https://theathletic.com/2245312/2020/12/08/chiefs-controlling-the-clock/
Is controlling the clock the best way to slow down the Chiefs’ offense?
by
Nate Taylor, Seth Keysor, Ethan Douglas
A theory about the Chiefs began permeating through the NFL sometime during the offseason in 2019. And yes, around that time, the cliches began to be uttered by everyone — analysts, coaches and even players. Control the tempo. Play keepaway. Grind it out. Milk the clock by running the ball. At all costs, keep the ball away from Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs’ offense.
The discussion centered on how teams, especially ones with lesser talent, could best challenge and defeat the Chiefs and Mahomes, their star quarterback. As the MVP in 2018, Mahomes threw for 5,097 yards and 50 touchdowns and led the Chiefs to the AFC Championship Game. Behind Mahomes and coach Andy Reid, they found success simply by outscoring teams in shootouts.
Saying “control the tempo” or “keep Mahomes on the bench” sounds great in theory, but it’s important to ask what’s really meant by that statement. Most people mean teams should possess the ball longer than the Chiefs to shorten the game or lower the number of possessions.
But is that strategy known to be reliably successful against Mahomes and Co.? This season, the Chiefs secured comeback victories over the Chargers and Panthers when they possessed the ball for at least 38 minutes. They ended last season as Super Bowl champions, becoming the first team to win three postseason games after trailing by 10 or more points.
The men most responsible for the theory, though, just happened to be Patriots coach Bill Belichick and legendary quarterback Tom Brady. The Patriots beat the Chiefs twice in 2018, and both victories were earned in dramatic fashion. In the regular season, the Patriots had the ball for 36 minutes, including as time expired when they made a game-winning field goal. Before becoming champions, the Patriots were led by Brady in the AFC Championship Game by executing one of the most methodical offensive strategies in league history, possessing the ball for 44 minutes and keeping Mahomes on the sideline during overtime by winning the coin toss and scoring the winning touchdown. People thought that showed a template for beating the Chiefs by looking at the time of possession and total rushing yards, and ignored that the Patriots consistently threw the ball and still had to score an absurd number of points (and win an all-important coin flip) in order to secure the victory.
Of course, most teams don’t have the combination of Belichick, the greatest coach in the Super Bowl era, and Brady, the owner of six Super Bowl rings.
Five opponents this season — the Chargers, Patriots, Raiders, Broncos and Panthers — have possessed the ball more than the Chiefs in their matchup. The Raiders are the lone team who has defeated the Chiefs (10-1) — and the Raiders had the ball for 35 minutes but also needed 40 points and multiple chunk plays (not methodical drives) to win.
So why has this theory persisted? And what makes some people in the NFL still believe in it?
THE WITNESSES:
• Chiefs right tackle Mitchell Schwartz: “You kind of say, you want to get (most teams) in those passing situations. I don’t think anyone approaches us and says, ‘We want to make them throw the ball.’ It definitely plays to a strength of ours in a weird way.”
• Chiefs defensive end Frank Clark: “We get to third down and it’s 3rd-and-2 or 3rd-and-1. It’s no mystery what these teams are coming here to do. (For the Chiefs), it’s about being able to stop this run so we can have fun.”
• Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson: “Just get positive yards. That’s the main focus. You don’t need the big chunk plays. Sustain drives. Keep that explosive (Chiefs) offense off of the field.”
• Raiders coach Jon Gruden: “Not with No. 15 standing over there. We just did not want to give Mahomes another crack at it. I marveled at a lot of the plays that Derek (Carr, the Raiders quarterback) made. I certainly marvel at what Mahomes is able to do. A lot of his offense is unscripted. It is completely creative, and it is all created by him. Thank God we do not have to see them for a few weeks.”
THE FILM
In football, possession doesn’t work the same way it does in baseball. In theory, one team could “keep possession” (by continuing to bat) in baseball forever as long as it kept producing hits, walks and runs. The NFL is different. The field is a finite length, and once the end of the field is reached on a successful drive, the other team automatically gets the ball back. No matter how much one talks about keeping the ball out of a certain player’s hands, the reality is, barring turnovers (which are important), it’s impossible to do in the NFL. And so, the idea of playing keepaway is nonsensical in terms of pure time of possession.
The better theory is that if a team is able to run the ball and “burn clock,” it can lower the total number of possessions in the game and thus make the final score more random. Keep in mind there would be fewer possessions for both teams (again, barring turnovers), so the goal isn’t to just give the Chiefs fewer chances to score. Both teams would lose chances to score. It’s an acknowledgment that the Chiefs are more likely to score under usual circumstances, and by lowering the possessions for both teams, chance events like penalties, fumbles and the like are more likely to determine the outcome as opposed to the dominance of the better team.
Unfortunately for the theory, limiting possessions and “shortening the game” doesn’t work often against the Chiefs in that the strategy is as reliant on defense as it is on offense. It is something that often goes ignored when people talk about controlling the clock, but consider this hypothetical: A team completes a time-chewing drive of nine minutes and scores. On the surface, it has helped limit possessions due to such a long drive. The team then kicks the ball off to the Chiefs, and on 1st-and-10, this happens:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="pt" dir="ltr">✌️ DEUCES ✌️<br><br>��: <a href="https://twitter.com/NFLonCBS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NFLonCBS</a> <a href="https://t.co/FVdr2kKTGm">pic.twitter.com/FVdr2kKTGm</a></p>— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) <a href="https://twitter.com/Chiefs/status/1333167439895474176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 29, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
By scoring quickly and moving the ball efficiently, the Chiefs are able to negate long possessions by opponents. In other words, in order for their opponent to really control the clock and limit the number of possessions, its defense is just as responsible as its offense. If the defense can consistently force the Chiefs to punt or go on long, clock-chewing drives, the plan can be successful. Otherwise, it doesn’t really work to shorten possessions.
The problem is it is absurdly hard to force the Chiefs to punt the ball or take their time going down the field, in part because they throw so frequently and in part because of how exceptional they are at converting third downs thanks to Mahomes.
The truth of the matter is that with Mahomes and a healthy team, there’s no example since the start of last season of the “control the clock” methodology actually working to beat the Chiefs. There are several games people cite as examples, but none of them are true cases of the Chiefs losing due to “clock control” and running the ball. Let’s look at each loss of the Mahomes era in which Mahomes actually played.
https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uploads/2020/12/07171727/KC-losses.png
Notice that I didn’t include time of possession. That’s because, as discussed, time of possession is meaningless in “controlling the clock” if it doesn’t actually limit possessions, as that’s the actual measure of the number of chances a team’s offense had to score. By ignoring time of possession, we can look to see whether there’s any reason to believe the Chiefs lost games because they had fewer possessions or scored less.
It should be noted that in 2019, according to Pro-Football-Reference, teams averaged 11.2 drives per game. The first thing to note is that the Chiefs averaged 0.1 fewer drives per game in their losses than what the rest of the NFL averages. The second thing to note is that even when the Chiefs had a lower number of drives than that average, it was by a single drive with one exception (the loss to the Chargers in 2018).
It should also be noted that the Chiefs averaged 31.3 points per game in their losses while their opponents averaged 36.2 points per game. In other words, teams weren’t holding the Chiefs’ offense back, by and large; they were simply outscoring them in shootouts. It’s also evident that opposing teams generally did their damage through the air in those games, not on the ground, averaging 120 more passing yards per game.
Even in games that people point to the most often as evidence that “controlling the clock” is the way to beat the Chiefs, the evidence for that is rather limited. The Chiefs’ losses to the Colts and Titans in 2019 are the most commonly cited examples, but both are very flawed. The Chiefs had just a single fewer possession than the NFL average in the Colts game despite all the running yards for Indianapolis. Furthermore, the Chiefs were missing wide receivers Tyreek Hill and Sammy Watkins, along with left tackle Eric Fisher. Most importantly, Mahomes aggravated his sprained left ankle early in the game and was clearly hobbled throughout. Despite that, it took a dropped touchdown pass from running back Damien Williams and a fumble by running back LeSean McCoy in Colts territory for the Chiefs to be held back in scoring. Looking to that game as an example of a “formula” to beat the Chiefs is a classic example of shallow box score analysis.
The Titans game is no different. The Chiefs scored 32 points and had 12 possessions despite the Titans’ success running the ball, so the game wasn’t shortened and the offense wasn’t stymied.
In short, when one actually looks at the games the Chiefs have lost, there’s no evidence to suggest teams have successfully “shortened” the game in a way that actually matters regardless of time of possession. Their ability to dictate the pace of the game on offense has prevented teams from exercising that method. With no evidence to support the idea, it’s just ignoring reality to claim that teams have beaten the Chiefs by “controlling the clock.”
THE NUMBERS
To many, “controlling the clock” means running the football and keeping the clock running. Hopefully by now, you’ve learned that isn’t a successful strategy against the Chiefs — but in case you’re still on the fence, here’s one more key piece of evidence: With win probability models, we can accurately assess the contribution each individual play has toward either team winning the game. It accounts for the strength of the teams involved, the down, the distance and the score differential, and just as importantly, the time remaining. In other words, if running the ball and thus controlling the clock was a better option than passing when facing the Chiefs, we’d see that reflected in win probability.
But as you can see … we don’t.
https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uploads/2020/12/07172154/wpa.png
The Chiefs are known for being better at defending the pass than the run, and yet because of the mechanical advantage of throwing a football through the air and the potential for explosive plays, passes have done more damage to the Chiefs’ chances of winning on average than runs. And remember, this analysis takes into account that rushing drains the clock. In other words, control the clock all you want — but the only “body blows” you’re delivering are to your own chances of winning.
THE VERDICT
Taylor: When you play Mahomes, you better score at least 31 points to give yourself the best chance to win. Mahomes is too talented of a quarterback, Reid is too creative of a play-caller and the Chiefs have too deep of a roster for a worthy opponent to focus much of its strategy around keeping the ball for the majority of the game. You need points. And you might need luck in terms of turnovers or the Chiefs to commit several penalties to earn a victory.
Keysor: There’s no real evidence to support the idea teams can beat the Chiefs by running the ball and controlling the clock. The most reliable way to beat Kansas City during the Mahomes era based on everything we’ve seen is to either win a shootout or have your defense play exceptionally well while your offense still scores at least 26 points. Either that or hope you cash in on turnovers and/or Mahomes is playing hurt.
Douglas: Controlling the clock may sound nice, but it’s controlling the scoreboard that wins games. The path to beating the Chiefs is simple: Move the ball efficiently on offense, score points and prevent the Chiefs from doing the same. Anything else is a fool’s errand.
Our decision: Busted
People can talk about “keeping the ball away from Mahomes” all they want, but that ignores the reality of football possessions and the history of how the Chiefs have actually lost games.
This myth is as false as can be.