Decoded Blog

Puka Nacua drew 24 targets in one game. A receiver’s real skill is getting open; the catches everyone counts come after that is already done.

Tampa Bay beat Atlanta 16-0 without a single completed pass. The full NFL Week 8 results, plus what a block in the back actually requires.

A 95-yard kickoff return ended a four-game losing streak. The run game that caused the streak is exactly where it was in October.

In one hundred and fifty-three previous starts, Patrick Mahomes had never played a game in which Kansas City failed to reach the opposition’s 20-yard line, and on Sunday night in Seattle they managed exactly that. The whole weekend turned out to be about that painted line.

A fourth straight loss, and this time the takeaways came back and it changed nothing. Klint Kubiak was asked why the Raiders cannot run the ball and gave an answer about the defense instead. Seven games of data say he is right.

A slide would have left Denver a yard short. So Elway, 37, went head first into three defenders for the first down.

Arizona won a game 18-16 without scoring a touchdown, against a Rams side that had run out of fit kickers. Add Jalen Hurts out for the season and a sacked general manager, and Week 6 belonged to everything except the quarterbacks.

I compared four seasons of Raiders game logs. This defence gives up more yards than the three-win team did, and the Raiders are 3-3 anyway.

Down three points with 92 yards between them and the title, the 49ers ran eleven plays and never panicked. The winning throw didn’t even go to Jerry Rice. Here’s how Montana’s calmest three minutes became the template for every clutch drive since.

Raiders fans spent Sunday night arguing about whether the offence or the defence lost this one. The box score says defence, emphatically. But Klint Kubiak named the offensive problem himself: he stopped running the ball.