Great article and thank you for your work on this. I forgot about the bad punts and seeing the drops made me realize that it was a group loss. Hopefully the team will rally and be better next year.
Such a great article, as always! FWIW, your level-headed analysis and Nate's high-pitched voice are the reason I listen to Time's Ours podcast every week. Keep up the great work! :D
I knew this was going to hurt to read but glad I did. As always, I learn so much from your film analysis. Not surprised about stat comparisons to 2018. I'm surprised you only charted 8 franchise throws.
Worst protection you've ever charted in an NFL game. Wow.
Receivers not winning contested catches...why? That's not normal for Chiefs receivers Something TB specifically did or just bad day?
To some extent, we saw what Mahomes looked like at Texas Tech which made Veach, Reid, etc. fall in love with him. He went into games with inferior athletes week after week and made incredible plays that sometimes came off and sometimes didn't but were always breathtaking.
There was no doubt after that game that Mahomes was the best player on that field on Sunday. My feeling was sort of reminiscent of the loss we had to Tennessee in the 2019 season that dropped us to 6-4, with the Raiders right on our heels, and both Baltimore and New England looking completely dominant. That was Mahomes' first game back from injury, and we got beat on the weirdest few minutes of the Mahomes era (which is saying something) and I came out of that loss thinking we were unbeatable.
I came out of the Super Bowl thinking Mahomes is unbeatable. Not only is he the most physically gifted thrower of the football I have ever seen, but he has absolutely the perfect mentality of any player I have ever seen. Either Sunday or Monday during his presser, a reporter asked him when he knew they were not going to win, and his answer was when they were intercepted inside the 2 minute warning. And you could tell this was not BS. Tell him at the two-minute warning that he had no timeouts, needed three touchdowns and a two point conversion, and his mindset is, "So you're saying there's a chance."
I watched the game again last night. My wife thought I was nuts to relive it all. My uncle was the biggest Chiefs fan I have known, and he died in 2016. I told my wife after the replay that I just feel lucky to be alive and a Chiefs fan today. Mahomes has lapped the field as the best player in the game.
Can you please do a similar quarterback review of Tom Brady? I will forever have to hear that "Brady beat Mahomes when it mattered most", and I'd like a little ammunition to fire back.
To the point of your intro - Why I'm not a big fan of trying to "Money Ball" Football.
Even though I grant that there is a ton of value in them as a *tool* in football, and, I can appreciate trying to create a "subset" industry in NFL Analytics- just that, as you said, it's deeply, *deeply* flawed. (And, especially, as a Dodgers fan, I am a big advocate for the Sabermetrics being utilized for baseball)
To be as succinct as I possibly can- my most basic of examples as compared to baseball (which is the root of analytics) being:
- Sample Size (as you did). There are more plays in ONE GAME of baseball than a single football team will have in an entire season. And DECADES more of data to pull from and apply. And to a game that has changed relatively very little over it's 150 years of existence.
- Who is Playing LF is Almost Entirely Meaningless. When assessing launch angle & bat speed vs spin rate of a righty slider-heavy pitcher, nobody cares who plays left field (ANY position) on any given pitch. But when analyzing success on runs to the B-gap on 2nd & 3- Aaron Donald 1000% matters. Literally every player on that field matters. Formation matters. That specific team's tendencies matter. SO MANY THINGS MATTER in the success of any given play.
- The Existence of Errors. Like you said, the nuances don't matter in football when tracking the "success" or "failure" of where that ball ends up being spotted at the end of the play. Baseball is incredibly structured. It's fair, it's foul, it's hit, it's missed, it's out or safe, etc.. And if something goes array and what should have happened 99% of the time doesn't b/c 1 person messed up- there is a space on every scoreboard at every baseball field with the letter "E" that tells you- this was an aberration. That wasn't a successful play even though it wound up in our favor.
It's why I'm a fan of what you do. You literally chart and assess every nuance. Even THEN you're constantly, "hey. it's impossible for me to know X but this is what *I* see." It is literally impossible for any one person to be able to do that on a weekly basis for the entire league let alone to try to play catch-up to accurately apply the past to assess the present and predict the future. That's why I HATE national sports media and only really listen to the "beat" guys. Everyone you see on national media is too busy talking about the games to actually watch the games they talk about.
Thank you for the reassurance! In Mahomes we trust. And for good reason. Now to draft a great receiver and a couple of very good O linemen. Has to be depressing for the team to have to start at ground zero after getting so close but I am confident they will rise to the occasion. We are blessed and every other fan base should be rightfully jealous.
First off, I'm a fan of yours, and this is a great article.
However, could you please elaborate on how you've charted only 1 potential INT in a game in which there were 2 *actual* interceptions? I would have thought potential INTs would always be greater than actual INTs.
Good article Seth. Frankly I think the poor gameplan from Reid/Bieniemy in conjunction with a great gameplan from Todd Bowles is to blame for the Chiefs offensive struggles in the Superbowl.
That being said I think Mahomes shoulders some of the blame of the ineffective gameplan and lack of adjustments. I'm being hard on him, but to some degree or another he is complicit.
The next step in his development is to transcend Reid's scheme even further, become even more of a coach on the field. The question is can Reid swallow his ego enough to get out of Patrick's way and let loose of the reigns?
It's amazing to think that flipping 3 plays results would have been all it took for the game to be up in the air. Catch two TD's that got dropped and lineup onside for a FG, that's an 18 point swing on a 22 point loss. You don't have to talk yourself into "well if the refs this" or "if the gameplan had just done that" everything else can stay the same and at 13:43 of the 4th it's TB 27 KC 23.
Hey Seth - I counted 3 dropped TDs. The ones to Hill and Williams that you charted, plus the one to Demarcus Robinson towards to front right side of the Endzone. (That one hit at least one of D.Robs hands, didn’t it?).
Did you have the D.Rob one down as uncatchable?
(Did it even happen? I can’t find it anywhere in the highlights on YouTube... am I going crazy???)
Seth great article. You mentioned the drops and there were too many, but I have a question about drops. Tyreek is a tremendous weapon, but he seems to drop at least 1 pass every game and no one talks about it. Is it lack of consentration or what? At first I thought it was nerves because he dropped one early in a couple of games but that pattern wasn't consistent. Puzzling and no one talks about it
Great article and thank you for your work on this. I forgot about the bad punts and seeing the drops made me realize that it was a group loss. Hopefully the team will rally and be better next year.
Such a great article, as always! FWIW, your level-headed analysis and Nate's high-pitched voice are the reason I listen to Time's Ours podcast every week. Keep up the great work! :D
I told my son after game that we should have won it....Mahomes played his ass off.
I knew this was going to hurt to read but glad I did. As always, I learn so much from your film analysis. Not surprised about stat comparisons to 2018. I'm surprised you only charted 8 franchise throws.
Worst protection you've ever charted in an NFL game. Wow.
Receivers not winning contested catches...why? That's not normal for Chiefs receivers Something TB specifically did or just bad day?
To some extent, we saw what Mahomes looked like at Texas Tech which made Veach, Reid, etc. fall in love with him. He went into games with inferior athletes week after week and made incredible plays that sometimes came off and sometimes didn't but were always breathtaking.
There was no doubt after that game that Mahomes was the best player on that field on Sunday. My feeling was sort of reminiscent of the loss we had to Tennessee in the 2019 season that dropped us to 6-4, with the Raiders right on our heels, and both Baltimore and New England looking completely dominant. That was Mahomes' first game back from injury, and we got beat on the weirdest few minutes of the Mahomes era (which is saying something) and I came out of that loss thinking we were unbeatable.
I came out of the Super Bowl thinking Mahomes is unbeatable. Not only is he the most physically gifted thrower of the football I have ever seen, but he has absolutely the perfect mentality of any player I have ever seen. Either Sunday or Monday during his presser, a reporter asked him when he knew they were not going to win, and his answer was when they were intercepted inside the 2 minute warning. And you could tell this was not BS. Tell him at the two-minute warning that he had no timeouts, needed three touchdowns and a two point conversion, and his mindset is, "So you're saying there's a chance."
I watched the game again last night. My wife thought I was nuts to relive it all. My uncle was the biggest Chiefs fan I have known, and he died in 2016. I told my wife after the replay that I just feel lucky to be alive and a Chiefs fan today. Mahomes has lapped the field as the best player in the game.
I am terrified we're going to be watching Aaron Rodgers 2.0 and squander this man's talent.
Can you please do a similar quarterback review of Tom Brady? I will forever have to hear that "Brady beat Mahomes when it mattered most", and I'd like a little ammunition to fire back.
To the point of your intro - Why I'm not a big fan of trying to "Money Ball" Football.
Even though I grant that there is a ton of value in them as a *tool* in football, and, I can appreciate trying to create a "subset" industry in NFL Analytics- just that, as you said, it's deeply, *deeply* flawed. (And, especially, as a Dodgers fan, I am a big advocate for the Sabermetrics being utilized for baseball)
To be as succinct as I possibly can- my most basic of examples as compared to baseball (which is the root of analytics) being:
- Sample Size (as you did). There are more plays in ONE GAME of baseball than a single football team will have in an entire season. And DECADES more of data to pull from and apply. And to a game that has changed relatively very little over it's 150 years of existence.
- Who is Playing LF is Almost Entirely Meaningless. When assessing launch angle & bat speed vs spin rate of a righty slider-heavy pitcher, nobody cares who plays left field (ANY position) on any given pitch. But when analyzing success on runs to the B-gap on 2nd & 3- Aaron Donald 1000% matters. Literally every player on that field matters. Formation matters. That specific team's tendencies matter. SO MANY THINGS MATTER in the success of any given play.
- The Existence of Errors. Like you said, the nuances don't matter in football when tracking the "success" or "failure" of where that ball ends up being spotted at the end of the play. Baseball is incredibly structured. It's fair, it's foul, it's hit, it's missed, it's out or safe, etc.. And if something goes array and what should have happened 99% of the time doesn't b/c 1 person messed up- there is a space on every scoreboard at every baseball field with the letter "E" that tells you- this was an aberration. That wasn't a successful play even though it wound up in our favor.
It's why I'm a fan of what you do. You literally chart and assess every nuance. Even THEN you're constantly, "hey. it's impossible for me to know X but this is what *I* see." It is literally impossible for any one person to be able to do that on a weekly basis for the entire league let alone to try to play catch-up to accurately apply the past to assess the present and predict the future. That's why I HATE national sports media and only really listen to the "beat" guys. Everyone you see on national media is too busy talking about the games to actually watch the games they talk about.
Anywho... Go Chiefs!
Thank you for the reassurance! In Mahomes we trust. And for good reason. Now to draft a great receiver and a couple of very good O linemen. Has to be depressing for the team to have to start at ground zero after getting so close but I am confident they will rise to the occasion. We are blessed and every other fan base should be rightfully jealous.
First off, I'm a fan of yours, and this is a great article.
However, could you please elaborate on how you've charted only 1 potential INT in a game in which there were 2 *actual* interceptions? I would have thought potential INTs would always be greater than actual INTs.
Great unbiased review of our super-human QB. It's unlocked so I'm sharing it with at least 170k.
Go Chiefs!
Remmers had that Madden 21 AI going for him...
Good article Seth. Frankly I think the poor gameplan from Reid/Bieniemy in conjunction with a great gameplan from Todd Bowles is to blame for the Chiefs offensive struggles in the Superbowl.
That being said I think Mahomes shoulders some of the blame of the ineffective gameplan and lack of adjustments. I'm being hard on him, but to some degree or another he is complicit.
The next step in his development is to transcend Reid's scheme even further, become even more of a coach on the field. The question is can Reid swallow his ego enough to get out of Patrick's way and let loose of the reigns?
It's amazing to think that flipping 3 plays results would have been all it took for the game to be up in the air. Catch two TD's that got dropped and lineup onside for a FG, that's an 18 point swing on a 22 point loss. You don't have to talk yourself into "well if the refs this" or "if the gameplan had just done that" everything else can stay the same and at 13:43 of the 4th it's TB 27 KC 23.
Hey Seth - I counted 3 dropped TDs. The ones to Hill and Williams that you charted, plus the one to Demarcus Robinson towards to front right side of the Endzone. (That one hit at least one of D.Robs hands, didn’t it?).
Did you have the D.Rob one down as uncatchable?
(Did it even happen? I can’t find it anywhere in the highlights on YouTube... am I going crazy???)
Chuck H.just now
Seth great article. You mentioned the drops and there were too many, but I have a question about drops. Tyreek is a tremendous weapon, but he seems to drop at least 1 pass every game and no one talks about it. Is it lack of consentration or what? At first I thought it was nerves because he dropped one early in a couple of games but that pattern wasn't consistent. Puzzling and no one talks about it
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