Expert Analysis
12/6/24
13 min read
Four Ups, Four Downs: Dan Campbell, Christian Gonzalez, Saquon Barkley's Impact
In this week’s edition of Four Ups, Four Downs, we are looking at fourth downs, running back influence, and personnel versatility.
Up: Dan Campbell’s Aggressiveness
Dan Campbell is going to go for it. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter where the ball is, what the game situation is, or if the numbers agree. Dan Campbell is going to be aggressive on fourth downs.
That was the case on Thursday night in a 34-31 win against the Green Bay Packers that significantly boosted the Detroit Lions’ chance at securing the top seed in the NFC with a first-round bye and home-field advantage.
Campbell went for it on five fourth downs against the Packers. Two were near the goal line, which resulted in a touchdown. Those aren’t surprising, but it did give the Lions eight more points than if they had elected for field goals. One came on a fourth-and-1 at midfield, which is a near-automatic go for just about any team in the league at this point. Campbell made a risky call on a fourth-and-1 from the Detroit 31-yard line that failed, led to a Green Bay touchdown, and gave the Packers the lead.
Then, there was the final call — going for it on a fourth-and-1 from the Green Bay 21-yard line with 43 seconds remaining in a tie game. The “numbers” suggested a field goal in the situation to take the lead. The Packers had no timeouts at the time and would need to get into field goal range just to tie after a kickoff.
But Campbell wanted to end the game on offense. There was the belief that picking up one yard and effectively ending the game would be more likely than not converting and having the Packers drive down the field to attempt a field goal with just 40 seconds.
It’s a risk that was worth it, the type of style Detroit has played with all season, and it led to not just a win but better odds for the playoffs to go through Detroit. FTN has the Lions with an 82.4 percent chance to clinch the top seed in the conference.
Down: How Opponents Target Patriots Cornerbacks
Christian Gonzalez is one of the league’s best cornerbacks. The second-year player from Oregon is sticky in coverage and can take away whichever receiver he lines up across from on a given play. Still, opponents don’t always treat him that way.
Of 108 cornerbacks who have played at least 150 coverage snaps through Week 13, Gonzalez ranks 81st in targets per coverage snap. However, he’s much better in adjusted yards allowed per coverage snap, where he ranks 31st.
Typically, good cornerbacks do not get thrown at often, for good reason. But teams are still trying to test Gonzalez. The average rate of targets per coverage snap for the top 32 corners by adjusted yards allowed per coverage snap is 11.3 percent. Gonzalez is getting targeted 15.2 percent of the time.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Jones has been the New England cornerback avoided in coverage, seeing a target on 10.5 percent of his coverage snaps, which is the 13th-lowest. Jones is 96th in adjusted yards allowed per coverage snap and 103rd in completion rate allowed.
Against a team that has struggled to put together consistent defensive performances, opposing offenses are making it much harder on themselves by throwing at Gonzalez as often as they do.
Take the interception Gonzalez had against the Colts in Week 13. It highlighted one of the many ways he can be sticky in coverage. Indianapolis tried a deep dig against off-coverage, but Gonzalez closed and undercut the route to grab the interception.
Gonzalez has also been one of the league’s best cornerbacks in press coverage. He’s one of 12 corners who have played at least 100 snaps in press, per Next Gen Stats. Among those 12, he’s tied for first with a -7.0 completion rate above expectation.
Christian Gonzalez is a really good cornerback, and it’s strange that opponents haven’t treated him as such yet.
Up: The Barkley Bump
There’s been a slightly warped narrative around what Saquon Barkley has added to the Philadelphia offense. Barkley easily leads the league in yards before contact per carry, which creates the general belief that Barkley is getting outstanding run blocking on every play and taking advantage of what’s in front of him.
That’s not completely true. If we compare Barkley to where D’Andre Swift was at this point last season, Barkley has been hit in the backfield and within a line of the yard of scrimmage more often. Yet, his vision and decisiveness as a runner have allowed for more and bigger explosive plays when those holes are there.
The mesh between the player and the situation is perfect. Barkley, still, is a bit of a boom-and-bust runner. That’s often been framed as a derogatory style. It can be when waiting for a hole to open up behind the Giants’ offensive line leaves a back waiting for a while.
He’s still getting stuffed a bit in Philadelphia, but the holes are more common, and he knows exactly what to do when taking them. Because Barkley has that patience, Philadelphia can do some fun things, like pulling a tackle for a game-clinching touchdown.
Barkley has obviously raised the ceiling of the Eagles’ run game, but he’s also allowed them to push through the negatives. It’s not all wide-open running lanes. That might be the biggest difference between what Barkley brings as a back and what Philadelphia has previously had at the position.
Down: Chargers Offensive Line Variance
Justin Herbert was sacked five times against the Atlanta Falcons. Going into that game, the Falcons had 10 sacks on the season. The Falcons had a 17.6 percent sack rate against the Chargers. Their previous high was eight percent while having four games without a sack. They’re 31st in pressure rate.
It’s difficult to fully accept when a team allows the Falcons to run through the line that often. It wasn’t Atlanta’s highest pressure rate of the season, but it was the easiest way they created pressure, only blitzing on 17.6 percent of dropbacks.
According to Next Gen Stats, the Falcons have the fourth-lowest average get-off as a team (0.88). That wasn’t much faster against the Chargers (0.80), but Los Angeles didn’t do much to slow it down.
For the season, the Chargers have been about average in pass block win rate (13th) and run block rin rate (14th) per ESPN. But those average rankings have come with some high variance.
That’s led to an inconsistent offense without knowing how to plan or call plays. The Chargers rank 16th in yards before contact per rush but rank 28th in the rate of runs contacted within a yard of the line of scrimmage.
There’s not much to be prepared for as a player behind the line. There have been some stellar games, but then there have been others when opposing defensive lines have been breaking through. Sometimes, it would be easier to accept there’s a bad offensive line to work around it — though that’s not ideal, as you can see by the weight that’s put on quarterbacks like C.J. Stroud and Geno Smith.
However, going in with a plan around a good offensive line and it failing in key spots can be worse since the changeup isn’t always readily available. That’s kind of where the Chargers sit right now, but without the receivers to make it easier on the quarterback.
Up: Josh Metellus, Linebacker
Minnesota was without linebacker Ivan Pace for the game against the Arizona Cardinals. Pace has been a fixture in the middle of the defense, especially with fellow linebacker Blake Cashman missing a few games this season. Those linebackers have been instrumental in both the pre-snap disguise and the post-snap responsibilities, especially against the run.
The versatility of those backers to be up on the line and either drop into coverage or flow to the run has been key to how the Minnesota defense fits together. So how did the Vikings work around not having one of those pieces in the second level? They had Josh Metellus fill in.
Metellus has been a jack-of-all-trades type of player for the Vikings. He can play on the line, in the box, in the slot, and at safety. Because of that versatility, Minnesota often plays in dime personnel and has three safeties, including Metellus, on the field.
Well, against Arizona, the Vikings fully committed to that strategy. They used dime on 41.6 percent of their defensive snaps. That was the third time they used dime on at least 40 percent of snaps, tied with the Chargers for most in the league this season.
The Vikings had Metellus in the box on 53.3 percent of his snaps against the Cardinals. That was his second-highest for a game, behind a 60.3 percent rate in Week 3 against the Texans, another game when the Vikings were in dime more than 40 percent of the time.
A player like Metellus is how a defense can stay in dime, even while the offense is living in 12 personnel.
Down: The Anthony Richardson-AD Mitchell Disconnect
There have been few things more frustrating this season than watching Adonai Mitchell targets from Anthony Richardson. There aren't many QB-WR combos in the league that look like they have less chemistry.
In theory, Mitchell should be the perfect type of target for Richardson. Mitchell is fast and can use that speed to get down the field, where Richardson likes to throw.
That has not worked all that well this season. When targeting Mitchell, Richardson has averaged -0.42 EPA per play with a 25 percent success rate. That’s easily the worst among Richardson’s top targets.
Anthony Richardson By Target, 2024 (per TruMedia)
No one player is at fault here. Richardson has the highest rate of throws charted as inaccurate when targeting Mitchell compared to the other receivers. Per ESPN receiver tracking metrics, Mitchell has the second-highest open score, but Mitchell is also not the most refined route-runner and can drift away from where he should be on a route. “Open” does not necessarily mean in the right spot for a target, and we’ve seen that when these two try to connect.
There have been plays where something is off, whether it be drifting toward the sideline on a downfield pass that decreases the throwing window and likelihood the pass is kept in bounds or Richardson not getting quite enough on a pass and allowing a defender to get a hand in while Mitchell had an initial step.
Because of the disconnect, he’s only been on the field for 38.2 percent of the team’s dropbacks this season, compared to 37.5 percent in games with Richardson.
It’s hard to build a connection when the playing time isn’t there, but it’s hard to get that time when it’s a net negative for an offense still trying to push for the playoffs.
Up: Bills Get Heavy
No team uses six offensive linemen more than the Buffalo Bills. They’ve done so on around 18 percent of plays this season. Buffalo fully went in on the extra lineman in the snow game against the 49ers on Sunday night. We covered that a bit in 1st & 10 this week.
But what’s been really fun about the 6OL package in Buffalo is the amount of things they try to do out of it. They run on 72.5 percent of those plays but just have a 38.1 percent success rate. That’s ok because they’re still working out the physicality on those plays — those runs serve a purpose more than trying to create explosives.
With those heavier formations, the Bills have some changeups coming off them that create big plays that might not come otherwise. Against the Chiefs, Buffalo had a first-and-10 and came out with six linemen. Both Kansas City linebackers were ready to work downhill, and when the Bills went pass off play-action, the two linebackers went back and forth, pointing at each other as Dawson Knox got to the corner, uncovered, for a 24-yard gain.
It’s just one of the many ways the Bills have to throw something new out and force defenses to pick how they’ll try to stop it. Buffalo is more dangerous as an offense now because there are so many paths it can take on offense to keep things moving. It’s a different world than needing Josh Allen to drop back 40 times. Though if he needs to, he still can.
Down: Six Week 14 byes
There are still some scheduling quirks that will never make sense. Having six teams on a bye this late in the season is one of them. There were only two teams on a bye in Weeks 7 and 9 with none in Week 8, just around the point at midseason when teams would probably prefer to have a week off.
Also, for a league that has embraced the money brought in from gambling and fantasy football, having six teams off in a week when some fantasy playoffs start feels like a slap in the face to a decent chunk of the consumer base.
Selfishly, for someone who writes a column about 10 things on Sunday, it leaves me without only one game to ignore on a Sunday that includes games between the Giants and Saints and the Jaguars and Titans. One of them is going to end up with a write-up in 1st & 10 this week. Why?
