Analytics Recap: Kansas City Chiefs Defeat Denver Broncos 22-16
The Kansas City Chiefs are now 11-1 following a close win against the Denver Broncos at Arrowhead on Sunday Night. The Chiefs now have an 11-game winning streak against the Broncos, going all the way back to November of 2015.
Patrick Mahomes had yet another 300+ yard game, his fifth consecutive such game, though it was only his second game of the season where he failed to get multiple touchdowns (not of his own fault, of course). Next up, the Chiefs face the Miami Dolphins in Miami, who have won seven of their last eight games, though their one loss was to the Broncos in a 20-13 game.
Here are the advanced numbers from the Chiefs' win over the Broncos and the season so far from Ben Baldwin's rbsdm.com.
EPA = Expected Points Added, SR = Success Rate, 1st% = First Down Rate
The Chiefs' offense on early downs was fantastic, with 2.16 EPA on early-down runs and 13.6 EPA on early-down passes, but the late-down offense, all of which were passes, was a mess, finishing with -6.49 EPA on 11 plays. The defense defended the run well on early downs, with -5.51 EPA on 29 such runs, but on the four other runs that came on late downs, the Broncos added an astounding 7.82 EPA. The Broncos' passing game definitely let them down though, getting a lowly 42% success rate on all their passes and getting just 5.9 EPA on early-down passes and a disappointing -1.6 EPA on late-down passes.
It was another great day for tight end Travis Kelce, as he earned 6.5 EPA and a 62% success rate on his 13 targets. He continues pushing forward in his run for potentially the greatest tight end season ever. It was also a great day for Demarcus Robinson, who added 3.4 EPA himself on his two early targets. For the Broncos, Melvin Gordon put up huge production for running back standards, adding 6.1 EPA on his 18 total touches, and Tim Patrick and Noah Fant were impactful through the air, getting 6.5 EPA and 3.8 EPA respectively.
CPOE = Completion Percentage Over Expectation (Completion Percentage minus Expected Completion Percentage), QBR = ESPN's Quarterback Rating metric
Patrick Mahomes didn't have one of his best games for EPA, CPOE or QBR, but I still believe he played quite solidly in the game and just came up with some unfortunate situations, especially the two Tyreek Hill touchdowns that weren't, one being a catch that the Chiefs didn't challenge and the other being a play Hill backflipped into the end zone during, but was taken back for a Nick Allegretti hold. Drew Lock, on the other hand, didn't deal with too much misfortune in this game. He was just bad. I think he actually played worse than his EPA, CPOE and QBR indicate, and all of those range from mediocre to poor.
The top two plays of the game (that counted) were both in the Broncos' favor: A 65-yard run from Melvin Gordon to get the Broncos in the red zone and set them up to take the lead and a 37-yard pass from Drew Lock to Noah Fant on 3rd and 7. Only three of the top 10 included the Chiefs' offense, with Tyreek Hill losing five yards on a 3rd and goal at the Broncos' 1-yard-line, a 20-yard touchdown pass to Travis Kelce and a 19-yard pass to Demarcus Robinson. Others in the top 10 included two Brandon McManus field goals (one made, one missed), Lock's first-quarter interception to Mathieu, and Lock's two touchdown passes to Tim Patrick.
The Chiefs started the game with an 83.6% chance of winning and, despite some scary moments in the game, the Chiefs were the favored team throughout the game with their lowest win probability being 56.6% when the Broncos took a 16-12 lead late in the third quarter. The Chiefs then got their win probability back above 70% after they scored a touchdown to make it 19-16 and it remained higher than 70% for the rest of the game.
For the team tiers, following the Steelers' loss to Washington, the Chiefs have now become the clear best team in the NFL with the Packers and Steelers about tied at second and third, followed by the Bills, Saints and Browns in the next tier. With a Bills/Steelers matchup in the upcoming Sunday Night Football game, it will be really interesting to see what these results look like following that game.
Moving on to early-down pass rate, the Chiefs jumped up in percentage from 61.0% to 61.7% thanks to a 67.4% rate in Week 13, but dropped to fourth after the Steelers passed on 82.9% of early downs this week (and Ben Roethlisberger let them down with a -0.026 EPA per play). For a team whose high early-down pass rate definitely benefited them, the Bills passed 70.6% of the time and Allen had a fantastic 0.703 EPA per play. Lastly, the Texans have finally jumped the Seahawks, though the difference between the Texans in first and the Chiefs in fourth is just a one percent difference (62.7% to 61.7%).
Finally, we have quarterback rankings by EPA and CPOE. Thanks to Rodgers having an unbelievable Week 13, Rodgers and Mahomes are now tied for the lead for EPA+CPOE composite score at 0.212 with Rodgers up by 0.002 in EPA and Mahomes up by 0.1 in CPOE. This MVP race continues to get tighter and tighter with two historically great quarterback seasons being played.
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