Stephen A.: ’I’m not giving Miami any hope’ against Kansas City (1:32)
Stephen A. Smith and Shannon Sharpe agree that Miami could struggle on the road against Kansas City this week. (1:32)
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Adam Teicher, ESPN Staff WriterJan 13, 2024, 06:00 AM ET
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- Covered Chiefs for 20 seasons for Kansas City Star
- Joined ESPN in 2013
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — When the Kansas City Chiefs faced the Miami Dolphins on Nov. 5, they fared about as well as they could have hoped, holding their opponents to 292 yards and 14 points.
They are still impressed with the size of the job ahead of them on Saturday night when the teams meet again, this time in the wild-card round at Arrowhead Stadium.
“They’ve got a lot of speed,” cornerback Trent McDuffie said. “That’s one thing that we know for sure. They’re going to try to hit this edge and they’re going to try to get their players the ball in space and so I think a big thing is open field tackling . . . I think this is a game where all 11 [are] needed, every single play. So we go back to that swarm, that relentlessness that [defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo] talks about. I think that needs to be on display this weekend.”
The Chiefs countered Miami’s speed well in the Week 9 game between the teams. The Dolphins have plenty of fast players, including wide receiver Tyreek Hill.
The midseason meeting was the first time Hill had faced his former team since the March 2022 trade that sent him to Miami. Hill had eight catches against the Chiefs but gained only 62 yards. McDuffie’s tackle on Hill late in the first half caused him to fumble with the Chiefs recovering and returning it for a touchdown for the decisive score in a 21-14 win.
According to ESPN Analytics and NFL Next Gen Stats, the Chiefs played zone coverage on a season-high 61% of dropbacks against the Dolphins. The Chiefs excelled in that type of coverage. Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa completed 67% of his attempts with a 76 QBR against man coverage, 58% with a QBR of 19 against zone. His only touchdown came against man coverage.
Much of the zone coverage was because of Hill, whose speed and quickness have broken open many a game.
“You do have to treat him differently,” Spagnuolo said. “If you are in the zone, we have to have 22 eyeballs on him, know where he is all the time. That’s part of what we’ve been saying because he can hurt in a lot of different ways. They hand the ball off to him and jet sweep and they throw it to him, the screens, the whole thing.
“They’ve all got speed. They built it that way but certainly Tyreek leads that charge because of what he can do,