Football Film Room Weekly Newsletter
Week of July 24
This week at Football Film Room…
What to Make of Aaron Rodgers' 2022 Season
Whatever metrics you choose to rely on, there is no doubt that Aaron Rodgers’ performance dropped off in 2022. He posted career lows in passer rating and QBR. He also posted the second-worst PFF grade of his career.
Some perspective is needed here, however. This drop-off was in relation to the high standard Rodgers had set during his previous 14 years as a starter. While he ranked 27th in the NFL with a 39.3 QBR last season (just above Zach Wilson at 36.5, which makes you wonder about the validity of that metric), he also managed to rank 15th in passer rating and 12th in PFF’s QB grading.
So the big question here is, what should we make of his performance last season? And what does it mean for 2023 with the Jets… [Click here to read the rest]
Tendency-Breaking Routes
The quest of offensive playcallers to find new ways to get their receivers open is never-ending. Unfortunately, there are only so many routes and route combinations to run. NFL defenders and defensive coordinators have seen most, if not all, of them.
Therefore, it’s critical for OC’s to be able to dress up the same plays differently with a variety of formations, alignments, and motions to keep the defense from anticipating the right concept. We’ve written about this before (Post-Wheel, Spin-Dig). It’s also important to be able to do the opposite and run various plays out of the same formations.
Another essential tactic for any playcaller is the ability to understand his team’s tendencies and find the right moments to break them. This can be done as a result of great self-scouting or from deliberately setting up certain tendencies just to pull the rug out from under the defense at the right moment… [Click here to read the rest]
The Correlation Between Defensive PPG and QB Super Bowl Rings
In this age of advanced metrics, analytics, and fancy-sounding acronyms, sometimes the simplest numbers tell the story.
One place where that appears to be the case is in the relationship between the number of Super Bowl rings a quarterback has and how good his defense is. This seems like something that should be pretty straight forward. It’s tough for any quarterback to win a championship (or multiple championships) if he doesn’t have a good team around him, and specifically, a good defense.
In that respect, if we were looking for the one non-offensive metric that means the most to a quarterback’s ability to win games, it’s hard to think of one more meaningful than points allowed… [Click here to read the rest]
Don’t forget to check out Gameplan Central - the section of Football Film Room dedicated to breaking down the many ways NFL coaches design plays and attack their opponents.
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