Cale Clinton's Articles

Let's take a look at which defenses and cornerbacks were best against receivers in the slot vs. out wide in 2023.

Taking a look at which running backs and tight ends get the most usage and have the most success when lined up in WR positions.

Taking a look at which defenses were best at preventing completions and YAC given the location of the passes against them, led by the Browns, Ravens, and Jets.

Something Derek Carr was good at: completing passes compared to expectation. Brock Purdy was even better.

The Lions got a ton of pass pressure, and they needed it because of secondary issues. Plus more defensive numbers from 2023!

Here's our annual look at draft report cards. It was a good year in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia!

Welcome back to our second installment of the Premium Splits DVOA deep dive! If you missed our first part, we covered the hyper-situational world of per-play splits. Passing into specific field zones and running through individual holes are about as niche as one can get. We then opened it up to single-game performances to widen the […]

Football is a game of small sample sizes. While the NBA and NHL get to enjoy 82 games of action, and the real MLB diehards get double that, us NFL enthusiasts are stuck with just 17 games to make real, meaningful analysis. Even breaking down the game into its hyper-situational components can feel like panning […]

This is a general reminder to everyone: there is nothing stopping you from just … not watching tonight’s Thursday Night Football game. Seriously. Get some holiday shopping done. Call a loved one. Hell, go watch a movie. Anything but watching the Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots play some caricature of a “football game.” The […]

The 2023 race for the AFC No. 1 seed might be up there for one of the most competitive in recent memory. The four teams leading their divisions right now – the Baltimore Ravens, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Jacksonville Jaguars, and the Miami Dolphins – all currently sit at either 9-3 or 8-3. Headed into […]

At the two-thirds mark of the NFL season, some end-of-year awards are much harder to decide than others. One of the hardest to currently predict: Coach of the Year. It’s one of the few awards that cannot truly be determined until the last weeks of the season, but there are a whole heap of candidates […]

The 2021 draft’s quarterback class was supposed to be special. Five quarterbacks were selected in the first round, including the top three picks. In total, a record eight quarterbacks were selected in the first two days. The draft had everything: highly-revered generational talents, tried-and-true pocket passers, big-upside projects, backyard ballers, dual-threat scramblers. You name it, […]

This has been an unusual season for the Kansas City Chiefs. Sure, the Andy Reid-coached offense is still good. Patrick Mahomes is performing toward the top of the league. Travis Kelce leads all tight ends in receiving DYAR. That’s all typical, but it hasn’t been the story dominating Kansas City’s season. For the first time […]

Welcome back to our exploration of interception-worthy throws, a stat we collect with FTN Data charting. Last week, we looked at this stat in its proper context: analyzing quarterbacks. This is a quarterback passing stat used to count throws to well-defended receivers. I argued that this was a good way to cut out the noise and […]

Our understanding of football is constantly evolving. With growth in analytics spaces, the increasing ubiquity of data literacy, and the continued work of game-charting teams, data-literate NFL fans are finding new ways to process and interpret the game we love.  While quarterbacks are by far the most visible position in football, our tools for evaluating […]

The New England Patriots spent the 2023 offseason seemingly wiping their hands clean of the nightmare that was 2022. For how bad the season may have felt, an 8-9 record with a No. 15 total DVOA and a Week 18 playoff elimination seemed easy to come back from.  The Patriots chalked their offensive woes up […]

“Culture” is a word that gets thrown around pretty flippantly in NFL circles. Not the idea of “culture,” of course not. Every team strives to have a cohesive locker room full of players sharing the same mindset, abiding by the same code. While most coaches emphasize it to the media and toss it around like […]

When it comes to the 2023 Seattle Seahawks, there really shouldn’t be any surprises. They packed enough of those into the 2022 season.  Last year’s Seahawks were pretty much a complete unknown. They had just traded their franchise quarterback away, leaving themselves with two backups to duke it out as a succession plan. Seattle started […]

In an NFL season already jam-packed with storylines through three weeks, it can be tough to keep up on all the goings-on around the league. Lost in the Miami Dolphins’ offensive explosion, the complete collapse of the Chicago Bears, and the latest Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce updates, the Cleveland Browns defense is putting on a historic […]

If you asked Brandon Staley what’s been holding this Chargers team back in their 0-2 start to the season, there’s a long list of answers he could rattle off. He dropped about a half dozen during his Week 2 postgame press conference: not protecting the passer, allowing deep passes, third-down penalties, inability to run the […]

The second week of September is an awkward time for losing teams in the NFL. To some, kicking the season off 0-1 can be easily brushed off. “We’ve got a whole season ahead of us. Burn the tape. Let’s clean it up at practice on Wednesday. We’re on to Week 2.” On the other hand, […]

Bryan Knowles: Welcome back to FTN Fantasy’s DVOA preseason picks! Earlier this week, we looked at our best bets for the NFL’s end-of-season awards. Today, we’re going a little more objective, predicting the leaders in the major statistical categories.  Voters might take away a well-deserved MVP or DPOY campaign. But the only one who can take […]

It’s that time of year again. Training camps have officially wrapped. 53-man rosters are (mostly) set. Now is the perfect time to draft your fantasy teams. The knowns are known, there are no more surprise preseason injuries to be had, and most starters can be sussed out by this point. All the information is available […]