KC Chiefs: Three areas of growth on display in Week 4
By Matt Conner
2. Offensive patience
Speaking of the offense, what we saw on Sunday afternoon in the team’s win over the Eagles was tremendous growth in their overall offensive patience.
Consider this: the offense was historically efficient on Sunday. Patrick Mahomes threw one interception—their only turnover on the day—and that was the only drive in which they didn’t score a touchdown. That stat is incredible!
Consider that the Chiefs never once stopped to settle for a field goal. Never once did things stall out and they had to punt the ball away. If not for their own mistake, it’s possible the Chiefs go 7 for 7 in drives that end in a touchdown.
What’s even more amazing about that statistic is that the Chiefs didn’t have a single drive of less than 75 yards. These are short drives where the team started with amazing field position. They weren’t gifted a short field from a turnover from the Eagles or a killer return by Byron Pringle or Mecole Hardman. These are long, sustained drives in which the team just kept taking what the Eagles defense gave them.
With Philly playing a soft zone and refusing to load up the box on the majority of snaps, the Chiefs simply went with the options presented and rarely tried to force anything (see: the one turnover). The end result was five passing touchdowns on the most efficient day in Mahomes’ career (he didn’t even throw for 300 yards), and the ground game produced two more carries than Mahomes had passing attempts (32 to 30).
That sort of balance will punish teams who want to take away the deep ball and completely blanket someone like Tyreek Hill. The Chiefs will win this way if they can minimize mistakes, exhibit patience, and just take what the offense gives them.