Chiefs dominated NFL in key statistic last year
KANSAS CITY – The Chiefs are easily considered among the NFL's elite and there's one statistic from 2021 that helps back that up. Per Sharp Football Analysis, the Chiefs led the NFL with a 53% success rate on third down in 2021. Meaning, they were the league's best third-down team last year. But what makes […]
KANSAS CITY – The Chiefs are easily considered among the NFL's elite and there's one statistic from 2021 that helps back that up.
Per Sharp Football Analysis, the Chiefs led the NFL with a 53% success rate on third down in 2021. Meaning, they were the league's best third-down team last year.
But what makes that even more impressive is how dominant the Chiefs were in this statistic. To not much surprise, the Bills were second, but with a 47% success rate.
A 6% margin is quite the difference. To put into context, it's a 6% difference from the Bills' second place ranking to the Dolphins' 14th place ranking.
In other words: it takes 12 teams to make up the gap between the Chiefs and the Bills. The Chiefs also led the NFL in conversion rate on third down (52.2%) and were better than more than 5% when compared to the second place Buccaneers (47.1%).
The Chiefs also weren't one-dimensional. They had the second-best success rate when it came to run success on third down and they had the No. 1 success rate when it came to passing success.
Sports Info Solutions feels the same way. They ranked the Chiefs passing attack as the No. 1 attack in terms of positive play rate (50.6%) and the Chiefs rushing attack No. 2 (69.8%) in the same context.
A lot of this has to do with the fact the Chiefs had an average of 6.5 yards to go per each third down, which was the sixth-lowest rate in the league. But at the same time, that just means they got business done on first and second down, for the most part.
It doesn't matter who the Chiefs have on offense in 2022. If they can continue to show off their dominance on the money down, then they'll continue to be among the league's best offensive units.
Featured image via Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports
