Really, there are only two passers who saw significant changes in their slot/wide usage that can't be easily dismissed. In Philadelphia, Zach Ertz fell off a cliff and Greg Ward isn't exactly the most tempting replacement, so Carson Wentz's slot percentage dropped accordingly. In Jacksonville, Dede Westbrook's injury opened room for Keelan Cole in the slot, explaining Gardner Minshew's rise. Michael Thomas' injuries led the Saints to using more of Emmanuel Sanders in the slot than perhaps they expected, which affected Drew Brees' slot percentage. Health also played a part around the league. Watson's slot percentage fell from 72.2% to 65.0% after Fuller was exiled by that point, Keke Coutee was the last man standing as a slot target for the Texans and the team was in full-on quit mode. It's not at all surprising that Watson would look outside more to Brandin Cooks under these circumstances, but it was the Fuller suspension that was really the straw that broke the camel's back. Well, Hopkins played 2020 in Arizona, Fuller was suspended for the last five games of the season, and Stills was released in November after disappearing from the offense adding Randall Cobb didn't really offset those losses. In 2019, Deshaun Watson's top three slot targets were DeAndre Hopkins (36%), Will Fuller (21%), and Kenny Stills (17%). Other large changes come from personnel shifts. Other significant swings can be chalked up to changes in coaching, as Baker Mayfield, Dak Prescott, and Kirk Cousins all saw their slot percentage jump by at least five points last season with new playcallers in the building. Both the passer who saw the highest increase in slot percentage from 2019 (Teddy Bridgewater, going from 56.8% to 65.9%) and the one who saw the biggest decrease (Tom Brady, going from 63.3% to 56.4%) switched teams in 2020. It's scheme that really dictates most of a quarterback's slot percentage, as opposed to personal quirks of individual passers you can't throw the ball to a receiver who isn't there. If the QB vision cone from Madden 06 was still around, you could leave it locked permanently down the center and be alright in the modern NFL. No more-as the league continues to explore the advantages of moving their receivers inside the hashmarks, every passer is looking inside more than outside. When we first ran this data in 2016, there were still quarterbacks who threw wide more than 60% of the time we even saw Deshaun Watson top 70% in as recently as 2017. Leaguewide, we only saw a slight uptick from 60.7% to 61.3%, but that was enough to drag the last stragglers over the line. Wide, 2020Īnd they're going … going … gone! For the first time since we began looking at this data, no quarterback threw wide more often than they threw to the slot. In addition, the difference in DVOA from slot to wide is shown. A receiver on one side of the formation who was a few feet away from the offensive line was considered to be in the slot even if he was the widest receiver on that side. Note that the charting labels come from players' locations on the field regardless of the positioning of their teammates. That does include passes to tight ends and running backs if they lined up in traditional wideout positions. The table is sorted by descending Slot%, which is passes thrown to players who were lined up in the slot as a percentage of passes thrown to players at wide receiver positions (i.e., slot and wide are included, but not at tight end or in the backfield). Each player's DYAR, DVOA, and number of targets are shown on passes to receivers both in the slot and split wide. The following table shows the data for the 36 qualified passers from 2020. Today, we're flipping over to quarterbacks to see which passers continued to occasionally look outside the numbers. Last time, we looked at wide receivers, where we saw that the days of the full-time wide receiver appear to be behind us. Our annual look at slot/wide splits in the passing game continues thanks to the charting efforts from our friends at Sports Info Solutions.
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