The Real Reason Kansas City Lost to New England

No One Player is to Blame

When the Chiefs lost to the Patriots in their home stadium last week, it didn't take long for the fingers to start pointing.

Missed calls, inability to make key stops on defense and lining up in the neutral zone all got their fair share of representation in the Blame-a-polooza.  But when we look inside the numbers, what do we see? The Krumholz Axiom, "Figures Don't Lie, But Liars Figure" has not let us down yet.  Let's look at the numbers...and get beyond the chatter.

Strengths vs Weaknesses

When looking at the 2018 statistical performance, here is how New England fared:

• On Offense, they generated 7.42 yards per pass attempt, 8th in the league and 4.26 yards per rush, which ranked 20th.
• On Defense, they gave up 6.52 yards per pass attempt, again for 8th in the league and 5.07 which was shockingly, the worst measure in for the NFL in 2018.

Based on the above, their strength is passing the ball on offense and pass defense while their weaknesses are running the ball and stopping the run.
You don't need to be a Lombardi to figure out how to beat the 2018 New England Patriots:  Stop their passing game and prioritize your run game. 

In their 5 losses this year, that is exactly how they got beat, per the table below:

In each of their losses they were not effective in either of their strengths and had their weaknesses exploited. 

Now let's see what the Chiefs did...

While the Pats' passing game was held in check being out gained 7.57 yards to 8.03 yards given up, the difference was the Pats overcoming their weaknesses by outgaining the Chiefs on the ground, gaining 3.74 yards per rush and only giving up 3.42 yards. 

What's most striking is the Chiefs were a pretty good rushing team (I had them 6th in the league for rush/attempt rate and 8th for rush defense) but it looks like they didn't incorporate the run into their game plan the way other teams who beat the Patriots did (on average, they ran the ball 27.8 times compared to the paltry 12 times the Chiefs toted the rock).   SAD!

...it was the coaches...

Will be re-watching the game to see what happened in terms of the run game plan but given the preparation for which the Rams' coaching staff is becoming known, don't be surprised when you see Gurley and Anderson pounding the ball 20-30 times combined Superbowl Sunday.

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