How did Patrick Mahomes and the chiefs offensive become so fun to watch?

Mahomes did it again Monday night, during a 27-23 win over the Broncos. He only launched a touchdown, but his exploits led the leaders to a return win. With the win, the Chiefs moved up to 4-0 this season, the only unbeaten AFC team and, with the Rams, one of only two in the NFL.

Granted, the Rams did their best to steal this tag against Minnesota on Thursday night (and conceded, they also play a little defense), but for almost four weeks of the season, Kansas City remains the team's NFL. You shout "DAMN!" In your living room.

The Chiefs' offense is explosive, creative and physically dominant, perhaps bursting with the strongest passer of the league (Patrick Mahomes) and the fastest player in any position (Tyreek catcher Hill).

Add to that a close dynamic end (Travis Kelce), a resurrected veteran (Sammy Watkins) and other potentially explosive players who have not really been asked to do much (defenders Kareem Hunt). and Spencer Ware, receiver Chris Conley), and you have the elements of an offense that a) is on average well done at almost 40 points per game and b) has not necessarily reached its cap. The race was rather mediocre. It's a pretty scary thought if the race can start before the opponents know how to slow down the pass.

Because Mahomes' right arm is the right arm of Mahomes and the Chefs have been very open in their desire to embrace creativity and explore common concepts, they have become a TV not to be missed early in the season . And now, they have the national star, traveling to Denver to finish week 4 of Monday night in football (20:15 (ET), ESPN).

We know that Kansas City is really fun – our eyes tell us. But what are the leaders actually Make at the attack it's so much fun? What distinguishes them among a host of fun NFL offenses in 2018?

We have exceeded the term "spread" in the soil at this stage. He lost almost all his senses.

When the offense was spreading in college football, it basically meant that sometimes you had to sacrifice an extra blocker for an extra receiver, divide the line players a little further and throw more. There was a lot of that, for example, using Joe Tiller's old "basketball" crime with Drew Brees in Purdue in the late 1990s, for example …

Youtube

… but there was still a lot of that.

Youtube

It was a trend as much as "It's our identity all the time", at least until coaches like Mike Leach of Texas Tech start winning football games with a more orthodox approach, that is, all-that-is.

The NFL is more Tiller than Leach at the moment. NFL offenses widened their repertoires of passage little but much remains to be done to reach Texas Tech's 2,000 expansion levels. According to data provided by Sports Info Solutions, the NFL receiver formations include a slot receiver for 26% of passes and round trips (three receivers on the same side) for 25%. Nevertheless, the most common global receptor formation is balanced.

Most common NFL receiver training for three weeks:

1. Balanced (1×1 or 2×2): 24.4% of passes
2. Location on the right: 13,4%
3. Travel to the right: 13.3 percent
4. Location left: 12.4%
5. Remaining trips: 10.7%
6. Spread (3×2 or 2×3): 8.2 percent

Kansas City reverses these numbers. They only use balanced receiver training in 8.5% of cases, but align in right and left positions on 38% of passes. They use the right-hand paths or the left-hand paths for 26.4% of the passes – they add that, and they use the slot or trips about 15 percentage points more than the league average – and they distribute 17% of passes, more than double. the average of the league.

It's nothing crazy, notice. They do not go 2×2 90% of the time or something like that. But when we say that head coach Andy Reid has "adopted diffusion concepts" or uses a similar term, we are only talking about this trend.

One of the ways in which Art Briles could give its own meaning to the university has been prevalent in Houston and Baylor was to find armed quarterbacks who could throw darts. one line to the other, then truly. diffusion the sideline defenses at the sideline. This created an immeasurable stress on the defensive backs in space and also opened up space for running.

Reid has this option if he wants to use it – he has not done it yet – because Mahomes' arm is really spectacular. My favorite Mahomes pitch of the season (to date) was won in the first quarter of Week 1 against the Chargers. It was a very successful option, but the design of the room was not what made me scream "DAMN!" In my living room.

Mahomes is touched right after throwing the ball, so he has no real follow-up.

The ball still teleports for essentially 16 yards in 0.01 seconds, leaving a group of Chargers defenders flat-ended and helpless.

It is the visceral Chiefs offense, but the data confirms the simple fact that Kansas City knows what it has in Mahomes and is not afraid to use it. According to Sports Info Solutions, 27% of Mahomes' passes have traveled at least 15 meters, compared with an average of 20% in the league. And because Mahomes is unfair, these passes have produced a 56% success compared to the 39% average of the league.

One of the biggest (and most obvious) differences between college football and professional football is that the number of players actually decreases because players are bigger, stronger and faster. It's harder to create the same kind of space as in college, and when you do, it can go away pretty quickly. Kansas City solves this problem with a quarter that can create vertical space with its handgun.

This also has a side effect. When a defense is stretched and stressed, she begins to take her collective look away from the concepts that he would be more than ready to stop.

Across the league, 15% of the passes are thrown behind the line of scrimmage, generating 4.7 yards per game and a 36% success rate. Kansas City threw 15 percent of his go behind the line too. They generated 7.4 yards per game with a success rate of 67%.

Variety has also helped here. Ware and Kemp captured two of those passes for 19 yards, but previous defensemen Anthony Sherman and Damien Williams captured three for 27, Kelce captured two for 17, Hill captured four for 37, and De & # 39; Anthony Thomas took the opportunity to have fun. Short touched.

The 21-yard rider was more explosive than this super easy score; This game, however, is more revealing of how Kansas City scores so many points right now.

There are a lot of good mistakes in the NFL right now. (There are a lot of very bad ones, too.)

As we approach Week 4, the Buccaneers and Rams have both accumulated more yards per game than the Chiefs, Saints, Rams, Chargers and The thieves all had higher success rates. The Rams have even generated a higher percentage of goal chances (first in the 40's), and damn it, there are even a few teams lined up in shotgun more than the Chiefs – according to Sports Info Solutions, the Packers did it in 96% of the cases, compared to 81% for the Steelers and 80% for the Chiefs.

Statistically, the only area in which the leaders really distinguished themselves is the one located near the opposing goal line.

NFL SB Nation Data Application

By the time of Week 4, 11 offenses had created at least 18 scoring opportunities. The 10 unnamed teams in Kansas City had made 65 goals, or 6.5 per team. The Chiefs, however, gave only two attempts to poor Harrison Butker, as they were too busy scoring touchdowns.

In total, 74% of scoring opportunities resulted in touchdowns. The Bengals (63%) and the Seahawks (62%) are the only other teams to exceed 60%. Teams such as the Browns (32%) and Lions (28%) had created many opportunities but had very few, and the poor Titans (25%) had neither created nor completed much.

What was the secret weapon here? Extreme variety. Keys in the Kansas City Red Zone:

• Hunt has two scores of one meter

• Hill 1-reception reception (above)
• De'Anthony Thomas 1 yard (his only catch of the year)

• Robinson Demarcus 3 Yards (his only catch of the year)

• Conley receptions of 4 and 15 yards (two of his five catches were scored)

• Hunt receiving 5 yards (his only catch of the year)

• Watkins, receiving 12 yards

• Demetrius Harris 13-yard reception (his only take of the year)

• Kelce 19 yards

Photo of Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

While the passing game has almost entirely revolved around Hill, Watkins and Kelce between the 1920s (apart from a few casual passes behind the line and a block), everyone is involved near the goal line. Defenses have a huge space advantage near their own goal line; it seems like chefs are trying to counter this by using everyone and every inch of space possible. It works.

It is almost impossible to describe how far it is from a weapon. Even without getting into the quality of the kicker, when you convert your scoring chances into touchdowns, your opponent needs about three or four scoring chances to match what you produce in two or three. And when even the best teams only create six or seven fights per game, you can see how fast a match can escape you from such an offense.

True, Kansas City has been so good when running in the red zone, it's probably unsustainable. Even if the Chiefs remain the best in the league to turn the chances into touchdowns, their advantage over the rest of the league will likely diminish a bit.

In addition, at one point, the god of rebounds will turn against them: they have returned the ball only once in three parts. It's massively unsustainable.

Coach staff well paid and very well paid players will probably understand some things, too. They usually do; Just ask the Chiefs – Kansas City 2017 to have averaged 33 points per game in a 5-0 start last fall, but only 30 points higher than twice the rest of the game. year.

Now, thanks to Mahomes' arm, this team has more physical potential than last year. This may allow them to retain more of their benefits. But the defenses will still adapt.

Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY HUI Sports

Having said that, can we get something out of what chefs have experienced so far this year? Is there an alignment or tactic that works better than others? Here are some general statistics on defensive alignment, still from Sports Info Solutions.

How teams choose to defend leaders:

How it works:

Of course, we are dealing with small samples, but these data are the opposite of what you might have hoped for. It was not Mike Leach's offensive of the early 2000s that destroyed the old school's 4-3 defenses. The city of Kansas City inflicts the bulk of its damage on defense systems designed, in theory, to better manage scattered formations and pass concepts. And the biggest successes of defense so far have been accompanied by old school Defensive glances.

• vs chargers: Success rate of 51% against 3-3-5 (33 snapshots), 45% against 3-4 (11 snapshots)
• Steelers: Success rate of 58% against 2-3-6 (19 snapshots), 29% against 3-4 (14 snapshots)
• against. 49ers: Success rate of 50% against 4-2-5 (38 snapshots), 32% against 4-3 (19 snapshots), 92 percentage of success vs. 3-3-5 (12 snapshots)

Kansas City faced defenses with five or six back defenders on 74% of its snaps and mainly set fire to these defenses. But of the 26% of shots in which they were aligned with only four DBs, their pass rate is only 33%, seven percentage points below the championship average. They destroy the more conservative plans of Cover 2 or Cover 3 (success rate of 50% or more against any combination), but they fought against the most aggressive Cover 1 (36% success rate).

Part of this is situational – sometimes you almost to have go with five or more defensive backs – and that's a small sample, but if we learned something in the beginning, it's that the defenses might have a better chance of being them- same against this unit and not to panic and throw extra DBs to a potential problem. In any case, Hill is faster than your databases, so they will not save you.

There are still an infinite number of obstacles to overcome for this offense in 2018, and if the Chiefs' defense does not improve, the offensive can not afford to slip a lot. But it's fun, and between the physical gifts and the creativity in play, it should remain so even if or when the regression to the average was installed.