Beyond the box score; Melvin Ingram continues to be a vital part of the Chiefs' success

The late addition to the Chiefs roster brought physicality and toughness in a game they desperately needed it. Just like he has all season.

If you were the type of person who judged the impact of a defensive football player by looking at a stats sheet, Melvin Ingram didn’t do much for the Chiefs against the Broncos on Saturday afternoon. After all, he only had 4 tackles, 3 of them solo, and 1 of them for a loss. Not much impact there.

Fortunately for you, you’re NOT the type of person who does that, and football is NOT the type of sport where impact can be purely measured by numbers. That’s good for you, and tonight it’s good for the Chiefs.

I’ve written about Melvin Ingram and his affect on the complementary pass rush of Steve Spagnuolo’s defense already this season, but tonight I want to talk about something a little more old-fashioned; Being the meanest, most physical, relentless dude on the field on a night where your team is struggling to bring that sort of energy.

It’s the sort of thing that, in 2022, doesn’t get talked about enough. That’s mostly because before we started learning more and more about analytics and how the game works, we probably talked about stuff like that TOO MUCH. But it’s easy at this point to overlook the un-quantifiable as though that means it is non-existent. But it’s not, and it matters even if we can’t explain why.

And tonight, against a division rival that wanted to spoil the Chiefs’ chances to have the #1 seed heading into the playoffs, Ingram demonstrated the value he brings to the defense by just being who he is, snap in and snap out. And what he happens to be is a guy that, regardless of what else is happening around him, is someone who hits and hits and then hits some more. Then after that he hits people. He’s that dude.

You’ve all seen the play, but let’s re-live the first portion of it before we start talking more about Ingram.

With a little over seven and a half minutes left in the game, the Broncos were leading by one and in scoring position. The Chiefs had looked somewhere between disinterested and disoriented most of the day, and had especially struggled to stop the run with any consistency and play the type of physical football that had come to define the defense over the last several months. Denver was knocking on the door to make it a 2-score game, and things looked bleak.

Enter Melvin Ingram, whose motor just doesn’t stop.