Week 1 is officially in the books, and it was pure magic. We had two overtime games, some brilliant quarterback play from the game’s biggest stars, a handful of stunning upsets, and even a tie! It was the NFL we know and love; despite some horrendous kickers and some even worse head-coaching decisions, these past few days were extremely entertaining.
Now that the dust has settled, what can we actually learn from the opening week of football? Week 1 storylines often quickly fall flat on their face, and breakout or underwhelming performances need to be taken with a heavy grain of salt -- just this time last year, we thought Aaron Rodgers was cooked, before he went on to win his second MVP award in as many years. Still, there are trends I saw on Sunday that seem likely to stick around. Let’s discuss three of the biggest things I learned from Week 1.
It’s no secret that in today’s NFL, passing is king. There is still a place for run-heavy offenses, sure, but more often than not building your team around a stud big-arm quarterback will pay dividends. It should then follow that, as a defense, knocking said quarterback flat on their ass is a good strategy to slowing them down. To do that requires sending blitzes, right?
Wrong.
It may seem counterintuitive, but to slow down the best offenses and the alien freakshow quarterbacks such as Patrick Mahomes, a better approach may be to send lighter, more disguised pass rushes and instead put more bodies into coverage. Savvy defensive coaches are actually opting to play more nickel defense -- a package featuring five defensive backs on the field as opposed to the more conventional four -- and two-high safety looks in lieu of heavy blitzes.
Last season, the three teams who played the most nickel were Buffalo, Dallas, and Indianapolis. The former two of those teams finished first and second in dropback EPA/play, respectively, according to RBSDM. Indianapolis lagged behind, finishing 19th in that metric, though this could just have been a personnel problem. The Colts’ top cornerbacks last year were Kenny Moore II, Rock Ya-Sin, Isaiah Rodgers, and Xavier Rhodes; Moore is a solid starter, but Rodgers logged zero defensive snaps this week, Ya-Sin was traded to Las Vegas, and Rhodes remains a free agent after the team elected not to re-sign him.
In Super Bowl LV, the Buccaneers were able to dismantle the juggernaut Chiefs offense by sending little to no blitzes. As I noted in a piece from last season, Tampa Bay sent an extra rusher at their season-lowest 9.6% clip (just 5 of Mahomes’ 52 dropbacks) en route to the Lombardi Trophy. Their four-man rush was able to generate pressure on Mahomes on 16 of 46 dropbacks, where they earned all three of their sacks.
The Bills deployed this strategy on steroids last season in their dominant win over Kansas City in Week 5. They didn’t blitz Mahomes a single time on his 56 dropbacks and yet were able to force four turnovers and hold the Chiefs to 20 points.
This strategy appears to continue to be catching on this year, especially when deployed against huge-arm QBs and vertical offense. Buffalo served up another no-blitzing game against the Rams on Thursday night, and yet were able to hold Sean McVay’s team to 10 points (including a second-half shutout), and still pressured Stafford 15 times, notching seven sacks and three interceptions.
The Bills play the most nickel defense in the NFL. Photo from: Getty Images.
In fairness, Buffalo is an extreme example because their defense is just so stupidly stacked across the board, especially with the addition of Von Miller on the edge. They can afford to send four or even three pass rushers and still generate pressure, while not needing to worry about coverage breakdowns if the rushers don’t get home. According to Next Gen Stats, there have only been three instances of a team choosing to blitz zero times in a complete game since 2016, and all three of those instances were by Sean McDermott’s Bills.
Still, the merits of this approach are clear:
If you want to go against the grain and say, “to hell with analytics and hard data, I want to blitz the quarterback anyway to show the mathematicians who’s boss!”, then by all means, go for it! There’s a good chance you end up like the Cardinals, though, who blitzed Patrick Mahomes more times than he had ever faced in his career and promptly allowed him to have a 30/39, 360 yard, 5 TD/0 INT game.
Four of Mahomes’ touchdowns came on blitzes, and the Cardinals finished with zero sacks.
Heavy-blitz approaches can work against QBs who are not well-equipped to handle blitzes by nature. Think extremely raw rookies, or weak-armed or immobile quarterbacks. But those usually aren’t the signal-callers of dangerous Super-Bowl-aspiring teams, anyway. If you want to be the best, you’ll need to beat the best quarterbacks. So lay off the blitzes, everyone-- at least for a little while.
Justin Jefferson is Ready for Liftoff
Justin Jefferson’s inherent talent is undeniable. He torched anyone who had the misfortune of guarding him in college; in the College Football Playoff semifinal in LSU’s championship year, Jefferson put up 14 catches for 227 yards and 4 TDs against Oklahoma, with the fourth score occurring with more than nine minutes still on the clock in the second quarter.
He’s 6’1, 202lbs with a 33-inch wingspan and notched a 37.5” vertical and a 126” broad jump at the combine; all of these metrics line up closely with Davante Adams, save for the fact that Jefferson ran a much quicker 4.43 40-yard dash when compared to Adams’ 4.56 time.
Since entering the league, Jefferson has firmly established himself as a top-tier wideout, following up a 1400-yard, 7-TD rookie season with a 1616-yard, 10-TD sophomore season last year. In just two seasons, Jefferson already has two Pro Bowl nods and two All-Pro Second Team appearances under his belt.
Justin Jefferson has established himself as an elite wide receiver after two years. Photo from: USA Today Sports.
Still, something seemed to be holding him back from reaching his true potential as the best of the best in the NFL. Part of that is his rapport, or lack thereof, with quarterback Kirk Cousins, but the bigger issue was his coaching. The run-happy brain trust of Mike Zimmer and Klint Kubiak calling the shots during Jefferson’s young career has been much less than inspiring, and something needed to change. Enter Kevin O’Connell.
If you watched football last year, you were able to bear witness to one of the most astonishing breakout seasons by a wide receiver ever. Cooper Kupp, long known as a route-running technician but not an elite game-breaking talent turned into just that under the tutelage of O’Connell. Kupp was deployed in the slot on 87.2% of his plays to combat the rise of nickel defense in the league, and as a result of that, some creative playcalling, and phenomenal chemistry with Matthew Stafford, Kupp finished the season with the “Triple Crown”, leading the league in receptions, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns. The last player to do this was Steve Smith in 2005.
When lined up in the slot, Kupp saw a 23.8% increase in DVOA as opposed to when he lined up on the outside, according to Football Outsiders. Jefferson, however, lined up in the slot on only 47.6% of his snaps and strangely had a negative DVOA when lined up on the outside, at -9.0%. His DVOA when lined up in the slot was actually better than Kupp’s was last season, at 46.1% mark while Kupp’s sat at 32.8%.
All of this suggests that Jefferson is due for a massive season if O’Connell’s philosophies can be applied to him. Sometimes in the NFL, though, the best-laid plans go horribly awry, even if everything on paper makes perfect sense. It is a very volatile and often unpredictable sport, after all.
This is not one of those times. Jefferson erupted for nine catches, 184 yards, and two TDs against a quality Packers defense in Week 1 and at times was absolutely wide open, busting Green Bay’s zone defense with ease.
Combine Jefferson’s talent with the offensive schemes of Kevin O’Connell and this is the result you will see all season long. He was my preseason pick to win Offensive Player of the Year, and this may be the year he finally establishes himself as the best wideout in football.
Mike McCarthy is Holding the Cowboys Back
The Cowboys’ last two games of professional football have been nothing short of an abject disaster. To end their 2021 season on a miserable note, Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott bafflingly took off on a designed run play while trailing San Francisco in a Wild Card game with 14 seconds on the clock and zero timeouts. Predictably, the Cowboys ran out of time before they could execute another play, and they promptly exited in the first round of the playoffs.
Dallas then had an uninspiring offseason, trading away star WR Amari Cooper for peanuts and refusing to bolster the position even with second-choice wideout Michael Gallup still recovering from an ACL injury. They also cut starting right tackle La’el Collins and let key free agents Connor Williams, Randy Gregory, and Cedrick Wilson all walk. They had a good-not-great draft and watched divisional rival Philadelphia have a masterclass of a summer, to boot.
On Sunday, the Cowboys came out limp in their home opener on Sunday Night Football, losing 19-3 to Tampa Bay. Dallas mustered only 244 total yards, and Prescott looked dreadful, posting a 14/29, 134-yard night with 0 TDs and an interception, before leaving with a thumb injury that might send him to the injured reserve list.
It was pretty much the worst-case scenario for the Cowboys, and besides Prescott’s injury, Dallas’ many failures start and end with head coach Mike McCarthy.
Dallas HC Mike McCarthy is under pressure to deliver this season. Photo by: Tom Pennington/Getty Images.
Dallas was the most-penalized team in football last year, drawing a whopping 127 flags. They also had the most penalties committed in home games last year with 73. This worrying trend continued into their dismal opening game as the team committed 10 penalties for a loss of 73 yards. This shocking lack of discipline cost the team dearly, and the responsibility for these mistakes falls squarely on the coaching staff.
The Cowboys were also horrendous on third down -- often a good predictor for the success of a team in any given game -- as they went 3-15 in such situations. The team had zero trips to the red zone across the entire game, failed to find a use for star WR CeeDee Lamb, and saw their running backs average 3.75 yards per rush. The only bright spot for Dallas was Micah Parsons and the defense, as Parsons logged two sacks and the team held Tom Brady to just 19 points and one touchdown.
The defense, however, is called by coordinator Dan Quinn and not Mike McCarthy. At this point, I am confused as to what McCarthy is actually supposed to be good at. He famously held Aaron Rodgers back throughout many of his prime years, is notoriously bad at time management in games, and cannot discipline his team to avoid penalties. Worse still, he shows little willingness to play a progressive brand of football on the offensive side of the ball, despite that being one of his selling points to Jerry Jones when he got the job in the first place.
I am not entirely sure why McCarthy remains the team’s head coach in favor of Dan Quinn, who has had more recent success as a head coach and is the mastermind of the defensive side of the ball that has been Dallas’ strength. I would bet on McCarthy getting fired during the course of this season, though Prescott’s injury may grant him some undeserved leniency from Jerry Jones (again). ■
Now that the dust has settled, what can we actually learn from the opening week of football? Week 1 storylines often quickly fall flat on their face, and breakout or underwhelming performances need to be taken with a heavy grain of salt -- just this time last year, we thought Aaron Rodgers was cooked, before he went on to win his second MVP award in as many years. Still, there are trends I saw on Sunday that seem likely to stick around. Let’s discuss three of the biggest things I learned from Week 1.
To Blitz or Not To Blitz?
It’s no secret that in today’s NFL, passing is king. There is still a place for run-heavy offenses, sure, but more often than not building your team around a stud big-arm quarterback will pay dividends. It should then follow that, as a defense, knocking said quarterback flat on their ass is a good strategy to slowing them down. To do that requires sending blitzes, right?
Wrong.
It may seem counterintuitive, but to slow down the best offenses and the alien freakshow quarterbacks such as Patrick Mahomes, a better approach may be to send lighter, more disguised pass rushes and instead put more bodies into coverage. Savvy defensive coaches are actually opting to play more nickel defense -- a package featuring five defensive backs on the field as opposed to the more conventional four -- and two-high safety looks in lieu of heavy blitzes.
Last season, the three teams who played the most nickel were Buffalo, Dallas, and Indianapolis. The former two of those teams finished first and second in dropback EPA/play, respectively, according to RBSDM. Indianapolis lagged behind, finishing 19th in that metric, though this could just have been a personnel problem. The Colts’ top cornerbacks last year were Kenny Moore II, Rock Ya-Sin, Isaiah Rodgers, and Xavier Rhodes; Moore is a solid starter, but Rodgers logged zero defensive snaps this week, Ya-Sin was traded to Las Vegas, and Rhodes remains a free agent after the team elected not to re-sign him.
In Super Bowl LV, the Buccaneers were able to dismantle the juggernaut Chiefs offense by sending little to no blitzes. As I noted in a piece from last season, Tampa Bay sent an extra rusher at their season-lowest 9.6% clip (just 5 of Mahomes’ 52 dropbacks) en route to the Lombardi Trophy. Their four-man rush was able to generate pressure on Mahomes on 16 of 46 dropbacks, where they earned all three of their sacks.
The Bills deployed this strategy on steroids last season in their dominant win over Kansas City in Week 5. They didn’t blitz Mahomes a single time on his 56 dropbacks and yet were able to force four turnovers and hold the Chiefs to 20 points.
This strategy appears to continue to be catching on this year, especially when deployed against huge-arm QBs and vertical offense. Buffalo served up another no-blitzing game against the Rams on Thursday night, and yet were able to hold Sean McVay’s team to 10 points (including a second-half shutout), and still pressured Stafford 15 times, notching seven sacks and three interceptions.
The Bills play the most nickel defense in the NFL. Photo from: Getty Images.
In fairness, Buffalo is an extreme example because their defense is just so stupidly stacked across the board, especially with the addition of Von Miller on the edge. They can afford to send four or even three pass rushers and still generate pressure, while not needing to worry about coverage breakdowns if the rushers don’t get home. According to Next Gen Stats, there have only been three instances of a team choosing to blitz zero times in a complete game since 2016, and all three of those instances were by Sean McDermott’s Bills.
Still, the merits of this approach are clear:
If you want to go against the grain and say, “to hell with analytics and hard data, I want to blitz the quarterback anyway to show the mathematicians who’s boss!”, then by all means, go for it! There’s a good chance you end up like the Cardinals, though, who blitzed Patrick Mahomes more times than he had ever faced in his career and promptly allowed him to have a 30/39, 360 yard, 5 TD/0 INT game.
Four of Mahomes’ touchdowns came on blitzes, and the Cardinals finished with zero sacks.
Heavy-blitz approaches can work against QBs who are not well-equipped to handle blitzes by nature. Think extremely raw rookies, or weak-armed or immobile quarterbacks. But those usually aren’t the signal-callers of dangerous Super-Bowl-aspiring teams, anyway. If you want to be the best, you’ll need to beat the best quarterbacks. So lay off the blitzes, everyone-- at least for a little while.
Justin Jefferson is Ready for Liftoff
Justin Jefferson’s inherent talent is undeniable. He torched anyone who had the misfortune of guarding him in college; in the College Football Playoff semifinal in LSU’s championship year, Jefferson put up 14 catches for 227 yards and 4 TDs against Oklahoma, with the fourth score occurring with more than nine minutes still on the clock in the second quarter.
He’s 6’1, 202lbs with a 33-inch wingspan and notched a 37.5” vertical and a 126” broad jump at the combine; all of these metrics line up closely with Davante Adams, save for the fact that Jefferson ran a much quicker 4.43 40-yard dash when compared to Adams’ 4.56 time.
Since entering the league, Jefferson has firmly established himself as a top-tier wideout, following up a 1400-yard, 7-TD rookie season with a 1616-yard, 10-TD sophomore season last year. In just two seasons, Jefferson already has two Pro Bowl nods and two All-Pro Second Team appearances under his belt.
Justin Jefferson has established himself as an elite wide receiver after two years. Photo from: USA Today Sports.
Still, something seemed to be holding him back from reaching his true potential as the best of the best in the NFL. Part of that is his rapport, or lack thereof, with quarterback Kirk Cousins, but the bigger issue was his coaching. The run-happy brain trust of Mike Zimmer and Klint Kubiak calling the shots during Jefferson’s young career has been much less than inspiring, and something needed to change. Enter Kevin O’Connell.
If you watched football last year, you were able to bear witness to one of the most astonishing breakout seasons by a wide receiver ever. Cooper Kupp, long known as a route-running technician but not an elite game-breaking talent turned into just that under the tutelage of O’Connell. Kupp was deployed in the slot on 87.2% of his plays to combat the rise of nickel defense in the league, and as a result of that, some creative playcalling, and phenomenal chemistry with Matthew Stafford, Kupp finished the season with the “Triple Crown”, leading the league in receptions, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns. The last player to do this was Steve Smith in 2005.
When lined up in the slot, Kupp saw a 23.8% increase in DVOA as opposed to when he lined up on the outside, according to Football Outsiders. Jefferson, however, lined up in the slot on only 47.6% of his snaps and strangely had a negative DVOA when lined up on the outside, at -9.0%. His DVOA when lined up in the slot was actually better than Kupp’s was last season, at 46.1% mark while Kupp’s sat at 32.8%.
All of this suggests that Jefferson is due for a massive season if O’Connell’s philosophies can be applied to him. Sometimes in the NFL, though, the best-laid plans go horribly awry, even if everything on paper makes perfect sense. It is a very volatile and often unpredictable sport, after all.
This is not one of those times. Jefferson erupted for nine catches, 184 yards, and two TDs against a quality Packers defense in Week 1 and at times was absolutely wide open, busting Green Bay’s zone defense with ease.
Combine Jefferson’s talent with the offensive schemes of Kevin O’Connell and this is the result you will see all season long. He was my preseason pick to win Offensive Player of the Year, and this may be the year he finally establishes himself as the best wideout in football.
Mike McCarthy is Holding the Cowboys Back
The Cowboys’ last two games of professional football have been nothing short of an abject disaster. To end their 2021 season on a miserable note, Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott bafflingly took off on a designed run play while trailing San Francisco in a Wild Card game with 14 seconds on the clock and zero timeouts. Predictably, the Cowboys ran out of time before they could execute another play, and they promptly exited in the first round of the playoffs.
Dallas then had an uninspiring offseason, trading away star WR Amari Cooper for peanuts and refusing to bolster the position even with second-choice wideout Michael Gallup still recovering from an ACL injury. They also cut starting right tackle La’el Collins and let key free agents Connor Williams, Randy Gregory, and Cedrick Wilson all walk. They had a good-not-great draft and watched divisional rival Philadelphia have a masterclass of a summer, to boot.
On Sunday, the Cowboys came out limp in their home opener on Sunday Night Football, losing 19-3 to Tampa Bay. Dallas mustered only 244 total yards, and Prescott looked dreadful, posting a 14/29, 134-yard night with 0 TDs and an interception, before leaving with a thumb injury that might send him to the injured reserve list.
It was pretty much the worst-case scenario for the Cowboys, and besides Prescott’s injury, Dallas’ many failures start and end with head coach Mike McCarthy.
Dallas HC Mike McCarthy is under pressure to deliver this season. Photo by: Tom Pennington/Getty Images.
Dallas was the most-penalized team in football last year, drawing a whopping 127 flags. They also had the most penalties committed in home games last year with 73. This worrying trend continued into their dismal opening game as the team committed 10 penalties for a loss of 73 yards. This shocking lack of discipline cost the team dearly, and the responsibility for these mistakes falls squarely on the coaching staff.
The Cowboys were also horrendous on third down -- often a good predictor for the success of a team in any given game -- as they went 3-15 in such situations. The team had zero trips to the red zone across the entire game, failed to find a use for star WR CeeDee Lamb, and saw their running backs average 3.75 yards per rush. The only bright spot for Dallas was Micah Parsons and the defense, as Parsons logged two sacks and the team held Tom Brady to just 19 points and one touchdown.
The defense, however, is called by coordinator Dan Quinn and not Mike McCarthy. At this point, I am confused as to what McCarthy is actually supposed to be good at. He famously held Aaron Rodgers back throughout many of his prime years, is notoriously bad at time management in games, and cannot discipline his team to avoid penalties. Worse still, he shows little willingness to play a progressive brand of football on the offensive side of the ball, despite that being one of his selling points to Jerry Jones when he got the job in the first place.
I am not entirely sure why McCarthy remains the team’s head coach in favor of Dan Quinn, who has had more recent success as a head coach and is the mastermind of the defensive side of the ball that has been Dallas’ strength. I would bet on McCarthy getting fired during the course of this season, though Prescott’s injury may grant him some undeserved leniency from Jerry Jones (again). ■
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