On The Record: Three Models For Chiefs 2017 Season

Chiefs are coming off their best record in years, with a division win and a close, if frustrating, loss in the playoffs. Even so, many pundits are predicting that Chiefs will have nine wins or less this year. While I could simply rant about how wrong they are, or site various players who could or should step up this year, I think it will be more effective to let the stats do the talking. After all, any analysis of players or potential is somewhat subjective. Numbers, on the other hand, paint a much more objective vision of the future. With that in mind, here are three projections and three potential records for the Chiefs‘ 2017 season.

Projection By Weighted DVOA: First off, a couple definitions from footballoutsiders.com:

DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average): “The main statistic used on Football Outsiders, DVOA breaks down the entire season play-by-play, comparing success on each play to the league average based on a number of variables including down, distance, location on field, current score gap, quarter, and opponent quality. While it can be used as a measure of total team performance, it differs from other power ratings found throughout the Web because it can be broken down to analyze team effectiveness in any number of ways: down, quarter, rushing vs. receiving, location on field, passes to backs vs. passes to receivers, and so on. Read the article Methods To The Madness for more information. Even though DVOA stands for Defense-adjusted Value Over Average, we use the same letters to refer to defensive rankings which are adjusted to take into account the quality of offensive opponents.”

Weighted DVOA: “A version of DVOA that gives recent games more weight than games early in the season to try to get an idea of how team have improved or declined over time.”

Basically, in this model, I compared each of Chiefs’ opponent’s weighted DVOA to the Chiefs. When the Chiefs ranked higher in DVOA I gave them the win, when the opponent ranked higher, I gave them the win. The one exception was the Giants. Since Chiefs and Giants were very close in their ranks, and it was a home game for the Giants, I decided to give them the win. Here are the results:

This model shows Chiefs finishing with the same record as last year, an excellent 12-4. While Chiefs do have a very difficult schedule, paying six teams in the top 10, they’re also a very good team and should be getting better.

Projection By Average Scoring: For this next projection, I wanted to see how the Chiefs performed against their opponents, relative to how those opponents performed on average. I compared Chiefs scoring and points allowed, to opposing team averages. Then I averaged out those numbers, to determine what percentage of points Chiefs scored vs the average and what percentage of points they allowed vs the average. That’s kind of a mouthful, and a bunch of data, so for the bottom line, just skip past the table. Anyway, here are the results:

Bottom Line: Chiefs scored, on average, 104% of their opponents average points allowed. They held their opponents, on average, to 81% of their average points scored. This means the offense was basically average, and the defense was well above average. I took these numbers and applied them to the 2016 average stats for Chiefs 2017 opponents. This is the resulting projection for the 2017 season:

This projection has Chiefs finishing, an incredible 14-2. I would love to see Chiefs finish with that record, but it had me worried that I’d made a mistake in my projection, so I went back and looked at the numbers. I found that while Chiefs defense fares about the same, regardless of opponent, the offense is significantly better in the division than outside of it. This ultimately is what’s killing the Chiefs in the playoffs. The defense is consistent, but the offense struggles outside of the division. For the final projection, I used the same method as the 2^nd, but separated performance by inside the division and outside the division.

Projection By Average Scoring By Division: Chiefs defense held divisional opponents to 79% of their average scoring. Chiefs’ offense scored 133% of division opponents‘ average points allowed. Against the division, Chiefs are an elite team on both sides of the ball. Unfortunately, against non-division opponents, those numbers change to 82% of average scoring and only 86.5% of average points allowed. Using those numbers, here’s my final projection for the Chiefs season:

This projections puts the Chiefs at 10-5-1. If you consider that the Bills game will be at Arrowhead, 11-5 seems pretty likely.

Conclusion: Of the three projections, 11-5 seems the most likely to me. I feel like this team is underrated, but they do have a really tough schedule. Training camp could change my mind, one way or the other, but, for now, I’m comfortable predicting the Chiefs will win 11 games this season. In a tough year, that should be good enough to win the AFC West, provided they sweep the division again. The playoffs has long been the Achilles heel of the Chiefs, but if the offense can build some consistency outside the division, they have a real shot to make a deep run. Go Chiefs.

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