Stat Analysis

Base defenses continue to be comically misnamed, as nickel remains the standard NFL defense. Will dime packages be then next big thing? Will the defensive coordinator musical chairs change much in 2019? And is base actually better than nickel, after all?

It's well known that football coaches are too conservative on offense, but are they overly conservative on defense too? Guest columnist John Shirley breaks down the results of Cover-0 blitzes and finds that they're not nearly as risky as you might think.

The never-ending march of 11 personnel continues, as Sean McVay ponders if a team could go an entire year without substituting.

The best defensive playmaker of last year has been terrorizing the NFC South for a long, long time. Other standouts include L.A.'s Defensive Player of the Year (of course) and New York's dominant young safety.

Our annual look at YAC+ reveals an unlikely new team atop the all-time leaderboards. Plus, a good year for rookie receivers, a weakness in the Seattle passing game, and a Farewell to Gronk.

What happens when one quarterback dominates a stat so thoroughly? Well, what happens is that his receivers also tend to dominate it.

Drew Brees continues to dominate passing plus-minus.

Our look at last season's interception luck tells us that Patrick Mahomes and Derek Carr are likely to throw more picks this season, while Baker Mayfield and Tom Brady (yes, Tom Brady) should throw fewer.

In the second half of our series on NFL injuries in 2018, we break things down by position groups. Injuries to quarterbacks, running backs, and linebackers are down. Injuries are way up everywhere else, and in the defensive backfield, they are unprecedented.

Our first look at injury data from the 2018 season reveals some plain truths: injuries are on the rise; Washington and Jacksonville had historically bad luck on offense last year; and no team we've ever analyzed has suffered more injuries on defense than last year's Buccaneers.