Analytics Recap: Kansas City Chiefs Defeat Carolina Panthers, 33-31

The Kansas City Chiefs head into the bye week with a record of 8-1 after beating the Carolina Panthers 33-31 on Sunday. This one was a nail-biter with the Panthers having a chance to win with a last-second field goal that went wide right. The Chiefs' next game will be in Las Vegas in two weeks against the Raiders on Sunday Night Football.

Here are the advanced numbers from the Chiefs' win over the Panthers and the season so far from Ben Baldwin's rbsdm.com, and Football Outsiders.

Both passing offenses were on fire in this one, with both exceeding 0.35 EPA per play and over 50 plays each, while the rushing offenses were at 0.03 EPA per play on 25 plays and -0.17 EPA per play on 11 plays respectively. Both rushing offenses especially were disastrous on early downs with worse than -0.15 EPA per play. The Chiefs' passing game was more consistent throughout with over 11 EPA on 36 early-down passes and more than six EPA on 14 late-down passes, while the Panthers' passing game was far more successful on late downs (21 EPA) than early downs (just a little under six EPA).

Christian McCaffrey had an unbelievable game with 9.7 total EPA, including 10.4 EPA on pass targets. Other Panthers (outside of the two players involved in the fake punt) that made an impact were Curtis Samuel (4.1 EPA) and D.J. Moore (3.3 EPA) with Samuel getting five first downs on nine targets and Moore getting two first downs on three targets. For the Chiefs, Travis Kelce had 9.5 EPA, Tyreek Hill had 5.9 EPA and Mecole Hardman had 3.2 EPA to continue their good form from the Jets game where they each had more than six EPA.

Both Mahomes and Bridgewater were highly productive in the game with 38.6 combined EPA and a CPOE over five for each. The 20.5 EPA was the second-highest of 2020 for Bridgewater, while the 18.1 EPA was the third-highest of 2020 for Mahomes. Mahomes' season-high remains his unbelievable 36.2 EPA vs. the Ravens.

The three biggest plays of the game were in the Panthers' favor and all three came on fourth downs, one being a fake punt and the others being a Bridgewater 15-yard run on 4th and 14 and a nine-yard touchdown pass from Bridgewater to McCaffrey on 4th and 3 in the first quarter. After that, five of the next seven plays were in the Chiefs' favor, with 98 passing yards over three passes, one passing touchdown, a made 55-yard field goal by Harrison Butker and a missed 51-yard field goal by Joey Slye.

Like last week, the Chiefs remain, in my opinion, the best team in the NFL in this graph. The Chiefs and Steelers are pretty much even when looking at the chart, but the offensive gap between Kansas City and Pittsburgh is more impactful than the defensive gap between them. The Chiefs' offensive EPA per play stayed around the same as last week, going from 0.276 to 0.273.

The Chiefs passed on 78.9% of early downs in this game and it clearly paid off with the offensive production and how almost all of it came through the air. Thanks to this, their early-down pass rate on the season went from 59.2% to 62.0%, getting them within a couple of percentage points of the Seahawks for the league lead this season and within five percentage points of their record-breaking 66.4% last season.

Lastly, we have the Football Outsiders numbers, notably Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA). DVOA currently has a strength of opponent adjustment at 90% and rising until it hits 100% in Week 10. The Chiefs jumped from fourth to third in Overall DVOA, stayed at first in Offensive DVOA and stayed at 13th in Defensive DVOA.

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