Top Ten Chiefs Defensive Plays of the Year: #10 & #9
Counting down some of the best defensive plays of the Chiefs' 2020 season
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Despite the 2020-21 season not ending the way Kansas City Chiefs fans would have liked, there were still a plethora of highlights en route to their Super Bowl loss. While most focus on the offense to create their Top Ten lists (c’mon, it’s Patrick Mahomes), I am vaulting back to the defensive side of the ball to bring you my Top Ten Defensive Plays of the 2020 season!
I combed through the Chiefs defensive snaps to find my favorite plays of the year to highlight for this list over the next few weeks. Some plays may stand out due to individual efforts that made a major impact. Some may rise up the list due to the situations that these plays occurred. Others could simply be terrific play designs by Steve Spagnuolo and company.
For clarity’s sake, I did try to diversify the list a bit. Tyrann Mathieu arguably could have had an entire list of plays. The same goes for the likes of Chris Jones, L’Jarius Sneed, and Frank Clark. With those players, I tried to find my favorites of each to highlight, giving others a chance to find spots on the list.
Without further ado, I present to you the #10 and #9 defensive plays of the year for the Kansas City Chiefs!
#10 - Breeland Picks Brady
While the second matchup between the Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers may not have been to Kansas City’s liking, the Week 12 victory was fairly comfortably in the Chiefs favor. The scoreline appeared close by the end of the affair, but the Chiefs were up 17 points entering the fourth quarter. The Chiefs were able to build that lead due to some timely interceptions by the Chiefs defense — one by Mathieu, and the other (shown above) by Bashaud Breeland.
Spagnuolo didn’t hold back in the first matchup against the Buccaneers, and he trusted his outside cornerbacks to play man coverage on the outside against the Tampa Bay receivers. This allowed him to send a few extra blitzes, taking advantage of some poor pass protection from running backs. This ended up in the perfect storm for Breeland to end a promising drive with an interception inside the 20 yard line.
Spagnuolo sent six rushers initially on this play (Sorensen is a green dog after the tight end stays in to protect), forcing the slide protection by the Buccaneers offensive line and blitzing Hitchens through the B gap — leaving the running back to pick up Mathieu.
Brady sees single coverage on the outside and a safety that can’t reach the boundary, so he decides to try for the fade route. However, Mathieu has slipped the block on his blitz, and Brady has to hurry the throw off of his back foot. Rather than throwing it to a spot where only his receiver could get to it, the ball floats into the secondary.
Breeland does a phenomenal job walling the receiver and squeezing the boundary on the route, allowing him to turn and locate the ball in flight. He stacks the receiver and comes up with a massive play to kill the drive and help the Chiefs keep their big (at the time) lead in this matchup.
#9 - Homework pays off
The number nine play of this list isn’t just an impressive effort by the defense, it showcases the impressive film work of two of the Chiefs’ defensive leaders to sniff it out before it starts.
The Chiefs were beaten on a handful of jet sweeps throughout the season, testing the sideline-to-sideline speed of the second level. It was logical that the Jets would attempt one in this matchup against a more talented team.
However, Clark came prepared. Motioning out of a 3x1 with the running back aligned to the bunch in this down/distance, Clark recognized that the receiver may come back across the formation — so he alerted Mathieu to the sweep and shifted his alignment. Sure enough, as the receiver came back across the formation, he received the push pass to get quickly to the edge.
Unfortunately for the offense, Clark’s play diagnosis and alert allowed Mathieu to align inside the bunch and shoot into the backfield to stop the ballcarrier for a major loss. Mathieu even makes sure to give Clark recognition after the play for his efforts.
While there are many individual performances the can push a defense over the edge, the work those players and coaches put in during the week are what general allow the personnel to be successful. On this particular play, we got a glimpse into that preparation and how it translated to execution, making it one of my top plays of the year.