As it turns out, having Ben Roethlisberger, Philip Rivers, and Tom Brady causes teams to be pretty pass-happy.
In week 11, the Steelers, Chargers, and Patriots all were very pass-happy. Pittsburgh passed on 70 of its plays despite blowing out the Titans, winning by 23 points with a +8.8 Game Script. The Chargers had the biggest Game Script of the week at +20.1, but still passed more often than they ran. There have only been 22 games in history where a team led by 28 points after 2 quarters and after 3 quarters and passed more often than they ran; the last 11 prior to this game all featured Hall of Fame quarterbacks. Speaking of Hall of Fame quarterbacks, the Patriots just became the 4th team to pass on over 65% of plays despite leading by 14+ at halftime and 28+ after three quarters, and one of those teams was the 1999 Panthers in week 17 who kept passing to attempt to run up the score to make the playoffs.
The full week 11 Game Scripts below:
| Team | H/R | Opp | Boxscore | PF | PA | Margin | Game Script | Pass | Run | P/R Ratio | Op_P | Op_R | Opp_P/R Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LAC | BUF | Boxscore | 54 | 24 | 30 | 20.1 | 38 | 35 | 52.1% | 41 | 21 | 66.1% | |
| NWE | @ | OAK | Boxscore | 33 | 8 | 25 | 15.2 | 38 | 20 | 65.5% | 50 | 21 | 70.4% |
| PIT | TEN | Boxscore | 40 | 17 | 23 | 8.8 | 48 | 21 | 69.6% | 39 | 21 | 65% | |
| PHI | @ | DAL | Boxscore | 37 | 9 | 28 | 8.2 | 27 | 33 | 45% | 36 | 27 | 57.1% |
| ATL | @ | SEA | Boxscore | 34 | 31 | 3 | 8.1 | 28 | 30 | 48.3% | 45 | 23 | 66.2% |
| BAL | @ | GNB | Boxscore | 23 | 0 | 23 | 7.4 | 31 | 26 | 54.4% | 42 | 25 | 62.7% |
| TAM | @ | MIA | Boxscore | 30 | 20 | 10 | 4.7 | 38 | 24 | 61.3% | 41 | 19 | 68.3% |
| CIN | @ | DEN | Boxscore | 20 | 17 | 3 | 4.2 | 27 | 26 | 50.9% | 45 | 34 | 57% |
| JAX | @ | CLE | Boxscore | 19 | 7 | 12 | 3.9 | 32 | 44 | 42.1% | 37 | 18 | 67.3% |
| NYG | KAN | Boxscore | 12 | 9 | 3 | 1.7 | 36 | 31 | 53.7% | 42 | 29 | 59.2% | |
| MIN | LAR | Boxscore | 24 | 7 | 17 | 1.5 | 38 | 35 | 52.1% | 39 | 17 | 69.6% | |
| HOU | ARI | Boxscore | 31 | 21 | 10 | 1.5 | 33 | 34 | 49.3% | 37 | 18 | 67.3% | |
| DET | @ | CHI | Boxscore | 27 | 24 | 3 | 0.2 | 34 | 24 | 58.6% | 31 | 30 | 50.8% |
| NOR | WAS | Boxscore | 34 | 31 | 3 | -5 | 43 | 23 | 65.2% | 34 | 33 | 50.7% |
The most run-happy team of week 11 was the Jacksonville Jaguars, who played a close game with the Browns, only sealing the game in the final two minutes. But that didn’t stop the Jaguars from running 12 more times than they passed, the largest spread of the week.