Wrecking the Game Wreckers

Looking at the Chiefs' ability to defend the league's best offensive players

The Kansas City Chiefs defense is terrific in 2023. There are countless metrics and measures that show Steve Spagnuolo’s group inside the top five in almost every single defensive category. However, one of the elements that has jumped out to me this year has been their ability to keep a lid on some of the league’s best offensive players. After a week where Tyreek Hill was limited to his lowest yards per reception of the year — and one of his lowest receiving outputs of the season — I dove deeper to find out just how good this defense has been compared to the rest of the year.

I kept track of every 300 yard passing game from a quarterback, every 100 yard rushing or receiving game, and weighted them against the best players at quarterback, running back, and receiver to come up with a new metric: the Game Wrecker Quotient. The GWQ measures a defense’s ability to prevent singular performances that can tilt the game in the offense’s favor, whether it be through the air or on the ground. While a defense can give up points without a singular player “going off” in a game — or the defense can be put against a wall via turnovers or poor offensive play — the metric is surprisingly predictive of consistent, top-notch defensive performance.

Today, I’ll take a look at how the Chiefs stack up against the rest of the league in 2023 — as well as how Spagnuolo’s defenses have performed in previous years — while introducing a new way to keep track of defensive performance!