The Kansas City Chiefs may be the most criticized 13-1 team in the history of the NFL. I’m guilty of it myself. Just yesterday after they beat the Cleveland Browns 21-7 I wrote that Andy Reid deserved some criticism for the baffling approach he had on offense and how it lead to Patrick Mahomes getting hurt. While I stand by that, there are obviously positives coming out of this game as well. One of those was the play of the Chiefs pass rush.

Last season the Chiefs defense played lights out throughout most of the season. This year, while they have still been a solid unit, it hasn’t been quite as dominant. The two main factors have been that they haven’t had as good of a pass rush (you might even say that their outside pass rush flat out stunk through much of the season) and that they’ve had coverage issues after trading L’Jarius Sneed and losing Jaylen Watson to injury. Those things have combined to make KC’s pass defense a concern when it comes to them earning the AFC’s top seed.

However, the pass rush we saw against the Cleveland Browns on Sunday was the best that we’ve seen from them all season. They ended the day with 5 quarterback sacks and 11 quarterback hits. The most impressive part is that all five of KC’s sacks came from players other than Chris Jones. Throughout this season teams have constantly double-teamed Jones and dared KC’s other pass rushers to make them pay for it and the Chiefs couldn’t do it, at least not until Sunday.

George Karlaftis had a great day with 2 sacks and 3 additional quarterback hits. He now leads the Chiefs in sacks and if he continues to play at a high level it will be a huge boost to the defense. Tershawn Wharton and Charles Omenihu both had a sack of their own and then Nick Bolton and Drue Tranquill combined for the final one. The fact that KC got 4 combined sacks from edge players and linebackers is huge, because that is where they’ve seen the biggest drop off from last season.

Speaking of last season, the Chiefs pass rush was fantastic in 2023, ending up second in the NFL with 57 sacks. The Chiefs entered the Browns game on pace for just 35 sacks this season. That’s not just a slight dip in production, that is the definition of a massive drop.

Was this a one game wonder or a sign that the Chiefs pass rush is coming around?

It might be easy to write this one game off as a fluke for KC’s pass rush. After all, Jameis Winston has now been sacked 23 times in his 7 starts this season. That’s an average of 3.3 sacks per game. However, there is reason to believe that KC’s pass rush is on an upward trajectory. This was the third game back from injury for Charles Omenihu. Yes, Omenihu has already logged two sacks of his own in his three games, but his addition has boosted the entire defensive front.

In the first 11 games without Omenihu the Chiefs only averaged 1.9 sacks per game and were on pace for a season total of just 32.5 sacks. However, in the 3 games since his return they have averaged 3.7 sacks per game. That’s almost double the sack production and if they were to average that amount over a full season it would total 62 sacks. That’s right around the 57 they put up last season.

So basically, without Omenihu, Kansas City had a bottom-five pass rush in terms of sack production in all of the NFL. With Omenihu back through three games they are back to their elite production from last season. It’s too small of a sample size to declare that the pass rush is officially fixed, but it’s certainly a promising trend.

Tershawn Wharton is another player that deserves a shoutout. He now has 3 sacks and 4 quarterback hits over the past two games. The combination of Chris Jones continuing to draw double teams and teams now worrying about Karlafis and Omenihu on the outside has boosted his production as well. He is now up to 5.5 sacks on the season, which is 0.5 more than Chris Jones and the second most on the team.

With Patrick Mahomes nursing an ankle injury, the Chiefs will need their pass rush to show up again next week. Whether Mahomes is playing with limited mobility or the Chiefs decide to start Carson Wentz, they’re going to need a strong defensive performance to take the pressure off of the offense. The good news is that C.J. Stroud is the second-most sacked quarterback in the NFL this season, having been sacked 45 times in 14 games (3.2 times per game).

If the pass rush we saw against the Browns on Sunday (and to an extent since the return of Charles Omenihu) isn’t a fluke it could be a long day for Stroud and the Houston Texans. Furthermore, if the Chiefs pass rush can show up in the playoffs and Patrick Mahomes, Marquise “Hollywood” Brown, and D.J. Humphries all get healthy this Chiefs team may just have what it takes to make another Super Bowl run and all the criticism they’re getting now (including from yours truly) will be a distant memory.