256 regular season games and 10 post-season games have boiled down to the New England Patriots facing off against the New York Football Giants in Indianapolis. But before taking a look forward to that game, we should take a look at the 266 games that have already been played, and see what we have learned from them.
Here are 5 takeaways from the NFL season:
1. Tight Ends are the hottest position in the NFL:
I have tweeted it before, but reject basketball players take note, teams across the NFL will be looking for big, strong, tall, and athletic guys who can catch footballs. Before this season, a tight end had never amassed 1,300 yards receiving in a single season. This year, two players did it: Rob Gronkowski (1,327) and Jimmy Graham (1,310). These two players were also two of the five players to score more than 10 receiving touchdowns, and Gronkowski led the league with 17 grabs in the end zone. 14 of the top 50 receivers in the NFL this season were tight ends. The list of accolades goes on for players such as: Aaron Hernandez, Vernon Davis, Jason Witten, Antonio Gates, Tony Gonzalez, Dustin Keller, Brent Celek, and Jermichael Finley.
The fact of the matter is this, tight ends cause match-up problems for defenses especially in the red zone and on third down, the most crucial areas of the game to convert in order to find success. Just get used to talking about your team’s tight end and selecting a tight end a few rounds earlier in your fantasy draft.
2. 5,000 is the new 2,000:
Remember when there was a huge countdown during the 1997 season to the moment when Barry Sanders hit the 2,000 rushing yard mark for the season? He was only the third player to ever hit that mark, joining O.J. Simpson (1973) and Eric Dickerson (1984). The year after that, Terrell Davis would hit the 2,000 yard mark and since Sanders became the third player to hit the 2,000 yard mark, the number of players to hit that plateau has doubled to 6. The 2,000 yard mark used to be hallowed ground, and still is, but 4 players doing it in a 12 year period of time, makes it a little less so. This season, however has made another plateau the new mark that will begin to be hit with some level of consistency: The 5,000 passing yard mark.
Before the 2008 season, only one player, Dan Marino, had ever thrown for 5,000 yards in a single season. Then Drew Brees hit that mark in the 2008 season. Three years later, this season, three different players hit the mark: Drew Brees (again), Tom Brady, and Matthew Stafford. Eli Manning missed the mark by a mere 67 yards. It comes as no shock that 8 of the top 10 single season passing totals have come since the year 2000, and that 7 of 10 have come after 2006. This is a milestone that will begin to be hit with some amount of regularity as the game has shifted so drastically to passing.
3. Defense may win championships, but offense gets you to the playoffs:
The old adage is that defense wins championships. To win a championship, however, you must first get to the playoffs. Of the 12 teams that made the playoffs this season, 11 ranked in the top 10 of either passing or rushing offense. On the other side, only 6 of the teams had a defense that ranked in the top 10 of either passing or rushing defense. 9 of the top 12 teams in the league in terms of points scored made the playoffs, but only 5 of the top 12 teams in points allowed made the playoffs. Its just that simple, offense gets you to the playoffs.
4. The next record to fall will the be the single season sack record:
This is seemingly common sense based off of the first three points that were made. Teams are dropping back to throw the ball at a steadily increasing rate, 11 teams this season dropped back to pass the ball more than 575 times, an increase of 3 from the previous season. This means more chances of teams to record sacks, 14 teams recorded more than 40 sacks this past season (as compared to only 9 last year). Jared Allen recorded 22 sacks this season, just .5 short of the mark set by Michael Strahan (on a gift sack of Brett Favre, who called the play for Strahan and just slid down on his side of the line, but I am not bitter as a huge Vikings and Jared Allen fan).
Similar to the trend of more athletic and terrifyingly intense tight ends, there is a growing emphasis and success of athletic and intense big men flying off of the edges for football teams. Guys like Jason Pierre-Paul, DeMarcus Ware, Brian Orakpo, Elvis Dumervil, Mario Williams, and Terrell Suggs are called upon to disrupt quarterbacks with pressure with increasing regularity and worry about the run later. There is a huge stock of big men with motors that just keep running on passing downs and that means that Strahan’s mark will fall within 3 seasons.
5. The Wildcat, Option, and other gimmicky looks are here to stay:
Gimmick offensive sets and looks are here to stay in the NFL. Teams may not build around option style offenses (see Tebow), but teams will continually look for ways to keep defenses off balance and this is one of the best ways to do that. Hybrid quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends will continue to find spots on NFL rosters. The days of a simple two receiver, one tight end, one half-back, one fullback look for a majority of the game are over. You may not like it, but embrace Aaron Hernandez lining up alone in the backfield or Percy Harvin taking snaps at quarterback, because they now have an established foothold in the NFL.
thebullpenblogger 