Taking a Look at the Chiefs Offensive 'Regression' Since 2018

Statistically the Chiefs 2021 offense is dandy but does it past the eye test compared to years past?

The Kansas City Chiefs are coming off of one of the most despicable showings of football anyone will see all year in their loss to the Tennessee Titans. The Chiefs defense provided absolutely no resistance to the Titans in the first half, the offense couldn’t string together a single drive until the second half, and the Titans had the game so locked up they didn’t throw a single pass in the fourth quarter.

It was a bad display of Chiefs’ football and rather than try to dive into a single specific element that contributed to the loss, I wanted to take a different approach this week.

The Kansas City Chiefs offense looks broken. There is analytics that will show that they are still executing at a high level in some areas and that they are still amidst the best in the NFL but it looks broken. Plenty of it can be boiled down to execution play in and play out but when so many different units start failing to execute, there is almost an underlying cause.

This week I want to talk about a scary concept given how this Chiefs’ team has been built from the beginning of the Andy Reid — Brett Veach — Patrick Mahomes era; offensive regression.

2021 Offensive Regression

Let’s start by looking at why it may feel like the Chiefs offense is regressing even if they have the NFL’s highest drive success rate, a league-leading EPA per play, or leading the league in scoring.

1. Too many turnovers: This is the most obvious option but quite simply, the Chiefs are turning the ball over far too often and at the worst possible times. Plenty of the turnovers have been rather flukey - forced fumbles, tipped interceptions, etc — but they have been consistent. The concern that I keep coming back to is why are these turnovers suddenly coming at this frequency?

2. The team is pressing: Another obvious option is the offense is trying to do everything in order to make up for poor defensive play. This can be seen with Patrick Mahomes scrambling trying to force a tight window throw down 17-0 or by a player carrying the ball loosely trying to make everyone miss. Again, why are offensive players pressing so hard when historically, the regular offense has been plenty good to make up for it?