Decoded Blog

  • NFL Week 5 went to overtime three times, and one game still ended level

    Week 5 had three overtime games and a 27-27 Giants-Commanders tie. Here is the overtime rule that explains how an NFL game ends with nobody winning.

  • Advanced NFL stats look scary. They’re mostly simple questions.

    A quarterback can clear the old passer-rating bar in a season his team kept losing. Advanced stats like EPA, success rate and pressure exist to catch that, and each one is really just a plain question the box score can’t answer.

  • NFL Week 4: when the officials crossed the line

    A record week for penalties, two suspended officials, and a 20-year Gleason tribute in New Orleans. The full NFL Week 4 results, decoded.

  • The Raiders fixed the thing that was supposed to beat them, and lost anyway

    Every preview said third down would beat the Raiders. They held Kansas City to 38.5% and lost anyway, undone by two Kenneth Walker runs, a fumbled kickoff and nothing at all from two red-zone trips.

  • Chiefs v Raiders: Who Is Actually the Better Team?

    By points, the Chiefs were far better than the Raiders last season. By head-to-head, the Raiders won. Two honest ways to measure a team, disagreeing completely.

  • The Raiders beat the Chiefs without scoring a touchdown. Here is how

    No touchdowns, a fourth-string quarterback, and a 60-yard kick on the final play. The Raiders beat the Chiefs 14-12 last January in one of the strangest wins in the rivalry, and every odd piece of it comes down to a few rules working together.

  • The NFL says this pass interference call was wrong. Here is what the rule actually says.

    The NFL admitted the Josh Wallace pass interference flag was wrong. The rule turns on two words, “significantly hinders”. Here is what they actually mean.

  • The rarest play in football decided a Chiefs-Raiders game

    Two. That is how many points a safety is worth, and it is the rarest way to score in the game: across the whole league one turns up only about once every 14 games, so any single game you watch is very unlikely to feature one. So when a safety helps decide a game, it…

  • Cornerback: the loneliest job in football

    Hezekiah Masses, a fifth-round rookie, is among the NFL’s interception leaders three games in. Cornerback is the one job on defence where everyone sees you beaten, and the best corner often finishes the season with no picks at all.

  • A brawl in Kansas City changed how the NFL punishes a cheap shot

    A cheap shot on a downed quarterback in 1970 wiped out the first down that had just won the Chiefs the game, and cost them their season. The rule the NFL wrote afterwards is still in the book today, and I quote it.