The game plan for the Kansas City Chiefs against the New England Patriots on Sunday in the AFC Championship is simple: have Justin Houston, Dee Ford and Chris Jones pressure Tom Brady.
The key to the Kansas City Chiefs beating the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship on Sunday isn’t Patrick Mahomes and their high-powered offense. Instead, it lies with the three players that anchor their defensive line.
In order for the Chiefs to stop the Patriots and advance to the franchise’s first Super Bowl since 1970, the trio of Justin Houston, Dee Ford and Chris Jones must get pressure on quarterback Tom Brady. Sacking the quarterback is something the three excelled at during the regular season: Jones (15.5 sacks) and Ford (13) ranked inside the top 10 in the NFL this year, while Houston added nine more.
The front line was the lone bright spot for the Chiefs defense this season. They gave up 406 yards per game, second-worst in the league, while surrendering 421 points but finished the year with 52 sacks, tied with Pittsburgh for the NFL lead.
Getting pressure on Brady usually leads to stopping the Patriots offense. Brady was sacked 21 times in the regular season, third fewest in the league. But 10 of those sacks came in New England’s five losses. The problem, though, is that getting to Brady isn’t easy. The 41-year-old future Hall of Famer took just 2.61 seconds to release the ball per pass attempt, fifth best among quarterbacks with at least 200 attempts.
For a blueprint of how to beat Brady, the Chiefs can look at their matchup with New England in 2014 (the “On to Cincinnati” game), when they recorded three sacks on the way to a 41-14 blowout.
Houston, the veteran of the group, had two sacks in that game and has plenty of experience going up against Brady. He says the main focus of the Chiefs defense on Sunday will be keeping the Patriots in long-yardage situations to force Brady to hold on to the ball.
“Put him in third-and-long situations,” Houston said earlier this week. “So we’ve got to do a great job of stopping the run. If it’s third-and-short, that ball is coming out fast. So if you put him in third-and-long situations he’s got to hold the ball a little longer. So hopefully give us time to get there.”
Stopping the run isn’t something the Chiefs did well in their prior matchup with the Patriots this year. In Week 6 the Patriots gained 173 yards on the ground and beat the Chiefs 43-40, despite giving up two sacks. Doing a better job executing the game plan is what defensive coordinator Bob Sutton believes will be the difference this time around.
“When you play a quarterback like Tom, I mean he’s played so many games I don’t think you’re really ever going to trick him,” Sutton said this week. “He’s seen every defense. He has the answers to the test.”
“I think it comes down to you have to execute at a really high level, and you have to be able to sustain that for an entire game.”
Brady was hardly touched by the Los Angeles Chargers defense last week, dissecting the Chargers for 343 yards and a touchdown to reach his eighth straight AFC Championship. If he has that kind of time again this week at Arrowhead Stadium, even Mahomes and the Chiefs offense won’t be enough to keep him from his third straight Super Bowl.