Originally Posted by Megatron96:
Running the ball is part of it. Need to be able to run the ball at least well enough to force the defense to play honest. But it's also the lack of competent QB play.
Just look at last year and this year so far. All the young, dynamic, big-armed QBs are struggling.
But Joe Flacco took CLE to the playoffs. Andy Dalton, of all people, trucked LVR. Aaron Rodgers looked like a MVP candidate.
What was the common denominator? They all understand how to read a defense and where to go with the ball in most situations. They are fully well-rounded QBs, and not utterly reliant on their athleticism/arm strength.
When I watch all these kids playing QB, I see a lot of hesitation. Very little 'hit your back foot, and throw the ball to the right guy with good ball placement on time.' These kids are being thrown into the fire at the NFL level without the basic knowledge/experience necessary to compete with NFL defenses. They're ignorant. Most, f not all of those kids should be sitting on the bench, clipboard in hand, learning how to play the game properly, instead of being thrown into the deep end without the proper tools.
You're absolutely correct, but when you take the Next Big Thing QB with your #1 pick... the heat to play them is immediately ON
It takes an extremely ballsy head coach to sit that guy for a full season, and most just don't have the guts for it [Reply]
Originally Posted by Megatron96: Running the ball is part of it. Need to be able to run the ball at least well enough to force the defense to play honest. But it's also the lack of competent QB play.
Just look at last year and this year so far. All the young, dynamic, big-armed QBs are struggling.
But Joe Flacco took CLE to the playoffs. Andy Dalton, of all people, trucked LVR. Aaron Rodgers looked like a MVP candidate.
What was the common denominator? They all understand how to read a defense and where to go with the ball in most situations. They are fully well-rounded QBs, and not utterly reliant on their athleticism/arm strength.
When I watch all these kids playing QB, I see a lot of hesitation. Very little 'hit your back foot, and throw the ball to the right guy with good ball placement on time.' These kids are being thrown into the fire at the NFL level without the basic knowledge/experience necessary to compete with NFL defenses. They're ignorant. Most, f not all of those kids should be sitting on the bench, clipboard in hand, learning how to play the game properly, instead of being thrown into the deep end without the proper tools.
I think that gets overblown to some extent in these conversations because there's basically never a time a defense is going to assume Mahomes or Allen won't go over the top.... I feel like "well enough" in this situation is like running for 8-10ypc for an extended period of time.
If you're averaging less than that, the defense is effectively meeting its goal of forcing you to sustain a long drive with lots of first downs and lots of chances to fuck up.
A good run game in this case is also exactly what you're looking for in the pass game against that defense... ~3-6 yard chunks.
And yeah, if a defense can make Mahomes look bad, about 30 other team are completely fucked at the quarterback position. [Reply]
If it's boring to other people, I don't give a shit. I have obsessed over them to an unhealthy degree my whole life and they're finally paying me back for that fidelity. [Reply]
The commercials, the wokeness, the fact that its on 3-4 days a week, and the fact that Im not 30 years old anymore have changed my NFL enjoyment for sure. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Bearcat:
I think that gets overblown to some extent in these conversations because there's basically never a time a defense is going to assume Mahomes or Allen won't go over the top.... I feel like "well enough" in this situation is like running for 8-10ypc for an extended period of time.
If you're averaging less than that, the defense is effectively meeting its goal of forcing you to sustain a long drive with lots of first downs and lots of chances to fuck up.
A good run game in this case is also exactly what you're looking for in the pass game against that defense... ~3-6 yard chunks.
And yeah, if a defense can make Mahomes look bad, about 30 other team are completely fucked at the quarterback position.
Yeah, in a few cases, like Mahomes and Allen, the defenses ignore runs.
But the question was about the NFL in general. And for the NFL in general, yeah it's boring, and the lack of a decent rushing attack appears to be a significant part of the problem. But if a team can generate a decent running game, defenses (not playing Mahomes/Allen/maybe Rodgers?) will drop a S into the box, leaving one side of the formation in 1v1 situations, that can be attacked. The problem seems to be that most NFL teams don't have a good running game, and then that issue is compounded by the relative lack of quality QB play at fundamental levels.
The article itself is a bit much, but some of the stats and what not are interesting...
Originally Posted by :
The league’s passing data through three weeks is indeed jarring—and not in a good way. This is the first time since 2008 that there have been fewer than 20,000 passing yards across the league through the first three weeks. Air yards per attempt are the lowest they’ve been since tracking began in 2006, sack rates are the highest we’ve seen this millennium, and the rate of completions over 20 yards hasn’t been this low since 2003. Only two quarterbacks are averaging at least 275 passing yards a game in the first three games (Brock Purdy and Dak Prescott), and there are only eight quarterbacks with five or more passing touchdowns.
Teams scored a total of just 215 touchdowns in the first three weeks—you’d have to go back to 2006 to find lower-scoring production through that point in the season.
Originally Posted by :
In recent seasons, instead of bringing heavy pressure, defenses are increasingly going the opposite way and playing much more split safety defense—zone coverages with two deep safeties, like quarters and Cover 2. Teams have played Cover 3 at less than a 40 percent rate on non-blitzing reps every season since 2020. This means we’re seeing fewer teams crowding the box to stop the run and more defensive schemes geared to take away intermediate and deep passes, giving corners and linebackers help over the top.
When defenses have played split safety zone shells (Cover 2, Cover 4, and even Cover 6 schemes), offenses have largely stopped trying to push the ball downfield. Quarterbacks are averaging just 6.7 air yards per attempt against these coverage shells, so ESPN’s Mina Kimes wasn’t lying when she recently called this year’s passers “checkdown artists.”
Originally Posted by :
Some of the experienced quarterbacks in the league have found a successful formula to attack split safeties. Joe Burrow, for example, has faced defenses that take every measure to keep the ball in front of them so they don’t get burned by Ja’Marr Chase, and he has responded by getting the ball out quickly and letting his receivers work in space. His average time to throw of 2.21 seconds against two-deep zone shells is the quickest in his career and fourth fastest among the 28 experienced quarterbacks in our sample. And even with this emphasis on the quick game, he’s still 11th in air yards per attempt (5.3) this season.
Lamar Jackson, meanwhile, has gone a different route, scrambling at the second-highest rate (11.5 percent) and holding the ball for 2.76 seconds on average (which ranks eighth) while pushing the ball farther downfield than Burrow (6.1 air yards per attempt).
Josh Allen, with an average time to throw of 2.94 seconds, is holding the ball even longer than all but one other starting QB this season but has yet to scramble against two-deep zones this season. It’s in his football DNA to throw deep, and he’s the only quarterback averaging more than 10 air yards against two-deep zones this year. Burrow, Jackson, and Allen each rank in the top five in success rate, and each does it in a different way.