Analytics Recap: Kansas City Chiefs vs. Houston Texans
The Kansas City Chiefs began their quest to repeat as Super Bowl champions with a 34-20 victory in the season-opener against the Houston Texans, as the offense, led by Patrick Mahomes, Clyde Edwards-Helaire and Sammy Watkins, put on a show.
Let's take a look at some advanced numbers, courtesy of Ben Baldwin's wonderful website, rbsdm.com. One thing that sticks out immediately would be the difference between the Chiefs' passing numbers and rushing numbers. Mahomes finished the game with 16.7 expected points added (EPA), with 7.2 to Watkins, 6.4 to Tyreek Hill and 5.5 to Travis Kelce.
In contrast, Edwards-Helaire had just 0.3 EPA. To be fair to Edwards-Helaire, his EPA got deducted terribly for the numerous goal-line stops that were mostly on offensive linemen losing matchups immediately, losing 6.8 EPA on those runs. However, the offensive line also did him plenty of favors with large holes created on his biggest plays, and even if we grant him those lost expected points back, the major key to this game was still Mahomes.
Mahomes got the bigger analytical edge on his fellow QB, Deshaun Watson, with a 16.7 to 3.5 EPA advantage, an 8.2 to -0.8 CPOE advantage and an 83.6 to 59.7 QBR advantage. In all three of their matchups against each other, Mahomes has had 50.0 EPA compared to Watson's 29.1. In just the previous two matchups, the gap widens to an astounding 46.9 to 10.3. Watson is a great quarterback, but he is just not in the same universe as Mahomes.
The last thing that catches my eye is the differential between the teams on third and fourth down. The Texans were actually better on first and second down than the Chiefs, with the Texans having 0.19 EPA per play and a 34% first down rate compared to the Chiefs' 0.16 EPA per play and 33% first down rate. However, on third and fourth down, the Chiefs had an incredible 0.58 EPA per play vs. the Texans' 0.10 EPA per play. This was a clear difference-maker in the quality of these two teams.
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