Where, Oh Where is the Kansas City Pass Rush Going to Come From?

He should make the transition to into the 3-4 very well and develop into an above average nose tackle at the NFL level.

Linebacker was one of the Chiefs' weakest positions last year. When a scrub like Pat Thomas is your starting linebacker, its pretty obvious you have problems. This problem was only worsened by the move to the 3-4 defense, and the Chiefs did little to fix it. As mentioned earlier, Zach Thomas was brought in, but he will not be very effective on the field.

Mike Vrabel was brought in with Matt Cassel as part of the trade package with the Patriots. He played outside linebacker in New England and along with Zach Thomas, will be the only player with experience in the 3-4 defense.

Vrabel, along with Engram and Thomas, will give valuable insight in the locker room, but like the others, can only be a very short term fix. He will be 34 by the time the season starts, but still will be a serviceable player for another year or two.

It's the other outside linebacker spot on this Chiefs team that is really concerning. Presumably it will be Tamba Hali, former first round defensive end from Penn State. Hali has been a do-it-all defensive end for the Chiefs since he was drafted, but he is more of a Jack of all trades, master of none type of player.

Hali is not particularly quick, and switching to outside linebacker where he would have to drop back into coverage would not be beneficial for the Chiefs. The scouting report on him coming out of college specifically mentioned this deficit in his game also.

He is a hard worker and never gives up, but his short area quickness is severely limited and does not have the speed to run with anyone in man coverage. Teams would easily be able to exploit this weakness in Hali by making him cover either the tight end or running back in man coverage.

This outside linebacker spot might be the weakest on the team. The Chiefs had a total of 10 sacks last year. DeMarcus Ware by himself doubled this sack total. Eleven individual players had more sacks last year than did the entire Chiefs organization.

Getting pressure on the quarterback is one of the easiest ways to help the defense, and the organization did nothing to help this. There were several free agents available this off season who could have rushed the passer, but none of them were brought in.

Good pass rushers were available during the draft, and Pioli and the Chiefs chose to go in a different direction. Why? We do not know. What we do know, however, is that the Chiefs defensive backs are going to be getting no help from the front seven. This may lead to another very bad year defensively for the Chiefs and another drought in sacks.

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