In this three-part series, Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar takes a deep dive into how NFL defenses have lost the figurative arms race – and what defensive coaches can do to recover. Part 1 revealed the liabilities inherent in current NFL defensive philosophies. Part 2 took a closer look at the coverage that could bring balance back to NFL defenses. In the conclusion, we discuss the death of defensive innovation and how match coverage might just reverse that defeatist mentality.

Building (and defeating) the perfect beast

As Rob Maaddi of the Associated Press pointed out on Thursday, the NFL is on an all-time scoring binge. Through the halfway point of the season, offenses are on pace to set single-season league records for points, touchdowns and touchdown passes. Already (and this was before Thursday night’s Steelers-Panthers game), teams have scored 6,440 points, 736 touchdowns and 473 passing touchdowns. As Andrew Siciliano of NFL Network noted last Sunday, the Rams-Saints game Sunday night was the first matchup in NFL history in which two teams came in averaging at least 33 points per game in the second half of the season. Both teams came out of that game with an even higher average when the Saints beat the Rams 45-35.

Overall, NFL teams are on pace to score 24 points per game, up from 21.7 last season, and there isn’t any end in sight. In the first two parts of the “Match Game” series, I analyzed several reasons for this upswing. The two primary reasons are simple to deduce: Offensive play designers are more creative than ever, and defensive play designers, primarily from an older school, are sucking wind trying to keep up.

The Chiefs have scored 36.3 points per game in their first nine games of the season. The 2013 Broncos, the most prolific point-scorers over a single season, scored 37.9 points per game on their way to 606 total points. Kansas City, New Orleans (34.9), and the Rams (33.2) are all within shooting distance of that record.

To put that in perspective, the team with the single-season scoring record before the 2013 Broncos was the 2007 Patriots, who amassed 36.8 points per game. It took several years for a similarly explosive offense to rear its head. Now, that explosiveness is the relative norm.

The Chiefs have the NFL’s most explosive offense for a number of reasons. With Alex Smith at quarterback last season, Andy Reid’s team scored 25.9 points per game, which ranked sixth in the NFL. But Reid and offensive coordinator Matt Nagy (now the Bears’ head coach) had prepared a number of spread-style formations that would not have been out of place in any Big 12 offense, and they tested defenses through most of the season. When Kansas City traded Smith to the Redskins in January and put the offense in the hands of second-year quarterback Patrick Mahomes, they had their perfect force multiplier. Now, there is no letup — no midseason slump as the Chiefs had last season. Mahomes is so mobile, with such a great arm and sense of the field, he’s able to work perfectly within Reid’s structure and add all kinds of issues for defenses when a play breaks down and he’s able to improvise as his receivers break off their prescribed routes.

Still, in the first half of the Chiefs’ 27-23 win over the Broncos in Week 4, Denver had an answer for most of what Mahomes threw at them, literally and figuratively. Defensive coordinator Joe Woods and his staff did a brilliant job of countering Mahomes and Kansas City’s offense with different iterations of match coverage. In the first half of that game, Mahomes completed just seven of 15 passes for 65 yards, and the Broncos had a 13-10 lead. In the second half Mahomes went off, Denver ran out of gas (literally — cornerback Chris Harris got so tired chasing Mahomes around he had to get an IV in the second half), and the Chiefs prevailed 27-23.

But they had a blueprint that worked against the Chiefs when most defenses didn’t seem to have a clue.

As we’ve detailed, match coverage requires defenders to play zone coverage until a receiver defines his route, at which point the defender switches to aggressive man coverage. There are several different versions of this concept, but this two-play series in the first quarter of that game shows just how effective zone-to-man concepts, and choreographed aggressive coverages, can be against any offense.

With 4:33 left in the first quarter, the Chiefs go five-wide on first-and-10 from the Denver 41-yard line. The Broncos look like they’re playing passive off coverage, but they’re actually matching across the field. Mahomes tries to get the ball to tight end Travis Kelce (No. 87), but linebacker Brandon Marshall (No. 54) trails the stem of Kelce’s quick out route and is able to shut it down.

On the next play, the Broncos react to Kansas City’s five-wide with a Cover-0 blitz. Cover-0 puts every defender in or near the box — there is no deep coverage, and this is the height of confidence in your defensive scheme against an offense like this. Safety Justin Simmons (No. 31) looks like he could roll deep, but he’s coming down to take Kelce over the middle. With his targets constricted by Denver’s aggressive coverage, and linebacker Todd Davis (No. 51) in his face sooner than Mahomes would like, the quarterback has no choice but to throw the ball away deep.

“This team is in two-tight ends, they’re in two-backs, they’re in three-wides, they’re in no-backs, they’re in four-wides with one back — that’s challenging to obviously match every group they have,” Denver head coach Vance Joseph said of Kansas City on Oct. 22, six days before the rematch, which Denver lost 30-23. “As far as the players, everything’s vertical and it’s deep-over. For the corners, it’s a marathon of a game. They have to be mentally ready to be challenged vertically every play. If you’re not, they can score 50 points on you.”

Well, Denver had a plan to avoid that, though they could not beat Mahomes and that offense. Still, Joseph said a few days later that he had a pure belief in his team’s defensive strategy.

“You don’t manage corners; they’ve got to run just like receivers. We have to match their speed, we have to match the vertical threats and we have to play.”

There’s a lot of wisdom in there. While other teams playing the Chiefs either back off to the point of impossibility just to avoid the big play, or go after Mahomes’ terrifying targets with aggressive coverage and no plan behind it, the Broncos had the answers: Match to their speed guys. Rotate safeties late. Give Mahomes the same pre-snap looks, but switch into different coverages after the snap to muddy his looks. Play against the offense with an offensive mindset. And most of all, stay disciplined when the Chiefs go into motion in seemingly every possible way.

These are the tenets of modern match coverage, and these are the philosophies that, if adhered to more frequently, could bring defense back into professional football.