5 NFL Red Zone Trends to Monitor for Week 11

Play-Calling Trends

As I outlined on the Jets slide, nobody in the league is averaging fewer than five red zone plays per game this season.

There are, however, four teams averaging fewer than seven: the Buffalo Bills (6.9), New York Jets (6.1), Arizona Cardinals (5.9) and Miami Dolphins (5.0). On the other side of things, we have the New Orleans Saints averaging more than three-times as many as the Dolphins (15.4), then there's a big gap before the Los Angeles Rams (13.6), and another big gap before the Indianapolis Colts (11.8), Philadelphia Eagles (11.8) and Houston Texans (11.3) to round out the top five.

The league-average play-calling sees teams passing on 55.6% of offensive snaps in the red zone and running on 44.4% of them.

At the most extreme ends, we have the Minnesota Vikings throwing at a 67.7% clip and the Green Bay Packers at 66.7% representing the only teams throwing at least two-thirds of the time. The rest of the top five for pass-heavy teams is rounded out by the New York Giants (66.0%), Jacksonville Jaguars (65.6%) and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (63.4%).

The five most run-heavy teams have been the Bills (56.5% rushing plays), Carolina Panthers (55.6%), Jets (54.1%), Titans (53.6%) and Washington (53.5%).