Nick Bolton played his best game of the season (and maybe his career) against Miami
The Chiefs LB, who is at times the subject of some debate, was crucial in multiple big moments and deserves significant praise.
I will never have enough time to write about all the Chiefs who played well against the Dolphins on Saturday. Beatdowns in the playoffs tend to do that. There were so many excellent performances (players and coaches alike) that it’s impossible to cover each one in detail.
But I definitely want to highlight players who had an outsized impact on the game, especially those who I’ve been more down on than the public discourse is, or players whose contributions aren’t done justice by the box score.
Good lord, that’s Nick Bolton’s music!
It’s become something of a joke on Only Weird Games that I don’t like Nick Bolton as a player, which of course isn’t the truth (very few things Josh says are, as you all know I’m sure). That said, I’ve been vocal about the fact that Bolton is (in my mind) a good but not great player who has some specific weaknesses in pursuit/space, as well as shedding blocks, that can be exploited at times.
And because I’ve been vocal about those (again, in my mind) limitations, it’s only appropriate that I be vocal when he has a terrific game in a big moment. Which is precisely what the third-year linebacker did on Saturday, right from the very start.
The play above is the first snap from scrimmage, where Bolton does a nice job mirroring the RB’s movement, getting to his gap fast, and giving zero window for the RB to exploit. This snap (along with the one right after, which I wrote about in the very early hours of Sunday morning) helped set a tone for the game that was decidedly in the Chiefs’ favor.
That said, Bolton made multiple impact plays against the Dolphins, both as a run defender and in the pass game, and helped maximize his strengths against a savvy opponent. Let’s look at some of those plays and how Bolton helped shut down what was supposed to be an explosive Miami offense, making play after play in high-leverage moments that had a significant impact on the game.