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If you ask the average NFL fan if the league is passing-friendly and offense-friendly right now, I think they’re likely to say yes. But, quietly, the league has seen defenses have a bit more success the past few years.
On Sunday, that improvement was impossible to ignore. Across the 13 games played on Sunday, the league’s passing games were largely unproductive as defense reigned supreme.
First off, let’s look at the stats from Week 1’s games, not including the yet-to-be-played Monday Night Football game between the 49ers and Jets.
Net passing yards average across NFL in Week 1 since 2000: pic.twitter.com/tViBRWvsB4
— Marcus Mosher (@Marcus_Mosher) September 9, 2024
Week 1 NFL passing touchdowns
2019 : 61
2020: 52
2021: 61
2022: 51
2023: 37
2024: 33**Pending MNF
— Steve Palazzolo (@StevePalazzolo_) September 9, 2024
That’s a pretty significant decline. And, if you’ve been on social media yesterday or today, you’ve probably seen a lot of talk about how bad quarterback play was around the league. Make no mistake, it was truly bad. Quarterbacks combined for 22 interceptions along with those numbers above, and completion percentage and passer rating was also low. Ten starters completed less than 60% of their attempts, and 15 had a passer rating of under 90. A majority of quarterbacks also had a QBR under 50.
It wasn’t that long ago when the passing game felt unstoppable league-wide. Clearly, that’s not the case anymore. But why have things changed so drastically?
Those in the NFL ecosphere have a few hypotheses as to why this is happening. The first and most obvious one is that the league is simply short on talented quarterbacks. There are definitely studs at the top like Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen, and some good players past them. But, it seems like a lot of the league has a lot of teams with unsettled quarterback situations in terms of having an established franchise quarterback.
Another reason why the passing game may be struggling is that the athleticism gap between the league’s defensive linemen and offensive linemen has grown to be pretty big. Frankly, there seem to be more guys built to rush the passer effectively than there are guys built to block them. Last night’s Rams-Lions game was a big example of this. Once RT Joe Noteboom went out with an injury, his backup had no chance to block Lions DE Aidan Hutchinson.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Aidan Hutchinson vs. LA's backups was a massacre. One of the best pass rushing performances you'll ever see <a href=”https://t.co/CVK7ICWBE9″>pic.twitter.com/CVK7ICWBE9</a></p>— James Foster (@NoFlagsFilm) <a href=”https://twitter.com/NoFlagsFilm/status/1833198281301667877?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>September 9, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
Those kind of mismatches happen every week during the league. Starting offensive linemen can sometimes hold their own against defensive lines. But, an injury or two to the offensive line, and the pass protection gets pretty shaky very quickly.
Teams have also started to employ a different kind of pass coverage, called “match”. Not to get too far into the X’s and O’s weeds here, but teams are playing a lot of man-zone hybrid coverage where players start out in zone defense and then run with receivers once they enter their coverage areas with man principles. This has been a revelation for NFL defenses, and offenses haven’t quite caught up to it yet.
Ultimately, it’s Week 1. There are 256 more games to be played after this week. But, right now, passing success is way down around the league.