Most NFL teams have now played six games, which means we are more than one-third of the way through the 2021 regular season. Six games is still a rather small sample size, but it's enough action to look at some early trends around the league. Some things in the NFL are just as we expected, but other metrics have given us surprising results so far in 2021.
Aaron Rodgers is struggling with passing under pressure, Tom Brady looks to be improving against the blitz, and the Cowboys' offense in the red zone is suboptimal. Did you know the Eagles are the most-penalized team in the league? Or that the Seahawks have just one dropped pass this season? What do these stats mean for teams going forward? It could be something, or it could be a mirage that requires a bigger sample -- but it certainly is interesting.
Below, we explore these topics and look at surprising trends for each of the NFC teams (in alphabetical order) using a mix of stats from Football Outsiders and ESPN Stats & Information, then explain what it means for the rest of the season. Next week, we'll do the same for the AFC.
Jump to a team:
ARI | ATL | CAR | CHI
DAL | DET | GB | LAR
MIN | NO | NYG | PHI
SF | SEA | TB | WSH
Arizona Cardinals (6-0)
Pass rush
What's surprising about the Cardinals' pass rush is not how good they have been this season, but rather how mediocre they have been given how good their defense is as a whole. The Cardinals currently rank second in defensive DVOA, trailing only the Buffalo Bills. From the outside, it sure seems like the pass rush is a big part of that. That's been the storyline since the first week of the season, when Chandler Jones dominated the game with five sacks in a 38-13 win over Tennessee. In fact, the Arizona pass rush has been the biggest story on the defense since the offseason, when the Cardinals signed J.J. Watt to play alongside Jones.
So it's surprising that the Arizona pass rush is actually not driving their defensive success. Yes, the Cardinals have a lot of sacks -- fifth in the league with 17 sacks so far. But there has been less consistent pressure than that sack total would suggest. The Cardinals rank 13th in pressure rate (31.1%) according to ESPN Stats & Information. They rank just 21st in pass rush win rate (40%). The pass rush was supposed to be the best part of the defense, but surprisingly, Arizona's early success has come more because of pass coverage and run defense.
The bad news for Arizona is that pressure rates are more consistent over time than sack totals. It is more likely that Arizona's pass rush will continue to be average and the sack rate will go down than it is that the Arizona pass rush will improve to have a top-five pressure rate that matches its sack total.
Atlanta Falcons (2-3)
Special teams
Based on Football Outsiders metrics, the Falcons so far have the worst special teams in the NFL. That's a surprise, because Younghoe Koo was touted before the season as one of the best kickers in the NFL. Koo has been above average on field goals, but the Falcons have really had problems with both kickoffs and punts.
Less than half of Atlanta's kickoffs have been touchbacks, which is a problem when you play home games in a dome stadium. Atlanta has allowed a 101-yard kickoff touchdown to DeAndre Carter of Washington plus a 65-yard return by Tevin Coleman of the Jets. The Falcons are also our No. 31 team in punt value, with only seven of 22 punts landing inside the 20 with just one inside the 10. The good news for the Falcons is that special teams is less consistent than offense or defense, so there's a good chance that they can reverse the poor special teams play and be at least average for the rest of the season. They've already made a change at punter, with Dustin Colquitt coming in to replace the injured Cameron Nizialek.
Carolina Panthers (3-3)
Preventing passes to running backs
So far this season, Carolina has the best defense in the league against passes to running backs. In part, you can thank the speed of linebackers Shaq Thompson and Jermaine Carter Jr.. Carolina has given up just 16 receptions to running backs for 71 yards. Only two of those plays gained first downs. The Panthers have allowed a catch rate of 67% to running backs compared to a league average of 78%. Even Alvin Kamara had just 25 receiving yards against them in Week 2.
This will be a positive factor in some upcoming games for the Panthers, as they play a number of teams that are heavily dependent on passes to running backs. That includes Atlanta (Weeks 8 and 14) with Cordarrelle Patterson and Washington (Week 11) with J.D. McKissic. Then at the end of the season, Carolina plays Tampa Bay twice in three weeks. All three of those opponents rank in the top five for receiving yardage by running backs so far this season.
Chicago Bears (3-3)
The Bears are a team that tends to leave cornerbacks on sides, with Johnson playing right cornerback (the offense's left side). The Bears rank fourth in DVOA on passes to the left side, compared to 26th on passes to the middle and 22nd on passes to the right. Sports Info Solutions has charted Johnson as allowing just a 36% completion rate in coverage and only 6.5 yards per target. The Bears certainly know what kind of breakout season Johnson is having and hope the 2020 second-round pick can continue to keep it up throughout the rest of the season.
Dallas Cowboys (5-1)
Red zone offense
The Cowboys have one of the most powerful offenses in the league, ranking fourth in DVOA. But they keep getting bogged down in the red zone. DVOA, analyzing every play, ranks them just 30th in the league inside the 20. They're a little better when it comes to raw red zone conversion rate, but still just 25th in the league with 56.0% of their red zone drives turning into touchdowns.
The good news for the Cowboys is that red zone performance tends to regress to match the rest of a team's performance. Considering how good the Cowboys are on offense otherwise, it's very likely their performance in the red zone will improve in the future.
Detroit Lions (0-6)
First-down defense
You are probably surprised to learn that the Lions have done anything right this season, given that they are winless. But even bad teams have good splits, and one of the good splits for the Lions is that they are shockingly strong against the pass on first downs. The Lions rank fourth in DVOA against the pass on first downs -- despite the fact that they have no turnovers on first-down pass plays. They rank fifth with just 5.4 net yards allowed per pass.
Just as clouds have silver linings, however, this silver lining has a number of clouds attached to it. First of all, that pass defense on first down is a massive outlier compared to how the Lions play on second and third down. Their DVOA ranks 29th on passes on second down and 27th on passes on third down. The Lions allow an average of 10.2 net yards per pass on second down or later -- no other defense in the league is higher than 8.8 net yards per pass. It's very unlikely that the Lions will continue to play that well against passes on first down given how they play against all other passes.
Green Bay Packers (5-1)
Passing under pressure
Aaron Rodgers is currently last in the league with 2.5 QBR under pressure. He averages just 0.14 yards per dropback under pressure, compared to a league average of 3.57 yards. In particular, he is not hitting downfield passes, with just 7.9 yards per completion under pressure compared to a league average of 12.8 yards. Rodgers is also historically an excellent scrambler, but he's scrambling roughly half as often as he did in past years.
The good news here for Green Bay fans is that quarterback performance from a clean pocket is much more consistent than quarterback performance under pressure. Rodgers' struggles under pressure this season do not necessarily indicate that he'll be this bad for the rest of the year. And from a clean pocket, Rodgers leads the league with an 83.6 QBR this season. He also led the league in QBR from a clean pocket in 2020. Last season, he ranked 12th under pressure (27.5 QBR) instead of dead last. The return of key players in front of Rodgers should help in this area -- especially All-Pro left tackle David Bakhtiari, who is returning to practice for the first time since tearing his ACL last season.
Los Angeles Rams (5-1)
Performance in late and close situations
Based on DVOA, the Rams have been the best team in the league this season in late and close situations on both offense and defense. "Late and close situations" are defined here as any play in the second half or overtime when the score is within eight points. This probably isn't telling us anything on defense, where we're talking about a very small sample of just 29 plays. (Every other defense except Denver has at least 50 plays in these situations; somehow Denver has only six.) On offense, we're talking about a larger sample of 79 plays. The Rams have an offensive DVOA of 84.1% in late and close situations, compared to 22.4% (third in the league) overall.
Minnesota Vikings (3-3)
Pass rush
The Vikings are tied for the NFL lead with 21 sacks but, as with Arizona above, other statistics suggest that their pass rush will not be able to keep up that sack pace over the entire year. The Vikings are 14th in the league with a 30.0% pressure rate and 25th in the league with a 38% pass rush win rate. These metrics are more consistent and predictive than raw sack totals.
New Orleans Saints (3-2)
Offensive line
What's interesting about New Orleans is how important the offensive line has been to the success of the running game. Football Outsiders uses a metric called adjusted line yards, which splits runs at certain distances to get a better idea of where the gains come from blocking compared to where they come from running backs in the open field. The Saints rank fifth in adjusted line yards this season, and they rank first in the fewest runs where running backs are stuffed for a loss or no gain, just 9% of carries.
However, the Saints aren't getting yards from long runs. They rank just 21st in second-level yards, which are yards that come between 5 and 10 yards from the line of scrimmage. And they are dead last in open-field yards, which is the yards that come over 10 yards past the line of scrimmage. Only one three Saints runs this season have gone over 11 yards. Also interesting is that this is one place where the Football Outsiders stats and the ESPN Stats & Information metrics diverge. Analysis of Next Gen Stats info puts the Saints only 21st in run block win rate, although left tackle Terron Armstead does lead the league with the highest run block rate as a tackle.
New York Giants (1-5)
First-quarter defense
The Giants' defense is stalwart at the start of games, ranking sixth in DVOA in the first quarter. Then things fall apart, and the Giants rank 30th in defense from the second quarter onward, ahead of only Jacksonville and Kansas City. This is one of those weird splits that's more interesting than predictive. It probably doesn't say anything real about the Giants, and there's no indication that quarter-by-quarter splits for defenses represent anything other than random variation.
Philadelphia Eagles (2-4)
Penalties
The Eagles lead the NFL in penalties this season, and by a good amount. They have 54 total penalties accepted, with no other team over 47 so far. There are a couple of silver linings, however. First, the Eagles are not quite as high when it comes to penalty yardage. A lot of their penalties have only been for five yards, and they have only one defensive pass interference flag that went for more than six yards. So the Eagles are only seventh with 382 penalty yards. The other piece of good news is that history shows essentially no correlation between penalty totals at the start of the season and penalty totals for the rest of the year. So there's nothing that says that the Eagles will be penalty-prone for all of the 2021 season.
San Francisco 49ers (3-3)
Defense on shorter passes
The official NFL play-by-play splits passes into "deep passes" and "short passes," with the separation coming at 15 air yards. And the San Francisco 49ers are consistently better against short passes than they are against deep passes, particularly when compared to the rest of the NFL. This season, the 49ers rank third in DVOA against short passes compared to 23rd against deep passes. Last season, the 49ers ranked fourth against short passes compared to 20th against deep passes. In their 2019 Super Bowl season, the 49ers ranked second against short passes compared to 10th against deep passes.
Seattle Seahawks (2-4)
Dropped passes
The Seahawks have only one dropped pass all year according to ESPN Stats & Information research. It was by DK Metcalf at the start of the fourth quarter in the Week 4 victory over the San Francisco 49ers. The problem is that there's not a lot of stickiness to the numbers on dropped passes. Dropped passes in the past don't tend to predict dropped passes in the future, so there's no real indication that sure hands so far this season will mean sure hands for the rest of the year.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (5-1)
Tom Brady against the blitz
It used to be that the book against Brady was the same as the book against a lot of the league's top quarterbacks: Don't blitz. Play coverage and make him check to run plays or throw underneath. That was the way to at least keep your team in the game against Brady's New England Patriots.
Around 2018, that started to change -- maybe not the strategy opponents used, but the strategy that worked. In 2018, Brady ranked 16th in the league with 66.6 QBR against the blitz. In 2019, his last season with New England, that dropped all the way down to 43.4 QBR, which was 28th in the league against the blitz. Even in Tampa Bay last season, Brady rebounded against the blitz but not to the levels he saw earlier in his career when he would destroy opposing blitzes. In 2020, he had 75.2 QBR against the blitz, which ranked 13th in the NFL. And overall, he was dismal against pass pressure, ranking just 30th with 4.8 QBR when pressured.
This season, Brady has fully come back against the blitz. He has a QBR of 82.6, which ranks eighth in the league. And he's up to 52.7 QBR when pressured, which is seventh. Those rankings are much more in line with how well Brady plays against a standard pass rush of just four. Since performance against pressure is a lot less consistent than performance against a clean pocket, it makes a lot more sense that Brady will continue to be a top-10 quarterback against the blitz going forward, because he's a top-10 quarterback overall.
Washington Football Team (2-4)
Offensive line
There's been so much attention paid to the decline of the Washington defense this season that you may not realize what a great season Washington is having on the offensive line. Washington leads the NFL with a 78% run block win rate, and the gap between Washington and second-place Philadelphia is equal to the gap between Philadelphia and the league average. Washington also ranks third in pass block win rate, trailing only the Browns and Rams.
All the linemen are contributing. Center Chase Roullier leads the NFL in run block win rate at his position. Brandon Scherff ranks second among guards, and Ereck Flowers is sixth. Sam Cosmi is third among tackles. Veteran left tackle Charles Leno Jr. is the only Washington lineman who doesn't appear among the run block win rate leaders, but instead he ranks third among tackles in pass block win rate. Washington also ranks third in stuff rate for running backs, just 13% of carries, and third in adjusted sack rate.