In 2017, the San Francisco 49ers spent $47,419,179 in salary cap dollars on the team’s offense. That was the fewest in the NFL, and only the Browns and Jets were under $60M. In 2018? San Francisco has $111,833,332 in salary cap dollars allocated to offensive players, the most in the NFL.

How did that happen? Well, it’s pretty simple.

• The 49ers have $38.8M allocated to quarterbacks, by far the most in the NFL. The Lions are second at $27.6M, meaning this is a truly untenable number. This is mostly due to Jimmy Garoppolo, of course, and his contract is structured unevenly for cap purposes. At it stands, the ex-Patriot will have a $37M cap hit in ’18, a $20M cap hit in ’19, and between $26.6 and $27M in ’20, ’21, and ’22. The 49ers pushed an absurd amount of salary cap dollars into 2018 thanks to a $28M roster bonus.

• The 49ers have $13.0M allocated to running backs, which trails only the Le’Veon Bell-led Steelers and Bills (not only LeSean McCoy, but also backup Chris Ivory and FB Patrick DiMarco have large contracts for their roles). Fullback Kyle Juszczyk ($4,45M cap hit in 2018) is by far the highest paid player at his position, after signing an off-market contract last year. But the team matched the insanity in 2018, signing Jerick McKinnon to a huge contract that carries a $10.5M cap hit in 2018, the second highest (Bell) in the league. That came a year after the 49ers traded the 143rd and 161st picks in the draft to move up to select Joe Williams, a RB that Kyle Shanahan claimed he would “be sick” if the 49ers didn’t grab.

• At wide receiver, San Francisco has $23.3M in salary cap dollars, which is slightly above-average, too. This is mostly allocated to Pierre Garcon ($9.25M), Marquise Goodwin ($6.28M on a new contract this month), and Aldrick Robinson ($2.2M).

The 49ers went a little cheap at TE (Garrett Celek at $2.7M) and are about average on the offensive line. Joe Staley has a cap hit back down to $7.7M, and the 49ers will have a reasonably priced RT in either Trenton Brown or Garry Gilliam. At guard, Jonathan Cooper, Zane Beadles, and Josh Garnett will compete for two spots, with the big money player being new C Weston Richburg.  The 49ers lured Richburg from the Giants with one of the richest contracts in the league for any center.

The contracts paid to the running backs were obvious overpays, and Garoppolo’s contract pays him as though he’ll continue to be the player he was for five starts last year.  Thirteen months ago, wouldn’t think adding Garoppolo, McKinnon, and a fullback would transform the 49ers from the cheapest to the most expensive offense in the league, but here we are.

Last year, in 2017, Deshaun Watson was the third quarterback off the board with the 12th overall selection, and he was the leading favorite for rookie of the year before tearing his ACL in practice. In 2018, it is expected that the first three picks in the NFL Draft will be quarterbacks, just like it was in 1971 and 1999. That’s the best-case scenario for the third QB, but every draft is different: in 2015, Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota were the first two picks, and then the third QB selected was Garrett Grayson with the 75th pick. Twice, the third QB in the draft wasn’t taken until the 6th round! In 1988, it was Syracuse’s Don McPherson going at pick 149 in a draft that didn’t see a quarterback go in the first two rounds. In 1985, Steve Bono was taken with the 142nd pick as the third passer off the board.

The graph below shows the draft position where the third QB was selected in each draft from 1967 to 2018, with the assumption being that QB3 will go with the third pick this year:

[continue reading…]

When picking a quarterback in the first round, what sort of career should you expect? What’s the median expectation? How many are above the line where you would consider him a good pick (which may be a different question)?

I looked at 25 years of drafting, from 1990 to 2014 (it’s too early to grade quarterbacks drafted since then, and maybe even too early to grade two of the three from the first round of 2014). There were 60 quarterbacks selected in the first rounds of those drafts. I took a stab at ordering them from best to worst, but don’t worry too much about some of the rankings. You can feel free to re-order them in your own way. ^[1]For example, I had Bryan Frye look at these, and he had Alex Smith, Trent Dilfer, Teddy Bridgewater, and JaMarcus Russell all 5+ spots lower, and Jeff George, Tommy Maddox, Vince Young, and Drew … Continue reading

But take a look at this list and decide where your cut-off is for drafting a first round quarterback. Where is the cutoff if you have a top-5 pick where you feel like it was a worthwhile investment? For me, it’s probably around somewhere between QB15 and QB20. Those odds aren’t too great: it means only about 30% of first round quarterbacks are really players you would be happy to build your team around. But your mileage may vary: [continue reading…]

Only twice in NFL history have the first three selections all been quarterbacks.

In 1971, the Patriots drafted Jim Plunkett with the first pick, followed by the Saints selecting Archie Manning, and the Oilers drafting Dan Pastorini third overall.  The returns were not great: New England, New Orleans, and Houston went a combined 111-183-3 with those three under center, with a 3-2 record (all from Pastorini).

Then in 1999, the Browns took Tim Couch first overall, followed by Donovan McNabb to the Eagles and Akili Smith to the Bengals. The results were better, but only because of McNabb: the trio went 117-100-1 with those teams.

This year, the Cleveland Browns, New York Giants, and New York Jets now own the top three picks, with the Browns also owning the fourth overall pick. There has been speculation that the Browns would consider taking Penn State running back Saquon Barkley with the first pick, but that seems unlikely now that the Jets have decided to pay insurance to guarantee a top-3 quarterback.

This means two things: one, if the Browns don’t take Barkley, he could only go at 2, since the Jets won’t draft him.  And the Browns could wind up getting QB3 or at best QB2 if they take Barkley first overall, since we know the Jets are taking a passer.  Unless Cleveland views the top three quarterbacks as interchangeable and Barkley as future Hall of Famer, the Browns are going to draft a quarterback with the first pick.

And that leaves the Giants in an interesting spot at #2 overall.  New York probably should move on from Eli Manning, who will be 38 years old before the 2018 playoffs begin.  Manning was born on January 3rd, making him a very old 36-year-old quarterback in 2017.  And he was a very unproductive 36-year-old quarterback in 2017, which makes it hard to see why the Giants wouldn’t reboot the franchise, so to speak.

But even if the Giants don’t agree, we just saw the Jets send a mammoth amount of draft capital to the Colts for the #3 pick.  Gang Green sent 54.6 points of draft value — equivalent to the first overall pick and the 10th overall pick — for the third pick in the draft.  The bidding for the 2nd overall pick begins there, and it defies any sense of logic to think a RB or a guard (Notre Dame’s Quenton Nelson will be one of the first non-QBs selected) is worth 55 points of draft value.

So New York will either take a quarterback at #2, or trade the pick for a ton of value.  Surely the Jets offered the Giants the same package they sent to Indianapolis, which means the Giants already decided the #2 pick was worth more than 54.6 points of draft value. That signals a desire to take a quarterback or to wait for a better offer as we get closer to draft day.

Where will that offer come?  The Broncos, Dolphins, and Bills are the likely suitors (the Jets could also try to get into the #1 or #2 slot, too).  Denver could offer the #5 pick, the #40 pick, and a 2019 first rounder to get the second overall pick. In that scenario, the Giants would actually still get Nelson (with the draft going QB-QB-QB-Barkley-Nelson) and get the 40th pick and a 2019 first rounder. Of course, this only works if the Giants are all in on Manning.

The Dolphins probably don’t have the juice to make the move, but don’t ignore the possibility of Miami sending the 11th pick, the 42nd pick, and the team’s first round picks in both 2019 and 2010.  GM Chris Grier and Executive Vice President of Football Operations (whatever that means) Mike Tannenbaum are both on the hot seat, and head coach Adam Gase is 16-16 after two seasons and without any sense of hope for the short-term future. Miami’s had just five players record 7+ points of AV last year; two are gone (Jarvis Landry and Ndamukong Suh), and a third is 36-year-old Cameron Wake.

The rebuild is in on Miami (Reshad Jones and Kiko Alonso are your other leaders in AV, by the way), and it’s unlikely that Tannenbaum and Grier are still around in 2020.  As a result, you can see a situation where the duo decides there’s no reason not to offer up three first round picks, as drafting the next Marino might be the only way to keep their jobs. The question: would the Giants take 11, 42, and two future firsts for the 2nd overall pick?  That would be very similar to what Washington gave up in the RG3 trade, although a slightly lesser haul.  I assume the Giants would take it, because it’s not like history fondly recalls Washington’s gambit there. New York could certainly “settle” for something less than RG3, and with a new GM in Dave Gettleman, having two first round picks in 2019 and 2020 would be a heck of a way to start the rebuild. [continue reading…]

The Jets and Colts pulled off a blockbuster trade yesterday. Indianapolis sent the Jets the third overall selection, which gives them the right to draft one of Sam Darnold, Josh Rosen, Josh Allen, or Baker Mayfield. It’s possible (likely?) that one of those guys would have still been there at #6, but the Jets didn’t want to take that risk, or (it appears) risk putting the future of the quarterback position in the hands of Lamar Jackson, Mason Rudolph or Luke Falk (or Teddy Bridgewater).

The price to play it safe and insure that the Jets would get one of their top three options at quarterback was not cheap.  In return for the third pick (worth 27.6 points in the Football Perspective Draft Pick Value calculator), New York gave up the sixth pick (worth 23.2 points), the 37th pick (11.6 points), the 49th pick (9.8 points), and a 2019 second round pick.  If we assume the 2019 second round pick to be say, the 40th pick overall, that’s another 11.1 points.  Discount it 10% for having to wait a year to lose it, and we can approximate it as worth 10 points.

That’s 27.6 points points received in return for trading 54.6 points, which is a whopping 198 cents on the dollar. It’s hard to overstate how much value that is: the Jets sent the equivalent of the first overall pick (34.6 points) and the 10th overall pick (19.9 points), and are now firmly in the land of massive overpays to trade up for a top-5 QB.

The Jets are now rebuilding without a 2nd round pick this year or a 2nd round pick next year and starting with a roster that is light on talent overall.  The only way this trade works out is if the draft pick turns out to be a star quarterback, but the odds of that happening are about 20%.  My suspicion is the odds of that are even lower when you have a below-average support system around that quarterback.

This is a curious trade given that the Jets will likely be left taking the third QB off the board.  The Jets could have stayed put and taken the best QB on the board at 6 (which would involve some risk, of course) and have three second round picks to surround that player.  Or trade down and take a QB like Jackson or Rudolph and surround him with three second round picks plus whatever else the Jets could have acquired via a trade down. It might be looking at a situation of the leftovers of Darnold/Rosen/Allen/Mayfield vs. Jackson + 4 2nd round picks or Rudolph plus 3 second round picks and 1 first round pick.

But there’s nothing easier in the world than overpaying to trade up for a QB that’s the safe choice.  The Jets paid 198 cents on the dollar to avoid having to take the risk in not getting one of the consensus top 4 quarterbacks. That is a very hefty insurance policy for a team that is light on talent to begin with.

Joe Thomas entered the NFL in 2007, and retired this week after 11 years with the Browns.  During his time with Cleveland, the Browns had a 0.273 winning percentage, the worst record in the NFL. I wrote about how Thomas had one of the worst AV-adjusted winning percentages of all time, and that was before Cleveland went winless in 2017.

Thomas is an obvious future Hall of Famer.  He was a 6-time first-team All-Pro choice by the Associated Press, and a 10-time Pro Bowler.  He is one of just five players, along with Merlin Olsen, Mel Renfro, Barry Sanders, and Lawrence Taylor, to make the Pro Bowl in each of his first ten seasons.

But there’s another way that Thomas is a remarkable player.  He might just be more Ogden than Jonathan Ogden, and that’s saying something.  Here is what Doug wrote back when the Approximate Value system was in its infancy: [continue reading…]

Over his four-year career, Jarvis Landry has a whopping 400 receptions, the most in NFL history for any player in his first four years. Now a member of the Browns after yesterday’s trade, what can we expect from him? Cleveland, of course, went 0-16 last year, which might actually be a good thing for Landry’s numbers. You see, over the course of his career, Landry has been much better in losses than wins.

Landry has averaged 69.4 receiving yards per game in losses, but that number drops by 13.4 yards per game in wins to just 56 yards per game. That’s a sizable discount, especially when most receivers average about five more yards per game in wins than losses.

The table below looks at all receivers over the last four seasons to average at least 50 receiving yards per game over more than 32 games, and with a sizable amount of games in both wins and losses (so no Patriots or Jaguars here). Take a look: [continue reading…]

Back in August, I asked you 38 questions that served as prop bets for the 2017 NFL season. Thanks to the tireless work of Jeremy De Shelter, who helped compile all the results. A couple of weeks ago, I looked at Part I. Let’s move on to Part II, beginning with the projected best and worst teams in the NFL…

Number of double digit wins by the Patriots
Number of double digit losses by the Browns

Cleveland lost 9 games by double digits in 2017, a year after losing 10 such games in 2016. It is still the 4th-most double digit losses by a Browns team since 1999. Meanwhile, New England won “only” 8 games by double digits last year, after winning 10 such games in 2016.

This was a lopsided bet in favor of the Patriots. 82% of you took the New England side, making this a big win for the minority.

Margin of victory for the Texans biggest win
Number of TD passes by the Texans TD passing leader

You might think that Deshaun Watson runs away with this if he stays healthy, as he led the team with 19 touchdown passes in 7 games. But he also led the team to a 43-point blowout of the Titans, so the margin of victory side easily won here. This was a close race, but 55% of you picked the Texans biggest win side.

Yards from scrimmage from the the leader of this group: Mike Gillislee, James White, Rex Burkhead, Dion Lewis
Yards from scrimmage from David Johnson in Arizona wins

Well, Johnson missed 15 games in 2017 due to injury, recording 91 yards from scrimmage in his lone win. The majority of you (57%) picked the Johnson side, but the Patriots side obviously won, as Lewis had 1,110 yards from scrimmage. If you knew that Lewis would lead with such a high number you might not have picked Johnson (who had less than 1,000 yards in Cardinals wins in 2016), so maybe this wasn’t just an easy win for the minority side.

Number of Receiving TDs by the player with the MOST in this group: Odell Beckham, A.J. Green, Jarvis Landry and Antonio Brown
Number of Receiving TDs combined by Pierre Garcon, Randall Cobb, and Adam Thielen

Another one of my favorite style of bets. A few months ago, you might have been shocked to learn that it was Landry (along with Brown) who led the first group in receiving touchdowns at 9 scores. On the other side, Garcon had a goose egg despite having 500 receiving yards, Cobb caught four touchdowns, and Thielen had a monster year with 1,216 yards but also had just four touchdowns. Make this question about receiving yards and it’s an easy win for the combined group, but when it comes to touchdowns, the Landry/Brown side pulled out the win.

That was an upset, as only 27% of you picked the first side.

Yards from scrimmage for Jordan Howard
Number of receiving yards by the Bears receiving yards leader, times two

Howard had 1,611 yards from scrimmage in 2016, and that dropped to 1,247 last year. The Bears had terrible receivers and finished last in the NFL in passing yards, though, which made this one of the closest races. Kendall Wright finished as Chicago’s leading receiver with 614 yards, so Group B loses this bet, 1247-1228. In the pre-season, 63% of you said that Group B would win, and I can’t blame you. But this was another upset win even with a down year from Howard.

Lowest Yards per reception by any of Tavon Austin, Danny Amendola and Larry Fitzgerald, times two
Highest Yards per reception from this group: DeSean Jackson, Kenny Stills, Martavis Bryant, Ted Ginn Jr., J.J. Nelson [No minimum]

Fitzgerald averaged 10.6 yards per reception, Amendola 10.8, and Austin 3.6! So the number to beat here was just 7.2 because of Austin. Nelson was at 17.5 all by himself, making this another win for the majority. A whopping 80% of you picked Group B, which would have been a loser if not for Austin’s 13-catch, 47-yard season. I’m not too sure how I feel about this one. The next one? That was a pretty interesting line that built in the idea of an injury that actually happened.

Number of wins by the Packers, -1.5
Number of interceptions thrown by Aaron Rodgers

From 2014-2016, Rodgers played in 48 games and averaged 7.3 interceptions per season while the Packers averaged 10.7 wins per year. So we had to subtract some wins from Green Bay to make this line interesting. Two thirds of you picked the Packers line in the preseason, thinking the 1.5-win hook wasn’t enough.

Rodgers was limited to 7 games and threw 6 interceptions. Green Bay went 7-9, which means Option A finished with 5.5 and Option B finished with 6. Score a nailbiter for the minority vote.

Lower number will be Tom Brady rank in passer rating, +1.5 [If Brady fails to throw 224 passes, this side loses]
Lower number will be Antonio Brown rank in receiving yards

Another fun line with two Hall of Famers. Brown led the NFL in receiving yards, while Brady ranked 3rd in passer rating. The lower number wins here, because Brady was the favorite. Even without the hook, Brown won this contest.

In the preseason, 63% picked the Brown side. Well done.

TDs scored (passing, rushing and receiving combined) by the player with the 4th most TDs among players in the NFC South, +4
TDs scored (passing, rushing and receiving combined) by the player with the 2nd most TDs among players from teams in California

This was as close as it got in the preseason, meaning this was a great line. The California side got 51% of the vote, with Philip Rivers or Derek Carr the likely runner up. As it turns out, Rivers had 28 TDs but he was the runner up because Jared Goff scored 29 (28 passing, 1 rushing); Carr finished with 22. In the NFC South, the question here was whether all four QBs would have big good enough years to win this with the 4 TD edge. Cam Newton had 28 TDs, Drew Brees had 25, and Matt Ryan and Jameis Winston each had 20. If Goff didn’t have a breakout season, the NFC South wins because of the +4 TD edge. Score one for California over the NFC South.

Games started by rookie quarterbacks, +0.5
Games started by QBs who will be 38 years old during this season (i.e., Brees, Palmer, McCown)

I loved this line in the pre-season. Brees had 16 starts, McCown 13, and Palmer 7, combining for 36 starts. But the rookies did well, at least when it came to starts: DeShone Kizer started 15 games, Mitch Trubisky started 12, and Deshaun Watson 6. That combines for 33 starts, which allowed C.J. Beathard (5) and Nathan Peterman (2) put the rookies over the edge. In the preseason, 76% of you picked the 38-year old quarterbacks, likely not counting on Kizer to start 15 games.

And the last one of the day…

Number of rushing TDs by the QB with the most rushing touchdowns
Number of 100-yard rushing games by Ezekiel Elliott, +0.5

Elliott had 5 games with 100 rushing yards, and the tiebreaker goes to Elliott. But alas, Cam rushed for 6 touchdowns, giving Option A the win. In the preseason, 59% of you picked the rushing TD side, knowing there was a chance that an Elliott suspension would tip the scales.

What stands out to you?

There were three teams last season that overwhelmingly relied on one running back, and all three made the playoffs: the Chiefs with Kareem Hunt, the Steelers with Le’Veon Bell, and the Rams with Todd Gurley. Given the success the Jaguars had after drafting Leonard Fournette on the heels of the Cowboys revival after drafting Ezekiel Elliott, you might think that — combined with the sentence above — relying on one running back is trendy again.

But that’s the difference between anecdotes and data. The Bears were the fourth most “rely on one RB” team, and Chicago went 5-11. The Browns went 0-16 and were very Isaiah Crowell-heavy. And the Colts were the same with Frank Gore and it brought them a 4-12 record.

On the other side, both the Eagles and Patriots had three running backs finish with between 60 and 180 carries, and those teams met in the Super Bowl. The Seahawks didn’t exactly have a rushing game that you would envy, but no Seattle running back had even 70 carries and the team had a winning record.

Last year, I discussed the idea of rushing concentration indices. Let’s use Hunt as an example. He rushed for 1,327 yards, and all Chiefs running backs rushed for 1,462 yards. So Hunt rushed for 91% of all rushing yards produced by Kansas City running backs. To get the Chiefs RB rushing concentration index, we have to square that number, perform the same calculus for all Chiefs running backs, and sum the totals. For Hunt, squaring his percentage gets you 82%, and the tiny amount for all other Kansas City rushers brings us up to 83%.

On the other hand, we have Philadelphia. LeGarrette Blount had 43% of all Eagles rushing yards (square of that is 18%), Jay Ajayi had 23% (5%), Corey Clement had 18% (3%), Wendell Smallwood had 10% (1%), and Darren Sproles and Kenjon Barner each had three percent (0%). That gave the Eagles a RB rushing concentration index of 28%. That was the second lowest rate in the league. [continue reading…]

In one of the first posts at Football Perspective, back before the start of the 2012 season, I asked the question: who will lead the NFL in rushing from 2012 to 2021? At the time, the last seven running backs to lead the league in rushing over a 10-year period were LaDainian Tomlinson, Edgerrin James, Curtis Martin, Emmitt Smith, Barry Sanders, Eric Dickerson, and Walter Payton. That’s a pretty good list of the top running backs over the last 30 years, reinforcing how impressive it is to lead the league in rushing for a decade.

How did our predictions go? Well, see for yourself:

LeSean McCoy, Beanie Wells and DeMarco Murray all are entering their age 24 season, making them perhaps the best hope among the young runners with NFL experience. On the other hand, along with Richardson, Doug Martin, David Wilson, Ronnie Hillman and Lamar Miller made the 2012 draft strong at the position. In the NFC West, Isaiah Pead and Kendall Hunter (or LaMichael James) could be the future for their teams for the next decade. As always, it’s too early to say.

In the collegiate ranks, South Carolina’s Marcus Lattimore is expected to be the cream of the 2013 class, with Auburn transfer Michael Dyer and Wisconsin’s Montee Ball also in the mix. And based on past history, we can’t count out sophomores Malcolm Brown or De’Anthony Thomas. If you had to pick which player will lead the league in rushing yards from 2012 to 2021, Trent Richardson is the obvious choice. After him, I’d probably be pretty evenly split among McCoy, Martin and Lattimore.

Let’s just say that with the obvious exception of McCoy, those predictions don’t hold up super well in hindsight.  Which, by the way, is one of the main points of this post.  It’s really hard to figure out which running backs will turn into stars and which will wind up having nondescript careers.  Players like Hillman or Pead or Hunter  had flashes where you could squint and see a long career of success, while Martin had two seasons with 1400+ yards and (to date) no other seasons with even 500+ rushing yards.

Here are the actual leaders in rushing yards from 2012-to-2017; in other words, this is with 60% of the period done. [continue reading…]

A month ago, I took a look at the quarterback situation in the NFL. Most teams already have either a franchise-type quarterback or a quarterback on a cheap rookie contract. There are another five teams — the Dolphins, Giants, Bengals, Jaguars, and Ravens — that don’t really stand out as natural Cousins fits, either because of the cap hit of their current quarterback or that Cousins wouldn’t provide much of an upgrade, if any.

That leaves six teams — the Bills, Broncos, Browns, Jets, Vikings, and Cardinals — that are really looking for quarterbacks. Cleveland and New York have both a ton of cap space and a premium draft pick, which cuts both ways: either team can offer Cousins whatever money they want, or decide to not even enter the Cousins sweepstakes. The Cardinals don’t have much in the way of cap space or premium draft picks, making them the team wanting to add a franchise quarterback but without many resources. The Bills and Broncos have solid draft capital (Buffalo has two first round picks, Denver owns the fifth pick) but not a ton of salary cap room.

That leaves Minnesota as perhaps the team best positioned to add a quarterback just via free agency. The Vikings don’t have much draft capital but have enough salary cap space to offer Cousins a premium contract. Oh, but there’s just one problem: Minnesota had three quality quarterbacks in the locker room last year (Case Keenum, Teddy Bridgewater, and Sam Bradford), each of whom the team could justify building around in 2019.

So, where will Cousins go? Here are my thoughts.

Cleveland

Despite the most cap room of any team in football, this feels like a longshot. The Browns are not a win-now team and own the first and fourth picks in the draft. This should set Cleveland up to draft a quarterback to build for the future, rather than find a strong veteran passer (or find a veteran passer who isn’t Cousins).

Perhaps more importantly, what would cause Cousins to pick the Browns? Unless the money is significantly more than what other teams are offering, or there is an ability for Cousins to leave Cleveland after only a year or two, it doesn’t make much sense for the quarterback with the most leverage since Peyton Manning to have his choice of suitors and pick an 0-16 team. And given Cousins’ concerns with ownership in Washington, I wouldn’t be surprised if ownership in Cleveland was enough to write the team off his short list.

Buffalo

The Bills don’t have much to offer in the way of, well, much. Whether it’s cap space, skill position talent on offense, or location, Buffalo is going to rank close to last on the list for Cousins. If this turns into a beauty pageant, it’s hard to see Cousins choosing western New York. And I would suspect that the way the organization has treated Tyrod Taylor — who has had a similar Total QBR over the last three years to Cousins — won’t help the team’s cause.

Arizona

The Cardinals don’t have much cap space, but offer an upgrade in skill position talent (David Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald) and weather relative to Buffalo.  The Cardinals have a new coaching staff in place, with offensive coordinator Mike McCoy now working under new head coach Steve Wilks (formerly defensive coordinator in Carolina).  Arizona has the 15th pick and not much cap space, which means the team might be a more natural fit for drafting a quarterback.  We would presume that every team on this list (with the possible exception of the Bills) would offer more money to Cousins, but Arizona is a solid fit for Cousins if you, ya know, ignore money. [continue reading…]

From 2012 to 2014, Larry Fitzgerald averaged 55.1 receiving yards per game.  This period covered his age 29 to 31 seasons, and were the worst three seasons of his career since his rookie season.  It was reasonable, I think, to assume Fitzgerald was on the decline and possibly near the end of his career.   After all, he ranked 40th in the NFL in receiving yards per game during this period, and was about to enter his age 32 season.

During this same period, Randall Cobb averaged 72.3 receiving yards per game despite being just 22, 23, and 24 years old.  His career trajectory was seemed limitless: he averaged 64 receiving yards per game at age 22, 72 at age 23, and 80 receiving yards per game at age 24.

So from 2012 to 2014, an about-to-be-32-year-old-Fitzgerald averaged 55.1 receiving yards per game, and an about-to-be-25-year-old-Cobb averaged 72.3 receiving yards per game.  Cobb was about to enter his prime years, while Fitzgerald had just left his behind.  If there were odds on who would gain more receiving yards over the next three seasons, they would be heavily weighed in Cobb’s favor.

And yet, from 2015 to 2017, Fitzgerald ranked 12th in receiving yards per game at 70.7, while Cobb ranked 55th at 47.5 receiving yards per game. [continue reading…]

In 2017, Leonard Fournette rushed for 9 touchdowns this season, covering a total of 179 yards. His average rushing total, therefore, covered 19.9 yards. However, Fournette’s median length of rushing touchdown? That was just 2.0 yards. Fournette’s touchdown runs came from 90, 75, 5, 3, 2, 1, 1, 1, and 1 yard away.

Among players with at least 4 rushing touchdowns, Derrick Henry led the way with a median length of 17 yards; LeSean McCoy wasn’t too far behind at 14 yards.

The full data set below:

What do you think?

The Cleveland Browns own the #1 and #4 selections in the 2017 Draft. Assuming the Browns don’t trade down, it means the franchise would be the first team to own two top-5 picks in the Draft since…. well, do you know?

The San Francisco 49ers ranked just 27th in red zone offense in 2017, converting only 47% of opportunities into touchdowns. Given the hype around Jimmy Garoppolo, you might think San Francisco was much better during his time, but that’s not true. In fact, the 49ers converted 13 of 27 red zone opportunities into touchdowns during the first twelve weeks (the non-Jimmy G weeks), a 48% rate; that dropped to 11 of 24, or 46%, during Garoppolo’s time as a starter.

That…. was about the only bad thing that happened during the short but brilliant Garoppolo era. San Francisco went 5-0 with Jimmy G and 1-10 without him, making him +4.54 wins over the other quarterbacks; That’s one of the top four marks ever, alongside Marc Bulger on the 2002 Rams (6-1 with, 1-8 without), Vince Young on the 2009 Titans (8-2 with, 0-6 without), and Mike Phipps on the 1979 Bears (9-1 with, 1-5 without).

With Garoppolo, San Francisco’s offense averaged 41.2 yards per drive. The NFL average last year was 30.1 yards, and the Patriots led the NFL at 39.2 yards per drive over the course of the full season. San Francisco scored touchdowns at a rate well above average with Garoppolo under center (24% of all drives, compared to a league average rate of 20%; the Patriots led at 29.7%), but where the 49ers really shined was in kicking field goals. Remarkably, over the final five weeks of the season, San Francisco and Robbie Gould kicked (and made) 18 field goals; over the first 11 games, Gould attempted just 23 field goals! A whopping 36% of all 49ers drives under Garoppolo ended in a field goal attempt (all of which were successful):

[continue reading…]

Jimmy Garoppolo just signed a 5 year, $137.5M contract with the 49ers, and $74M of that contract is guaranteed (with a total average annual salary of $27.5M).  Next month, Kirk Cousins is going to sign an even more massive contract. In addition to the 49ers and the team that signs Cousins, there are 12 teams that have quarterbacks with 2018 salary cap values in excess of $20M: [continue reading…]

The Eagles defense had two dominant games this postseason. Against the high-powered Falcons offense, Philadelphia held Matt Ryan, Julio Jones and company to just 10 points, with the lone touchdown drive coming on a short field following a muffed punt at the Eagles own 18-yard line. With the game in the balance, Philadelphia’s defense held on a goal-line stand to preserve the 15-10 win. In the NFC Championship Game, the defense allowed an opening drive touchdown, and then responded with a pick six on the second drive. That was it: the Eagles defense allowed zero net points to Minnesota, and recorded two more turnovers and two turnovers on downs the rest of the way.

Philadelphia’s offense also had two dominant games this postseason. Against Minnesota, the offense scored 31 points on the team’s first 7 drives of the game, and Nick Foles finished with a 141.4 passer rating on 33 attempts. In the Super Bowl, Philadelphia gained 538 yards of offense and scored 41 points. The Eagles scored on 80% of their drives against the Patriots, with half of those 10 drives ending in touchdowns. [continue reading…]

Super Bowl LII set an NFL record for total yards in a game with 1,151. That’s not total yards in a Super Bowl, or total yards in a playoff game, but total yards in any game in NFL history. That’s pretty wild.

Also remarkable, and highly correlated with the incredible offensive output is the fact that the Eagles and Patriots combined for just one punt and two turnovers. There have been four games since 1950 (which is as far back as reliable punting data goes) where there were zero punts: two involved the 2014 Saints, one was the Peyton Manning/Trent Green playoff game between the Colts and Chiefs, and one was the Super Bowl that never happened — the ’90s Bills and ’90s 49ers facing off in week 2 of the 1992 regular season. That Buffalo/San Francisco game was a classic battle of passing attacks that I’ve written about before, where both passers topped 400 yards in a year where no other quarterback did in a single game.

From 1950 to 2016, there were just 24 games that featured fewer than 4 combined turnovers and punts. The Patriots had four unsuccessful drives that aren’t quite captured here — the clock ran out on New England in both the first and second halves, the Patriots lost the ball on downs, and missed a field goal (although I wouldn’t necessarily categorize that as a bad drive) — but otherwise, just four bad drives for both teams combined is pretty rare. The Eagles had just two bad drives out of 10! Remarkably, the Eagles and Patriots combined for 9 offensive touchdowns and 6 more drives that ended in field goal attempts.

That’s 15 drives that ended in offensive scores (or possible scores), and just three bad drives (punts or turnovers).  That +12 differential is tied for the most ever with this classic Peyton Manning/Tony Romo game from 2013 (17 good drives, 5 bad) and a random Rams/Chargers game from 2000 where St. Louis scored on every single drive of the game before kneeling (17 good, 5 bad).

By just about any measure, Super Bowl LII was one of the greatest offensive games in league history, but let’s throw this out to the crowd: what stats best show this in your opinion?

Ed Feng of The Power Rank has contributed today’s post. As always, we thank our guest contributors for their hard work.

Before Super Bowl XXV, Bill Belichick had a plan. The Giants defensive coordinator wanted his defense to let Bills running back Thurman Thomas rush for 100 yards.

The Giants defense was appalled. They prided themselves on a tough, physical brand of defense.

Nevertheless, the short, stout coach looked up into the eyes of Lawrence Taylor and Pepper Johnson and said, “You guys have to believe me. If Thomas rushes for a hundred yards, we win this game.”

In case his defense didn’t listen, Belichick took it upon himself to make sure Thomas got his yards. He took out a lineman and linebacker for two extra defensive backs, playing a 2-3-6 defense.

Did Belichick go insane? I thought so when I first read this story in David Halberstam’s book Education of a Coach.

However, Belichick’s strategy has analytics on its side. Let me explain. [Editor’s note: See also this article by Chase about Super Bowl XXV.] [continue reading…]

Nick Foles is no stranger to great games. He has the greatest passing game in Eagles history, recorded on November 3rd, 2013 against the Raiders. Foles completed 22 of 28 passes for 406 yards and 7 touchdowns, with just one sack for one yard and zero interceptions. That translates to a whopping 18.79 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt.

We can adjust that result for both era and quality of defense: Oakland’s pass defense was bad that season, allowing 7.41 ANY/A to opposing passers, but even still, that means Foles still averaged well over 11 more ANY/A against the Raiders than the average passer that season. Over the course of his 29 dropbacks, Foles provided 330 ANY above expectation, easily the best game in Eagles history. In fact, it’s one of just eight games since 2002 with over 300 ANY over expectation, joining three Peyton Manning games (against the Broncos in both the ’03 and ’04 playoffs, and with the Broncos against the Ravens in the 2013 Kickoff Classic), two Ben Roethlisberger games (Packers 2009, Colts 2014), and performances by Drew Brees (Patriots, 2009) and Kurt Warner (Packers, 2009 playoffs).

But then, against the Vikings, Foles had another masterpiece. And what made this one particularly special was that it came against a really good Minnesota defense. During the regular season, the Vikings allowed just 4.57 ANY/A, second best in the NFL. But in the NFC Championship Game, Foles was 26 for 33 for 352 yards with 3 TDs and no interceptions, with one sack for six yards. That translates to 406 Adjusted Net Yards on 34 dropbacks, or 11.94 ANY/A. That is 7.37 ANY/A above what the average opposing QB produced against the Vikings during the regular season; over the course of 34 dropbacks, that translates to 250 Adjusted Net Yards of added value.
[continue reading…]

In the regular season, Marcus Mariota threw 13 touchdown passes, Blake Bortles threw 21 touchdown passes, and Nick Foles threw 5 touchdown passes. If the Patriots win Super Bowl LII, New England will have done so by beating teams starting quarterbacks who threw just 39 touchdown passes in the regular season.

How unusual is that? Well, no Super Bowl champion has faced quarterbacks in the playoffs who threw fewer than 40 touchdowns since 1982, which was the year the regular season was shortened to 9 games by the player strike.  Washington faced four quarterbacks who combined for 38 touchdowns in the regular season; that’s an average of 9.5 per team, but on a per-16 team game basis, those quarterbacks still averaged 16.9 touchdowns.

If we look at things on a per team and per-16 team game basis, the Patriots opposing QBs — who threw for 13 TDs per team per 16 team games — would be the third lowest in history, and the lowest since 1979. [continue reading…]

The matchup for Super Bowl LII is set. The 13-3 New England Patriots will be facing the 13-3 Philadelphia Eagles in Minneapolis, Minnesota in two weeks.

• This is a matchup of the two #1 seeds, which is starting to become a thing again. The 1993 Bills/Cowboys was the last matchup of #1 seeds in the Super Bowl for a long time, until the 2009 Colts/Saints game. From ’94 to ’12, that was the only matchup of #1 seeds in the Super Bowl, but since then, it happened in 2013 (Seahawks over Broncos), 2014 (Patriots over Seahawks), 2015 (Broncos over Panthers) and now 2017.
• For the 8th time, Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, and the New England Patriots are going to the Super Bowl. Remarkably, Brady has made the Super Bowl in half of his 16 seasons as the Patriots starting quarterback. He will, of course, extend his own record by playing in his eighth Super Bowl: no player has made seven, while Mike Lodish and Don Beebe each made six (Lodish played in all six; Beebe played in three).

Brady has made the Super Bowl in half of his seasons as a starter; the other seasons haven’t been so bad, either:

[continue reading…]

There are only three games left this season, and two of those are taking place today. So I’ll be turning the site today into a live blog with posts throughout the game, starting at 3pm.

11th Super Bowl Appearance for Bill Belichick

This will be the 11th Super Bowl appearance for Bill Belichick, which is of course a record for a coach or player or owner. The graph below shows the number of Super Bowl appearances for Belichick by year:

Tommy U?

The last QB to lead the NFL in passing and win the championship in the same season was Johnny Unitas in 1961. That’s right: no quarterback in the Super Bowl era has ever done that. But Tom Brady beat Philip Rivers (by 62 yards) to win the passing yards crown for the third time in his career (’05, ’07).

If Brady wins the Super Bowl and the AP Most Valuable Player award, he’ll also be the first quarterback to do that in the same season since Kurt Warner in 1999. After Matt Ryan last season and Cam Newton in 2015, AP MVPs have made 8 of the 17 Super Bowls since then, but are 0-8 in those games (despite being favored in 6 of those 8).

6:15 Update

There was a 9-year stretch where the Brady/Belichick Patriots didn’t win any Super Bowls, but now the Brady/Belichick Patriots are on the verge, for the 2nd time, of winning 3 Super Bowls in 4 years.

5:35 Update

Great drive by Brady and the Patriots, overcoming a 3rd-and-18 and no Gronk to drive down for a touchdown.

The Jaguars can’t just run the clock out. With 8:44 left, and clinging to a 3-point lead, Jacksonville can’t deploy the Bills game end-game strategy again and expect to win.

5:05 Update

Much of the story today can be explained via third down conversions. The Patriots are just 1-for-8 on third down, while the Jaguars are 6-for-10. On the other hand, field position is starting to turn New England’s way. Field position had been even, but Jacksonville’s second drive of the second half started at the 10, after a 3-and-out the Patriots drive started at the 46, and then even after a 3-and-out, NE was able to pin Jacksonville down to its own 9.

After an ugly first down play, Jacksonville has now recovered and is driving. A big third down conversion from Bortles just now.

Keenum and Foles

Nick Foles and Case Keenum both entered the NFL in 2012, and both have started just under 40 games in the regular season. Of the 34 passers with 1,000 attempts since 2012, Foles ranks 18th in ANY/A while Keenum ranks 25th.

But while Foles has a slightly higher ANY/A average (6.22 to 5.99), the players obviously got there in very different ways. The graph below shows their career ANY/A average after each week of each season since 2012.

Also, Keenum has started 14 regular season games for both the Rams with Jeff Fisher and the Vikings. The splits are, well, remarkable:

4:00 Update

Based on my efficiency ratings, the Patriots defense ranked 21st against the pass, 30th against the run, and 26th overall. New England’s defense ranked 5th in points allowed, but that was always highly misleading.

The Jaguars have 13 first downs on three drives and have 14 points. The Jaguars offense also has been underrated (it ranked a misleading 5th in points scored, but it was no worse than an average offense despite being referred to by many as a liability), but looks outstanding today. The short of it? Jacksonville’s offense has feasted on bad defenses this year, and they are doing that again today.

3:40 Update

The Patriots defense was bad this year, particularly at preventing first downs. Jacksonville now has 7 first downs through two drives, after a 7-play, 5-first down, 76-yard drive for a touchdown.

Bortles looks pretty good, and the Patriots defense looks pretty bad.

3:30 Update

The Jaguars are underdogs today (although on paper they may be the better team). But an underdog wants to limit possessions as part of a David strategy. So far, that seems to be going okay for Jacksonville — the first three drives for these teams took over 12 minutes, as there were just two incomplete passes.

3:10 Update

Pats choose to go for it on 4th-and-2 from the 30 on the first drive of the game. This feels like the right call, given that a field goal is not a given.

Brady throws a lob pass to Amendola on a wheel route for a 20-yard pickup.

3:00

Only four teams since 1978 have won multiple playoff games despite being a touchdown underdog.

The Tom Coughlin-led 2007 Giants won three such games, including a win in the Super Bowl over the Brady/Belichick Patriots.

The Coughlin-led 1996 Jaguars were the first team to win two such games; the Brady/Belichick 2001 Patriots were the second, and the 2012 Ravens — including a win over the Brady/Belichick Patriots — were the third.

Jacksonville won as a 7-point underdog in Pittsburgh last week, and is a 7.5-point underdog today in Foxboro.

Pre-Game Thoughts

As for now, what are your predictions?

If I had to rank the eight units we are going to see today, I would go:

Tier 1:

Jaguars defense

Vikings defense

Patriots offense

Tier 2:

Eagles defense

Tier 3:

Vikings offense

Tier 4:

Jaguars offense

Tier 5:

Patriots defense

Tier 6:

Eagles offense

As for the head coaches, the Patriots have the clear advantage, while the Eagles May have a slight advantage. New England and Philadelphia are arguably the less talented teams but are at home, which means this should be two great games.

My predictions:

Jacksonville 24, New England 20

Philadelphia 17, Minnesota 16

Carson Wentz was the Eagles quarterback for the first 13 games of the season, but after tearing his ACL in his left knee, Nick Foles has taken over as the Philadelphia starting quarterback.

In Minnesota, Sam Bradford started the opening game of the season, but missed the next month of the season with a knee injury. Bradford then surprisingly started a week 5 game against the Bears but was not himself; he aggravated his knee during that game, and has not played since. In his absence, Case Keenum has had a remarkably productive season, and now the Vikings and Eagles are facing off in the NFC Championship Game.

That means this will be the first conference championship game in NFL history featuring two starting quarterbacks who were not their team’s starting quarterbacks in week 1 of the regular season.

In fact, in the last 10 years, just three teams have made the conference championship game with backup quarterbacks, and two of those instances have asterisks. The Steelers and Patriots made the AFCCG in years where their starting quarterbacks began the year on the sidelines due to suspension, making Ben Roethlisberger and Tom Brady backup quarterbacks in name only. [continue reading…]

You will not be surprised to learn that the Patriots led the NFL this season with 389 first downs. That’s the 9th most since 2002, and New England has three other teams ahead of the 2017 version. The Patriots offense is always great in large part because the Patriots always pick up a ton of first downs.

The graph below shows the number of first downs for each team this season.  The Jaguars, perhaps surprisingly, ranked tied for 7th with a Saints offense that was much better:

The Jaguars allowed just 257 first downs, the fewest in the NFL. [continue reading…]

Calais Campbell had 16 points of AV while playing with the Arizona Cardinals in 2016. He signed a monster four year, $60 million contract with $30 million guaranteed with the Jaguars in the first week of free agency. But this didn’t prove to be a massive overpay of an aging veteran. On the contrary, Campbell has been a revelation and Defensive Player of the Year candidate; for the second year in a row, he produced 16 points of AV in 2017.

Andrew Whitworth had a similar pedigree but was in a slightly different situation. he signed a contract with the Rams after a decade of strong play with the Bengals. Whitworth received Pro Bowl or some All-Pro recognition in 2014, 2015, and 2016, but at 36, he wasn’t the sought after free agent that Campbell was. But Whitworth, who signed a 3-year, $33.75M contract, managed to exceed expectations in his first year in Los Angeles. Whitworth was the left tackle for the highest scoring offense in the league and was the plurality choice at first-team All-Pro left tackle by the AP.

And then there is Case Keenum. He signed a one year, $2 million contract with the Vikings on April 4 to almost no fanfare. Now? Keenum is starting in this year’s NFC Championship Game.

The table below shows the leaders in AV in 2017 among players who were on different teams in 2016. [continue reading…]

With the All-Pro votes now in, the initial 2017 Approximate Value numbers have been released by PFR. Thanks to the tireless work of Mike Kania and the P-F-R staff, PFR has now generated the Approximate Values for every player in the NFL this year. For the uninitiated, you can review how AV is calculated here. And if you’re so inclined, you can thank Mike and/or the PFR staff on twitter.

Here are your leaders: [continue reading…]

Belichick checks to see if it’s AFCCG time yet

There’s no denying that New England is the greatest regular season team in modern NFL history. From 2001 to 2017, the Patriots have had a 0.768 winning percentage in the regular season; that’s over 10% higher than the second-best team, the Steelers at 0.660.

That’s also the best winning percentage over any 17-year period in history, better than the 1946-1962 Browns (an AAFC-aided 0.756), the 1933-1949 Bears (0.749), and the 1966-1983 Raiders (0.743).

Oh, and the last 8 years? The Patriots have won 80% of their games, the best of any NFL team in any 8-year stretch (the AAFC-aided Browns posted a 0.865 winning percentage from 1946-1953). More incredibly, the Patriots are now going to their 7th-straight AFC Championship Game.

Since losing to Mark Sanchez and the Jets in the Division Round of the playoffs to end the 2010 season, the Patriots have: [continue reading…]

On Monday night, Alabama head coach Nick Saban added to his already remarkable legacy with an aggressive coaching decision.  In the national championship game, Saban benched starting quarterback Jalen Hurts — a player who the team was 25-2 with under center and who had thrown one interception in his last 16 games — at halftime of the national championship game. With the Crimson Tide down 13-0, Saban inserted true freshman Tua Tagovailoa into the game, and a couple hours later, Alabama was again national champions and Tagovailoa was the offensive player of the game.

Will any head coach do that this weekend? On the surface, there are three obvious candidates, and four obvious “not gonna happen” situations.

The most concerning quarterback situation is in Philadelphia, where Nick Foles is the starter after Carson Wentz was lost for the season.  If Foles struggles the way he did the last two weeks of the regular season, you can see why the Eagles would consider making a similar switch. [continue reading…]