Previously:

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

Was this the best game of Tom Brady‘s career? Blaspehmy, you say. Given the year and the opponent, that’s probably true. Against Miami in 2007, Brady had a game where he went 21 for 25 for 354 yards with 6 touchdowns and no interceptions and one sack, putting up a perfect 158.3 passer rating and averaging 17.85 ANY/A. That went down as the 17th highest single-game ANY/A performance since 1970. New England opened that game with touchdowns on each of their first four drives, and five out of their first six.

But this may have been, statistically speaking, Brady’s second most efficient performance ever, at least without any opponent or era adjustments. Against the Lions, Brady completed 22 of 27 passes for 348 yards and 4 touchdowns, with no interceptions and just one sack. One of about 100 games since 1970 where a quarterback averaged at least 15 ANY/A on 20+ passes. The Bucs scored a touchdown on 5 of their first 6 drives, picking up a whopping 405 yards. That was all in the first half, which was more than enough: Brady did not return to the game after halftime, with the Bucs ahead 34-0.

The full week 16 passing stats below.

Baker Mayfield was the worst passer of the week, but there’s a decently large asterisk there: the Browns were down two starters on the offensive line (including the team’s first round pick, left tackle Jedrick Wills), and the team’s top four wide receivers Jarvis Landry, Rashard Higgins, Donovan Peoples-Jones, and KhaDarel Hodge — in addition to Odell Beckham. So for Mayfield, his top two wide receivers were Marvin Hall and Ja’Marcus Bradley, who both played nearly every snap in their first game ever in a Browns uniform. The results were not very good.

The other notable event of the week was Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs losing the passing efficiency battle and still winning, something that is very rare in Kansas City these days.  But sometimes it does come down to the kicking game, and for Kansas City, Harrison Butker  hit a 53-yarder in the 4th quarter while Younghoe Koo missed a 39-yard field goal in the final seconds that would have forced overtime. The Chiefs also had a decided advantage in the rushing game, picking up 9 first downs on 20 carries to Atlanta’s four on 21 attempts.

PFR tracks air yards and YAC for quarterbacks, with that data available here. I went ahead and compiled the data at a team level, using quarterback statistics only. The graph below shows how air yards (on the X-Axis) and yards after the catch (on the Y-Axis) for each team so far in 2020.

[continue reading…]

In one week, one AFC team is going to be very unhappy. Despite being a good sized favorite to make the playoffs, they will wind up sitting at home. The Chiefs, Bills, and Steelers have all qualified for the postseason, leaving five teams to battle for the final four spots. Tennessee and Indianapolis are still fighting for the AFC South crown; at least one of these teams is guaranteed to advance. The other team is battling the Ravens, Browns, and Dolphins for the final two spots.

What’s interesting is all five teams — TEN, IND, BAL, MIA, and CLE — have a greater than 70% chance of making the postseason. Each team is currently 10-5, but the Colts are the only team not in control of their own destiny: Indianapolis loses the division tiebreaker to Tennessee and has the weakest conference record (the downside to going 4-0 against the NFC South) while also losing head-to-head against the Ravens and Browns. But the Colts also have the easiest week 17 opponent (Jacksonville) and are in if any of the other four teams lose.

So who is in under what scenario? Thanks to @NFLResearch, here is a handy guide as to who makes the playoffs based on how each of the five key week 17 games unfold:

I went ahead and calculated the likelihood of each scenario based on the current NFL spreads (you can convert a points spread to a pre-game probability using this formula). Right now, the lines are Tennessee -7.5 against Houston, Miami +3.5 against Buffalo, Baltimore -11.5 against Cincinnati, Cleveland -6.5 against Pittsburgh, and Indianapolis -14 against Jacksonville. This means the Dolphins are the only team expected to lose this weekend, although Miami can still make the postseason with a loss if either Indianpolis or Cincinnati pull off the big upset, or the Browns lose to the Steelers.

Oh, and about that Browns/Steelers game. You might be surprised to see that Cleveland is favored by nearly a touchdown; that’s because Vegas is assuming the Steelers rest their starters, as they don’t have too much to play for. Pittsburgh will be either the 2 or the 3 seed, and the difference between those two spots may not be as valuable as giving the starters a week off (and if Buffalo loses tonight, Pittsburgh would be locked into the 2 seed).

I created an AFC playoff matrix in Excel that you can download here. You can update that using whatever point spread you like.  But based on the current point spreads and related win probabilities, here is how likely each result would be:

And that translates to the following playoff odds for each team:

Now, let’s say Buffalo wins tonight and the Steelers announce that they will be competing in week 17.  Perhaps the point spread moves to a pick’em; in that case, Tennessee would stay at 92%, Baltimore would rise to 91%, Cleveland would drop to 62%, Miami would rise to 80%, and the Colts would move into the fourth-best odds at 75%.

Feel free to download the spreadsheet and play around with any scenario you want.  Which team would you least want to be heading into this weekend?

Don’t look now, but it’s the Baltimore Ravens who lead the NFL in points differential. The Ravens had a historic season in 2019, easily leading the league in this category. But in 2020, it’s been a rough year for Baltimore: they had clinched the 1 seed this time last season, but are still needing a win or some help in week 17 to make the 2020 postseason. Not too long ago, the Ravens were 6-5 after a Wednesday night loss with a depleted roster to the Steelers. Since then, the Ravens have won four straight games by a total of 62 points. That is enough to give Baltimore the best points differential in the NFL entering week 17. [continue reading…]

Kyler Murray and Cam Newton have already both rushed for double digit touchdowns this season, a mark reached just five times by quarterbacks in the Super Bowl era prior to 2020. But they are far from alone:

• Josh Allen, who is having a breakout season as a passer, has 8 rushing touchdowns.
• Lamar Jackson has not been the force he was in 2019, but he has equaled his rushing touchdown production (7) from last season.
• Taysom Hill has rushed for six touchdowns (and then a 7th in week 16), while Teddy Bridgewater and Carson Wentz have five apiece.
• Justin Herbert, Ryan Tannehill, and Jared Goff each have four rushing touchdowns, and seven other quarterbacks have three rushing touchdowns. There are 17 quarterbacks this season with at least three rushing touchdowns, with two weeks remaining in the 2020 regular season.

In short: there have been a ton of rushing touchdowns this season by quarterbacks. With two weeks left to play, NFL quarterbacks have rushed for 110 touchdowns in 224 games (or 448 team games). That’s an average of one every four games, or about 4 per 16 games. Which is… an enormous amount. As recently as 1993, when there were 28 teams, NFL quarterbacks rushed for 28 touchdowns all season, or 1 for every 16 team games. In both 2009 and 2010, NFL quarterbacks rushed for 46 touchdowns, or 1.44 per team game. Three years ago, quarterbacks scored “only” 63 touchdowns on the ground, or just under 2 per team game. This year, we might double that mark! The graph below shows quarterback rushing touchdowns per team game for each year since 1970, with 2020 through 15 weeks. To call it a big outlier would be an understatement:
[continue reading…]

In 2019, Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen averaged 5.71 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt, which ranked 23rd among all NFL quarterbacks. The league average was 6.16 ANY/A in ’19, which means Allen was a bit below average as a passer: he averaged -0.45 ANY/A relative to league average.

This year, with two games to go, Allen has significantly improved. He is averaging 7.55 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt, and will likely finish at least in the top 8 in the pass efficiency rankings. He is averaging +1.53 Relative ANY/A, given that the league average through 15 weeks is 6.40. [continue reading…]

Previously:

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

The entire NFL had a passer rating of 99.1 in week 15, while averaging 6.91 ANY/A; in other words, the average quarterback this weekend was better than the average performance by Steve Young. So let’s focus on a couple of the rare duds.

A few weeks ago, Ben Roethlisberger was enjoying the high life as the quarterback of the 11-0 Pittsburgh Steelers. But after dropping three straight games, the situation is now ugly in Pittsburgh, and Roethlisberger is a big part of the problem. He is averaging an anemic 5.18 yards per attempt and 8.44 yards per completion over the last month of the season. On Monday Night Football, the Steelers lost to the Bengals in one of the biggest upsets in franchise history. Roethlisberger produced the worst passing performance of week 15: he threw for only 6 first downs on 38 pass attempts (plus 1 sack), making it one of the most anemic Steelers passing attacks of the last two decades.

Meanwhile, in Washington, Dwayne Haskins threw 55 times and somehow still didn’t reach 300 passing yards. It was even uglier through three quarters: he was 25 of 36, but for just 192 yards with only 10 first downs, and 2 interceptions and a sack. And then, somehow, his week got even worse.

The full week 15 passing stats, below. [continue reading…]

Previously:

• Week 1 Passing Stats
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8
• Week 9
• Week 10
• Weeks 11 and 12
• Week 13

[continue reading…]

In Buffalo, Josh Allen is having a breakout season for the Bills. In Tennessee, Ryan Tannehill is having a great follow-up performance to last year’s breakout second half. In Oakland Las Vegas, Derek Carr is building on his underrated 2019 season, with Henry Ruggs III and Nelson Agholor helping him reach new heights. And in Houston, Deshaun Watson is having his best year yet — and that’s without DeAndre Hopkins!

These four AFC teams have something else in common: if you don’t adjust for era (which one should always do except when writing articles like these), they are currently guiding the best passing offenses in franchise history. This season, NFL teams are averaging 6.35 ANY/A, which would be the greatest passing season in league history. Now, Raiders fans may not think 1976 Ken Stabler has been guiding the team this year, but hey, we are ignoring era-adjustments in this article. As always, we are using Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt to grade the passing offenses. [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
• Weeks 11 and 12

[continue reading…]

On Thanksgiving Day, 1965, the Baltimore Colts and the Detroit Lions battled to a 24-24 tie. In the New York Times report of the day, it was noted that Unitas was sacked four times by the Lions defense; well, technically, it was reported that he was “trapped” four times.

That wasn’t such a big deal: the Lions defense would go on to lead the NFL in sacks with 49 that season, and no defense recorded more sacks than Detroit from 1960 to 1965. But the Thanksgiving performance was notable because it marked the 76th consecutive game that the Detroit Lions sacked the opposing quarterback.

The streak would end the following week against division rival San Francisco. John Brodie was a difficult man to take down; in 1965, the 49ers offense had the lowest sack rate in the NFL. Earlier in the season season, Detroit registered just one sack on Brodie, and in the rematch, Brodie dropped back 35 times without being trapped for a loss. [continue reading…]

Previously:

• Week 1 Passing Stats
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8
• Week 9
• Week 10
• Weeks 11 and 12

[continue reading…]

In 1980, after 11 games, Chargers tight end Kellen Winslow had 878 receiving yards, more than 300 ahead of every other tight end in the NFL. Houston’s Mike Barber (576) and Tampa Bay’s Jimmie Giles (506) were the only other tight ends with even 500 receiving yards. The Oilers other tight end, Dave Casper, was acquired via trade midseason and had just 387 yards at the time. By the end of the year, Casper would finish with the second most receiving yards of any tight end in football, at 796. But Winslow blew him out of the water, with 1,290 receiving yards. That number was second in the entire NFL, but also just second on San Diego in receiving yards behind John Jefferson (and just ahead of teammate Charlie Joiner, who ranked 3rd in the AFC in receiving yards and 4th in the NFL).

Twenty years later, Chiefs superstar Tony Gonzalez had 828 receiving yards through 11 games; Shannon Sharpe (602), Freddie Jones (582) and Kyle Brady (570) were the only other tight ends with 500 yards at that time. By season’s end, Gonzalez would rack up 1,203 receiving yards for Kansas City, nearly 400 yards ahead of every other tight end in the league (Sharpe finished with 810).

Twenty years later, the current Chiefs superstar tight end is threatening to set a new record. Travis Kelce has 978 receiving yards after 11 games, and no other tight end is within shouting distance of him. Raiders TE Darren Waller is second in the NFL with 542 receiving yards, Lions TE T.J. Hockenson has 530, and Chargers TE Hunter Henry has 502 (by NFL fiat, the Chargers must always have a good tight end). Kelce could stop playing today and he’d probably finish the season with the most receiving yards of any tight end. Right now, he has a lead of 436 receiving yards, a remarkable 39.6 yard per game average.

Interesting trivia aside, I didn’t bring up the 20-year intervals at random. Those two seasons represent the largest difference in receiving yards between the top tight end and number two tight end in history. ^[1]I will note that there is some ambiguity in position labels from the early 1960s, and you may be able to argue that say, Mike Ditka had a larger lead if say, you want to quibble with calling Monty  … Continue reading Sharpe’s advantage was 393 yards, while Casper’s edge was a mammoth 494 yards. But Kelce is on pace to shatter that record, and should easily win the receiving TE crown by around 600 yards. It is even possible, if unlikely, that he will have more than twice as many yards as every other tight end in the NFL. Kelce, like Winslow in 1980, is second in the AFC in receiving yards and second on his own team: Tyreek Hill leads all AFC players with 1,021 yards, second in the NFL only to Seattle’s D.K. Metcalf (1,039).

It was only last season that Kelce quietly made history: he led the AFC in receiving yards, the first tight end to lead a conference in receiving yards since 1972. But this year, Kelce looks even more valuable. In part, his dominance is a reflection of the struggles for the other top tight ends in the league. George Kittle missed most of 2020 with an injury, Waller has been hurt by the addition of Nelson Agholor and a more run-heavy offense, Mark Andrews has disappeared with the rest of the Ravens passing offense, and Zach Ertz has gone down with the Carson Wentz ship. But let’s not take anything away from Kelce: He’s been absolutely outstanding for years, and yet might be currently in the middle of his best season ever.

Previously:

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

[continue reading…]

Previously:

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

[continue reading…]

You remember Brian St. Pierre, don’t you? The former Boston College star was drafted by the Steelers in the 5th round of the 2003 Draft, and then bounced around the league for years without ever starting a game. In 2010, the Carolina Panthers drafted Jimmy Claussen in the second round, but that didn’t stop the quarterback problems that plagued the team.  Carolina bottomed out under John Fox, going 2-14 and setting the team up to draft Cam Newton the following April.  Claussen was terrible as a rookie and a shoulder injury to Matt Moore left the Panthers down to their third string quarterback, rookie Tony Pike.

At the time, St. Pierre was holding down one of the world’s most noble positions: stay at home dad.  But with Moore’s shoulder injury ending his season, and Claussen dealing with a concussion, St. Pierre was signed to compete with Pike.  During practice this week, St. Pierre “won” the job, and that meant the former B.C. star would finally start an NFL game: just one week shy of his 31st birthday!  The results, however, were not straight out of a fairy tale. [continue reading…]

Previously:

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

[continue reading…]

Previously:

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

[continue reading…]

[[Update: Mahomes hit the 1,500 pass attempt mark in week 11 against Tampa Bay, and did so with exactly 1,000 completions. He had thrown for 12,782 passing yards, with 105 TDs and 20 INTs. That translates to an amazing 110.9 passer rating. When he threw that 1500th pass, a 9-yard completion to Demarcus Robinson right after the 2-minute warning in the first half, he automatically became the all-time career leader in passer rating. He moved ahead of Deshaun Watson (103.6), who had just moved ahead of Rodgers (103.3) after his great performance on Thanksgiving. Mahomes is now the newest career passer rating king, and will finish the 2020 season — and probably several more — as the all-time leader.]]

To qualify for the career leaderboard in rate statistics, a passer needs to record 1,500 pass attempts.

Aaron Rodgers reached the 1,500 pass attempt threshold on November 28, 2010 in a loss to the Falcons.  At the time, his career passer rating was a few hundredths of a point behind Philip Rivers (97.34 to 97.28). As of Christmas, 2010, Rivers still held a narrow lead, but Rodgers passed him (with little fanfare) in week 16. And since week 16 of the 2010 season, Rodgers has been alone atop the passer rating leaderboard.

But in a couple of weeks, he will lose his crown. That’s because Patrick Mahomes, he of the 110.5 career passer rating, is coming up on 1,500 career pass attempts. When he does, he will become the newest passer rating king. The statistic wasn’t first used in the NFL until the 1973 season, but we can still create a historical archive (which is exactly what PFR’s Mike Kania did). The graph below shows the career leader in passer rating after every season, minimum 1,500 NFL attempts, color-coded by team. [continue reading…]

Previously:

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

[continue reading…]

Previously:

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

In week 8 — which was nearly two weeks ago, my apologies — there were three teams that really leaned on the ground game. Buffalo never led by more than 8 points against New England, and the game was very close throughout. Despite this, the Bills ran on two-thirds of their plays. Buffalo running backs Devin Singletary and Zack Moss carried 28 times for 167 yards and two touchdowns, while Josh Allen struggled most of the day as a passer. And, as you might have guessed, Allen contributed as a runner: he had three scrambles for 24 yards and three more designed runs (he finished with 10 carries on the day, owing to four kneels). But a 2-to-1 run/pass ratio in a 3-point win is almost unheard of in the modern era, absent crazy weather or a running quarterback. Had I published this article on time, I could have had scathing criticism for Allen as a passer or the Bills offensive design, but in week 9, the Bills went super pass-heavy and won(more on this later in the week). So consider this a one-week anomaly, or a reaction to the Patriots defense (or both). [continue reading…]

Previously:

• Week 1 Passing Stats
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8

[continue reading…]

Previously:

• Week 1 Passing Stats
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7

[continue reading…]

The Jets are 0-8 and in the pilot’s seat for the #1 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. The Jaguars have lost seven straight games and have a difficult remaining schedule; Jacksonville is in the co-pilot seat with a realistic chance to take the top spot. It’s difficult to imagine the Jets going 3-5 down the stretch, and even a 2-6 finish may be optimistic. But what if the Jets and Jaguars finish with the same record, either at 1-15 or 2-14? Who would get Trevor Lawrence?

The first tiebreaker is strength of schedule, with the team having the easier schedule winning the better draft pick. The logic being if two teams have the same record, the team that did so against a weaker schedule is probably the worse team. So if you are a Jets fan, you probably should be worried that right now, the Jets project to have the toughest schedule in the NFL as of the end of the 2020 season. That leaves no margin for error in the Tank for Trevor. The Jets face the NFC West, the AFC West, the Colts and the Browns, along with the other teams in the AFC East… while also giving 14-16 of those teams one free win. So it’s not surprising that the Jets project to have the toughest schedule.

But is there a change the Jaguars schedule leapfrogs the Jets for the toughest? Let’s compare the two teams schedules.

Ignore the Browns and Chargers

The Jets play all teams in the AFC West while the Jaguars play the full AFC North. But the Jets also play the Browns and the Jaguars also play the Chargers, so these are two common opponents that we can ignore.

There are two other common opponents — the Jets play the Colts and the Jaguars play the Dolphins, but those teams still matter since the other team plays that opponent two times.

The other 14 games

I looked at Football Outsiders projected wins for each team. Here is each opponent for the Jets and Jaguars, from best to worst: [continue reading…]

Previously:

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

It was 18 years ago that Herm Edwards made his famous “You Play To Win The Game” speech. That came after the Jets had a loss in their 7th game of the season, dropping the team’s record to 2-5.

With that backdrop, let’s move on to some…. curious…. coaching decisions after seven weeks of the 2020 NFL season.

Before getting to the data, I want you to think about how the following game would unfold. A team trails by at least 14 points at halftime and ultimately loses by at least 21 points. This is your classic blowout, a game that wasn’t competitive for very long. Now, how frequently would you expect the losing team to pass? From a Game Scripts perspective, this is obviously a game that would heavily incentive throwing the football. However, sometimes teams just give up. [continue reading…]

Over the last three and a half seasons, the Giants have the worst record in football. In fact, it’s not particularly close: since the start of the 2017 season, the Giants are 13-42. The Jets have the second worst mark, at 16-39, the Bengals are 16-38-1, and every other team has a winning percentage at least 10% higher than the Giants.

But does it feel like the Giants have been by far the worst team in the NFL? Probably not: they’ve been bad, but not even necessarily all that noticeably bad. And I think the biggest reason for that is New York has been relatively competitive over this stretch. The Giants don’t even rank in the bottom three in points differential since the start of the 2017 season: the Jets, Raiders, and Dolphins all have fared worse. Along with Tampa Bay (more on them in a moment), the Giants have been a large outlier in terms of underperforming, at least when we measure their points scored and points allowed numbers relative to their winning percentage. [continue reading…]

Previously:

• Week 1 Passing Stats
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6

[continue reading…]

Previously:

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

On Monday night in Buffalo, the Kansas City Chiefs produced one of the most run-happy games of the Andy Reid era. On a rainy night where the Bills defense consistently dared the Chiefs to run the ball, Kansas City didn’t take the bait, running 44 times for 247 yards and15 first downs. The Chiefs punted on the opening drives of both halves, but that was it: otherwise, Kansas City was able to consistently move the ball on the Bills without relying much on more than the threat of Patrick Mahomes. It was the sort of performance you would expect from that other AFC powerhouse: last year, the Ravens had a record four games with 240+ rushing yards and a 120+ passer rating, marks the Chiefs met in the win over Buffalo. With Le’Veon Bell coming on to the roster, the Kansas City offense should only get more potent.

The full week 6 Game Scripts, below. [continue reading…]

Ryan Fitzpatrick has been benched in Miami in favor of Tua Tagovila. This doesn’t come as a big surprise, of course: Fitzpatrick is a 38-year-old journeyman who is always on the verge of being benched for the next big thing.

But Fitzpatrick’s career has been fascinating to watch. I calculated his Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt for each game of his career, and then compared that to league average for that season. That is plotted in the graph below: the X-axis is each game of his career in chronological order, the Y-Axis is how many Adjusted Net Yards of value he added over average, and the size of the dot represents how many dropbacks he had. And, of course, given that this is Fitzpatrick, it is color-coded by team: [continue reading…]