Can C.J. Stroud turn things around? Let's size up the QB's struggles -- along with Saquon Barkley's wild season, intriguing playoff races and big Week 12 trends.
Ben Solak joined ESPN in 2024 as a national NFL analyst. He previously covered the NFL at The Ringer, Bleeding Green Nation and The Draft Network.. It's terrible news for my enjoyment but excellent news for my Sunday sleep schedule. The other good sleep-related news? An incoming dose of tryptophan. Everyone remember to take your turkeys out of the freezer so they have time to defrost!
In 2024, defenses said no more. They are playing Cover 3 on 26.6% of Stroud's dropbacks, robbing him of the single-high looks he ripped up last season. In their place, opposing defenses have dialed up the two-high; they're playing Cover 2 on twice as many dropbacks this season as they did last season. Similarly, Stroud saw base defense on 27.9% of his dropbacks in 2023, and now he sees it on only 21.6% of them.
Nobody likes when the interception rate doubles, but it's just about average for the league this season, so it's not like Stroud is handing the ball away at an egregious clip. Nor is Stroud putting the ball in harm's way at an egregious clip. His turnover-worthy play rate is 2.8%, which is exactly what it was last season. It's easy to forget in all the rookie hype but he got away with a lot of window-testing last season. This season, he's just regressing back to the mean.
But some of the issues are structural too. Slowik is a chip off the old Shanahan block, and the Shanahan offense is notorious for having a small menu of protection rules and an exploitable lack of checks and adjustments at the line of scrimmage. Here's a, who is technically an off-ball linebacker. But because he has stepped right up to the line of scrimmage, you'd like to be able to set this protection with the five offensive linemen each taking the down defensive player opposite them.
I would love to argue Barkley for MVP by just saying"Well, watch the Eagles. They're way better on offense this season than they were in 2023, and Barkley is clearly the biggest difference. He consistently makes big plays for them early on and closes out games late in spectacular, no-doubter fashion. They are a very good team, and he is the keystone of the offense; ergo, he has an MVP case.
And on the topic of the running game, it is just not as valuable as the passing game. With everything else equal, we expect a dropback to generate more yardage, more first downs, more explosive plays and more plays of a positive expected value than a handoff. Passing has gotten easier in the NFL as a result of rule changes, college schemes and better developmental systems. It is, without question, a passing league.
It's hard to take things in degrees, and it is hard to isolate things on a football field.
When I really sit down and think it out, I admit Jackson is more valuable to the Ravens' offense than Barkley has been to the Eagles' offense, and I'd probably cast my vote for the star Baltimore quarterback at this stage. But we don't need Barkley to) or by email anytime -- but especially on Monday each week -- to ask a question and potentially get it answered here.
I'm not sure this is totally the result of a defensive-minded head coach. Dan Quinn hasn't taken this path at all in Washington withThe thing about the"unorthodox special" is that it can evaporate. If Williams had missed any one of his five or so heroic throws-- a very likely thing to happen, given the degree of difficulty on each -- the Bears wouldn't have even had a chance to win the game late.
The defense's ascension from a generally plucky Steve Spagnuolo unit to bona fide top-five unit has been an enormous part of their late-game success. If regression hits that defense, I'm not sure they'll win their 14th one-score contest. Base defense is an easy thing to define on a broad scale -- only four defensive backs on the field -- but can get tricky in specific cases.
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