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  • Stat of the Week: Top Draft Prospects

    By NATHAN COOPER, JOHN TODD, and MARK SIMON

    With the football season over, it’s time to shift attention to the future and the upcoming NFL Draft.

    In recent years SIS has tracked NFL and FBS games in a similarly-detailed manner to how it tracks baseball. That allows the company to cover the Draft thoroughly.

    This season, SIS Video Scouts combined to chart each FBS game a minimum of four times to track specifics such as formation, personnel, route type, and type of run. The compiled information was supplemented with observations of skills and other critical factors so that players could be evaluated at each position.

    Players were graded by Video Scouts on a 1-to-9 scale both in individual skills and critical factors, and then overall among those at their position. If a player’s final grade is 6.5 or higher, he is generally a starting-level NFL player. If a player is graded 7.0 or higher, he is thought to have a Pro Bowl-caliber future. Each scouting report is written by a Video Scout and cross-checked by others in the scout group.

    Nine college players graded at least a 7.0 in the inaugural set of rankings. Seven of the players play on the defensive side.

    Highest Grades, 2019 NFL Draft-Eligible Players

    NameSchoolPositionGrade
    Quinnen WilliamsAlabamaDT7.4
    Ed OliverHoustonDT7.1
    Josh JacobsAlabamaRB7.1
    T.J. HockensonIowaTE7.0
    Nick BosaOhio StateDE7.0
    Devin WhiteLSULB7.0
    DeAndre BakerGeorgiaCB7.0
    Greedy WilliamsLSUCB7.0
    Taylor RappWashingtonS7.0

    Alabama redshirt sophomore defensive tackle Quinnen Williams earned the highest grade among all players. He was described by the SIS video scout as “an explosively powerful defensive talent, whose rare interior contact balance creates consistent overwhelming backfield chaos, resulting in a next-level force for years to come.”

    Statistically speaking, Williams ranked first among SEC defensive linemen with 57 pressures, 43 hurries, and 30 quarterback hits. Not bad for someone who was in his first season as a starter.

    Williams’ teammate, junior running back Josh Jacobs, graded out highest among offensive players with a 7.1. The Video Scout’s description noted that “Jacobs plays with elite tenacity, and with his lower-body strength and quick footwork, has the makings of a future star.”

    What stood out for Jacobs was that when he ran the ball, good things tended to happen. Jacobs had a positive play percentage of 59 percent, meaning that on 59 percent of his carries, Alabama had an increase in Expected Points Added (EPA). No other running back among those draft prospects who were graded by SIS had even a 55 percent positive play percentage.

    These grades and stats can be found in the 2019 SIS Football Rookie Handbook, which will be out in mid-February. More than 250 players are evaluated by the SIS scouting staff, with two pages devoted to each player’s skills and stats. You can learn more about the book and pre-order it at the ACTA Sports website.

    Happy scouting!

  • Super Bowl Preview: Patriots vs. Rams

    Super Bowl Preview: Patriots vs. Rams

    By John Shirley

    Tale of the Tape

    It should be unsurprising that both the Rams and Patriots rank highly on offense. Both teams rank in the top ten in both EPA/Called Pass (includes scrambles and excludes spikes) and EPA/Called Run (excludes scrambles and kneel downs). The weakest unit based on average EPA is the Rams’ run defense, which could be in for a long day facing the fifth-ranked Patriots’ rushing offense.


    		RamsRkPatriotsRk
    EPA/Called Pass0.184th0.147th
    EPA/Called Run0.151st0.075th
    EPA Allowed/Called Pass0.0313th0.0312th
    EPA Allowed/Called Run0.0220th-0.055th

    Tendency Report

    The Rams and Patriots have similar tendencies based on overall pass/run percentage and the use of shotgun and play-action. Both teams are on the low end of the league in shotgun usage, but they rank highly in play-action usage. One tendency in which they differ is in the use of jet motion. The Rams lead the league by using jet motion on 18 percent of their plays, while the Patriots only use it on 4 percent of plays.

    Personnel Usage

    The Rams use of 11 personnel (1 RB, 1 TE) since Sean McVay arrived has been well documented over the past two years. They used 11 personnel on 92 percent of their offensive snaps in 2018. However, they started to use 12 personnel (1 RB, 2 TE) a little more often after Cooper Kupp was injured.

    The Patriots’ offense also favors 11 personnel, but they mix up their packages much more often. When they are not in 11, they prefer to bring in another running back (usually FB James Develin).

    Key Matchups

    Patriots’ Short Passing Game vs. Rams’ Pass Defense

    • The Patriots throw the ball within five yards of the line of scrimmage on 54 percent of their attempts, which ranks 13th-highest. They also target their running backs the second most often in the league.
    • The Rams’ defense is the best at defending against short passes (5 yards or fewer), only allowing a positive percentage of 38 percent on them.

    Patriots’ Guards vs. Aaron Donald

    • The Patriots’ offense line has been phenomenal this season both in pass protection and run blocking. Their guards, Joe Thuney (1st) and Shaq Mason (8th), both rank highly among all offensive linemen in SIS’s Total Points metric.
    • Aaron Donald primary lines up in either the 3-technique or 4i-technique in the Rams defense. Teams on average allow pressure (a hurry, hit, knockdown, or sack) from either of these two positions on 9 percent of dropbacks. Donald generates pressure on 16 percent of his pass rushes from these positions.
    • The Patriots’ offensive line ranks first in the league by allowing pressure from a player lined up at the 3-technique or 4i-technique on only 5 percent of their snaps.

    Rams’ Rush Offense vs. Patriots’ Rush Defense

    • The Rams running game was successful during the regular season, no matter if it was Todd Gurley or CJ Anderson in the backfield. That success followed them into the Divisional Round of the playoffs, but they struggled against the Saints in the NFC Championship. That was due to the Saints having the third best run defense in the NFL, allowing only -0.07 EPA/Called Run Play.
    • The Patriots have the fifth-best run defense in terms of EPA/Called Run Play, allowing an average of only -0.05. They also rank fifth in run defense versus 11 personnel, still allowing an average of only -0.05 EPA/Called Run Play.

    Rams’ Passing Game vs. Patriots’ Man Coverage

    • The Patriots use man coverage on defense 58 percent of the time, which is the highest percentage in the league.
    • Unfortunately for the Rams, their best receiver vs. man coverage, Cooper Kupp, is injured. Kupp led the league (min. 10 targets) in yards per target against man coverage with 14.6 yards per target.
    • Fortunately for the Rams, they still have solid options at receiver. Brandin Cooks ranks sixth averaging 11.9 yards per target against man coverage. Also, TE Tyler Higbee has the third-highest positive percentage of all players (min. 10 targets) against man at 81 percent, albeit on only 11 targets.
  • The QB Sneak is the most underutilized play in football

    The QB Sneak is the most underutilized play in football

    It doesn’t get any simpler than the QB sneak. The offensive line drives straight ahead, the quarterback hides himself behind the center and attempts to fall forward a few feet. It’s far from elegant, but it’s effective. And yet, NFL teams seem unwilling to utilize it.

    On third or fourth down with a yard or less to go since 2015, teams have called an inside zone (a run up the middle with no pulling lineman or lead blockers) 1,193 times. It’s outside counterpart is a distant second with only 294 attempts. QB sneak ranks third with 266.

    Despite being the most commonly run, the inside zone ranks as the second worst play call in terms of first down conversion rate at 68 percent, narrowly edging out the outside zone at 66 percent. By comparison, the QB sneak has a conversion rate of about 88 percent, 20 percentage points better than the inside zone, and 15 percentage points better than the closest play call to a running back.

    In theory, based on these numbers, if a team in third- and-1 ran two consecutive quarterback sneaks, they would have approximately a 98 percent chance of converting a first down. This is obviously an imperfect approach, and doesn’t factor in defensive adjustments, but it does help illustrate how baffling it is that teams continue to take the ball out of their QBs hands in these situations.

    What’s more, the QB sneak is not an acquired skill, and doesn’t require a particularly athletic quarterback. Since 2015, Blake Bortles, Nick Foles, Drew Brees, and Josh Allen have all boasted perfect conversion rates (Brees has the most successes, 23-of-23). Carson Wentz, Kirk Cousins and Matt Ryan have each failed only once, and no quarterback had a conversion rate lower than the inside zone’s 68 percent.

    Increased volume would undoubtedly lead to a decreased success rate, and the list of quarterbacks with a 100 percent conversion rate would likely disappear, but it’s hard to imagine it dropping by 20 percent as a whole.

    In the defense of teams, the QB sneak has seen a steady increase since 2016, while the inside zone has rightfully seen a sharp decrease. Even still, the inside zone remained the most common play call in short yardage in 2018, outpacing the QB sneak by almost 100 attempts.

    The increase in volume showed almost no effect on the performance of the QB sneak. Its success rate in 2018 of 87 percent was only 1 percentage point lower than its 4-year mark. Likewise, the inside zone did not become more effective with it’s decrease in volume, its 68 percent success rate matched its 4-year total. If there is a point where increased volume decreases the effectiveness of the QB sneak, teams certainly haven’t found it yet.

    In terms of personnel, teams have also shown a strong tendency towards heavy personnel when it comes to short yardage. To see the effects this has had, we looked at first down conversion rates against the number of players the offense has “in the box”. Men in the box on the offensive side is just a count of how many men are on or near the line of scrimmage, excluding the quarterback.

    In similar fashion to the play types, the most effective personnel grouping is also the most infrequently used. The 6-man box, (most commonly a 4-wide set), had a first down conversion rate of 82 percent but was only used 89 times. The 9-man box, most frequently used by coaches at 692, had a conversion rate of only 71 percent.

    Intuitively, having more blockers sounds like a good idea, but in practice it just allows the defense to stack the box and bring in heavier personnel, making the job of the lineman that much more difficult. Using spread-type personnel forces the defense to defend the whole field, and also likely forces them to bring in their smaller dime or nickel personnel, and creates better matchups on the interior.

    At least until defenses adjust, teams need to start using their quarterback as a weapon more often in crucial short yardage situations, and stop insisting on heavy personnel. Offense as a whole has become more efficient than ever, and it’s time that expands into short-yardage downs as well.

  • TYREEK HILL: WHAT MAKES HIM SO GOOD?

    TYREEK HILL: WHAT MAKES HIM SO GOOD?

    by COREY MARCH

    Tyreek Hill, or “TyFreak” as he will be referred to from this point forward, is underrated if you ask me.

    Expected Points Added by WR (when targeted) – 2018

    1. Michael Thomas: 77.3
    2. Davante Adams: 74.0
    3. DeAndre Hopkins: 71.9
    4. Julio Jones: 68.8
    5. TyFreak Hill: 66.4

    The thing is, he’s actually “rated” pretty highly by the football community, say as a top-10 wideout, but numbers like this suggest he’s more like top-5.

    What makes him so good? He’s a dynamic athlete who specializes in catching deep passes, running past defenders with and without the ball, and attacking you from every skill position alignment – so basically all the things.

    I got a good look this week when I charted and mapped all his snaps from the Chiefs 43-40 loss at New England back in Week 6.

    Hill lined up all over the field. He played at least 3 and as many as 12 snaps from Slot Right, Slot Left, Wide Right, Wide Left, and the Backfield (in order of frequency).

    Unless you’re strictly shadowing him with a top-tier Cornerback, he’s going to find a lot of mismatches over the course of a game. According to Aaron Schatz on this week’s “Off The Charts” podcast, in Week 6, the Patriots used Stephon Gilmore to cover Sammy Watkins, while Jason and Devon McCourty were tasked with stopping Hill as a duo. This was mostly true by my observations, but Hill still managed to draw coverage from three different linebackers and three different safeties on a total of 12 routes (33%).

    He beat them for 99 yards and 3 TDs.

    Most Frequent Coverage on TyFreak in Week 6 (snaps)

    1. Jason McCourty (13)
    2. Stephon Gilmore (5)
    3. Jonathan Jones (4)
    4. Patrick Chung, Devin McCourty (3)

    Part of what makes TyFreak so unique is his versatility. There were seven receivers who were targeted on at least 20 passes that were thrown behind the line of scrimmage and 20+ air yards downfield: Hill, Antonio Brown, Brandin Cooks, Davante Adams, Nelson Agholor, Juju Smith-Schuster, and Stefan Diggs.

    If you add “receivers who carried 20+ times” to the criteria, Hill becomes the only qualifier.

    Among this group of six elite receivers and Agholor, Hill ranked second in YAC on receptions behind the line of scrimmage and first in On-Target Catch Rate on deep balls.

    More than his speed and playmaking ability, this emphasizes his skill for catching the football, which is an overlooked weapon in his arsenal.

    Here is a leaderboard that sorts Wide Receivers and Tight Ends by On-Target Catch Rate. Again, a very strong group of qualifiers – notice the Yards per Reception.

    On to Sunday’s AFC Championship Game.

    The Patriots play the highest rate of Man Coverage in the NFL (79.2% in last week’s win over the Chargers). This is especially interesting because the Chiefs are coming off a matchup against the Colts, who play the league’s highest rate of Zone Coverage.

    The numbers suggest, that while both Hill and Kelce are tremendous across the board, Hill tends to be the biggest threat against Man and Kelce against Zone.

    Here is the breakdown of how Hill performs against the coverage types that he’s most likely to see a lot of on Sunday:

    I heard Bart Scott say something interesting this week on Good Morning Football. He said that the field conditions will be a favorable factor for the Chiefs because the grass surface responds differently to the freezing cold than the artificial surface at Gillette Stadium, specifically citing that it will be hard for defenders to hold their footing in pursuit of ball-carriers. I trust this man’s opinion to mine on field conditions considering my only football playing experience was barely contributing to a flag football dynasty at Marist College.

    This week’s “Off The Charts” podcast also provided evidence that bolsters that theory. Schatz (who was quoting Dave Brown) referenced that in the last six seasons on the road/neutral sites, the Patriots are 21-5 with a 22.2% DVOA on artificial surfaces, but are just 13-14 with a 6.4% DVOA on grass.

    It sounds like TyFreak will once again be in position to thrive this weekend on the biggest stage of his career.

    If you liked this article then you’d probably like the SIS DataHub – $99.99/month for the tool that was used to research most of the data in this article. Sign up for a free week-long trial today at www.SISDataHub.com or email me to subscribe.

  • Preview: AFC Championship – Patriots vs. Chiefs

    By Nate Weller

    Let’s take a brief look at some statistical notes and story lines ahead of the AFC Championship game between the Patriots and Chiefs.

    Chiefs Pass Offense vs Patriots Pass Defense

    • Patrick Mahomes has an Expected Points Added (EPA) per pass of .37 when Sammy Watkins is on the field, and .22 when he is not. A healthy Sammy Watkins could be a big factor in the Chiefs offensive success
    • Having Watkins on the field makes it harder for teams to double Tyreek Hill. Hill’s rate EPA jumps from .39 without Watkins on the field to .59 when he is on the field.
    • In 260 regular season coverage snaps Patriots cornerback J.C. Jackson allowed a QBR against of only 37.7, ninth-best among corners who were targeted at least 20 times. Jackson will likely spend a good portion of Sunday matched up on Travis Kelce.

    Patriots Pass Offense vs Chiefs Pass Defense

    • The Chiefs led the league in combined sacks with 53. Their pass rush was led by Chris Jones who finished the regular season with 15 combined sacks, all coming after week 4.
    • The Patriots offensive line was among the leagues best, allowing only 21 sacks in the regular season. Guard Joe Thuney ranked as the second-best linemen in the NFL by SIS’ Total Points Metric with 7.2 points earned.
    • When under pressure, Brady completed only 45 percent of his passes in the regular season, and posted an Independent Quarterback Rating of 81.1. In 2017 his IQR while under pressure was 115.4.
    • Julian Edelman will likely garner most of the attention, but Brady had a passer rating of 137.5 on 28 targets to Cordarrelle Patterson this season, the fifth- best QB/WR combo in the league by QBR
    • Chiefs corner Steven Nelson was the most targeted player in the NFL in 2018 (112), but quarterbacks only completed 46 percent of passes and posted a QBR of 69.3 when targeting him

    The Run Game

    • The Patriots defense has a broken tackle percentage of 4.9, second best in the NFL. The Chiefs defense had a broken tackle percentage of 12.5, third worst.
    • Chiefs running backs averaged  2.6 yards after contact per attempt and had a broken tackle percentage of 10.3, both top 10 in the NFL.
    • The Patriots ranked fifth in the NFL in both rushing yards (2,037) and first downs picked up on the ground (132).
    • The Chiefs defense allowed 5.0 yards per attemopton the ground, the second worst in the league, and allowed a first downs on 30.4% of carries, the worst mark in the league

  • Preview: NFC Championship – Rams vs. Saints

    By John Shirley

    Let’s take a brief look at some statistical notes and story lines ahead of the NFC Championship game between the Rams and Saints

    Lots of Motion and Play-Action, but not much Shotgun

    • The Rams’ offense ranks first in the use of jet motion, using it on 17 percent of their plays. The Saints also use jet motion quite a bit, using it on 6.5 percent of plays, which ranks fifth highest.
    • When the Rams are on offense get ready to see a lot of play-action. They use play-action on 32 percent of their dropbacks, which is the highest usage in the league. The Saints’ offense is on the other end of the spectrum as they only use play-action on 19 percent of their dropbacks, which ranks 26th.
    • While there will be a lot of play-action and motion in this game, there probably won’t be much use of shotgun. The Rams use shotgun the least of any team in the league at only 38 percent. The Saints, who use shotgun on only 49 percent, are also one of just four teams that use shotgun under 50 percent of the time.

    The Saints use of Michael Thomas

    • During the regular season Saints receiver Michael Thomas was responsible for 29 percent of his team’s targets. This was the second highest target share in the league next to DeAndre Hopkins’ 33 percent target share.
    • In the first meeting between the Saints and Rams, Thomas’ target share was an incredibly high 42 percent.
    • The Rams will need to contain Thomas this time around. It will help that they will have corner Aqib Talib this time.

    The Rams Running Game vs the Saints Defense:

    • The Rams running game has been impressive this year ranking third in yards per carry at 4.9 yards. They also ranked first in positive percentage (the percentage of running plays with a positive EPA) at 51 percent. This success continued into the playoffs last week as both CJ Anderson and Todd Gurley ran for over 100 yards.
    • The Rams will have a tough matchup this week when they face a Saints run defense. The Saints defense ranked second by only allowing 3.6 yards per carry. They only allowed 1.9 yards after contact per carry, which also ranked second best in the league.

    The Offensive Lines vs the Defensive Lines:

    • The Rams offensive line ranks fifth (6 percent) in blown block percentage, while the Saints offensive line ranks sixth (6.4 Percent). The Rams defense ranks fourth (11.3 percent) in forced blown block percentage, while the Saints defense ranks 11th (9.5 percent).
    • The Saints offense ranks second in percentage of pass plays with a pressure (hit, hurry, knockdown, or sack) allowed at 27 percent. The Rams offense ranks seventh, allowing a pressure on 30 percent of pass plays.
    • The Rams defense ranks second in pressure percentage, getting pressure on 40 percent of opponents pass plays. The Saints defense ranks sixth, getting pressure on 36 percent of opponents’ pass plays

  • Aqib Talib should have big impact vs Saints

    By PATRICK ROWLEY
    Last time the Rams and Saints played against each other was week 9, when Michael Thomas had 211 yards and a touchdown on 12 catches. Thomas became such a focal point of the Saints offense in this game that his longest reception (72 yards) was a higher yardage total than the next highest Saints receiver had for the game (Ben Watson, 62 yards).

    Marcus Peters was the one responsible for Thomas most of the game and he was exposed throughout the night on his way to -9 total points, most of which occurred when Peters was defending Thomas in the slot. Eight of Thomas’ 12 receptions came when he was lined up in the slot, which led to 157 of his yards for the day. On the season 917 of Thomas’ 1,405 receiving yards (65 percent) came when he was lined up in the slot.

    For this matchup the Rams have a healthy Aqib Talib back on the field. He will almost certainly take over the assignment of covering Michael Thomas. Aqib Talib figures to be an upgrade over Marcus Peters. Over the last two seasons he has allowed 6 yards per target when targeted compared to 8 yards for Peters.

    The disparity is even larger when looking at how they do specifically against receivers in the slot. Again, looking at the last two years of data since Talib missed a large portion of this season, Talib has been considerably better. He has allowed just 6 yards per target to slot receivers, four yards  better than Marcus Peters’ 10-yard mark.

    Another effect of Aqib Talib taking over for Peters is that Peters can in turn take away some responsibility from Sam Shields. Shields has been torched throughout the season when he has been in the game and has averaged -0.55 total points per target when targeted this season, the fifth-worst rate in the NFL among corners (minimum 30 targets). Shields also owns the single lowest pass defense total points figure in a game this season with an egregious total of -15.8 week 11 against the Chiefs.

    The Saints have an elite offense that will be hard to slow, particularly in the Superdome. Adding Talib back in to the mix for this rematch should help contain the explosive Michael Thomas and have ripple effects across the rest of the defense. This is why the Rams traded for Talib this offseason.

  • The Rams’ Rushing Success is More Than Just Todd Gurley or C.J. Anderson

    The Rams’ Rushing Success is More Than Just Todd Gurley or C.J. Anderson

    The resurgence of C.J. Anderson in Los Angeles has seemingly breathed life back into the debate about the relevance of running backs in the modern NFL. On Saturday night, Anderson went for 123 yards on 23 carries, adding two touchdowns. On the opposite side of the ball, superstar running back Ezekiel Elliott turned his 20 carries into only 47 yards.

    It was the latest chapter in a season in which James Conner gained close to 1,500 scrimmage yards in only 13 games, and a 33-year-old Adrian Peterson get back over the 1,000 yard mark for the first time since 2015. Meanwhile, teams like the Jaguars, whose run game carried them to a conference championship only a year ago, failed to have a single 100-yard rusher.

    Based on pretty much any metric, passing provides more value than running, but what that really means for play calling is still hotly debated. And if it’s so inefficient, why were the Rams, Chiefs, and Patriots able to win this weekend by dominating on the ground?

    Stop Trying to Establish the Run

    Conventional wisdom has always stated that establishing the run is crucial to an offense’s success. Even if you aren’t running the ball particularly well, you should stick with it because you will wear down the down the defense and have more success as the game wears on.

    To look at this, we compared a team’s first half carries versus their positive play percentage (Positive%) on second half carries. (Positive% is an Expected Points-based metric that represents the percentage of plays a player earned a positive Expected Points Added value.) Establishing the run in the first half shows almost no correlation to second half success. In fact, it actually shows a small negative correlation, indicating at some level that rushing performance actually decreases the more carries are forced onto a running back early in the game.

    This potentially indicates a few things: that running the ball a lot early does not cause the defense to fatigue more than a normal offensive split, at least not enough to affect performance in a meaningful way, and that predictable play calling can lead to decreased offensive performance.

    Despite this, coaches continue to stick by this strategy. As recently as Wild Card weekend the Seahawks ran the ball 24 times for 3.0 yards per carry, waiting until the final quarter to open up the pass game. This is despite Russell Wilson averaging 8.6 yards per attempt and posting a QB Rating of 115.3.

    This also illustrates another important point: passing success generally acts independent of rushing success. Since 2016, the correlation between a teams Positive% on the ground and their Positive% through the air is close to zero, and this correlation even holds true when looking at play action. On average, success rate on play action passes tended to stay around 50 percent, with some noise on either side, regardless of a team’s success on the ground.

    Creating Mismatches at the Line of Scrimmage

    Teams that are successful on the ground in the modern NFL are not doing so by staying patient, or “establishing the run” early. They are doing so by putting their running backs and linemen in advantageous situations.

    C.J. Anderson is the perfect case study. During his 2017 campaign with Denver, Anderson ran into a stacked box on 33 percent of attempts, and had a Positive% of 36 percent. In weeks 16 and 17 with the Rams this season, Anderson ran into a stacked box on only 19 percent of his carries, and flipped that into a Positive% of 62 percent. Among running backs with at least 25 carries in that time period, that ranked second behind fellow Rams running back Malcolm Brown (69 percent). Put into context, no running back with more than 100 attempts in 2018 had a success rate above 50 percent.

    Even without considering that he was unemployed for most of the season, Anderson has been impressive, and McVay’s creative play calling deserves a lot of credit. While the Rams predominantly stick to one personnel grouping, they use a wide variety of formations and move players around a lot to generate mismatches, including some of the most creative use of motion in the league.

    Nobody Uses Motion More Effectively Than the Rams

    In 2018, teams averaged 1.6 yards before contact (YBC) and 4.1 yards per attempt (Y/A) on runs that didn’t use motion. When using motion in any capacity those numbers jumped to 1.9 and 4.5, and jumped further to 2.2 and 4.9 on plays using jet motion (YBC and Y/A exclude jet sweeps and QB scrambles).

    No team made use of this more than the Rams, who led the league in jet motion usage by a long shot. In total, the Rams used jet motion on 17 percent of offensive snaps in 2018. The next closest teams were the Chargers and Titans who used jet motion on 14 and 8 percent of offensive snaps respectively.

    The Rams averaged an astonishing 2.7 YBC on plays utilizing jet motion, significantly better than their overall average on runs plays of 2.0, and almost a full yard better than the average run play in the NFL (1.8).

    There’s more to this than simply using jet motion more, and having a talented running back certainly adds value, but the point is that scheme plays an important role too. Nobody will argue that Anderson is a better running back than Ezekiel Elliott, but Elliott wasn’t good enough on Saturday to overcome facing a stacked box on 40 percent of his carries.

    Running the ball still has an important role in modern offenses, but for teams to be successful they need to start moving away from the more traditional ground-and-pound methods. The Rams are creating a blueprint; now it’s time for other teams to start using it.

  • A statistical comparison of Outland winners Quinnen Williams and Ed Oliver

    BY BRYCE ROSSLER

    For the first time in six years, the NFL Draft will feature two Outland Trophy winners, both of whom figure to be selected early. But, this occurrence is especially strange because both players in question, Houston’s Ed Oliver and Alabama’s Quinnen Williams, are defenders (the award is given to the best interior linemen, on offense or defense).

    The last time that two defensive winners of the trophy were in the same draft was 1978, which featured Notre Dame’s Ross Brown and Texas’s Brad Shearer. And perhaps that’s fitting since the defensive line is considered the strength of this class, a group that Oliver and Williams still manage to stand out from.

    For most of last offseason, Oliver was billed by some as the surefire top selection in the class, but that was before Williams ascended to the throne with a dominant 2018 campaign. Whereas the former has been a known commodity for some time now, the latter seemingly came out of nowhere. Both of Williams’ running mates at Alabama, Isaiah Buggs and Raekwon Davis, were certainly attracting more attention in preseason. But, once he hit the field, Williams quickly became the focus of opposing teams.

    The Crimson Tide sophomore ranked first in run stuff rate (i.e. solo tackles for non-positive yardage) among 339 defensive tackles with at least 100 run snaps. His rate of 6.8 percent was about a full percentage point higher than the next-best interior player, South Alabama’s Tyree Turner (5.8). And in case you were wondering – his Outland predecessor ranked third with a rate of 5.3 percent.

    That difference is even further accentuated when you consider that teams aimed runs towards Williams on 19 percent of their rushing attempts, as opposed to 29 percent of the time for Oliver. And when teams did run at Williams, he caused the ballcarrier to bounce the play 43 percent of the time – nearly ten-plus percentage points more often than Oliver did (34 percent).

    Williams was an even bigger difference-maker as a pass-rusher, boasting a hurry rate of 13.8 percent. That dwarfs the second-highest figure, which belongs to San Jose State’s Boogie Roberts, by 2.8 percentage points. Oliver once again ranks fourth with a still-excellent hurry rate of 10.5 percent. But, to give you an idea of just how impactful Williams was, his hurry rate outpaced that of several edge rushers who will merit first round consideration in April, namely: Clemson’s Clelin Ferrell (12.1 percent), Florida State’s Brian Burns (11.5), Mississippi State’s Montez Sweat (10.5), and Michigan’s Rashan Gary (9.5).

    While the NFL will present a new set of challenges for Williams, his hurry rate this year was comparable to Aaron Donald’s at the NFL level. This doesn’t mean that he’ll be able to maintain that productivity on Sundays, but it does serve to illustrate his level of collegiate dominance. (If anything, it should serve to illustrate how futile the search for the next Aaron Donald is)

    The bottom line is that both players project to be three-down difference-makers early in their careers. The advanced metrics seem to favor Williams, but an argument could be made that the already-established and obviously-talented Oliver suffered from a junior-year drop off as Jadeveon Clowney and Myles Garrett once did, and that he was capable of imposing his will more often. At any rate, statistics can only begin to contextualize a player’s performance, and film is what tells the full story.

    A more traditional perspective on each (and more advanced stats like these) can be found in the Football Rookie Handbook (details to come on that in the near-future).

  • A statistical comparison of Outland winners Quinnen Williams and Ed Oliver

    BY BRYCE ROSSLER

    For the first time in six years, the NFL Draft will feature two Outland Trophy winners, both of whom figure to be selected early. But, this occurrence is especially strange because both players in question, Houston’s Ed Oliver and Alabama’s Quinnen Williams, are defenders (the award is given to the best interior linemen, on offense or defense).

    The last time that two defensive winners of the trophy were in the same draft was 1978, which featured Notre Dame’s Ross Brown and Texas’s Brad Shearer. And perhaps that’s fitting since the defensive line is considered the strength of this class, a group that Oliver and Williams still manage to stand out from.

    For most of last offseason, Oliver was billed by some as the surefire top selection in the class, but that was before Williams ascended to the throne with a dominant 2018 campaign. Whereas the former has been a known commodity for some time now, the latter seemingly came out of nowhere. Both of Williams’ running mates at Alabama, Isaiah Buggs and Raekwon Davis, were certainly attracting more attention in preseason. But, once he hit the field, Williams quickly became the focus of opposing teams.

    The Crimson Tide sophomore ranked first in run stuff rate (i.e. solo tackles for non-positive yardage) among 339 defensive tackles with at least 100 run snaps. His rate of 6.8 percent was about a full percentage point higher than the next-best interior player, South Alabama’s Tyree Turner (5.8). And in case you were wondering – his Outland predecessor ranked third with a rate of 5.3 percent.

    That difference is even further accentuated when you consider that teams aimed runs towards Williams on 19 percent of their rushing attempts, as opposed to 29 percent of the time for Oliver. And when teams did run at Williams, he caused the ballcarrier to bounce the play 43 percent of the time – nearly ten-plus percentage points more often than Oliver did (34 percent).

    Williams was an even bigger difference-maker as a pass-rusher, boasting a hurry rate of 13.8 percent. That dwarfs the second-highest figure, which belongs to San Jose State’s Boogie Roberts, by 2.8 percentage points. Oliver once again ranks fourth with a still-excellent hurry rate of 10.5 percent. But, to give you an idea of just how impactful Williams was, his hurry rate outpaced that of several edge rushers who will merit first round consideration in April, namely: Clemson’s Clelin Ferrell (12.1 percent), Florida State’s Brian Burns (11.5), Mississippi State’s Montez Sweat (10.5), and Michigan’s Rashan Gary (9.5).

    While the NFL will present a new set of challenges for Williams, his hurry rate this year was comparable to Aaron Donald’s at the NFL level. This doesn’t mean that he’ll be able to maintain that productivity on Sundays, but it does serve to illustrate his level of collegiate dominance. (If anything, it should serve to illustrate how futile the search for the next Aaron Donald is)

    The bottom line is that both players project to be three-down difference-makers early in their careers. The advanced metrics seem to favor Williams, but an argument could be made that the already-established and obviously-talented Oliver suffered from a junior-year drop off as Jadeveon Clowney and Myles Garrett once did, and that he was capable of imposing his will more often. At any rate, statistics can only begin to contextualize a player’s performance, and film is what tells the full story.

    A more traditional perspective on each (and more advanced stats like these) can be found in the Football Rookie Handbook (details to come on that in the near-future).