The Kansas City Chiefs are expected to be without star DT Chris Jones in Week 1as he continues to hold out in hopes of securing a long-term contract extension. 

Jones is the lynchpin of the Chiefs' defense, but the team will have to carry on without him for the time being. They've gone for stretches without him on the field due to injury during the course of his career, and the team has managed. The defensive strategy will certainly change without having him on the field. 

Here's a quick look at some of the things that the coaching staff can do to adjust while Jones remains away from the team.

Play to the strengths of the guys who are there

The Chiefs have made it very clear — they're treating Jones' absence as if it were an injury absence. That means they're going to rely on the "next man up." That doesn't necessarily mean that Tershawn Wharton or Neil Farrell Jr. or anyone else will be expected to be a 1-to-1 replacement for Jones. Andy Reid indicated that part of the plan moving forward will be to play to the strengths of the players the team has on the roster.

“Yeah, so I would tell you, you move on," Reid said. "I mean as a coach, when a player is not here, then the next guy is up and rolling. Chris (Jones) is a great player, but we’ve got other good players. They’ll have to step their game up to fill the role of defensive tackle, defensive end and so on. Everybody just has to play their best and then you work through it. But to think that you’re going to fill in for Chris, that’s not what you’re doing. You’re just – the next man comes up and you try to utilize his strengths and let him get in there and play. We’ve had success doing that and so we’ll do it again. I know the guys are excited to get in and play.”

If you look at the team's depth chart, the Chiefs have a lot more depth in terms of run-stopping defensive tackles. It makes sense that the team would roll out a heavier interior package on first down and second down. This will allow Steve Spagnuolo to get a little creative with his packages on third down, whether he wants to run a stunt, blitz package, or trot out a NASCAR package. 

Utilize the Blitz game

Everyone knows that Steve Spagnuolo loves his blitz packages. He's expected to rely on those with a greater level of frequency without Jones on the field. We know that he's got quite a few players at his disposal, with LB Drue Tranquill, DB Chamarri Conner, and CB L'Jarius Sneed excelling in those roles.

Asked about how he prepares players who haven't really played a lot of snaps together to have success on blitzes, Spagnuolo said he's just as curious as the rest to see who all excels.

“Interesting question," Spagnuolo said. "I’m as curious as you guys to see what we have and what we can do with the players we have. We’ve talked about this before in this room that sometimes it takes a quarter of the season to figure out how it’s going to piece together, what you have. We think we have things in to take advantage of what our guys do, but we’ll see. We didn’t get a lot of snaps in the preseason, and we certainly obviously didn’t do a lot of things preseason-wise. We’re going off of practice and hopefully, we’ve prepared well and can get some of those things going.”

It usually takes a few games for the defensive coordinator to really understand the strengths and weaknesses of his unit. Having to address such a big absence this early in the season could help him discover those sooner than later.

Play as a unit and lean on your leaders

As we've mentioned, no one player is going to replace the impact that Jones has on the defensive side of the ball. However, you got a chance to see how the team rallied around each other during the preseason to have better performances against the Arizona Cardinals and Cleveland Browns. 

"Rotation is the great word," Chiefs DC Steve Spagnuolo said. "Because we'll use them all. We'll have guys in there that we'll mix and match. Listen, this group that we have — and I'm not just talking about the defensive linemen — they're a great group to work with. These guys work and they're into it. We've got a bunch of guys that are cerebral — Nick (Bolton), Drue (Tranquill), the guys on the back end. Hopefully, we can play really good as a unit. Our best players will play really good, and our other guys will play really solid." 

According to Spags, it's going to take everyone working as a unit if they're to come out on top against the Lions. 

"This is what we really, firmly believe," Spagnuolo said. "If we play as a unit, I mean 60-65-70 plays as a unit, not guys trying to do their own things, but guys doing what they're capable of doing, we can be a good defense. We all believe that. There are a couple of exceptional players in there for us."

They'll rely on those exceptional players, those leaders, to lift everyone else up against a challenging Lions offense.

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