The biggest story through the first two weeks of the 2024 NFL season is the massive step backward taken by offenses. In a league that has been dominated by offenses and seen a scoring explosion in recent seasons, defenses are fighting back — and succeeding in their efforts to do so.
Teams are averaging just 21.4 points per game to date, and it’s the continuation of a downward trend that has seen scoring dip from a peak of 24.8 per game in 2020 and a three-year period where the average was over 23 per game. Total yardage is down as well, with teams averaging 318.5 yards per game compared with 331.6 last year, a peak of 359 in 2020, and a three-year period where the average was more than 340. And it’s not just about pace: yards per play are down, as are points per drive. Defenses really are winning the battle right now. (In relative terms, at least.)
Much of the offensive backslide has been attributed to an increase in “two-high” coverages, with split safeties covering the deep part of the field to try and eliminate big plays and instead force offenses to matriculate the ball downfield. And that is certainly a factor. You can see in the data from Tru Media that teams are playing Cover-2, Cover-4 and Cover-6 significantly more often than in the recent past.
20193.3%29.7%10.4%31.6%10.1%6.3%26.8%20203.9%25.4%10.6%32.8%11.6%7.0%29.2%20214.1%22.5%11.4%34.2%11.5%8.2%31.1%20223.5%19.8%11.4%36.5%12.8%8.3%32.5%20234.1%19.0%10.5%35.6%14.2%9.5%34.2%20243.9%20.9%10.7%33.7%15.4%8.5%34.6%
But more than just the rise of those coverages, and the light boxes (i.e. six or fewer defenders in the box) that tend to accompany them, it is the effectiveness of those tactics relative to years past that is the real story.
It wasn’t all that long ago that NFL offenses had just as much success against two-high coverages as they did against single-high. In 2019, they were nearly as successful against Cover-2…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/whats-really-behind-the-nfls-offensive-struggles-through-two-weeks-and-how-they-can-be-fixed/
Author : Jared Dubin
Publish date : 2024-09-18 15:13:34
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