Chiefs’ Dee Ford is doing things differently

[augolf1716 21,103]

Good Article on Dee

 

http://www.arrowheadpride.com/2016/11/9/13573442/chiefs-dee-ford-is-doing-things-differently

So earlier this season I had to write an apology letter to Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, who plays right guard for the Chiefs. The general gist of the letter was, “dude, you’ve improved in areas I didn’t think you would, so my bad for saying you wouldn’t.” I figured I would only have to write a letter like that once this year.

Dee Ford is doing everything in his power to change that.

Less than a month ago, I wrote about Dee Ford’s game against the Saints. In said article, I wrote the following regarding Ford as a pass rusher and player in general:

Ford displays all the same traits we’ve observed repeatedly over the last few years. He’s got a great first step and initial burst, but lacks the ability to get around the edge quickly and hasn’t developed a counter move for when offensive linemen “cheat” toward the edge in order to account for his speed. In college, Ford used a bull rush to make offensive linemen pay for cheating.

As a final verdict, I said that Ford has developed into a decent pass rusher and average overall player. I based that on the fact that Ford’s pass rushing wasn’t consistently good enough to outweigh his weakness against the run.

Since that article was published, Ford has notched 5.5 sacks in two games and currently sits tied for third in the NFL in that category. More importantly, he’s had a direct impact on two Chiefs wins in a row, notching snaps like this...

 

 Follow

Seth Keysor @RealMNchiefsfan

It's not a mirage: Ford is turning the corner much quicker than he used to. No idea what clicked, but something has.

11:17 PM - 7 Nov 2016

•  
•  
•  
   1414 Retweets
•  
•  
   5353 likes

 

 

Oh.

Now, we’ve seen Ford have good games in the past. So him stringing together two in a row wouldn’t be enough, by itself, to make me thing something has changed. However, I was in the stands at Arrowhead on Sunday, and I walked away thinking that Ford looked like arguably the best defensive player on the field multiple times. That’s... different.

And so I felt like I needed to examine the film against the Jaguars to try and determine if Ford is, in fact, doing anything different from what we’ve seen in the past, including the very recent past.

I tracked the number of times Ford rushed the passer and how many times he “won” in that situation (beat his individual blocker) against the Jaguars, along with pressures/hits/sacks. I additionally, for “fun”, tracked his run defense wins, losses, and neutral plays in order to get an idea how badly he was hurting the run defense. Those numbers are as follows, but what’s more important (in my opinion) is how those numbers came to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AlaskanFAN 1,665]

Great read. Glad to see he is finally starting to become the NFL player we knew he would become.