Allen Park — The Kansas City Chiefs aren’t simply the defending Super Bowl champions. The franchise has been the model of consistency the past decade under coach Andy Reid, winning at least 10 games nine times during that stretch.
Early in Reid’s tenure, much of Kansas City’s success could be tied to a star-studded defense. But in recent years, they’ve been the league’s gold-standard offense. Since quarterback Patrick Mahomes became the starter in 2018, the Chiefs have never averaged fewer than 28.2 points per season.
That’s what the Detroit Lions will have to contend with in the season opener next Thursday night.
“Look, this guy, he’s tough,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said about Mahomes. “That’s the easy answer to all this. He is a highly competitive, highly instinctive, aware player and he is the engine in this offense. Everything runs through him. He makes it go.”
A two-time MVP and two-time Super Bowl champion, the 27-year-old Mahomes already has a Hall of Fame resume. And, with reasonably good health, he will likely find himself in the conversation as one of the greatest of all time by the end of his career.
Averaging nearly 4,800 yards passing as the starter, Mahomes can do it all and seemingly has no weakness. He’s creative, throws a beautiful deep pass, is poised under pressure and he spreads the ball around. Of course, he does have a favorite target, tight end Travis Kelce, who owns three of the five most-productive receiving seasons for a tight end in NFL history and is on the cusp of cracking the top-five for touchdowns at the position.
Even though every coordinator and defender understands Mahomes seeks to routinely work the ball to Kelce, few can stop it, no matter how many double teams and coverage brackets they deploy. Lions linebacker Alex Anzalone said much of the success is because the chemistry between quarterback and tight end is unmatched, which allows them to ad lib, particularly against zone coverages.
“He does a great job, obviously, when he’s in man-to-man situations; he’s able to get open,” Anzalone said. “But I feel like the biggest thing is when it’s zone coverage and he’s just able to sift his way through the zone and sit it down or break a route off. He knows exactly what to do and you can tell him and (Mahomes) are on the same page. It’s hard as a defense because it’s not ‘Hey, we’re getting this route combination when we get this formation. This is what they really like to do.’ You know you have to really plaster your coverage and stay on top of it.”
So what’s the answer for the Lions, a team that finished dead last in defense last season? There’s one key above all others, according to Campbell.
“Yeah, look I think we need takeaways,” Campbell said. “We need takeaways. We’ve got to convert on third down on offense and we need takeaways on defense. I think that’s what we have to come away this game with and I think we’ll say that all year long.”
A year ago, the Lions did a decent job generating turnovers, finishing with 22 on the season. A couple of rookies, Aidan Hutchinson and Kerby Joseph fueled that improvement and will be critical to keeping the arrow pointing up in 2023.
Hutchinson will inevitably have trouble replicating the three interceptions he had a year ago, but turnovers start up front, with a good pass rush, where he’s poised to lead the Lions, building on his breakout from the second half of last season.
Joseph will be in the back end waiting to capitalize on mistakes. But unlike last year, he won’t be the only one with the ability to do that. He’s joined at safety by C.J. Gardner-Johnson, who led the NFL with six interceptions a year ago, and rookie nickelback Brian Branch, who flashed impressive playmaking instincts throughout his first training camp, picking off Lions quarterback Jared Goff multiple times.
“I feel very confident,” Campbell said. “I do believe that we’ve got some playmakers back there on the back end, and so I think we’re much better suited than we’ve been here to come up with some. Man, you get some tipped balls, overthrows, get a hand on a ball, we’re going to come down with those. And not only there on the backend, but I think we’re have the ability to squeeze the pocket on these guys, and just really all year I believe we’ll be able to do that with our front. So that bodes well to getting some takeaways, those two things.”
Throughout the defense, there’s a lingering embarrassment tied to last year’s results. Sure, there was marked improvement down the stretch, but not enough to redeem the full season’s stats. With the development of several younger players, including Hutchinson and Joseph, paired with several key additions, such as Gardner-Johnson, cornerback Cam Sutton and first-round linebacker Jack Campbell, the unit is eager to show how much better they can be against the best the league has to offer.
“I feel like we’re all really motivated,” Anzalone said. “Obviously, we had that stretch of defense where we were playing a high level of football last year, but at the same time, I don’t know what our final ranking was. I know it was toward the bottom. That’s really motivated a lot of guys, and collectively as a group, to really get off to a fast start and show the world what we’re made of on this national stage.”
jdrogers@detroitnews.com
Twitter/X: @Justin_Rogers