Good news, bad news; The Chiefs were awful at big plays in '24... and yet somehow competent on offense
Examining how "punchless" the offense was last year, how they still maintained an average offense, and why there's a simple path to them being back to a top-tier offense in 2025.
The Chiefs’ offense lacked explosion last year.
Saying it that simply is an understatement. While there has been plenty of discussion as to the fact that Kansas City didn’t generate many big plays in 2024, I’m not sure it’s widely known just how awful the offense was in this area. It wasn’t “bad for the Chiefs,” or “bad for Mahomes,” or “subpar.” it was legitimately bad, and in fact arguably the worst in the league.
There are a lot of different stats out there to discuss explosive play rate for an offense, but let’s start with a graph that tells the story well and quickly.
This tweet from Ian Hartitz, which utilizes data from Tru Media, paints a pretty clear picture. By Tru Media’s definition of explosive play percentage (essentially, how frequently did a run or a pass play gain enough yards to be deemed “explosive”), the Chiefs were the second worst overall team in the league in 2024 in generating big plays (with only the Raiders being worse in both the pass and the run game).
When you look at the teams involved, Kansas City’s place on this graph is pretty shocking (if you didn’t watch them last year, that is). Only the Raiders and Rams (NOT the Chargers, as the first iteration of this article said) were worse at generating explosive run plays than Kansas City in 2024. And even more horrifying (that’s the only real word for it), only the Raiders, Giants, Patriots, and Browns were worse at generating explosive pass plays. Those were four teams with offenses that were considered among the worst in the league, and the Chiefs were closer to their explosive pass play rate than to the league average.
That’s not just bad, it’s legitimately terrible.
And it’s worth noting that part of the lack of explosion was, at least as the season moved along, by design. At least in the passing game. There are a few different stats that show how conservative the passing offense became throughout the year (it’s worth noting it didn’t start out this way, something we’ll need to circle back to later). The easiest one to utilize is intended air yards per pass (Next Gen Stats). The Chiefs were the 3rd lowest in the league in this stat, meaning they were pushing the ball down the field less often than virtually every team in the league.
It’s easy to look at a stat like that and say that it was an offensive design flaw that led to the Chiefs lacking explosive plays, but the unfortunate truth was that even when they tried, they weren’t successful. A glance through Mahomes’ Next Gen charts shows that they frequently failed to connect on downfield looks, and that doesn’t even take into account attempted shot plays where pressure led to the pass not even being attempted (something Chiefs fans know anecdotally happened with some frequency). I wrote extensively about the issues they had connecting on the deep ball last year. It wasn’t just lack of trying, it was lack of ability overall. And to make matters worse, they weren’t generating explosive plays on short passes (think a player turning a 10-yard pass into a 20-yard gain) or in the run game either.
Lacking explosive plays can be an anchor to an offense. It drags down your yards per carry and yards per attempt, minimalizes times you’ve flipped the field, leads to a high number of 3rd downs (which creates a drive-killing scenario), and makes it virtually impossible to put up points consistently given the requirement of perfection every drive over the course of 10 to 15 plays. Any single mistake (a drop, a penalty, a sack, etc) can ruin a drive. When you generate big plays at a league low rate, it’s pretty much impossible to have anything but a dreadful offense.
And you can see where the Chiefs struggled with moving the ball in some ways. Their yards per rush were 28th in the league at 4 yards per carry. Their yards gained per pass attempt were 24th in the league, so not much better. Both of those are statistics (because they are averages) that are going to get pulled down by a lack of explosive plays. If you never get a 30-yard run or pass in a game, that “per play” stat is going to naturally be bad.
Here’s where things get even more interesting, though, and perhaps more hopeful. Despite having one of the worst “big play” rates in the league, the Chiefs… somehow didn’t stink on offense, especially when compared to other teams that struggled to generate big plays.
Oh, sure, they weren’t particularly good. But they weren’t BAD either, especially when it comes to some of the more in-depth stats related to efficiency. Below is a list of where they ranked in some key areas on offense. Pay special attention to the success rate and drive stats. Stats are per Pro Football Reference (the first four) and Sumer Sports (the last two).
Points Per Game: 15th
Drive Scoring Percentage: 10th
Points Per Drive: 10th
3rd Down Conversion Rate: 2nd
EPA (Expected Points Added)/Play: 11th
Success Rate: 7th
“Expected points added” is a fancy way of saying “yards gained in a way that makes scoring more likely,” and factors in down and distance. Success rate is similar, in that it’s the percentage of plays in which you had a positive EPA. Both of them are what we’d call “efficiency” stats that chart how consistently your offense is moving the ball in a positive way and (this is key) aren’t as affected by big plays or a lack thereof.
And this is where the conversation about the 2024 chiefs offense (and potentially 2025) gets a whole lot more interesting, as well as optimistic.
