00:00They have been very good defensively in the regular season,
00:03and I think because they've done that,
00:06and I think the stat is against the Chiefs in the playoffs,
00:08Kansas City has averaged 34 against the Bills
00:10and 24 against everybody else, or something like that.
00:13That might only be the last four years, by the way, not all five.
00:16But they could be looking really good in the regular season,
00:20and there's just this talking point about McDermott
00:23that is somewhat based in fact that his defense will regress
00:27when it gets to the postseason.
00:28Is that, though, to you just a Chiefs-specific thing?
00:31Like when they go and play the Ravens,
00:32they go and play when they get the Denvers of the world in the wildcard round.
00:36Do you feel like it's a McDermott thing, or is it more of a Chiefs thing?
00:39So, yeah, Denver doesn't count. Throw that out.
00:41Bo Nix was never going to be anybody in the postseason, right?
00:44That offense was scraping it together with a lot of Sean Payton machinations,
00:47and they were going to run into a playoff team,
00:48and they were going to implode a little bit.
00:51It's more of a McDermott thing than the Chiefs thing,
00:52and it's the nature of the defense that they play.
00:54If you look at Steve Spagnuolo for the Chiefs,
00:56Steve Spagnuolo is inherently a very matchup-oriented, game-plan-oriented.
01:01I'm trying to get you to these third and long downs
01:04where I can design up these blitzes.
01:05They're going to win for me in these key moments, right?
01:07Fourth and five, we've got two free rushers off the strong side, right?
01:09Like, the whole point is to get you to those spots
01:12where he knows where your tendencies are going to be,
01:14and then he's going to be able to exploit them.
01:16Sean rushes four, drops seven, and wants to out-effort you.
01:20He wants to out-team you.
01:21He wants to out-compete and hustle and tackle you.
01:23And Sean does not pitch a lot of change-ups and cutters
01:27and those swing-and-miss pitches, right?
01:29Those big-moment pitches, go and get the strikeouts.
01:32This is a fundamentals, you know, I want to say bend-but-don't-break,
01:36but they were really bad on third down last year,
01:38so it didn't end up being that way at all.
01:40But hopefully a bend-but-don't-break defense
01:42that over time just sits on you for long enough,
01:45forces enough threes instead of sevens,
01:47forces a couple punts, and then our offense is going to win for us
01:49by being effective on the other side.
01:50It is a simple defense on a chalkboard,
01:53and that defense looks really good against bad quarterbacks,
01:55bad offensive coordinators, and teams that you have out-gunned,
01:57teams that you don't have the wide receiver talent
01:58or the running back talent or the offensive line talent.
02:00Then you get to January football.
02:01And the longer and longer I do this,
02:03the more emphatically I believe that January football
02:06is just so different than September to December football.
02:10And if you're not building and optimizing for January football,
02:13you're going to look real good,
02:14and then you're going to get to the postseason,
02:15and someone's going to punch you in the mouth,
02:16and you don't know how that feels.
