One of the biggest stylistic changes coming to the Detroit Lions offense is the difference in aggression between former quarterback Matthew Stafford and newcomer Jared Goff. The tight window throws, a seeming staple of the Stafford era, are something that Lions fans won’t see much with Goff based on the Next Gen Stats data on aggressive throws.
Next Gen Stats calculates the actual distances and metrics of the players on the field and the action via GPS data and microchip transmitters in the players’ jerseys (for a breakdown on the specifics of the tracking, check this interview with John Pollard of Zebra Technologies I did in 2020). One of their data points is the aggressiveness of throws from a quarterback.
Aggressiveness tracks the amount of passing attempts a quarterback makes that are into tight coverage, where there is a defender within 1 yard or less of the receiver at the time of completion or incompletion. AGG is shown as a % of attempts into tight windows over all passing attempts.
Goff finished sixth from the bottom in aggressiveness (12.7) by Next Gen’s tracking and definition. While that might read like a bad thing, it’s more about playing style and the function of the offense. Consider the QBs who finished below him in aggressiveness and their percentages:
- Russell Wilson (11.1)
- Aaron Rodgers (11.2)
- Patrick Mahomes (11.4)
- Teddy Bridgewater (12.2)
- Drew Brees (12.3)
Where Goff fares poorly in relation to those other bottom-dwellers at aggression is in the air yards per completion average. That effectively measures the average distance of the throw at the point of completion, and Goff’s 4.8 is handily the lowest of the bottom group. Mahomes is at 6.3, Wilson at 6.2 and that’s part of why they are MVP candidates. The 4.8 figure is exactly two yards less than Stafford’s average in his final season in Detroit.
What does that indicate? Goff was careful to a fault. Where others, notably Mahomes and Rodgers, picked their spots to take risks down the field, Goff largely eschewed taking any sort of chances.
Of course, part of the equation is the receiving corps. One reason why Mahomes and Wilson are so low is because their receivers are so consistently open that there isn’t a need to throw into tight windows frequently; Kansas City’s wideouts had the best average separation per route for Mahomes. The Lions ranked near the bottom in separation, which helps explain how Stafford led the NFL in aggressive throw percentage (23.4) in 2019.
The Rams receivers didn’t exactly present a huge threat deep down the field for Goff. The passing offense under Rams coach Sean McVay is designed around scheming receivers at different layers of the defense, and Goff consistently opted for the shortest layer. It was radically so in 2020. Goff was fifth-lowest in aggression rating in 2019, but his air yards per target was 5.9. He fell off more than a full yard in 2020 while staying at the same relative aggression level (12.8).
That’s part of why McVay lost faith in Goff. The challenge for the Lions coaching staff is to push the quarterback to get back to taking more chances down the field, but doing so with what might be the NFL’s worst receiving corps.
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