Secret Wisdom of the NFL

These are the lessons I have learned from 20 years of covering the NFL. May the wise listen and add their learning. And may the discerning gain guidance.

On Coaches and Coaching

Axiom 1 (The Prime NFL Directive): Most NFL decision makers aren’t really trying to win a Super Bowl in most years. They are simply trying to avoid getting fired. Winning the Super Bowl just happens to be the most surefire way to avoid getting fired.

Corollary: Most NFL personnel and strategic decisions are made to raise a team’s “floor,” not its ceiling.

Axiom 2: Most of what we consider “team discipline” is really “team management.” Successful coaches aren’t screaming at their players to motivate them. They are communicating clear and realistic expectations, rewarding the players who meet them and sidelining those who do not.

Axiom 3: Most of what we consider “talent evaluation” is really “talent development.” Great teams do not necessarily draft well, nor bad teams poorly. The great teams just do the things in Axiom 2 well, while bad ones do things poorly.

Axiom 4: Roughly 99% of what is said about “team culture” is bullshit being peddled by a coach who either wants to sign his favorite players from his last stop or set expectations for his first year at zero.

Axiom 5: Actual “team culture” is a mix of the stuff covered in Axiom 2 and organizational continuity: coaching, scouting, strength-and-conditioning, salary cap and other football-operations departments all knowing and carefully communicating/supporting each other’s roles, needs, limitations and short-and-long-term plans.

Axiom 6: Organizational continuity can only be preserved through winning. Therefore, winning fosters a winning team culture, not the other way around.

Axiom 7: Most of what we consider brilliant game-planning or play-calling is actually either a talent advantage or excellent execution. Basing a coach’s merit on his X’s and O’s is, in most cases, mistaking effect for cause.

Brandon Staley’s Corollary: Any doofus can look like a genius if Aaron Donald is beating a double team in the middle of the line on every damn snap.

Axiom 8: Using lots of presnap motion does not make an offensive coach smarter or more innovative. It’s just an easy-to-spot tendency for podcasters to talk about.

Axiom 9: Blitzing a lot does not make a defensive coach smarter or more daring. It’s just an easy-to-spot tendency for podcasters to talk about.

On Quarterbacks

The Golden Rule: “Great” is not something a quarterback is. It’s something a quarterback does.

Axiom 10: Most quarterbacks earn and keep starting jobs because of their ability to not lose games. This is actually another corollary to The Prime NFL Directive. The ability to actually win games develops secondarily, if at all.

Axiom 11: Any quarterback who made it to the NFL can look competent for about 20 plays.

Axiom 12: Any quarterback who made it to the NFL can look competent when playing with the lead and when given good field position.

Axiom 13: Any quarterback who made it to the NFL can look competent when given time in the pocket, and when playing ahead of the sticks.

Axiom 14: Any quarterback who made it to the NFL can competently throw rollout passes to the tight ends, slot screens, checkdowns on third-and-long and – believe it or not – sideline 50-50 balls that the WR1 might catch. If they couldn’t throw sideline 50-50 balls in college, after all, how would they have reached the NFL?

Fundamental Theorem of Willful QB Ignorance: Roughly 90% of observers, including folks who should know better, will overreact to a new quarterback’s success under circumstances outlined in Axioms 11 through 14. Doing so is essentially an NFL media coverage content model.

Axiom 15: Most young quarterbacks entering the NFL are now mobile and “athletic.” Folks who talk about mobility “adding a dimension to the offense” set their brains on autopilot circa 1998.

Axiom 16: That said, coaches are still skeptical of profligate scramblers, because scrambling invites chaos, and inviting chaos violates The Prime NFL Directive.

Axiom 17: No one who still uses “pocket passer” as a euphemism for white quarterbacks and “scrambler” or “athletic” as a euphemism for black quarterbacks is cognitively/emotionally capable of reading this far into these axioms. Some of them, however, still work in the NFL, while others still cover it.

Axiom 18: Young quarterbacks essentially never get “a year or two on the bench to learn,” and never have. Even in the halcyon days of your youth, top quarterback prospects were lucky to get a month or two on the bench to learn. Saying a young quarterback could benefit from such treatment is like saying he would benefit from a visit by his fairy godmother.

Corollary: Most fans can list about seven counterexamples to Axiom 18, spanning the last 50 years. This serves as the proof of Axiom 18.

Axiom 19: Few teams want a backup quarterback who provides a “spark off the bench.” They want one who keeps his mouth shut and can pay attention during meetings about gameplans that were not designed for him and that he’s unlikely to run.

Axiom 20: Third-string quarterbacks don’t “develop.” They wither.

Axiom 21: Most “quarterback whisperer” coaches only “developed” one quarterback, who in many cases was already a franchise-caliber starter when the Adam Gase or Bill O’Brien-type arrived on the scene.

Corollary: For every perennial All Pro quarterback in the league, there are usually three or four former coaches eating dinner off his success.

Axiom 22: All that guff about a quarterback’s “leadership” and “intangibles” is half as important as coaches and old-timey fans make it out to be but twice as important as film-and-stats bloggers/podcasters who may spend a wee too much time at their desks make it out to be.

On Offense

Axiom 23: Anyone who thinks running backs matter a lot is an idiot. Anyone who thinks running backs don’t matter at all is an asshole. (George Carlin’s Theorem of Running Backs)

Axiom 24: Superstar wide receivers become “divas” because they self-selected since high school for a position that maximizes the spotlight while minimizing grueling/painful/anonymous dirty work. (Don’t yell at me: Michael Irvin actually told me this, self-knowingly!)

Axiom 25: The fourth-through-sixth receiver slots on any roster are occupied by guys who can block, return kicks and hustle on special teams.

Corollary: Draftniks who obsess over mid-round prospects who can’t do these things but are great at eluding tackles or “high pointing the ball” or whatever are gushing about guys who will spend their three-year NFL careers on the practice squad or IR.

The Kyle Pitts Theorem: Tight ends who cannot block are just slow slot receivers, no matter how exciting they looked in college.

Axiom 26: Left tackle is, in fact, a more demanding and important position than right tackle for a team with a right-handed quarterback (about 98% of teams across all levels), though the difference is often overstated. Programs start moving their most athletically-impressive linemen to left tackle starting in high school for this reason. Anyone who claims otherwise is either trying too hard to be a contrarian or is Lane Johnson’s agent.

Axiom 28: Most observers, from experts to fans, classify all NFL offensive lines into three tiers:

• Tier 1: The Lions and Eagles lines, along with the Hogs, the early-1990s Cowboys and perhaps one team per year playing well with a no-name QB;
• Tier 2: Lines for playoff-caliber teams like the Bills, which are probably OK but not worth discussing; and
• Tier 3: Shitty lines, including any line from the league’s 10th-best on down.

Corollary: most observers will assume an offensive line is playing poorly when the quarterback is playing poorly, when there’s a better-than-even chance that it’s the other way around.

Corollary: Few sources track offensive line injuries or changes around the league in even a cursory way. Even fantasy sources which track “red zone target share” as if it were the national unemployment rate will ignore the fact that the running back they are advocating as a waiver claim is playing behind three backups. If a non-local team played poorly because four offensive linemen were injured and they were down to a third-string UDFA at left guard, you would probably have to seek out that team’s local media to discover it. It’s too important for the 46,000 people vying for your eyeballs in the greater NFL media to instead update our quarterback tiers.

Axiom 28: Pro Football Focus offensive line ratings are an excellent tool for discovering that the league’s ten famous linemen are indeed benefitting from the Halo Effect, that the kid who gave up three sacks last Sunday is bad and that everyone else has earned a 62.1 rating with a little beige dot next to it.

On Defense

Axiom 29: Defense stopped “winning championships” circa 1988.

Axiom 30: Excellent pass rushers will make a mediocre secondary look great. A mediocre pass rush will make an excellent secondary look bad.

Corollary: An excellent pass rush can do more to force incomplete passes and turnovers than an excellent secondary.

Axiom 31: The best way to generate sacks is to face inexperienced or backup quarterbacks.

Axiom 32: At any given time, there are at least a half-dozen pass rushers in the NFL who force opponents to alter their game plans. Cornerbacks who force the offense to alter its game plan come around about once per decade.

Axiom 33: Deploying two deep safeties does not nerf franchise-caliber quarterbacks. It opens up the rest of the field so the opposing offense can beat you in other ways. If a defense is using two deep safeties on early downs and in neutral situations, it has already tactically conceded to the offense in an important way.

Corollary: Saying that two-deep shells are Patrick Mahomes’ “kryptonite” (or insert any other All Pro quarterback) is like claiming to have found a way to not lose in the first round to Mike Tyson: cover your face with both gloves and cower in the corner of the ring.

Axiom 34: A college defender who played a hybrid slot cornerback/strong safety/outside linebacker/edge rusher position will probably not be very good at any of those positions in the NFL. He’s more like a defensive Kyle Pitts.

Axiom 35: Most defensive tendencies are reactive to the opponents and game situations they face. Defenses play lots of “prevent” or Cover-4 when leading by three scores. They load the box when facing Derrick Henry and/or trailing in the fourth quarter. They play more man coverage against the Panthers receivers and less against the Bengals receivers. They use a midfield “spy” against Jalen Hurts, not Joe Flacco. These tendencies and situations do not even out across the league in a 17-game season. When analyzing a defense’s stats or tendencies, you must first ask if you are simply analyzing the situations they faced.

On Player Acquisition and Strategy

Axiom 36: NFL teams do not “tank.” Tanking does not work and never will. Tanking only makes sense to people who think the NFL is a Madden sim in which all the players/coaches involved can fast-forward through a year without consequences.

Axiom 37: The draft is not a crapshoot. It’s an imperfect and complex blend of art, science and craft which is greatly impacted by many immeasurably volatile variables, including Axiom 3, as well as Axiom 38:

Axiom 38: Nothing on earth can predict how any individual human will react when suddenly granted a genie’s wish of fortune and fame.

Axiom 39: “Football character” and “actual character” are two different and unrelated attributes. Football character involves work habits, competitiveness and esprit d’corps. The most loathsome reprobates on earth can have outstanding football character, while you would not want the Dalai Lama or St. Francis of Assisi at outside linebacker. This is an obvious matter – we have all worked with scumbags who are great at their jobs and saints who wilt under the pressure of the lunch rush – yet folks act arch and obtuse about it when they hear that the coach or scouts love a kid with 20 speeding tickets or dislike one who moped on the sideline after getting benched.

Axiom 40: Future draft picks are not worth as much as media analysts claim they are worth. Folks in my profession just think they are worth more because we get to wishcast about them and never have to worry about getting fired before ever having a chance to use them.

Axiom 41: The cap is real. NFL writers pretend that it’s fake because most of them are real bad at math.

Axiom 42: Most modern ginormous quarterback contracts are actually fine. Even Brock Purdy’s contract. Folks who claim otherwise are covered by Axiom 41 and/or are just pandering to the doubters of an unpopular player. The Daniel Jones contract was bad, but really: a braindead chipmunk could have told you that.

On Football in General

Axiom 43: Great teams are at their best on both sides of the ball on first downs and in the first quarter. Dramatic “sleeper” teams who lose on the road by three touchdowns in the playoffs are usually at their best on third downs and in the fourth quarter.

Axiom 44: Great teams don’t win close games. They win blowouts, frequently. They go around .500 in close games against other great teams.

Axiom 45: Bad teams that play well in the final month of the season are just as likely to be benefitting from central tendency as actually improving.

Axiom 46: The “Fourth Down Bots” you see on the Internet are not as carefully calibrated or accurate as they claim to be. If your friends at the bar or in the group chat can’t decide if going for it or kicking on fourth down is the right call, chances are that it really is a probabilistic tossup.

Axiom 47: The problem with analyzing the NFL by studying film is that it's inherently anecdotal. Analysts will pick out the examples that reinforce what they want to see.

Axiom 48: The problem with analyzing the NFL through analytics and statistics is that it is too outcome-dependent and holistic. The more ingredients you grind into the sausage, the more it just tastes like a boiled hot dog.

Axiom 49: The problem with analyzing the NFL through a blend of film study and analytics is that there are only so many hours in a day.

Axiom 50: No one – not the smartest coach, the greatest quarterback, the most successful handicapper in Vegas, the most hyper-confident and authoritative podcaster on the Internet, and most certainly not me – has any chance of even coming close to comprehending the NFL in all its depth and complexity. There are too many strategies, techniques, rules, cap/contractual details, ever-changing scouting reports, personalities, big-picture realities and devilish details.

Football is a fractal landscape: the closer you look, the more galaxies you find nested within the one you thought you understood. It’s what makes the NFL endlessly fascinating and unpredictable. To “know ball” is to accept how little you really know, to revel in your best guesses and to enjoy being completely wrong much of the time.

Twenty Years Burning Down the Road

It was September of 2005. Football Outsiders was one of those newfangled “sports blogs,” offering a mix of a kooky/trendy new thing called “football analytics,” wrestling jokes and (yes) cartoons.

The Internet was still so novel and non-mainstream that if you said you worked for a “website,” really-really-really funny people invariably quipped: “That’s porn, right? Websites are porn? You do porn!” Either despite or because of this, FoxSports wanted to beef up its web presence by adding some affordable outsider voices. What could be more outsider – and, frankly, affordable – than Football Outsiders? And so a now-forgotten content agreement between FoxSports and FO was conceived and birthed unto an unsuspecting world.

I was a math teacher with a toddler and attempts at a second child in progress, though those attempts were hampered by the presence of the toddler. I had done lots of anonymous writing for an organization that created plug-’n’-play sports content for newspapers who wanted to beef up their World Wide Web presence (again) affordably. I had written some guest articles for FO, plus some chapters for Pro Football Prospectus 2005. Aaron Schatz and I had traded 100 emails and (maybe) one phone call. I worked fast, crafted a good zinger and could splash stats into a paragraph without making it sound like a math lesson. Aaron awarded me the plum gig of the weekly-preview column that Fox had requested.

We also came up with a longform feature that Fox would syndicate along with several other FO columns for a few extra bucks. Its title: Too Deep Zone.

So on the one hand this is the 20-year anniversary of the Too Deep Zone, and of me being a “real writer” in any way anyone would define such a thing: bylines, paychecks, a platform my parents and coworkers recognized as not being some form of porn. On the other hand, I am admitting that I have been repeating myself for two decades. I am still sitting at the same desk, for heaven’s sake, though it has changed rooms.

The “marketplace” worked for bold, irreverent young writers in 2005. That’s how we got Aaron, all my fellow FO expats (I won’t list them, for fear of omitting too many), Bill Simmons, Will Leitch, Mike Florio and many others. It’s how we got tape grinders and X-and-O fanatics. It’s how fantasy and draft coverage grew into byzantine little fiefdoms of their own. If you had ideas, a voice, a hook and a high writing metabolism, it didn’t matter if you were a schoolteacher with a toddler on your lap: you could write, get published, get read, get paid a bit, rise and fall on your own merits.

The marketplace actively works against everyone now, from writers to readers to society. Too much AI, SEO, aggregation, content farming, bad-faith investors turning the money on and off like someone using a laser pointer to fuck with a tabbycat. The whole industry is in danger of being replaced by an anime hologram that spews AI-generated prop bets and fantasy start-sits for her legion of sempai.

The original Too Deep Zone was an antidote/counterpoint to the bland and obvious: paint-by-numbers beat reports, musty columnist musings, talkshow wisdom, telecast blather. Oh, to go back to such simple times!

The current Too Deep Zone is an antidote to content written by machines and for machines, to an Internet where those beat reports are drowned out by aggregations of aggregations and the columnists went the way of the dodo and the newspaper. This is the old-fashioned stuff now. God save the village green.

The toddler is now a student teacher. The gleam in my eye is a college sophomore. I’ve been a writer longer than I was a teacher. Most of the Football Outsiders crew is still writing and still crazy after 20 years. You are still reading, thank heavens.