Point Blank – December 8, 2016
The challenges in grading the Chiefs (and some of those grades have to be turned in before kickoff tonight)…A Cyclone blows through Iowa City…
I have been holding back on going into detail on Andy Reid and his 9-3 Chiefs this week, moving them from the Tuesday review to a focus spot here because there are a true grading challenge. Now time to roll up the sleeves because of that showdown vs. the Raiders, and also for ways to look at the fine print inside of football game flows as well.
Kansas City beat Atlanta 29-28 on Sunday despite having issues across several key dimensions of the sport. The defense allowed 32 first downs and 418 yards, at 6.3 per play. The offense struggled to run, Spencer Ware only managing 29 yards on his 14 attempts, though the stats look much different when a 55-yard scamper by Albert Wilson on a fake punt is included. And while Alex Smith had solid numbers next to his name, he only managed nine completions to WRs.
They won, of course, not because of the little things but by making some big plays – Wilson’s TD, combined with the Pick Six and PAT return by Eric Berry, paved the way.
And that has been much of the story of the KC season. The Chiefs are a smart team, and have been that under Andy Reid. They don’t have great talent, but come close to maximizing what they do have by being fundamentally sound, and staying in games long enough to be able to make a play or two that can secure the scoreboard outcome. That helps to explain so many wins in which they were trailing in the fourth quarter, but we also have to deal with why they were trailing so many times late in the game to begin with.
The challenge begins when we start with the simplest of measures, which helps to set the difficulties in motion -
Chiefs Opp
Yards 4,030 4,619
1st Downs 229 263
Per Play 5.4 5.7
Rush 4.1 4.3
Pass 7.0 7.5
Per Drive 30.4 35.2
“O” TDs 23 27
It isn’t easy to get 9-3 out of that. If your opponents are not only compiling more yardage production, but also doing it more efficiently on a per-play basis, there are flaws, and in particular it takes something substantial to be 9-3 when you are -4 in offensive TDs. How bad is the yards per drive comparison? The Chiefs are #29, the three teams behind them being the 4-8 Rams, 0-12 Browns and 1-11 49ers. One part of the positive formula has been turnovers, where KC is +14, and in charting that properly it does go to being more design than luck. Smith and the offense throw a lot of safe passes, and when you have playmakers like Berry there can be an attack mode on defense. What they have done with the turnovers, and with special teams, also matters –
Defense & Special Teams TDs
Chiefs 6
Opp 0
The turnover counts, and the TDs when the offense is not on the field, are difficult things to incorporate into a power rating, but to grade the Chiefs properly we have to factor them, and you can connect some of that back to the “Productive Paranoia” that was discussed here with Jim Caldwell and the Lions on Tuesday. Essentially that is taking an aggressive approach based on what you have to work with, and that has been a part of the way that Reid has done things throughout his coaching career.
Some of the hidden numbers come from the offense not putting up gaudy stats, but in being efficient in what they do. Some of it can be a defense bending but not breaking, and making the occasional big play. And of course getting production from special teams would speak for itself, though that is something that is not easy to measure by only tracking box scores – it requires diving into the play by play chart. And fortunately for that we have the Football Outsiders. One of the keys to the work those good folks do is in the grading of each play, in order to get closer to the truths of football efficiency.
Football Outsiders 2016 Chiefs
Overall #7
Offense #14
Defense #10
Special Teams #3
Note how drastically different those numbers are from the base stats, and how that steers towards what I believe is a truth – given the totality of what they do, the Chiefs are a good team. They are 41-22 in all games under Reid, counting playoffs, and you can’t get to that level by merely being fortunate.
Yet the 2016 grading is such a challenge. While I do respect the way that KC does things, I believe those rallies to beat San Diego, Carolina and Denver were genuinely more a case of what the opponent did wrong in the end-game, rather than what the Chiefs did right. The credit to Kansas City goes in being close enough to take advantage of those mistakes and that is significant – they have only lost by more than 10 points four times in those 63 games under Reid. There is absolutely something to be said for at least putting yourself into a position to win each week.
So how does all of this translate to Thursday night vs. Oakland? In truth, this game is sitting right where my numbers would put it, a weather factored Chiefs -3 -122 to be as precise as I can. So today’s exercise may not lead to anything actionable for this game, but it is a good way to put KC into perspective down the stretch, and to also develop a better understanding of team grading over time. The Chiefs are not going to look pretty to a lot of folks, but if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the savvy handicapper wants to increase what those eyes see before making a final judgment.
About Last Night, NBA…
For those that did not stay up late to watch Golden State dismantle the Clippers 115-98, or if you watched the 37-19 first quarter and thought that was enough, there was something to see there, and it means going beyond the usual assumptions that would be made. The Warriors got that rout despite going 7-30 from 3-point range, including a 1-13 combined from Steph Curry and Kevin Durant. That really says something.
One of the early narratives that got started here was the question of how well the chemistry was going to mesh defensively and on the boards, and while Golden State is not going to be great in either category, the Warriors are at least inching towards good. They are now up to a tie for #8 in defensive efficiency, and a tie for #12 in rebound rate. If they can be around those levels the overall upside, with the new offense scoring nearly three full PP100 more than LY’s edition.
As for that offense last night the ball movement was superb – 32 assists vs. only 11 turnovers, the former count limited by the number of shots that were missed, but the latter something that is sparkling, given 88 FG attempts and 29 FT attempts. It was the effort on defense that mattered, so how about this for the best way to put it into perspective - The Warriors had more steals than turnovers. That is rare, and it is very good basketball.
Now time to focus on a team I believe will bring some good basketball under the spotlight at Iowa City tonight…
In the Sights, NCAA Hoops…
This part of the page has not been productive this week, but the pieces are in place to cash this evening at more than fair value with #519 Iowa State (8;00 Eastern), in the annual showdown vs. Iowa, -5 available in the Thursday morning trading (there is a little -4.5 floating about). The Cyclones come to Carver-Hawkeye Arena having won the last three in the series, and not only is the gap wider than it was in any of the previous encounters, but the experience gap is one of the widest of any early-season lined game.
Is ISU ready for the pressure of this showdown? Yes, both in terms of how the early schedule has allowed for development, and also the experience level for the spotlight. The Cyclones beat Miami F. by 17 and lost go Gonzaga by two in a pair of step-up challenges on neutral courts, and while there was a tough OT home loss to Cincinnati last week that was also good prep – to hang with State you are going to need to be physically tough, and the Bearcats brought the tools to do it. Why does toughness matter so much? Let’s look at the top six in Steve Prohm’s rotation, listing six because they all play starters minutes –
Player Class PPG
Monte Morris SR 14.6
Deonte Burton SR 14.1
Nazareth Mitrou-Long SR 12.8
Matt Thomas SR 11.3
Merrill Holden GR* 5.0
Darrell Bowie GR** 8.9
* - Graduated from Louisiana Tech
** - Graduated from Northern Illinois
That is so very rare to find on the college hardwoods these days, and the holdovers bring plenty of confidence, having been to the Sweet 16 last March. There may not be a more battle-tested PG in the nation than Morris.
Contrast this with Fran McCaffrey’s top six –
Player Class PPG
Peter Jok SR 23.9
Ahmad Wagner SO 4.3
Tyler Cook FR 13.7
Jordan Bohanon FR 8.4
Isaiah Moss FR 6.4
Cordell Pemsi FR 10.6
That is quite a gap in experience, and I believe it will really show tonight in terms of rebounding and defense, the areas where toughness and team chemistry matter most. The Hawkeyes have had some hideous defensive performances in a loss here to Seton Hall (91-83), on a neutral vs. Memphis (100-92), and at Notre Dame (92-78), but the worst of all may be when Nebraska-Omaha came to this court and won 98-89. Two days later that same team went to Ames and lost to the Cyclones 91-47.
You shouldn’t put too much stock in that particular comparison – Nebraska-Omaha was naturally primed for a letdown after beating the Hawkeyes, while that result also had ISU more than forewarned, but it does say a bit about the gap between these teams right now, a gap that is wider than the markets are projecting.
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