Why Chiefs pass rusher Chris Jones is still talking about one aspect of Bengals loss
Chris Jones broke through the line of scrimmage, sneaked behind Joe Burrow and attached each hand to one of the Bengals quarterback’s shoulder pads.
He had him.
And then lost his grip.
What ensued provided a lasting image to the closing picture of a Kansas City Chiefs playoff run cut short — Burrow eluded the pressure to run for a first down, keeping alive a fourth-quarter drive that would conclude with a go-ahead field goal.
We’re backtracking to the game hovering over this Chiefs offseason for a moment here, even if it’s rarely mentioned inside or outside these walls. Well, except with Jones. He did a funny thing Wednesday afternoon.
He brought it up.
Unprompted.
I’d asked Jones to assess the entirety of his season, and he responded by pointing toward one game — that AFC Championship overtime loss.
“I missed some of the biggest plays of the game,” Jones said. “I used it as motivation the whole offseason. I feel like if I would’ve made those sacks, the game would’ve been different. I take accountability for that.
“Attack it; use it as motivation going into next year.”
The game few Chiefs want to talk about is the one Jones can’t help but think about. So why not talk about it? And while that might be a bit of annoyance for him personally, it could be a good thing for the Chiefs.
They need him. Really need him.
The pass rush was more problem than solution on a struggling defense a year ago. Even after identifying it as the primary area of need heading into the offseason, the Chiefs didn’t do a whole lot to address it in free agency. In fact, three of the projected starters — Jones, Derrick Nnadi and Frank Clark, who’s yet to show up to mandatory minicamp this week, though the Chiefs are terming his absence excused — are the same as 2021. The other? It’s a rookie, first-round pick George Karlaftis. And the players further down the depth chart, for the most part, are familiar faces as well.
That returns to the focus to Jones, whose $29.4 million cap number is more than double that of any other player on the defense this season, using figures provided by Over The Cap. He is the one pass rusher on the roster who can single-handedly wreck a game, and the one paid to do it.
And the one who just might have to.
Jones had nine sacks last season, though only seven after the opener against Cleveland. Most of the damage came in three games — he actually recorded at least one full sack in only four of the 17 games in which he appeared, including the playoffs. He had 17 quarterback hits — one per game — his lowest mark in five seasons as he played through a wrist injury that would later require a hard cast. It didn’t help that he spent the initial two months playing out of position on the edge before returning to his dominant spot along the interior.
To be fair, he receives plenty of attention from opposing offensive lines — far more than anyone else in the Chiefs locker room, which is part of the problem — but there’s more production in there. He’s too talented for any of those total numbers to ring true.
And way too talented for the postseason numbers on his bio. He has appeared in 12 playoff games, and he’s yet to record a sack in any of them. In last year’s Wild Card Round win against the Steelers, he did not even manage a pressure. The Burrow whiff coincides with the track record; it doesn’t stand in opposition to it.
It’s becoming a thing.
He’s aware.
“Oh, 1,000%, it’s a driving force,” Jones said. “For me, that’s my driving force right now. I missed one of the biggest plays in the game.”
It’s the right sentiment, though we’ll conclude this by borrowing a phrase Jones would later use in the same news conference Wednesday, as he described his leadership style.
People like action, he said.
This story was originally published June 16, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Why Chiefs pass rusher Chris Jones is still talking about one aspect of Bengals loss."