San Diego at Kansas City (-7)

Why the Chiefs will cover

An AFC West divisional game that will feature two QBs who had eerily similar 2015 campaigns from an efficiency standpoint, Philip Rivers And Alex Smith.  Both Mid-30’s quarterbacks averaged between 7.2 and 7.4 yards per pass, had a 1.5-2.0% INT rate and a ranked in the bottom third of the league in deep shots taken (Under 15%).  The 2015 11-5 Chiefs team were built around running and defense, which made them well-suited to overcome this ‘game management’, the 4-12 Chargers were not.   With so few deep shots taken the teams relied on efficient ball control offenses.  And on the defensive side the teams relied on stopping the run and limiting big plays, categories in which the Chargers ranked 2nd worst and 6th worst, respectively. Both of those characteristics have shown to have a season over season holdover affect, so it is less likely that San Diego will improve by much in those areas.  This also caused the Chargers to have a top third pass/run ratio, while the Chiefs were on the opposite end of the pass/run spectrum, being able to run the ball quite a bit more.  While the efficiency numbers were similar last season, Philip Rivers had 40% more pass attempts than Alex Smith, as Kansas City was able to run the offense that they wanted while San Diego’s offensive strategies were influenced more by their porous defense.

Another area where KC consistently had a subtle, but hugely impactful advantage last year was special teams.  KC has fought off the regression trend the past three years, enjoying consistently superior starting field position (Median and 1st Quartile).  Conversely last year, San Diego was at the bottom in the field position categories.  SD was pinned behind the 20 almost 30% of the time while KC was started only 19% of drives behind the 20.  KC has had a consistent Special Teams unit under Dave Toub (averaging a starting field position of 33, 29 and 31 in his 3 seasons) and led by punter Dustin Colquitt, who, last year, pinned his opponent inside the 20 – 51% of the time, by contrast former SD punter Mike Scrifes pinned teams at 23% rate.  And while regression is expected from SD’s atrocious 2015 campaign of starting from the 23, KC’s consistently stellar field position is hard to overlook.  For reference each yard a team wins in the starting field position battle (Team Starting field Position – Opponent Starting Field Position) has shown to be worth .83 points to the actual game margin.

While the 4-12 season did not go as planned for San Diego, the Chargers  have shown the ability to consistently be among the better offenses in the league with Philip Rivers at Quarterback (as measured by success rate).  Injuries all along San Diego’s Offensive Line were a reason attributed to the poor run game and you could easily make a case for them sustaining or improving their decent offensive efficiency metrics.  Kansas City falls on the other side of the regression coin, posting  their most consistent offensive performances in years,  assuming an increase for KC with largely the same offensive personal is less likely.  Of note, Jamaal Charles, is a “stretch” to play according to Andy Reid, although Spencer Ware proved more than serviceable in that attack last year.

There is more potential for positive regression from the offensive side of the ball for San Diego than KC.  However defenses have recently shown to be more sticky year over year, and with the Bolts being 2nd worse in adjusted yards per run last year, they will need to slow an efficient KC ground game to come within the touchdown spread.  In addition,  teams that win the field position battle are 68% ATS (2829-1302-125) in a 16 year sample, and our early season model likes the Chiefs to cover, so we will lean toward KC -7.