NFL statistical review after Week 1: Team tiers, dropback outcomes and more

2RT4HY3 Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill (10) celebrates his touchdown catch with wide receiver Erik Ezukanma during the second half of an NFL football game Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

This article will be a weekly statistical review of all NFL teams during the 2023 season. With the sample size still low after Week 1, a lot will change over the next few weeks as stats become more meaningful with more snaps logged.

For more statistics, snap counts and PFF grades from the 2023 NFL season, check out PFF Premium Stats.


Team Strengths

The following chart shows how good teams have been in terms of expected points added per play. To improve predictive power, high-leverage plays such as turnovers and goal-line plays are down-weighted a bit.

In the future, this chart will be opponent-adjusted.


Moving the sticks

The following chart shows how often teams move the chains — convert a series of downs to a new series of downs. For example, the Miami Dolphins moved the sticks on first down 37% of the time. They moved the sticks on the first two downs 67% of the time. After three downs, they moved the sticks 82% of the time. In total (using all four downs), they moved the sticks 85% of the time.

As of now, the NFL average pictured here is still the average from 2022.

In the future, we will also show this for defenses, but as of now, the defense chart is just the offense chart for opponents. We will also adjust for opponents in the coming weeks.


Pass rates

The following table shows how often teams dropped back to pass, adjusted for down, distance and the current score.


Dropback outcomes

With targets being the most efficient outcome of a dropback on average, just getting a target off more often than others can already be an important indicator for good offenses. There are notable exceptions for teams with mobile quarterbacks, but teams mostly want to have a large green bar and a small purple (sacks) bar in the below chart.

In future weeks, when sample size increases, we will look at splits by downs or by whether the quarterback was under pressure. But for now, we examine all dropbacks.

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