Super Bowl Domination

Chapter 198 Step by step
Looking back at the Kansas City Chiefs' 2016 season, was it a failure?

of course not.

With 12 wins and 4 losses, they were the second seed in the AFC and their regular season record was second only to the New England Patriots. They advanced to the playoffs as division champions.

However, despite being generally favored, the team was eliminated in the first playoff game by losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers, which was undoubtedly a huge regret.

It is no wonder that Kansas City’s loyal fans are desperate. They clearly have all the conditions, but are once again trapped by the playoff curse. Anger is of no use. It is more of a feeling of powerlessness and nothingness. They don’t know what the team needs to do to achieve a breakthrough.

In fact, everything has signs.

It's hard to believe, but the Kansas City Chiefs have won games with their defense for the past two seasons. Andy Reid? Winning with defense?
Like football, rugby also has a saying that offense wins games and defense wins championships; but rugby is slightly different from football. Football can enter a penalty shootout by relying on its solid defense, but rugby cannot. In the final analysis, offense is still needed to end the game.

Obviously, Reed realized this, which is why he focused on selecting the offensive core in this year's draft and began to prepare for the team's future.

Last season, the Kansas City Chiefs' defense ranked seventh in the league.

But upon closer analysis, the passing defense ranks 18th and the running defense ranks 26th. Both statistics are very poor and are in the bottom half of the league. So, what exactly made the Kansas City Chiefs' overall defensive performance soar to the forefront?

Red zone defense.

When it comes to the front of the end zone, the Kansas City Chiefs' defense is particularly tough, which allows them to control their average points allowed per game to the seventh lowest in the league. In particular, the ground defense is tough, and the number of running touchdowns allowed in the red zone is tied for the third lowest in the league.

In other words, the tough performance at the critical moment kept the Kansas City Chiefs' end zone safe, which led to the team's 12 wins and 4 losses on the season.

In sharp contrast is the offense.

Last season, the Kansas City Chiefs' offense ranked only 13th out of 32 teams in the league.

Although the team is not lagging behind and is still hovering in the middle of the league, it is indeed unusual for Reid, who is good at offensive layout and coaching quarterbacks.

Among them, passing offense ranked eleventh and ground offense ranked nineteenth.

One statistic can reveal the key. The Kansas City Chiefs entered the red zone 45.5 times throughout the season, which ranks tenth in the league; however, the red zone scoring rate was only %, which ranks th in the league, third from the bottom.

Meanwhile, the Kansas City Chiefs have only scored four long touchdowns outside the red zone all season.

This series of data can be combined to draw the following conclusions:

First of all, the Kansas City Chiefs have the ability to advance, and their passing and running tactical layout is still at the forefront of the league, and Reid is still an excellent offensive master.

Secondly, quarterback Smith and the wide receivers and running backs lack explosiveness. Whether it is Smith's long passes pointing to the end zone, or the running backs and wide receivers' ability to advance the end zone over long distances and with large yards, their abilities are relatively weak.

Finally, the positional battle in the Red Zone lacked a breakthrough, and there were no reliable heavy weapons to open up the situation after entering the Red Zone.

In other words, the Kansas City Chiefs were able to advance and attack, but had difficulty scoring and lacked explosiveness at critical moments.

This shortcoming was further magnified in the playoffs. When the Kansas City Chiefs met the traditional defensive powerhouse Pittsburgh Steelers, their own defense was not strong enough, their offense could not break the deadlock, and they lacked explosiveness at the critical moment, which determined the outcome of the game.

"16:18".

The Kansas City Chiefs lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers with a very, very close score. In fact, there is a data at the end of the 2016 season that is easy to overlook but is crucial:

In the 16 regular season games, there were 10 wins and losses, and the final score difference between the Kansas City Chiefs and their opponents was within one touchdown.

If you count the playoffs, that's eleven games.

It can be seen that the Kansas City Chiefs have been dancing on a tightrope throughout the season. Whether it is victory or defeat, offense or defense, everything is precarious and shaky. Behind the seemingly brilliant and successful record of "12 wins and 4 losses", there are huge hidden dangers.

If they are not careful, they may slip off the tightrope and be smashed to pieces. It will not even be a question of whether they can win the next playoff game, but whether they can advance to the playoffs again.

After all, last season, the Kansas City Chiefs' division title was also very thrilling, and the Oakland Raiders also had a record of 12 wins and 4 losses. The Kansas City Chiefs topped the division with a better performance in the division.

In the new season, the competition is just as fierce and the situation may change at any time.

This is also a problem that the Kansas City Chiefs must face and solve during the offseason.

But it's not easy.

In basketball, there are five players; in volleyball, there are six players; in football, there are eleven players. The more players there are, the more difficult it is to adjust the lineup and improve the strength. In rugby, there are twenty-two players in the offensive and defensive teams alone, and there is also a special team that seems unimportant but often plays an important role.

Just like the Cleveland Browns, all they can see are problems, and they don’t even know where to start.

Of course, Reid could see it, and so could the professionals who studied football seriously and made a living from it.

Obviously, Reid is good at offense, so when solving problems, he naturally starts with offense; what's more, the Kansas City Chiefs' defense does not have any major problems for the time being, but the offense needs adjustments, and large-scale adjustments.

Reed chose ground attack.

A semi-passive and semi-active choice, Charles' injury disrupted the Kansas City Chiefs' layout, so that they had to face up to this problem; but from another perspective, in fact, since the beginning of the 2015 season, their ground offense has shown a slow decline in weakness.

Perhaps, now is the good opportunity to make a complete change and look forward to a new beginning.

The question is, is this sane? Is this right?

Originally, Reid could have selected Hunter in the third round, then traded two inexpensive blue-collar running backs and put more resources into wide receivers and offensive linemen, investments in these positions would have immediate results.

Moreover, these positions are more cost-effective than running back.

What's more, Reid didn't just pick a random running back, he picked Levi.

A topic that may have caused controversy and doubt from the beginning sparked more discussion after encountering an outlier like Levi, and Vicki, who made continuous aggressive moves in the draft, provided professionals with a dagger, allowing them to cut open the wounds of the Kansas Chiefs, see the soft spots inside, and punch hard.

To be honest, people were looking forward to Levi's performance on the field. After all, there had never been such a figure entering the world of rugby before. It was like the first time that Sun Wukong entered the Heavenly Palace. All eyes were on him, but no one knew what would happen.

Although there is still some time before the season begins, the long wait is finally over because -

Preseason is here.

(End of this chapter)