Bob Sutton has gifted us with the best third-down defense in football
 

Now he just has to figure out first and second down.

https://i.imgur.com/QSYBg0W.png

Winners

That's because either:

they don't need a third down (as you said, they get a first down from first or second down)

OR

we hold on third down but then they easily convert the resulting 4th and 1
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5/5 on 4th down LMAO

282 penalty yards LMAO

211 plays is the REAL big concern. They're bad enough without being gassed. But other than getting better there's no fix for it. Offense shouldn't slow down one bit.

Teams are 5-5 on fourth down....

It appears that the secret to stopping third downs is to wear the offense out by letting them have long drives.

I picture the down markers at arrowhead, by the end of the season, having the "1" and "2" completely bleached out by the sun while the number "3" and "4" look brand new.

The rope-a-dope theory.

ROFLwell played sir!

This is why stat mongers that don't actually watch games are typically idiots.
=)

The surprising thing for me is that the defense has been really good at the beginning of games. If I’m not mistaken, we have started each game with a three and out on defense. We have also been a really good defense throughout the first quarter of games and really the first half of games with the exception of the Steelers 2nd quarter onslaught.

With the offense scoring so quickly and often, I’m wondering if the opposing offenses sheer number of plays/drives is just wearing our defenders out.

They were good Sunday in the first half.

Problem solved then.

All we have to do is count our defensive downs backwards.

FAX

Now, if only we can stop them on first and second down...

Man, that drive at the end of the first half that led to the field goal made me pull the rest of my hair out!!

So since I'm still trying to squint to find silver linings here, I'll take a stab at this.

Right now the average number of 3rd downs for a team is roughly 38. So we have 7 fewer than average over 3 games. So roughly twice/gm that we're giving 'early' 1st downs.

That's really not as bad as I'd have thought. And given our struggles on 1st and 2nd down, doesn't that kinda suggest that the 3rd downs would be largely makeable down and distance situations? Yet on 3rd we're still largely doing damn well.

I still think the defense is struggling as a result of focalized breakdowns leading to big plays. On drives when everyone just does their ****ing job, we don't tend to get housed. Average NFL team has forced 14 punts by now; the Chiefs have forced 12.

It's the big plays and catastrophic coverage breakdowns that kill us (as well as some bombshell second half defense that surrenders easy short yards). I think there are still some areas here that show improvement can be expected and really, the 3rd down percentage is impressive and not to just be dismissed, IMO.