Tale of Two Halves: Chiefs Third Down Offense

The Kansas City Chiefs lead the NFL in third-down offense but inconsistency against the Cincinnati Bengals may have cost them the game.

It’s the final week of the regular season and low and behold, the Kansas City Chiefs lead the NFL in third-down conversion rate. This was a fun topic to track early in the season because it seemed as if the Chiefs were really hot or really cold in terms of executing on third down, and now at the end of the season they are the best in the NFL at a 51.83% conversion rate.

The next closest team is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, under 48%, so the Chiefs are a comfortable first place heading into the last week of the season. It seems pretty evident as to why this is a good start — keeps the chains moving, means the offense is moving the football, etc etc — but for the Chiefs, it’s more than that. The Chiefs’ ability to convert on third downs is somewhat of the lifeblood of their offense with the way it is currently operating.

Patrick Mahomes has set his career-low for yards-per-attempt, yards-per-completion, and intended air yards-per-target, and all by over a yard of second lowest. On the surface that isn’t an awful happenstance as teams try to take away the deep ball, but to make it worse, his yards after the catch-per-reception is tied for the second-lowest of his career. This is the long way of saying: The Chiefs aren’t picking up yards in chunks, but rather in smaller, sustained amounts.

This leads to more third downs in a given game, putting more pressure on the team to execute on those specific downs. The Cincinnati Bengals game was a perfect example of just that.