Game Analysis
KANSAS CITY (-3) vs Jacksonville
This game will feature the league’s best scoring offense versus its best scoring defense. Patrick Mahomes has been fortunate to not throw an interception thus far this season as Bradley Roby had a shot at two picks last Monday night and he even admitted he’s making some dangerous throws. Still, Mahomes did an excellent job identifying pressure pre-snap in a hostile environment at Mile High and he will need to continue communicating with his offensive line against a Jacksonville front that led the league in sack rate a year ago. Travis Kelce has the 2nd most targets among tight ends and is gaining 2.23 yards per route run after finishing 3rd among tight ends last season with 2.03 yards per route run. Kelce will face his toughest challenge in a Jaguars defense allowing just 5.3 yards per target to opposing tight ends (2nd) after ranking 5th in 2017 and that battle will be pivotal in this game.
Jacksonville’s offense is looking solid sans Leonard Fournette, who’s perhaps the most overrated back in the NFL given his low 3.9 ypr career average. T.J. Yeldon has averaged a solid 4.2 ypr in place of Fournette and the Jaguars are throwing the ball more often, registering the 9th-highest passing rate excluding irrelevant plays. Blake Bortles is throwing for a career-high 6.8 yards per pass play and will likely continue that success facing a Chiefs defense surrendering the most chunk plays in the NFL without star safety Eric Berry. Jaguars’ Left tackle Josh Wells hasn’t allowed a sack filling in for Cam Robinson, but he’s faced some poor competition against the Patriots without Trey Flowers and the Jets. This week, Wells will line up across from Dee Ford, whose 22 pressures rank 2nd to only Khalil Mack in 2018. Still, even if Wells struggles, Bortles has been one of the more reliable quarterbacks under pressure so far, gaining 5.2 yards per pass play with 2 touchdowns and 0 interceptions while also making a habit of escaping the pocket for big gains with his legs (132 rushing yards at 7.3 ypr this season).
Our model doesn’t see enough value to play this game but it could be a preview of a future playoff game and will certainly be interesting to watch.
- Team Stats
- Game Log
- Jaguars
- Chiefs
Pass
- Pass Plays 39.0 34.3
- Succ Pass Plays 49.3% 38.8%
- Sack Rate 4.0% 7.8%
- Int Rate 2.0% 0.7%
- Deep Pass Rate 12.1% 13.1%
- Big Pass Yards 31.5% 28.3%
- NYPP 6.7 4.7
Rush
- Rush Plays 27.0 24.3
- RB YPR 3.6 3.5
- Stuff Rate 17.3% 26.0%
- Succ Rush Plays 40.9% 35.6%
- Big Rush Yards 41.0% 37.9%
- Yards Per Rush 4.3 3.7
Game
- All Snaps 66.0 58.5
- Early Down Succ 47.4% 40.7%
- Succ Rate 45.5% 37.4%
- Big Yards Rate 35.6% 33.5%
- Yards Per Play 5.7 4.4
- Fumble Lost Rate 1.5% 0.8%
- Time Per Play (sec) 28.4 29.4
- Run Ratio 40.6% 41.0%
- Starting Field Pos 26.8 28.3
- Game Control 6.5 -6.5
- Points 22.0 14.0