The 2019 NFL State of the Union

Connor Lothrop

Article II, Section 3, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution states that, “The President shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” This has evolved into a yearly speech in which the President gives a speech in mid-January. For reasons involving petty government squabbling, this year’s address took place Tuesday night. While the reasons for the move are nasty, it does allow a perfect opportunity to give my very own State of the Union for the NFL. While I am not implying that I am the Commander-in-Chief of the National Football League, or even that I could do a better job than Roger Goodell (I could), but since he refuses to give a speech of his own for this, I will gladly look back at this season and ask for a few things from the lawmakers of the NFL. Now, without further ado, let me put on my Tom Brady jersey and begin…

Offense is the future of the NFL

2018 was an absolutely unprecedented offensive explosion. The Kansas City Chiefs, LA Rams, and New Orleans Saints all had top 25 all-time seasons in scoring. 10 teams comfortably cleared 25 points/game, compared to 8 last year. 3 teams scored 30 a game, compared to 3 combined the last 3 years. The high powered, creative offenses run by coaches like Andy Reid and Sean McVay each scored more than a point every two minutes, and found success by surrounding young quarterbacks with lots of weapons. Both were also part of an offensive coaching revolution that caused this upturn (more on that later).

Old and new quarterbacks alike found success. 39 year old Drew Brees was the runner up for MVP, thanks to great raw stats like his 3,992 yards, 32 touchdowns, and league best 74.4 completion percentage. He also had the second best QBR (ESPN’s quarterback rating metric—100 is a perfect score) of his career, scoring an 81.9, and his rating of 115.1 is also a league best. Brees was also incredibly clutch, leading 7(!) game winning drives, another league and career best. Meanwhile, another geezer named Tom Brady won a Super Bowl in his age 41 season, even if he did regress slightly. His 68.8 QBR and 29 touchdown passes in the regular season showed he is in fact mortal and capable of regression. However, he came out firing in the playoffs, firing 317.7 yards per game and winning all 3 games en route to ring number six, thus completing his Infinity Gauntlet of Super Bowl rings.

Young guns also established a lot of hope in the future of offense. For years, the NFL draft could never really produce more than one successful passer a year. This changed in 2018, when all 5 rookie quarterbacks taken in the first round showed promise, none more so then Baker Mayfield. He led the team to 7 wins, 7 more than they managed in 2017. He also set the rookie record for passing touchdowns (27), and threw for 3725 yards and 14 interceptions in 13 games. He has the potential to make Cleveland football relevant again. Fellow rookie quarterbacks Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen established themselves as runners and improved throughout the year, and Sam Darnold and Josh Rosen struggled for consistency but showed promise. Offensive Rookie of the Year Saquon Barkley also set the league on fire, recording the third most scrimmage yards for a rookie and leading the league with 2028. He carried an otherwise torrid Giants offense to mediocrity by touching the ball 352 times, only behind division rival Ezekiel Elliott.

The biggest strides on offense, however were made by two players who, while not rookies, are certainly experienced. When Jared Goff and Patrick Mahomes met for the first time in November, their teams produced a combined 105 points. While Goff’s Rams escaped with the victory, Mahomes beat him out for MVP. In his first full season, he lead the Chiefs to overtime in the AFC Championship and racked up 22 AV (how valuable a player is), the most in the league. The Texas Tech product also became the 3rd quarterback to throw for 50 scores in a season and tacked on an additional 5,097 yards in Andy Reid’s freewheeling scheme. Although Goff’s numbers were less phenomenal than his counterpart (4,688 yards, 32 TDs, 18 AV), he still had a breakout season with a marked improvement from his 2016 and ‘17 numbers. He was also one quarter of good football away from a from a title.

Defense Still Wins Championships

When I was playing soccer in elementary school, I often wanted to go forward and score goals instead of playing goalie or defense. Whenever I bristled at being moved to the back lines, my dad, at that point my coach, would tell me, “Offense makes movies, but defense wins championships.” Never has that been truer than Sunday, when the New England Patriots stunned the football world by holding the Rams to a field goal, just a tenth of their usual scoring output.

This scoreline was so bizarrely unprecedented that no one, and I mean NO ONE, saw it coming. Nearly 100 writers at ESPN.com picked the final score they expected for the game. Most writers predicted between 50 and 60 combined points, with as many as 90 on the table. The stingiest of those writers picked New England to repeat its 2001 Super Bowl victory over the Rams 20-17. I myself was expecting a game that would maybe end 35-31. But boy oh boy was literally everyone wrong. The 13-3 Patriots victory was the lowest scoring game in Super Bowl history, and Tom Brady successfully completed his infinity gauntlet with ring number six.

The first article I wrote on this site was about the gameplanning skills of Bill Belichick. Sunday night confirmed my assertion of his genius. The Rams offense is very nearly a top 10 all-time unit. They ran most of their plays out of the 11 personnel (1 running back, 1 tight end). The Rams also liked to line up early to give coach Sean McVay time to relay information through his headset. New England would need to disrupt Goff’s rhythm and bamboozle McVay.

Belichick countered all of these tendencies beautifully. New England was constantly in Goff’s grill. He was pressured on nearly 40% of his dropbacks, with the Patriots blitzing an astounding 41% of the time. They threw exotic zone looks at the Rams early and often, confusing McVay and baiting him into bad playcalls. Goff finished the night 19 for 38 for 229 yards and a pick. Meanwhile, the vaunted LA rushing attack picked up a measly 62 yards on 18 attempts, easily one of their worst outputs of the year. The New England defensive line stuffed fatback CJ Anderson and explosive threat Todd Gurley all night, thanks to a stellar performance from Danny Shelton. Belichick won his first Super Bowl by holding the Greatest Show on Turf to 17 points in 2001. This gameplan tops even that amazing feat. Not that LA didn’t try its absolute hardest to lose. Receivers had to stretch for more balls than they should have, and Goff’s timing was never on. Late in the game, he missed a potential go-ahead touchdown pass to a wide open Brandin Cooks because his throw was just not on time. The same thing with another potential scoring pass to Robert Woods the next drive. The final meaningful pass he threw was a woefully underthrown ball that resulted in a Stephon Gilmore pick. Sean McVay admitted after the game that he had been thoroughly outcoached, too. His playcalls were off, and he never was able to read the looks New England sent at him. Don’t let this take away from the New England defense, though. They held the second best offense in the NFL to a longest play of 24 yards.

On the offensive side of the ball, Belichick was less stellar. Just like Goff, Brady’s timing was never quite right. New England’s running game did most of the heavy lifting, toting the ball 32 times for 154 yards and the the game’s lone score. The man who scored those 6 points, Sony Michel, spent these playoffs trying to prove he can be a workhorse who can carry Brady off into the sunset; he certainly proved that and more. The buildup to that touchdown, though, was a stroke of genius. The Patriots took advantage of the Rams mediocre defense in the middle of the field and ran the same play out of the same 22 personnel (2 running backs, 2 tight ends) 3 straight times. The first time, Super Bowl MVP Julian Edelman ran a juke route over the middle and picked up 13 yards to the LA 38 yard line. Brady then dumped a ball off to running back Rex Burkhead for a pickup of 7. The final time, Father Time dropped an absolute dime into Rob Gronkowski arms off a seam route. They capped off the drive with a 2 yard run by Sony Michel for the game’s only touchdown. The Patriots held the Rams scoreless the rest of the way, and secured their 6th title in team history thanks to one hell of a defensive effort.

And now, some requests

As well reviewing the last year for the constituents, it is also customary for the POTUS to make a few requests like…

Colin Kaepernick getting a job. In the 3 years where San Francisco surrounded him with weapons and fit him into his preferred scheme, he was one of the more productive passers in the league. He was as nearly as productive as Tom Brady from 2012-14, posting an average QBR of 66.1 (very good for a running QB), before awful injury luck and the decline of coach Jim Harbaugh led to his play dropping off and his eventual release for totally non-political reasons (just kidding, they were totally political). Kaepernick in his current form is a high-floor guy in terms of performance, and you cannot tell me that he was a worse option for the Redskins over Josh Jackson and Colt McCoy. Unfortunately, every season the owners continue to blackball him over his views on civil rights is another reason for teams to avoid “a quarterback who doesn’t fit into the modern game because he hasn’t played in x years and is too old to run.” No matter your views on his opinions, he at least deserves a shot to become a high value player on an NFL team.

The NFL also needs to find a way for blatantly wrong penalties to be reviewed, and I think the entire city of New Orleans agrees with me. After the pass interference no-call that sent LA to the Super Bowl instead of the Saints, several questions have been raised about the current review system, and rightly so. There is currently no system in place to overturn penalties. However, that does NOT mean the NFL should allow coaches to challenge penalty calls. That would turn games (and the lives of very human referees) into an unmitigated disaster. No, it is a better idea for the NFL to add an official to every crew that has the sole responsibility of overturning obviously incorrect penalties from the booth, call or no-call. If it is not done this season, then the league office will surely take even more heat than usual in 2019.

Teams need to stop hiring Sean McVay copycats. We get it. The Rams coach has had an incredibly successful and unique run in LA. He will be around for awhile; the people who get hired because they have some connection to him or are in similar situations won’t be. Zac Taylor, the new Bengals, was McVay’s QB coach in 2018. He has never called a play, and he has already made the mistake of hiring the offensive line coach who oversaw that Dolphins bullying scandal. While offensive, QB centric coaches are the new vogue, they are not necessarily always the best choice. Bill Belichick was a defensive and special teams coordinator for decades, after all.

This concludes the 2018 NFL State of the Union. Life is good for the League, and it should only trend upward in 2019, unless Tom Brady snaps half the NFL out of existence.

Note: As always, thank you to my awesome editor Brooke Jones! I don’t know how she still does this after reading these 4 comma-splice-filled pieces.