Did you know that the Titans are 13-0 when Derrick Henry rushes for at least 100 yards? Analysts who have given more than a few seconds of thought know this is the kind of statistic doesn’t tell us much about causality. I’ll let Doug Drinen explain why, as he did back in May 2001 in a classic article on the types of tricks people use to lie with statistics:

Thoughtful analysts have long known that while running successfully can help you win, winning definitely leads to more carries and more yards. That said, I wanted to actually investigate Henry’s 13 games with the Titans where he crossed the century mark and see: how much did it matter that he rushed for 100 yards?

Crossing the 100-yard mark did not help Tennessee win (3 games)

Week 4, 2019 vs. ATL – Boxscore

Henry rushed for exactly 100 yards in this game. His final carry was a 1-yard run on 3rd-and-11 that brought us to the two-minute warning. The Titans were up 24-10 at this point, so crossing the 100-yard mark was meaningless.

Week 13, 2017 vs. HOU – Boxscore

The Titans led 17-13 with 57 seconds remaining in the game. The Texans had just called their final timeout. Tennessee had 3rd-and-5 at their own 25-yard line, and a punt here would give Houston the ball back with a chance to win. However, Henry was sharing carries with DeMarco Murray at this point in his career, and with 57 seconds remaining, Henry had just 10 carries for 34 yards. On his final carry of the game, he rushed for 5 yards to pick up the first down and clinch the game… and then kept going for another 70 yards, scoring a touchdown to put the icing on the cake. Henry finished with 11 carries for 109 yards, but had he been tackled at the Houston 10-yard line and finished with 99 yards, the game was still over. A great run that clinched the game, to be sure, but him actually crossing the century mark was meaningless.

Week 6, 2017 vs. IND – Boxscore

Henry’s first 100-yard game, and a near mirror image of the game described above. Henry had 18 carries for 59 yards with 1:00 left in the game. The Titans, up by 7 points, had 3rd-and-5 at their own 28, with the Colts out of timeouts. A failed third down conversion would give Indianapolis a chance to tie the game, but Henry rushed for 5 yards to pick up the first down… and then 68 more. He finished with 19 carries for 131 yards, but crossing the 100-yard mark was not meaningful to helping the Colts win. Had he rushed for 6 yards, instead of 68 yards, the game still was over. [continue reading…]

The 2014 season marked a new era of passing efficiency. And since the 2014 season, the passing game has remained extremely efficient. However, there were a lot of quarterback injuries in 2019: we spent most or all of the season without Andrew Luck, Ben Roethlisberger, Cam Newton, and Alex Smith; as a result, pass efficiency, as measured by Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt, was slightly down in 2018 compared to 2019.

The graph below shows each team’s ANY/A in 2018 (X-Axis) and 2019 (Y-Axis).

[continue reading…]

In 2007, Aaron Rodgers was a third-year backup on the Green Bay Packers. In week 2 of that season, the Packers blew out the Giants, on the road, 35-13. Four months later, the Giants and Packers were playing in Green Bay in the 2007 NFC Championship Game.

Packers fans were confident: they were home, they were 7.5-point favorites, and they were facing a team they had defeated handily during the regular season. Unfortunately for them, the rematch went very differently: the Giants won, in overtime, 23-20.

But that game may give Rodgers and Packers fans something to point to as they prepare for the 2019 NFC Championship Game. Green Bay is headed to San Francisco, the site of a 37-8 49ers blowout in the regular season. San Francisco fans are confident: they are home, they are 7.5-point favorites, and they are facing a team they defeated handily during the regular season.

Of course, 49ers fans have positive examples to point to, as well. In fact, they have a lot of them, with Jimmy Garoppolo also having some experience he can point to as a backup. In 2014, Garoppolo was a rookie on the New England Patriots. In week 10 of that season, the Patriots blew out the Colts, 42-20, in Indianapolis, in a game best remembered for Jonas Gray hitting the national stage with 201 rushing yards and 4 touchdowns. The two teams would later meet in Foxboro in the 2014 AFC Championship Game. New England was a 7.0-point home favorite, and demolished the Colts even more convincingly. So much so that the 45-7 victory is mostly remembered now for the “Deflategate” controversy that surfaced after the game. [continue reading…]

The 15 members of the 2020 Centennial HOF call were announced today.  The group included:

• Two head coaches: Jimmy Johnson  and Bill Cowher.
• Three contributors: Steve Sabol, George Young, and Paul Tagliabue.
• 10 players: WR Harold Carmichael, OT Jimbo Covert, S Bobby Dillon, S Cliff Harris, S Donnie Shell, OT Winston Hill, DT Alex Karras, T Duke Slater, WR Mac Speedie, and DE Ed Sprinkle.

What do you think?

In week 10, the Chiefs and Titans faced off in one of the most exciting and weirdest games of the year. Tennessee won 35-32 in a game that had it all: a 68-yard touchdown run (by Derrick Henry, naturally), a 63-yard touchdown pass, a fumble returned for a 53-yard touchdown, a Ryan Tannehill strip sack, a Ryan Tannehill 23-yard touchdown pass in the final seconds, an aborted field goal attempt, and a blocked field goal attempt as time expired.

It was one of the wildest games of the season, and if we get a repeat of that game, football fans are in for a treat. Patrick Mahomes was the top passer in the NFL that week, throwing for 446 yards and 3 touchdowns, while Henry rushed for 188 yards.

But there is one big difference: that game was in Nashville, while this game will be in Arrowhead. That makes this a repeat of last season, when the Chiefs lost by 3 points on the road to the Patriots in the regular season, than hosted the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game. Of course, Kansas City lost the playoff rematch, too. [continue reading…]

There were many decisions to analyze from yesterday’s AFC Division Round matchup between the Texans and Chiefs. Houston raced out to a 24-0 lead and somehow still trailed at halftime, fueled in part by its own poor fourth down decisions (kicking a field goal on 4th-and-a-foot early, a fake punt later). Kansas City became just the third team to win a game by 20+ points after trailing by 20+ points earlier in the same game.

But there was an interesting decision late in the game that, while it wound up having no impact on the game, is still worthwhile to analyze. Here was the situation: Kansas City led, 48-31, with 8:10 left in the game. The Chiefs faced 4th-and-2 from the Houston 6-yard line, and had two choices:

• Attempt a field goal to take a 51-31 lead. This would gave Houston the ball at its own 25-yard line, down by 20 points, with 8:06 to go.
• Go for it, which would lead to one of three results:
  • Score a touchdown, effectively ending the game.
  • Convert the 4th down, and the drive still ends in a field goal attempt, albeit with probably two more minutes taken off the clock.
  • Fail on the 4th down conversion, which gives Houston the ball, down 17 with 8:00 remaining, at their own 6-yard line.

So what is the best decision here? Obviously the Chiefs chances of winning are extremely good no matter what they do. With 8 minutes left, the odds of Houston scoring 17, 20, or 21 points are all really low. Let’s think about it in a more competitive game situation. [continue reading…]

Today marks the 27th postseason game of Andy Reid’s career.

In 17 of the first 26 games, Reid’s team was favored; shockingly, those teams have gone just 9-8.

In the other 9 games, when Reid’s teams (the Eagles in all but one game) were underdogs; they went 3-6.

But today, Reid’s Chiefs are 10-point favorites at home against Houston, the single largest point spread for any playoff game under Reid.

The graph below shows each of the first 26 games of Reid’s career, marked in Eagles and Chiefs colors. The X-Axis shows how many points by which his team was favored; the Y-Axis shows the actual margin of victory.

The short version is:

• Upper Right: Favored to win and actually won (9 games)
• Lower Right: Favored to win and lost (8 games, including four with the Chiefs where Kansas City lost by 1, 1, 2 points, and in overtime).
• Upper Left: Underdogs but won (3 games)
• Lower Left: Underdogs and lost (6 games)

[continue reading…]

Let’s look at a simple graph today. The X-Axis shows the salary cap dollars each team spent on its offense in 2019, per Over The Cap. The Y-Axis shows how good each offense was in 2019, based on PFR’s Expected Points Added model.

The Packers spent the most money on offense this season, at $111M salary cap dollars. Green Bay finished 10th in EPA.

The Ravens led the way in EPA and did so despite spending just $53M on offense. Quarterback Lamar Jackson has a cap hit of just $2.2M, while G Marshal Yanda ($9.125M) is the team’s most expensive offensive player. In fact, only three offensive players on Baltimore have a cap hit of over five million: Yanda, LT Ronnie Stanley ($6.5M) and WR Willie Snead ($5.6M). Although it’s probably worth noting that Joe Flacco has a dead cap hit of $16.0M in 2019, but dead money is not included in the graph below.

The final 8 teams are in red circles:

[continue reading…]

Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson and Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers had the two best games of the season. The quarterbacks had nearly identical stat lines: Watson threw 33 passes for 426 yards with 5 TDs and no sacks (15.94 ANY/A) while Rodgers threw 31 passes for 429 yards and 5 TDs with 1 sack (16.28 ANY/A).

To calculate how much passing value each player provides in a game, we take the player’s ANY/A, subtract league average (6.16) and then multiply that difference by the number of dropbacks. For Watson, that gives him 323 adjusted net yards of value over average; for Rodgers, it’s 324 yards of value. But there was one difference between the two games: Watson played a below-average defense in Atlanta, but Rodgers played a Raiders defense that ranked in the bottom three of the NFL against the pass. Once you adjust for strength of schedule, Watson has the best game of the season.

The worst game of the season? Without adjusting for strength of schedule, that honor belongs to Sam Darnold against the Patriots. In that game, Darnold was awful: not only did he throw 4 interceptions, but he gained just 73 net yards on 33 dropbacks. In that game, Darnold finished at -310 adjusted net yards of value relative to league average, the worst performance of the season. But, of course, the Patriots had the best defense against the pass. After adjusting for SOS, the worst game of the year was … Kyle Allen against the Falcons. It doesn’t help that Atlanta was pretty bad against the pass, but Allen was absolutely awful: he threw 4 interceptions and took 5 sacks against a bottom 8 defense.

The table below shows the every passing performance in 2019, from best to worst. The table below is fully sortable and searchable. [continue reading…]

How much did passing efficiency decline in 2019 compared to a record-setting 2018? That depends, a bit, on how you measure passing efficiency — in more ways than one.

In 2018, all NFL passers combined to average 6.32 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt. In 2019, all NFL passers combined to average 6.16 ANY/A, a decline of 2.6%. However, there is another way to measure league average, and that’s by taking an average of the average ANY/A stats for each of the 32 teams.

In 2019, while “the NFL” as a whole had a 6.16 ANY/A average, an average of each of the ANY/A rates for the 32 teams comes to 6.19. If that is confusing to you, think of it this way: when we calculate “the league average” in passing stats, we are giving more weight to the Bucs, Panthers, and Falcons than to the Ravens, Titans, and Vikings. Collectively, those three NFC South teams were responsible for 11.0% of all passing plays in 2019; meanwhile, pass plays from Baltimore, Tennessee, and Minnesota account for only 7.7% of NFL passing plays.

When we think of league average, we almost always mean a weighted average that gives more weight to the teams that pass most frequently. But there’s at least an argument to be made that league average would be better defined by taking an average of the averages. And in this case, in 2019, it would mean a higher average: that’s because the wrong passers threw it more often in 2019.

Last year, the right passers threw it more often: an average of the ANY/A produced by each of the 32 teams was 6.29 (which was lower than the normal average of 6.32, since the weaker passing teams threw less frequently last year). By this measure, passing efficiency declined only 1.6% — from 6.29 to 6.19 — from 2018 to 2019, rather than by 2.6%.

Let’s look at each team in 2019. The X-Axis shows the number of dropbacks: the NFC South teams (other than the Saints) are on the far right, because they passed the most. The Y-Axis shows pass efficiency, as measured by ANY/A.

It’s pretty clear that the “wrong teams” passed most often in 2019; the chart has a slope that is down and to the right. This, of course, is why the “NFL ANY/A” was 6.16 but the “average of the ANY/A for the 32 teams” was 6.19; by giving the Ravens and Titans equal weight to the Bucs and Panthers, you raise the average.

You might think this is how things always are: after all, the whole point behind my Game Scripts work is that teams with the lead pass less often, and trailing teams pass more often. But of course we already discussed that last year, the reverse was true: the right teams passed more often. In fact, there isn’t much of a trend in recent years as to whether or not the better passing teams are more likely or less likely to pass more often.

This final graph is a little wonky, but here goes. It shows the league average ANY/A in each season calculated the normal way minus the average of the ANY/A for all of the teams. So in 2019, you get a negative number (6.16 – 6.19 is -0.03); in 2018, it’s positive. Any time the graph is above 0, it means that the right teams are passing more often. Any time it’s below zero — as in 2019 — it means the wrong teams are passing more often.

What do you think?

On Monday, I looked at the top passers in 2019 after adjusting for strength of schedule. The same process and methodology is used to rank the defenses, so let’s look at that today. And while they had an easy schedule, there’s no denying that the 2019 Patriots had — by a good measure — the best pass defense in the NFL. Quarterbacks throwing against New England gained just 3.41 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt in 2019, a whopping 2.75 ANY/A better than average. And while that group was 0.31 ANY/A worse than average, it still means the Patriots pass defense was 2.44 ANY/A better than average.

The Bills actually had the easiest SOS in 2019, followed by the Dolphins, Cowboys, Jets, and then Patriots. No surprise there: the AFC East and NFC East had the six easiest opposing passing schedules in 2019. Meanwhile, the Panthers, Chargers, Texans, Cardinals, and Chies all had very difficult passing schedules. In particular, this is noteworthy for Kansas City: after adjusting for SOS, Kansas City’s pass defense ranked 3rd in the NFL in 2019. Derek Carr had his worst and third-worst games of the season against the Chiefs; Tom Brady had his second-worst game of the season against Kansas City; and Philip Rivers had two of his five worst games of the year when facing Kansas City. Lamar Jackson struggled, too: he had a rare game with no passing touchdowns against Kansas City, and averaged just 5.41 net yards per pass attempt.

The full results, below. [continue reading…]

On Sunday, Kirk Cousins became the 19th quarterback to start a game for the Minnesota Vikings in the playoffs. That is, by a large amount, the most quarterbacks to start a playoff game for one franchise since 1950 (the classification of who was the starting quarterback in any given game becomes murkier for several of the seasons prior to 1950).

And just as impressively, Cousins became the 11th different quarterback to start and win a game for the Vikings. Can you guess them all? While you think about that, the table below shows the number of different quarterbacks to start, and the number of different quarterbacks to win, a playoff game for each NFL team since 1950. [continue reading…]

Last week, I posted the final 2019 passing numbers; today, I am going to show those numbers after we adjust for strength of schedule, using the methodology described here. As always, an iterative process is used to adjust for strength of schedule: each quarterback’s season is adjusted for the quality of the defenses he’s faced, those defenses are adjusted for the quality of the quarterbacks they faced, and so on, until equilibrium is reached.

Carson Wentz and Sam Darnold had the two easiest schedules this year. Let’s begin with Wentz. Here’s how to read his graph, starting with his best game of the season.  In week 1, Wentz and the Eagles hosted Washington and won, 32-27.  Wentz threw 39 passes for 313 yards with 3 TDs and no interceptions, and 1 sack for no yards.  That gives him 373 Adjusted Net Yards (Passing Yards + 20 * TDs – 45 * INTs – Sack Yards Lost) on 40 DropBacks (Attempts + Sacks).  This game made up 6.2% of all dropbacks Wentz had all season.  He averaged 9.33 ANY/A in this game on 40 dropbacks; assuming the league average ANY/A of 6.16, this means Wentz produced 127 Adjusted Net Yards of Value above average.  However, Washington was a bad pass defense, finishing 0.88 ANY/A below average.  Therefore, Wentz’s actual value for this game was +91, now +127, after adjusting for strength of schedule. [continue reading…]

Derrick Henry and the Titans just dethroned the defending Super Bowl champions, in Foxboro, in the Wildcard round of the playoffs. Henry, who led the NFL in rushing yards during the regular season, rushed 34 times for 182 yards and 1 touchdown. Henry also caught one pass for 22 yards, finishing the day with 204 of the Titans 272 yards of offense.

That’s right: Henry himself accounted for exactly 75.0% of the Tennessee offense on Saturday night, the second-largest percentage by a single player in a playoff win in NFL history. Among players with at least 100 yards of offense, only four other players had accounted for even 70% of a team’s total yards in a playoff game:

• In 1981, the Giants beat the Eagles 27-21, as Rob Carpenter rushed 33 times for 161 yards and caught 4 passes for 32 yards.  Carpenter had 193 of New York’s 275 yards that day (70.2%).
• In 1976, the Vikings defeated the Rams 24-13, in a game that featured an early special teams touchdown for Minnesota and then a whole lot of Chuck Foreman. The great running back finished with 199 yards from scrimmage on only 20 touches, giving him 74.5% of Minnesota’s 267 yards of offense that day.
• In 1971, Washington lost to the 49ers, 24-21, but don’t blame Larry Brown.  The running back would go on to win the AP MVP award the following season, but as a precursor to that performance, Brown rushed 27 times for 84 yards and caught 6 passes for 62 yards and a touchdown, giving him 146 of Washington’s 192 yards of offense.  Brown had 76.0% of the team’s output that day in a losing effort.
• In the 1985 playoffs, the Rams shut out the Cowboys, 20-0, in a game that Eric Dickerson dominated. The Hall of Fame back rushed 34 times for 248 times and 2 touchdowns, and while he lost 4 yards on his lone reception, Dickerson still had 244 of Los Angeles’s 316 yards of offense.  That gave Dickerson a record 77.2% of his team’s offensive production.

[continue reading…]

Every year, I like to post the full results of the Associated Press voting for the All-Pro team, as the voting numbers are much more valuable than the binary answer to the question of whether or not a player was an All-Pro.

Remember the new rules beginning in 2016: there is no fullback position, but rather a “Flex” spot that goes to a running back, wide receiver, or tight end. This year, 30 of the 50 votes went to a running back, 12 votes went to a wide receiver, and 8 went to a tight end. On both offense and defense there are 11 first-team All-Pros: on offense, it’s five offensive lineman, a quarterback, two running backs, two wide receivers, one flex, and one tight end. On defense, there are 2 first team edge rushers, 2 interior defenders, 3 linebackers, 2 cornerbacks, 2 safeties, and one defensive back.

The voting is wildly inconsistent across positions, as you’ll soon see.

OFFENSE

Quarterback

Lamar Jackson, Baltimore, 47; Russell Wilson, Seattle, 3.

Running Backs

Christian McCaffrey, Carolina, 27; Derrick Henry, Tennessee, 20; Nick Chubb, Cleveland, 2; Dalvin Cook, Minnesota, 1.

Tight End

George Kittle, San Francisco, 33; Travis Kelce, Kansas City, 17. [continue reading…]

The Hall of Fame just announced its finalists for the 2020 Hall of Fame Class.  Here’s the full list, which also includes PFR’s new Hall of Fame monitor metric

[continue reading…]

In week 4, the Cleveland Browns traveled to Baltimore and beat the Ravens, 40-25.

At the time, this moved the Browns into first place in the AFC North, as Baltimore and Cleveland were both 2-2.

Since then, Baltimore went 12-0, while Cleveland went 4-8. In retrospect, that game is really, really strange.

Every year, I like to examine the least-conforming games of the season. I do this by generating each team’s Simple Rating System rating — which is just points differential per game adjusted by opponent and home field. Note that I am not using SRS ratings at the time of the game, but SRS ratings as of the end of the season. Baltimore finished the season with a 15.6 average margin of victory against a perfectly average schedule; therefore the Ravens SRS rating was +15.6. Cleveland in 2019 had a -3.7 average margin of victory against a touch schedule (+1.7); therefore, the Browns finished with a -1.9 SRS rating. The beauty of the SRS is each point represents a point above or below average, and you can use the SRS ratings to predict games.

So when the Ravens (+15.6) host the Browns (-1.9), giving 3 points for home field, we would predict that Baltimore would win by 20.5 points. And when Baltimore travels to Cleveland, we would predict Baltimore to win by 14.5 points. In the latter case, that was nearly a perfect prediction: the Ravens won in Cleveland 31-15. In the former case, though, it was off by 35.5 points! That makes it the least-conforming game of 2019.

The table below shows the 2019 SRS ratings: [continue reading…]

Brad Oremland is a sportswriter and football historian. You can follow him on Twitter @bradoremland.

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Yesterday, I began looking at the greatest dynasties in pro football history were represented on the NFL 100 team. Today, we pick back up with the top 13 dynasties.

t9. Decatur Staleys/Chicago Bears, 1920-27
73-17-16 (.811), 1 championship, 0 title appearances
20 dynasty points
NFL 100 Members: George Halas
Other HOFers: Ed Healey, George Trafton

Not a dynasty. They rate well by my system, but the system wasn’t designed for the 1920s. These were the first eight years of the NFL’s existence — actually in 1920 the league was called the APFA: American Professional Football Association. Teams not only played variable numbers of games, they regularly played against teams who weren’t even in the league. In 1921, the Louisville Brecks, Muncie Flyers, New York Brickley Giants, and Tonawanda Kardex combined to go 0-7, getting outscored by a total of 172-0.

Only four of the 12 NFL teams in 1927 were still in the league five years later. The Bears, Giants, and Packers combined to outscore their opponents 459-161 that season. In this environment, it was easy for real teams to pad their records, but the Bears only won one championship. Furthermore, ties weren’t counted towards winning percentage, so when the Bears went 6-1-4 in 1924, that counted as an .857 record, worth three dynasty points. I’m sorry, but there’s no way going 6-1-4, with two draws each against the Racine Legion and the Rock Island Independents, should earn as many dynasty points as the 2010 Patriots or the 2011 Packers.

I include this team for the sake of completeness, but subjectively, it wouldn’t make my top 30, to say nothing of tied for 9th.

t9. Green Bay Packers, 1936-43
65-19-3 (.774), 2 championships, 3 title appearances
20 dynasty points
NFL 100 Members: Curly Lambeau, Don Hutson
Other HOFers: Arnie Herber, Clarke Hinkle

Like the Joe Gibbs Dynasty in Washington, this team would actually benefit from a longer period than eight years: they were NFL champions in 1944. At a time when everyone played both offense and defense, the Packers had two great QBs (Cecil Isbell and Herber), a fullback who retired as the league’s all-time leading rusher (Hinkle), two very good linemen (Buckets Goldenberg and Bill Lee), a Hall of Fame coach (Lambeau), and Don Hutson.

Hutson was more than revolutionary; he was an anomaly. It is an understatement to say that he shattered records. Around the same time, Sammy Baugh redefined ideas about what passers could do, but Hutson was so outstanding that no one even thought to replicate what he was doing. In an 11-year career, he led the NFL in receptions eight times, in receiving yards seven times, and in receiving touchdowns nine times. He was also an excellent defensive player, with 30 interceptions in the six seasons the stat was kept. He led the league in 1940 and led in INT return yards in 1943. He was also a pretty good kicker, with nearly 200 extra points made. Like his contemporary Baugh, there’s a compelling argument that he is the greatest football player who ever lived.

Hinkle was an NFL 100 finalist as a linebacker. He was a terrific all-around player (#106) and a worthy NFL 100 finalist, but I don’t think there’s any single position at which he felt like he should be a finalist. I suppose linebacker was the best fit. [continue reading…]

In 2018, Patrick Mahomes* led the NFL in both Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt and Value added. As regular readers know, ANY/A is calculated as follows: (Passing Yards + 20 * TD Passes – 45 *INT – Sack Yards Lost) / (Attempts + Sacks). Mahomes averaged 8.89 ANY/A last year, and the league average was 6.32; since the Chiefs quarterback had 606 dropbacks in 2018, that meant he added 1,554 Adjusted Net Yards of value over average. That easily led the league.

In 2019, Mahomes averaged 8.38 ANY/A and the league averaged 6.16 ANY/A. Mahomes missed some time this year due to injury, and finished with 501 dropbacks; he therefore added 1,113 Adjusted Net Yards of value over average. That wasn’t quite on pace with what he did last season, but it was still good enough to lead the league.

But it was Ryan Tannehill — who finally had his breakout season — who finished #1 in the NFL in ANY/A. Replacing Marcus Mariota in midseason, Tannehill averaged 8.52 over 12 games, 10 starts, and 317 dropbacks. That last number is why he only finished 5th in VALUE; he didn’t play long enough to add as much value as Mahomes, Dak Prescott, presumptive MVP Lamar Jackson (who also averaged 80.4 rushing yards per game), or Drew Brees.

The worst five quarterbacks in VALUE added, from 28th to 32nd: Giants rookie Daniel Jones, Browns second-year QB Baker Mayfield, soon to be ex-Bengals QB Andy Dalton, Bears third-year QB Mitchell Trubisky, and Panthers second-year QB Kyle Allen.

The full stats, below: [continue reading…]

In 1996 and 1997, Steve Young led the NFL in completion percentage each year. But in ’96, Young took a sack on 1 out of every 10 dropbacks and ranked 30th in the NFL in sack rate; in ’97, he had a 9.0% sack rate, which ranked 25th among qualifying passers.

In 1984, Steve Bartkowski ranked 1st in completion percentage but 28th in sack rate (12.9%!).

In 1991,Dave Krieg ranked 29th in sack rate when he led the NFL in completion percentage.

More often than you think, players trade low-probability passes for sacks, and vice-versa. Last year, when Brees led the NFL in completion percentage, the next 6 players in that metric — Kirk Cousins, Carson Wentz, Matt Ryan, Derek Carr, Marcus Mariota, and Deshaun Watson — all ranked outside of the top 15 in sack rate. (And to be clear, a low sack rate gives you a high ranking, just like interception rate, since sacks are a bad thing.) The last player to lead the league in completion percentage that wasn’t Brees was Sam Bradford in 2016; that year, he ranked 21st in sack rate. It recalled David Carr leading the NFL in completion percentage in 2006 when he ranked 26th in sack rate.

To have an excellent sack rate, you need to throw the ball quickly no matter what, even if nobody is open; that carries with it a high risk of lowering your completion percentage. Which makes it really impressive when a player ranks well in both categories. (And if you want to create a statistic that includes sacks in the denominator when calculating completion percentage, I approve!)

Brees is going to lead the NFL in completion percentage in 2019. With one week left in the season, Brees has a 4% lead on the rest of the NFL. The only interesting question is whether Brees will set yet another single-season record; right now, he is at 75.3%, and the current record is 74.4%, set by Brees last year.  He’s got a good chance to do it: even if he went 21-of-32 today (which is worse than he’s done in 8 of 9 games this year), he would still beat last year’s mark. [continue reading…]

The NFL has announced its final All Century team. The full list below, but a few notes first.

1) The player with the shortest career was Gale Sayers (6 years, 68 games).

2) The player with the longest career was Adam Vinatieri (24 years, 365 games).

3) The Lombardi Packers had 12 or 13 Hall of Fame players (in addition to a Hall of Fame coach, of course), depending on whether you want to include Emlen Tunnell.  The great safety played with the Giants from ’48 to ’58, but finished his career with 3 years in Green Bay.  The last game of his career came, as a backup, in the first championship victory for Green Bay.  Tunnell made the #NFL100 team, but he’s not thought of as a Lombardi Packer.

In fact, other than the coach, Forrest Gregg was the only of the 12 Hall of Fame players on those great Packers teams to make the All-Century team.  That’s…. interesting, to say the least.

4) What do Ronnie Lott, Brett Favre, and Ed Reed have in common?  They are the only players on the team to play for the Jets.  Lott was there in  ’93 and ’94, Favre in ’08, and Reed in ’13.  Joe Namath, Don Maynard, Joe Klecko, and Curtis Martin are probably the best four Jets in history, but I don’t think any were all that close to making this team.  Martin and Klecko weren’t even finalists at their position.

5) The Jets were the least-represented team on the #NFL100, at least among teams that have been around for awhile.

• The Jaguars and Panthers entered the NFL in 1995.  Combined, the teams have only one player-season — Reggie White in 2000 with Carolina.
• The Jets began playing pro football in 1960, but have only the four player-seasons mentioned above.
• The Saints have only five player-seasons: three from Doug Atkins and two from Earl Campbell, in both cases at the end of those players’ careers.
• The Texans have six, with Reed playing there in 2013 and Shane Lechler there from ’13 to ’17.
• The Bengals have 13, all coming from Anthony Munoz.  Every other team has at least 20.

6) The 1963-1966 Colts had 6 players make the All-Century team: QB Johnny Unitas, RB (and receiver) Lenny Moore, WR Raymond Berry, TE John Mackey, OG (and tackle) Jim Parker on offense, and DE Gino Marchetti on defense.  All six were on the Colts all four years other than Marchetti, who retired in ’65 and then returned for a final season in ’66.  In addition, those Colts teams also had Bob Vogel at LT, who was at the start of his 5-time Pro Bowl career.  And while Mackey entered the league in ’63, the Colts also had another Hall of Fame in Art Donovan until ’61, when Unitas, Moore, Berry, Parker, and Marchetti were still with Baltimore.

Those ’56 to ’63 Colts had a ridiculous amount of talent.

7) 1967 (Willie Lanier and Jan Stenerud in Kansas City, Ken Houston in Houston, Alan Page in Minnesota, and Gene Upshaw in Oakland) and 1983 (Eric Dickerson in Los Angeles, John Elway and Dan Marino in Denver and Miami, Bruce Matthews in Houston, and Darrell Green in Washington) each brought 5 top 100 players into pro football. That’s the most of any season. A lot of seasons had zero players, but 1992 and 1993 were the rare back-to-back seasons with zero players. The 1992 draft, in particular, was devoid of top-level talent.

The graph below shows how many of the All-Century players were active in each season.  The peak was 1971, with 28. [continue reading…]

The NFL has released its list of the 22 finalists for the all-century team at quarterback: Sammy Baugh, Sid Luckman, Otto Graham, Bobby Layne, Norm Van Brocklin, Johnny Unitas, Bart Starr, Fran Tarkenton, Joe Namath, Roger Staubach, Terry Bradshaw, Dan Fouts, Joe Montana, Dan Marino, John Elway, Steve Young, Troy Aikman, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Aaron Rodgers.

Which 10 will make the list?  As I wrote yesterday, I think there’s a clear top tier of quarterbacks that must be included.  They are, in chronological order:

Sammy Baugh, Otto Graham, Johnny Unitas, Joe Montana,  Peyton Manning, and Tom Brady.

Each of those QBs won multiple championships and multiple MVP awards; in fact, these 6 are the only 6 quarterbacks to do so.

I would then make a 7th tier for one QB.  Include him with the first 6 if you like, but whatever you do, you can’t justifiably keep him out of the top ten.

Dan Marino.

That leaves 15 quarterbacks remaining for just three spots.  So who misses — and makes — the cut?

Let’s go in reverse order: I think there are three quarterbacks who have little chance of making the cut: Troy Aikman, Dan Fouts, and  Joe Namath.  All are great, worthy Hall of Famers, but all have too many obstacles to making a top ten list.

• Aikman didn’t have an extraordinarily high peak or longevity and he was not a statistical superstar.  Despite the difference in team success, he was a direct contemporary (and competitor) with Steve Young, and he loses that battle.
• Fouts was very good at the end of the ’70s, but he’s generally lumped in with Montana and Marino as quarterbacks of the ’80s: and he loses those battles every time.  He was the best quarterback from ’75 to ’84, but the lack of postseason success haunts (and especially his performances in losses) him in a way that he needed more than just 2 first-team All-Pro honors to overcome.  Fouts only ranked 4th all-time in passing touchdowns at the time of his retirement, and never  caught Fran Tarkenton for the passing yards crown.  An outstanding player, but he does not have a great argument for being one of the 10 best passers of all time.
• Namath is probably the most underrated quarterback in pro football, at least if you listen to those who just look at his raw stats.  He was the best of his generation at avoiding sacks and fumbles, and while he threw a lot of interceptions, he also was well ahead of every other quarterback in his era at moving the ball down the field.  He won 2 AFL MVP awards and was named the AFL All-Decade QB, but with only one Super Bowl title and an injury-shortened career, he’s not top 10 material.

That leaves 12 quarterbacks with 3 open spots, which we can sort of group into four eras.

The Active Guys: Drew Brees, and Aaron Rodgers.

A big caveat here: much (all?) of the voting was done after the 2018 season, making this really the #NFL98.  And the last two years help out Brees a lot more than they help Rodgers. Brees led the NFL in passer rating in 2018 and may do it again in 2019, while setting a new all-time single-season mark in completion percentage both seasons.  Rodgers has fallen on relative hard times, by the standards of an all-time great.

At this point, it’s hard to argue for Brees not being in the top 10 all-time.  He’s led the NFL in passing yards 7 times, touchdowns 4 times, and completion percentage 6 times.  He’s also the all-time leader in both passing yards and passing touchdowns.  Brees has also quietly moved into 4th all-time in career wins.

The knocks on Brees are threefold, at least when it comes to being a top-10 QB ever: he’s never won an MVP, he had just 1 All-Pro season, and has won only one title.  He’s also 4th all-time in career losses.  But the biggest knock is he was clearly not the best or second best QB of his generation, and he might even be the 4th-best QB of his era depending on how you rank Rodgers.

While Brees comes up short with the MVP voting Rodgers has two legendary, MVP seasons.  He’s won a Super Bowl and been extraordinarily unlucky in the playoffs.

• In 2016, he staged an epic comeback with two Hail Marys on the final drive to force overtime, and then his team lost before he ever took the field again.
• The year before, his Packers failed to recover an onside kick at the end of the fourth quarter; Seattle scored a touchdown, Rodgers answered with a field goal drive, and then never saw the field in overtime in that game, either.
• In 2013, Rodgers led Green Bay on a field goal drive to tie the game. The 49ers responded by putting together a 14-play drive to take the final 5:06 off the clock and kicked a game-winning field goal on the game’s last play.
• Rodgers lost his first playoff game in one of the greatest passing matchups ever: he threw for 423 yards on 42 passes, produced 5 touchdowns, and the 45 points that produced was only enough to give the Packers a chance to go to overtime.
• The other three postseason losses on Rodgers’ resume came when the Packers allowed 37, 44, and 45 points.

Rodgers has the best passer rating of all time.  He also has the best TD/INT ratio of all time.  Both of those statistics, of course, are not era-adjusted, although his era-adjusted numbers are still outstanding.  At the time of the voting, Rodgers has completed 8 full seasons and two half-seasons, with off-the-charts efficiency numbers. But he was clearly not Brady or Manning, and if you value volume, he wasn’t at Brees’s level yet, either.

With only three spots remaining, and two of the first 7 going to contemporaries, I think neither make the team.

Verdict: Neither. [continue reading…]

The NFL has released its list of the 22 finalists for the all-century team at quarterback: Sammy Baugh, Sid Luckman, Otto Graham, Bobby Layne, Norm Van Brocklin, Johnny Unitas, Bart Starr, Fran Tarkenton, Joe Namath, Roger Staubach, Terry Bradshaw, Dan Fouts, Joe Montana, Dan Marino, John Elway, Steve Young, Troy Aikman, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Aaron Rodgers.

We know that the final team will have 10 quarterbacks on it. Who will make it? I think there are 6 (or 7) locks that are guaranteed to make the team. The real debate is who are the last three to join them. So today, let’s review the 7 quarterbacks who seem to be assured a place on the final team.

When the NFL unveiled its 50th anniversary team in 1969, Johnny Unitas was the first-string QB, Sammy Baugh was the backup, and Norm Van Brocklin was the third string choice.

When the NFL named its 75th anniversary team, Unitas and Baugh remained, and were joined by Joe Montana and Otto Graham, whose legend grew over the previous 25-year period.

With the NFL set to name its 100th anniversary team, there’s little reason to think that Unitas, Baugh, Montana, and Graham won’t make this team, too. There are, after all, 10 spots, and there won’t be 7 QBs from the last 25 years and there’s not much justification to switch out any of Unitas/Baugh/Montana/Graham. [continue reading…]

The NFL released the 22 finalists at the quarterback position for the #NFL100 all-century team.  The list was relatively unsurprising: Sammy Baugh, Sid Luckman, Otto Graham, Bobby Layne, Norm Van Brocklin, Johnny Unitas, Bart Starr, Fran Tarkenton, Joe Namath, Roger Staubach, Terry Bradshaw, Dan Fouts, Joe Montana, Dan Marino, John Elway, Steve Young, Troy Aikman, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Aaron Rodgers.

The list also had a somewhat modern tilt to it, effectively ignoring the first 15 years of the NFL’s history, and with little representation of passers before World War II.  It also dips in 1980, as Namath, Tarkenton, and Staubach all retired in the late ’70s, and Montana was the only Hall of Fame QB to enter the league in the nine-year period fro 1974 to 1982.  Finally, it dips at the end, in part because those players are still building their Hall of Fame careers.

[continue reading…]

Previous Passing Stats:

• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8
• Week 9
• Week 10
• Week 11
• Week 12
• Week 13
• Week 14
• Week 15

Daniel Jones, Ryan Tannehill, and Ryan Fitzpatrick all began the season on the bench. But in week 16, these three threw for over 1,000 yards and 12 touchdowns.

On the other hand, a pair of third string quarterbacks were truly ugly on Sunday. Will Grier, who began the season as Carolina’s third option at quarterback, was the worst passer of the week. In his first NFL start he had 3 interceptions, 5 sacks, and zero touchdowns. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh — already down its first two options at quarterback this year — saw their playoff hopes dwindle after an ugly performance by Devlin Hodges against the Jets.

It was a weird week of NFL passing. Aaron Rodgers and Deshaun Watson were both bad: they combined to throw 0 touchdowns with 2 interceptions and 8 sacks. And yet both quarterbacks won, as Jameis Winston and Kirk Cousins were even worse.

The table below shows the week 16 passing stats. [continue reading…]

The AFC playoff seeding is pretty simple. Here are the standings after 16 weeks:

The Ravens beat the Patriots head-to-head, so Baltimore has locked up the #1 seed.

The Patriots have a 1-game lead over Kansas City but lost head-to-head; New England will get the #2 seed and the all-important bye week unless New England loses at home to Miami AND the Chiefs beat the Chargers at home.  That is very unlikely to happen: New England is a 16.5-point favorite.

The distinction between the 3 seed and the 4 seed isn’t very important.  That said, the Chiefs are the overwhelming favorite to get the 3 seed, but the Texans do hold the tiebreaker by virtue of the head-to-head win. Kansas City hosts the Chargers, while the Texans host the Titans.  In reality, Houston may decide to rest an injured Deshaun Watson and any other injured players to get ready for the playoffs, which makes it even less likely that Houston would jump from the 4 to the 3 seed. [continue reading…]

Jameis Winston has played 15 games so far this season, and he’s thrown for 4,908 yards, with 31 touchdowns and 28 interceptions.  He is going to run away with the INT crown, is a good favorite to win the passing yards crown, and will likely finish anywhere from 1st to 3rd in passing touchdowns. Winston also is in a tight race with two half-season guys — Matthew Stafford and Ryan Tannehill — to win the yards per completion crown.  Oh, and he leads the NFL right now in sacks taken, too.

Some of this is a function of him leading the NFL in pass attempts (he’s also played 15 games, while most teams play their 15th game today).   But Winston is also just extreme in almost every fun stat, which is why I decided to revisit my Fun QB Index with some tweaks.

Here are the rules for being fun:

• Passing a lot.
• A high yards per completion average.
• Touchdowns.
• Interceptions.

So here’s the simple formula I came up with:

Fun = [ (Yards per Completion – 10.0) * Completions, plus 45 x INTs, plus 45 x TDs ] / Games Played

This isn’t a rate stat, which means you get more credit for passing more often…. except when it comes to yards per completion.  There, you only get credit for your yards per completion above 10.0.

Let’s use this formula for Winston.  He’s completed 367 of 602 passes for 4,908 yards, a 13.37 yards per completion average.  So he gets credit in the YPC component of the formula for (3.37 * 367), or 1,237 yards.  With 59 combined TDs/INTs, that gets him another 2,655 yards.  That gives him 3,892 fun yards, which is an average of 259.5 yards per game of fun.

Now, that probably means nothing to you in the abstract. But here is how the 2019 quarterbacks look when you run them through the same formula: [continue reading…]

It’s a good thing we have Kirk Cousins, the 2019 NFL said. The Vikings quarterback leads the league with four touchdown passes of 50+ yards, with three of them going to Stefon Diggs. Daniel Jones, Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, and Dak Prescott are the only other passers with three such touchdowns.

The graph below shows the amount of 50+ yard passing touchdowns in each season since 1950, graphed on a per-16 team game basis.

As Adam noted in the comments a week ago, there have been fewer big pass plays this season. That isn’t quite reflected in this chart (which only looks at touchdowns), but there is still a small dropoff.

And, of course, a huge dropoff from the late ’60s. In 1968; there were a whopping 96 touchdown passes in only 364 team games. The charge was led by AFL stars John Hadl (10, with three apiece to Lance Alworth, Gary Garrison, and Jacque MacKinnon), Len Dawson (6, with half to Frank Pitts), and Joe Namath (5, all to Don Maynard). The next year, however, the total dropped by 30 to just 66 in the same 364 games. Hadl and Dawson threw just two long touchdowns that season.  The big jump year was ’98, which was fueled by Antonio Freeman (6) and Randy Moss (5).

What else stands out to you?

Field goal rates have been improving significantly over the last several decades. And while field goal success rate isn’t the best stat because it treats field goals of all distances equally, it’s remarkably consistent at the league level: the field goal success rate was between 84.0% and 84.7% over each of the last five years prior to 2019.

But this season, the league’s field goal rate has dropped significantly to 80.9%.  But what’s truly remarkable is what’s happening with the Titans.  The graph below shows the field goal success rate for every team in every year from 1974 (the year the goal posts were moved) to 2019.  See if you can spot the 2019 Titans.

[continue reading…]