When the Kansas City Chiefs entered their first preseason match against the San Francisco 49ers on Saturday night, they looked a little understaffed on the defensive. Due to short-term injury issues, key players such as defensive ends Frank Clark, Taco Charlton and Alex Okafor did not fit.

This meant an increased workload for the remaining defensive linemen – and at first glance these players improved and showed depth of quality for defensive line coach Brendan Daly.

Defense run

In general, the line did a solid job of keeping the point of attack on the front of the running game.

Chiefs DL showed promising game identification and strength to the point of attack last night. Here Danna, Wharton, and Reed all flow down the line, holding gaps. Jones also demonstrates the workmanship and athleticism required to close on the back of SF’s stretch runs. pic.twitter.com/xatRNHGvZz

– Bryan Stewart (@BryanStewart_) August 15, 2021

Another high quality demonstration of strength, leverage, and toughness from Saunders, Danna, and Reed. Linebackers fill up well. Only in the back is there not much space to work. pic.twitter.com/VRo6XvCb8e

– Bryan Stewart (@BryanStewart_) August 16, 2021

In his first start as the primary defensive end, Chris Jones showed the quickness and agility to avoid blocks and showed that he won’t just be a great target for offensive tackles and tight ends.

One small but important thing in my opinion: see how quick and agile Jones is to avoid the TE clipping to him on the back. In addition, Danna again with textbook pad level and overall technique on the front of this run. pic.twitter.com/gD5t3IIWfO

– Bryan Stewart (@BryanStewart_) August 16, 2021

Mike Danna, who ended up on the defensive in his sophomore year, was also a steady, constant presence against the run, picking up where he left off last year.

But it wasn’t all perfect. Although exhibiting several exciting traits at other moments in the game, player identification and decision-making occasionally won the best of some of the young defenders.

Kaandoh had some rookie moments on Saturday, in addition to some positive flashes to be expected in his first game action. Late to see the reverse action in the first clip, he jumps in a little too quickly in the second, allowing the RB to ricochet off over 10 yards. pic.twitter.com/Gm9iVurCPa

– Bryan Stewart (@BryanStewart_) August 16, 2021

Despite the impressive sophomore defensive tackle that Tershawn Wharton continues to see in one-on-one situations – especially as a pass rusher – asking him to hold out against doubles is still a big job.

Wharton has freaky athletic traits and the strength required to do well in most 1-on-1 situations, but here the lack of size / strength means he’s being washed away by a Guard + Tackle combo block. TE Slice Block gets a solid piece of harris, but Thornhill scrapes over to make a nice tackle. pic.twitter.com/b74FdODDBX

– Bryan Stewart (@BryanStewart_) August 15, 2021

Passport Defense

Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo wasted no time in throwing lightning bolts of five and six at 49ers rookie quarterback Trey Lance. These were largely successful in various ways for the defense line.

Spags throws a six man pressure on Lance and he certainly isn’t getting the ball out as fast as he’d go back and would like to. What is remarkable, however, is the lateral speed that “Bink” Saunders flashes to beat the LG here. pic.twitter.com/l5bBFvsx9S

– Bryan Stewart (@BryanStewart_) August 15, 2021

#Chiefs send five on this 3rd-and-8, and while the pressure is limited elsewhere, Jones just does what he does and dominates his 1-on-1 match (Sorensen may have had an easy assist; either way it was ) shortly before victory when his hips had free the RG). pic.twitter.com/XApQDTzdbZ

– Bryan Stewart (@BryanStewart_) August 16, 2021

It was great to see Chris Jones pick up right where he left off and quickly win from inside. The team’s new free-agent defensive tackle, Jarran Reed, also showed off some of the reasons he’s now part of the Chiefs roster, and demonstrated high productivity among the offensive guards.

Another 3rd-and-14 game, and Jarran Reed is very close to beating Garoppolo after battling his way through the repetition with good hands and mental strength. Danna and Harris lose on the edge even though they were both chipped before attacking the OT. pic.twitter.com/O0S5yaiFAz

– Bryan Stewart (@BryanStewart_) August 16, 2021

One area where the 49ers offense succeeded was in play-action-pass concepts. Given San Francisco’s propensity to rely on these games for explosive profits, this came as no surprise.

SF is notoriously good at game action concepts, and the Chiefs DL plays a disciplined, task-oriented style. On moves in which the DL does not get a lot of penetration and there are gaps in cover at the rear end, you have to forego some explosive moves. pic.twitter.com/pGeUTznGdH

– Bryan Stewart (@BryanStewart_) August 15, 2021

As the game progressed, the defensive linemen began to see more of what the offense was doing – resulting in intelligent, strenuous games like this one from Danna and Wharton.

Could be something or nothing, but Danna’s speed at changing direction seems to me to be improved on this piece. Starts the game with a great game ID, maintains good leverage. Plus, Wharton’s chase is second to none (!!) pic.twitter.com/4iV1MyGsgw

– Bryan Stewart (@BryanStewart_) August 15, 2021

In obvious passing situations throughout the game, the defense did a really solid job of putting pressure on quickly with at least one player. This is what you want – and expect – from a good, tenacious defensive front.

3rd and 14th The front four all poke their ears back, so you want them to win quick and get at least one body to QB quickly. Wharton, Kaindoh and Harris do just that, while Danna forms the double team (lined up above the LG). pic.twitter.com/wQcPEXxDGJ

– Bryan Stewart (@BryanStewart_) August 15, 2021

Defensive end Tim Ward – who was entering his third Chiefs season after developing on injured reserves and the training team over the past two years – shone with his passing noise. If he keeps making preseason appearances like on Saturday night, he’ll be a tough player to let out of the 53-man roster.

#Chiefs DE Tim Ward adjusted the snap a couple of times last night from a 3 point stance that would have been difficult with any offensive tackle. Also impacted the QB in both games. The last clip shows an enormous amount of effort, which apparently played a role in the fiddling. pic.twitter.com/7CbgafYXVG

– Bryan Stewart (@BryanStewart_) August 16, 2021

looking ahead

Deep players in the Chiefs’ defensive line usually continue to shine when opportunities arise. Daly deserves credit for developing many young talented players who constantly put tremendous efforts.

When the defensive ends, Clark, Charlton and Okafor can all come back – which helps increase the edge rush and general discipline of the group – there are many advantages among these players. Defensive tackles Derrick Nnadi combined with Reed to form an enormous number of run stuffers inside. Meanwhile, Jones is on a path that could make him a candidate for Defensive Player of the Year.

At full strength, the Chiefs’ current line of defense is bigger, stronger, smarter – and perhaps deeper – than it has been in some time. Both now and in the future, wear and tear will be your greatest opponent.

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The climb up Castro Hill to 3650 21st St., the place most people know as the “Tom and Jerry House,” is a sharp climb that leaves a person breathless and almost turns the city sideways.

“It’s not that easy,” said Barbie Seegmiller. She stood in front of the house and looked up at the great Norfolk Island pine tree, all forty-two – or, according to some reports – sixty feet away. (She also fought against gravity, the trunk of which was held in place with metal bars.) “But when you get to the top, it’s absolutely worth it.”

A hydraulic elevator was running which made it difficult to hear much of anything. Workers used it to maneuver around the tree, light lights, then adjust them and adjust them again. They spent three weeks on a month-long project to cover the tree and the house behind it with an immense number of lights and tchotchkes – an elaborate holiday tableau that reappears every winter.

Seegmiller has been passing the house every year for about a decade, she said. So tens of thousands of others have. The Chronicle first wrote about the display on December 22, 1997, and Tom Taylor, the man who made it up, in a short story hidden deep in the A section. At that point, Taylor and husband Jerome “Jerry” Goldstein had been with it for nine or ten years. Taylor told The Chronicle that 30,000 to 40,000 people would pass by Tom and Jerry House before it all collapsed on Jan. 1. 23 years later, the tradition has not let up.

But this year is different. This year is the first without Taylor; He died of prostate cancer on October 20th.

News of his death spread widely and reached Seegmiller. She was hoping to bring her 3-year-old daughter Sia to the house – she’s the age she’d love the lights – but first Seegmiller wanted to make sure it wouldn’t get dark this year.

Yet the ad was incomplete but came together. Seegmiller smiled. The climb had not been in vain.

“Traditions live on even after they’re over,” she said. Then she continued up the hill.

Alvin Animo and Bona Pak use an elevator to hang lights over the 40-foot Christmas tree while Hunter Padilla works on another display at Tom and Jerry’s home in San Francisco.

Nick Otto / Special on The Chronicle

Last week, during the final stage of the decoration, Benji Fujita wrung the lights on a wreath about his size. Eighteen years ago he was working as a gardener on the street when a friend asked if he wanted to make a Christmas tree. “I thought it was an in-house decoration gig,” he said. “It wasn’t. It was …” he waves his hands, “… a boom lift and like a huge building presence and all that stuff.”

“All that stuff” was a garage full of tangled Christmas lights and boxes with labels like “SMALL TRAINS” and “DANCING DOLLS”. In the driveway, two elven feet protruded from a pile of wreaths, and next to them lay two dusty, sun-bleached stockings about three feet high. One read “Tom” and the other “Jerry”, both in glittering silver letters.

These are not fancy decorations and there is no issue. The house is apologetically messy and sticky, like an ugly sweater you could wear to a Christmas party. That’s part of the charm. “It’s as San Francisco as possible,” said Fujita. “It’s bold, it’s a statement … we’re flashy, but we’re not trying to be flashy” like some upscale displays.

Fujita was the longest of the eight-person crew that year. But Taylor and the house had a habit of drawing people in for the long term. Jon Orc, the project manager, started in 2012. Hunter Padilla started when he was 8 years old. He lives across the street, and one rainy night he went over and asked the man in the Santa suit outside if he wanted help handing out candy canes. He’s been back every year since; he is now 21

They all sensed Taylor’s absence. “He felt like a father or our uncle. If you do it without him, it feels a little empty, ”Orc said. “But at the same time we have each other and he has left us the knowledge and skills to build something like this without him.”

In 1997, Tom Taylor (hunched over in white) was busy building the Christmas display at his Castro home, and the Norfolk Island pine tree was much shorter.

Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle 1997

The tradition began with the tree.

In perhaps the most detailed story of the Tom and Jerry House published by the San Francisco Bay Times last year, Donna Sachet writes that Taylor bought the living tree from a Cost Plus sometime around 1970. He was 3 feet tall.

According to a Chronicle article, Taylor and Goldstein had moved into their white Victorian house high up on Castro Hill together in 1973 and the conifer had grown out of its pot so they planted it right outside the door.

The display started out small, a series of lights and later ornaments made from paper plates. But as the tree grew – Taylor and Goldstein liked to say the roots found a sewer – so did the decorations. “It got to a point where I either couldn’t do it or had to get serious with a scaffolding or a hydraulic lift,” Taylor told The Chronicle in 2003. Taylor grew serious.

The story of the Tom and Jerry House is one of the stories best told broadly. In the past 30 years, many of the exact details have been lost. Did the tradition start in 1987 or 1988? Even Taylor couldn’t be sure. There’s no count of the number of lights, no real explanation for the purple teletubby in the middle of a spinning Ferris wheel made from K’Nex toys. For a year the hydraulic lift slid down the hill and either knocked down a neighbor’s chimney or crashed through the roof. How tall is the tree Various reports have placed it north of 60 feet, but if you ask Fujita – again he’s worked on the display for the past 18 years – he keeps it closer to 40 feet. (A year, he says, when they grew it, high winds tore the top off and left it on the roof.)

But the details are less important than the fact of the matter, which at its core was always intended as a gift to the city. Now, after Taylor’s death, friends say, it continues as evidence of his and Goldstein’s generosity and warmth. Both are well known in the San Francisco gay community and were both awarded a Pride Service Award five years ago.

In this 2003 photo from The Chronicle archives, Tom Taylor puts ornaments on his tree next to his home on 21st Street.

JOHN STOREY / The Chronicle, 2003

“You were the consummate hosts,” said Gary Virginia, a friend of the two and former president of the San Francisco Pride board of directors. “Everyone was welcome.”

He remembers in-house parties – for the San Francisco Bay Times and the Lesbian / Gay Freedom Band and the Gay Men’s Chorus – where there was always an open bar and tables full of catering and hardly any of them at home. Limits for the guests. They would open up their warehouse for fundraisers when the organizers had nowhere else to go. Taylor, he said, was “as reliable as a steel condom”. He was the “keeper” of the Rainbow Pride flag on the corner of Market Street and Castro Street, and during Pride he would always show up with bunting and flags, telling stories from his life while teaching volunteers how to get the flags just right treated.

“Your eyes would just shine like saucers,” said Virginia.

Even back two Prides, just weeks after surgery, Virginia said, “Damn it, if Tom didn’t just show up with volunteers.” He brought an original hand-dyed rainbow flag from Gilbert Baker (the originator of the flag) to hang backstage for the virtual event.

Don’t let him climb the ladder, Goldstein had told them. Taylor did it anyway.

“Small or large, they were definitely committed,” said former MP Tom Ammiano, who knew the couple socially. When Baker died, they rented the Castro Theater as a memorial to their friend. When they legally married in 2013, the party took to the streets in front of their house. “They were totally involved and I think they saw a way to be productive. They had the will and the means to do it, and God loves them for it. “

The two, Tom Taylor and Jerry Goldstein, were like “putting gas and fire together,” Virginia said.

There was a moment before Taylor died when the question of whether to decorate was in the air, Orc said. Taylor was battling prostate cancer, “and we just wanted to be there for him.”

Meanwhile, Taylor devised a schedule for putting the tree up and talking about new things to add this year. After it was over, there was no question that the lights would come on.

Take care, folks, Goldstein said to Orc and the crew.

“He told me he wanted to see the most spectacular Christmas tree ever.”

Ryan Kost is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: rkost@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @RyanKost

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