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The Kansas City Chiefs have made a veteran addition to their pass rush. Carlos Dunlap, a 12-year NFL defender, has signed a one-year deal with the team. He can make up to $8 million in 2022. Now as the Chiefs get deeper into their training camp practices, they suddenly have some important experience to go along with a mostly young defensive core.
As we will touch on later, Dunlap presents a prototypical profile for a defender in Steve Spagnuolo's scheme. Meanwhile, the consistency within this player's production has continued steadily near his mid-thirties. That bodes well for a Kansas City pass rush that failed to constantly get home and after the passer last season. While it still may be a question mark heading into the season, Dunlap offers some encouragement at the defensive end position.
How will this signing impact the Chiefs defense? What is the style of play that Kansas City is receiving from Carlos Dunlap? As a result, how does this affect the usage on the team's defensive line? Let's kick it off.
Carlos Dunlap Is A True "Spags Guy"
We have seen over the years that Spagnuolo loves to use pass rushers that can provide length, heavy hands at the point of attack and noticeable pop or power. Look no further than Carlos Dunlap. He not only adds each of these elements to the Chiefs defense. But, Dunlap can pick and choose his poison from snap to snap, given how instinctive and comfortable he is with each move.
He can utilize speed to power moves. He can utilize a crashing, rough style that takes away the lateral angle of the opposing blocker. Moreover, Dunlap can also utilize a slingshot move, a swim move and a rip move to his advantage. One area where he flies under the radar? That would be where Dunlap gets his long arms into throwing lanes. Quarterbacks that fail to recognize this often bury their team's offensive drive into the dirt before it even gets going. Simply put, Carlos Dunlap provides variety in his pass rush plan and can wreck the opposing passing attack in numerous ways.
This Could Give Chiefs Pass Rush More Efficiency
Entering the season with just under 100 career sacks (96), Carlos Dunlap has continued to produce at an efficient clip while with the Cincinnati Bengals and the Seattle Seahawks. He has also remained rather healthy throughout his career. For instance, Dunlap has only missed three games in the last nine seasons played.
From a pass rush standpoint, only two NFL players have recorded at least six sacks or more in each of the last ten seasons. Dunlap is one of those, the other being Cameron Jordan of the New Orleans Saints. His 8.5 sacks last season would have been good enough for second-best on the Chiefs 2021 roster.
Outside of his sacks, the amount of pressures that he has been able to cook up have been rather ghastly. His total pressures to pass rush snap ratio (11.1 percent) would have been the most of any Kansas City defender last season. For example, Frank Clark (10.1 percent) and Melvin Ingram (9.7 percent) hovered right around 10 percent.
Kansas City Could Mix And Match With Defensive Line
A major point to watch following this signing of Carlos Dunlap, will be to see how Spagnuolo uses the defensive line rotation. The experience from Dunlap and Clark alone should be a boost to younger names like George Karlaftis, Joshua Kaindoh and even Mike Danna. It would not be too surprising to see Spagnuolo get creative with different combinations, either. Karlaftis can occasionally reduce inside towards the defensive line's interior. Dunlap appears to work best by using an outside-in technique. Whereas with Clark, he has appeared more comfortable when looping over the top and to the inside of opposing offensive tackles.
We know Kansas City can be dangerous when dialing up extra pressure at the right time. Spagnuolo is simply spectacular when it comes to designing overload or looping blitzes. The Chiefs know they need to be better as a pass rush this season. For Carlos Dunlap, he has a tremendous opportunity in front of him. He can continue to be one of the more effective veteran pass rushers and eclipse 100 career sacks in 2022. Most importantly, he can help aid the Chiefs biggest weakness on defense and help get them off the field sooner.
Be on the lookout for more FPC Chiefs articles in the coming days. For more great sports and NFL content, stay tuned to Full Press Coverage.
– Braden Holecek is the Kansas City Chiefs managing editor for Full Press Coverage. He covers the NFL. Like and follow on //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js and Facebook.
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