NFL Analysis
10/31/24
2 min read
Ranking Every NFL Team By Yards Per Play Differential At 2024 Season's Halfway Mark
Throughout the NFL season, we will be looking at a key stat: Yards per play differential. This will help determine which teams are truly playoff contenders and which teams are not.
Yards per play differential takes the average number of yards a team gains on each offensive play and subtracts the average number of yards a team allows on defense. In other words, how far are you moving the ball, and how well are you preventing the other team from moving it?
Generally, it’s difficult for teams to make the playoffs with a negative differential. It has happened more as the playoffs have expanded, but the teams that do make it with a negative differential are usually bounced quickly.
Let's look at the updated rankings through eight weeks.
Yards Per Play Differential – Week 8
| Team | Off | Def | +/- | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baltimore | 7.11 | 5.76 | +1.35 | Sloppy play cost them 2 games. Best team when they play clean |
| San Francisco | 6.52 | 5.27 | +1.25 | Get McCaffrey, Greenlaw, Jennings back, Super Bowl possible |
| Green Bay | 6.10 | 5.36 | +0.74 | Doing this despite constant injuries to Jordan Love |
| Detroit | 6.26 | 5.56 | +0.70 | Need to push all in for either Myles Garrett or Maxx Crosby |
| Atlanta | 6.01 | 5.39 | +0.62 | Third down defense has improved drastically from first 4 games |
| Denver | 5.02 | 4.43 | +0.59 | Championship-caliber D. The question really is, “Buehler?” |
| Houston | 5.37 | 4.79 | +0.58 | Will Anderson is the stud we all thought he could be |
| Washington | 6.28 | 5.71 | +0.57 | It’s amazing how quickly they became better than Dallas |
| Philadelphia | 5.69 | 5.12 | +0.57 | Have made giant steps after Sirianni got back to being arrogant |
| Buffalo | 5.83 | 5.28 | +0.55 | Bit of cruising going on here. Must get amped down the stretch |
| Minnesota | 5.73 | 5.22 | +0.51 | Opps have run 68 more plays. Problem? Third-down offense |
| N.Y. Jets | 5.10 | 4.69 | +0.41 | Season botched by an owner who doesn’t understand football |
| Cincinnati | 5.67 | 5.34 | +0.33 | The throughline of Bengals history is about lost opportunity |
| Kansas City | 5.35 | 5.07 | +0.28 | 7-0 with Mahomes playing this bad. Yeah, 3-peat is very real |
| Tampa Bay | 6.10 | 5.95 | +0.15 | Good news: Baker Mayfield is real. Bad news: Defense is not |
| Seattle | 5.64 | 5.56 | +0.08 | Have come crashing back to Earth after early weak schedule |
| Pittsburgh | 5.20 | 5.26 | -0.06 | Back-to-back games with 400 yards of O for first time since 2018 |
| Indianapolis | 5.51 | 5.59 | -0.08 | Colts need to rethink how they are training Anthony Richardson |
| Arizona | 5.86 | 5.95 | -0.09 | Would have thought D would be better by now under Gannon |
| L.A. Chargers | 5.19 | 5.29 | -0.10 | Considering the teardown on O in offseason, Chargers are fine |
| Tennessee | 4.59 | 4.78 | -0.19 | Shouldn’t be 1-6, but 10 INTs by Levis/Rudolph kills everything |
| Jacksonville | 5.77 | 6.01 | -0.24 | Offensive numbers mitigated by second-worst D in the league |
| Miami | 4.87 | 5.31 | -0.44 | Can you really plan for the future with Tua as the QB? |
| Chicago | 4.73 | 5.27 | -0.54 | Offense has jumped after averaging 3.98 yards in first 4 games |
| Las Vegas | 4.71 | 5.27 | -0.56 | As the Talking Heads once sang, “Same as it ever was” |
| L.A. Rams | 5.23 | 5.79 | -0.56 | Rams are at that betwixt/between stage, which is just hell |
| Dallas | 5.18 | 5.95 | -0.77 | We all know about the D, but the O is absurdly bad |
| New Orleans | 5.17 | 6.09 | -0.92 | Ingram playing RB1 means Hill isn’t fully utilized as a weapon |
| New York Giants | 4.86 | 6.05 | -1.19 | This team is the worst version of a complete dumpster fire |
| Carolina | 4.86 | 5.95 | -1.09 | 9 games left to see if Bryce Young has a pulse |
| Cleveland | 4.27 | 5.43 | -1.16 | Good? 2 years left on Watson deal. Bad? $92M guaranteed |
| New England | 4.40 | 5.74 | -1.34 | Drake Maye looks decent. Rest of the team is super boring |
The Jets Made a Mistake
I said it at the time, and I’ll repeat it: New York Jets owner Woody Johnson completely botched this season because he has yet to understand how football works.
The decision to fire coach Robert Saleh after Game 5 this season will be one of Johnson’s great strategic failings. That’s saying a lot, considering that Johnson was so unimpressive when he bought the team in 2000 that Bill Belichick refused to work for him.
Having said that, this is not because Saleh is some great coach who is drastically misunderstood. This is not akin to Belichick getting fired in Cleveland. Frankly, Saleh is probably a lot closer to someone like Dick LeBeau as a head coach (great defensive coordinator, but not a head coach), but that’s beyond the point. The point is that Johnson overreacted to a 2-3 start and didn’t analyze the team's actual performance.
At the time and throughout the season, the Jets have been a positive team regarding yards per play differential. They stand at plus-0.41 for the season and were at plus-0.43 in the first four games with Saleh as coach. That’s good enough to be No. 12 in the league, and the Jets should be a playoff contender with that number.
Instead, they are riding a five-game losing streak, including all three since Johnson decided to jettison Saleh. At the time, Johnson said he thought the team needed a “spark.” Instead, Johnson used a fire hose to put out a matchstick.
During those three games, the Jets were listless in a close home loss to Buffalo, got overrun by Pittsburgh in the return of Russell Wilson, and bottomed out in a terrible loss to New England last Sunday.
Some overwrought Jets fans are calling the loss to the Patriots, who have a league-worst negative 1.34 yards per play differential, one of the worst in team history. Again, that is overwrought, but it is very much an indication of how frustrated they are after what they thought might happen.
The point is this: Johnson thought that the season was somehow in jeopardy after five games with Saleh when it was just in need of a tweak. The Jets were 2-3. They were soundly beaten in the opener at San Francisco. They lost a tough game to Denver (a better team than most people think) when they missed a field goal at the end. Then, there was another one-score loss to Minnesota (another good team) in London when QB Aaron Rodgers had only the fifth three-interception game of his career.
That was three losses to teams that rank in the top 11 of yards per play differential, including two losses by one score. Yes, the Jets were teetering. But the teeter was leaning more toward the good than the bad. There were mitigating circumstances when you also factor in that the Jets opened the season with three games in the first 11 days and had trips to San Francisco and London in the first five weeks.
Additionally – and importantly – the 40-year-old Rodgers was still in the early part of returning from a year layoff because of injury while still learning to play for a new team, given that he didn’t play his first season with the Jets.
This is the point when an owner should show restraint. The owner might want to snarl at some people and hold someone accountable. Offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett easily could have been fired. As it is, he relinquished play-calling duties.
But in the middle of a season when so many factors were pointing toward a correctable solution, firing Saleh was a sign of panic. Moreover, it was unfair. Saleh never got a real chance to coach a team with Rodgers after being saddled with Zach Wilson for his first three seasons. Sure, Saleh can take part of the blame for Wilson's selection, but he deserved at least a full season with Rodgers to see if he could take advantage of having a great quarterback.
Instead, Johnson made a snap decision that looked more like something from a young owner’s playbook. If Carolina owner Dave Tepper was in charge, you could see Saleh getting fired. When you have an owner who has been around for 25 years, he or she should know better. Or should have known enough to fire Saleh before the season started if they didn’t like how things were going.
The other downside to all of this is that Johnson (with the help of brother Chris, who was in charge while Woody was a U.S. ambassador under President Donald Trump) seems to be getting worse at being an owner. This season will likely mark the 15th straight that the Jets have missed the playoffs, even though they have had one winning season in that time.
The Jets made the playoffs six times in Johnson’s first 10 years. And while Johnson is certainly not the first owner to go backward in terms of achievement or even patience – Al Davis spent the final decade of his life watching the Raiders become futile as he went through coaches the way grocery stores go through bags – it is a sad reminder of the wisdom of the late Bryan Wiedmeier.
Wiedmeier was a long-time executive with both Miami and Cleveland. He was one of the league’s first salary cap experts and had great business sense. He dutifully helped several owners in his career but always realized that there was one giant flaw for people who buy NFL teams.
“Teams don’t come with owner’s manuals,” Wiedmeier said.
AR5 DOESN’T SHOOT STRAIGHT
To all the people who ripped Anthony Richardson for pulling himself out of a game for one play, here’s a quick story: In the 1997 season opener in Miami, Colts QB Jim Harbaugh took himself out in the second half of a close game. Harbaugh’s body was cramping up from the extreme heat in Miami.
Still, Harbaugh didn’t return to the game. No one in their right mind will ever question Harbaugh’s toughness or resolve. Richardson took one play off, and people are screaming that he might never play for the Colts again, which is idiotic.
The story's upshot is: Let’s not make too much of this incident. Furthermore, people who know Richardson know that he is a good, hard-working person. To this day, people from his hometown will tell you that Richardson was incredibly respectful in his interactions with others and put effort into his craft.
Most importantly, don’t let this odd incident distract from the greater issue.
Richardson may simply not be good enough, and the Colts need to do everything they can to find out and/or fix it. Through the first 10 games of his career, Richardson has thrown 217 passes and completed 50.2 percent. This season, he has regressed to 44.4 percent. That includes last Sunday when he bottomed out while completing 10 of 32 throws.
In today’s NFL, that’s unworkable. Richardson isn’t just inaccurate. He’s a mechanical mess on any intermediate throw. It’s almost embarrassing to watch. Yes, he can throw a great deep ball. But if you understand football, you know throwing deep is not that difficult. Yeah, it’s impressive a quarterback can let one fly, but it’s not a pass that requires great precision or reading ability. Find the guy who isn’t doubled, and let it fly.
Heck, Tim Tebow was a great deep thrower, and Tebow is one of the worst passers in the history of the NFL. But let’s not get sidetracked. Richardson’s issue is that he has no experience playing at this level. He missed most of his high school career with injuries, threw only 393 passes in college, and played full-time in only one season.
Richardson is simply not ready, and the question is how he gets ready. He really needs a developmental league, but the NFL doesn’t have one, and NFL teams have yet to create strong relationships with the array of offseason leagues that have sprouted over the years.
The Colts and Richardson face a far bigger conundrum than when he pulled himself out of a game. They need to find out if Richardson can develop, but the only way to do that is to let him struggle in real games.
Will Richardson's Benching Change QB Evaluations?
Quick Hitting Takes
- Baltimore is No. 1 again in yards per play differential. It’s fair to say that this is the best team in the NFL. But how can you say that when Baltimore is 5-3 and the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs are 7-0? Well, Baltimore’s three losses are by a combined 15 points. That’s four plays in a season that has featured 1,011 for the Ravens thus far. Before you Chiefs fans get all crazy on me, I only said it was “fair to say” that the Ravens are the best team. I didn’t say I think that. The Chiefs are the best, in my opinion, and for whatever that’s worth, especially considering Patrick Mahomes has yet to wake up and take this season seriously.
- On the subject of Richardson, Robert Griffin III had an interesting rant about how teams that draft quarterbacks like Richardson shouldn’t sign accomplished veteran quarterbacks like Joe Flacco to be the backup. RG3 argued that the temptation to play the accomplished vet when things go wrong is too strong. That is an interesting point, but I prefer to have the accomplished veteran quarterback who can serve as consiglieri to the young quarterback. When Dan Marino was getting started, he had veteran Don Strock as his backup. One day, after a rare bad game for Marino, the young and confident Marino was shocked by how awful the day had gone. Strock took that moment to look at Marino in private and say, “Man, that sucked!” It broke the ice for Marino and gave him one major bit of wisdom: This game is hard, even for superstars.
- Houston quarterback C.J. Stroud has, predictably, regressed in several areas this season after his fabulous rookie season. Stroud is down to averaging 7.3 yards per attempt from 8.2 yards per attempt as a rookie in 2023. His interception percentage is up to 1.5 per 100 throws. It was a 1.0 last season. But the most important thing is that Houston is averaging the exact same yards per play this season (5.37) as it did last season (5.37). The reason is that the running game has improved drastically in average yards per attempt (4.31 this season compared to 3.70 last season), and the number of attempts has marginally increased (26.6 to 27.5). In short, the Texans are becoming more balanced, and that’s a good thing overall.
- Dear Detroit GM Brad Holmes and coach Dan Campbell: It’s your big chance to win a title. If it takes two first-round picks to get Maxx Crosby or Myles Garrett, just do it. That’s how close you are to being a serious Super Bowl contender.
- For those of you who think the 49ers are done after all the injuries they’ve had, you might want to pump the brakes. But as mentioned in the chart, the 49ers could get Christian McCaffrey, Dre Greenlaw, and Jauan Jennings back. Moreover, it may be early, but rookie Ricky Pearsall looks like he might be the real deal as the 49ers look for a replacement for injured Brandon Aiyuk.
