If Green Bay and Kansas City advance to the Super Bowl, I’ve found my favorite stat for the game. I wasn’t specifically looking for it. I just stumbled onto it as I was sifting through some of the numbers.
The red zone is a key area of the field. That’s where drives often either become touchdowns, or the defense gets a partial win by allowing just a field goal. And in that part of the field, Green Bay’s offense against Kansas City’s defense would project to be one of the biggest mismatches in NFL history.
The Packers thus far have been remarkably good around the end zone. Inside the red zone, they’ve scored on 80 percent of their possessions. That’s better than even the 2013 Broncos (that was the year Peyton Manning threw 55 touchdowns).
I don’t have the all-time numbers, but I would think 80 percent is the highest ever. This can partially be attributed to the game changing, but this is a really good offense That right now is totally dialed in.
| BEST RED ZONE OFFENSES (last 10 years) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Offense | Poss | TD | FG | TD Pct |
| 2020 | Green Bay | 60 | 48 | 7 | 80.0% |
| 2013 | Denver | 67 | 51 | 12 | 76.1% |
| 2019 | Tennessee | 45 | 34 | 2 | 75.6% |
| 2020 | Tennessee | 64 | 48 | 7 | 75.0% |
| 2013 | Cincinnati | 46 | 34 | 5 | 73.9% |
| 2020 | Cleveland | 53 | 39 | 9 | 73.6% |
| 2018 | Pittsburgh | 49 | 36 | 7 | 73.5% |
| 2020 | Seattle | 56 | 41 | 9 | 73.2% |
| 2014 | Oakland | 29 | 21 | 6 | 72.4% |
| 2020 | New Orleans | 68 | 49 | 14 | 72.1% |
| 2016 | Tennessee | 50 | 36 | 11 | 72.0% |
| 2018 | Kansas City | 71 | 51 | 17 | 71.8% |
| 2020 | Minnesota | 59 | 42 | 9 | 71.2% |
| 2018 | Cincinnati | 45 | 32 | 10 | 71.1% |
| 2012 | New England | 70 | 49 | 17 | 70.0% |
| 2018 | New Orleans | 69 | 48 | 15 | 69.6% |
| 2015 | Detroit | 49 | 34 | 10 | 69.4% |
| 2020 | Tampa Bay | 61 | 42 | 16 | 68.9% |
| 2018 | Indianapolis | 64 | 44 | 13 | 68.8% |
| 2013 | Dallas | 51 | 35 | 12 | 68.6% |
It’s with the defensive numbers where things get really interesting. Kansas City in the regular season allowed touchdowns on 36 of its 47 red zone possessions. That’s almost 77 percent, and that’s the 2nd-worst number of the last 10 years (only just behind the 2018 Buccaneers – the year before Bruce Arians and Todd Bowles showed up).
In the past 10 years, there have been 320 NFL teams. None of those teams did a better job of scoring in the red zone than the Packers. And only one of those teams did a worst job of stopping offenses from finishing drives with touchdowns.
So if and when the Packers and Kansas City meet in the Super Bowl, what confidence are we suppose to have that defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo can come up with any stops?
It’s early. Let’s see what the teams look like on Sunday. Kansas City can also pile up yards and points. But my leaning for now would be that Green Bay would win that potential Super Bowl, and that it might be a Big-12 kind of matchup – one of those games where the over-under is set really high (and the over still looks like the more likely outcome).
| WORST RED ZONE DEFENSES (last 10 years) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Defense | Poss | TD | FG | TD Pct |
| 2018 | Tampa Bay | 58 | 45 | 10 | 77.6% |
| 2020 | Kansas City | 47 | 36 | 6 | 76.6% |
| 2016 | Atlanta | 55 | 40 | 11 | 72.7% |
| 2018 | Kansas City | 58 | 42 | 10 | 72.4% |
| 2020 | Detroit | 65 | 47 | 8 | 72.3% |
| 2019 | Houston | 49 | 35 | 11 | 71.4% |
| 2016 | LA Rams | 52 | 37 | 11 | 71.2% |
| 2018 | Buffalo | 48 | 34 | 12 | 70.8% |
| 2018 | Houston | 41 | 29 | 10 | 70.7% |
| 2018 | Atlanta | 54 | 38 | 10 | 70.4% |
| 2018 | Carolina | 47 | 33 | 8 | 70.2% |
| 2012 | San Diego | 40 | 28 | 10 | 70.0% |
| 2020 | Tennessee | 65 | 45 | 13 | 69.2% |
| 2012 | Buffalo | 55 | 38 | 14 | 69.1% |
| 2019 | Tennessee | 47 | 32 | 9 | 68.1% |
| 2020 | New Orleans | 50 | 34 | 8 | 68.0% |
| 2016 | Detroit | 53 | 36 | 11 | 67.9% |
| 2015 | New Orleans | 65 | 44 | 13 | 67.7% |
| 2017 | Cleveland | 46 | 31 | 11 | 67.4% |
| 2019 | Oakland | 55 | 37 | 14 | 67.3% |
—Ian Allan