THE PREMIER FOOTBALL
THINK TANK

The 2021 defensive draft class is a unique one. The first round was largely dominated by offensive players – the first eight picks and 18 of the 32 first-round selections were spent on offense. Regardless of the number, there are plenty of good players on the defensive side of the ball who will be strong candidates for the 2021 Defensive Rookie of the Year award. Above are the last 21 Defensive Rookie of the Year winners (2000-2020). Nine of the winners were LBs, seven were pass rushers, three were DTs and two were CBs. Most DROY winners have been drafted early -- 18 of the past 21 winners were first-round picks. Of the three that were not, the lowest-drafted player was pick No. 39. In addition, 13 of the 21 were the first player taken at their position. Four DROYs were the second selected at their position, two were the...

Words are one thing, but action is another. Many fans would love to have the ability to watch every NFL game each and every week, but only about five time slots are used for the 16 or so games each week, forcing most fans to choose which games to devote their attention to. By comparing viewership data for individual games between Weeks 10 and 17 in 2020, we can look at which factors fans care about the most. The old adage is that offense sells tickets (and attracts viewers), but is that born out by the numbers in 2020? To evaluate this idea, we chose to eliminate the playoffs and all games before Week 10. The playoffs are a viewership anomaly because there are no overlapping games; reducing our data to the final eight weeks of the season allows us to use season-long statistics under the theory that fans will...

Mark Sanchez led the Jets to the AFC title game in each of his first two seasons. After a 10-year NFL career, Sanchez is a college football analyst for ESPN. We caught up with Sanchez for this week’s Friday Five… Who is your biggest mentor? Probably my dad. Watching him as a firefighter, the way he took a leadership role as a captain. The way I saw his crew respect him, how much he demanded out of those guys, praised them when they did well, deferred a lot of his own praise and accolades to them. He showed me a lot about leadership and what that looks like, and that’s something I tried to emulate as a football player. Naturally at the quarterback position you’re a leader on the team. You get people from all different backgrounds and you have the shared struggle of trying to accomplish a goal. That’s...