Why You Should Keep an Eye on Mecole Hardman this Sunday

It’s Always Sunny in Chiefs Kingdom is back with a recap of the Kansas City Chiefs' victory over the Houston Texans and explains why you should keep an eye on Mecole Hardman this weekend.

Football is back, and so is It’s Always Sunny in Chiefs Kingdom. Actually, It’s Always Sunny in Chiefs Kingdom never left — but now, for the first time in the history of our podcast, we had brand new football content to talk about, namely the Kansas City Chiefs' victory over the Houston Texans on Thursday Night Football.

After breaking down that game, Taylor and I debuted a new segment called “What is Happening?” We covered the major NFL storylines of Week 1, especially those that impact our Chiefs: the Broncos’ face-plant on Monday Night Football, the Raiders and Chargers’ near face-plants against teams that probably aren’t very good, and strong performances by the Chiefs’ Week 3 and Week 4 opponents, the Baltimore Ravens and New England Patriots.

Then we got to this week’s matchup, Chiefs at Chargers. We broke it all down on the podcast — why Patrick Mahomes doesn’t have monster numbers against LA, how key injuries might affect the matchup — but there was one area in particular that I wanted to explore in greater depth: special teams.

Specifically, the Chargers’ special teams, and how incredibly bad they’ve been for as long as Andy Reid has been coaching the Kansas City Chiefs.

Longtime listeners of the podcast will already be familiar with an advanced metric, developed by Football Outsiders, called DVOA. DVOA is a statistic that “measures a team's efficiency by comparing success on every single play to a league average based on situation and opponent.” For special teams, DVOA measures a team’s performance in five areas: 1) kicking field goals and extra points, 2) kickoffs, 3) kickoff returns, 4) punts, and 5) punt returns. The following table shows the Chargers’ league rank (out of 32 teams, 32nd being the worst) in special teams DVOA since 2013:

It shouldn’t be possible to be this bad on special teams for this long. Special teams play is less “sticky” than offense or defense — in other words, the fact that a special teams unit was good or bad one season is not very predictive of how good it will be the following season. This is because special teams play fewer snaps than offenses or defenses do, meaning smaller sample sizes from which to judge their performance. Because their sample sizes are smaller, special teams performance is more likely to be influenced by luck, good or bad, which is not predictive of the future. For example: Patrick Mahomes may attempt 600 passes this year; if one is batted down because a running back doesn’t hold his block, it won’t dramatically change his season numbers. Harrison Butker, in contrast, might attempt 40 field goals this year. If one bad snap results in a miss, it may be the difference between him finishing first in the NFL in field goal accuracy or 15th. But that bad snap was not Butker’s fault, and does not mean that he’s the 15th most accurate kicker in the NFL.

Bad luck cannot explain the Chargers’ special teams, because it actually is impossible to be this unlucky for this long. The Chargers have simply been bad. Despite ever-changing personnel (10 different kickers and seven different punters since 2013), three different special teams coaches (Kevin Spencer from 2013–2014, Craig Aukerman from 2015–2016, and George Stewart from 2017 to present), and three different home stadiums, the Chargers have consistently had one of the worst special teams units in the NFL.

Compare the Chargers’ special teams rankings to the sometimes-maligned units of Chiefs’ Special Teams Coordinator Dave Toub:

The Chiefs have the advantage over their division foe at quarterback and head coach, and that cannot be understated. But there might not be a bigger mismatch in the entire NFL than KC’s special teams against LA’s. As bad as the Chargers have been over the past seven seasons, the Chiefs have been good.

Which brings us to Mecole Hardman.

After enduring some ribbing from his teammates after being named to the 2019 Pro Bowl as a return specialist — despite not having a return touchdown — Hardman took the field in Week 17 determined to quiet the critics. The Chargers’ 32nd ranked special teams unit never had a chance. In the third quarter, after Melvin Gordon put LA ahead 14-10, Hardman took the ensuing kickoff 104 yards the other way.

After one week, the Chargers currently rank 26th in special teams DVOA for 2020, having allowed a 44-yard kickoff return to the Bengals’ Brandon Wilson, 14.5 yards per punt return to Alex Erickson, and missing a field goal. They may have a new stadium, a new quarterback, and beautiful brand-new uniforms, but when it comes to special teams play, these are the same old Chargers. So keep an eye on #17 Sunday.