Is It Time for Brandon Williams to Shine for Chiefs?
Earlier in the season, the Kansas City Chiefs' defense was making crucial plays to win games and looked like a group that was well ahead of schedule. After 13 weeks, Steve Spagnuolo's unit has fallen back down to earth and doesn't quite resemble a championship-caliber bunch.
Entering Sunday's play and Kansas City's afternoon matchup against the Denver Broncos on the road, the Chiefs rank 25th in Football Outsiders' Defensive DVOA. The team is 16th in rush EPA (-0.059) and 21st in dropback EPA (0.082) since its Week 8 bye. In Week 13's outing at Paycor Stadium with the feisty Cincinnati Bengals on the other side of the field, Joe Burrow shredded the Chiefs over the middle of the field and Samaje Perine toted the ball 21 times for 106 yards.
A combination of pedestrian run defense in critical situations, poor tackling in all areas and an overall lack of consistency have cost Kansas City in recent weeks. Don't let the club's 9-3 record fool you — Cincinnati and other AFC playoff hopefuls will take advantage of being able to knock defensive linemen off their blocks at the line of scrimmage and attack at the second level. Things need to improve.
On a smaller scale, could newly-signed defensive tackle Brandon Williams be a possible part of the solution? Spagnuolo was asked about that on Thursday.
“Brandon brings a lot of energy. Him and (Defensive Line Coach) Joe (Cullen) know each other really well from their Baltimore years. I was actually with Brandon his rookie year in Baltimore, so I knew him as a rookie. They change quite a bit from their first year in the league to (now) and that’s interesting. I’ve had other guys that I’ve had young and then years go by and then I’m with them again and they’re just different people. But listen, he’s a big, strong guy. We’ll see where we’re at. I mean it’s only been two days. Yesterday we didn’t even have helmets on. So, it’s going to take a little while to kind of sift through.”
Williams, 33 years old, hasn't played a single snap for an NFL team this year due to sitting out and waiting patiently for the right opportunity to come to him. That opportunity was evidently joining the Chiefs, and the longtime Baltimore Ravens standout did so less than two weeks ago with the intent of being promoted to the active roster in due time. With Taylor Stallworth being waived and now moving on to the Houston Texans, that allowed Kansas City to bump Williams up on Thursday.
In six games this year, Stallworth was on the field for 14% of the Chiefs' available defensive snaps. He failed to make much of an impact, though, recording just four tackles with no quarterback hits and an alarmingly low Pro Football Focus (PFF) defensive grade of 29.5. Although Williams saw his grade slip from 2020 to 2021 (70.3 to 49.1), Kansas City is banking on him rebounding and showing that he still has something left in the tank after some time off.
There's good reason to expect that Williams will absorb some of Stallworth's snaps, but could he also cut into Derrick Nnadi's if he flashes? Nnadi, who was re-signed on a one-year deal during the offseason, is having the worst year of his career. His 36.3 PFF defense grade and 34.5 run defense grade are eyesores for the Chiefs' defense and on tape, he's clearly struggling. Nnadi has logged a snap share of less than 30% in three of the last four games, so Kansas City could slowly continue to phase him out a bit if Williams shows something on the field.
Atop the defensive line, Chris Jones and Khalen Saunders have been the two most impressive Chiefs. Outside of them, Mike Danna has done an admirable job when kicked inside from his traditional defensive end alignment but remains limited. The duo of Nnadi and Stallworth wasn't cutting it, either, and Danny Shelton hasn't made any impact due to being on the practice squad. Top to bottom, Spagnuolo needs more out of his players.
The fact that Kansas City signed and promoted Williams so quickly may indicate that there are decent plans in store for him. He has a ton to prove and is coming off an underwhelming 2021 campaign, but a motivated veteran pickup playing a role for the Chiefs' during the final stretch of the season is a storyline the team is all too familiar with. It remains to be seen what will amount of Williams's tenure, but the preliminary groundwork is there for at least some level of impact.
