A Tale of Two Seasons

With the advent of Steve Breaston joining the Chiefs fold, I thought it might be useful to do a statistical review on how this 3rd “B” stacks up as a receiver and perhaps gain some insight into what he might bring to this party.

I’m sure everyone is fairly familiar with the 2008 offensive juggernaut that swept the Cards into the Superbowl so I won’t rehash that. We know the story. A more relevant question for us Chiefs fans is what happened after that and how prominently did Breaston feature in or contribute to the post-Superbowls Cards, for better or for worse?

We’ll delve into some of that despues del jumpo.

Let’s begin with 2010. Going off of Football Outsider’s DVOA ranking system, we find that Steve Breaston came in as the 51st best, or most efficient if you will, WR in the league. That’s not even close to how high Bowe rated out but at the same time 51st is way better than what any other Chiefs WR did last season. 51st is also notably better that Larry Fitzgerald’s 2010 ranking who came in at 71st. In terms of the quality of receiver that Breaston is, he represents a significant upgrade to our receiving corps.

But what about Breaston’s supporting cast in Arizona? I’ve covered Fitzy of course. In 2010, the Arizona Cardinals offense’s weighted DVOA landed them dead last in the league in Offensive Efficiency. Passing offense? Dead last also. Rushing offense? Not a lot of help there either with a 22nd ranking. Quarterback? Derek Anderson ranked 39th and the presumed next best option, John Skelton, showed up even worse.

Now let’s compare those rankings with the 2009 season. Fitzpatrick ranked 11th, Breaston ranked 27th, and Boldin ranked 38th. The 2009 Cardinals offense’s weighted DVOA placed them at 12th overall, 14th in passing, and 16th in rushing. The quarterback? Kurt Warner of course, who ranked 13th among all passers.

My first take away on all this is that Breaston has performed, all in all, pretty consistently through good times and bad. That’s a good sign. The biggest change for him came with the switch at quarterback. In fact, I even considered calling this post “A Tale of Two Quarterbacks.” Makes sense, right? Indeed, the change was big and I think it definitely affected his performance to some degree, but not by a whole lot. If anything, the QB switch hurt Fitzgerald’s efficiency more than anybody’s.

So Breaston now comes to a team whose quarterback finished out 2010 with the 16th best QB (DVOA, 14th in DYAR), the #18 WR (8th in DYAR), the #16th best (weighted) DVOA Offense, 15th in passing, and 9th in rushing. Statistically, the 2010 Chiefs offense closely resembles the 2009 Cardinals offense except that the Chiefs had a little bit better running game and only one good WR. Those are not minor differences by the way.

Fast forward to 2011. All things being equal, if Cassel can at least maintain a comparable level of efficiency to what he showed in 2010, if Bowe stays Bowe, and Charles stays Charles then the addition of Breaston would seemingly make all boats rise and I think we even end up a better team than the 2009 Cardinals. If Cassel continues to improve, I’d say the sky’s the limit.

That’s my Double Take. What are your takes, Addicts?