5 NFL Red Zone Trends to Monitor for Week 7

Play-Calling Trends

Now that we're well into bye week season, when comparing team-to-team it becomes more useful to use per-game red zone snaps.

The New Orleans Saints, for example, rank second in red zone plays (87), 6 behind the Los Angeles Rams, but have run nearly 2 more per game, at 17.4 to the Rams' 15.5. Only two other teams are averaging better than 12 red zone plays per game -- the Philadelphia Eagles (13.0) and Houston Texans (12.7).

At the far opposite end of the spectrum, we have four teams averaging six or fewer -- the Seattle Seahawks (6.0), Tennessee Titans (5.7), Arizona Cardinals (5.0) and Miami Dolphins (5.0).

The cardinals are one of two teams (the other being the Jacksonville Jaguars) that have only found the red zone in four games this season. That is despite the fact that both of those teams have played six games.

The league-average pass-to-run ratio in the red zone sits at 1.32-to-1. That means 56.3% of the plays called inside the 20 this year have been passes.

We have seen four teams beat that mark by at least 10% -- the Detroit Lions (66.7%), Green Bay Packers (69.1%), Minnesota Vikings (71.1%) and Indianapolis Colts (72.1%).

We've also got five teams that have gone the other way, running the ball on at least 56.3% of their red zone snaps -- the Los Angeles Rams (53.8%), Miami Dolphins (56.7%), Washington (58.3%), the New York Jets (58.8%) and the Buffalo Bills (59.0%).