Quote:
Originally Posted by Chiefspants
Juju’s route tree was more advanced and it’s likely his timing was considerably more consistent than where Rice is at the moment.
I’m a big Rice guy, I think he’ll get there, I don’t think he’s there yet.
DJ disagrees with my take on this, but our O had the second highest 3rd down conversion rate last year and Juju was responsible for converting nearly 20% of all of our O’s third downs (despite only starting 14 games). While that doesn’t seem like a super high number, to me that’s the difference between a drive stalling at midfield or settling for 3 (as we’ve done a lot this year), and a grind it out, 15 play drive that ends in 6.
FWIW, I think Patrick has taken a step back, too. However I don’t think we can waive off Juju’s absence by saying Rice is better or even that he’s already at the level Juju was last season.
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I thought this was interesting - a short and simple analysis of 1ds/target.
JJSS had 47 on 101 targets; 47% of his targets were 1st downs.
Kelce: 78/152 -- 51%
MVS: 32/81 -- 40%
McKinnon: 28/56 -- 50%
Hardman: 14/34 -- 41%
Gray: 14/34 -- 41%
Moore: 13/33 -- 39%
Watson: 12/34 -- 35%
MEH, Toney, Pacheco, Fortson, Jones, Bell combined: 34/59 -- 58%
So let's set aside Kelce and JJSS for the purposes of the analysis here -- 147 1st downs on 331 targets for the rest of 'em. 45%
Vs 47% for JJSS?
And when you throw Kelce back in the mix with the non-JuJu guys you get 225 1st downs on 483 targests -- 47%; same rate as JJSS.
Fellas, JuJu wasn't some spectacular chain mover. He moved the chains at EXACTLY the same rate as the rest of the targets. And there's not even a huge standard deviation among those guys -- give him Moore's rate and he's at 40 first downs over a season instead of the 47 he got; a half a first down/gm better by 'rate' than Moore got.
The only difference is that Mahomes threw him the ball. But when he did, he wasn't appreciably more successful than when Mahomes threw it to anyone else on the field. The success rate was essentially identical.
He doesn't NEED JJSS. He didn't need him last season - he doesn't need him this season. This shit is in his head.
Unless your position is that the lack of JJSS has vapor-locked Mahomes, I don't see how you can argue that it's mattered. Because the ABILITY that JJSS had simply didn't manifest itself into any level of production that outpaced anyone else on that team on a rate basis. It was, at best, marginally better in some areas.
Losing JJSS isn't the problem unless Mahomes has convinced
himself that it is. In which case, he just needs to get past that. JJSS didn't bring anything to this team that doesn't exist in its present version.