They Kept Us In It

First of all, I would like to bring attention to my lack of internet activity over the last week. As I mentioned on Twitter the other day, I have recently moved for the summer and am living in an apartment without internet yet (which will change at the end of the month; logging on to ESPN.com tonight met me with several surprises around the sports world) and am not comfortable enough to attempt any log ins at my new internship.

Now that I have established why I haven't been updating my blog, or at least my Twitter account, recently, I want to get into a certain aspect of the Chiefs 2011 defense that caught my eye. On the Chiefs official website was an article talking about how Kansas City was looking for an offensive rebound in 2012 compared to that of 2011. The article cited the Chiefs offense last year only accounting for 12.3 points per game. It was their lowest-scoring season since the strike-shortened 1982 campaign.

I could go on and on about how gawd-awful the Chiefs offense was last season. They went from 22.9 points per game and leading the NFL in rushing to a team that looked anemic at the quarterback and running back position all season. But what I also realized is that despite being 31st in the NFL in scoring, the Chiefs still won seven games.

In comparison, the other teams from 26th scoring offense and under all had less wins than that, which makes sense. If you can't score points, you can't win games. And as much as this NFL truth was in effect for the Chiefs offense, the Chiefs lived by that adage on defense.

One would expect the Chiefs win total to be somewhere around the three - four range just based off the offensive numbers, however, the Chiefs defense was 12th in points allowed per game, averaging 21.1. That's still about an eight point difference between average points scored and points allowed (not in the good way), but the defense seemed to come up big on the biggest stages and when the offense needed them the most.

Looking ahead to 2012, the defense is without Brandon Carr, but Stanford Routt is a reasonable replacement, Eric Berry plans on being back from surgery, and if Dontari Poe is worth the draft slot, then the Chiefs defense should be a force to be reckoned with. And they will benefit greatly if the Chiefs offense can sustain drives and keep the ball away from the opposing team's quarterback.

Easier said than done, I know, but if the team we had last year could win seven games and compete for a division title late in the season, then there's no reason to believe the 2012 Chiefs shouldn't be able to do the same.