PFF: 50 pieces of data for the NFL season

[www.profootballfocus.com]

On the LA Rams:

32. The Los Angeles Rams have the deepest defensive line in the NFL.

Projected backup DEs Matt Longacre, Quinton Coples, and Ian Seau have all earned above-average grades for pass-rushing so far this preseason. Longacre and Seau rank fourth and fifth, respectively, in pass-rushing grade among all NFL edge defenders, and Longacre leads all edge defenders in overall grade, thanks to his strong performance in the run game. Former Patriots’ first-round pick Dominique Easley and DE Ethan Westbrooks have also graded well against the run for the Rams, who will have some difficult decisions to make at roster cut-down time.


League-wide notes

33. Nickel is the new base.

Last season, on a league-wide basis, teams had five or more defensive backs on the field for 63.4 percent of all defensive snaps. Base defense might be what we all think of when we list starters, but nickel defenders are playing almost two-thirds of all defensive snaps, and any “two-down” player is in fact likely only playing around a third of his team’s defensive snaps. The Patriots led the league last season with 83.6 percent of their defensive snaps featuring five or more defensive backs.

34. Teams run with three or more WRs on the field on 61.4 percent of offensive snaps.

Hand in hand with the arms race on defense, teams are running with more wideouts on the field on offense, deploying three or more receivers on almost two-thirds of snaps. The Green Bay Packers last season, despite losing their best receiver to injury, ran with three or more on the field on 87.5 percent of their snaps.

35. The average depth of target in the NFL is 9.0 yards downfield.

While this statistic varies widely depending on a team’s offensive scheme, on a league-wide basis, QBs average a depth of 9.0 yards from the line of scrimmage per pass attempt. However, QBs around the league can be as far as 4 yards on either side of that mark—Carson Palmer led the league with 11.3 yards on average last season, while Alex Smith and Matthew Stafford brought up the other end of the table with just 6.8 yards on average. Those numbers, combined with rising completion percentages, help explain why the NFL is more of a passing league today.

36. Speaking of being a passing league, teams now pass on 61.2 percent of their plays.

The entire NFL has become more pass-happy as the years have gone by, and last season, even the most run-heavy team in the league (Carolina) passed on 54.2 percent of their offensive snaps. The most pass-happy team in the league was Jacksonville, who took to the air on 68.6 percent of its snaps, more than two-thirds of the time.

37. Usage of the fullback has heavily declined over the past decade.

In 2006, teams had fullbacks on the field for 39.8 percent of their offensive snaps. In 2007, that number was 38.0 percent, but last year, the mark had reached 14.7 percent, having been in steady decline over the decade. The league has become more spread in scheme at the expense of power football, and the first player to be sacrificed when that happens is the fullback.

38. Teams used option mechanics on run plays on 13.6 percent of attempts in 2015.

Unlike the wildcat formation, which has already burned out by now, the rebirth of option football in the NFL isn’t going anywhere in a hurry. Some teams are obviously more heavily-invested in it than others, but league-wide, teams used option mechanics on more than 10 percent of their handoffs last season; the reason they did is simply because it works. Plays using the option last year averaged 4.61 yards per carry, compared to 4.07 without.

39. The most common personnel package in the league is 11-personnel.

Teams use 11-personnel (one back, one tight end, three receivers) on 45.4 percent of their offensive snaps, making it by far the most common personnel package on offense, explaining in large part why nickel defense has become such a common and important defensive package. More passing has meant more wide receivers and pass-catchers on the field at once.

40. Arizona is the NFL’s most blitz-happy team, coming after teams with the blitz on more than half (50.2 percent) of their defensive snaps last season.

The Cardinals are generally the league’s most aggressive team from a schematic point of view, attacking deep more than any other team on offense and blitzing more than any other on defense. At the other end of the scale are the Dallas Cowboys, who only blitzed on 18.0 percent of defensive snaps in 2015.

41. The most commonly run route in the NFL is a hitch.

In 2015, receivers combined to run 9,502 hitch routes. Hitch routes, sometimes called stop or hook routes, are short vertical routes where the receiver hooks up and turns back to the quarterback looking for the ball. They work against man or zone coverage, and can be worked with angled releases off the line to find space laterally in the defense, not just vertically. It is the utility route for the modern passing game.

42. On average, QBs are pressured on 36.6 percent of their dropbacks.

When we talk about how a quarterback performs under pressure, it’s important to understand just how big a part of his game that is—likely around a third of his dropbacks. QBs that can’t perform when the heat is applied are a liability around a third of the time they are trying to pass the ball, and those that excel in those situations have a massive advantage over their competition.

43. QBs kept clean have an average passer rating of 97.7.

If a team’s pass protection can keep the QB free of pressure and doesn’t force him to move from his spot, even an average NFL QB looks like a Pro-Bowler, completing 68.6 percent of his passes and throwing for better than a 2:1 touchdown-to-interception ratio. Every snap on which a team’s pass-blocking unit buys a quarterback a clean pocket is a play that QB should be making count, and usually is.

44. Pass-rushing isn’t about sacks, it’s about affecting the QB.

Including the playoffs in 2015, QBs were sacked 1,316 times, or just 5.9 percent of their dropbacks on passing plays. Sacks are obviously the goal of a pass-rush, but just by moving a QB off his spot, his passer rating drops to 78.4, and when attempting a pass under pressure, the average NFL QB’s rating drops to 71.6. His completion percentage drops under 50.0 (48.6 percent) and that touchdown-to-interception ratio is far closer to 1:1. The percentage of snaps when that pressure occurs is more than four times higher than sacks alone.

45. Teams lined up with only 10 players on the field 69 times in 2015.

You’d think that getting 11 guys on the field—the most basic step of any one play—is simple. However, there were 69 snaps last season where a team fielded just 10 guys, and 13 teams did it more than once, including the Cardinals, who made the goof on a farcical 16 occasions.

46. The most common coverage shell in the league right now is cover-3.

NFL teams ran cover-3 on 32.4 percent of defensive snaps in 2015. Teams like the Seattle Seahawks have made that kind of shell the fashionable scheme on defense today, in a way the Tampa 2 was a decade ago, and as that coaching tree continues to expand, it is likely to become more common over the coming seasons.

47. The average tight end still stays in to pass protect on 26.4 percent of passing downs.

With the move towards TEs that are more wideouts than blocking players, you’d think that the average TE would have seen a massive drop in the number of snaps he is asked to stay at home and pass block, but in truth, it hasn’t moved much over the past decade. In 2006, the average TE was pass blocking on 28.0 percent of his passing snaps, just a little more than today’s NFL. The athlete may have changed, but that responsibility is still there.

48. Teams rush only three players on 8.0 percent of all defensive snaps.

Most of these are third/fourth-and-long situations, with a major chunk of yardage still needed to convert the first down, but QBs still have a 65.5 percent completion rate on those plays, gaining 7.1 yards per attempt. New England did it on 15.9 percent of their defensive snaps, preferring to get as many bodies into coverage as they could to shut down the passing windows, while Green Bay did it a league-low 4.2 percent of the time last season.

49. The average time to throw in the NFL is 2.67 seconds.

The fastest players in the league at getting rid of the ball average just 2.2 seconds from the snap to the ball leaving their hands, and the guys that like to extend plays the most are pushing 3 seconds. That’s the amount of time pass-rushers typically have to affect the throw in today’s NFL. If you’re not getting there until 3 or more seconds have passed, chances are you’re not getting there, period.

50. The most common run concept in the NFL is outside zone, run on 20.1 percent of plays in 2015.

The NFL has become more of a zone-blocking league, with outside- and inside-zone concepts run by almost everybody on a regular basis, but there is still some gap-scheme and power man blocking out there. The Minnesota Vikings, in particular, used a lot of this blocking a year ago, and Adrian Peterson was able to rack up yardage behind it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2016 04:44AM by LMU93.