This is a very interesting post here Steven. I've been saying for years that pressures aren't a QB stat, but sacks are, because this is very easy to intuit from the correlation between pressures and offensive line quality, but the lack thereof between offensive line quality and sacks. I knew this had to be true in some form or fashion, but it makes me sleep better at night to have it proven in a more concrete way here.
I do have some questions, specifically about the Pressures over Expectation graph. First, how can pressure be more than expectation for everybody? I assume this means the blended curve is just wrong, slightly underestimating the amount of pressure there is, and could be averaged a slightly different way in order to fix this problem. Is there anything more to it than this?
Second, how does it deal with passers who routinely throw within 2.5s in the flow of the offence (as opposed to throwing so quickly out of any kind of necessity) like Tua Tagovailoa and Cooper Rush? I'm not sure what exactly is throwing me off about this, but to see guys with lightning quick average time to throw like Tua Tagovailoa and Tom Brady in the same POE ballpark as Bo Nix, who holds the ball forever on average, isn't connecting in my brain right now. I don't know exactly what I'm missing. Maybe with a few minutes of thought I could find it, but can you clarify this for me?
Finally, as it relates to all the shotgun capping the potential of the Cincinnati offence, do you really think so? It depends on the specifics of the Cincinnati offence. I'm not saying you're incorrect, but I suspect the shotgun is also partially an attempt to remedy a rushing offence that's gotten worse and worse over the years. I'd like to know how much play action Cincinnati runs out of the shotgun. With this very quick pressure rate, something tells me the answer is not enough.
Also, despite the increased speed of pressures, shotgun plays are still quite a bit more productive on average than under centre plays. However, this is notably not true when the sample is restricted to only pass plays. This seems to tell the surface level story that the boost being in the shotgun gives to the run game overcomes the hinderance that being in the shotgun is to the pass game, and then some, but this would require a more detailed level of study than I can give in a Substack comment.
For instance, the difference could come entirely down to under centre plays being much more PA heavy, which almost automatically means much more productive. There is no study on that right now, but what we do know for a fact is that shotgun snaps are more productive than snaps taken under centre on average, despite snaps taken under centre that end in a pass being more productive than those that end in a pass taken from the gun.
This does raise a question though for a team that rushed only the 30th most times in the NFL, like the 2024 Cincinnati Bengals. In a leaguewide sense, the boost to the rushing game is able to overcome the detriment to the pass game, which makes the shotgun worthwhile, but is this true for the 2024 Cincinnati Bengals in specific? Perhaps this specific team ought to take more snaps under centre, to benefit their pass game.
This is a moot point on this specific team, as Joe Burrow cannot operate from under centre, which I think is the point you were getting at. The 2024 Bengals only had 66 snaps (out of over 1100 offensive plays) from under centre that generated positive EPA on the whole season. This is 66 out of only 179 snaps taken from under centre, but that's still only a 37% success rate, which is not an NFL level offence.
If the Bengals had a QB that was still an NFL level player when operating under centre, which would give them the option to operate under centre, would their offence be better? I would think it to depend on how much they're wanting (and able) to rush the ball. The more rushing you do, the more valuable the shotgun is. This is why teams like Baltimore and Philadelphia are in the gun on such a high percentage of their plays, but for Cincinnati, it feels backwards.
With the rush attack they have, which is not good, they should be taking more snaps from under centre, but they can't take more snaps from under centre, because Joe Burrow can't do it. This leads to the entirely counterintuitive strategy of an extremely pass heavy team taking 963 snaps from the gun in 2024, compared to just 179 under centre.
For everything you can say about the offensive scheming of the NFL's second most pass heavy team in 2024 (Chicago), they at least got this part of the process correct. More correct than Cincinnati did. They took 323 snaps from under centre, and just 823 out of the gun. We all know how bad Caleb Williams was at avoiding sacks last year, but do you want to know how many sacks he took on more than 100 pass plays from under centre?
Seven.
Caleb's sack rate on the whole in 2024 was horrendous. Almost 11 percent, but when dropping back from under centre, even for Caleb Williams, one of the worst sack avoiders in the NFL, it was less than seven percent. This is the benefit that taking more snaps from under centre can have, but it's a benefit the Cincinnati Bengals don't get, and might not ever get. As such, I think I can put in a mild agreement that there's a ceiling put on the Cincinnati offence by what Joe Burrow can do and not do, although that ceiling is so far off the ground I'm not entirely sure that it matters.
Super read, this 👏
Love this.
It would be interesting to zoom into Caleb Williams' numbers.
He gets crucified for poor pocket management.
This is a very interesting post here Steven. I've been saying for years that pressures aren't a QB stat, but sacks are, because this is very easy to intuit from the correlation between pressures and offensive line quality, but the lack thereof between offensive line quality and sacks. I knew this had to be true in some form or fashion, but it makes me sleep better at night to have it proven in a more concrete way here.
I do have some questions, specifically about the Pressures over Expectation graph. First, how can pressure be more than expectation for everybody? I assume this means the blended curve is just wrong, slightly underestimating the amount of pressure there is, and could be averaged a slightly different way in order to fix this problem. Is there anything more to it than this?
Second, how does it deal with passers who routinely throw within 2.5s in the flow of the offence (as opposed to throwing so quickly out of any kind of necessity) like Tua Tagovailoa and Cooper Rush? I'm not sure what exactly is throwing me off about this, but to see guys with lightning quick average time to throw like Tua Tagovailoa and Tom Brady in the same POE ballpark as Bo Nix, who holds the ball forever on average, isn't connecting in my brain right now. I don't know exactly what I'm missing. Maybe with a few minutes of thought I could find it, but can you clarify this for me?
Finally, as it relates to all the shotgun capping the potential of the Cincinnati offence, do you really think so? It depends on the specifics of the Cincinnati offence. I'm not saying you're incorrect, but I suspect the shotgun is also partially an attempt to remedy a rushing offence that's gotten worse and worse over the years. I'd like to know how much play action Cincinnati runs out of the shotgun. With this very quick pressure rate, something tells me the answer is not enough.
Also, despite the increased speed of pressures, shotgun plays are still quite a bit more productive on average than under centre plays. However, this is notably not true when the sample is restricted to only pass plays. This seems to tell the surface level story that the boost being in the shotgun gives to the run game overcomes the hinderance that being in the shotgun is to the pass game, and then some, but this would require a more detailed level of study than I can give in a Substack comment.
For instance, the difference could come entirely down to under centre plays being much more PA heavy, which almost automatically means much more productive. There is no study on that right now, but what we do know for a fact is that shotgun snaps are more productive than snaps taken under centre on average, despite snaps taken under centre that end in a pass being more productive than those that end in a pass taken from the gun.
This does raise a question though for a team that rushed only the 30th most times in the NFL, like the 2024 Cincinnati Bengals. In a leaguewide sense, the boost to the rushing game is able to overcome the detriment to the pass game, which makes the shotgun worthwhile, but is this true for the 2024 Cincinnati Bengals in specific? Perhaps this specific team ought to take more snaps under centre, to benefit their pass game.
This is a moot point on this specific team, as Joe Burrow cannot operate from under centre, which I think is the point you were getting at. The 2024 Bengals only had 66 snaps (out of over 1100 offensive plays) from under centre that generated positive EPA on the whole season. This is 66 out of only 179 snaps taken from under centre, but that's still only a 37% success rate, which is not an NFL level offence.
If the Bengals had a QB that was still an NFL level player when operating under centre, which would give them the option to operate under centre, would their offence be better? I would think it to depend on how much they're wanting (and able) to rush the ball. The more rushing you do, the more valuable the shotgun is. This is why teams like Baltimore and Philadelphia are in the gun on such a high percentage of their plays, but for Cincinnati, it feels backwards.
With the rush attack they have, which is not good, they should be taking more snaps from under centre, but they can't take more snaps from under centre, because Joe Burrow can't do it. This leads to the entirely counterintuitive strategy of an extremely pass heavy team taking 963 snaps from the gun in 2024, compared to just 179 under centre.
For everything you can say about the offensive scheming of the NFL's second most pass heavy team in 2024 (Chicago), they at least got this part of the process correct. More correct than Cincinnati did. They took 323 snaps from under centre, and just 823 out of the gun. We all know how bad Caleb Williams was at avoiding sacks last year, but do you want to know how many sacks he took on more than 100 pass plays from under centre?
Seven.
Caleb's sack rate on the whole in 2024 was horrendous. Almost 11 percent, but when dropping back from under centre, even for Caleb Williams, one of the worst sack avoiders in the NFL, it was less than seven percent. This is the benefit that taking more snaps from under centre can have, but it's a benefit the Cincinnati Bengals don't get, and might not ever get. As such, I think I can put in a mild agreement that there's a ceiling put on the Cincinnati offence by what Joe Burrow can do and not do, although that ceiling is so far off the ground I'm not entirely sure that it matters.