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

[continue reading…]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dan Marino.

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

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

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

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

The Active Guys: Drew Brees, and Aaron Rodgers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Verdict: Neither. [continue reading…]

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

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

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

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

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

Previous Passing Stats:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are the rules for being fun:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Previously:

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

Jacksonville won with a Game Script of -8.1 on Sunday, giving the Jaguars one of the best comebacks of the season. Jacksonville started the game with a 65-yard drive, then had drives of 3 yards, -5 yards, -2 yards, 14 yards, and 6 yards. Jacksonville trailed 16-3 in the third quarter, but the team responded with a 72-yard field goal drive, a 53-yard TD drive, and a 56-yard TD drive to steal a victory in Oakland.

The Steelers were the most pass-happy team of the week, which was pretty odd considering how poorly Devlin Hodges played. Pittsburgh had a positive Game Script for the week, but Hodges still finishes with 42 dropbacks. James Conner finished with only 8 carries for 42 yards, although a costly fumble on a wildcat play perhaps led the Steelers towards a more pass-happy game plan. Hodges finished with just 8 first downs (a 19% rate), so nothing was really working for Pittsburgh against a tough Bills defense.

The Cowboys, Bills, and Bengals stood out as the most run-heavy teams of the week. Dallas ran on 66% of its plays against the Rams in week 15, making it the most run-heavy game the Cowboys have had in 13 years! How long ago was that? This game came four weeks before Tony Romo‘s first start!

Meanwhile, the Bengals had another week of giving up. No, this wasn’t quite as bad as the run-heavy performance in a blowout loss to Baltimore, but Cincinnati finished with 31 pass attempts and 31 rush attempts in a blowout loss to the Patriots.  A 50/50 run/pass split is pretty rare in most games, but very rare when the Game Script is -7.4.  On the other hand, Andy Dalton was very bad — he threw a pick 6 on top of three other interceptions — and Joe Mixon actually had a strong day on the ground. So maybe this wasn’t the worst strategy for Cincinnati.

What stands out to you?

Kyle Allen and Patrick Mahomes are at opposite ends of the quarterback spectrum. Allen was an undrafted free agent; Mahomes is one of the most talented quarterbacks in league history and was the 2018 NFL MVP.

Allen ranks 32nd out of 34 qualifying quarterbacks in the most basic (in a good way) of passing stats: net yards per attempt.

Mahomes ranks 1st this year in NY/A, after ranking 1st in the same stat last year among quarterbacks who started at least 8 games.  Net yards per attempt is a good stat, and Mahomes is excellent at it because he’s an excellent quarterback (or maybe vice versa).

But you know better than to expect this to be a “Mahomes good Allen bad” post. Because I did a triple take this morning when I noticed that Kyle Allen has thrown for first downs at a higher rate this season than Mahomes.  That seemed impossible, and I had to double check twice just to make sure the data wasn’t wrong.

In general, there is a significant correlation between Net Yards per Attempt (which is passing yards, net of sack yards lost, divided by pass attempts plus sacks) and Passing 1st Down Rate (which is passing first downs divided by pass attempts plus sacks).   Both of these are very good stats to measure quarterback play, and last year, Mahomes led the NFL with a 43.2% passing first down rate.   Passing 1st Down Percentage is a good quick and dirty stat, and one where the best quarterbacks tend to fare very well. It is certainly not biased against a player like Mahomes.  But this year, Mahomes ranks 13th in that metric despite still having a very good NY/A average, while Allen shockingly ranks 11th in the metric.

So we have two pretty good, and easy to calculate passing stats, that in general are very correlated.  How correlated? Take a look at the graph below, which shows the same data as the table above.  And while the logos are for teams, the data  is for individual quarterbacks, not team-level data. So the Jets logo is only Sam Darnold, not the full Jets passing stats in 2019. And for the Redskins, Titans, and Steelers, it’s Dwayne Haskins, Ryan Tannehill, and Mason Rudolph in the chart below.  The Panthers, and to a lesser extent, the Chiefs, stand out as a notable outlier: [continue reading…]

Previous Passing Stats:

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

It finally happened: last night, Drew Brees threw 4 touchdown passes, to pass Peyton Manning and to move into first place on the all-time passing touchdowns list. A few years ago, Bryan Frye detailed the history of the passing TD crown, from Benny Friedman to Manning.  Manning held the record for a little over 5 years, while Brees may not hold the record for very long at all if Tom Brady gets his way.  The shortest reign belongs to Bobby Layne, who held it for just over a year.

Oh, and Brees also set a record for the best completion in NFL history by a quarterback with more than 10 passes (trivia note: Kurt Warner holds the record, at 10, for most passes in a game without an incompletion).  Brees completed 29 of 30 passes, and he did that without taking a sack, either (Warner took two in his 10/10 game).  In the list of games with just one incompletion, everyone with more than 18 pass attempts had at least four sacks.  To complete 29 passes on 30 dropbacks is remarkable.  Only Steve Young (here)  and Warner (here) have had a game with 20+ attempts and less than three combined sacks and incomplete passes.

The table below shows the week 15 passing stats. The top passers of the week were Jameis Winston, Drew Brees, Lamar Jackson, and Russell Wilson, which is hardly surprising… but Dwayne Haskins also cracked the top group, along with Dak Prescott and Patrick Mahomes. The full week 15 passing stats below. [continue reading…]

Previously:

• Week 1 Game Scripts
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8
• Week 9
• Week 10
• Week 11
• Week 12
• Week 13

One of the big upsets of the year came in week 14: the Broncos were 8-point underdogs to Houston, and jumped out to a 31-3 halftime lead.  That sort of blowout by a large underdog only happens about once every two years.  There was also a large comeback in week 14, as the Eagles beat the Giants with a -6.4 Game Script. The Giants raced ahead to a 17-3 halftime lead, but Philadelphia scored three touchdowns — one in each of the final three quarters — to win, 23-17.

It was a pretty run-heavy week 14; no team passed on even 71% of their plays. There were 6 games in week 13 where a team passed on at least 71% of plays, and then zero last week. If you squint, you could call the Giants, Cowboys, and Colts pass-happy last week, but none were all that one-sided.  The full Game Scripts data below:

 

Meanwhile, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Washington were all pretty run-heavy.  The Redskins/Packers game reminded me a bit of the Broncos/Packers game from week 3; the Packers controlled the game, but the other team still deployed a run-heavy game plan.  Dwayne Haskins had 31 dropbacks (and no rushing attempts other than a kneel), while Adrian Peterson and company had 26 carries.  Washington opened the game with 3 3-and-outs. The first one was run for 0, run for 1, sack. The second was sack, incomplete pass, pass for 9. The third was run for 3, run for 6, incomplete.  Give the Redskins credit for variety, at least.

With the Ravens, we expect run-heavy game plans every week, and week 14 was no exception.  Lamar Jackson had 26 passing plays, while Baltimore had 33 runs (two kneels).  Interesting, none of Jackson’s 10 runs were scrambles.

As for the Steelers, Devlin Hodges led a run-heavy game plan with Pittsburgh, made easier by an 85-yard punt return touchdown in the first quarter. Against the Cardinals, Hodges went 16 for 19 for 152 yards with a TD and three sacks; he also had 4 scrambles. Pittsburgh’s running game wasn’t particularly effective, as the running backs had 28 carries for 98 yards and just three first downs.  But Hodges picked up 12 first downs on his 26 dropbacks (including scrambles), and that was enough — along with a strong Steelers defense — to carry the day.

Six years ago, I wrote about tweaking the passer rating formula. I am going to update that article today, to better analyze the remarkable season that Ravens second-year quarterback Lamar Jackson is having.

The main updates:

1) There’s no reason to exclude sack data from passer rating. Sacks happen on passing plays, and a quarterback should *not* get more credit in the passer rating formula for taking a sack rather than throwing an incomplete pass.

2) Scrambles should be treated like completed passes, and rushing yards should be counted the same as passing yards. I am going to broaden this today to include all rushing attempts, excluding kneels. A 10-yard run is just as valuable as a 10-yard pass, and a scramble on 3rd down should impact completion percentage the same way a check down to the running back does.  However, I am going to exclude all kneels from the data, which really shouldn’t be recorded as rushing plays to begin with.

3) Rushing touchdowns should be counted with passing touchdowns. This is self-evident.

4) Lost Fumbles should be counted with interceptions. Also self-evident.

Passer rating consists of four metrics, all weighted equally: completions per attempt, yards per attempt, touchdowns per attempt, and interceptions per attempt. I will use the same formula with the same weights and the same variables, but redefine what those variables are. Here are the new definitions, with the additions in blue. I have then shown the 2019 results, using the data as of this morning (i.e., through 14 weeks, plus the Ravens/Jets Thursday night game in week 15), for the 32 players with the most pass attempts so far this year. [continue reading…]

Previous Passing Stats:

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

Patience is a virtue best served cold for Dolphins fans. It took six failed breakout seasons, but eventually, Dr. Kevorkian finally came for the Ryan Tannehill era in Miami. Maybe all Tannehill needed for his breakout season to be realized was to change teams?

On Sunday, Tannehill had yet another career game, completing 21 of 27 passes for 391 yards, with 3 TDs and one tipped interception. Shockingly, he didn’t take a single sack, for just the 7th time in his career. He threw for 15 first downs. In Tannehill’s last game with the Dolphins, he was seen throwing for just 8 first downs on 35 dropbacks (31 attempts, 4 sacks). His success in Tennessee is unsustainable — he’s not going to average 13.4 yards per completion or complete 73% of his passes — but he’s been legitimately great over the last two months. Nobody ever knows how the Ryan Tannehill Experience will change week to week, but it’s been a fun ride for a player who never could put it together for long with the Dolphins.

The table below shows the week 14 passing stats. [continue reading…]

Tom Brady has a whopping 34 throwaways this year, which is an outlier for him (for reference, last year he had 22 on 84 more pass attempts); it also leads the league by a large margin.

[continue reading…]

This graph shows every game this season. The X-Axis shows the Game Script in each game, for both teams, and the Y-Axis shows the pass ratio by each team in that game. As always, these is a relatively strong relationship between these two variables.

We can also calculate this on the season level, for all 32 teams, on both offense and defense. That’s what I did in the graph below, and there are three notable outliers among the league’s best teams: the Ravens offense, which is extremely run-heavy even given its Game Script, the Patriots offense, which is remarkably pass-heavy given its Game Script, and the 49ers defense, against which teams seem to avoid passing even given the largely negative Game Script those opponents face. I have shaded them in those colors below. [continue reading…]

Previously:

• Week 1 Game Scripts
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8
• Week 9
• Week 10
• Week 11
• Week 12

The Vikings have been one of the most run-heavy teams in the NFL under head coach Mike Zimmer.  That made some sense when Minnesota’s passing game wasn’t very good, but that’s no longer the case.  This year, quarterback Kirk Cousins has been one of the most valuable passers in the NFL,  leading the second most efficient passing attack through 13 weeks.  But even in 2019, Minnesota has been pretty run-heavy… until week 13 against Seattle.

The graph below shows Minnesota’s Game Script (X-Axis) and Pass Ratio (Y-Axis) for each game this season.  The Seahawks game is a pretty clear outlier: this was the most pass-happy game of the season, and it came during a neutral Game Script.

The table below shows the full week 13 Game Scripts data. [continue reading…]

Previous Passing Stats:

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

It has been a rough year for California quarterbacks Jared Goff and Aaron Rodgers. Prior to week 13, Goff’s last 16 regular season games had produced just 17 passing touchdowns against 18 interceptions, along with 16 fumbles. Rodgers has had an up-and-down year, and the murmurs are continuing to grow about whether his best days are behind him.

In week 13, however, the two Golden Bears had outstanding games. Goff threw for 424 yards and 2 TDs on 43 passes, with only one sack and no interceptions or fumbles in a blowout win over the Cardinals. It’s probably worth noting that 66% of Goff’s yards came after the catch, as his receivers finished with a whopping 282 YAC on Sunday. As for Rodgers, he threw 4 TDs and didn’t take a sack or throw an interception in a blowout win in the snow against the Giants.

The table below shows the week 13 stats.
[continue reading…]

Previously:

• Week 1 Game Scripts
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8
• Week 9
• Week 10
• Week 11

There have been just 5 games through the first 12 weeks of the season where one team led, on average, by at least 20 points throughout the game. Two of those games were Patriots blowouts of the Jets, where New England dominated from start to finish and the Jets offense never scored in 120 minutes. The other 3 games were all Baltimore Ravens wins: over Miami in week 1, over Cincinnati in week 10, and then most impressively, against the Rams in week 12. For the season, New England still has the best Game Script overall (+9.3), but the Ravens (+8.9) are closing in, and the 49ers (+7.1) are the only other team above +3.3.

In week 12, the Colts and Bills stood out as extremely run-heavy. For Indianapolis, what more is there to say than this: the Colts trailed by 3 points during every play run by the team in the 4th quarter. Indianapolis called 15 plays during this time period, and 10 of them were runs.

Jacoby Brissett finished 16 of 25 for just 129 passing yards, with one sack and three scrambles for 15 yards. He averaged just 2.6 air yards per completion. Meanwhile, Colts running backs Jonathan Williams and Nyheim Hines had 34 carries for 155 yards and a touchdown, and Indianapolis has seemed to become more run-heavy as the season progressed. Since Brissett’s injury against the Steelers, he has not looked very good. On the season, the Colts rank 3rd in rushing yards and 29th in passing yards, which makes the decision to extend Brissett in September look even more curious.

As for Buffalo, it’s not surprising to see the Bills take the air out of the ball when they control the game. Buffalo finished with three 50+ yard rushers in a 20-3 win against the Broncos, and set a season high with 244 rushing yards. The table below shows the full week 12 Game Scripts data: [continue reading…]

Previously:

• Week 1 Game Scripts
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8
• Week 9
• Week 10

Way back in week 1, the Buffalo Bills beat the Jets with a Game Script of -6.9. That was the worst Game Script by any victorious team all season long, until the Vikings pulled off a remarkable comeback in week 11. The Broncos led 20-0 at halftime, and 23-7 entering the fourth quarter in a game that looked hopeless for Minnesota. And then Kirk Cousins went 9 of 10 (with 1 sack for -1 yard) for 149 passing yards, 5 first downs, and 2 touchdowns in the fourth quarter. In the final frame, he had touchdown throws of 32 and 54 yards, completed 9-yard and 7-yard passes on two 3rd-and-5s, and hit a 21-yard completion as well. It was an outstanding comeback in every sense of the word, but notable here for the win with an awful Game Script.

In week 11, there were three teams that had run/pass ratios far from what you would expect given the Game Script. In a matchup of highly drafted quarterbacks experiencing regression this year, the Rams defeated the Bears, 17-7, in a game that was closer than the score indicates. The game was 10-7 before a late Los Angeles touchdown, and the Rams finished the game on their last possession with five straight runs. Even including those, Los Angeles passed on only 35% of its plays in this tight game (and excluding that final drive, L.A. passed on only 38% of plays): and it’s not like the ground game was dominant. Todd Gurley had 25 carries for 97 yards and 6 first downs (and a lost fumble), while the other Rams rushers (excluding Jared Goff) had 6 carries for 10 yards and 1 first down. This may have been a reflection of the team’s lack of trust in Goff, or perhaps a lack of concern as to what Mitchell Trubisky would be able to do on the other side. Los Angeles opened the second half by gaining just 36 yards and 1 first down on the team’s first five drives.

Of course, there’s another reason why Los Angeles leaned so heavily on the ground game: Robert Woods missed the game due to personal reasons, and Brandin Cooks was out with a concussion.  That left TE Johnny Mundt playing the majority of the game, and the other Mike Thomas to be the team’s third receiver.

The full week 11 Game Scripts, below:
[continue reading…]

Previous Passing Stats:

• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8
• Week 9
• Week 10
• Week 11

The story of week 12 was the dominance of the 2018 quarterback class, which is now headlined by Lamar Jackson. The Ravens sensation had his second game with 4 or more passing TDs and at least 75 rushing yards in 8 days; there had only been six of those games in the NFL from 1950 until two weeks ago.

Sam Darnold had the best game of his career in a blowout over the Raiders. The Jets young quarterback averaged a career high 10.86 yards per attempt, threw two touchdowns and ran for a third, and took just one sack.

Baker Mayfield also had a dominant performance, putting together a 327-yard, 3-TD game while completing 71% of his passes. Yes, his opponent was the Dolphins, but it continued the second half trend that Darnold and Mayfield seem to be exhibiting.

Josh Allen had the weakest game of the bunch, but was still efficient in a Bills victory. He averaged 6.73 ANY/A as a passer, but also rushed 8 times for 57 yards (excluding kneels), picking up 4 first downs, including 3 on third down.

The table below shows the week 12 passing stats. In general, this was a pretty rough week for passing, other than the 2018 class and the annual “Ryan Tannehill did what?” week of the year. In particular, Jeff Driskel, Brandon Allen, and yes, Aaron Rodgers, had miserable games. [continue reading…]

The most famous wide receiver MVP season belongs to Jerry Rice in 1987. That year was one of the most controversial AP MVP awards ever: Joe Montana was the AP’s first-team All-Pro choice, and Jerry Rice was widely considered the best player in the NFL. However, Montana (18 votes) and Rice (30) split the 49ers vote, allowing John Elway to win the AP award with 36 votes despite most people thinking Rice was better than Elway and most voters thinking Montana was better than Elway. That season, the Pro Football Writers of America, the Newspaper Enterprise Association & Jim Thorpe Athletic Club (voting as a collective entity), The Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, the Football Digest, the Maxwell Club of Philadelphia Bert Bell Award, the New York Daily News, and the Minneapolis Star Tribune (Robert Sansevere) all named Rice as their MVP that season, while only Peter King and the Associated Press chose Elway.

Rice was the last wide receiver to win a major MVP award, but he was not the first.

In 1941 and 1942, Don Hutson was the best player in football. In 1941, Hutson received 6 of 9 first place votes, beating out his passer Cecil Isbell, Sid Luckman, and Chicago’s Danny Fortmann (who you really should learn about) to win the award. In ’42, he once again received 6 of 9 first-place votes, this time beating out Bill Dudley and Sammy Baugh.

In 1955, Harlon Hill was named the NEA MVP. That season, Otto Graham won the United Press poll for MVP, picking up 13 of 30 votes, while Hill and Alan Ameche each grabbed 4 votes.

The AFL had a habit of giving its most valuable player award to wide receivers. In 1963, Lance Alworth had a breakout season, and won a close vote over his Chargers teammates to win the United Press International AFL player of the year award. Alworth earned 7 votes, Chargers running back Keith Lincoln and Chargers quarterback Tobin Rote had five each, and Raiders running back Clem Daniels earned the final three votes. Alworth was even better in 1965, but lost the AP MVP vote to Buffalo quarterback Jeff Kemp, 10-8.

In 1964, Patriots wide receiver — and placekicker — picked up 12 of 24 votes to win the UPI Player of the Year award. Cappelletti won the AP MVP that year, too, but neither the AP nor the UPI was considered the official AFL MVP award. That honor belonged to the Sporting News, and Cappy picked up 99 votes to win the official award, too (Alworth was the runner up with 44 votes).

Finally, in 1965 in the NFL, End Pete Retzlaff won the Bert Bell player of the year award, while Jim Brown swept the other major MVP awards.

As Saints wide receiver Michael Thomas continues his dominant season, I thought it would be worthwhile to look back at the past receivers to win a most valuable player trophy.

The Seattle Seahawks have been one of the biggest outliers in recent history when it comes to winning percentage and points differential. Seattle is 8-2, despite scoring 275 points and allowing 254 points. We can calculate a team’s expected winning percentage — it’s Pythagenpat winning percentage — by using a two-step formula.

First, we calculate the total points scored and points allowed in all Seahawks games (529) and divide it by the number of games played (10, leaving 52.9 total points scored per game). We then take that number and raise it to the 0.251 power, and get a result of 2.71. This is the exponent we use when calculating a team’s expected winning percentage using the traditional Pythagorean formula. The advantage here using this two-step process over a static exponent (like 2.37) is that it recognizes that higher-scoring games provide different environments than lower-scoring games. To calculate Seattle’s expected winning percentage, we would use this formula:

(Points Scored ^ Exponent) / [(Points Scored ^ Exponent) + (Points Allowed ^ Exponent)]

In Seattle’s case, that’s:

(275 ^ 2.71) / (275 ^ 2.71 + 254 ^ 2.71)

[continue reading…]

Which quarterbacks have provided the most passing value above average so far this season? The league is averaging 6.23 ANY/A so far this season, and passing value is calculated as simply ANY/A minus league average, with that difference multiplied by the number of dropbacks for each passer.

I am short on time today, so I’ll leave the commentary to you guys.

Stefon Diggs currently ranks 6th in the NFL in receiving yards, which is pretty remarkable given that he’s played on the least pass-happy team in the NFL. Minnesota has played 11 games, and ranks 32nd in pass attempts per game and 26th in total pass attempts. Diggs is averaging 2.75 yards for every Vikings pass attempt, the second-best average in the NFL behind Michael Thomas, who is the best receiver in the NFL.

Courtland Sutton is in a similar situation, except unlike Diggs, he is fighting both low volume and poor quarterback play.  A second round pick out of SMU last year, Sutton is having his breakout season with a combination of Joe Flacco and Brandon Allen at quarterback.  Denver has thrown just 322 passes this season, but Sutton is one of 10 players who have already hit the 800-yard receiving mark.  Sutton is averaging 2.50 yards for every Denver pass attempt; perhaps even more impressive is that he’s responsible for 35% of all Broncos receiving yards, 34% of all Denver first downs, and 44% of Broncos receiving touchdowns.

And then there’s John Brown, the breakout star of the Bills.  He has 35% of all Bills receiving yards this season and a whopping 40% of all Bills receiving first downs.  He is averaging 2.45 receiving yards per Buffalo pass attempt (817 receiving yards, 333 pass attempts).

The graph below shows every player in the NFL this season.  The X-Axis shows the number of pass attempts for that team; the Y-Axis shows the number of receiving yards for that play.  As you can see, Diggs, Sutton, and Brown really stand out (and next to them are Tyler Lockett at 793 yards on 327 Seahawks pass attempts and DeAndre Hopkins at 745, 333). [continue reading…]

Previous Passing Stats:

• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8
• Week 9
• Week 10

In week 16 of the 1983 season, Lynn Dickey, Ron Jaworski, Joe Theismann, and a rookie John Elway each threw 4 interceptions. Four quarterbacks throwing four interceptions apiece in a single week was unusual even for the early ’80s, and it is downright unheard of now.

Well, I should say *was* unheard of in modern times. Because in week 11, for the first time in 36 years, four quarterbacks threw at least four interceptions. It started on Thursday Night Football, when Mason Rudolph threw four interceptions against the Browns. On Sunday, Jameis Winston had a casual 4-INT game, and Kyle Allen’s recent downward spiral resulted in an ugly 0-TD, 5 sack, 4-INT game against the suddenly dominant Atlanta Falcons defense. Rudolph and Allen were the worst two quarteracks of the week. Finally, last night, Philip Rivers threw four in a loss to the Chiefs, with Daniel Sorensen making a great grab to seal the game and capture the final interception of the week.

It was only two weeks ago when passing offenses had the best interception week ever: teams threw just 12 interceptions on 952 passes, a 1.26% interception rate. This week, there were 29 interceptions thrown on 1038 passes, a 2.79% interception rate.

The full week 11 passing stats below: [continue reading…]

Here are Dak Prescott’s passing numbers over his last 16 games.

And even that doesn’t tell the full story, at least as far as this season goes. Prescott has 149 passing first downs this season on 377 dropbacks, a 39.5% passing first down rate. In fact, the Cowboys lead the NFL in passing first down percentage, despite “only” ranking 8th in completion percentage.

This chart is always one of my favorites: completion percentage on the X-Axis, and passing first down rate on the Y-Axis. [continue reading…]

So far this season, NFL teams are averaging about 6.4 net yards per pass attempt and 4.3 yards per carry. In addition, teams are passing on about 59% of all plays. I thought it might be interesting today to look at the distribution of the outcomes on rushing and passing plays.

For running plays, the analysis is pretty simple. About 12% of all rushing plays will lose yards, and another 9% of all rushing plays will gain zero yards. Said differently, close to 4 in every 5 rushing plays will gain positive yards. Note, of course, that quarterback scrambles are considered rushing plays for this analysis.

On the other hand, 42% of pass plays do not gain positive yards. So far in 2019, 6.9% of pass plays result in a sack and 33.1% of pass plays result in an incomplete pass, which means 60% of all pass plays (including sacks) result in a completed pass. In addition, about 2.7% of all pass plays result in a completion for either zero yards or negative yards. Add it all up, and on any given pass play in 2019, and there’s about a 3-in-7 chance that the passing team won’t be getting any yards. [continue reading…]

Previous Passing Stats:

• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8
• Week 9

Lamar Jackson has rushed 92 times for 716 yards, a 7.8 yards per carry average (excluding his 14 kneels for -14 yards). Jackson has rushed for 37 first downs, which is more than Leonard Fournette, Nick Chubb, or Christian McCaffrey. He is a remarkably effective runner, on the level of Michael Vick if not better, while also being an exceptionally efficient passer.

For the second time this season, Jackson posted a perfect passer rating. He’s in the top 10 on the season in both passer rating and ANY/A, and if anything, that probably underrates him. He’s also scrambled 28 times for 285 yards, which probably should be included in his passing numbers and would increase his ANY/A by over 0.2 yards per passing play.

The other notable thing from week 10 was that Patrick Mahomes and Dak Prescott continued to produce at an MVP level but lost. In the case of Mahomes, a lot of things had to go wrong: running back Damien Williams had a fumble returned for a touchdown, Tyreek Hill and Sammy Watkins had huge drops, the game-tying field goal was blocked, an earlier field goal attempt was aborted due to a botched snap, and the Chiefs defense was shredded by Derrick Henry.  Not to mention Andy Reid getting overly conservative and kicking three field goals on 4th-and-2 or 4th-and-3.  That’s how the Chiefs lost despite yet another brilliant game from Mahomes, who had exactly one drive end in a punt or a Mahomes turnover.

As for Prescott, the blame for the Cowboys loss can be equally shared among Ezekiel Elliott and the Dallas defense.  Elliott and Kalen Ballage (Dolphins) both had nearly identical stat lines in week 10: each back rushed 20 times and picked up 0 first downs, the most carries by any running back in 2019 in a game without a first down (Ballage rushed for 43 yards; Elliott 47).   Meanwhile, the Dallas defense allowed 28 points on the first 7 drives of the game, with the average drive beginning on Minnesota’s 24-yard line.

The table below shows the week 10 passing stats. [continue reading…]