Denver Broncos outside linebacker Von Miller leads the league in sacks among outside linebackers with 14.5 Eric Fisher Jersey , but don’t tell that to Kansas City Chiefs outside linebackers coach Mike Smith.He wouldn’t care. As a matter of fact, Smith said Thursday he doesn’t even know the sack totals for Chiefs starting linebackers Dee Ford and Justin Houston. And that is a good thing.Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images“It’s funny,” Smith said. “I can’t tell you how many sacks Justin or Dee have, or really anybody in the room. What I look at every week, I look at pass-rush productivity, Fraz (Mike Frazier) does a good job of that. It’s hurries, hits and sacks with the number of snaps. That’s the most important thing. And so I look at anything above 250 snaps, where are they at? Dee has 75, Justin has 45. That’s both top five. Going into last week, they were one and two. To me, it’s important if you’re affecting the quarterback. So that’s the thing that we stress in our room. That’s the thing that we keep track of. We don’t even keep track of sacks.”To be clear, Ford and Houston still get to the quarterback. They have a combined 19.5 times in 2018, but the idea from Smith is nothing new—it’s a point we have heard defensive coordinator Bob Sutton stress before. Obviously, a sack is only recorded when a player takes the opposing quarterback down. But the key the Chiefs preach is to affect him in any way possible, and that message has gotten through to the room.Photo by Abbie Parr/Getty Images“You want a sack, but you’re not going to get a sack every play,” Ford said. “You can’t rush with the mentality that I want a sack every play because you could be hurting the defense, so getting pressure on the quarterback is disrupting the timing of his throws. He can’t step through on certain throws. That takes different types of rushes and it takes you know how do that every play ... Sacks are going to come but it’s key times of the game—if the ball is going to come out quick, all we can do is disrupt that throw. That could lead us getting off the field, giving the ball back to the offense. Boom, we could win the game. All we needed was one stop against the Chargers and we could have been wearing hats that night. You know what I mean? I don’t like to talk about the past, but this is the mindset, this is what we’re looking toward and you can’t get caught up in things that are pretty much distractions.”As the Chiefs make changes to their secondary ahead of the playoffs Mitchell Schwartz Jersey , getting any kind of pressure helps—no matter who the team opts to play.“When you’re getting after the quarterback, that’s one of the top things we want to do, especially in passing situations,” Smith added. “That’s what we want to do. That’s our main goal, is to affect him. You start affecting, like I said, the spot, he can’t get to his second and third read, there’s a lot of things that affect the quarterback. He can’t step up—I think that’s a great job that our inside guys are doing.”Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty ImagesSoon after rookie Breeland Speaks was drafted, the thought was that he would be able to help the Chiefs “on all three downs.” And although that has happened at different times this season due to injury, Speaks has had trouble finding the field for much time since Week 13. We learned Thursday that this has much less to do with Speaks than it does with the veterans in front of him—Dee Ford and Justin Houston.“He’s making progress,” Smith said of Speaks. “I think right now obviously he’s not getting a lot of reps. Justin’s full-go, Dee is full-go, and to be honest, it’s hard to get them off the field. It makes you smile. Last game I said, let’s get you a breather, they said, ‘Don’t take me off this field.’ Both of them are playing really well. With Breeland, he’s still progressing.“When you’ve got two of the best in the league, especially some situations we’ve been in the game, closer games, I’m going to make sure my best guys are out there. Right now, that’s them Demetrius Harris Jersey , but it’s nothing against Breeland.”Speaks has had just 23 snaps over the course of the last three games, to be exact. Second-year outside linebacker Tanoh Kpassagnon has had eight, and he was even inactive for the game against the Los Angeles Chargers.But not to worry. With limited reps for the young players, Smith has found other ways to evaluate their progress.“It goes with practice, it goes with meetings,” he said. “It goes with when [Speaks] turns in his test [Thursday] after the meeting, where is he at? Is he getting and understanding the formations, the defenses? Even the [nine] snaps he was in the game last week. Where is he going from there? Not as much as when he’s playing 60 snaps a game you can do it, but that’s just kind of how you do it. That’s kind of where we’re at with them two (Speaks and Kpassagnon). It’ll be the same thing when Breeland is a main guy.”“Film study’s picked up,” Speaks explained. “It’s just more so knowing the situations that’s picked up and just becoming an all-around player. Just not trying to go out there and get sack. Just knowing who I have on certain drops, knowing what I have to do in certain situations—that’s been my job, just to master that.”Speaks says he is growing as a player regardless of time on the field.“I feel like I’ve done pretty good,” Speaks said. “I talked to Bob (Sutton) the other day. He was like, ‘Never thought you learn this much football in a year, huh?’ I really didn’t but it’s amazing what I’ve learned since I’ve gotten here and what I’ve continued to learn.”In a perfect world, Speaks would be on the field—but the Chiefs are right to admit he is not their top option right now. And although that will likely change next season, it is what it is.“You look around the league and I get the snap count every week, very few guys come off the field,” Smith said. “Look at Von Miller’s snaps. Look at (Bradley) Chubb’s snaps. Look at these guys around the league, that’s just how it is. You try to get a handful here and there, probably need to do a better job at that, but at this level, your best players better play. I get you’ve got to take a couple snaps here and there Cameron Erving Jersey , but especially when guys are playing well. They are a big part of this defense.”The Chiefs hope the continue to play well against the Oakland Raiders Sunday afternoon, when they can clinch the No. 1 seed in the AFC with a win. Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid spoke to the media during his regular press conference on Monday, following Sunday’s 30-23 victory over the Denver Broncos.Here are some key takeaways:Reid said the firing of Cleveland Browns head coach Hue Jackson — the news of which had just broken — wouldn’t substantially affect his planning for the game against the Browns on Sunday.Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports“I just found that out,” Reid said. “I hate seeing that happen to a friend. It’s a tough business. If you go through the process — and you’re honest with that every week — then it doesn’t matter what happens on the peripheral part of things. You control what you control, but you have no control over [what happens at the other team] or anything else that happens with any team. We can control the process. We can control how we how we work each day as coaches and players. It’s important that we just put our focus there, and not worry about the other stuff.”Reid was then asked if Jackson’s firing made it harder to prepare for the Browns.“They’re not going to change a whole lot. [They’re] so far into this. [They’ve] got hours invested in this. They didn’t change the offensive and defensive coordinators.”Reid was then told — apparently for the first time — that Browns offensive coordinator Todd Haley had also been fired.“All right. Well, then stick with the process. I’m back to that.”After the laughter died down, he asked, “You set me up on that one, huh?”After some more laughter, Reid got back to it.“The main thing is that we do what we do,” he said. “That’s the most important thing. I don’t think they’re going to change that much — even with that taking place. [They] have so much time invested in where they’re at right now. There might be a wrinkle here or there, but you can’t turn the whole thing over.”In light of Jackson’s firing — and the lack of continuity in Cleveland — Reid was asked how he approaches hiring decisions. “If you’re in a position that you hire, you try to hire good people, and you let them do their jobs,” he said. “In a leadership position, you try to set up a format of things that you want done within that, but don’t take away someone’s ability to let their personality show. Don’t take that away from them. Let them be who you’ve hired.”Reid said that he and his coaches do the best they can to give opposing teams a different look every week.Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports“We try to give a different look every week,” Reid said. “We bank on what we’ve installed in the OTAs and in camp, so we’re able to draw from that. But we’re always trying to give [opposing teams] a different look, so that when you get here, you don’t have to go back and go, ‘Doggone Reggie Ragland Jersey , we’ve run out of things.’”Reid said this also serves to keep his own players engaged with the process.“We keep it pretty fresh, and it keeps the guys fresh every week. It’s a nice little challenge for them. Are you going to change everything? Nobody’s going to do that, but we throw enough things in there for them to have some fun with it.”When told that Broncos defensive players were anxious to talk after the game about the creativity of Reid’s offense, Reid first wanted to compliment them.Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports“I had some of those guys in the Pro Bowl,” Reid said. “Those are good guys, too. They love to play the game. They showed me a little something. They have a pretty good culture going there.”With that out of the way, Reid spoke about how his assistant coaches are influencing the offense.“Eric Bieniemy is doing a phenomenal job,” he continued. “He doesn’t say much, but he’s got a very creative mind, and he also does a nice job with the team -- the offensive side of that. I defer more to him than any of the guys. Andy Heck is another one who gets zero credit — which I think he probably likes — but the run game stuff like these RPOs, he’s really bought in. This is different than what we all came up with, and Andy — as a line coach — had to make some changes there. He loves this stuff. He comes up with some phenomenal ideas.”Other notes from Monday’s press conference:Reid denied even being aware that the Chiefs have now won 19 of their last 20 division games but readily admitted the Chiefs make those games a priority in their planning. ”We spend time in the offseason practicing against AFC West teams, and doing what we can to do some homework on them. So there’s an emphasis there, but you’re only as good as that one game. So we try to stay focused on that.”Reid spoke about his sideline conversation with Tyreek Hill, after Hill had to be separated from Broncos defensive back Tramaine Brock in Sunday’s game. “He was fired up. And he’s not that kind of player. I don’t worry about him. But something happened there. The guy kind of took a shot at him. So it fired him up a little bit. He’s a competitive guy, but he normally keeps it all together, but he wanted to get after him. So I just told him to calm down.”Reid said that with the trade deadline approaching, he wasn’t aware of any trades in the works. ”I haven’t talked to Brett Veach today about any of that, so I don’t know where he is today. Up to today, we didn’t have anything. But you never know with him. He doesn’t miss much.”
