Stat Analysis

Thanks in large part to the selection of Oklahoma wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, the Dallas Cowboys were the darlings of the 2020 draft, but will their players prove to be successful? Guest columnist Benjamin Robinson looks back at five years of draft grades to see if they have any value. Do teams with higher grades end up with better players? And are some media members better than others at evaluating each team's haul?

Our look at receivers on specific routes reveals some surprises. Michael Thomas was not great at everything. Teams are calling more in-breaking routes such as digs and drags. And two routes look to be dying out: the wide receiver screen (hooray!) and the go/fly (boo!)

Offenses that pass the ball well are usually good at rushing the ball well too. The relationship is pretty clear, but the reasons are not fully explained. Guest columnist Lau Sze Yui explores a few hypotheses and suggests that offensive linemen are the driving force behind both.

Our list of players we expect to outperform their average position in fantasy drafts includes Joe Mixon of the Cincinnati Bengals, Dak Prescott of the Dallas Cowboys, and Keenan Allen of the Los Angeles Chargers.

Our look at slot versus wide DVOA concludes with some promising numbers for Minnesota and Denver, a potential area for regression from the Super Bowl champs, and a colossal small-sample-size DVOA number.

The 2019 season in a nutshell: the Lions didn't blitz anybody, the Buccaneers blitzed everybody, and the Ravens really loved to use blitzes out of the secondary.

Players expected to go too high in fantasy drafts this season include veterans such as Rob Gronkowski and Jason Witten, but also youngsters such as A.J. Brown and Nick Chubb.

Our annual look at slot/wide splits finishes with the bigger receiving targets. Should running backs such as Christian McCaffrey be treated like wide receivers? Why does Tarik Cohen keep putting up so much negative value? And how wide should you let Travis Kelce, George Kittle, and Jared Cook roam?

The New England Patriots and San Francisco 49ers had the best defenses in 2019, and as you might expect, pass pressure played a big role in the success of both teams ... but for very different reasons. The Dolphins, meanwhile, were bad.

Jimmy Garoppolo led the league in throwing to the slot, Dak Prescott lapped the field going out wide, and Matt Ryan had bizarre splits as our look at slot versus wide performance in the passing game continues.