KC Chiefs Vs. Rams: Analyzing St. Louis' Football Tendencies

The Kansas City Chiefs (8-5) play their cross state rivals this weekend when they visit Saint Louis.  KC is currently holding a 1 game lead in the AFC West and the Rams (6-7) are battling Seattle for the NFC West crown.

The Ram's rookie quarterback is having a good freshman year with a 60% completion rate thus far and throwing for 17 touchdowns.  Due to Sam Bradford's success the Chiefs can expect Saint Louis to try and take advantage of KC through the air. 

The Kansas City defensive secondary has been attacked 40 times to the deep right (Flowers side) which is 3rd most in the NFL and 32 times to the deep middle which is 2nd in the NFL in attempts.  The bright spot for KC in all of this is that the secondary is only allowing completion percentages of 37% to the deep middle (5th best in NFL) and 32% to the deep right (12th best in NFL).

Every team in the NFL has strengths and weaknesses, tendencies, and go-to guys.  They have plays they like to call during tight situations or directions they like to run when in the middle of the football field.

Let's check out those tendencies.

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Rams Rushing Offense

Rams Rushing Notes:

• From the graph above we can see that like many teams the Rams have a tendancy to attack the heart of a defense by running the ball directly at the center.  Saint Louis ranks 8th in the NFL in number of rushing attempts toward the center with 124.
• The rest of the running stats appear average when considering number of attempts except their tendency to run toward their right tackle.  The Rams have rushed 55 times toward the right tackle and rank 8th in number of attempts.
• Look for the Rams to use the run to set up the passing game.
  

Ram's Rushing Yards Per Team vs Defensive Rushing Rank 

• The Rams have only faced one defense ranked in the top 10 against the run this year.
• The Rams have rushed for an average of 107.8 yards per game.  The NFL league average is 114.2.

Rams Passing Offense

Rams Passing Notes:

• The Rams love to pass.  And why not, Sam Bradford has turned out to be a pretty good rookie sensation and will end up a top flight passer in the NFL when it is all said and done.
• Saint Louis is ranked 6th when throwing the ball short left and 2nd in the NFL in number of attempts when throwing the ball short right.  That tells Chief fans that the Rams like to use the short passing attack as a supplement running game.
• The knock on Bradford when he came out was whether he could throw the long ball.  Looking at the chart above we can see that Sam and the Rams don't like to throw the ball long all that much...he is ranked at the bottom of the league in number of attempts long.  But one stat that the chart does not show is that Bradford has a completion percentage of 50% when throwing the ball deep left (2nd in NFL).  So even though he doesn't throw it deep a lot...when he does he is usually successful.

Other Interesting Stats:

Stats Observations:

• The one significant stat here is that the Rams have a red zone percentage of 36%.  Considering the fact that the NFL average is 54%...that is not very good.  Saint Louis has problems when in the red zone so much that they are ranked 31st in the NFL.  Due to this fact fans might expect the Rams to be able to move the ball when in the middle of the field but when it comes to scoring in the red zone we can expect the Chiefs to bend but not break. 
• The NFL average for goal-to-go is 69%.

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