Buffalo Rumblings
We take a deep dive to explore the common narrative
Buffalo Bills fans understand that while there’s certainly still time for tweaks, we’re far enough into the 2024 NFL season where team identities have largely shaken out. That should make for a fantastic Week 11 game at Highmark Stadium with the Kansas City Chiefs.
Despite arguably the best quarterback in the NFL in Patrick Mahomes, the Chiefs’ identity this year has seemingly focused on their defense. That’s for good reason. Kansas City’s scoring output hasn’t been dismal by any means (11th in NFL at 24.3 points per game). However, they’ve only scored 30 points once so far and only have one win that was by more than one score under their belt. The defense is tied for fifth best in points per game allowing 17.9, and are 4th best in yards allowed (289.9).
This is all part of the common narrative for the Chiefs, though. What exactly do I have to share with you all that might come as a surprise? Let’s dive in as our Bills prepare to host the reigning Super Bowl champions on Sunday afternoon.
For any newcomers, you should know I’m a huge fan of per-drive metrics as these tend to correlate better with efficiency and each drive represents one “opportunity” — which is a clean way of looking at things. What’s the average result “per opportunity,” in other words.
Per opportunity, the Chiefs allow 1.90 points. That’s 12th in the NFL. That’s not bad. In fact it’s average, according to my rule of four. That said, it’s a far cry from fifth-best, which would be good, bordering on elite per my rule.
When it comes to yards, the gap becomes even larger. Per-game you may recall they rate fourth-best in the NFL. Per-drive they fall to 15th. Still average, but drifting closer to true middle and not elite as the per-game metric would suggest.
If you’re a math nerd like me, an obvious hypothesis comes to mind when displaying the significant disparity between per-game numbers and per-drive figures. Kansas City doesn’t allow many drives. Put differently, an average team on a per-drive basis will look really good on a per-game analysis by limiting the number of drives each game. That hypothesis is the correct one.
The Chiefs have faced 87 drives this season, which is lowest in the NFL. This ranges all the way up to 118 drives (Houston Texans) with the average right around 100. This means Kansas City has had to deal with about two fewer opponent opportunities per game.
Before we look at the “why” for a minute, let’s throw out a few more drive metrics to drive some conversation below.
