1st & 10: Big Ben’s Deep Ball, FitzMagic, Trubisky Time, Playoff Odds & More From Week 16

Week 16 gave us a few thrills and a couple upsets. All of that played into a playoff field that is nearly set and a draft order that could still get a little crazy after the top two picks. Now, let's get into the setup for the final week of the 2020 NFL season.

1. How The Steelers Came Back Against The Colts

Throughout the season, the Pittsburgh Steelers have gone as Ben Roethlisberger has. Through the 11-0 run, the Steelers were able to work around Roethlisberger’s deep ball production by constructing an offense centered around short passes and yards after the catch. Eventually, defenses caught on and started sitting on those short routes, which cut off all offensive productivity. That was again the case early in the game against the Indianapolis Colts before a wild second-half comeback propelled a 28-24 Steelers win.

Pittsburgh’s offense looked lifeless early against Indianapolis with the inability to move the ball. Six of the Steelers’ eight first half drives ended in a punt. The only score came off a three-play, three-yard touchdown drive that stemmed from a T.J. Watt strip-sack on Philip Rivers. Pittsburgh went into halftime trailing 21-7 and a Colts field goal to start the second half brought the score to 24-7.

The closest thing to a productive Steelers drive opened the second half and lasted 10 plays for 78 yards then ended with a turnover on downs at the Indianapolis 2-yard line. The failed goal-line sequence highlighted all of Pittsburgh’s shortcomings. A loss of one on a first down run from Benny Snell, a nearly-picked post from empty on second down, a dropped shield slant on third down, and a deflected quick out on fourth down.

Indianapolis went three-and-out on the following drive and Roethlisberger responded with his best throw in weeks for a 38-yard touchdown pass to Diontae Johnson. 

 

 

It was a great anticipation throw from Roethlisberger with an open JuJu Smith-Schuster available on a short crosser in the middle and Johnson not yet past the corner when the ball was thrown.

The Steelers scored a touchdown on each of the next two drives, all helped by pushing the ball further down the field. Two defensive pass interference penalties set up a 5-yard touchdown pass to Eric Ebron and a 10-play, 84-yard drive was capped with a 25-yard touchdown pass to Smith-Schuster on an over route from the slot that stressed the deep safeties with another outside vertical from Chase Claypool and an in from Johnson on the opposite side. This score gave Pittsburgh a 24-21 lead and might be the most the Steelers have stressed a defense both vertically and horizontally on the same play all season.

 

 

It wasn’t just a second-half shift for the Steelers, it was really a turn from anything they’ve been able to do on offense all season. Roethlisberger was 8-of-14 for 170 yards and two touchdowns on passes that traveled more than 10 yards past the line of scrimmage. His previous yardage high this season was 157 yards on such throws, per Sports Info Solutions. He was 3-of-6 on passes of at least 20 air yards, his highest deep completion percentage this season in games in which Roethlisberger attempted at least five deep passes.

Ben Roethlisberger Deep Production, 2020 (min. 5 deep att)

Most of the deeper throws were in the middle of the field and in the rhythm on the offense, another significant change from what the passing offense has looked like this season. This wasn’t the deepest Roethlisberger has thrown, on average, this season. His 7.7-yard average depth of target was his fourth-highest this year, per Next Gen Stats, but his average depth of completion (6.3 yards) was the second-highest.

After a first half that looked like the continued fall off a cliff from an aging quarterback, Roethlisberger finished with one of his most productive games of the season — 0.15 EPA per dropback and a 58% success rate per nflfastR. 

The Steelers can’t live off of those low percentage shots down the sideline, but plays designed for the intermediate and deep middle of the field could make a difference.

Pittsburgh’s defense also came alive in the second half as the two offenses switched roles. After a first half when the Colts moved the ball down the field at will, they couldn’t do much late in the game. Pocket movement was the skill that giveth and taketh away for Rivers in this game as he played without two starting left tackles. Late in the second quarter, Rivers was able to step up to avoid pressure, and send a deep strike to Zach Pascal for a 42-yard touchdown.

 

 

But as the game went on, the Colts were not as lucky in avoiding pressure. Rivers was sacked five times with two other quarterback hits. Three of the sacks came in the second half and two on third down, including a third-and-5 sack from Cam Heyward at midfield that forced an Indianapolis punt and set up Pittsburgh’s go-ahead touchdown drive. Rivers had the same plan as his pocket movement on the Pascal touchdown, but Heyward was there to cut off the throwing lane and finish for the sack.

 

 

There aren’t many scenarios in the modern game when a team should stick to the run, but one with a big lead, an aging quarterback, and two backup tackles against the league’s best pass rush might be one of them. The Colts’ interior of the line was working well and Jonathan Taylor finished the game with 0.21 EPA per carry and Indianapolis as a team even had positive EPA (0.10) and a 62% success rate on early down runs.

The Colts might have relied a little too much on Rivers, who was forced into some bad passes that partly cost his team the game. He finished with -0.13 EPA per dropback and just a 38% success rate. Rivers threw a bad rushed interception to Michael Pittman with six minutes remaining in the fourth quarter and pressure from Alex Highsmith coming. Then on a final fourth-and-5, Rivers just missed Pascal after Highsmith created quick pressure off a spin move.

With the win, Pittsburgh clinching the AFC North and a home game, likely as the No. 3 seed in the conference, pending Buffalo’s Monday night game. Indianapolis’s loss didn’t cost them a playoff spot but did likely lose them the division. The Colts now have an 83.7% chance to make the playoffs according to Football Outsiders with a 33.6% chance to win the AFC South. Those numbers are 84% and 28% from FiveThirtyEight. Even with a win against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 17, wins from all of the Titans, Ravens, Browns, and Dolphins would leave an 11-5 Colts team out of the playoffs entirely.

2. Is It Trubisky Time?

No team improved its playoffs odds more this week (+41.5%) than the Chicago Bears. If you believe what some executives from around the league told Adam Schefter this week, that might be enough to give Mitchell Trubisky an extension. That came out before Trubisky helped lead the Bears to a 41-17 win over the Jaguars in Week 16.

Two things can be true: Trubisky is playing the best football of his career during this recent stretch and that stretch has come against mostly bad defenses. Over the past three games, Trubisky has led wins over the Texans, Vikings, and Jaguars without throwing for 300 yards in any game. Against the Jaguars, Trubisky had 0.46 EPA per dropback and over the past three games, Trubisky is sixth in EPA per play among 28 quarterbacks with at least 75 plays. That might sound impressive but even without considering the quality of defenses faced, yet he sits behind Brandon Allen in EPA per play in that stretch, so we can see where such a small sample might not represent a true quality of play.

There has been a bit of a breakthrough with Bill Lazor calling offensive plays with a shift to Shanahanian wide-zone, play-action based offense. But Trubisky’s improvement in that type of offense says more about the system than the quarterback. Even in a win that was never in question against a team that locked in the first overall pick for the 2021 NFL Draft, Trubisky had a number of throws that reminded why the Bears are in their current situation.

His interception in a tie game at the end of the first half was inexcusable for any quarterback in the league. From the Jacksonville 13-yard line, Trubisky scrambled around in the hope to make a play and floated a pass into traffic in the end zone. The turnover on a first down took points off the board for the Bears.

 

 

One of the hallmarks of the play-action-heavy offense is to create open throws in the intermediate area of the field. These schemed open throws can be a quarterback’s best friend and that certainly helped Trubiskly against the Jaguars with just 8.6% of his throws into tight windows, per Next Gen Stats. For the season, though, Trubisky has one of the highest rates of throws into tight windows (20.8%) and he’s not a quarterback with the arm or accuracy to pull that off. That’s not necessarily a knock on him, no quarterback should be throwing into tight windows on over 20% of their pass attempts. That’s a figure generally saved for rookies and bad quarterbacks.

Still, Trubisky has a habit of pulling the trigger on those tight windows and throwing some of them closed. On a first-and-10 near midfield halfway through the third quarter, the Bears ran the Shanahan-McVay starter kit — play-action with pre-snap jet motion. Trubisky saw Cole Kmet on a crosser but didn’t see the safety, who had a clear path to break on the ball.

 

 

It was dropped and the Bears eventually scored a touchdown, but that might not have been the case against a better opponent.

The other thing about open throws is there’s an expectation that they should be completed. Trubisky’s expected completion percentage in this game was 68.4%, according to Next Gen Stats. He finished with a 68.6% completion percentage, just 0.2% over expectation. That’s a par performance.

Even his two touchdown passes to Jimmy Graham weren’t spectacular plays. The first was just a five-yard slant and the second, a 22-yard pass, had Graham wide open after the defensive back fell down.

Still, the reality is the Bears are likely headed to the playoffs with a 77.3% chance from Football Outsiders and an 82% chance from FiveThirtyEight. Chicago needs either a win against Green Bay or an Arizona loss to the Rams to get in as the seventh seed.

A playoff berth might mean something for Bears decision-makers and how they feel about Trubisky. There has been a Blake Bortles comp thrown around, but there is something in the Bears’ favor in that they already declined Trubisky’s fifth-year option. The Jaguars’ biggest mistake was picking up Bortles’s option when it was clear he wasn’t the answer. The eventual extension mainly served to lower the cap hit of the option.

Chicago isn’t locked into anything at quarterback yet and they should think hard about the bigger picture when they wonder if a few good games against bad opponents to sneak into a playoff spot that didn’t exist until this season is enough to warrant another year (or more) of moving forward with the same quarterback.

3. The Dolphins Keep Sustaining The Unsustainable

The Miami Dolphins’ 2020 season has been full of dramatic, wild, and unsustainable luck. But even a lucky string of games thrown together counts in the record books. It’s also not as if the Dolphins are supremely lucky by overperforming their point differential. Miami still has the seventh-highest point differential in the league (pending MNF) and they’re expected to have exactly their 10 wins on the season. Of course, the Dolphins haven’t always come about those points and wins in the most normal of ways and Saturday night’s 26-25 win over the Las Vegas Raiders was no different.

Miami’s defense has been the standout unit this season and it did just enough to keep Derek Carr uncomfortable. He held the ball longer than he typically does and threw into tighter windows. The problem was when Carr was able to hold onto the ball without pressure, there were options down the field.

The opposite was the case for the Dolphins, who stuck to short passes as they tried to move the ball early in the game. Tua Tagovailoa’s average depth of target in the game was just 4.2 yards and his average completion was only two yards past the line of scrimmage, both week-lows for quarterbacks, according to Next Gen Stats. Miami hasn’t asked Tagovailoa to do too much in games and has kept a simplified game plan for the rookie passer, but at times that has also resulted in a struggle to create explosive plays.

When the Dolphins needed a big play in the fourth quarter, Brian Flores and the Dolphins turned to Ryan Fitzpatrick and that helped create one of the craziest fourth quarters we’ve seen this season. Fitzpatrick came in with Miami trailing 16-13 following back-to-back three-and-outs by each team. On Fitzpatrick’s first drive, he led the Dolphins for 13 plays and 84 yards to a game-tying field goal.

Las Vegas had a holding penalty and on the next official play went 85 yards for a touchdown to Nelson Agholor. It was all the things Miami did well earlier in the game, forcing Carr to hold onto the ball, a tight window throw, but Agholor was able to come down with the pass, get through a diving tackle attempt from Byron Jones, and turn Bobby McCain around multiple times on his way to the end zone. The play itself was worth 6.8 EPA and 32% win probability, per nflfastR.

 

 

The problem was the extra point was missed, for a six-point lead instead of seven

Just three plays later, Fitzpatrick found Myles Gaskin on a quick in from empty and with a broken tackle and bounce back to the outside, Gaskin took the pass 59 yards for a touchdown and the extra point gave the Dolphins a 23-22 lead. That sequence was an exact opposite 32% win probability swing.

 

 

Las Vegas then drove the ball down the field again and ended up with a third-and-goal from the Miami 1-yard line. Instead of trying to punch the ball in for a touchdown, Jon Gruden called for a knee and the Raiders kicked a field goal to go up by two points on fourth down. It wasn’t just the knee and the field goal, it was the guaranteed draining of the clock. After Josh Jacobs had a five-yard run to set the Raiders up at the 1-yard line, Las Vegas ran the clock and took a timeout before the third down snap.

The Raiders’ plan wasn’t just field goal or touchdown, it was a potential touchdown and six-point lead with 1:05 remaining or a two-point lead with just 19 seconds left on the clock. The EdjSports win probability model suggests there was about a 14% difference between the two outcomes with the Raiders choosing correctly.

Of course, no one could have imagined a wide-open 34-yard pass to Mack Hollins thanks to a bad zone pass off with a 15-yard roughing the passer penalty tacked on.

 

 

Nothing about the play makes much sense from how open Hollins was able to get down the sideline to how Fitzpatrick even got the ball away, nevermind accurately, when the release looked like this:

Miami kicked a 44-yard field for a 26-25 win.

After the game, Brian Flores said Tagovailoa will be the starter for Week 17 despite the difference in performance (-0.17 EPA per dropback for Tagovailoa and 0.91 for Fitzpatrick). With the win, the Dolphins now have a 78.4% chance to make the playoffs per Football Outsiders and a 73% chance per FiveThirtyEight. The Dolphins can get in with a Week 17 win over the Bills, a team with little to play for, or a loss from either the Ravens, Browns, or Colts. It’s a wild success for the Dolphins, who are also in-line for a top-5 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft thanks to the Houston Texans.

While it’s hard to say everything has gone according to plan in Miami, having one over the past few seasons has set the franchise up on the verge of the playoffs with a bright future outlook.

4. Disappointing Playoff Contenders

Not every team cemented places in the playoffs and a few trendy contenders had a letdown in Week 16 and hurt their playoff offs. Each team was struck by a flaw that could hold them back if a playoff spot is clinched.

Arizona Cardinals

Flaw: Nothing works at the same time

There has been a lot to like about the Cardinals throughout the season, but few of those things have clicked at the same time to keep the momentum going. At times, the passing game has worked but Kyler Murray wasn’t running. The opposite was true in the 20-12 loss to the San Francisco 49ers on Saturday. Murray ran for 75 yards but averaged just 4.9 yards per attempt through the air with no touchdowns and an interception.

The Cardinals have picked up a bit of a pass rush over the past few weeks with the addition of Markus Golden and the emergence of Haason Redick as a true edge rusher and with three sacks plus four other quarterback hits, they were able to get to C.J. Beathard. But the run defense that had been 14th in DVOA through Week 15 was gashed by the 49ers thanks to 183 yards from Jeff Wilson. 

Arizona’s whole has yet to equal the sum of its parts. Because of that, the once-promising Cardinals have a below 40% shot at the playoffs. They’ll need both a win against the Rams and a Bears loss to get in.

Los Angeles Rams

Flaw: No counterpunch

When things are clicking for the Rams, there are few teams in the league that can stop them. But if something goes wrong, the Rams are limited in their options to adapt on the fly. That happened when they fell behind early to the Jets last week and again popped up when the Seattle Seahawks disrupted the flow of the offense for a 20-9 loss.

Per ESPN Stats & Info, the Seahawks pressured Jared Goff on 24 dropbacks in the game. That played a part in getting to Goff off play-action, where the quarterback was just 4-of-9 for 34 yards and an interception in the game.

The Athletic’s Jourdan Rodrigue highlighted how the Rams reworked the offense in the offseason to emphasize shorter, more efficient passes rather than lower percentage deep shots, but the problem arises when those deep shots are needed and Goff can’t complete them in structure. It’s something we’ve highlighted here multiple times, pointing out Goff’s low aDOT and the schemed yards after the catch opportunities in the offense.

On top of this, Goff suffered a thumb injury in his throwing hand that he popped back in during the game and the injury is reportedly a serious break that could put Week 17 and the playoffs in jeopardy. 

Cleveland Browns

Flaw: Defense

The Browns came into the game shorthanded with their starting receivers out as close contacts for COVID tracing and while that certainly put a cap on the passing game explosiveness (as did three Baker Mayfield fumbles), the receivers had little to do with allowing explosive passing plays and 131 yards on the ground in a 23-16 loss to the Jets.

Cleveland’s defensive strength comes from the pass rush and that’s been accentuated by the leads the offense has been able to compile in recent weeks. But when the offense can’t get that lead and obvious passing situations don’t come as often, the Browns can be taken advantage of on defense, even by the Jets. Cleveland ranked 25th in defensive pass DVOA through Week 15 and has no notable deep safeties. The Jets took advantage of that with a 30-yard touchdown from Sam Darnold to Jamison Crowder and Crowder threw a 43-yard touchdown earlier in the game. Playoff opponents will surely see a weakness in a pass coverage unit that ranks 30th in DVOA against deep passes. 

A Week 17 win over the Steelers would put the Browns in the playoffs as would a Colts loss or a Titans loss with Colts, Ravens, and Dolphins wins. Football Outsiders gives the Browns a 58.4% shot at the playoffs and FiveThirtyEight is at 56%. But there are very real scenarios with a 10-win Cleveland team on the outside looking in.

5. Let’s… *Sigh* Talk About The NFC East

This division won’t die. Three of the four teams, sorry Eagles, are still alive for the division title and now we won’t know until Washington and Philadelphia square off on the final Sunday Night Football of the regular season. Washington wins the division with a win, but an Eagles win will give the division to the winner of Giants-Cowboys.

It’s hard to make the case that any of these teams deserve to win the division and it might be harder to make the case that it helps any of them long-term. Sure, there might be a moral victory in a division title that will at best be taken with seven wins, but each of these flawed teams could be better served with the high draft pick reflective of their terrible records instead of a likely first-round exit in the playoffs.

This isn’t tank-or-compete decision teams could face before or during a season. All of these teams will be the same whether they get into the playoffs or not. A 6-10 division title doesn’t make any team better.

Washington is still considered the favorite by both Football Outsiders (57.1%) and FiveThirtyEight (52%) but the Cowboys might be the most impressive of late. Dallas is on a three-game win streak and has put up at least 30 points in all three games. Andy Dalton just had his best game of the season with 0.49 EPA per play and a 60% success rate against the Eagles in a 37-17 win. It took a while, but Dallas has finally found out throwing to CeeDee Lamb, Amari Cooper, and Michael Gallup doesn’t have to be that hard. 

6. What if the Chiefs aren’t inevitable?

Another week, another come-from-behind close win from the Kansas City Chiefs, this time a 17-14 victory over the Atlanta Falcons. The Chiefs continue to present an interesting dynamic in public perception. Observers of the Chiefs could either see how many close games they’ve had to play, against mostly inferior competition, and worry or they could focus on how the Chiefs have continually pulled those wins out and feel confident in that ability.

It appears everyone is grasping onto the latter without much worry. It makes sense to trust the Chiefs until they really give a reason not to, but if any other team consistently needed to steal come-from-behind victories against worse teams, the perception of that team would be much worse. Few other teams with 14 wins with a point differential closer to that of a 10-win team would be thought of so highly. 

Of course, the Chiefs aren’t any other team and they also do seem to have that one trick in the bag that can come out whenever it’s needed. On Sunday, it was a 25-yard touchdown pass to Demarcus Robinson for a 17-10 lead following the two-minute warning. From 12 personnel, Kansas City had Robinson and Tyreek Hill lined up on the left against a single-high safety. Hill’s vertical route occupied the safety, which left a Robinson with a clear path to the end zone.

 

 

Still, in the game, Patrick Mahomes averaged 6.3 yards per attempt, his second-lowest of the season after a career-low mark last week. For someone who entered the week as the MVP favorite, we’ve asked “was this finally his first bad game?” a lot this season. Even if the answer has consistently come out “no” by just about every metric (68.2 QBR and 0.07 EPA per dropback in this game) it should still be a little concerning that we’re asking so often.

No team has a higher ceiling than the Chiefs, but we’ve yet to see that ceiling. Luckily, the Chiefs also have the highest floor and we might have seen that one too many times in 2020, even if that’s good enough to beat most teams.

But maybe none of this matters. The Chiefs locked in the No. 1 seed and the bye in the AFC and have a huge advantage there. It would have been nice to see a few more blowouts along the way.

7. Was the Packers Draft Worth It?

Green Bay’s draft class was widely maligned as a swing and miss that didn’t help the Packers get better for the 2020 season. Fast forward to Week 16 and second-round pick AJ Dillon ran over the Tennessee Titans for 124 yards and two touchdowns en route to a 40-14 Packers win.

The biggest criticism of the Packers’ draft class is that it didn’t address a need at wide receiver. But without a receiver added, Aaron Rodgers leads the league in touchdown passes with another four on Sunday night and might now be the favorite for NFL MVP. Meanwhile, Davante Adams has cemented himself as possibly the league’s best wide receiver and added 11 catches for 142 yards and three touchdowns against the Titans.

So suck it haters, right? Well, let’s not get carried away.

Green Bay still could use receiving help and imagine what Rodgers’ numbers and MVP odds might look like if he had been throwing to Adams and, say, Justin Jefferson all season. That would be pretty cool. Dillon’s contributions were great in a rough season health-wise for the rookie, but Jeremy Chinn, taken two picks later, would help the Packers in their defensive back-heavy defense. Or even Antonio Gibson, taken four picks after Dillon in the third round, could have made a bigger impact in the Matt LaFleur offense. Gibson could have started as the jet sweep guy early in the season, one Tyler Ervin had to play.

The Packers might have also locked up home-field advantage by now instead of needing to play starters for a Week 17 win against the Bears. So while the Packers are in the midst of a great season, it could have been better and little more help for the draft class could have been a nice bonus. Adding better players to a good team is never a bad thing.

8. Chart of the day

Tom Brady only played the first half.

9. Play of the day

The 43-yard touchdown from Jamison Crowder to Braxton Berrios was the longest touchdown pass by a non-quarterback this season. All it took for the Jets to have some fun was losing the first overall pick and assuring nearly everyone will be gone in 2021.

10. If a Charger falls in the forest…

The Los Angeles Chargers defeated the Denver Broncos 19-16 in a game no one cared about. The most interesting thing about it was the number of drops from Jerry Jeudy, who turned 16 targets into six receptions for 61 yards. Drew Lock only throws so many catchable passes (36th of 41 quarterbacks in on-target rate, per SIS), so the catchable ones need to be caught.

The Chargers win opened the door for a slightly respectable 7-9 finish which could lead to bringing the coaching staff back for another go. That would be a mistake. As would letting go of Vic Fangio as head coach of the Broncos after the defense has been above average (16th in DVOA through Week 15) with a number of injuries. The offense, though…

Both of these teams are far away from competing with the Chiefs in the division for very different reasons. The next step forward for these teams relies heavily on those in charge recognizing the correct reasons and making those changes.