Concise and Impartial Matchup Analysis Visualized
Week 1 of the NFL season is here. Sporting Intelligence will be producing a free, weekly newsletter to preview the upcoming slate throughout the course of the season.
Sporting Intelligence’s mission is to harness the power of its live and custom analytics to provide concise matchup analysis on a weekly basis. We are excited to unveil a suite of dashboards and tools in the coming weeks that seek to provide you with actionable insights and quickly identify mismatches at every level of a matchup in a particular week.
The below visuals utilize 2021 year end stats and rankings to inform upcoming matchups in the first week of the 2022 NFL season.
PASSING MATCHUP ANALYSIS
The Buffalo Bills top ranked pass defense from 2021 will face a stiff test on opening night against LA’s high-octane offense that lost O’Dell Beckham Jr. but added Allen Robinson via free agency. They’ll also be missing Tre’Davious White, who will start the season on the PUP list.
Aaron Rodgers and his new receiving corps will face a Minnesota defense that struggled to defend against the pass last season, finishing 29th in the league in pass defense and allowing over 275 yards per game. Though Davante Adams is gone, the Packers will still line up with arguably the greatest passer of all time who led Green Bay to a top 10 finish in passing yards, finishing 9th in the league with over 266 pass yards per game. Rodgers threw for 673 yards and 6 TD’s against Minnesota in his two matchups in 2021.
Baker Mayfield will go from playing behind one of the top offensive lines in the league to lining up behind a Panthers’ offensive line that ranked 28th in the league in pass protection. He’ll also be facing his former defense, which ranked 5th in the league in pass yards allowed a year ago.
Justin Fields will line up behind arguably the league’s worst offensive line and face a top 10 pass defense in the 49ers to kick off the season.
EXPLOSIVE PASSSING
The aforementioned Rodgers will look to take advantage of Minnesota’s susceptibility to the big play – the Vikings finished 29th in the league last season in completions over 10 yards, allowing 189 in total. Rodgers found Marquez Valdes-Scantling for a 75-yard touchdown against the Vikings in the 4th quarter of Week 11 last year, and though MVS and Adams are gone, the future HOFer remains a constant under center.
PASS PROTECTION
Philly will open the season on the road in Detroit as a 4-point favorite with a significant advantage in the trenches on both sides of the ball. Their offensive line, which finished 6th in the league allowing only 1.8 sacks per game, will face an anemic Lions defensive line that didn’t log a sack in the 44-6 defeat in Week 7 last season and ranked 30th in the league in sacks. The addition of Aiden Hutchinson should pay dividends eventually, but he was playing against collegiate linemen only 9 months ago.
Cincy’s newly revamped offensive line will face an immediate test against Pittsburgh’s vaunted pass rush that led the league with 3.2 sacks per game in 2021 at home to start the season.
Justin Fields will struggle to find time in the pocket against San Fran’s top rated pass rush behind an offensive line that finished dead last in the league, allowing 3.4 sacks per game. Nick Bosa will likely move around often and cause havoc against both of Chicago’s young tackles.
RUSHING MATCHUP ANALYSIS
The Lions won the hearts of many on Hard Knocks throughout training camp, but Philly ran for 236 yards on the ground on 46 attempts in their meeting with Detroit in 2021. The below sample of Sporting Intelligence’s matchup analysis in the Lions-Eagles game underlines Philadelphia’s significant advantage in the run game using 2021 year end totals.
Johnathan Taylor (O/U 96.5 rushing yards) will likely pick up where he left off in 2021 in Houston on Sunday facing one of the worst rushing defenses in the league to kick off the year. He rushed for a combined 288 yards and 4 TD’s against Houston last season.
Even with a backfield by committee last season, Baltimore finished last season 3rd in the league with over 146 rushing yards per game. The Ravens are battling several injuries at the running back position, but whoever takes the majority of the carries between JK Dobbins, Mike Davis, Kenyan Drake and Lamar Jackson should have an efficient day on the ground against a Jets defense that ranked 29th in the league in rushing yards allowed per game (139.5 rush yards per game). Sporting Intelligence’s matchup analysis dashboard in the Ravens-Jets game underlines Baltimore’s advantage in the run game using 2021 year end totals.
Marcus Mariota and Daniel Jones are going to be forced to carry the offensive load against New Orleans and Tennessee, two of the league’s top 4 rush defenses in 2021. Joe Flacco better hope he can reignite some magic from his days in Baltimore in the early 2010’s, because the Jets are going to have a hard time running the ball against Baltimore as well. As good as Baltimore was at running the ball last season on offense, they were arguably even better at stopping the run, finishing 2nd in the league by allowing only 85 rushing yards per game.
EXPLOSIVE RUSHING
Houston allowed opponents to rush for over 143 yards per game last season, good for 31st in the league. They also allowed the most explosive rushing plays of any defense, one example of which came on the Colts’ third drive of the second half in their first meeting against Houston last season. The Colts handed the ball to Johnathan Taylor 4 times and passed the ball 0 times. He busted an 83-yard run and scored a tuddy three plays later, picking up 88 yards and a TD on 4 plays from scrimmage.
While Marcus Mariota is working to carry the offense because the Falcons are struggling to get anything going in the ground game against New Orleans’ 4th ranked rushing defense (94 yards per game), he’s going to be running for his life behind the league’s worst pass protection unit from a top 10 pass rush in 2021 that logged 2.7 sacks per game.
MISCELLANEOUS
A team’s ability to perform in the final four minutes of the first half and the first four minutes of the second half, the “Middle 8”, is an excellent indicator of coaching and the team’s ability to execute. In 2021, three of the final four teams playing in Championship Weekend ranked in the top 4 in the league in Middle 8 Point Differential.
Cooper Kupp led the league in target share in 2021 with 192 in total. With OBJ gone for now and Allen Robinson replacing him, Kupp should see similar levels of usage in 2021. Mike Evans’ target share should in theory benefit from the departure of Rob Gronkowski and Chris Godwin’s gradual return from injury early in the season, though the additions of Russell Gage and Julio Jones will be interesting to watch with regard to the Bucs’ target share.
Over the past 5 seasons, Cooper Kupp ranked 4th in his respective team’s target share. He outpaced DeAndre Hopkins’ 2017 campaign by volume, but the Texans relied more heavily on Hopkins than the 2021 Rams did on Kupp.
Check back in on a weekly basis throughout the 2021 season for Sporting Intelligence’s weekly previews of the upcoming NFL slate. Starting next week, our suite of team and player matchup analysis tools will be live and ready for action.