I also think bad analytics has had a part to play in this. There are so many data guys, especially from an econ background, desperate to be the one to apply sabermetrics to football but failing to understand why it is doomed.

Compared to baseball, football seasons are far too short and football plays have far too many dimensions of freedom. Have only 16/17 games compared to 162 games a season means you have ⅒th of the sample data size to run regression models on and the likelihood of introducing systematic biases is huge.

Similarly, in baseball your single play is an individual pitcher versus an individual batter and there are much fewer degrees of freedom: the ball has to be pitched inside a small box, there are a very limited number of ways a non-foul hit can go, and a very small discreet number of outcomes.

In football, you have the entire offensive and defensive scheme to consider, with players moving anywhere in a 2D field, as well as consideration of separation, matchups, etc. Boiling all that down to a decision to run, pass, punt, kick and noting the field position, distance and down simplifies a ton of variables and who knows what that overlooks and oversimplifies?

With all that in mind, analytics in football is hard and the conclusions can be very oversimplified. It feels like the trend thanks to analytics and usage of stats like EPA etc has led coordinators to trend towards two big shifts:

1. Passing more often
2. Going for it on 4th down more often

The problem I feel is happening is that the entire football data analytics community is being blind to the fact that:

• Defensive schemes are not independent of offensive schemes. If the whole league starts passing more and being more aggressive on 4th down, the defenses will adapt and reduce the expected outcome of passing and going for it. But the analytics you used to make these assessments was trained on historical data and will completely miss these latest recent changing trends causing many teams to make the poor decision of passing too much when defenses have adapted. Eventually that data will start to factor into the regressions but on a time lag basis at which point the trends may have shifted again.

• The data used to train these models has survivor bias and leads to recommendations conditional on having a good (passing) offense. When the analytics says you should go for it or that passing in this situation has higher EPA, it is based on looking at the outcomes of pass v run / go for it v punt/kick in similar situations historically. Well that historical data only captures the plays that happened i.e. teams confident to go for it or pass on 1st down regularly. This biases the data simply because historically the data only exists conditional on that team having a stronger passing game.

In summary (TL;DR), the trend of using analytics has led more teams to pass more and be more aggressive on 4th down whilst overlooking these recommendations may not apply to their team (since the data was conditional on an era where defenses defended the run more and teams with a good QB). This may be causing teams that should pass it less, run it more, putting way more pressure on their QB than is necessary.

I think it should be noted that offenses league wide have seen a massive spike in rushing production relative to the rest of their offensive production, largely because over the last few years there was a proliferation of two high shells on defense that took away explosive plays and opened up the run game and blah blah blah

This though even took a step back this year, lots of teams moved away from that Fangio style of defense because they were fed up from being punched in the mouth every game and moved to aggressive DCs, and have seen massive improvements (Schwartz and Flores chief among them). Rushing has actually gone back down after a several year increase (last season it was as high as it’s been in like 35 years), along with everything else.

Really, this season is gonna be remembered to me as the year defenses caught up. I don’t think this is an aberration, I think the NFL is going to be much different and more dynamic on both sides of the ball from this point in with the rise of analytics and a younger breed of coaches

Half of the starting QB’s in this league are 25 & under. It’s not so much a decline as it is a changing of the guard. One era is ending and a new one is beginning.

It looks like a reversion back to the mean. 2008-2020 was a golden era and we’ll realize it in 10-15 years

. This isn’t to say that there aren’t any great QBs in the league,

We had consistent elite QB play throughout the 2000s and 2010s. These new guys aren’t holding a candle to what most of us grew up with.

edge rushers have become menaces, whether thats skill or OL guys being ass is up for debate.

Nick/Joey Bosa (before getting paid)

Myles Garret

Haason Reddick

TJ Watt

Micah Parsons

Maxx Crosby

Brian Burns

Matt Judon

all influence the game almost every play

Also a majority of the good QBs are in the AFC, just so happens all of these players on that list are also in the AFC lol.

I think it’s a balance of newer QBs coming in without as much experience and the way flags being thrown a little too much. I feel bad for the defense, bc 1 wrong penalty and the average repercussion is 15 yds and 1st down. Offense fucks up and it’s usually 5-10 yard penalty.

Tbh I’d like to see the penalty yards a little more balanced, it seems more heavy to punishing defense more than offense.

When you lower the standards by making the game easier for them, you’re going to get a lower standard of players.

Defenses are adjusting and what’s successful in the HS and NCAA levels isn’t translating as well to the NFL level

Also it could be the general style of play has changed to be more short to intermediate pass focused rather than always taking big shots.

It’s the ebb and flow of QBing in the NFL. Some periods are QB-rich, and others are QB-lean.

I put it on d-line improvement and o-line regression happening at the same time. I don’t remember a time when o-line play was this bad across the majority of the NFL.

1. Edge has gotten better as the position becomes more premium.

2. O-line play has gotten worse because those players would rather play defense where there is more money.

3. We had a lot of HoF and HoVG retire. (Brady, Manning, Brees, Roethlisberger, Rivers, Romo, Ryan, Luck)

It’s the stupid emphasis on eliminating blindside hits to the defense. The only defense to the athleticism of the NFL defenders is to make them have to look around and not just flow to the football without a care in the world.