Becoming Thanos; The Chiefs are terrifically balanced so far in 2023

Sunday's win over the Chargers demonstrated Kansas City's balance of offense, defense, and special teams... and why it matters on any given Sunday.

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All things are to be, if one were to believe a certain movie villain, perfectly balanced.

Of course, that’s not how the real world works. Virtually nothing is perfectly balanced. Perhaps that reality is what led Thanos to, you know, try and delete half (and then all) of the universe. Or maybe he was a Chiefs fan who had never, in his existence, witnessed a team that had a terrific offense, defense, and special teams at the same time. Maybe that lack of balance just finally got the best of him and he snapped (see what I did there?). It’s hard to say.

Anyways, balance rarely exists in the NFL. The truth is that it’s very, very hard to have a great offense. Or a great defense. Or great special teams. Having even two of the three (especially offense and defense, which are of course the “primary” aspects of any given football game)? Virtually impossible.

And yet, here the Chiefs are, having it all.

If you don’t know who Aaron is (a must-follow for football fans), he’s the mind behind DVOA, which is essentially a stat looking at how well a team moves the ball situationally (or stops opponents from moving the ball), and comparing them to league average, while adjusting for quality of competition (for a much longer, more in-depth explanation, look here). As he explains quite well, not all yardage is created equal; A 5-yard pass on 3rd and 4 is very different than a 5-yard pass on 3rd and 10.

DVOA is an exceptionally useful tool, and everyone who follows the NFL (or fantasy football) ought to follow Aaron and his work. The best thing I can say is it’s probably the best statistical tool to measure how good an offense, defense, or special teams is overall (though no statistic is perfect, of course).

Which leads us to the point of this article; Through seven games, the Chiefs are ranked top five in DVOA on offense, defense, and special teams, a rare feat. And as you can see in his tweet/post/thing, teams that have previously accomplished said feat have generally done… quite well for themselves. Aaron followed up later on noting that there are five teams who have been top 5 in all 3 phases for an entire season (not just through 7 weeks), and those teams did generally quite well for themselves too.

So why is it so hard to have that sort of balance? Well, for starters, because the NFL is hard. Really hard. And there are some very, very good offenses/defenses/ST’s to try and out-earn in order to enter into the “top five” conversation. It’s difficult to have the combination of coaching and personnel to achieve excellence in any one phase, let alone all three. But currently, the Chiefs are doing just that.

This is a good place to have a conversation as to what it means to be high-level on offense or defense in the NFL.

What does it mean to be a very good offense/defense in the NFL?

Elite is not the same thing as “unstoppable” in the NFL for an offense. If it were, elite teams would average 50-60 points per game (or 5-7 points per drive). And elite is not “impenetrable” on defense. If it were, more than one team this year (the Chiefs) would have held every offense it faced to under 21 points.

To paraphrase the Kelce brothers, everybody gets got eventually. The NFL has a way of humbling all offenses/defenses, no matter how good. We saw examples of this last Sunday, as the previously borderline-historically-dominant Browns defense gave up 38 points (and a whopping 6.8 yards per play) to… Gardner Minshew and the Colts. On the flip side of that, the mighty Miami offense was held to a paltry 17 points by the Eagles. Everybody gets got.

And even within terrific games by an offense or defense, dominance is not a complete thing. Scoring 30 in a game is terrific, but when there are 9-11 drives per game that means an offense was stopped on about half of its drives (unless they kicked 10 field goals). Holding an opponent to, oh I don’t know, let’s say… 17 points is very, very good. But that also means that on several drives you gave up touchdowns. The NFL is not high school or college, where talent disparity can lead to ludicrous results (well, except for against the Broncos). You’re going to have lulls no matter how good you are.

And that’s where we come to the Chiefs’ win on Sunday against the Chargers and the importance of balance.

Chiefs/Chargers and balance in real time

Kansas City put up 31 points on the back of huge performances from Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, whose freakish connection is nearly taken for granted at this point. The Chiefs also held the Chargers to 17 points. But the game was closer than that for much of the day, and both sides of the ball had some struggles. But fortunately, those struggles weren’t fatal because both sides of the ball were able to lean on one another (and, to an extent, special teams) during tough times.

Let’s examine what balance means by looking at how the game progressed. First, it’s worth noting that after choosing to defer, the Chiefs’ defense was able to get a stop out of the gate and gain the edge over Los Angeles, in part thanks to a nice rush by George Karlaftis on 3rd down (aided by good coverage on the first read).

The offense was only able to muster a field goal (after a ridiculous call negated a long touchdown), but it’s worth noting that the advantage was already with Kansas City thanks to the defense having a strong first drive.

After that, the game took a turn, with Steve Spagnuolo’s crew allowing 17 points (field goal, touchdown, touchdown) in the next three drives. One way of thinking of that is for three drives, the defense allowed 5.67 points per drive. For frame of reference, Kansas City led the league last year scoring 2.71 points per drive. So the defense, on three consecutive drives, performed about as badly as a defense can.

One would imagine that these problems on defense would create a big lead for the Chargers. But it didn’t, because while the Chargers were scoring points, so were the Chiefs. The entire offense was clicking, with Kansas City scoring two touchdowns in nine total plays on two drives during that time (in addition to that first field goal). And of course, some of the big plays came via the Mahomesian fixture of “you did everything right and we’re still gonna score.”

This is completely unfair, by the way. The Chargers had terrific coverage to start the play and managed to get some pressure after Mahomes had to come off his first read (a rarity Sunday, by the way, as the OL overall did a nice job). But it just didn’t matter, as Mahomes did the thing.

The end result of the Chargers scoring 5.67 points per drive? A 17-17 game.

This is where the idea of balance started to come into play for the first time this game. The defense was struggling significantly in a way that could well have put the Chiefs in a massive hole. Instead, they were afloat in a tie, no worse off than when the game began. Had the offense failed to put up points during this time, it could have been a very different story.

Of course, things took a seemingly disastrous turn when Patrick Mahomes threw an arm punt interception on 3rd down (he was hit as he threw, and that caused him to short-arm an open Mecole Hardman). The Chargers were suddenly in a position to take the lead with an offense that had managed multiple big plays against the Chiefs defense.

And that’s where we again arrive at balance. The offense had carried the team for part of the game, and had now faltered (which, as we talked about above, is virtually always a guarantee to happen at some point in the game). This could have allowed the Chargers to seize control. But instead, the defense found its footing, first with a sack by Charles Omenihu (I wrote about him earlier this week) and then an absolutely terrific open-field tackle by star cornerback Trent McDuffie.

The Chargers were forced to punt thanks to this tackle (one could argue that given where they were at on the field and the Chiefs’ offensive success Sunday, they should’ve gone for it), and just like that Kansas City was back in the driver’s seat again. Balance!

Think of this in terms of a good marriage. I haven’t used this space to talk about my wife Jas much, so I’ll take advantage here. Over the course of the last 16 years, she and I have both gone through stretches where we’ve struggled to hold up our end. Maybe it’s a tough time, maybe one of us is sick, whatever the case may be… when I’m struggling, Jas is always able to pick up the slack and carry us for a while until I’m back into the swing of things, and vice versa. By filling in for each others’ weak spots, we’re significantly stronger than we would be otherwise.

(Was that not the most wholesome paragraph you’ve ever read in a sports column?)

And it’s worth noting that balance isn’t just about one side carrying the other. When the offense and defense are both on point, that’s when things flow perfectly and the Chiefs are able to separate themselves. We saw this at the end of the half. Spags’ crew picked up the stop and forced Los Angeles to punt, a terrific kick that led to Mahomes and company starting their drive at the 4-yard-line with 2:48 remaining.

The Chargers chose to play the field position game and trust their defense. Unfortunately for them, the Chiefs were able to flip the field on the very first play of the drive with fast-developing rookie receiver Rashee Rice.

The Chiefs drove the length of the field and scored, grabbing a lead they would never relinquish. And that, of course, is what it looks like when two good groups are firing on all cylinders at the same time. The defense grabs a stop, the offense scores, and Kansas City was in control of the game.

The remainder of the game served to show even more the value in balance. Kansas City’s offense had a “fumble” (that was definitely not a fumble, but I digress) ruin a promising opening drive in the second half. They then proceeded to punt the ball on three consecutive drives. That’s a recipe for losing a lead. But once again (as has often been the case this season), the defense stepped up and kept the ship steady, with multiple big plays from all over the defense.

One of my favorite plays from the defense came on 3rd and 7 early in the 4th quarter, and demonstrated on multiple levels just how well the defense was playing in the second half.

Mike Edwards (a low-key terrific signing by Brett Veach this offseason) is the highlighted player here, but it’s worth noting that everyone does their jobs. The Chiefs are playing 2-high safeties (they’re just a little out of view), so the cornerbacks are able to give up leverage deep on the outside and trail without their receivers being a viable option. And the pass rush gets home fast enough (via a two-man game with Chris Jones and George Karlaftis) that Herbert has to get rid of the ball quickly.

The problem with that is Edwards plays Keenan Allen’s route perfectly, giving a little space and then driving on the stem. Frankly, Herbert is lucky that this wasn’t a pick-six. On a complete side note, this play is a good example of how quickly NFL players close once a throw starts and alter the way any screenshot of “open” players would look. But that’s for another day.

The point is that as the offense struggled to find its footing (again, hindered by a terrible fumble call), the defense carried its end of the bargain and protected a 7-point lead.

And this is where the balance of the third phase of football, special teams, comes into play. Special teams is the least important of the three phases. It’s somewhat unique in that you’ll rarely notice it unless it’s bad, but when it’s bad it can absolutely torpedo a team. Fortunately for the Chiefs, they have a very good punter in Townsend, one of the NFL’s best kicker's in Butker, and have generally good coverage on punts while occasionally generating a big play. And that’s precisely what helped jumpstart the offense again, with newly-returned Mecole Hardman grabbing a 50-yard return to set the Chiefs up at the Chargers 35-yard-line.

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Kansas City’s offense needed to pick up first downs and drain the clock, and they did just that along with scoring a touchdown that essentially ended the game (on a beautifully designed and executed screen to Pacheco that took advantage of the Chargers blitz).

Fun fact; Right before the play began, Mahomes went out of his way to talk to Pacheco and point out the blitzer as though Pacheco would be in pass protection. Just another layer in window dressing in an Andy Reid offense. And Trey Smith’s block in space was a thing of beauty.

TLDR; What balance means for the Chiefs

When you’ve got an offense that can score 17 points in three drives, your defense can afford to go through a slump to start a game. When you’ve got a defense that can force an opponent to go punt, INT, punt, punt, punt, your offense can have times when it doesn’t put points on the board. And when you have special teams that rarely makes mistakes, hits its spots, and occasionally makes a big play, that creates opportunities that wouldn’t otherwise exist.

When you have all three? That means you’re able to win virtually any kind of game against any kind of opponent. And when the offense/defense in particular are both firing, you can run up leads quickly with back-to-back scores and stops in a way that forces teams to play from behind.

The Chiefs offense continues to be a work in progress (if you can call a top-five DVOA offense that) as Mahomes and his receivers feel one another out and the offensive line develops its continuity and timing with new tackles. But what’s fascinating is that despite not being as dominant in scoring as in recent years, the offense HAS shown the ability to move the ball, with some bad luck and red zone growing pains creating the appearance of a worse offense than what it has really been in terms of generating opportunities. With Reid, Mahomes, and Kelce at the center of the group, it remains a very dangerous offense that is developing (particularly with the steps we’re seeing from Rice and a little shot in the arm from Hardman’s speed).

In the meantime, Steve Spagnuolo is helming by far the best defense of the Mahomes era, with a special teams that appears ready to hold up its end of things. When you look across the NFL, the Chiefs are as dangerous in all three phases as any team out there currently.

Like a good marriage, those phases will carry one another through tough moments. And when all three are clicking? I don’t believe there’s a team in the league that can keep up.

It’ll be fun to watch as the season unfolds, because this group has the potential to be a special one. That’s what balance can do. Maybe somewhere Thanos is smiling.