I’m Not Saying the Chiefs Are Shaving Points… But the Alternate Explanation is Stupidity

I’m not accusing the Chiefs of shaving points.  But there are really only two reasonable explanations for the string of head scratchers that happen every Sunday in Kansas City.  Either the Chiefs aren’t smart enough to figure out that they keep stepping on their own feet… or, they’re shaving points. 

I mean, I’m not accusing them of shaving points… but if you found out an NFL team was shaving points, would you be surprised to find out that it’s the team with a coach who looks like he has a few of empty tall boys banging around in the back of his “near mint” El Camino. 

Would you be surprised if the coach who has a beard that makes him look like he spends his weekends “going shooting” turned out to be shaving points?

I’m not saying they’re shaving points, but if the NFL team with the coach who looks like he might be on probation for punching his boss, was eventually found to be shaving points, would you be surprised? 

If the NFL team with the coach who would be voted “Most Likely To Be Seen at the Dog Track” turned out to be shaving points, I wouldn’t be surprised.  I mean, he sort of looks like a guy whose weekly highlight is “dart league” down at “the bar”. 

But again, I’m not accusing them of shaving points.

The Chiefs Haven’t Been Good

Since the start of the 2010 season, the Chiefs are 14-14 in the regular season.  Having a .500 record probably isn’t the worst thing in the world if you consider that they were 6-26 in the two years before that.  But in compiling their .500 record, the Chiefs have relied on winning generally close games against bad teams.  Despite a schedule that included the AFC West and NFC West last year, and then all of the division games against the AFC West this year again, the Chiefs have a negative point differential over their last 28 games.  Even in last year’s playoff season, the Chiefs were 1-2 against teams with winning records and they compiled most of their wins (9-4 record) against teams with a losing record.

The embarrassing thing for the Chiefs (or at least it should be embarrassing) is that they actually choose to be bad by consistently choosing less than optimal strategies.  These poor choices add up, and make it no accident that the Chiefs are bad.  Let’s count a few of the suboptimal choices that the Chiefs make:

Bad Playcalling While Losing

The Chiefs run the ball more than they should.  While passing is the most efficient offensive choice that you can make, running does make sense in some cases, like when you’re trying to run out the clock.  But the Chiefs run the ball a lot even when they’re down by a touchdown or more.  The Chiefs have called over 110 run plays this year while trailing by at least a touchdown (most in the NFL just in terms of total runs called).  If we look at run plays as a percent of all plays called while trailing, only the Jaguars have called a greater percent of run plays while trailing by a touchdown or more.

Even with Tyler Palko playing quarterback, the Chiefs are probably still better off throwing the ball.  They know they’re not going to run themselves back into the game if they’re losing, so their best chance to win is to pursue the higher variance strategy that passing brings.

Really Bad Playcalling While Losing

In last night’s loss to the Steelers, the Chiefs were at it again.  The Chiefs got the ball down 13-6, with 4:12 left in the 4th quarter.  The Chiefs gave the ball to Thomas Jones on 1st down, which yielded 1 yard.  However, the Jones carry cost the Chiefs a valuable down and 36 seconds of game time.  The Chiefs eventually converted a 1st down.  The Chiefs then used their first down to give the ball to Jones again, who ran for 3 yards and this time cost only 18 seconds of game time because the 2 Minute Warning interceded.  The Chiefs would eventually need all 4 downs to convert a 1st down. 

The runs plays won’t be remembered by anybody because Tyler Palko eventually threw an interception that essentially ended the game.  However, note that Palko’s interception came with 38 seconds left in the game and the Chiefs had managed to move the ball a mere 33 yards in about 3 minutes and 30 seconds of game time.  The Chiefs were going to have some clock management issues if their drive had continued.

Predictable Playcalling

If we look at play calls when the score is tied, or close to being tied, we can see what plays a team would call if they could call any play.  When we look at play calls where the Chiefs are tied or close to being tied, we see that they are extremely predictable on 1st down.  They run the ball 71% of the time on 1st down when the game is close.

The table below shows the percent a team runs the ball on 1st downs in close games.  I also show the team’s Simple Rating System rating from Pro-Football-Reference.  Simple Rating System is almost like a point spread in that you can take one team’s rating and subtract the opponent’s rating and you would get a rough guess as to what the point differential might be if the two teams faced each other.  As you can see, running the ball less on first down correlates generally with a higher Simple Rating. 

If you run a simple regression, you would see that about 30% of the change in Simple Rating can be explained by the amount that a team passes on first down (or chooses not to run).  That’s not to say that the play call is actually causing all of the variance in Simple Rating.  Teams with better passing games are going to be more comfortable passing on first down, and since passing is the optimal offensive strategy, they’re going to be better overall.  However, if you mostly run on first down, you take a lot of the guess work out of it for defenses.  Think about it this way: If you were a defense and you could call plays for the offense, wouldn’t you want them to run on first down most of the time?  Wouldn’t that give you the best chance of putting the offense in a third and long situation?

Only 5 teams in the league run the ball more than the Chiefs on first down.

First Down Run % in Close Games

Bad Personnel Decisions

Passing is generally the optimal strategy no matter who your running backs are, but when your running choice is Thomas Jones, you should really be lobotomized if you still choose to run the ball.  The Chiefs choose to pursue a suboptimal strategy and then make suboptimal personnel choices at the same time.  Jones’ 3.7 YPC average last year looks robust when compared to his 3.2 YPC average this year.

Better Let McCluster Hold on to the Challenge Flag

Jones may only be part of the problem.  The Chiefs also feature Dexter McCluster, who does better than Jones on a per carry basis except that he likes to cough the ball up to the defense.  If you turn on a Chiefs game there’s a good possibility that you’ll see a challenge flag on the field and then 10 replays of McCluster maybe or maybe not fumbling.  McCluster has lost three fumbles on the season.  Stat-heads place the value of a turnover as being equal to roughly 45 yards.  If you subtract McCluster’s turnovers (x45) from his yardage, he’s averaging only 3.4 yards per touch on the season.  That number includes pass plays, so that’s pretty awful.

More Bad Personnel Decisions

Last year the Chiefs chose to “spell” Jamaal Charles with Thomas Jones.  Or at least that’s the charitable interpretation of the decision.  Maybe a less charitable interpretation is the Todd Haley is a dick and he can’t resist the chance to put his boot on his players necks even if it costs his team games.  Anyway. 

Jones got 245 carries last year to Charles’ 230.  Charles was having a historic season in terms of yards/carry, so again, the only charitable interpretation is that the Chiefs wanted to be sure that Charles could stay healthy.  But the problem is that the Chiefs had Jackie Battle on the roster last year and never explored him as an option to the awful Thomas Jones.  Battle has been about a yard per carry better than Jones this year, so if we take the 3.7 yards per carry that Jones racked up against the easier schedule last year, maybe we could project Jackie Battle for 4.7 yards per carry had the Chiefs used him instead of Jones last year.

OK, Fine.  They’re Probably Not Shaving Points

It doesn’t make sense that the Chiefs could be shaving points.  It’s got to be nearly impossible for Vegas to get money on the Chiefs side… you know, because who wants to bet on a team that looks like they’re shaving points.

Kidding aside, the Chiefs are 7-5 against the spread… so… Yay!  Go Chiefs.  Good job.