There were 5 teams that experienced a decline of at least 1.00 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt last season. The Lions, with Matt Stafford, dropped by 1.27 ANY/A, while the Cardinals (-1.32) and Bills (-1.41) saw declines after switching to rookie quarterbacks. The Jaguars experienced the scary half of the Blake Bortles roller coaster last year, as the team’s passing game declined by 1.43 ANY/A.
But it was Washington — who evicted Kirk Cousins — that saw the biggest decline, a drop-off of 1.56 ANY/A. The Redskins problems were compounded by the injury to Alex Smith, as Washington averaged 4.82 ANY/A for the year but Smith averaged 5.81 ANY/A.
It made me wonder: which teams have had the biggest decline in their passing games each year? The table below shows that for each year since the merger.
Some notes:
12 times the biggest dropoff came from the team that ranked 1st in ANY/A the year before, which makes some sense, along with 10 more that ranked 2nd in ANY/A. Three teams went from average to horrible, which is even harder to pull off: the 1988 Patriots, the 1998 Eagles, and the 2006 Raiders. And a special nod to Mark Rypien and the Redskins, who led the NFL in ANY/A in 1991 at 8.33, had the biggest decline in ANY/A from ’91 to ’92 when the Redskins ranked 11th with 5.31 ANY/A, and then again suffered the biggest decline in ANY/A from ’92 to ’93 when the team averaged 3.18 ANY/A, ranking last in the league.
