The Chiefs defensive line has become a thing of beauty in 2024.
George Karlaftis is turning into a beast, and it's happening right before our eyes.
The Kansas City Chiefs' defensive front' has been a revelation this season compared to what was expected. With Charles Omenihu out for the first half-season or more, the unit looked thin coming into 2024 and the hopes were that the team could at least hold things together long enough for young players to develop and injured players to return.
Eight weeks into a new regular season, the Chiefs are undefeated and they're where they are mostly due to their defenesive efforts. Even with further health concerns—such as Mike Danna beginning to miss time due to varied injuries—the Chiefs have come together in unexpected ways under Joe Cullen's tutelage and Steve Spagnuolo's leadership. The results have been inspired.
Just this week, the Chiefs got the best of the Las Vegas Raiders in a road trip in which the defense was placed against the wall by Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs' offense. The final score of 27-20 fails to completely tell the narrative of a defensive unit that rose to meet the challenge time and again.
Consider the moment in the second half when the Chiefs turned the ball over on a tipped pass from Mahomes into the waiting hands of Raiders safety Tre'von Moehring. The Raiders returned it to the 5-yard line and, from there, failed to get it into the end zone. It was the second consecutive goal line stand for the Chiefs defense and they held the Raiders to only 3 total points after consecutive drives that began on the Chiefs' 28- and 5-yard lines, respectively.
A huge part of the Chiefs' defensive success has been the emergence of George Karlaftis in his third NFL season. Last year, Karlaftis reached double-digit sacks for the first time with 10.5 which gave the Chiefs a solid and predictable pass rusher alongside Chris Jones going forward. Now, Karlaftis is taking another step forward and has become the dominant rusher at key moments against the 49ers and Raiders in Weeks 7 and 8.
According to Karlaftis, the Chiefs were able to overcome the Raiders' tremendous leverage in that situation because of the team's level of preparation.
"We worked that all week. We’ve worked that all season," said Karlaftis when speaking to media after the game. "We’ve come up short a couple of times like if you back to Cincinnati and stuff like that. So putting it all together, it's great. We take pride in working together as a group, front end, back end, everything like that. So for our morale, for our defense, it's huge."
Overall, the Chiefs were able to get the best of the Raiders even beyond those moments because the ground game was rendered completely ineffective. The Chiefs held the Raiders to 1.6 yards/carry when rushing the ball, which meant quarterback Gardner Minshew had to carry the team on his shoulders. That was never going to happen on Sunday.
"For us, being able to stop the run, that's the primary goal every single week, you know, as a front, as a front seven, as a defense. But we keep them, and we make them one-dimensional. That's where we want them to be," said Karlaftis.
Even when looking at the metrics at Pro Football Focus, they've got Karlaftis playing at his best level ever in three seasons. Last year, he earned a 64.0 overall grade as a defender, but that total has jumped to 71.9 in his third season. Considering he entered the NFL too young to even drink alcohol, it's possible his ceiling might end up being quite a bit higher than even positive draftniks could have anticipated.
Taken together with Turk Wharton's leap in development, the presence of Mike Pennel inside, and the steps exhibited by Felix Anudike-Uzomah, the Chiefs line has proven they can hold the line—literally. Now just wait until Mike Danna and Charles Omenihu return to join the party.
