Quick Reads: 2020 in Review

With the regular season in the books and 256 NFL games finished, it's time to look back at the best and worst players of 2020. The best players include a quarterback who has already won an MVP award in both the regular season and the Super Bowl; a running back who has shown a rare ability to produce on the ground and in the air; a wide receiver who once looked like a bust but has developed into the dominant player at his position; and a tight end who already had a strong Hall of Fame resume and somehow played better than ever at age 31.

QUARTERBACKS

Analysis: In three years as a starting quarterback, Patrick Mahomes has now finished first, second, and first in passing DYAR. He is the sixth quarterback since 1985 to finish in the top two at least three times and in first place at least twice. The others: Dan Marino, Steve Young, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and Drew Brees. Mahomes only turned 25 in September, so we'll probably be talking about him in this space for years to come.

Aaron Rodgers has never finished first in passing DYAR, but he has now finished second three times: behind Brees in 2011 and Ben Roethlisberger in 2014, and now behind Mahomes.

While Mahomes has done things no other quarterback has done at so young an age, Tom Brady is doing things no quarterback has ever done so old. There have now been 61 touchdowns thrown by players in their age-43 seasons or older -- 40 by Brady, 21 by every other human being ever. Brady's stubborn refusal to submit to the corrosive effects of middle age have left him within shouting distance of a mark once thought unreachable: Peyton Manning's career total of 26,290 passing DYAR. Brady now sits at 25,742 passing DYAR, only 549 DYAR back. To put that number into perspective, Baker Mayfield finished 16th with 545 DYAR in 2020. Drew Brees is in third place at 23,692, but he'll need at least two more years to catch Manning, and the gap between himself and Brady is growing.

In Houston, Deshaun Watson had one of the best seasons you'll ever see from a quarterback on a horrible team. The Texans finished with a total DVOA of -12.5%, but a pass offense DVOA of 24.1%. Coming into this year, only 11 teams had posted a total DVOA of -10.0% or worse with a pass offense DVOA of 20.0% or better:

• Warren Moon's Oilers and Dan Marino's Dolphins in 1989;
• Jim Everett's Rams in 1990 and 1992;
• Jake Plummer's Cardinals in 2001;
• Kyle Orton's Broncos in 2010;
• Drew Brees' Saints and Philip Rivers' Chargers in 2015;
• Jameis Winston's Buccaneers in 2017 and 2018;
• and Derek Carr's Raiders in 2019.

There were actually two teams that crossed those thresholds in 2020: Watson's Texans, and Justin Herbert's Los Angeles Chargers. As you have probably heard, Herbert set a rookie record with 31 passing touchdowns this season. DYAR was not quite as impressed -- Herbert averaged a mediocre 7.3 yards per pass -- but he still finished with 861 passing DYAR. Since 1983, only five rookies have been better:

• Dak Prescott, DAL, 2016, 1,302 DYAR
• Matt Ryan, ATL, 2008, 1,012 DYAR
• Ben Roethlisberger, PIT, 2004, 908 DYAR
• Dan Marino, MIA, 1983, 885 DYAR
• Russell Wilson, SEA, 2012, 872 DYAR

Analysis: We discussed Carson Wentz's horrible season in detail after Week 13; he was benched after that and has not played since. And yet, despite being shelved for a quarter of the season, he still led the league with 50 sacks taken, and tied Denver's Drew Lock for the league lead with 15 interceptions thrown. Only two other quarterbacks have ever led the NFL in both categories in the same season -- Detroit's Jon Kitna in 2007 and Jacksonville's Blake Bortles in 2015 -- and they both needed 16 games to get there.

Putting Wentz's historic ineptitude aside for the moment, we see that this list is comprised entirely of teams from the NFC East and the New York Jets, which sure sounds a source of the worst football on earth. Alex Smith is going to win Comeback Player of the Year, and he's going to deserve it, but that shouldn't stop Washington from looking to upgrade in the offseason. Dwayne Haskins, of course, has already been axed. Sam Darnold is likely to be replaced by the second pick in the draft. Also in New Jersey, the struggles of Daniel Jones somewhat flew under the radar this year, but it's worrying that he only threw 11 touchdown passes in 14 games. There were 10 quarterbacks who played fewer games this year than Jones but threw more touchdowns, including such non-luminaries as Andy Dalton, Drew Lock, Nick Mullens … and Carson Wentz.

Better Than His Standard Stats Made Him Look: Drew Lock, DEN

First we must point out that "better" does not mean "good." Drew Lock was a bad starting quarterback this season, but not quite as bad as his NFL passer rating of 75.4 would have you believe. He certainly had his struggles -- we already mentioned that he led the league in interceptions, and his completion rate of 57.3% was last among qualifiers -- but he was able to stay upright and hit the occasional big play, ranking in the top 10 in both yards per completion and sack rate. He was 33rd among qualifiers in passer rating, but 28th with a DVOA of -16.2%.

Worse Than His Standard Stats Made Him Look: Gardner Minshew, JAX

Quarterbacks such as Minshew play like they were designed in a laboratory to produce inflated passer ratings. Constantly looking for the checkdown, they manage to rack up completions while avoiding interceptions, but they lack the physical tools needed to hit deep shots downfield or avoid sacks. Minshew was 17th in passer rating, but just 27th in DVOA.

Most Improved: Josh Allen, BUF

Ahem:

Biggest Decline: Carson Wentz, PHI

It's obvious that Wentz suffered the biggest decline in 2020, but pretty surprising that he was not close to the biggest decline of all time. He fell from 531 total DYAR in 2019 to -718 this season, a decline of 1,250 DYAR. The ignominious record belongs to Minnesota's Daunte Culpepper, who went from 1,943 total DYAR in 2004 to -155 in 2005, a drop of 2,098.

(By the way, nobody's talking about Lamar Jackson, but his total DYAR fell from 1,532 to 334, a drop of -1,199 that was nearly as big as Wentz's.)

Rushing: We wrote this about Kyler Murray's rushing numbers after Week 9:

Since Murray and the Cardinals have played exactly eight games this season, we can conveniently double his current numbers and say he is on pace for 1,110 yards and 16 touchdowns -- the quarterback records of 1,229 yards ([Lamar] Jackson, 2019) and 14 touchdowns (Cam Newton, 2011) are both in jeopardy. We can also see Murray's pace of 23.0 DYAR per game; if he can maintain that rate, he will pass Randall Cunningham's all-time mark of 297 DYAR in Week 14 against the Giants. Of course, maintaining that rate would be a very difficult feat, but given Murray's game-to-game consistency and the number of games left to play, it's more likely than not that he'll break Cunningham's record before all is said and done.

Oops.

Murray finished with 819 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns, finishing second among quarterbacks behind Lamar Jackson (1,005 yards) and Cam Newton (12 touchdowns). Murray did finish first with 184 rushing DYAR … but that's actually less than he had after Week 9. Murray had 3 rushing DYAR in Week 10, then had negative DYAR six times in his last seven games. Through Week 9, Murray was averaging 69.4 yards per game and 7.9 yards per carry with 189 total DYAR; after that point, those numbers fell to 34.9 yards per game, 5.2 yards per carry, and -4 total DYAR. I'm not telling you that the defensive coordinators of the NFL all got together in November and read Quick Reads and realized that if you contained Murray's rushing, the Cardinals were much easier to beat … but I'm not saying that didn't happen either.

For the record, Ben Roethlisberger was last with -49 rushing DYAR. Three of his nine non-kneeldown rushing plays this season were fumbles on aborted snaps.

Schedules: In Week 15 we noted that Philip Rivers had benefitted from one of the easiest schedules on record. Rivers has since played one game against the Steelers (the best pass defense in the league) and one against the Jaguars (the second-worst). He finished the year 1,025 YAR but 765 DYAR; that gap of 260 DYAR means he played the third-easiest schedule since 1985.

Carolina's Teddy Bridgewater finished with 248 YAR but 446 DYAR; that gap of 198 tells us he played the most difficult schedule in the league. That will happen when you get two games each against the Saints and Bucs. (Atlanta's Matt Ryan had the next-most difficult schedule among full-time starters.)

RUNNING BACKS

Analysis: It was a big year for running backs -- Derrick Henry's total of 386 rushing DYAR is the best in a single season since Adrian Peterson had 458 in 2012 with Minnesota. (And that's despite playing a very easy schedule -- Henry lost 75 DYAR due to opponent adjustments.) Second-place Dalvin Cook would have led the league in three of the last five years. Nick Chubb finishes in third place despite missing four games -- that's what happens when you run for a dozen touchdowns and average 5.6 yards per carry. Aaron Jones missed two games himself, but still rushed for a career-high 1,104 yards and 5.5 yards per carry.

Alvin Kamara leads all runners in both receiving and total DYAR. This is the 14th time that the running back leader in receiving DYAR has also made the top five in rushing DYAR. Kamara also did it back in 2017. (Marshall Faulk did it every year from 1998 to 2001.) Kamara's receiving numbers have been frighteningly consistent -- in four NFL seasons, he has now caught 81, 81, 81, and 83 passes -- but he set career-highs on the ground this season with 932 yards and 16 touchdowns.

If you read our Decade in Review series over the offseason, you know that Philip Rivers had a long history of using running backs as effective receivers with the Chargers. Well, Rivers is in Indianapolis now, and he immediately took Nyheim Hines -- who had negative receiving DYAR in 2019 -- and made him a weapon. Kareem Hunt has always been an effective receiver -- this is his third season in the top 10 in receiving DYAR -- but neither Myles Gaskin nor Chase Edmonds has ever gotten the 25 targets needed to qualify for our tables before.

Analysis: Joshua Kelley is a fourth-round rookie out of UCLA whom the Chargers used in relief of Austin Ekeler, Kalen Ballage, and Justin Jackson. He did not start ahead of any of those men, which is not a good sign. He had 12 games with at least one carry and finished with negative DYAR in nine of them. In three games from Week 2 to Week 4, he ran 40 times for 114 yards (a 2.9-yard average) with two fumbles.

Benny Snell averaged 3.3 yards per carry and Duke Johnson 3.1, so they fit right in here. But what about Phillip Lindsay, who averaged 4.3 and still has never fumbled in three NFL seasons? Lindsay was a boom-and-bust runner -- his success rate of 40% was worst among qualifiers this year. He also played a very easy schedule, with 46 of his 118 carries coming against the Chiefs or Patriots, the two worst teams this year in run defense DVOA. As for Josh Jacobs, we'll get to him later.

At one point this year, Tampa Bay's Ronald Jones was threatening the record books for worst receiving numbers by a running back, but he was saved from that fate by catching a 37-yard touchdown pass against Kansas City in Week 12; that play by itself was worth 25 DYAR. Jones wasn't even the worst receiving back this year; that honor instead goes to Denver's Melvin Gordon. In his last eight games, Gordon caught only 12 of 17 passes for 71 yards.

We also see that Derrick Henry's skills as a runner do not translate to the passing game. He joins Emmitt Smith in 1992, Jerome Bettis in 1996, and Rudi Johnson in 2005 as players with at least 300 rushing DYAR but less than -50 receiving DYAR.

Better Than His Standard Stats Made Him Look: Darrell Henderson, LAR

Henderson ranked 34th among running backs in yards from scrimmage, but seventh in total DYAR. That's mostly due to his reliability as a runner, where ranked 11th in success rate without a fumble. He was especially effective on first-and-10, where he averaged 5.0 yards on 77 carries. He also faced a very tough slate of opposing defenses -- 105 of his 138 carries came against teams in the top half of the league in run defense DVOA, including the Seahawks and 49ers twice each.

Worse Than His Standard Stats Made Him Look: Josh Jacobs, LV

Jacobs was ninth in the NFL with 1,303 yards from scrimmage, but had negative rushing DYAR and total DYAR. Jacobs suffered the biggest penalty in opponent adjustments of any runner this year -- in other words, he faced the easiest schedule of any running back in the NFL. Just look at his opponents: 16 carries against New England, the worst run defense in the league! 40 against Kansas City, second-worst! 40 more against the Chargers, 26th! 36 against Denver, 25th! Add in games against Buffalo, Carolina, Cleveland, Miami, and we find that nearly 80% of Jacobs' 273 carries this year came against teams in the bottom half of the league in run defense DVOA. And he still averaged less than 4.0 yards per carry.

Most Improved: Alvin Kamara, NO

From 162 total DYAR in 2019 to 449 in 2020. In addition to his previously mentioned career-bests, Kamara's 1,688 yards from scrimmage and league-leading total of 21 touchdowns were also personal highs.

Biggest Decline: Ezekiel Elliott, DAL

Mathematically, Carolina's Christian McCaffrey and Baltimore's Mark Ingram suffered bigger drop-offs than Elliott, but that's mostly because they missed 13 and five games, respectively. Elliott only missed one game, but still posted the worst marks of his career in rushing yards (979), yards per carry (4.0), yards per game (65.3), and yards per catch (6.5), while tying a career high with six fumbles.

WIDE RECEIVERS

Analysis: Five years ago in this space, we listed Green Bay's Davante Adams as the worst overall wide receiver in football. He was better after that, ranking in the teens for three years in a row, then fell back to 31st last year, in part because he missed four games. But everything came together in 2020 -- he was first in the league with 18 touchdown catches and 98.1 yards per game, and he topped all wide receivers in receiving DYAR despite missing two games. He certainly finished strong -- in his last two games of the year, against playoff teams in Tennessee and Chicago, he caught 17 of 18 passes for 188 yards and four touchdowns.

Kansas City's Tyreek Hill was "only" seventh in receiving DYAR, but he climbs up to second place when you include his 73 rushing DYAR for his 13 carries for 123 yards and two touchdowns. We discussed Justin Jefferson's monstrous rookie year in Week 6. In the end, his mark of 374 receiving DYAR is fifth in rookie history behind Michael Thomas, Randy Moss, Odell Beckham, and Michael Clayton; however, he joins Thomas and Moss as the only wideouts to finish second in this category in their rookie seasons. Stefon Diggs had the best year of his career after being traded to Buffalo, leading the NFL in both catches (127) and receiving yards (1,535). Mike Evans' secret weapon was his ability to draw pass interference flags -- he led all receivers with nine, and the 171 yards gained on those plays was second only to the 185 of Pittsburgh's Chase Claypool.

Analysis: If this is it, what a sad ending for A.J. Green in Cincinnati. His mark of -173 DYAR is in the bottom 10 on record (Chris Chambers standard of -294 with Miami in 2006 remains untouched). He had five games this year with at least one target but no catches, including an 0-for-6 performance in Week 17 against Baltimore. And no, he's not just here because Joe Burrow was injured -- he had -154 DYAR on 76 targets from Burrow, -19 DYAR on 32 targets from other Bengals quarterbacks.

In Denver, Jerry Jeudy's rookie season was quite a disappointment. His 92-yard touchdown catch against the Raiders on Sunday was the longest passing play of the year, but that one catch produced more than 10% of his yardage (and one-third of his scores) all season. Meanwhile, he led all players with 61 incomplete targets. Jeff Smith, who started four games for the Jets, managed to catch fewer than half his targets while averaging less than 10.0 yards per reception; only one other player in the league did that on more targets than Smith's 37, but we'll get to him in the tight ends section. Two years after the Patriots drafted him in the first round, N'Keal Harry has failed to stick in the starting lineup -- which says a ton considering the dearth of other options in Foxborough. Trent Taylor combines some of the worst elements of Smith and Harry -- he's also a member of the sub-50%/sub-10.0 club, and he did so even though he was an afterthought on the 49ers' wide receiver depth chart.

Better Than His Standard Stats Made Him Look: Will Fuller, HOU

Fuller only caught 53 passes this year, barely making the top 50 … but he was eighth in DYAR. He had a catch rate better than 70% and still averaged 16.6 yards per catch, while scoring eight touchdowns in only 11 games.

Worse Than His Standard Stats Made Him Look: Diontae Johnson, PIT

Johnson was in the top 15 with 88 catches, but he had -75 DYAR and almost qualified for the bottom-five table we listed above. When you only average 10.5 yards per reception, you need to catch more than 61.1% of your targets. Johnson also had 23 failed receptions; only three players had more.

Most Improved: Nelson Agholor, LV

Oh, how painful it must have been for Eagles fans to see Agholor thriving in the desert. In five seasons in Philadelphia, Agholor finished with negative DYAR four times. Yes, he won a Super Bowl in midnight green, but his lasting legacy in the City of Brotherly Love is as the personification of a failure to catch things:

In Las Vegas, though, Darren Waller's presence as a possession receiver has freed Agholor to be a deep-ball specialist, the role he was born to play. Agholor's average target depth of 16.4 yards was most of any player with at least 70 targets; his 244 DYAR on deep balls was second only to Justin Jefferson.

Biggest Decline: Michael Thomas, NO

I try to avoid listing players here who were injured (or suspended), but Thomas' struggles this season go far beyond the nine games he missed. All of his per-game and rate stats (11.0 yards per catch, 5.7 catches per game, 62.6 yards per game, 72.7% catch rate) were career lows, and he failed to cross the goal line even once after scoring 32 touchdowns in his first four seasons. He fell from 525 total DYAR in 2019 to only 42 this year.

TIGHT ENDS

Analysis: We covered Kelce's dominant season in Week 14. In the end, he failed to break Rob Gronkowski's DYAR record or become the first tight end to lead the NFL in receiving yards … but he is the first tight end to lead the league in receiving DYAR despite sitting out Week 17.

Darren Waller led all tight ends with 107 catches. George Kittle's highlight was his 15-catch, 183-yard day against Philadelphia in Week 4 … which, accounting for full-season opponent adjustments, was only 71 DYAR, barely in the top 20. And in L.A., Tyler Higbee's steady climb continues. He has now gone from 46th in DYAR as a rookie in 2016 to 36th, 16th, 11th, and now fifth, even as everything else in the Rams offense has slipped a bit.

Analysis: Once upon a time, all the great tight ends had names that started with "G" -- Gonzalez, Gates, Graham, Gronkowski. Apparently, the letter "E" is a cursed sigil for the position, as we have not just an Ertz and an Eifert, but even the unfortunately alliterative Eric Ebron and Evan Engram. There is also Cole Kmet, who has "E" in both his first and last name. (You have no idea how badly I wanted Kmet's middle name to be Emmitt or Ephraim or Erasmus or something, but apparently he doesn't even have one.) The worst was Ertz, the aforementioned player in the sub-50%/sub-10.0 club with more targets than Smith. Ebron's collapse was synchronous with that of the Pittsburgh offense as a whole, though it remains to be seen how much of his struggles were the cause and how much were the effect. Engram actually led the Giants with 109 targets, and that right there tells you a lot about why the Giants went 6-10 and missed the playoffs. Kmet did not lead the Bears in targets -- he wasn't even their top tight end -- but you're not going to have good statistics when you average 8.7 yards per catch. (You'll recall that Deshaun Watson averaged 8.9 yards per throw.) Tyler Eifert is kind of the reverse version of Davante Adams, going from first at the position in 2015 to (almost) last in 2020.

(Fun fact: If you consider New Orleans' Taysom Hill a tight end, as he was listed to start the year, he would have qualified for this table. His DYAR numbers: -5 receiving, 2 rushing, -69 passing, -72 total.)

Better Than His Standard Stats Made Him Look: Robert Tonyan, GB

Tonyan, a third-year pro out of Indiana State, rose from obscurity to become an elite red zone target. He's the first player in six years with at least 11 touchdown catches but fewer than 600 receiving yards. He was 13th with 52 catches, but second with 243 DYAR, which would have been enough to finish first in 2018 or 2019. His DVOA of 51.9% was best for a tight end since 2010 (when three players topped it).

Worse Than His Standard Stats Made Him Look: Evan Engram, NYG

Engram caught 63 balls for New York; only four tight ends this season had more. But he was first in incomplete targets and in failed completions while finishing just eighth in yards, and he only scored one touchdown.

Most Improved: Robert Tonyan, GB

In 11 games in 2019, Tonyan caught 10 passes for 100 yards and one touchdown. The year before that, he had a 4-77-1 statline in 16 games. Yes, this breakout was unexpected. His DYAR jumped from 11 to 243.

Biggest Decline: Zach Ertz, PHI

Just two years ago Ertz set a tight end record with 116 catches, and he had 88 more the next year. Granted, we listed him as our tight end who was Worse Than His Standard Stats Made Him Look both years, but at least he was doing something. This year, he only had 72 targets in 11 games, turning that into a 36-335-1 statline.