Arrowhead Pride
On Thursday, Kansas City’s defensive star broke down this week’s match up and shared a non-football reason he likes visiting Buffalo.
The Kansas City Chiefs will face the Buffalo Bills on Sunday for the third time in 12 months. While Kansas City has gotten the best of its conference rivals in recent postseason contests, the Bills have won the last three regular-season matchups.
Before Thursday’s practice, defensive tackle Chris Jones broke down a now very familiar opponent.
“It’s hard for us to beat them in the regular season,” Jones admitted. “We’ve got to try to try to figure that part out. Very good team and a well-respected head coach — and they’re building that team defensively and [quarterback] Josh [Allen] is making some things happen on offense.
“It’s a complete team — one of the better teams that we may have the opportunity to face later on in the season, maybe in the postseason. So, it’s a very exciting game for us. It’s a challenge for us to compete at such a high level and also compete on the road.”
Jones knows that stopping the Bills begins and ends with stopping the opposing quarterback.
“Try to contain Josh Allen [and] keep him in a pocket,” he identified as his first priority. “He can make every throw. He’s just increasingly dangerous outside of the pocket, can create plays with his feet, [and] hard to bring down.”
Allen reminds Jones in many ways of teammate Patrick Mahomes, though there is one thing the defensive star acknowledges: this week’s opponent is more of a threat on the ground.
“[He’s] very similar to Pat,” Jones observed. “[We’re] trying to make sure we are rushing disciplined in our rush lanes, respectively. I think he’s a, a better runner than Pat. Pat more so is a sneaky runner fooling you sometimes [with] how fast he can be and get through situations.
“Josh Allen is not fooling anyone. He can run through you. He can outrun you. He’s also a threat at passing the ball from every angle. He’s limiting his mistakes [and] gets the ball out. So, even if you have him wrapped up, he tends to still throw the ball. So this is a guy we’ve got to make sure we corral defensively to make sure we affect him.”
While the Chiefs’ defense has continued rolling after last season’s Super Bowl-winning effort, the team’s pass rush has underwhelmed through the first half of the season. Kansas City ranks near the bottom of the league with only 19 sacks. Jones knows he and his teammates on the defensive line will need to do better against Allen.
“We’ve got to get better rushing the passer, collectively,” he declared. “You know — growing pains. We’re still young. As long as we go trending in the right direction and continue to get better every week, the pass rush is something we can work on.”
In his age-30 season, Jones has been in on 82% of the team’s defensive snaps,...
