Do the Kansas City Chiefs have one of the worst offenses in the NFL?
Since the tweet that spurred this entire post was looking at the coming season, not assessing the 2016 season, just pointing out last season’s statistics isn’t quite enough. To truly answer the question of if the 2017 Chiefs have “bottom five” talent we need to look at what they’ve lost from last season. In that regard the Chiefs definitely did lose two big names in Jamaal Charles and Jeremy Maclin.
If you just asked the question “Could losing Jamaal Charles and Jeremy Maclin drop a middle of the road offense to one of the worst in the league?” it might be easy to answer yes. However, that middle of the road offense last season simply didn’t rely heavily on production from those two big names.
- Jamaal Charles: 12 carries for 40 yards and a touchdown
- Jeremy Maclin: 44 receptions for 536 yards and two touchdowns
You simply can’t argue that K.C.’s rushing attack will be worse this season than it was last season because of the loss of Charles. He was a non-factor. In fact, the addition of third round pick Kareem Hunt actually means that the running game is more likely to see a boost than a drop off since they return all their leading rushers (and their offensive line) and added a new weapon in Hunt.
That just leaves the loss of Maclin to warrant a prediction of a middle-of-the-pack offense falling all the way to the bottom of the NFL. While I agree that the Chiefs were better with Maclin than they are now without him, I simply can’t fathom his loss will hurt the Chiefs offensive production THAT much. Yes, with Maclin gone the Chiefs will have defenses paying more attention to Kelce and Hill, but that was already happening by the end of last season when they had clearly passed Maclin in the offensive pecking order. Yes, Maclin had a 1,000 yard season in 2015, but the Chiefs overall offensive production didn’t change much at all in 2016 when Maclin had a down year.
Here are the Chiefs rankings in those same five areas for 2015 (productive 1,000-yard Maclin) and 2016 (knicked up/less productive Maclin):
2015: PPG 25.3 (9th), YPG 331.7 (27th), YPP 5.5 (12th), 3D% 38% (19th), TO 15 (2nd)
2016: PPG 24.3 (13th), YPG 343.0 (20th), YPP 5.5 (16th), 3D% 38% (18th) TO 17 (8th)
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The downgrade in production from 2015 to 2016 from Jeremy Maclin simply didn’t derail the overall production of the offense. In fact, I would argue that had the running game been as productive in 2016 as it was in 2015, the offense would have significantly outperformed the 2015 unit despite Maclin’s down year. Bottom line, will the Chiefs miss Jeremy Maclin? Yes. Will the loss be significant enough that the overall offensive production will drop drastically? I don’t believe so.
Therefore, if Kansas City was about the 15th best offense in the NFL last season the only way they would be a bottom five offense in 2017 would be if SIX of the 10 offenses that I showed were CLEARLY less productive than the Chiefs last season made significant enough improvements to jump K.C. Without going team by team, I’ll just say I can’t see that happening. MAYBE a couple of them rebound from down seasons last year but not SIX of them.
The Chiefs aren’t a bottom five offense from a production or talent standpoint. They would need to drop about seven spots to even crack the bottom 10. Could that happen this season? Sure, anything is possible. Obviously as a Chiefs fan I’m hoping it doesn’t happen. In fact, my hope is that Smith steps up knowing he is playing like its a contract year and the run game has a bounce back from a down 2016 and the offense actually IMPROVES from last season.
So what do you think Chiefs fans? We all recognize that the offense has been an issue at times but would you rank them at or near the bottom of the league? Do you think the loss of Jeremy Maclin will result in a drop in overall production this season? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
As always thanks for reading and GO CHIEFS!