YOU GET THE POINTS
Insiders discuss NFL’s offensive fireworks display
OFFENSE SELLS tickets, but does anyone still believe that defense wins championships? The fix is in. More than ever, the NFL wants offense. The fantasy football nation wants offense. Television ratings for “Monday Night Football” are up 2 percent from the same point last year.
Everyone seems to want offense ... except for the sleep-deprived defensive coordinators who are swimming against the tide and drowning in helplessness:
Average points per game: 24.1, highest since 2013 (23.4).
Total yards per team per game: Up 30.6 from last season to 379.9.
Already there have been 34 two-point conversions made. There were 37 all last season.
Serby Says solicited t he opinions of five highly-respected NFL minds to explain the fireworks phenomenon:
Mike Martz, former Greatest Show on Turf offensive coordinator, Rams coach and now San Diego Fleet coach in the Alliance of American Football League: “A lot of good quarterbacks, and I think that for the most part, 20 years ago there was a little bit of an inhibition to throw the ball on early downs, or in successive downs more than two or three times in a row. People are always held to this fantasy of you have to be balanced run and pass. And they just kind of broke away from all those handcuffs that were traditional. There’s a lot of creativity going on and I think there’s a number of really good quarterbacks.”
Mike Mayock, NFL Network analyst: “No. 1, I think the talent level and the production level at the quarterback position is better than we’ve seen in years, if not ever. I think even five, eight years ago I would say you could probably only find 10, 11, 12 franchise quarterbacks. Today I think you could find 20 quarterbacks who could help you win a Super Bowl. I think we’re kind of in a golden age where the older guys, the Bradys and the Breeses and Roethlisbergers and Rivers, they’re still playing at a really high level, and now you got all these exciting young guys at the other end of it.
“I think secondly, the NFL’s doing a much better job of taking the young quarterbacks and giving them a comfort level to play early and play well.
“Then I think you’re talking about the rules. ... What the issue’s become is protection of the quarterbacks. How many times have you seen defenders pull off these guys? They’re afraid to hit the quarterback anywhere.
“You look at the attrition over the years — and I’m a former defensive back, so I kind of pay attention to this. Every year I see the points of emphasis and the new rules, and it seems like 90 percent of them are slanted towards the offense. I think point blank the NFL wants scoring. When you add the whole thing up, it’s becoming easier to score.”
Rich Gannon, former AllPro quarterback, CBS analyst: “I think we’re seeing in some situations, pass rushers pull up a little bit. A couple of times quarterbacks have gotten out of the grasp of guys. Attacking in the middle of the field is no longer an issue. Back in the day, receivers didn’t want to go in the middle of the field. Now, with hits on defenseless players, the helmet rule, you’re seeing safeties that are more conservative in their approach in terms of the target area. I think that’s affecting that part of the field. Defensive backs not able to press and kind of hold on after five yards. ... I think those are some of the big factors.
“I think you’ve got some really good playcallers. You look at Sean McVay and Josh McDaniels, even Kyle Shanahan does a really nice job, although he’s without his starting running back [Jerick McKinnon] and quarterback [Jimmy Garoppolo].”
Steve Spagnuolo, former Giants defensive coordinator and former Rams coach: “I remember Bill Belichick — this might have been back at owners meetings of 2010 or 2011, right when we were going into the lockout. And I remember we were discussing as a group — all the teams, owners coaches, GMs — they were letting us know how the negotiations were going, and they were telling us they were probably gonna cut back on offseason training, the training schedules were gonna be different. I remember Bill Belichick standing up at that time and making the point that I hope we all realize that the product — and he was speaking more from a defensive standpoint — it was gonna go down because we’re not gonna have the time to train people the fundamentals, etc., etc. It might be a little bit of that, that could be some of it, too.
“The rules seem to tilt toward quarterbacks and when you have a lot of good ones in the league, certainly the results are gonna be more scoring.
“The RPOs [run-pass options] I think is really a tough play to defend. Every team in the league has a little bit of that. That’s a really good football play from an offensive standpoint in my opinion.”
James Bettcher, Giants defensive coordinator: “As we have seen probably over the last three to four years in this league, and I’ve said this a lot of times when I talk about hybridtype players on defense that you need. The offenses have become more and more multiple, more and more spread and more and more horizontal where space is more of an issue for defenders than ever before in this league. You look at the college game and see how it’s bled into the NFL game in that regard.”
The last word belongs to Mayock: “I’m an old man [60], and this is in my memory the best quarterback play I’ve ever seen. I think we’re enjoying something really special right now. For instance, I don’t think Philip Rivers gets anywhere near the amount of credit he deserves. It’s a little bit like a Dan Marino in Miami, he hasn’t won a Super Bowl, but he’s a Hall of Fame quarterback. We’ve got a group of five or six old guys that are playing at an unreal level, and I think we just need to appreciate it.”