If there was any doubt that receiver Kadarius Toney cost the Kansas City Chiefs a Week 1 victory over the Detroit Lions on Thursday night, one statistic shows that he was clearly to blame.
The metric in question is called “expected points added per target”. This key statistic measures how many points a team can expect to score on average when they throw the ball to a certain player.
Usually, players earn a decimal value, whether positive or negative, in this category. For example, .5 expected points added per target would mean that a player could be expected to score one touchdown in every 12 targets.
Kadarius Toney at -2.19 expected points added per target.
Put another way: throw the ball at Kadarius Toney 3 times; the other team scores a touchdown pic.twitter.com/lR31n1Nzeo
— Benjamin Solak (@BenjaminSolak) September 8, 2023
Toney’s mark was -2.19, which means that Kansas City was expected to throw a pick-six every three times they threw the ball his way.
In a game that came down to a one-point margin of loss, this metric clearly shows that Toney was the issue for the Chiefs on offense.
