Kansas City Chiefs Scoring By Field Position - Week 11

There are many factors that go into why teams score points in the NFL.  One of those factors is the starting field position on each drive.  The further away a team is from the end zone the less likely they are to keep a drive going long enough to score.

Over the past couple of months I have been asserting that the Chiefs needed to increase the number of 15 yard plays (or more) in each possession when starting deep in their own territory.  That means getting the backs in a position to break longer runs and giving Matt Cassel the opportunity to throw a few more intermediate routes.

Up to the Arizona game the Chiefs had not scored a touchdown without having a 15 yard play in the drive when staring from zone 4 or zone 5.   The Cardinal game was no exception.

The bright side is that the Chiefs are now recording more 15 yard plays then they had at the beginning of the year.  This would appear to be largely due to the success of Cassel-to-Bowe.  This weeks contributors were:

• T. Jones 28 yard run.
• Matt Cassel 27 yard pass to Bowe.
• Cassel 18 yard pass to O'Connell.
• Cardinal Penalty of 15 yards.
• Cassel 25 yard pass to Charles.
• Cassel 15 yard pass to Bowe.
• Cassel 16 yard pass to Bowe.
• J. Charles 39 yard run.

Let's check out the rest of the numbers.

• The NFL averages are only approximates since I have grouped the starting field position into zones.

Scoring by Field Position:  Arizona Cardinal Game Comments:

Hear are some field position stats from the Arizona Game:

• The Chiefs scored a touch down 28% of the time from zone 4.  That is slightly higher than the traditional NFL average (20%)
• Kansas City had a 15 yard play in every scoring drive but one.  That lone drive was the last possession of the game for the Chiefs in which they started from zone 3.
• The Chiefs average drive consisted of 5 plays against the Cards.
  

Scoring by Field Position:  Zone 5 Comments:

• The Kansas City Chiefs are still scoring below the NFL average when starting from zone #5.  The field goal percentage is particularly low.  The Chiefs might have had two field goals when starting from zone #5 but Haley elected to go for it on 4th down twice.
• The Chiefs started from zone #5 twice in the Arizona game.  Once just before half...so that is understandable.  The other was in the 4th quarter when the Chiefs started on their own 10 yard line.  The first two plays were runs to T. Jones that ended in 3 plays and out.
  

Scoring by Field Position:  Zone 4 Comments:

• The most important zone is zone #4 for the simple fact that most of a teams possessions start from zone #4.
• The chiefs are scoring at a rate slightly below the NFL average (20%) from zone #4. (as can be seen by the charts).  However, with the encouraging sign that Matt Cassel may be asked to throw the ball down field a few more times per game...look for the Chiefs to boost those numbers over the next couple of weeks.
  

Scoring by Field Position:  Zone 3 Comments:

• The Chiefs are scoring from zone 3 at an alarming rate;  41% of the time.  Problem is, they don't start from zone 3 that often.  In fact, they have only started from zone #3 twelve times this year.
• A good way to get more starts form zone #3 is to improve the kick off return game.  It would be nice to see the Kansas City Chiefs kick off return team put up a few more returns past the KC 40 yard line.  KC is 25 in the NFL in average yards per return with 20.9
  

Other interesting stats based on field position:

• The Chiefs lost the time of possession battle by holding onto the ball 27.38 to the Cards 32.22.
• Kansas City is 12th in the NFL in Red Zone scoring with a 54.29 scoring percentage.
• The Chiefs are tied for 8th in the number of Red Zone attempts per game with 3.5.
  

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