INDIANAPOLIS COLTS
AT THE KANSAS CITY CHIEFS
THE BACKSTORY
For the first time since 1995, the Chiefs are
chiefs atop the AFC with a No. 1 seed and a unique home-field advantage at
football's loudest venue. So it's a damn shame that their opponent in
Saturday's Divisional Round opener is the one team, the one franchise that has
given them outsized hell over the years. Sure, this season Kansas City boasts
an historic offense with a half-freed renegade under center, but on Saturday
afternoon, with the Colts on
the opposing sideline, it will be staring down a red-hot opponent and the
barrel of its own unfortunate history.
The Colts and Chiefs have
met four times in the postseason, all since the mid-90s, and K.C. has lost
every time, including twice in the Divisional Round. The most recent defeat
featured some familiar players. Andy Reid, in his first season at the helm in
K.C., had coached the Chiefs to
a 38-10 lead over Andrew Luck and T.Y. Hilton's Colts in
the third quarter in Indianapolis. And then the second-largest
comeback in postseason history happened. Despite all their regular-season
success, the Chiefs are
just 1-4 in the postseason under Reid. The wounds are fresh, because they're
annually ripped open.
But that's not even the most ominous record on Kansas
City's, er, record heading into this weekend. That would be this: The Chiefs are
0-6 in their last six postseason games in Kansas City. Winless at Arrowhead
since the 1993 season.
Perhaps the tone of this intro reeks of too much doom and
gloom, and not enough boom and zoom, which are more accurate onomatopoeia to
use when talking about Patrick
Mahomes, Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce and
the juggernaut Chiefs of
2018. Kansas City has been so prolific and provided so few slip-ups in
regular-season play this year that the only conceivable way for this offense to
not achieve a glorious destiny is to give away games, right? Yes, but Chiefs know
how to do that in the postseason all too well.
UNDER PRESSURE
PIERRE DESIR,
CB, COLTS: Do it again. Matched up last week against one of the
league's toughest tasks in DeAndre
Hopkins, Desir played relatively lights out, allowing just two of
Hopkins' five grabs for just 16 yards, per Pro Football Focus. Paired
with Kenny Moore,
Desir led an Indy secondary that shut down what turned into a
one-dimensional Texans offense
on Wild Card Weekend. The Colts face
a different animal in Kansas City.
Though not expected to shadow Hill throughout the game,
Desir will be tasked with manning up the big-play threat on occasion. Their
matchup could be a microcosm of how things turn on Saturday afternoon. Indy
plays unabashedly conservative pass defense, allowing the highest expected
completion percentage (71.5) of any team this season, meaning the Colts
give up the short throws. They balance that with a stiff deep-game defense;
opponents attempt deep passes on just eight percent of throws against Indy.
Mahomes and Hill are masters of breaking plays downfield; the former led the
league in completions and yards on deep passes, while the latter paced
professionals with 32 big plays in 2018 and has 16 career TDs of 50 yards or
more.
ERIC BERRY (OR
WHOEVER FILLS IN FOR HIM, GAWD FORBID), S, CHIEFS: I could use the
same argument for Berry that I used for Desir and just swap out some words or
figures. This game figures to be an Annie Oakley downfield shootout: Any pass
you can hit, I can hit farther. For Berry, the concern lies in his health or
lack thereof. After finally returning from a nagging heel injury, he looked
unlike himself in the one-point-five games he participated in and has missed
practice in the lead-up to Saturday's game. With the leagues top tight-end
corps rolling into town, now is the worst time for Kansas City to start
hemorrhaging secondary talent again. Colts tight
ends caught 21 TDs this season, including 11 by Eric Ebron in
the red zone, while K.C. allowed a league-high 10 TDs to tight ends. The Colts tight
end-Chiefs safety
matchup looks to be a flashpoint, and Berry, Kansas City's senior defensive
back, is a threat to go AWOL.
MATCHUP TO WATCH
COLTS'
OFFENSIVE LINE VS. CHIEFS'
FRONT SEVEN: The on-field clash of Indy and K.C.'s titanic lines is
far more exciting than the made-for-TV cruiserweight bout between Mahomes
and Andrew Luck.
Eighty-nine combined touchdown passes! Points aplenty! , read all about it!
That storyline is for the billboard barons. How about we focus instead on a
more classic narrative: Unstoppable force meets immovable object?
Luck and his shoulder have been precious cargo all season,
and Indy's offensive line has done more than enough this season to ensure the
QB meets as little resistance as possible. The Colts have
allowed league-low pressure and sack rates (7.4, 0.6, respectively) and
surrendered a league-low 18 sacks.
Meet unstoppable force. For all of the Chiefs'
issues on the back end, Bob Sutton's defense boasts a consistently great pass
rush, led by Justin
Houston, Dee Ford and
breakout interior lineman Chris Jones.
Jones and his 3.4-percent sack rate (second among interior DL) figure to be
stymied against Quenton Nelson and Ryan Kelly,
but the Chiefs have
an advantage on the flanks. K.C. is the only team to boast two top-10 edge
defenders in pressure rate (Ford, Houston), and Indianapolis is susceptible to
pressure at the tackles. If K.C. can't get to Luck, then the Colts QB
will have a field day in the Chiefs'
secondary, so the war has to be won in battles at the line of scrimmage.
PREDICTION
Since Week 7, Indianapolis has allowed less than 15.5 points
per game, but to whom? Not one of the Colts'
opponents since their bye boasted a threatening, multi-dimensional attack even
close to resembling that of Kansas City's. (Dallas, perhaps, but barely.)
The Chiefs,
meanwhile, are battle-tested, losing two of three to playoff defenses (BAL,
LAC, SEA) by a margin of five points in December. Some clubs have the ability
through skill and will to disregard superstition and the gravity of history.
This Chiefs team,
young and weightless, loose and free, is one of them.
MY PICK: KANSAS CITY
CHIEFS 34, INDIANAPOLIS
COLTS 29
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