Tag: chart

The Saints broke this chart on the NFL’s trendy contract restructures

The Saints broke this chart on the NFL’s trendy contract restructures, sitting so far out in front of the other teams it might muddy the data:

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Now there’s something you don’t see every day. Over The Cap’s Jason Fitzgerald shared a chart displaying the three-year trend of contract restructure utilization and wins per season, and the New Orleans Saints broke the model.

Take a look at it. You’ll see many teams clustered near the NFL average, though notoriously spendthrift operations like the Cincinnati Bengals and Washington Commanders have almost never restructured a contract in recent years — with other teams like the Philadelphia Eagles, Los Angeles Rams, and Green Bay Packers way out in front, nearing 15% of their potential.

Well, almost in front. They’re all competing for second place behind the Saints. No team has restructured more contracts with as much frequency over the last three years than New Orleans (35%). As Fitzgerald observed, including the Saints at all might muddy the data and make it tough to tell what’s going on here.

Remember, restructures are nothing new. Teams have always converted salaries into signing bonuses so they’re paid out on a different schedule to more easily fit everyone under the salary cap. What the Saints have done differently is taking what was a little-known accounting quirk and weaponized it, matching the pace of their spending with the annual rise of the salary cap so they won’t have to pay a hefty bill.

Things kind of went sideways for them during the COVID-19 pandemic, which introduced unique pressures to the NFL’s cap calculations. Instead of rising as expected the cap dipped, forcing the Saints to cut contracts they’d planned on keeping and restructured others with players they didn’t anticipate. For the 2020 and 2021 seasons at least, the Saints did everything they could just to get by.

So it’s a relief to see things returning to normalcy. The Saints’ cap situation is improving, slowly but surely, and they’re ranking among the league’s highest spenders now that they’ve paid the price for that creative accounting when the cap was more restrictive. They’re still restructuring more contracts than most teams, sure, and that’s going to be the case again in 2024. But things are in a much better space for 2023 than we saw in years past, and that should be our takeaway.

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How NFL draft trade value charts graded the Saints-Bears deal

How NFL draft trade value charts graded the Saints-Bears deal for Old Dominion right tackle Nick Saldiveri:

The New Orleans Saints and Chicago Bears completed a surprise trade in the minutes leading up to the fourth round of the 2023 NFL draft, which helped the Saints vault up the board while the Bears moved down a dozen spots (adding a fifth-round pick for their trouble). New Orleans selected Old Dominion right tackle Nick Saldiveri with their new pick.

So how did the various NFL draft trade value charts floating around grade this move? Legendary coach Jimmy Johnson is credited for first introducing the model that all others are based off of, but these days there are multiple variants to consider. Teams use their own models so there’s some variance from one war room to the next. Let’s see what they made of the Saints-Bears trade:

This one chart helps explain the incredible value of Packers RB Aaron Jones

Aaron Jones is insanely good at football. Duh. This one chart helps explain why he’s such an incredibly valuable NFL running back.

Just one chart can help explain the incredible value of Green Bay Packers running back Aaron Jones, who will be back in Green Bay in 2023 after agreeing to a contract restructuring on Friday.

Let’s start with a simple premise: Running backs want to maximize the return on every carry, and they want every carry to be valuable in the pursuit of points.

Few running backs have done both things better in the last 15 years than Jones.

Here’s the chart showing Jones’ brilliance as a runner, from Paul Noonan of Acme Packing Co:

On the X axis: EPA per rush, or expected points added per rush.

On the Y axis: Rushing yards over expected per rush.

EPA is a measure of value in terms of adding future expected points per play. Only Jamaal Charles has been more valuable per rush than Jones since 2008.

Rushing yards over expected measures the yards a running back produces over what’s expected of an average running back in the same situation given the blocking and space. In this metric, only Nick Chubb has been better since 2008.

By these two metrics, Jones, Charles and Chubb sit head and shoulders above all other running backs during this 15-year stretch.

And now Jones will be back in Green Bay for 2023 and likely 2024.

Jones has rushed for 5.0 or more yards per rush four times in six NFL seasons and averages 5.1 yards per rush over his 86-game career. He also has three 1,000-yard rushing seasons on fewer than 250 attempts, which ranks second all-time.

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The Saints’ disastrous win probability chart needs to be seen to be believed

The Saints’ disastrous win probability chart needs to be seen to be believed. They had this in the bag, until they literally gave it away:

This really tells the whole story, doesn’t it? Depending on which sources you went with, the New Orleans Saints had a win probability of something between 97% and 98% late in Monday night’s game with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They were leading by double digits and dropped a punt at the Tampa Bay 9-yard line with just over 3 minutes left in regulation.

Then Tom Brady got busy, with some help from Paulson Adebo on an unnecessary penalty for defensive pass interference that moved the Buccaneers offense 44 yards upfield, all the way up to the New Orleans goal line. And the Saints had no response.

Look at their final possession. Alvin Kamara runs for 3 yards. Facing 2nd-and-7 from his own 28-yard line, Pete Carmichael Jr. took Chris Olave and Rashid Shaheed off the field and subbed in practice squad wideout Kirk Merritt. With no quick options to throw to, Andy Dalton was sacked at the 18-yard line. On third down with the game — and the season — on the line, Carmichael dialed up a pass to Taysom Hill down the season in-between three Buccaneers defenders.

To their credit, Dalton placed the ball perfectly. And at first, Hill held onto it. But the collision jarred the ball loose and the Saints had to punt with 2:39 left in regulation. That was all too easy for Tampa Bay.

All these details and more are illustrated on the interactive win probability chart from NumberFire, which you can find here. It shows how the Saints gave it up in this game, where they went wrong, and which plays had the greatest impact on their loss. It’s altogether a heavy indictment of Dennis Allen and Carmichael’s poor situational decision-making. How much longer can this be allowed to continue? What more do Mickey Loomis and Gayle Benson need to see before demanding accountability?

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LOOK: Falcons’ win probability chart vs. Saints has to be seen to believed

LOOK: Falcons’ win probability chart from their fourth-quarter collapse vs. Saints has to be seen to believed

Whew. Let’s all take a deep breath. Sunday’s season opener between the New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons was a roller coaster ride from start to finish, peaking in the fourth quarter with a 16-point New Orleans rally for the huge road win.

And you can see this roller coaster laid out in a helpful graphic with this week’s win probability chart. Initially shared by the Athletic’s Nate Tice, you can explore the chart in greater detailing at NumberFire. It factors in all plays — scores, big gains, negative yardage, critical down results, all of them — to estimate win probability on a per-snap basis and fully illustrate the game.

Everything is there: Younghoe Koo’s early-game field goal that gave Atlanta the lead, and a couple of big plays from Taysom Hill that swung it the other way, with the odds climbing in New Orleans’ favor. But then things took a turn, and a sharp dip to almost guarantee the win for Atlanta. At its lowest point, the game had a 95.52% chance of going the other way.

Then the Saints offense shook off the rust, Michael Thomas bullied top Falcons corner A.J. Terrell for a couple of touchdown catches, and the black and gold came out on top. It was quite a ride, and seeing it laid out like this is fascinating. It’s a unique postmortem on yet another Falcons second-half collapse.

You can change the coach, and the quarterback, but the Falcons are still the Falcons. They’ll keep losing games like this in a bleak echo of their Super Bowl LI defeat until the end of time. This is who they, are this is what they do. And the Saints will be there to benefit from it.

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Saints still lead the NFL in penalty yards through 4 weeks

The New Orleans Saints lead the NFL in penalty yards through their first four games, mostly due to defensive pass interference fouls.

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With the majority of NFL teams having played four games to start the 2020 season, and the New Orleans Saints are still an outlier when it comes to penalties. While they were fouled just four times for 67 yards in their win over the Detroit Lions, the Saints still lead the league in total penalty yardage (398), averaging nearly 100 yards per game.

Most of that can be attributed to defensive penalties; their offense has yielded just 70 penalty yards, the twelfth-fewest number in the NFL. The defense leads the league with 328 penalty yards. About 61.3% of that yardage has come from defensive pass interference fouls alone, where New Orleans has given up nearly as many yards (244) as the next three teams combined (252 from the Indianapolis Colts, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and New England Patriots, who have played just three games so far).

Things will continue to normalize as the sample size grows with more games being played. This week, the New York Jets and Chicago Bears each racked up more than 100 penalty yards, helping to close the gap between the Saints and the rest of the NFL. But that’s not company the Saints want to keep, and even now they are an outlier among outliers — the NFL average for defensive penalty yards per game is just 113.4. The Saints have nearly tripled that.

Wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders called out the NFL’s officiating after Week 3’s loss to the Green Bay Packers, publicly asking why opposing defenders were allowed to get away with penalty-worthy moves that earned flags for his Saints teammates. Through four weeks, the Saints have been the beneficiary of just 19 penalties, the seventh-fewest in the league (tying with the Patriots, who play Monday night).

And there were moments when the referees took aim at the Saints for fouls in coverage against Detroit. Linebacker Alex Anzalone was flagged twice, once for DPI and again for illegal contact, on moves that didn’t appear very egregious but still helped lead to Lions touchdowns. Free safety Marcus Williams was also penalized for competing on a contested catch, despite having turned his head around to look for the ball.

Maybe the NFL’s officiating brotherhood is still stinging from last year’s rebuke, when Saints coach Sean Payton helped introduce a new rule making pass interference subject to replay review (it didn’t take; the rule was ineffective and criticized for slowing down game flow, and abandoned after one year). That was a big affront to their authority and it’s easy to explain this trend away as them looking for any reason to penalize Payton’s team. But you’d think they could be better professionals and not stoop to that.

Whatever the case, the Saints must continue to clean up their act. Giving up so many free yards to opposing teams has put them in too many tight spots this season. Whether it’s changes in coaching instruction or play style, the Saints have to keep tweaking things to limit the impact penalties can have on their games. It’s tough enough to beat one opponent, much less two.

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PFF charted Malcolm Jenkins from 5 different alignments in Week 1

The analysts at Pro Football Focus charted New Orleans Saints DB Malcolm Jenkins as playing five different positions against the Buccaneers.

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Malcolm Jenkins was one of a handful of New Orelans Saints starters to stay on the field for all 70 defensive snaps against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and he turned in some impressive tape in his first game back in black and gold after six years with the Philadelphia Eagles. While he may be listed as a strong safety, he really plays a brand of positionless football more like what you’d expect to see from Tyrann Mathieu, Jamal Adams, or another one of the young stars making a name for themselves.

Pro Football Focus took notice, grading Jenkins with a top-two rating in every category for New Orleans: run defense (70.9), pass rushing (82.5), and pass coverage (68.5), as well as overall defense (76.9). That’s a great return on investment for the priciest Saints free agent acquisition. Here’s what PFF analyst Sam Monson had to say of Jenkins’ second Saints debut:

Malcolm Jenkins’ triumphant return to New Orleans couldn’t have got off to a better start. Jenkins was used all over the Saints’ defense and had an impact in seemingly every role. He spent snaps as a deep-lying free safety (22) in the box (20), crowding the line of scrimmage as a threat to blitz (17), covering the slot (7) and even split wide as a perimeter corner to match up with Bucs’ receivers (4). He even played special teams to add to his contributions. Jenkins had two total pressures from six pass-rushing snaps on the blitz, recorded two defensive stops and didn’t give up a catch during the game as the Saints defense frustrated Tom Brady and the Bucs.

And here’s a simple pie chart reflecting all the different alignments Jenkins saw against Tampa Bay:

That versatility explains why the Saints were so eager to bring Jenkins back into the fold after letting him walk away back in 2013. He developed into a great player with a well-rounded skills set in Philadelphia, and his ability to wear so many hats was on full display. Being able to ask him to switch spots from one play to the next relieves a lot of pressure from other players, and we should expect to see more of this as the season continues.

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2020 NFL Draft: Full order of picks, with trade value for each selection

The New Orleans Saints could make a trade in the 2020 NFL Draft, as is often their strategy. But how are each of their selections valued?

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The 2020 NFL Draft is just a few weeks away, with the Cincinnati Bengals expected to go on the clock at 7:00 p.m. CT on April 23. Unlike last year, this time around the New Orleans Saints do have a first-round pick, meaning fans will have a great reason to tune in and see who will join the black and gold. It wouldn’t be a surprise if the Saints made another bold trade up the board, targeting a player whose evaluation they trust (as they’ve done in every draft Sean Payton has overseen since 2006, his first year on the job).

But what other selections do the Saints have? And how much are their picks valued against what other teams have to work with? To find out, we’ve included this chart with projected trade values for every selection in the 2020 draft:

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What’s with the penalty disparity between the Saints and their opponents?

The New Orleans Saints rank among the most-penalized NFL teams, but their opponents are playing uncharacteristically clean against them.

The New Orleans Saints have overcome plenty of adversity this year, ranging from the five-week loss of starting quarterback Drew Brees to an opening-half schedule that saw them travel to play four opponents on the road in their first six weeks. They’ve also dealt with extra attention from the NFL’s referees and their officiating crews. That’s just part of the game, but this season (and in recent weeks specifically), it’s been unprecedented.

Check out the chart above from Jeff Asher of AH Datalytics, sourced from Pro Football Reference. From what we can see there, the Saints and their opponents have largely been penalized at similar rates; New Orleans played largely-clean football from 2006 to 2009, though a brief window from 2015 to 2017 saw their sloppy play benefit their opponents. But this latest surge in fouls has been very clearly one-sided.

The Saints are averaging 7.9 penalties per game, which ranks eighth-worst in the NFL. That’s turned into 68.3 penalty yards per game, nearly the equivalent of an offensive drive downfield after good starting field position. It’s kept a number of opposing drives alive, with New Orleans’ opponents gaining the second-most first downs by penalty per game (2.8) in the league.

And as the chart above demonstrates, the teams playing the Saints are not being held to the same standard. Those opponents are averaging the fewest penalties per game (5.3) and penalty yards surrendered per game (40.6) in football, granting the Saints the second-fewest first downs by penalty per game (0.92) around the NFL.

In a perfect world, officials would keep things fair and balanced and refuse to let one team get away with foul-worthy plays while turning a blind eye to their opponents. However, so long as people — with limited vision and too much autonomy to make judgment calls — are in charge, mistakes are going to happen. You would expect one team to end the day with fewer penalties than their opponent; typically speaking, some teams are better-coached and more disciplined than others. But the difference between how the Saints are being judged and how their opponents are being officiated deserves inspection.

One possible answer for that disparity could be that the Saints are playing a schedule filled with the league’s fewest-penalized teams. That’s not the case. New Orleans has played many teams ranked inside the top half of the league in penalties and penalty yards per game. We’ve broken down their penalty stats per game against what they were fouled for in the Saints’ games in the chart below:

This illustrates how officiating was nearly even to start the year, if marginally beneficial to the Saints. But over time (especially in recent weeks) there has been a visible shift in opposing teams being fouled less often against the Saints than in their typical games. Things bottomed out in Week 6 against the Jacksonville Jaguars, when they were fouled for 6.8 penalties and 61.5 penalty yards below their season averages. There’s been a clear shift since that game.

On the whole, the Saints’ opponents have averaged 2.2 fewer penalties per game and 21.4 fewer penalty yards per game when playing against New Orleans than in their typical outings. In a vacuum, that isn’t much. But when considered in the big picture, those numbers snowball into 35.2 penalties and 342.4 penalty yards over a 16-game season.

So what gives? Are the Saints playing sloppy, while their opponents suddenly turn in their cleanest games of the year back-to-back-to-back? Or are the officials allowing the teams playing the Saints to get away with the ticky-tack fouls that happen on every down (holding, hands-to-the-face, that sort of thing) while not giving New Orleans the same leeway? It’s bizarre to say the least.

A big part of the problem is limited sample size. Analyzing the game from a quantifiable perspective like this works in other sports like baseball and basketball because there are literally hundreds (if not thousands) of data points to work with, whereas football begins and ends very quickly, relying on a 16-game regular season and four-stage postseason tournament. Instances like this are easy to explain away as an outlier, a freak accident, against what recent history informs us. That said, it’s totally understandable if fans aren’t satisfied with that explanation. It’s frustrating to see your team get fouled for what the other squad gets away with, week in and week out.

For his part, Saints coach Sean Payton isn’t going to chalk up these lost plays and surrendered yards to any biases from the NFL’s officials. He’s preached the need for improved coaching from his staff as well as better discipline from his players, summing up the situation after their penalty-filled Week 12 win over the Carolina Panthers as, “We are going to need to be smarter in bigger games.” That makes sense, because it’s all he and his team can control.

Hopefully the Saints can clean it up and give the officials fewer opportunities to impact their games. Despite dealing with quality opponents and a fine-combed approach by the zebras, the Saints are still 10-2 and owners of their third consecutive NFC South title.

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