The NFL was full of upsets this week. Heading into Monday Night Football, seven underdogs had come away with a victory, including the Cowboys loss to the Vikings, the Titans over the Chiefs, and the Falcons taking down the Saints. It was only fitting that it should end with another one as the Seahawks took down the previously unbeaten 49ers in an overtime thriller.
That being said, this single week’s games weren’t enough to change much in each team’s Expected Points Differential.
Expected Points, the foundation of many analytical arguments, uses data from previous NFL seasons to determine how many points a team is likely to come away with on a given play based on down, distance, time remaining, and field position. The difference in expected points at the start of a play and expected points at the end is referred to as expected points added, or EPA.
A play with a positive EPA means it put the offense in a better position to score, while negative EPA implies the offense is in a worse position.
Note: There was a bug within the program that scrapes all the NFL play-by-play data that affected the EPA on plays with challenges, which has since been fixed. There was some slight movement in team EPA totals because of this, but nothing too major.
The top two teams stayed put this week despite San Francisco going home with a loss.
Cowboys QB Dak Prescott performed better than either QB from these teams, netting a total of 24 EPA across 47 plays, but it wasn’t enough to overcome a rough day on the ground for Ezekiel Elliott. The underlying numbers for Dallas, however, still make them look far better than their 5-4 record suggests.
Pittsburgh and Oakland were the biggest climbers this week, moving up five and four spots, respectively. The Steelers’ offense isn’t very inspiring with Mason Rudolph at the helm, but their defense ranks third in the NFL in total EPA allowed, trailing only New England and San Francisco. Rookie linebacker Devin Bush has proven he was worth the trade-up, while in-season acquisition Minkah Fitzpatrick has picked off more passes than anyone in the NFL since moving up north from Miami.
We’ve got a new leader in total offensive EPA this week, as Lamar Jackson’s huge day put him in the top spot this week among offensive players. Jackson’s 1.14 EPA/play more than doubled the amount of second-place Prescott (0.51 EPA/play). Yes, the Bengals are bad, but nobody else has done that to them this season. The next best performance against Cincinnati was Jimmy Garoppolo’s 0.66 EPA/play way back in Week 2.
Lamar Jackson has been an above average passer, ranking seventh in raw EPA/pass, but it’s his rushing success that has catapulted him to stardom. Jackson now has started 16 games in his career, and if they were all in one season, he’d break Michael Vick’s single-season rushing yards record for quarterbacks. He’s playing like 2013 Colin Kaepernick, if Kaepernick doubled his rushing yards and completed about 10% more of his passes.
Moving away from quarterbacks, let’s take a look at how running backs are doing in 2019 with their carries. A few weeks ago, I found that teams are seeing more rushing success to the outside than they have been in the past decade, with the exception of short yardage situations. With the help of NFL’s Next Gen Stats and Pro Football Focus, we can zoom in a bit more on specific running back performance.
What jumps out to me here is the 49ers stable of running backs. Raheem Mostert, Matt Breida, and Tevin Coleman are all seeing above average loaded box counts, and yet Mostert and Breida are first and fourth in yards per carry. Coleman, who sees more loaded boxes than anyone but Frank Gore, is still league average in YPC.
We can glean a better measure of effectiveness of the run game by using EPA/carry in this same fashion.
Coleman surpasses his teammates here even with the lower yards per carry mark because he’s seeing more work in short yardage situations. Coleman has seen the 10th highest percentage of his carries in short yardage situations (3 or fewer yards to go) as well as the fourth highest touchdown percentage in the league. Touchdowns and first downs are generally the biggest positive EPA plays, so it’s no wonder he looks better here.
Christian McCaffrey and Dalvin Cook both appear near the top here, as expected, but the surprise might be that they are joined by Aaron Jones and the duo of Mark Ingram and Gus Edwards. Ingram is the leader in EPA/carry this year despite seeing more 8+ man box counts than either McCaffrey or Cook. The threat of Lamar Jackson keeping the football on any given play coupled with a scheme that might even see Robert Griffin III receive a pitch is proving to be enough to run over anyone, even when they are prepared to stop the run.
On the other side of things, last year’s top performers (Ezekiel Elliott, Saquon Barkley, Alvin Kamara, and Todd Gurley) are all seeing below average loaded box counts and still only producing at a near average rate. Elliott has been the best of this bunch so far, even with his tough day last weekend.
If we really want to break down running back performance, we need to look for places a running back can separate himself from his team’s coaching decisions and run blocking performance. For that, let’s take a look at Pro Football Focus’ yards after contact.
It appears that the 49ers backs are helped more by scheme than by running backs breaking tackles. The best back by this measure is Seattle’s Chris Carson, who is gaining more yards after contact than anyone in the league, and yet is still below average by EPA. This is a good reminder that EPA evaluations are often indicative more of team performance rather than individual performance, especially when we’re looking at rushing.
The Ravens and the 49ers are great reminders that rushing can be effective in the modern NFL, and the situations in which teams choose to run the ball tend to have a larger impact on rushing success than the specific ball carrier.
Elliott can be an effective piece for the Cowboys offense, but it’s crucial they continue to focus his efforts on the ground against lighter boxes, which he’s seeing more than the average back in 2019. His yards after contact is only just above league average, while his quarterback happens to be one of the most efficient in the league. Let’s hope Dallas only feeds Elliott in optimum situations going forward, because when the light boxes are there, he can eat.
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