After a couple of years in the dark, I am excited to be pushing work back out to this site. New football season is always a fun time of year.
Here are a couple things I will be monitoring as the season progresses:
Team run defense
There has been a lot of discussion on the increasing importance of the run game as teams increase defensive focus on stopping the pass with increasing rates of two-high coverages.
Based on Dallas’ position on this chart- high stuff rate with a below-average DVOA after playing Philadelphia in week 1, I’m interested in creating a sneak-adjusted stuff rate (a “successful” quarterback sneak or tush push converting a 4th & 1 would still go down as a run stuff).
I’ll share progress on that as the season continues.
Under center dropbacks
Several of my favorite podcasts- The Athletic Football Show, Football 301, and others mentioned to watch out for more under center dropback passes with no play action this season. I’ll be studying these plays to see when it succeeds and why it fails.
In 2024, per FTN charting, 2.78% of passes were under center and did not include play action.
Through Week 1 in 2025, that jumped up to 3.39%! It’ll be interesting to see if this holds.
Matthew Stafford with 3 step dropbacks from under center in the year 2025
— Nate Tice (@natetice.bsky.social) September 8, 2025 at 4:34 PM
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Code to generate the figures in this post can be found on the topfiftyone github repository
Cap figures courtesy of overthecap.com
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