Chiefs Find Some Answers to Single High Safety Coverage Looks

Teams have began playing more single high coverages against the Chiefs in 2023 and they finally hit a few vertical shots against the Bengals.

The Kansas City Chiefs rebounded from a disappointing showing against the Las Vegas Raiders by beating the Cincinnati Bengals 25-17. It was the prettiest game of the season for the Chiefs but they did enough to come out on top vs a Bengals team playing for their season.

Like nearly every week, the defense was nails for the final 3 quarters of the game allowing only a single Touchdown on a short field. This has become par for the course for this Chiefs team so while it was good to see again, the more telling takeaways come from the other side of the ball. Most notably, the fact that the Chiefs scored points on 7 of their 9 true offensive possession on their way to 25 points.

Even more notable from this particular game was how the Chiefs finally flexed a vertical passing threat and even connected on a few passes downfield. Coming into this game, the Chiefs had attempted 60 passes beyond 20 yards down field and only competed 16 of them. They had been averaging under 9 yards per attempt on these passes and opposing defenses were really starting to play the Chiefs differently. The Bengals decided to push those limits and ultimately paid the price.

Chiefs Vertical Passing Game

This 67 yard pass play to Rashee Rice was the Chiefs longest play of the season and Rice’s first reception on a deep pass. The Chiefs were down by 1 point and had just picked up a first down deep in their own territory. They got to the line of scrimmage and the Bengals were in a single high coverage shell like they were most of the game on early downs.