NFL

Each Saturday this season "NFL Week X" has been trending if you go to the search tab on Reddit. This is typically reserved for trending news stories that are gaining traction. Not much is happening in the NFL today.

NFL Week 8 is the top trend if you look at the search tab right now. I can't think of another reason for it to be the top trend other than the NFL paying Reddit for the exposure to gain viewership on Sundays. Do you think this is accurate or am I off base?

The Diamondbacks being in the World Series had me thinking…

What if in the NFC you had a team like the Falcons go 9-8 with a -10 point differential to win the NFC south. They shock the world and make their way through the NFC playoffs by beating the Cowboys at home, somehow shocking the Eagles on the road and then getting matched up with a wild card Seahawks team that upset division rival 49ers in the divisional round. They beat Seattle in a close game in Atlanta to punch a ticket to the SB.

They go and face a 15-2 Chiefs team that is top 5 on offense and defense and has a +200 point differential. Patrick Mahomes looks as unstoppable as ever down the stretch of the regular season and postseason and KC blows their way through the Bills/Bengals to reach the SB.

What is the point spread in that Super Bowl?

Speed: Lamar Jackson

Arm Strength: Josh Allen

Accuracy: Patrick Mahomes

Leadership: Drew Brees

Clutch Factor: Tom Brady

Build: Cam Newton

in Europe we move the clocks back tonight in a few hours, but in North America they don't do it for another week so every game for the next week is going to be an hour earlier in Europe :)

and then for Sunday in week 9 it's back to normal

Lots of QBs have had narratives of only having wide open targets to throw to and being turnover machines (no this piece totally has nothing to do with it, no reason to ask) but are they really accurate? To unfortunately steal a line from Buzzfeed, numbers one and two may shock you!

INT% is self-explanatory. It is the percentage of dropbacks in which the QB throws an INT on the box score. TWP stands for Turnover Worthy Play, a stat that measures plays where a QB SHOULD have thrown a pick but a defender dropped it, and discounts passes that are based on a lot of luck such as batted and tipped passes that get picked off as well as passes that go through receiver's hands. Simply put, INTs are box score stats, TWPs are film stats.

Some of the differences are substantial here. Some are expected, and some can completely turn narratives. On the chart, a negative differential means a QB is unlucky and a positive differential means the QB is lucky.

Something to note is that some players might have some variance due to how many fumbles they have due to TWPs counting fumbles as well, but there are significantly more INTs + dropped INTs in general. Ranks would be moved a bit as a result but you'd still be able to figure out the general range of a QB. A player won't go from 5 to 30 just because of fumbles.

My general takeaways would be that the turnover machine Josh Allen ain't much of one anymore based on film as opposed to the box score. Fields strikes me as more of a "can't throw a pick if your misses are so bad they're away from everyone" type (I'll admit as a Bills fan I have no real desire to watch a ton of Bears film so I could be wrong here), but better incomplete passes than interceptions. The Jones duo ain't doing so hot with both of them being low on both rankings. Goff and Cousins are very impressive with both categories by high with not much difference. Burrow being as middling as he is this year is more due to him not having as many high end plays as opposed to him messing up that badly. And uh...I promise this wasn't another Purdy is overrated post. Can't say I'm stunned by the result though.

Was listening to Schraeger on Bill Simmons and Bill asks him why offenses look so bad, his reply is bad QB play and bad Oline play.... to me it is the complete opposite

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What has the most common NFL pass play been since the start of the 2022 season? QB drops back, finds no one open down field, dumps it off to a back or a tight end who leaked out way in front of the sticks and they cross their fingers he can break a few tackles and get the first down

In the past few weeks alone think of how many times you have seen teams get to the red zone, qb's have all day, and then they take a sack or throw the ball out of the end of the end zone because nobody got open

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So my question is.... what have they learned over the past couple of years? It really seemed to start in 2021 when teams started playing KC passively with 2 deep safeties on every drop back, then Lou pulled out the drop 8 in the 2nd half of the AFC Championship game and it seems to have spread all across the league

But... it isn't like this is the first time anyone has thought 'don't give up big plays' and 'keep receivers in front of you' so why has it become so effective?

As a casual observer without all 22 there is only so much I can see... but one thing I feel like I am seeing is maybe they are just way way better at passing off receivers from one area of a zone to another... sort of a Temple style zone with man to man principles (shout out to Bill Raftery)

So instead of in a cover 2 the corner jamming the receiver and then there being a huge chunk of space between where the corner covered him to where the safety would pick him up now it feels like maybe the corner is sticking with him like its man and there is a smooth transition to the safety picking him up, very little window between the change

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Anyone else noticing anything else? By the way this wasn't meant to be a shot at Simmons or Schraeger... I consume a lot of NFL media content and its not like anyone else has brought this up

So, here's the math on going for 2 when down by 14

Obviously, if you think that math can't capture the realities of the game, that coaches should trust their players and go with their guts, then fine. This post isn't going to change your mind, you can skip it. But for anyone who's interested in looking at the probabilities, here they are

Let's assume a 100% chance of converting the extra point and a 50% chance of converting the 2pt (the real numbers are more like 95% and 48%, but we're simplifying just to illustrate the point)

Let's also assume that you're going to score two TDs while stopping the other team from scoring. Because obviously if you can't do that, you lose the game regardless

So we break it down:

Option A Kick the XP both TDs:

• 100% chance of going to overtime

Option B Kick the XP first, then go for 2 on the second TD:

• 50% chance of winning in regulation, 50% chance of losing

Option C Go for 2 on the first TD:

• Scenario 1 (50% chance), you convert. Then on the next drive, you score the TD and kick the XP: 100% chance of winning
• Scenario 2 (50% chance), you fail to convert. Then on the next drive, you score the TD and go for 2: 50% chance of succeeding (overtime); 50% chance of losing
• So, Option C has a total outcome of 50% chance of winning, 25% chance of overtime, 25% chance of losing

To put it together:

• Option A, 100% overtime
• Option B, 50% win, 50% lose
• Option C, 50% win, 25% lose, 25% overtime

Obviously, Option C is better than Option B. And between Option A and Option B . . . well, that's the coach's decision. If you think you have the better roster, Option A looks fine. But I can see plenty of situations, such as the Buccaneers playing the Bills, where Option C looks pretty good to me

Even if you drop the probability of converting the 2pt to 40%, and keep the XP at 100%, Option C still comes out at 40% win, 36% lose, 24% overtime. There's absolutely still an argument for going for that over Option A, 100% overtime--hell, even if you assume a 50% chance of winning in overtime (and if I were the Bucs playing the Bills, I wouldn't assume that) it still comes out to 52% chance of winning, 48% chance of losing

So yeah, if you think that math can't capture what happens on the field, then sure, perfectly reasonable point of view. I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise. In fact I'm not arguing myself that coaches should blindly follow the percentages--hell, the baked-in assumption here was that you were going to score TDs on consecutive drives and force a 3-and-out in between. If you think your team can do that, maybe you're feeling pretty good about overtime

Just pointing out that, based on the probability alone, going for 2 when down by 14 makes sense a lot of the time