The Kansas City Chiefs made a big move this offseason when they went out and added safety Tyrann Mathieu in free agency.
The Chiefs' defense, and particularly the secondary, struggled mightily last year. The backend of the defense was getting torched routinely, and the only reason the Chiefs kept winning was because of absurd production from Patrick Mahomes and the offense.
After their AFC Championship Game loss, they elected to tear down the defense and start from scratch. They fired longtime defensive coordinator Bob Sutton, and replaced him with Steve Spagnuolo. They also got rid of their two top pass-rushers from last year, Dee Ford and Justin Houston, replacing them with Frank Clark.
But the biggest move of all might've been bringing in Mathieu. Ever since Eric Berry tore his Achilles in Week 1 of 2017, the Chiefs haven't gotten much at all from their safeties. Mathieu is looking to change that, and thinks he'll be able to help turn around the defense.
“I think we’ve got a great challenge ahead,” Mathieu said recently, per Pete Grathoff of the Kansas City Star. “I told our group, ‘This is going to be a tough hill to climb, especially where those guys were last year.’ They brought myself and Frank Clark in, and I think anytime you can bring two guys in that really have a chip on their shoulders, an edge, a certain personality, you can rub off on a lot of guys in a positive way. I think that’s why they brought me in, Kansas City, for one was to really kind of raise the tide of everybody around me, and so it’s going to be a fun season.”
Mathieu also said he's confident the team can now beat the Patriots in a potential AFC Championship Game rematch. In order to do so, the LSU product will need to be at the top of his game.
The offense has already more or less maxed out, so any progress is going to need to come from the defense.
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