Tuesday Stat Day: Drive Charts and More
by Chris Thorman on Sep 16, 2008 7:34 AM CDT
in 2008 Kansas City Chiefs Campaign
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Offensive Stats to Ponder
Number of drives: 11 (Last game: 10)
Average starting field position: 24 yard line (Last game: 31 yard line)
Average number of plays per drive: 5.6 (Last game: 6.2)
Average net yards gained per drive: 17.2 (Last game: 28.4)
Average drive time: 2:30 (Last game: 3:03 minutes)
Longest drive: 80 yards (Last game: 73 yards)
Time of possession: 27:29 (Last game: 30:11)
Box score is here. Gamebook is here (PDF opens).
Look familiar?
Let's see...third down efficiency was 26%...four total plays in the red zone...offensive line gave up five sacks...the team gained 55 yards rushing against 2007's second worst run defense...
From a stat perspective, last week's game was a total regression to a version of last year's team. The narrative of the star-crossed offense and the good but tragically flawed defense was played out last year.
Wasn't it?
Apparently not. And because of that, I'm repeating the mantra...we're rebuilding...we're rebuilding. Jon at MVN is right and I agree with him in principle but that principle doesn't mean my skepticism hasn't risen quite a bit in the last 24 hours. Sunday's mistakes pointed directly at the coaching staff IMO and it's the same old issues showing up again.
Okay, enough of that rant. On to the stats.
Dwayne Bowe and Devard Daring were the only two Chiefs receivers to make a catch against the Raiders and Bowe made six of those two's combined seven catches. In the confusion surrounding the rest of the team, we seem to have forgotten that the Chiefs really have zero depth at wide receiver. I applaud Bowe for coming back and performing quite brilliantly down the stretch of Sunday's game but he can't be the only legitimate wide receiver on this team. That act will be easy to figure out quite quickly for opposing defenses. I consider this a major area of concern but this team is in triage here, so we'll set this problem aside for now.
You can see the preference for Bowe's right side in the chart below, not that throwing the ball his way is a bad idea or anything. We don't have the talent credibility to warrant taking a defender away from Bowe.
I did a quick look at some other team's deep ball stats and ours aren't horribly out of whack. Most teams haven't tested the deep threat it appears.
Here's an interesting stat to point out - the Chiefs didn't even attempt to run the ball on their one scoring drive. The only score by the Chiefs, a TD in the 4th quarter, came after two Raider penalties and nine pass attempts by Tyler Thigpen. Here's how that drive broke down:
Pass deep right to Bowe (30 yards)
Pass short right to Smith (6 yards)
Pass short right to Bowe (15 yards)
Pass short right to Smith (no gain)
Pass incomplete short right to Smith
Defensive offsides (5 yards)
Pass short middle to Darling (10 yards)
Defensive pass interference (7 yards)
Pass incomplete short middle to Gonzalez
Pass short right to Gonzalez (5 yards)
Pass short left to Gonzalez for the TD (2 yards)
I'm not surprised by the fact that we passed to score, considering 17 of our 24 touchdowns last year came via the pass. It's already looking like that will be the case again this year, as the Chiefs are forced to play catch up each game and move the ball quickly with the pass. If I were Larry Johnson, I wouldn't be expecting anything close to a big season. So, why did I draft him in my fantasy league? Arghh!
Anyone remember what week of the 2007 season the Chiefs scored their first rushing touchdown? Anyone? Week 6, against the Bengals.
We should brace ourselves after looking over these eerily similar stats to last year. LJ is going to get more and more pissed off and rightly so. Time to start researching how much of a cap hit we would take if we traded him.
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Extra comparison
Can you put another column in your Offensive stats to Ponder paragraph?
Monday night football
Blame my wife!
Compare it to the stats of last night's game?
by Chris Thorman on Sep 16, 2008 7:53 AM CDT up reply actions
Oh god
That would be embarrassing to see the comparison.
by Joel Thorman on Sep 16, 2008 8:06 AM CDT up reply actions
The thing of it is,
we can’t run the ball on first down every series. If the run is getting stuffed, you have to play the pass to set up the run, to set up play action when the running game breaks loose. Herm does not understand this simple principal of offense. As long as we keep hammering LJ into the line when there is nothing there we are not going to have an effective offense.
Its all a set up
for the last game of the season when we will play action on every first down!! We will have them fooled!!
That would mean
we somehow made the playoffs with a 1-5 record, right? =)
by PVChiefsfan on Sep 16, 2008 10:57 AM CDT up reply actions
Pass to set up the run
I can not find the article currently but recently I read a very informative article on pass to run ratio. The OLD idea was to run to setup the pass, or another version is that the team that runs the most in the game wins. But these are actually no longer true in the current NFL.
Today the teams with the winning records PASS to setup the running game. What you have to do is break down the difference in 1st half verses the second half stats. Good teams will have a much higher pass to run ratio in the first half of the game as they build a lead over the other team. Then in the second half of the game AFTER they have the lead they will go run heavy to keep control of the ball and tire out the opposing defense and keep their own defense fresh to keep the lead in the game.
Herm goes off the old and untrue idea that you start this from the beginning of the game. That you have to soften up the D with a power running game at the start. LJ was never a good first half running back, when he was great was when the Chiefs had the lead and he would run over the other team at the end of the game once they were tired from running all over the field trying to cover the wide open offense the Chiefs use to run.
When Steve DeBerg was
the quarterback and Christian Okoye and Barry Word were the running backs, the play action pass was used very effectively in Kansas City. Say what you will about Steve DeBerg, but he was the master of the play action fake. Many times, the cameramen were completely fooled and followed the running back when DeBerg still had the ball. We have some outstanding running backs, but what good does it do to have them run into a brick wall when everyone knows what the play call is going to be? Why not mix it up, set up the run with the pass and vice versa, and then use the play action fake to its best effect? This all comes back to very poor coaching. If the coaching staff from the head coach on down can’t figure this stuff out, they need to be selling insurance or something. Perhaps used cars. Would you buy a used car from Herm?
One of the things DeBerg was noted for
was the size of his hands and the mastery of hiding the ball.
You've inspired
the most recent front page post.
by Chris Thorman on Sep 16, 2008 12:55 PM CDT up reply actions
LJ's Cap Hit
Time to start researching how much of a cap hit we would take if we traded him.
If we trade him mid-season, somewhere between $8-10 million…possibly more since the first three years of his game salary are also guaranteed (I think all prorated guarantees are around $12-14 million right now).
Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.
That would be a huge mistake
LJ is still a high value and potentially effective RB. Trading him won’t fix our problems. I agree with the above posts, that the problem is in the play calling and game management. We have outstanding players, but no player can beat an entire defense when they are keying on you. Tevens 96 and G.L. were spot on. I think the opposing coaches just laugh when they game plan us.
What happended to Franklin? What happened to the play action pass? What happened to the multiple run fakes to buy time for the QB? Snapping the ball to a WR is not what I consider a potential big gain play.
We just have to spread the defense across the field from the start of the game, then go to work with the quality RBs we have while mixing up deep and short passing to maintain the edge of surprise. It can’t be a one or the other attack.
Hey Chris,
that is one of my all time favorite Chiefs plays from scrimmage. I hadn’t seen it for some time but it still is exciting even after all these years. What a hoot!!!
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