A Closer Look: Diving Into The Details Of Chiefs Offense Vs Seahawks

This is the first article in what will be a season-long series here on Arrowhead Pride. For those who don't know how this started I will briefly explain. Like many of you I'm constantly wanting more information, I want to know what's going on out on the field and how we got there. Rather than try and analyze box scores and basic stats I decided to take it a step farther, well, WAY farther and devise a system of tracking the Chiefs offense. That information will manifest itself to this weekly post.

I had originally planned on just tracking the passing game but there were just too many variables that would come into play by leaving alone more than half our offensive plays (hopefully). I'm only doing this for this third preseason game because I wanted to track the starters, but even while watching this game it became apparent that this information wouldn't necessarily translate over to the regular season because this was NOT what our regular season offense will look like.

Some of the things that I'm charting are the personnel groupings, players, formations, pre-snap formation changes, down and distance, whether they were in shotgun or it was a play-action, whether there was motion, the direction of the pass/run and even how far the passes traveled in the air (this will take OUT the run-after-catch). Follow me after the jump for some of the info from this past game.

I charted the first 6 drives for the Kansas City Chiefs offense and they ran 43 plays in that time.

Personnel Groupings

The Chiefs went with 11 personnel in 30/43 plays during this time. That's 1 running back and 1 tight-end. They went with 21 personnel (2 RB's, 1 TE) in 6/43 plays, 20 personnel (2 RB's, 0 TE's) on one play and then finally 12 personnel (1 RB, 2 TE's) in 6/43 plays.

Shotgun

The Chiefs ran shotgun on 20/43 plays in the first 6 series.

Play-action

The Chiefs ran 5 play-action passes in these first 6 drives. They completed 3 of these passes for 38 yards, one of the incompletions was Tony Moeaki's drop across the middle (high throw, still should be caught). The other play was Cassel's fumble but we'll talk more about that play later.

Down and Distances

The Chiefs ran 18 plays on 1st down, 15 plays on 2nd down and 10 plays on 3rd down. They gained a total of 40 yards on these 18 1st down plays, 81 yards on the 15 2nd down plays, and finally 15 yards on the 10 3rd down plays. Although two sacks for (-14) yards skewed the numbers a bit on the 3rd down plays.

They attempted 13 passes on 1st down with one ending in a pass interference call, and one with a fumble. Cassel completed 4/11 passes on 1st down. Those 11 passes were attempted at a total of 89 yards down the field (in the air). The Chiefs picked up the first down on 6/10 3rd down plays during this time.

Pre-snap formation changes

ZERO - A bit more on this in the analysis.

Players

Running backs - Jamaal Charles was in on 28/43 plays, Peyton Hillis was in on 5/43 plays and Shaun Draughn 10/43. Dexter McCluster was in on 31/43 plays, Jon Baldwin 36/43, Steve Breaston 39/43 plays and Dwayne Bowe with 8/43 plays. Kevin Boss was in on 19 of the 43 plays and Tony Moeaki on 27/43 plays. BUT Boss and Moeaki were on the field together for just 6 plays, and all 6 were in the first 17 plays of the game, nothing after that.

Analysis

This was not the Chiefs regular season offense. Obviously with Jamaal Charles (6) and Peyton Hillis (2) combining for just 8 carries, there's no need to fret on the Chiefs offensive struggles, at least not yet. Many people are down on the Chiefs and while their offense might not end up being what we expected, we don't know yet at all because we haven't seen their actual offense yet.

Much was made during training camp about the Chiefs and new offensive coordinator Brian Daboll working on pre-snap formation changes. It's something we saw on the very first play of the preseason when Peyton Hillis (who was lined up at fullback) motioned out to WR. The pass went to Dexter McCluster on the other side but the formation change was there. The talk was about creating mismatches for what the defense is showing by using these formation changes. The Chiefs did motion 8 times in the Seahawks game, but 6 of these were the WR simply going from out-wide to the slot before the snap. No major shifts to create mismatches.

One of the other hot topics in training camp and something that was discussed by the Chiefs themselves was the '12' personnel grouping and how it's a hard thing to defend. Using both Tony Moeaki and Kevin Boss on the field at the same time. For something that could be said to be our future 'bread and butter' personnel grouping, it was used 13% of the time (6/43). That's not showing much.

I also noticed something interesting about that Cassel fumble play in the 3rd quarter. Dwayne Bowe, Peyton Hillis and Jamaal Charles were all in on that play together. It's interesting because it had been 26 plays since Bowe had been on the field, 29 plays for Hillis and 6 plays for Jamaal Charles. Then all of the sudden they're out there together on the field?

Seattle knew something was up. They faked an end-around to Bowe and tried to hit Hillis on a wheel-route. The play wasn't going to work in the first place but it made me think they just simply wanted to run the play. That's it. It wasn't because they were trying to exploit some weakness or anything like that. They were just running plays and wanted to get that one out there.

I can't promise the Chiefs are going to have a good offense but I don't think you'll see 55% (24/43) of our plays out of the shotgun in the regular season. Cassel won't throw it (34) 4X's as much as Charles and Hillis run the ball (8), and you'll see a lot more than 13% of our plays with Moeaki and Boss on the field together.

That's just some of the info that was tabulated. I could write 6k words on all the information that I have but hopefully you guys get something out of these posts each week. I know that completion % to RB's, TE's and WR's will be a part of the regular series as well as stats on each down. Lots of info in there.

If there's a stat along these lines that you want to know each week then throw it in the comments, if you read one and want to see it too, then rec the comment. That way I know what people want to know. There also may be a YouTube video each week breaking down a 'stat of the week' or something along those lines too. We shall see.

Hope you guys like it.