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The Chiefs are not good on third down, offense or defense

Something I’ve noticed this season is that the Chiefs opponents seem to be running a lot more offensive plays than they do. I’m looking at the snap counts after games and it seems like the Chiefs opposing offense are always on the field more. The Chiefs defensive rankings are low (19th in passing yards, 28th in rushing yards) because they’re on the field a lot.

This got my attention again when I saw the Titans ran 20 more fourth quarter plays than the Chiefs. 20! Gee, I wonder why the Titans won the game in the fourth. This speaks to the conservative nature of the Chiefs second half offense.

Because I was curious I went back and looked at the number of plays the Chiefs have run in each game recently and how many their opponents have run. Check out the recent results:

Titans: +8

Raiders: +20

Falcons: +24

Broncos: -5

Bucs: +24

Panthers: +9

Jaguars: +19

Another point to be made here: third down. On offense, the Chiefs don’t sustain drives. The Chiefs offense is 27th on third down. On defense, they don’t get the opponent off the field. The Chiefs defense is 29th on third down.

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