NFCE

By: PenguinFarmer In my short time on this ostensibly warming planet, I have never seen such vitriol from feuding political opinions. However, on the day of our great nation’s Independence Day, I think it is best to get political to—paradoxically—unite all of us together against a common foe. For those who toked too much through…

OFF-BALL LINEBACKERS By Joey Esquire Leaguewide, teams played with 3+ receivers about 65% of plays in 2016, and as a result most teams now play from nickel as a de facto base defense. In the NFCE, no team had three linebackers play more than 50% of snaps, and only the Giants had more than two…

EDGE DEFENDERS By Joey Esquire This is by far the toughest position group to pigeonhole into a 1-4 ranking. All four teams in the division have some things they do well, but some glaring weaknesses heading into 2017. The gap between the top three teams is razor thin, and frankly one of them outperforming the…

INTERIOR DEFENSIVE LINE I am splitting up the front seven into three categories: Interior Defensive Line, Edge Defenders, and Off-Ball Linebackers. DL is a little easier to quantify statistically than OL, but just like with OL I’m going to use some innovative stats to try and add a quantitative component to this writeup. They include…

By Joey Esquire OFFENSIVE LINES We wrap up the offensive side with our OL rankings. A couple things to note in this article: I use Football Outsiders statistics Power Runs, Stuffed Runs and Sack Rate. “Power Runs” refers to runs on third or fourth down with 2 or less to go, or runs on any…