We Need to Pump Up Trent Green Pt. 6: His Year
Without Priest Holmes, Trent has to carry the Chiefs himself, and the result is the best season of his NFL career
As Priest Holmes got up and jogged off the field at 4:35 of the third quarter on November 7, 2004, nobody knew that an era had just ended.
This week nine matchup on the road in Tampa against the Buccaneers was supposed to be one of our easier matchups on the schedule. It’s turned out to be anything but. Our porous defence has been getting torn to shreds by Brian Griese all night, and it’s been on our offence to counter.
For the most part, our offence has countered, taking a 24-21 lead into the half, and are well on their way to scoring a touchdown to take a 31-28 third quarter lead when it changes forever.
It looks like a normal tackle. There’s not even an injury timeout. Priest Holmes gets up. He jogs over to the sideline, but never comes back into the game. He never plays again for the 2004 season, and the Priest that we’ve come to know will never play football again. He will come back for 165 more NFL carries after this, but he’ll be a shell of his former self.
The four headed dragon is gone. Three of its heads are still around, but gone is the most intimidating one. It’s a head that will grow back (with a new name, Larry Johnson), but that growing process will take time. It’s not time the 2004 KC Chiefs have.
Recall that even with our electrifying week eight win over our arch rival Indianapolis Colts that was the focus of part five of this Trent Green serial, we sit at just a 3-4 record, on the outside looking into the AFC playoff picture. It was always going to be a tough ask to get back in, but now we’re going to have to do it without an essential cog of our offence.
This is bad for the KC Chiefs, but this series is about Trent Green, so how does it impact him?
Trent has always been victimized by the idea that he’s leaning on his rush offence to get things done in the passing game. I don’t think this is the case, for all the reasons that I’ve spent this entire serial explaining, but there is some credence to this theory, in the form of touch counts.
Despite being a 16 game starter and finishing second in the NFL in EPA/Play in 2002, Trent got to touch the ball just 553 times. That’s just the fifteenth most touches in the NFL. It’s the same general story in 2003, where despite being the fourth best QB in the NFL on a per play basis, he only got 588 plays of action, just 12th in the NFL.
For the first eight games of the 2004 season, it looked like business as usual, with Trent’s 259 touches (on pace for just 518) ranking him 14th in the NFL. In this way, Trent reminds me of Brock Purdy. The per-play production is elite, and nobody ever claimed it isn’t, but what the detractors love to claim is that with 100 more plays per season in the mold of Peyton Manning or Daunte Culpepper, that per-play production would begin to look a lot less impressive.
That is why I’m so excited to speak about the second half of 2004.
Without Priest Holmes, this KC offence is going to become pass first and pass second. Over the final eight games of the season, Trent’s 383 touches will lead the NFL, and he will prove that even when he is the undisputed focal point of the offence, he is still one of the top QBs in the NFL.
Welcome to Trent Green’s Year.
As Priest got tackled to the ground, never again to return, there’s 4:35 left in the third quarter. We’re behind 28-24 to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and he’s just rushed us to the Tampa Bay 30 yard line. Nobody even knows that Priest is injured yet. They think he’s merely come out for a play as Trent drops a beautiful 29 yard pass over the heads of two Bucs defenders and into the waiting arms of Tony Gonzalez to get the Chiefs all the way to the TB one yard line.
Here is where the whole world can tell there’s an issue.
The Chiefs have to punch the ball in from the one yard line. This is typically where we bring in Priest and let him try it four consecutive times, something that we’ve discussed before because it perpetually keeps Trent’s TD pass count artificially low, but it is quite effective, only this time there is no Priest. It’s Larry Johnson, who fails each of his first two tries, and something else happens on third down that lets myself and everybody else know that things are going to be different from this day forward.
The Chiefs lose confidence in the rush game on the goal line, and line up to throw from inside the one yard line. When I tell you that these Chiefs never lose confidence in their rush game on the goal line, I mean that I’ve looked at every line of play by play data from every game that the KC Chiefs have played since 2001, and watched double digits of them with my own eyes, and I have never seen this happen.
Not like this.
There are times there have been third and goal passes from the seven or the five or the three and situations like that, but never with the ball spotted inside the one yard line have I ever seen Trent Green throw a pass. If I continue to bring up every small change like this that I notice, I will never get on with the story, but keep in mind as we go that you will continue to see things like this that indicate that this offence is not what it was, a pattern that will continue for the rest of 2004.
Of course, just because you never ever see this does not make it a bad play call, as Trent finds a wide open Jason Dunn in the end zone for a 31-28 lead, but just throwing this pass lets me know that the early 2000s Chiefs era is dead. We’re into a new era now.
The horrendous defence is not dead though, as the Buccaneers walk straight back down the field and score again at the beginning of the fourth to take a 34-31 lead back, and once again send Trent back onto the field facing a deficit.
We do our best to pretend that Priest isn’t gone, alternating perfectly between run and pass for the first six plays, even down to the pass and the rush picking up 16 yards each, but in the red zone we again dispense with this, with five out of the six plays being Trent passes.
There’s a bad intentional grounding call (the referees didn’t notice Trent clearly being outside the tackle) that sets us back to second and 22 from the 35, and at this point we must remember that even though we love Trent Green here, we still must remember that he can be a mistake-prone player at times.
He tries too hard to make up for the poor field position, and throws an interception forcing the ball to Tony Gonzalez in the end zone.
This is not what you want to see trailing by three in the fourth quarter. It would obviously be preferable to take the field goal try and tie the game, but you can’t take the run out of the horse. Trent has been carrying the KC Chiefs for so long that even when he doesn’t have to carry them he’s still trying anyway. In a way, this is Trent’s biggest weakness, but as we saw against Peyton Manning, it’s also exactly the skillset the Chiefs need to win with this defence they have, so I don’t think it’s fair to blame Trent for it now.
That doesn’t stop Gus Johnson on the CBS broadcast from doing it anyway.
The Chiefs go on to lose this game by the same 34-31 score to drop to 3-5, meaning that end zone interception really hurt, but everybody knows what the real story of this game is. The rush game that’d been helping so much (44% success rate) in the first three and a half quarters suddenly became an anchor around Trent’s neck (30% success rate) once Priest was gone.
That in itself is scary, but it’s not the only thing that Trent loses with Priest Holmes.
Many people forget that Priest was also one of the most productive receiving backs in the NFL. He was Trent’s second most productive receiver by Football Outsiders’ Yards Above Replacement behind only Eddie Kennison in 2002 (recall Tony Gonzalez was holding out and played poorly when he returned), and his most productive receiver in 2003, even ahead of an in-form Tony Gonzalez.
While Larry Johnson will replace most of Priest’s rushing capability, the receiving portion of Priest’s game is something that Larry can’t replace, and Trent will never get back, so it’s not just a top RB our man has lost. He’s lost a top-quality receiver also. Don’t think of this like a QB losing his top RB. Think of it like Patrick Mahomes losing Tyreek Hill. It’s noticeable, and we see even more next week in New Orleans.
We again come into a game as road favourites, and we again start off well, taking a quick 7-0 lead, which could’ve been even bigger had Johnnie Morton not fumbled a completed catch in the red zone on the second drive to take another four Expected Points off the board. On the third, we again run into red zone problems that show where we really could use Priest.
We don’t have much trouble walking all the way to the New Orleans five yard line, but once we get there we run into serious issues. In six tries, we cannot move even one yard forward and are forced to settle for three points and a 10-0 lead, leaving even more potential points on the board, which haunts us when our next offensive series stalls at the New Orleans 37 and they score touchdowns on either side of it to take a 14-10 lead on us, which we can only turn into 14-13 before halftime.
We’re getting there in a different way these days, but it’s the same old Chiefs. Dominating a half of football, yet coming out of it with a deficit, and it continues into the second half with the defence giving up an immediate FG to fall behind 17-13, and with our offence moving the ball well in response, again something goes wrong, as Johnnie Morton slips and falls on the SuperDome turf, making a well thrown pass into an easy interception, and another wasted chance.
We’re behind 20-13 and into the fourth quarter by the time we get another good drive going, and this is where I finally get to take advantage of the fact that this game is being played in New Orleans.
Air yards of throws were not tracked in the NFL before 2006. This is the reason that I have throughout this entire series only been supposing about Trent’s throw depths. It’s clear to see in Trent’s games that he throws the ball extremely deep most of the time, but there are no numbers to report. However, in 2004 the New Orleans Saints’ official scorer was tracking air yards on passes already, so I get to show you just how much of Trent Green’s passing yardage occurs in the air.
After a three yard rush from Derrick Blaylock to open the series, the Chiefs go pass on three of the next four plays. These three passes are a 15 yard completion to Tony Gonzalez (all air), then a 15 yard completion to Eddie Kennison (all air), then a 16 yard completion to Eddie Kennison (13 air yards). There are two Blaylock runs, and then another 13 yard completion to Gonzalez (all air), before Blaylock punches it into the end zone for a 20-20 tie.
This is only one drive, but you can see a crazy amount of Trent’s passing yards are coming through the air. There is not much YAC involved here at all. This is what happens when your two best receiving threats are a TE (generally not great at YAC, Tony Gonzalez is no exception) and a naked deep threat in Eddie Kennison, who also is not particularly skilled at carrying the ball.
Nothing against either of these players. They’re both exceptional football players, but the main source of YAC in this offence (Priest) is gone, which puts a lot of the stress on Trent to get his guys the ball. Luckily for both Kennison and Gonzalez, they probably have the best QB in the league to suit their skillset, and play offence this way, because Trent has always loved him some air yards.
People love to bash Trent because his supporting casts were fantastic, but pay mind to the fact that Eddie Kennison in particular was not a very skilled receiver. However, he was fantastic at getting behind the defence. Trent took that one skill and turned Eddie into a top 20 NFL receiver for years (after being so bad before he got to Trent that he’d been on four teams in four seasons).
The same thing goes with Tony Gonzalez. His skill was always being open, but that skill is not very useful if you’re four yards down the field and not a very good YAC runner.
Not all of Trent’s throws were especially difficult, but they were on average (by the eye test, because there are no numbers) very long, which is its own kind of difficult, and not something just any QB could’ve done, which is why I quibble when people say that most QBs could’ve run this KC offence. I disagree, and in fact I would go so far as to say a lot of QBs would’ve failed in this offence, particularly west coast style QBs who rely on rhythm and timing.
This offence more than most others I’ve seen is built very specifically around the players it features. It relies on its elite O-Line to either create wide rush lanes for slow developing rush plays or to give Trent forever in the pocket for really slow developing pass plays. This would not work with a QB who relies on rhythm and timing, and doesn’t have the same arm Trent has. For instance, Chad Pennington was the best QB the NFL had to offer in 2002 (click here for detail), but he would’ve died a thousand deaths in this offence, because it’s catered specifically to a QB in Trent that really loves to air the ball out.
Not every QB can do this. I would venture a guess that most QBs can’t do this. People say things like that because Trent makes it look so easy throwing the ball 10+ yards down the field all the time. If it can be properly executed, this is the most effective way to play football, evidenced by the fact that the Chiefs have been the best offence in the NFL for two consecutive seasons now.
The only reason it isn’t done in the modern (2024) era is that it’s just so hard. If the circumstances aren’t right, this play style can also land a QB in a lot of trouble, and it gets Trent for the second week in a row at the end of this game.
The Saints rather easily score again to make the score 27-20 at 5:35 of the fourth quarter, which leaves us about five minutes to score and tie this game again. If we lose this game, we fall to 3-6, which is not quite a death sentence, but is getting really close to being one, which means we really need this score, and you know what that means.
It’s time for the trump card.
This drive gets out of the starting gate with a 15 yard (all air) completion to Johnnie Morton, continues with a very nice 13 yard scramble out of a collapsing pocket, and we’re on the move from there, with back to back completions to Tony Gonzalez for 36 yards (17 air) getting us all the way to the New Orleans 17. A play is wasted on a rush that goes nowhere, leaving us facing second and ten, which is where it all goes pear shaped.
Trent’s pass goes right through the hands of Derrick Blaylock and into the arms of Orlando Ruff for another interception, and we lose.
We lose again.
It’s not Trent’s fault. He generated 0.178 EPA/Play today, which is better than Saints QB Aaron Brooks. The KC rush offence just could not keep a lid on Deuce McAllister, allowing an eye watering 0.47 EPA/Play on his rushes, and as a result, the Chiefs have lost again.
Funnily enough, this game is also remembered enough to have a highlight video from the ‘NFL Throwback’ YouTube channel, titled ‘High Powered Offenses Collide in SuperDome!’ and check it out:
Look at who you see on that thumbnail. It’s our boy Trent Green, at last able to make an appearance.
What’s funny about this is that Trent in this game did not play as well as he did the week before in Tampa Bay, or the week before that against Indianapolis, or the week before that against Atlanta, or the week before that against Jacksonville. He did not play as well as he’s going to play next week either. He generated 0.178 EPA/Play on a rather pedestrian day for such a high powered offence, and this is the game that the NFL Throwback people decided he needed to be rewarded with a spot on the thumbnail.
I’m not sure what that says and who it says it about, but I think it serves my purpose to note that this was a below average game by Trent’s (very high) standards, and was still worthy of thumbnail status according to the NFL Throwback people. When your worst game in a five week stretch is still this good, that must mean you’re a pretty good player huh?
Moving back to 2004, the Chiefs are now 3-6, which means that any loss will mean the season is over. 3-7 is much like 2-5. It’s not a hole you come back from. Once again, any loss will mean no playoffs, which means the pressure for this week 11 matchup is very high. Individually for Trent, it’s probably not as high as the game against Indianapolis, because by this time Trent has played so well over the course of this season that he’s in no real danger of being replaced, but it’s still enough pressure that you’d really rather not be playing New England.
Why is it always the Patriots?
Remember the last time these two teams played (week three of 2002), the Chiefs lost a painful 41-38 game that could’ve propelled us into the playoffs had we won it, but this time it’s a whole lot different.
This time the Patriots are not going through a deep Super Bowl hangover like they were in 2002. This time, they are well on their way to a 14-2 season and a Super Bowl repeat. They have lost one game since October of 2003. They haven’t been behind at any point in any game since Halloween (this game is taking place on November 22), and are (by far) the best Patriot team of the original dynasty era (and third best overall, behind only 2007 and 2019).
This is a buzzsaw, and absolutely not a team you want to run into in a game of this magnitude. Despite all of this, the bettors show they still believe in us, as we host the Patriots as just three point underdogs. This is crazy to me, because we are 3-6, and yet this is the narrowest spread New England has faced all season.
When these Patriots went on the road to face the (at the time) 5-1 Pittsburgh Steelers, they went in with this same three point spread. The Patriots have not lost since then. The Chiefs have not won since then, and lost their top offensive weapon, but here we are in the same situation, just three point underdogs.
And you tell me that people didn’t believe Trent could get the job done. They don’t build those buildings in Vegas for nothing folks. They knew what was going on. Even without Priest Holmes, they know that Trent and the pass game give the Chiefs all the chance they need to win, and they say this in a different way by setting the over/under at a ludicrous (for a Patriots game) 52 points.
It’s clear that the public believes that even the mighty dynasty era Patriot defence cannot keep a lid on Trent and our KC Chiefs, but I think everybody knows that we’re not going to be able to keep a lid on Tom Brady either.
Like a shot, Tom goes down the field and it’s immediately a 7-0 deficit. It’d be easy for Trent to lament why every game has to start this way, but there’s no time for that. We have to get to scoring.
With some help from Dante Hall, the Chiefs get fantastic field position, so it takes just one 22 yard completion to get into field goal range, but a nasty blitz fools the Chiefs’ vaunted offensive line, leaving Trent helpless against an unblocked Ty Warren, and the sack puts us into a brutal third and 17 situation.
Trent almost gets us there, completing a 15 yard pass to Johnnie Morton to at least get us back into FG range. Some fans think we ought to treat this like a Peyton Manning game and go for it, so there is mild booing from the Arrowhead crowd when we end up kicking the FG to move the score to 7-3, but when we end up with the ball still down 7-3, it ends up looking like a pretty good decision.
The rush game is not accomplishing anything, which is shown on this drive when Derrick Blaylock is given the ball twice for a total of four yards, but it matters none when Eddie Kennison runs right by the Patriots, and Trent finds him for a 65 yard touchdown to take a 10-7 lead. When New England fails to score again on their touch in response, our estimated Win Probability (according to NFLFastR) edges up over 50 percent.
We have a chance to get ahead two possessions, which is imperative against these Patriots, but we just can’t get it done, as a poor Blaylock rush and a botched screen leave us on a third down that Trent just can’t overcome, and it finally comes back to bite us as against our poor defence New England takes a 14-10 and then a 17-10 lead at 3:44 of the second quarter.
This again leaves us in the three minute offence that we have come to perfect so well over the years. We need to score, and we also need to leave no time on the clock for Tom Brady to come back and score on us. No problem though, we’ve got the man for the job.
Trump card engaged.
A 36 yard completion starts us off well. It’s a bit of a struggle from here, but with seven yards here and nine yards there we are able to get all the way down to the nine yard line, where once again we run into red zone problems. All three plays are incomplete passes, with the third being another devastating end zone interception trying to force the ball to Tony Gonzalez, this one to Rodney Harrison.
It must’ve really hurt to throw an interception to Rodney Harrison (the man who leg-dived Trent all the way back in 1999) of all people, but that pain is surely superseded by the pain of the fact that this is the third week in a row featuring a critical end zone interception which keeps us further behind than we could’ve been.
We do open the second half with a FG to move the score to 17-13, but once New England scores to move the score to 24-13, it’s over from there. We do get within one score in the fourth, but never truly have a chance to win. We eventually lose this game 27-19, and we fall to 3-7. Another heartbreaking 34-31 loss the following week against Drew Brees and the San Diego Chargers drops us to 3-8, and the season is over.
Over the last four games, the Chiefs have scored 101 points (25.25 per game), and have generated 1683 yards of total offence. Trent individually has generated 0.187 EPA/Play, and thrown for 1269 yards and six touchdowns, without one of his top receivers. This is a 17 game pace of 5393 yards and 26 touchdowns without the team’s top offensive weapon. However, nobody wants to talk about how great Trent is playing. They want to talk about two things:
They want to talk about how the Chiefs got burned by end zone interceptions three weeks in a row, and the prevailing storyline is that KC hasn’t won since Priest went down. That’s all people want to talk about.
That’s the Trent Green story.
Don’t get me wrong. He did throw those three end zone interceptions, and they did all hurt the team badly, but maybe not giving up 34 points to a Tampa Bay offence that generated positive EPA just three times in the entire 2004 season would’ve helped. Maybe not allowing 0.47 EPA/Play to Deuce McAllister may have helped. Maybe not giving up all-time great games in back-to-back weeks against Tom Brady and Drew Brees may have helped.
This Chiefs season may be entirely over now, with no chance of playoffs, but Trent tried his hardest to keep it alive in the absence of his top offensive weapon. Maybe if he would’ve had Priest, we could’ve found ways to win at least one of these games, but then again maybe not. It’s not like the offence was bad. It scored 25.25 points per game.
Trent was able to keep it within one score of a Tampa Bay offence generating 23.59 total EPA, an all-time disaster in the run defence area in New Orleans, and an all-time disaster in the pass defence area against both New England and San Diego. This is what I’m telling you when I say Trent is neither a loser nor a winner. He’s not winning these games, but he’s certainly not losing them either.
This losing streak finally ends in week 13, where it takes everything Trent’s got to sneak out a 34-27 fourth quarter comeback win over the 4-7 Oakland Raiders, which leads us into our week 14 matchup against the Tennessee Titans.
This was supposed to be one of the best games on our schedule, pitting Trent against defending 2003 NFL MVP Steve McNair in a matchup of two AFC powerhouses, but due to Steve’s injuries it wasn’t destined to work out that way. Instead, this game is pitting our man and his 4-8 KC Chiefs against the 4-8 Titans’ backup Billy Volek, who is a good (and underrated) player, but it’s still a Titan offence that’s generated positive EPA just twice since Steve went down.
This should not be such a difficult game, but this is the Trent Green story. Everything is difficult.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but this game begins with an immediate 7-0 deficit. The only difference is that this time we’re not able to respond immediately, and so we fall behind 14-0 before a 58 yard bomb from Trent to Eddie Kennison gets us back within seven. We get really lucky with the Titans turning the ball over in our territory, but Trent gives that luck back by turning the ball over on the Titan nine yard line.
We get the luck back again as the Titans miss a field goal in their attempted response, and there’s no more holding this offence in, as Trent accounts for all but eight yards on a touchdown drive to tie the score at 14. Tennessee finally storm back to score a touchdown of their own to take us into the halftime break, but we get the ball coming out of the half and score right back to knot the score at 21 again. This process repeats as both sides score touchdowns to move the score to 28-28, at which point this game bizarrely falls into an extended period of punting.
The Chiefs scored to make the score 28-28 at 6:40 of the third. It’s all the way until 4:56 of the fourth when Larry Johnson breaks away for a 41 yard touchdown and a 35-28 lead. This seems to wake the Titan offence as well, as they score to tie the game at 35 at 2:30 of the fourth, which once again leaves us in the three minute offence.
We’re great at this. Normally, this would mean we’ve got this win in the bag, but this is not a normal game.
Somehow, we find yet another thing that can go wrong in this 2004 season as a botched handoff from Trent to Tony Richardson ends up on the ground, and the Titans wind up with the football in our red zone.
Thankfully, they are only able to manage a FG and a 38-35 lead, but it looks as if we’ve found another way to lose a close one.
There’s 1:31 left on the clock, and Trent needs to make up for his mistake. The issue with this is that despite being very good in the three minute offence, these Chiefs have never been particularly great at the two minute offence. We can score quickly when given about three minutes, but going down the field with no timeouts and only 1:31 on the clock is not what this team is built for.
The only way to do this is to do it our way. A Dante Hall return out to the 35 helps, and then we just play our game. A seven yard completion to Larry Johnson, 17 yard completion to Chris Horn, a Titan offside on the sack that could’ve ended this game, and finally Trent not throwing an end zone interception, but instead finding an open Eddie Kennison for a touchdown, a 42-38 lead, and the win.
That felt good.
I know this game between two 4-8 teams is entirely meaningless empirically to the end of season standings, but it’s not meaningless to me, and it’s not meaningless to the KC Chiefs either. Look at the way they celebrate after this game winning touchdown is caught. Finally, there’s no end zone interception, no crucial sack, nothing that can take this close win away from us.
This had to have felt nice to a KC Chiefs team that had prior to last week made a habit of losing these close games. If some more breaks in the close games had gone our way, we could actually still be in the playoff hunt right now, and it’s proven in week 15 that we would deserve to be there.
Remember all the way back in week one when we were getting off to one of our trademark slow starts and the Broncos so thoroughly humiliated us? It’s time to return the favour.
We get the ball first this time, so instead of starting off with an immediate 7-0 deficit it’s an immediate 7-0 lead, which turns into a 14-0 lead, which turns into a 21-7 lead, which turns into a 28-7 lead, which turns into a blowout 45-17 win, and this is what I mean when I say we could’ve been a real contender had things gone slightly differently.
These Broncos were deep in the midst of a playoff race, and were in desperate need of this win to keep pace with the other AFC wild card contenders. Jacksonville, New York, Baltimore, and Buffalo were all hot on their heels, so they would have come into this game in as good of form as they possibly could.
That’s mighty good form too. Prior to this game, this Denver defence had allowed an opponent to generate positive EPA once. Once all season, against Michael Vick and the Atlanta Falcons. Not in their two matchups against prime Drew Brees. Not in their matchup against Carson Palmer and the Cincinnati Bengals. Not even in their week one matchup against the high powered KC Chiefs.
This is a fantastic Denver defence, and Trent just laughed at them today, hanging an all-time great 0.8 flat EPA/Play on them, almost all of it in the 28 point first half. Denver would not be advancing their playoff goals at our expense, and I just wonder what may have happened if this were a matchup with meaning towards the final AFC playoff spot for us. It’s clear we’re good enough for it, but nevertheless we move to just 6-8.
Week 16 is back to the flavour of the defence holding Trent back, again having to resort to a fourth quarter comeback and a last second field goal to beat the hopeless 5-9 Oakland Raiders, but to his credit Trent is able to get it done, but the quest to at least get back to an 8-8 record fails in San Diego, as our season ends on a whimper in a 24-17 loss to a Charger team that were resting starters, and could still do whatever they wanted offensively even with third string QB rookie Philip Rivers in the game.
That’s it.
A season that started with such hype is now over, and it’s ended with a terribly disappointing 7-9 record. Over the course of the season the Chiefs have lost Priest Holmes, which forced Trent Green to be the focal point of an offence for the first time in his career, and what a job he did.
Over the final eight games of the season, Trent Green had to touch the ball 383 times, more than anybody in the NFL. In these 383 touches, Trent was able to generate 0.283 EPA/Play (4th in this span) for a Chiefs team that scored 30.75 points per game, proving once and for all that he can work as the focal point of an NFL offence. He will never get this chance again, but for nine precious weeks at the end of 2004, Trent got to be the QB in a pass-first offence, and boy did he make his opportunity count on an individual level.
Unfortunately for Trent and for us, his supporters, the Chiefs (despite scoring 30.75 points per game) were able to go just 4-4 over this eight game span, again reinforcing the LA Times label from all the way back in 2000. Neither a loser nor a winner.
It’s beyond unlucky to score this many points, but to just keep losing. For the second time in three years, Trent was saddled in 2004 with the very worst defence in football, and to show you just how bad it was, I’m going to do the same test I did in 2002 to determine the number of times Trent’s defence and special teams actually helped him.
For reference, a QB roughly comparable to Trent in 2004 is Drew Brees, who ended the season with a 12-4 record to due getting significant help from his defence and special teams on four occasions, but more crucially having his defence and special teams fail to significantly hinder him on all but five occasions.
Trent on the other hand got significant help from his defence and special teams twice (winning those games by a combined score of 101-27), but was significantly hindered by his defence and special teams on an eye-watering 12 different occasions, leaving just four games all season where Trent was not hurt significantly by the combined efforts of his defence and special team units. Of course, because this is the Trent Green story, he only went 2-2 in those games.
Just imagine what could’ve been if the Chiefs defence had been able to play even at an okay level. Surely some of those tight losses could’ve been switched to wins, but it’s not to be. If the Chiefs give up just four fewer points per game this season, their record all of a sudden shifts to 10-6.
If this team could’ve had a strictly average 0 EPA/Play allowed defence (like Patrick Mahomes has had for most of his career), their record jumps to 12-4, but if this team could’ve had a strictly average defence, then it wouldn’t be the Trent Green story would it?
At the close of the 2004 season, Trent Green has generated 0.252 EPA/Play (4th) on a 7.04 ANY/A (4th), but ranks third on my QB tier list for the third season in a row due to the offence being so overwhelmingly reliant on him, as evidenced by his 642 snaps, good for third in the NFL, something that Peyton Manning (with Edgerrin James) and Drew Brees (with LaDainian Tomlinson) didn’t have to deal with.
In 2003 the Chiefs had Priest Holmes, and Trent finished fourth in EPA/Play. In 2004 there was no Priest. Trent had to touch the ball 100 more times than he did the year before, and still finished fourth in EPA/Play. That doesn’t seem like a man overly reliant on his rush game to me.
2004 is the best season of Trent Green’s NFL career, and it stinks that it has to be buried with yet more losing. The NFL’s fourth place EPA/Play finisher doesn’t even get a Pro Bowl invite. To shine light on how unfair this is, in 2023 the NFL’s ninth place EPA/Play finisher (Lamar Jackson) won the MVP award.
This was an MVP calibre season out of Trent Green, but before reading this, did you even remember it happened?
That is the reason this series exists. We need to keep the memory of this excellent football player alive. Don’t forget that Trent Green generated more EPA/Play this season than Russell Wilson ever did. Don’t forget that he was able to drag a dead Chiefs team to a four game win streak, and don’t forget that he did it all without his best offensive weapon.
It’s important to remember things like this because I’m about to run out of chances to continue telling you the story. We’re staring down the uncomfortable reality that this Chiefs core is getting old. Trent himself is going to be 35 at the start of the 2005 season. Willie Roaf is the same age. Will Shields is going to be 34. Tony Gonzalez has a lot of years left in him, but at age 29 we wouldn’t have known that at the time.
Even beyond the three headed dragon, Eddie Kennison is on the wrong side of 30, so is Johnnie Morton. Even our ironclad Dick Vermeil-Al Saunders offensive coaching duo are 69 and 58 years old, respectively.
We’re running out of chances to keep going at this, but we’re not done yet. Click back next time for the 2005 season, where Trent and the aging Chiefs get one final chance to try to get back to the top of the league.
Thanks so much for reading.