Previously:

• Week 1 Game Scripts
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8

This was the least notable week in a long time, at least from a Game Scripts perspective. No team won with a negative Game Script. There weren’t any really large Game Scripts (Chicago had the biggest, but it was lower than the average best Game Script of the week), and no team stood out on the extreme end for being very pass-happy or very run-heavy.

The Raiders, Texans, and Titans were the most run-happy teams in week 9. Oakland gave up on the game — and the season, and football as a city — in an embarrassing performance against San Francisco. Despite a Game Script of -16.0, Oakland finished with only a 57% pass ratio. If you need more evidence of Oakland quitting, the Raiders punted with 2 minutes left at midfield on 4th-and-9, trailing by 31 points.

In more meaningful games, Houston and Tennessee, with a pair of young mobile quarterbacks, stuck to the ground game. Deshaun Watson had another efficient passing game (although he did take 4 sacks on 28 dropbacks), and also had 6 carries for 38 yards. And while he averaged 6.9 net yards per pass attempt and 6.3 YPC, the rest of the Houston offense was not so effective: Alfred Blue and Lamar Miller somehow were given 27 carries, despite only gaining 60 yards, in a game that was tight the whole way. If there was a takeaway, it’s that the Texans need to run more effectively, or rely on Watson more.

The graph below shows the amount of yards gained on each play by Houston (Y-Axis), plotted against time elapsed into the game (X-Axis). Plays with Watson (passes, sacks, and Watson rushes) are in red, while Texans running back rushing plays are in blue.

Meanwhile, Marcus Mariota had 10 carries as part of a very run-heavy attack for Tennessee. The Titans finished with a Game Script of only +2.0, but still had more rushing attempts than pass plays. There have been 45 games this season where a team had more rushing plays than pass plays: this was just the 6th where the team had a Game Script of +2.0 or worse (the Saints against the Ravens were the only team to have more rushes than passes in a game with a negative Game Script this year).

The full week 9 Game Scripts data below: [continue reading…]

Nick Mullens was an undrafted free agent signing by the 49ers last season who was waived as part of the team’s final cuts in September. He was resigned in January, and then was again waived in September as part of San Francisco’s final cutdown.

He was added to the practice squad, and then, after Jimmy Garoppolo tore his ACL, the 49ers brought Mullens up to the active roster. Then, C.J. Beathard injured his throwing wrist in a game against the Cardinals, and while he played through the injury, he was questionable to start the team’s week 9 game on short rest. In a last minute decision, San Francisco went with Mullens — who had never entered an NFL game before — as the team’s week 9 starting quarterback.

And it somehow went magically, as Mullens turned in one of the greatest debuts by a quarterback in NFL history.

Mullens averaged a league-high 14.64 ANY/A, and ranked second to Drew Brees is value added among all quarterbacks for week 9. The weekly ANY/A average in week 9 was 6.40 ANY/A, another strong passing week for the NFL, and that’s even with Nathan Peterman playing.

And yes, a word about the Bills embattled quarterback. Peterman threw a league-high 49 pass attempts this week, and yet — amazingly — finished just 22nd in passing yards! It was another miserable week for the Buffalo passer, who averaged 0.6 ANY/A. That increased his average for the year, as Peterman is still wading in negative ANY/A waters for the season.

The table below shows the week 9 passing results. [continue reading…]

This season, the average carry in the NFL has gained 4.34 yards. That would set a new record, and it would also represent a large 0.25 YPC increase over last season’s average. The graph shows the YPC average in every NFL season since 1950:

[continue reading…]

The Big 12 came into college football existence in 1996, when Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, and Baylor left the SWC to join forces with Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Iowa State, and Missouri from the Big 8. The conference has been one of the best in college football, but it’s done a terrible job of producing quality NFL quarterbacks. In fact, there have been just 19 quarterbacks to start an NFL game who played in the Big 12:

Baker Mayfield
Patrick Mahomes
Bryce Petty
Landry Jones
Geno Smith
Brandon Weeden
Ryan Tannehill
Robert Griffin
Blaine Gabbert
Sam Bradford
Colt McCoy
Stephen McGee
Josh Freeman
Chase Daniel
Vince Young
Seneca Wallace
Chris Simms
Sage Rosenfels
Koy Detmer

There have been 25 quarterbacks drafted from the Big 12: of the group that have started more than 5 games, only two have a winning record. Young, who managed to have a good record despite not being a good passer, and Mahomes, who is now 8-1. Before 2018, no quarterback from the Big 12 had thrown more TDs than interceptions, had more wins than losses, and started more than 5 games.

There are five former Big 12 quarterbacks who have started a game this season: Mahomes, Mayfield, Tannehill, Gabbert, and Bradford.  Through 8 weeks, there were no Big 12 starting QB matchups (although Gabbert played a bunch against Tannehill in the season opener), but tomorrow, the Browns and Chiefs will play.  This means a revival of sorts of a classic game between Mayfield and Mahomes that featured 12 passing touchdowns and nearly 1300 passing yards.

This will be the first time two teams started Big 12 quarterbacks since week 17 of the 2016 season, a forgettable and meaningless matchup between Landry Jones and RG3.  The most high-octane Big 12 QB game of all time was probably another week 17 game, this time between Geno Smith and Ryan Tannehill in 2014.  The table below shows all matchups where both starting quarterbacks played in the Big 12:

Quarterbacks from the Big 12 have disappointed for over two decades. But Mahomes is changing things, and Mayfield may be on the path to joining him.

Drew Brees and Philip Rivers are two of the best quarterbacks of the last dozen years. Brees joined the Saints in 2006, paving the way for Rivers to become the Chargers starting quarterback that season. Since then, they are the only two players who threw for 50,000 yards from 2006 to 2017, and they  have been just a hair behind Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, and Peyton Manning in terms of efficiency.

But despite over a decade of great play, neither Brees nor Rivers have won the AP MVP award. The main reason? The triumvirate of Manning, Brady, and Rodgers have won 8 of the 12 AP MVP awards from ’06 to ’17. In the other years, the award went to Matt Ryan in 2016, Cam Newton in 2015, and running backs Adrian Peterson in 2012 and LaDainian Tomlinson in 2006.  In 2012, if Peterson didn’t win the award, Manning would have won it (Peterson beat Manning 30.5 votes to 19.5 votes, and Manning lapped the field for the AP All-Pro QB vote), so neither Brees not Rivers were denied that season.

But in 2006, it probably would have gone to Brees, it not for the historic year that Tomlinson had.  Brees was the AP first-team All-Pro choice at QB, largely because of how he transformed the Saints offense from one of the worst to one of the best in a single offseason.  Tomlinson ran away with the vote, capturing 44 of 50 votes, but Brees was the runner-up with 4 votes to Manning’s two.  That said, I’m not sure I feel particularly bad for Brees on this point: advanced statistics point to Manning as having been the best quarterback that year, and by a decent margin.  The ’06 Colts were historically great at picking up first downs, Manning led in ANY/A, and Manning lapped the field in Total QBR.  Brees would have won the award based on factors other than pure merit, had it not been for Tomlinson’s performance.

Still, it’s hard not to feel bad for these teammates on the ’04 and ’05 Chargers.  For the last 12 years, Brees and Rivers have been behind Manning/Brady/Rodgers in 10 of 12 years, and also behind historically great single seasons from Brees’s NFC South rivals.   I went ahead and calculated how many Adjusted Net Yards each quarterback has provided, relative to league average, for each season since 2006.  The formula is simple.  In 2009, for example, Brees averaged 8.31 ANY/A (Adjusted Net Yards/Attempt, of course, is yards per attempt, with a 45-yard penalty for interceptions, deductions for sacks, and a 20-yard bonus for touchdown passes) and Rivers averaged 8.30 ANY/A, while the league average that season was 5.65.  Brees had 534 dropbacks, so he is credited with 1,422 Adjusted Net Yards of value added over average (8.31 – 5.65, multiplied by 534).  Rivers had 511 dropbacks, so he is credited with 1,356 ANY of value added over average.

In both 2008 and 2009, Brees and Rivers ranked 1st and 2nd in value added over average.  In ’08, both the Saints and Chargers finished 8-8; Manning, who led the NFL with 6 game-winning drives, won the AP MVP on the 12-4 Colts.  In ’09, Manning’s Colts began the year 14-0 before shutting things down for the season; Manning was always a shoe-in for that award, thanks to a whopping 7 fourth quarter comebacks in those 14 games; no other quarterback had more than 3 that season.  But in terms of ANY/A (and Value), Rivers and Brees were better choices than Manning both years.

In addition, Brees had three seasons where he ranked 2nd in value (’06, ’11, ’17) and two more where he ranked 3rd (’12, ’13). Rivers had a third 2nd-place finish in value in 2010 (behind MVP Brady), and also had a 3rd (2017), 4th (2013), and 5th (2006) place finish.

This year, both players are having remarkable seasons, but Rivers ranks 3rd in Value and Brees ranks 6th in Value. Yes, it looks like Patrick Mahomes or Jared Goff or even Todd Gurley could be what stops Brees and Rivers from that elusive first AP MVP Award.

The graph below shows Brees, Rivers, and the leader in Adjusted Net Yards over average for each year since 2006. The NFL leader is in red; Rivers is in Chargers colors, and Brees is in Saints colors.  Both Rivers and Brees have had a lot of great seasons, but seasons that fall just shy of MVP-level  great.

Rivers and Brees both were victims of Manning in ’08 and ’09, but the biggest snake eyes either of them rolled was in 2011. That year, Rodgers had his best season and was historically great — the only better seasons since ’06, by value, were Manning ’13 and Brady ’07. But Brees 2011 was also great — in fact, it’s the 5th-best season since ’06, with Ryan ’16 being the only other season ahead of him. It just so happens that Brees picked a bad time to have a career season.

Previously:

• Week 1 Game Scripts
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7

Houston, Seattle, and Indianapolis were your three most run-heavy teams of the week, in large part because their team’s quarterbacks were so darn efficient. The Seahawks had the best passer rating of week 8, followed by the Texans, the Raiders, and the Colts. Seattle was noticeably rush-heavy: yes, the Game Script was heavily in Seattle’s favor, but the Seahawks became the first team in 2018 to rush on over 68% of plays.

On the other side of things, the Jaguars and Giants were the three most pass-happy teams of week 8. Jacksonville, a week after trading for Carlos Hyde, passed on 72% of all plays in a tight game… and that includes Blake Bortles being responsible for 8 of the team’s 17 runs! Including sacks, pass attempts, and rushes, Bortles was the Jaguars guy on 53 of 62 plays, or 85.4% of all Jacksonville plays.

The full week 8 Game Scripts data, below: [continue reading…]

Since the start of the 2013 season, the top 5 players in receptions consist of three future Hall of Famers — Antonio Brown, Julio Jones, and Larry Fitzgerald — and two players traded yesterday.  Those two players, Demaryius Thomas and Golden Tate, may not be bound for Canton, but they should be remembered as two of the best receivers of the ’10s.

Thomas may well wind up on as a second team member of the  All Decade team of the ’00s.  As of today, he ranks 3rd in the decade in receiving yards (behind Brown and Jones), third in receptions (behind Brown and Fitzgerald), and 8th in receiving touchdowns.  Tate has a reputation as one of the best receivers in the NFL in terms of yards after the catch: he’s averaged 6.7 yards after the catch since 2013, easily the most of any wide receiver with a significant number of receptions.

The two receivers have both made a living on short passes; on passes within 15 yards of the line of scrimmage, the duo rank 2nd and 3rd in receptions behind Brown.  And given that both players are now changing teams — Tate was traded to the Eagles for a 3rd round pick, Thomas was traded to the Texans for a 4th round pick — it’s worthwhile to see how each receiver has done under different passers.  In particular, given how both have been great on shorter passes, I used the PFR Index to see the quarterback breakdown for each receiver on passes since 2013 under 15 yards from the line of scrimmage. [continue reading…]

The three best dual threat quarterbacks in the NFL right now are Cam Newton, Russell Wilson, and Deshaun Watson. You can make a good case that they were also the three best quarterbacks of week 8.

Watson was the most valuable passer of week 8, throwing for 5 TDs on just 20 dropbacks, with zero interceptions and zero sacks. Wilson was the second most valuable passer of the week, and became just the second player in the last three seasons to have a perfect passer rating while throwing at least three touchdown passes. And Newton led all quarterbacks with 52 rushing yards and a touchdown, led the Panthers to 36 points on 7 scores on 10 drives, and did not take a sack or an interception.

The full week 8 passing stats below. The average ANY/A this week was 6.98; as always, Value is calculated as the difference between each passer’s ANY/A and the weekly average, multiplied by that passer’s number of dropbacks. [continue reading…]

Jameis Winston entered the NFL as a 21-year-old in 2015. Now, midway through his fourth season, Winston still has a number of rookie struggles. He currently has a 6.8% interception rate in 2018, bringing his career interception rate up to 3.2%. Among the 39 passers with 500 attempts since 2015, Winston has the worst interception rate in the NFL.

On the other hand, interceptions are not a very sticky statistic, and a pretty poor way of evaluating quarterback play.  Winston is an aggressive passer who has played on bad teams, so that tends to lead to interceptions.  And young quarterbacks — Winston is still just 24 — sometimes struggle with interceptions, especially on bad teams.

Meanwhile, Winston has been downright remarkable at picking up first downs.  Including sacks, Winston has picked up a first down on 37.3% of his dropbacks since entering the league; that’s the 2nd-best rate in the NFL over that span.  Last year, he led the league in percentage of pass attempts that went for a first down; this year he’s been even better (although he only ranks 3rd).  Including sacks, he has still picked up a first down on 40% of his dropbacks.

Since 2015, Winston ranks 1st in INT rate and 2nd in Passing First Down rate.  No other player ranks in the top 9 in both, although Roethlisberger, Newton, and Fitzpatrick rank in the top 12 in both stats. [continue reading…]

Against the Jets in week 5, trailing 34-16 with 11 seconds left, Case Keenum threw an interception on the game’s final play.

Against the Broncos in week 1, the Seahawks had the ball with 2 seconds left at their own 11-yard line, down by 3. Russell Wilson threw an interception on the game’s final play.

Against the Panthers in week 3, the Bengals were down 31-21 with 3 seconds left when Andy Dalton threw an interception on the game’s final play.

Trailing 30-14 against the Chiefs, with 9 seconds left, Blake Bortles threw an interception on the game’s second-to-last play.

All of these are examples of meaningless interceptions, at least from a win probability perspective. These teams all had a less than one percent chance of winning the game, and the interception therefore was not meaningful. Tom Brady had one of these, too: the Patriots had a win probability of over 99% when, up 38-0 in the 4th quarter, he threw an interception. That pick was meaningless.

We should not treat all interceptions equally, and with win probability data becoming more mainstream, we are no longer restricted by a game’s box score. A special thanks to Ron Yurko (@Stat_Ron) for providing the raw data. [continue reading…]

Vikings defense end Danielle Hunter has recorded a sack in every game this season, making him just the 8th player since 1982 to record a sack in each of his team’s first 8 games:

[continue reading…]

Previously:

• Week 1 Game Scripts
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6

Your most remarkable Game Scripts-related stat of the week comes from the Saints. If you knew that New Orleans trailed 17-7 after the third quarter, and that Drew Brees was healthy (and effective!), what would you expect the Saints pass ratio to be?

65% 75%? 80%?

Try 44%! New Orleans finished the day with 39 rushes against just 31 pass plays, a 44% pass ratio. How remarkable is that?

The last time the Saints trailed by 7 or more points entering the third quarter, and ran on 55% or more of their plays… was in 1983! In fact, when trailing by 7 or more through three quarters, the Saints have never rushed on 50% or more of their plays in the Drew Brees era! And this was a 10-point third quarter deficit!

In fact, since 2000, there have only been three games where New Orleans trailed by a touchdown entering the 4th quarter and finished the game with more rushes than pass plays:

• A meaningless week 17 game in the 2009 season, when Brees did not dress.

• A 2005 game against the Bears

• This 2004 game against Tampa Bay.

New Orleans finished with 12 passing first downs and 12 rushing first downs, the sort of balanced attack that has rarely been seen for the Saints. Even the ground game was balanced: Alvin Kamara had 4 rushing first downs, Brees had 3 (all on 3rd- or 4th-and-1), Taysom Hill had 3, and Mark Ingram had two.  Remarkably, New Orleans had four 4th-down conversions, and all four game on the ground.
[continue reading…]

This was not a good week to be a rookie quarterback. Josh Allen was on the sidelines due to an injured elbow, and he may have had the best week of any of the top rookie passers.

Josh Rosen was a disaster on Thursday night, as he threw two picks six as his Cardinals were destroyed, 45-10. Even ignoring that two of his three interceptions were returned for touchdowns, Rosen finished with a 0.87 ANY/A average, the worst of any quarterback in week seven.

Sam Darnold was not much better. The Jets had six drives in the second quarter, and picked up zero first downs. For the game, Darnold finished with 45 dropbacks and threw for just 7 first downs, and his 16% passing first down rate was the worst of any quarterback in week seven.

Baker Mayfield was only slightly better: the Browns seven first half drives ended in six straight punts and a turnover on downs when Cleveland took possession at the Tampa Bay 19-yard line. Cleveland had 6 three-and-outs, and the Browns picked up a first down on just 21% of all passing plays: third-worst of the week, ahead of only the Cardinals and Jets.

The top passers this week were Rivers and Mahomes, who have separated themselves as the top two quarterbacks in the AFC this season. The full week 7 passing stats below. On average this week, teams completed 22.1 of 34.0 passes, for 247.4 gross passing yards, with a 93.4 passer rating. [continue reading…]

Todd Gurley is now 50 games into his NFL career, and he is only getting better. He is averaging an impressive 109.4 yards from scrimmage per game, but he’s been noticeably better since Sean McVay arrived.

As a rookie in 2015, Gurley averaged about 100 yards from scrimmage per game but faded down the stretch, topping the century mark just once in his last seven games. In 2016, in an ugly Jeff Fisher offense, Gurley was extremely consistent, but not in a good way: he did not pick up 109 yards in a single game that season. But since McVay arrived, Gurley has topped his current career average in 16 of 21 games.

The graph below shows the yards from scrimmage gained by Gurley in every regular season game of his career, color-coded by year. [continue reading…]

Below is a scatter plot showing the Game Scripts (on the X-Axis) and pass ratio (on the Y-Axis) of every game so far this season. I have also provided a best-fit line:

[continue reading…]

Previously:

• Week 1 Game Scripts
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5

Entering week 6, the Cowboys had Game Scripts of -6.0 against the Panthers, +10.1 against the Giants, -7.8 against the Seahawks, +1.6 against Detroit, and +0.2 against the Texans.

Entering week 6, the Jaguars had Game Scripts of +3.6 against the Giants, +12.2 against New England, -1.5 against Tennessee, +8.2 against the Jets, and -13.7 against the Chiefs.

So color me surprised to see Jacksonville get throttled on Sunday against the Cowboys in Dallas, losing 40-7 and finishing with a -17.3 Game Script. It wasn’t quite a Vikings against the Bills level upset, but Jacksonville was a 3-point favorite; it is pretty unusual for a 3-point dog to lead by 21+ points at halftime and win by 30+ points; in fact, the last time it happened, the Jaguars were on the other side of things.

The full week 6 Game Scripts are below: [continue reading…]

The Buffalo Bills have the worst passing attack in the NFL, and it is not particularly close. The NFL is averaging 6.5 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt, the 30th-best passing offense is averaging 4.5 ANY/A, and the 31st-best passing attack is averaging 4.1 ANY/A.  The Bills? They are averaging 2.0 ANY/A and have reached the cellar by being bad at every facet of the passing game.  The Bills rank last in the league in completion percentage, passing yards, passing touchdowns, passing touchdown rate, and yards per attempt. The Bills also have the worst sack rate *and* the worst interception rate in the NFL.

In 1941, the league average completion percentage was 44.3%; the 2018 Bills are completing passes at a 50.6% clip.

In 1941, the average NFL team gained 122 passing yards per game; the 2018 Bills are gaining 123 passing yards per game.

In 1941, NFL teams threw an interception on 10% of passes; the 2018 Bills have thrown an interception on 7.3% of passes.

But if you pick any year more recent than 1941, you might think Buffalo was a below-average passing team.  The league average completion percentage has been over 50.6% in every season since 1961. When it comes to interceptions, 1975 and 1971 are the only post-merger seasons where the league average more than 1.5 interceptions per game.  And in passing yards per game?  It’s been higher than Buffalo’s current average in every season beginning in 1942.

If you want to use yards per attempt, you have to go back to 1935 to find a season where Buffalo’s current 5.39 Y/A average would be above average.   The last time the league average ANY/A was below 2.0 was in 1938, and the NFL has never had a NY/A average as poor as the 2018 Bills.

So yes, Buffalo’s passing performance this season has been otherworldly.  And it got worse in week 6, as Josh Allen and Nathan Peterman combined to gain just 129 passing yards on 31 dropbacks, while throwing two interceptions.  And with 90 seconds left in the 4th quarter of a tie game, Peterson threw a brutal pick six that swung the game to Houston.

Below are the week 6 passing stats, with some familiar names at the top.

And in addition, here are the passing stats to date. I am using 15 dropbacks multiplied by the number of weeks in the season to determine whether a passer has qualified. The table has 58 rows, but for ease of reading, I have defaulted to only showing the top 10.

On Sunday against the Panthers, Washington quarterback Alex Smith threw a touchdown pass to tight end Vernon Davis. Over 12 years ago, the two connected for the first touchdown reception of Davis’s career, back when both players were with the 49ers.

How rare is it for a quarterback to throw a touchdown pass to a player, and then throw a touchdown pass 12 years later to the same player on a new team? Well, it’s never happened before. The closest was with Randall Cunningham and Cris Carter; the duo connected for a touchdown pass in November 1987 with the Eagles, and last connected for a touchdown pass in September 1999 with the Vikings, a span of nearly 12 years.

The table below shows, through 2017, all QB/Receiver pairings where the duo connected for touchdown passes on different teams.  I have used “different teams” liberally here (e.g., including the old Browns and Ravens as different teams), but you can consider them the same team if you like.

Stabler and Casper hold the record for combined touchdowns on two teams, at 45, although most of those were in Oakland. Bledsoe/Glenn, Cunningham/Carter, Cutler/Marshall, and — if you want to include them, Testaverde/Jackson and Testaverde/Alexander — are the only pairs to connect for double digit touchdowns on two different teams.

Doug Williams was a better passer with the Bucs than he gets credit for, particularly in 1979. He easily led the NFL in sack rate, with an absurdly low 1.7%, when the league average was 7.5%. He also averaged 14.7 yards per completion, the 4th-best rate in the league. But Williams completed only 41.8% of his passes, which was bad even for a 2nd-year quarterback in 1979.

The Bucs ranked dead last in completion percentage (42.2%), with the 27th-best team in completion percentage over five percentage points higher at 47.4%. But as I noted last week, passing first down percentage is a more important metric than completion percentage. And because Williams had a remarkable sack rate and was a downfield thrower, the Bucs picked up a first down on 30.7% of all passing plays. In 1979, that ranked a respectable 12th in the 28-team league.

The Bucs were 11.9% below average in completion percentage but 1.2% above average in passing first down percentage. That’s a difference of 13.1%, which is the largest difference between any team’s completion percentage and passing first down rate since 1970. The full results below: [continue reading…]

Previously:

• Week 1 Game Scripts
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4

The Buffalo Bills got rid of Tyrod Taylor, spent a first round pick on a quarterback, and are somehow more run-heavy! In 2018, the Bills had the strongest rush identity in the NFL, in large part because of Taylor. Yet on Sunday, Buffalo produced the most run-heavy game of the year, rushing more than twice as often as passing in a 13-12 win against the Titans. The only time the Bills did that last year was in the snow storm against the Colts.  In week 5, Josh Allen had 20 dropbacks and gained just 78 yards; Allen rushed 4 times for 19 yards and a touchdown, LeSean McCoy had 24 carries for 85 yards, and Chris Ivory had 14 carries for 43 yards.

The most pass-happy team of the week is also the most pass-happy team from 2017: the New England Patriots. Against the Colts, the Patriots led 7-0 after 6 minutes, 14-0 after 18 minutes, 24-3 at halftime, and 38-17 midway through the 4th quarter. And yet Tom Brady finished the day with 44 pass attempts, while Patriots running backs had just 20 carries. This game was the 5th time in the last 10 years that the Patriots had 44+ pass attempts despite leading by 14+ at both halftime and the end of the game; over that same period, the rest of the NFL had done it just four times. That’s why New England — with the 4th-best Game Script of the week and the highest Pass Ratio of any team with a positive Game Script in week 5 — was the most pass-happy team of the week.

The full week 5 Game Scripts are below: [continue reading…]

It was not a good day for Blake Bortles and the Jaguars in week 5. He finished the game with a 3.65 ANY/A, going 33/61 for 430 yards, with 1 TD, 4 interceptions, and 5 sacks for 29 yards. Even those numbers overstate things: At halftime, he was averaging 0.92 ANY/A, and after 40 minutes, he was averaging just 1.86 ANY/A. With some good passing numbers when the game was out of hand, Bortles bumped his ANY/A to 4.40, before it dropped to 3.65 when he threw a meaningless interception on the final play of the game.

One interesting way to show how the game progressed is by using a bubble chart, where the size of each bubble represents the scoring differential, the X-Axis represents time elapsed in the game, and the Y-Axis shows adjusted net yards. Each bubble represents one attempt. As you can see, a lot of Bortles’ production came when the game was out of hand (and win probability would be an even better metric to use than scoring differential here, as the “larger” bubbles late in the fourth quarter were also when the game was out of hand due to time remaining as much as scoring differential):

[continue reading…]

Jets running back Isaiah Crowell had a remarkable game on Sunday against the Broncos. He made the most of his 15 carries, producing a 77-yard rushing touchdown, along with carries of 54, 36 and 15 yards. He finished the day with 219 rushing yards, setting a new Jets franchise rushing record in the process.

Do you know what else he did? He averaged 14.33 yards per carry, the highest single-game YPC average by any player in history with at least 15 carries. That made me wonder: what are the highest single-game yards per carry averages at all carry levels?

Joey Galloway holds the record for yards per carry in a game, at 86.0. He did that on one carry, as you could probably guess (and what a carry it was). Up the minimum threshold to 2 or more carries, and Brian Mitchell is your record-holder: he averaged 52.2 yards per carry on 2 carries for 105 yards. At 3+ carries, Cordarrelle Patterson was the record-holder, with a 3-102-34.3 performance … until Browns running back Nick Chubb broke that mark in week 4 of this season against the Raiders with 3 carries for 105 yards.  At 4+ carries, Latavius Murray holds the record with a 28 yards per carry average.  And so on. [continue reading…]

Eli Manning ranks 2nd in the NFL in completion rate with a remarkable 74.2% average. Houston’s Deshaun Watson, on the other hand, ranks 27th out of 34 qualifying passers with a 62.2% completion percentage. But that’s a bit misleading, because as I’ve written about before, first down percentage is a much more important metric than completion percentage.

For Watson, 62 of his 92 completed passes have gone for a first down, meaning just 33% of his completed passes didn’t pick up a first down. For Manning, just 53 of his 112 completions have gone for a first down, which means a whopping 53% of his completions didn’t pick up a first down.

Completion percentage is supposed to measure how consistent a quarterback is at making positive plays. A better formula than (completed passes/pass attempts) is (first downs gained via the pass / [pass attempts + sacks] ). In other words, the numerator should be passing first downs, not completed passes, and the denominator should include sacks. [continue reading…]

Previously:

• Week 1 Game Scripts
• Week 2
• Week 3

Minnesota, Indianapolis, and Pittsburgh all have franchise quarterbacks. Kirk Cousins, Andrew Luck, and Ben Roethlisberger are three of the nine quarterbacks with salary cap hits in excess of $23,000,000 in 2018. Perhaps, then, we shouldn’t be too surprised to see those three teams all choose to pass on over 75% of plays in week 4.

And it’s not like week 4 was an anomaly: these three teams lead the league in passing attempts (including sacks) per game so far in 2018. The Colts are averaging a whopping 51.2 passing plays per game (boosted by another pass-happy performance last night in week 5), the Vikings 50.5 passing plays per game, and the Steelers 48.75. The fourth-place team in this metric is Baltimore, and Joe Flacco is another one of the $23M salary cap hit club.

I noted in the offseason that you can break down the league’s 32 teams into a few simple buckets:

• Half of the league (including Indianapolis, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore) had a quarterback under a “franchise money” type contract

• 12 of the league’s teams are using quarterbacks on rookie contracts, including the Jets, Bills, Cardinals, and Browns who are now starting 2018 first round picks.

• 4 teams, all in the AFC, are stuck with veteran quarterbacks who don’t appear to be franchise quarterbacks. Of this group, Ryan Tannehill, Blake Bortles, and Andy Dalton are all playing well: their teams are all 3-1 and they have slightly above-average passing stats, which would count as exceeding expectations. The fourth player is Case Keenum, and you can make the case that the Broncos are the only team that doesn’t have its 2019 quarterback already on its roster. In other words, 16 teams have a franchise quarterback (or a quarterback with a franchise quarterback salary), 12 teams have a quarterback on a rookie contract and at least some optimism for a long-term future (with perhaps Tampa Bay and Dallas being the sole exceptions), and 3 teams have a middling option who is actually playing pretty well.

The full week 4 Game Scripts data below: [continue reading…]

The table below shows the main statistics for the top running backs from week 5 of the 2017 season through week 4 of the 2018 season:

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Through four weeks, teams have rushed 3,181 times. They have thrown 4,587 passes and been sacked 320 times, which means teams have rushed on 3,181 out of 8,088 plays. That’s a run ratio of just 39.3%, which would set a new record. This makes some sense, of course: given that this has been the most efficient passing season in NFL history, you would think teams are shifting more to the pass than the run. The graph below shows the percentage of running plays for each season in NFL history since 1950; as you can see, it’s not 1956 anymore.

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As a rookie, Jared Goff threw 5 touchdowns on 205 pass attempts. In week 4, he threw 5 touchdowns on 33 pass attempts.
As, Mitch Trubisky threw 7 touchdowns on 330 pass attempts. In week 4, he threw 6 touchdowns on 26 attempts.

Both joined the exclusive 17/17 club of 17 Adjusted Yards per Attempt on 17 passes. ^[1]While I prefer using ANY/A to AY/A, the PFR Game Finder only has AY/A as a default search option, hence my use of AY/A there., making a remarkable three such performances in September 2018.

Meanwhile, there is Josh Allen, who became just the 19th quarterback since 2008 to finish a game with a negative ANY/A on at least 30 pass attempts.

And then there’s Matt Ryan, who for the second straight week found himself on the losing side of a passing shootout. He became just the 8th quarterback since the merger to average 11.0 ANY/A or better, throw for 400 passing yards, and lose.  The Falcons join the 1966 Giants as the only teams to score 36+ points in consecutive regular season games… and lose both games.

Note that it was a terrible week for AFC East quarterbacks not named Tom Brady, and actually not even a good week for Brady (because week 4 was absurd, Brady’s 6.97 ANY/A average was actually below-average). Below are the passing stats for week 4: [continue reading…]

Two weeks ago, we saw the greatest week in NFL passing history. For the entire week, the NFL averaged a passer rating of 102.6 and an ANY/A average of 6.99, both of which set new records.

Well, week 4 of the NFL season is likely going to finish as a more dominant week of passing. We still have Patrick Mahomes (and Case Keenum) to come tonight, but week 4 has been remarkable for efficiency but especially quantity. Washington and Carolina are on a bye, so there have been 28 teams to play this week. The average passer rating so far has been an outstanding 99.3, which would make it the second-best in NFL history. But what’s even more incredible are the other passing stats: the average ANY/A has been an insanely high 7.16! The big difference between passer rating and ANY/A is completion percentage, which is only reflected in the former statistic. An absurdly high completion percentage made the week 2 passer rating so high (69.4%), while teams have “only” completed 65.0% of passes so far this week. But while teams averaged 7.6 yards per attempt in week 2, they’ve averaged 7.9 yards/attempt so far this week.

Judging by ANY/A standards, this is the best week in passing history. But what about pure passing yards? Individual passers have averaged 304.5 passing yards per game (i.e., excluding sacks), and teams have averaged 286.3 passing yards per game (net of sacks). Yes, that means the average quarterback in week 4 has exceeded 300 passing yards, assuming one player throws all of his team’s passes. If every week was like this, we would expect a healthy quarterback on the average team to throw for nearly 4,900 passing yards and 34 TDs in a season! An average quarterback!

The best single week in terms of passing yards per game (excluding sacks) was week 6 of the 2015 season, when individual passers averaged 291.6 passing yards per game and 278.5 yards/game (net of sacks). In week 2 of 2018, those averages were 278.6 and 262.0, respectively. That makes the 304.5/286.3 really stand out: teams have never slung it around so often and so well before. Teams threw 36.7 passes per game in week 2, compared to 38.5 per game this week: in other words, the NFL may be figuring out that this passing thing makes sense.

Thought of another way, in the average game this week, each quarterback will throw for 300 passing yards and have a passer rating of 100. Remember, there have been 28 teams to play so far this week. Consider:

• 16 quarterbacks have thrown for 295+ yards
• Mitch Trubisky and Jared Goff both topped 16.0 ANY/A, while 20 quarterbacks averaged over 6.0 ANY/A; the average ANY/A in 2017 was 5.9. ^[1]Or how about the 17/17 club — 17 pass attempts, 17 AY/A? It’s happened three times already this season, with Fitzpatrick in week 1 joining Goff and Trubisky this week. Marino, Elway, and … Continue reading
• 14 quarterbacks have a passer rating of 99.0 or better.

In terms of both quantity and quality, this is the best passing week the NFL has ever seen. And that’s before Mahomes — or the Chiefs defense — hits the field.

A good comment by reader Mark Growcott this week noted that running backs are catching a lot of passes so far in 2018. Mark noted that running backs have more catches through three weeks than in any season since 2010.

I went ahead and calculated the receptions per game by running backs, tight ends, and wide receivers for the first three weeks of each season since 2002. Since not every team played three games in the first three weeks of each season, the data is presented on a per-game basis. As you can see, 2018 is a great year for running backs in the receiving game, but… it’s also a great year for every position in the receiving game: [continue reading…]