Arrowhead Addict
FanSided

Kansas City Chiefs: Five steps to a Super Bowl

By Lyle Graversen

KANSAS CITY, MO - OCTOBER 21: Patrick Mahomes #15 of the Kansas City Chiefs and the entire offense celebrate the games first touchdown with a dance party in the end zone during the first quarter of the game against the Cincinnati Bengals at Arrowhead Stadium on October 21, 2018 in Kansas City, Kansas. (Photo by David Eulitt/Getty Images)
KANSAS CITY, MO - OCTOBER 21: Patrick Mahomes #15 of the Kansas City Chiefs and the entire offense celebrate the games first touchdown with a dance party in the end zone during the first quarter of the game against the Cincinnati Bengals at Arrowhead Stadium on October 21, 2018 in Kansas City, Kansas. (Photo by David Eulitt/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
2 of 6
Next
BALTIMORE, MD – SEPTEMBER 09: A detailed view of a penalty flag as the Buffalo Bills play the Baltimore Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium on September 9, 2018 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
BALTIMORE, MD – SEPTEMBER 09: A detailed view of a penalty flag as the Buffalo Bills play the Baltimore Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium on September 9, 2018 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images) /

Enough with the penalties already!

Okay Chiefs fans, before I get into the numbers here we need to come to an understanding about the penalties against the Chiefs. Have the Chiefs had some flags thrown on them that were questionable? Absolutely. Were there some plays against Los Angeles where the Rams should have been flagged and weren’t? Definitely. However, the majority of flags against the Chiefs are because of their sloppy play.

If you want to focus on a few bad calls and write the whole thing off as a conspiracy against the Chiefs you can, but you are letting this team off way too easy. The Chiefs are just flat out sloppy and undisciplined when it comes to the penalties and if they want to win a Super Bowl they have to tighten that up and stop shooting themselves in the foot. Period.

The Kansas City Chiefs have committed 97 penalties this season for 814 yards. The second most penalized team is the Pittsburgh Steelers with 78 penalties for 730 yards. The NFL average after week 11 was 65.8 penalties for 560.3 yards.

So the Chiefs have had almost 20 more penalties than the second most penalized team and over 30 more penalties than the average NFL team. That is absolutely inexcusable. That is on the Chiefs players and coaching staff. It’s a culture thing. It’s not that the refs are out to flag the Chiefs more than any other team (even if there are a couple calls that make you want to pull your hair out). That is about the Chiefs not having the mental discipline they need.

Now, just in case you were thinking of arguing that part of the reason K.C. has so many more than the rest of the teams is because they were one of just two teams (along with the Rams) that had played 11 games when I looked at these numbers while the rest had only played 10 I’ve got more numbers for you.

First, the Rams (the other team that had played 11 games) only had 63 penalties for 543 yards. Second, you are also able to sort by penalties per game and the Chiefs were first in the NFL there as well with 8.82 penalties per game for 74 yards while the NFL average is 6.54 penalties per game for 55.7 yards.

This is a K.C. problem and Andy Reid and his coaching staff need to get a handle on it. Now let’s move on to step two which involves utilizing one of their offensive weapons more.

Home/Kansas City Chiefs News