[DJay23]

Early Down Success Rate is a metric which looks at yards gained on first down and on second down and considers them successful plays if on first down you gain 40% of yards to go and on second down you gain 60% of yards to go. It is a fairly useful predictive tool because obviously if you are gaining yards on first and second, you are left with third and short or are avoiding third down altogether. You are going to score points if this is the case. If you look at it from the defensive side of the ball, EDSR tells you how an opposing offense does on early downs against you. If you can stop teams on first and second down leaving a tougher 3rd down and distance...obviously that creates more chance for success for your defense.

Using this statistic over the last 3 weeks the Chiefs defense ranks 7th in the NFL against the run and 3rd against the pass. Compare this to weeks 1-6 and the Chiefs were 32nd against the run and 23rd against the pass.

None of this happens in a vacuum of course. The Chiefs have done this against the Denver offense (15th most efficient run offense the week we played them, and 5th most efficient pass offense the week we played them), the Green Bay offense (7th run, 21st pass when we played them) and Minnesota offense (14th run, 10th pass when we played them). So it's not as if it was against the Dolphins, Jets, and Redskins.

I find this statistic to be pretty telling because it parses out that 18 yard draw play on 3rd and 20 that boosts your yards per play statistics but really has no meaning toward moving the ball toward a score.

IF you are unfamiliar with Sharp football statistics I suggest you check it out. He has a lot of really great data that you can manipulate and visualize.
https://www.sharpfootballstats.com/home.html