have a good defense, good special teams. We’ve got a good punter. If you can punt the ball down there and make them go 80 yards every time, they’re not going to do it. That’s how we have to play.”
No argument there. Not even a murmur of dissension
The concern is that defensive gurus like Edwards and Smith are so concerned about not putting defenses in tenuous position that they become overly conservative on offense. Reluctant to take risks, they get few rewards. They get games like the three-point outputs the Chiefs and Bears got in their losses last week.
The Edwards revolution in Kansas City may ultimately produce a new order, much as Smith did in Chicago. But right now we’re worried that it may never get a shot off.
Rick Dean can be reached at (785) 295-5628 or
rick.dean@cjonline.com.
Dean: Herm's plan is simple; be more like the Bears Rick Dean
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Originally Posted by Medford Bronco
