Advanced Data Shows NFL Teams Need To Throw It Deep More Often This Season

Getty Image / Joe Sargent

Now more than ever before, NFL teams are incredibly risk-averse in the passing game, avoiding costly interceptions at all costs. A big part of that are passes behind the line of scrimmage that coaches claim are really an extension of the run game.

But, new data from last year’s season shows that teams may be thinking about the passing game entirely wrong, and that they need to be much more aggressive.

On the surface, screen and quick-hitting passes behind the line of scrimmage seem to be effective plays. There’s low risk of an incompletion, interception, or sack, and on early downs can pick up yards that are increasingly harder to find in the run game. Plus, it can get the ball to playmakers in space where they can make guys miss and maybe spring a big play.

But, new data by NFL data guru Warren Sharp shows that no team had a positive EPA on passes at or behind the line of scrimmage. EPA is an offensive efficiency measure that measures how much a play added probability of points.

Even the best teams in the quick game, the Chiefs and 49ers, were still in the negatives for the season on passes behind the line of scrimmage!

That’s not to say that these kinds of passes never work. Obviously, they do work sometimes. But, it shows that teams need to be more aggressive throwing the ball down the field this year, for a variety of reasons.

The most obvious and rudimentary reason to throw the ball down the field is that deep passes pick up more yards. But, they do more than just that. Even if you’re not consistently completing downfield shots, it opens up the running game by forcing teams to play two high safeties more often, taking money out of the box. And, when corners have to back off a little bit, that will open up the quick game to be more efficient.

NFL offensive coordinators, the data is simple. Chuck it deep.