Arrowhead Pride
Kansas City’s offensive line had one of their worst performances of the season on Sunday.
The Kansas City Chiefs’ offensive line struggled on Sunday — and it nearly cost them a tight game against the Denver Broncos.
The Chiefs' pass protection was terrible on Sunday.
The offensive line allowed 12 pressures and 4.0 sacks of Mahomes, and the numbers could have been even higher if not for some timely scrambles and a few penalties down the field.
The Broncos' pass rush altered nearly every phase of the game for Kansas City, and none of the Chiefs' offensive line played well. Zach Allen, Jonathon Cooper, Nik Bonitto and John Franklin-Myers each recorded a sack, also tallying multiple pressures through the contest.
Even the Chiefs' reliable interior trio of Joe Thuney, Creed Humphrey and Trey Smith played poorly. The subpar play from the interior did not help the tackle situation much, where Jawaan Taylor struggled, and Wanya Morris had to leave the game with a lower-body injury.
Early in the second quarter, starting left tackle Wanya Morris left the game with a lower leg injury, causing the team to bring in rookie Kingsley Suamataia. The rookie had previously started the team’s first two games of the season before being benched after a rough outing in Week 2 against the Cincinnati Bengals.
Suamataia would enter the game and go on to play 43 total snaps. It was far from a good showing, and the rookie once again failed to match the speed of the game. Suamataia gave up 2.0 sacks — and a third was negated due to a penalty and multiple other pressures.
When Suamataia entered the game, the Chiefs' playcalling started to set up plays to help him with either tight end alignment or chip blocks from running backs.
Both Noah Gray and Travis Kelce line up between the edge rusher and Suamataia — a design to give him more time to work a vertical pass protection set. This is very important for a play's overall success against a speed rusher like Nik Bonitto.
On the snap, Bonitto comes flying off the ball, and Kelce and Gray release off the line into their routes. This extra space should help Suamataia ensure that he is not beaten, but because of how he exits his stance, this is not the case.
Suamataia should stay vertical out of his stance and keep his shoulders square to the line of scrimmage, but he quickly hinges on the snap and turns to face Bonitto.
This does a couple of things: it gives Bonitto a much shorter angle to get around him and get to the quarterback, and it also gives him no chance to recover.
Bonitto quickly swipes away his hands and lays a big hit on Mahomes, who barely gets the ball away in time. The issues would continue for Suamataia, and due to the technical deficiencies of his stance, he would continue to struggle against Bonitto's...
