Analysis
10/6/22
7 min read
Patrick Mahomes, Geno Smith Leading NFL's Most Efficient Offenses
Yards are easy to understand. As strange as it may be to say that about an Imperial unit of measurement, American football fans just get it. Expected points added (EPA), on the other hand – not so much. But, at its core, EPA is just another way of expressing yards. More specifically, it communicates whether the yards on a play brought a team closer to scoring based on the field position and the down and distance. And while EPA is seldom expressed with a nice, whole number, it’s more intuitive than you might think.
For example: it’s easy to understand that a gain of five yards on 4th & 4 is good, whereas a gain of five yards on 4th & 6 is bad, and EPA can contextualize that in a way that net yards cannot. It also helps quantify the value of turnover plays. Another example would be a quarterback throwing a pick-six on 1st & Goal from the opponent’s 1-yard line. Conventional wisdom would say that was a 14-point swing – because we expected the offense to score a touchdown in that situation – and EPA would reflect roughly that.
With that out of the way, we can take a look at each team’s offensive EPA per play and examine some of the interesting placements within the leaderboard.
1.) Kansas City Chiefs (0.10 EPA/Play)
2.) Seattle Seahawks (0.09 EPA/Play)
Not even the most deranged Seahawks fanatics could have envisioned this, but the Seattle offense indeed ranks second in offensive efficiency through four weeks. Geno Smith ranks second in passing Total Points per play and has looked really good doing it. He’s made a lot of impressive throws, is managing the pocket well, and is taking good care of the football, which has opened up Seattle’s playbook quite a bit.
This is a really balanced offense not just in the traditional sense – they’re one of only two offenses (the other being Detroit) that are producing a positive EPA on both designed runs (0.05 EPA per play) and dropback plays (0.11) – but also in the sense that they’re able to access all areas of the field in their passing game. As of right now, this offense is more efficient than it ever was with Russell Wilson.
3.) Buffalo Bills (0.09 EPA/Play)
Buffalo’s currently on pace to become one of the pass-heaviest teams ever. If you filter out garbage time – when leading teams are highly likely to run and trailing teams are highly likely to pass – they’re throwing the ball a whopping 75% of the time right now. For context, the only college programs that have ever eclipsed that mark have been Mike Leach teams.Â
The Bills’ spread-and-shred approach is scaling well, too. They’ll be the fourth-most efficient offense on designed passing plays since 2016 if their 0.23 EPA per play holds the rest of the way, which is a testament to how smooth the transition from former offensive coordinator Brian Daboll to Ken Dorsey has been.
Dorsey has done a good job of keeping things simple for Josh Allen, who is still not great at some of the more cerebral aspects of quarterback play. They’ve utilized empty and spread formations to good effect and have allowed Allen to just point and shoot with a lot of quick game and half-field high-low concepts. Allen has certainly improved quite a bit since his rookie season, but Buffalo has been excellent at tailoring the offense to his skillset.
4.) Detroit Lions (0.08 EPA/Play)
Nobody expected the Lions to be the highest-scoring offense through four weeks, and it’s baffling that people are willing to sacrifice themselves upon the altar of Jared Goff once more. Their designed running game (0.12 EPA per Play) has been worth twice as much as their designed passes (0.05), which should invoke some deja vu in anybody who remembers the 2018 Rams Super Bowl season.
Goff ranks 12th in Total Points/Play, which is more than fine for now, but he looks about the same as he always has. Offensive coordinator Ben Johnson and the big boys up front deserve the bulk of the credit for what’s happening in Detroit; we don’t have to relitigate our collective position on Jared Goff.
5.) Miami Dolphins (0.07 EPA/Play)
6.) Philadelphia Eagles (0.06 EPA/Play)
7.) Cleveland Browns (0.05 EPA/Play)
8.) Baltimore Ravens (0.03 EPA/Play)
9.) Las Vegas Raiders (-0.01 EPA/Play)
10.) Jacksonville Jaguars (-0.01 EPA/Play)
11.) Los Angeles Chargers (-0.02 EPA/Play)
12.) Arizona Cardinals (-0.02 EPA/Play)
In the preseason, I predicted that Kyler Murray would win MVP and the Cardinals would win the NFC West. We’re only at the quarter pole, but that take looks worse and worse by the week. Arizona’s offense is just a paper tiger right now. The Air Raid offense has always been more about passing volume than big-play hunting, but this Cardinals team is approaching parody at this point.Â
There is just way too much dink-and-dunk going on here, and Murray ranks dead last in average depth of target (5.9) among the 32 quarterbacks with 50+ attempts. There are too many horizontal stretches and too many screens in the passing game, and defenses are gladly conceding this stuff and forcing the Cardinals to march. At 2-2, Arizona is still in position to make a playoff push, but it feels like they leave a lot of meat on the bone on offense. We probably need to have some discourse about Kliff Kingsbury at some point, but that’s a topic for another day.
13.) Green Bay Packers (-0.04 EPA/Play)
14.) Minnesota Vikings (-0.04 EPA/Play)
15.) Atlanta Falcons (-0.05 EPA/Play)
16.) New York Giants (-0.06 EPA/Play)
17.) New England Patriots (-0.08 EPA/Play)
18.) Tennessee Titans (-0.08 EPA/Play)
19.) Tampa Bay Buccaneers (-0.08 EPA/Play)
20.) Dallas Cowboys (-0.09 EPA/Play)
21.) Denver Broncos (-0.11 EPA/Play)
22.) Los Angeles Rams (-0.12 EPA/Play)
The defending Super Bowl champions are really brutal to watch right now. Outside of Cooper Kupp, who ranks third in receiving Total Points (11), and Tyler Higbee, who is fourth among TEs in receiving Total Points (6), there’s not a whole lot to feel good about for the Rams.
Matthew Stafford’s elbow is clearly still bothering him, Allen Robinson looks washed, and the offensive line is in total disrepair (27th in Total Points/Play, 29th in Pass Blocking Points). The interior line is playing hurt, but Robinson’s $15M/year deal looks really bad in light of the departures of Andrew Whitworth and Austin Corbett.
The good news for Los Angeles is that they’ve already played the two toughest defenses they’ll see this season – Buffalo and San Francisco. They will have to play the 49ers again, but for all intents and purposes it should be easier the rest of the way. However, this is a silver lining when you consider that their starting quarterback might need Tommy John surgery.
23.) Cincinnati Bengals (-0.12 EPA/Play)
24.) New York Jets (-0.12 EPA/Play)
25.) San Francisco 49ers (-0.13 EPA/Play)
26.) New Orleans Saints (-0.13 EPA/Play)
27.) Washington Commanders (-0.13 EPA/Play)
28.) Pittsburgh Steelers (-0.13 EPA/Play)
29.) Houston Texans (-0.16 EPA/Play)
30.) Chicago Bears (-0.16 EPA/Play)
31.) Indianapolis Colts (-0.18 EPA/Play)
32.) Carolina Panthers (-0.19 EPA/Play)
Bryce Rossler contributed to this report
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