NFL Analysis
11/15/24
13 min read
Four Ups, Four Downs for NFL Week 11: Brian Branch, Sean Mcvay, Bo Nix & More
Welcome to Four Ups and Four Downs. This week, we’ll look at some defensive standouts, more receiver usage, and coaching adjustments.
NFL Week 11 Four Ups, Four Downs
⬆️Up: Brian Branch Appreciation
When we did our staff picks for midseason awards, I was on an island by selecting Brian Branch as my Defensive Player of the Year. Since then, there has been increased support for the untraditional selection. Robert Mays made the case on a midseason awards episode of The Athletic Football Show, and Gregg Rosenthal did the same on NFL Daily.
Branch does not fit the profile of the typical DPOY candidate. A defensive back hasn’t won the award since Stephon Gilmore in 2019, and a safety hasn't won since Troy Polamalu in 2010.
He doesn’t have traditional stats that would stand out, but he is second in passes defensed (13) and tied for third in interceptions (four). However, his play goes well beyond the standard defensive back metrics.
When we consider Havoc plays (TFL, FF, PBU, INT, or sack), he’s second with 18. By the rate of Havoc plays, Branch is tied for second (with over 100 snaps more than the defensive linemen with him) and first among defensive backs.
Branch has made his impact all over the field, a big switch from his rookie season when he played more than 70 percent of his snaps from the slot.
He was a good slot corner as a rookie, but he’s been better bouncing around the defense.
Without Aidan Hutchinson, Branch will be the piece that holds the Detroit defense together. He’s the plug-and-play option who can slide in wherever needed, and that type of versatility will matter as the Lions go down the stretch and into the playoffs this season.
Branch has already been one of the most impactful defensive players in the league, and he has a chance to have a special season if this pace continues.
⬇️Down: DJ Moore, X Receiver
So many things have gone wrong for the Chicago Bears offense — an offensive coordinator doesn’t get fired after 10 weeks if things are going as planned — but one of the worst decisions is the reliance on DJ Moore as the X receiver.
There’s a bit of a disconnect between Moore’s standing as the team’s top receiver and forcing him to be the X because of it. The X receiver will be on the line of scrimmage and often face press coverage, but that’s not Moore’s game.
Per NFL Pro, Moore is third among all receivers in routes against press coverage. He’s only averaging 0.9 yards per route run on those plays, with a -17.6 percent catch rate above expectation.
His targets off press coverage are mostly coming deep, with a 16.1 average depth of target, at depths where separation is already lower. Because of that, 38.1 percent of Moore’s targets against press are into a tight window (a yard or fewer of separation). That’s decreasing the success rate of already low-probability plays.
Moore was good against press coverage last season, but that’s because it was a smaller part of his game. Defenses still had to account for other ways Moore would be used. He had 150 routes and 34 targets against press coverage last season. He’s already seen 114 routes and 21 targets through 10 weeks this year.
Finding ways to fight through tight coverage has been the most significant difference for Moore. In 2023, 26.2 percent of Moore’s routes came against man coverage, and he averaged 3.86 yards per route run against them. This season, 28.9 percent have come against man, and he’s only averaging 0.83 yards per route run.
Nothing is coming off the vertical stems, and there has been no success on the go-ball against man this season.
DJ Moore vs Man Coverage (TruMedia)
⬆️Up: Atlanta’s Late Short Motion
The Atlanta Falcons are running a very specific offense designed to keep a limited quarterback in the pocket. The team uses tempo to control the game. According to Next Gen Stats, the Falcons have used motion on 67.9 percent of their plays this season.
While they do have some motions that fit in with the more traditional jets and orbits that we’ve seen from the McVay/Shanahan tree that offensive coordinator Zac Robinson comes from, their most useful motion has been a quick presnap short motion to change the receiver alignment.
The Falcons will line up in a 2x2 or 3x1 set and quickly change the picture before the snap. It works against zone coverage because it changes the defensive responsibility just before the ball is snapped, leaving defenders with little time to adjust.
Drake London is often the beneficiary, either getting him into the slot off the motion or having him start in the slot and get more room to break to the outside.
Even when it’s against man coverage, the motion gives the offense the coverage indicator, and then the defender still has to worry about covering more space against the receiver.
London has 2.96 yards per route run from the slot this season, where he is running nearly 40 percent of his routes. The Falcons have used his size on the inside to get him to use his body control against smaller defenders.
The Falcons are peppering the short and intermediate areas, and these motions with play-action open up the middle of the field. It’s a subtle presnap change that has a big effect on an offense that doesn’t have the ability to do much else for the sake of deception.
⬇️Down: Sean McVay’s Game Management
Fourth-down decision-making has been a flaw in Sean McVay’s coaching game for nearly his entire career. A coach who has completely changed how the entire league plays offense, and defense as an extension, remains well behind the league standard in managing fourth downs and late-game situations.
In the past four seasons, no team has attempted more field goals inside the 5-yard line than the Los Angeles Rams (15). This also extends to Kyle Shanahan, who is second at 14 and has a league-leading 35 field goal attempts from inside the 10 in that span, but we’ll focus on McVay.
On Monday night, the Rams faced a fourth-and-goal from the Dolphins’ 4-yard line while trailing by 11 with 6:31 left to go in the game. After the third down pass fell incomplete, McVay took the field goal to put the Rams down by eight, technically one score. That was a 5.6 percent win probability swing, according to ESPN Analytics.
It’s hard to fully buy into an eight-point margin as a one-score game because that’s assuming a 100 percent success rate on the conversion attempt. If you’re worried about not scoring a touchdown from four yards out, how is a conversion from two yards out infinitely more successful?
Anyway, the Dolphins drove down and kicked another field goal to put the game back up to an 11-point margin. When the Rams got back down the field, McVay chose to kick a field goal on third-and-10 from the 12-yard line to put the game back to eight points.
But that field goal would mean the Rams would need an onside kick recovery, another touchdown (which they passed on twice), a 2-point conversion, and to win in overtime.
That’s significantly less likely than trying to score from the 4-yard line, which the Rams could’ve done earlier in the quarter.
Delaying a loss often makes the circumstances to win so much harder later in the game.
⬆️Up: Tampa Bay’s Screen Game
There’s been a lot of good in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offense this season. Offensive coordinator Liam Coen has constructed a system that has allowed Baker Mayfield to play comfortably and within himself.
Early in the season, Mayfield was getting the ball out quickly, and the Buccaneers were getting Mike Evans and Chris Godwin into open space. It took elements of the Miami quick passing game but with bigger, more physical receivers closer to the line of scrimmage. Mayfield is seventh in EPA per play among quarterbacks.
With Godwin and Evans out, the Tampa Bay offense has unsurprisingly shifted. Mayfield has gone from targeting receivers 64.9 percent of the time with that duo on the field to 40.8 percent without. One constant has remained — the screen game, which is one of the best in the league this season.
Mayfield has thrown screens on 13.6 percent of attempts with Evans and Godwin and 13.3 percent without them. Tampa Bay is second in EPA per play on screen passes (0.30), behind only Baltimore (0.36). That efficiency also comes with volume because no team has run more screens than the Buccaneers (44).
The designs have gotten a number of players out into space with room to run.
In the past three weeks, they’ve scored two touchdowns inside the the red zone off screens.
It’s a great changeup for a team that had relied on their bigger-bodied receivers in that area, but now uses the offensive line and the backs to manipulate the space when the field condenses.
⬇️Down: Bo Nix under pressure
Bo Nix has played better in the past few weeks, and that’s coincided with some good pass protection. The Broncos are sixth in pass block win rate, according to ESPN. Nix has seen more clean pockets, and in the past four weeks, he’s 12th in EPA per play when not pressured.
However, on the season, Nix is last in EPA per play when pressured, which hasn’t improved as the season progressed. This past week, when pressured, Nix had a zero percent success rate against the Chiefs. The week before, Nix was pressured 15 times and held the ball for nearly five seconds on average.
The flaws that pop up under pressure are some of the issues that were present at the start of the season. He’ll try to flee to pocket to create but doesn’t have that skill in his game just yet, and it can get him into more trouble than hanging in the pocket would have.
All quarterbacks perform worse under pressure, and rookies are more susceptible. Still, of the 15 rookies to be passer rating qualified through 10 weeks in the past five seasons, Nix is 13th in success rate and yards per attempt.
The Broncos have gotten better at figuring out what Nix can and can’t handle in the offense and have adjusted accordingly, but settling him down under pressure still remains an issue. The answer can’t be “don’t allow it,” even though that’s been the Broncos’ best strategy so far.
We’ve seen players like Baker Mayfield find times to not try to extend themselves when under pressure and find success. There are also players like Gardner Minshew, who are consistently chaotic while showing flashes when things aren’t crazy around him.
We’ll see how Nix adjusts and how that impacts his floor and ceiling going forward.
⬆️Up: Arizona creepers and sim pressures
The Arizona Cardinals don’t have much talent on defense, and that’s been the case for the past two years under Jonathan Gannon and defensive coordinator Nick Rallis. Because of that, the Cardinals try stuff. They’re constantly trying to change the picture on defense, with the second-highest rate of middle-of-the-field disguises and one of the highest rates of stunts.
Arizona ranks 30th in pressure rate this season but 18th in sack rate. With a four-man rush, the Cardinals are 17th in pressure rate and sixth in sack rate. They’ve outplayed their pressure rate because of the looks they use along the defensive line.
A sim pressure is showing a blitz and only rushing four but not the traditional four that would be expected. A creeper is a similar concept, but the pre-snap look indicates a traditional four-man rush while a nontraditional rusher comes from the second or third level.
Here’s one against the Jets with Kyzir White (7) coming as the nontraditional rusher as Aaron Rodgers is pressured and has to throw the ball away.
On the next throw, the Cardinals came out in a mugged-up defensive front with White and Mack Wilson (2) up in the A-gap before dropping back into coverage at the snap.
The Cardinals still got in for a sack with a four-man rush.
This is a team that has to manufacture some chaos to have defensive production.
They’re only 24th in defensive EPA per play, but there’s just enough going on that opposing offenses stay on their toes, and they have the chance to overwhelm struggling offenses, as they’ve done with the Bears and Jets during the past two games.
⬇️Down: Cincinnati’s Red Zone Defense
The Cincinnati Bengals defense has fallen off during the past two seasons due to a talent exodus, while the resources have been held to pay for the offense. But even last season, when the defense took a step back, it was still one of the league’s better red zone defenses. That was still a place where defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo could scheme something up.
That has not been the case this season, as the Bengals are allowing a touchdown on 71.9 percent of opposing red zone trips, better than only the Dallas Cowboys. Last season, that rate was 51.7 percent, which ranked 11th.
Cincinnati has completely changed how it plays in the red zone, trying to get heavier and load the box. The Bengals are using base defense on 21.3 percent of red zone plays, which holds with their non-red zone rate of 21.1 percent, but in the previous two seasons, the Bengals got lighter in the red zone, playing base less often than they did outside of it.
The Bengals are also stacking the box on 56.2 percent of their red zone snaps while only doing it on 34 percent during the past two seasons. Meanwhile, their success rate against the run in the red zone has dropped to 37.7 percent.
Committing all of those resources against the run has left the Bengals open to the pass, and no team has been worse by EPA per play against the pass in the red zone (-0.51).
