For the 2024 season, nearly half of the NFL and nearly a third of NCAA switched their primary play caller. New offensive coordinators can mean a new flavor of plays, different mixes of personnel packages, new run/pass tendencies, and new players to shine. One consistent aspect for some teams is the use, or attempted use, of an offensive script to open the game.
Bill Walsh famously referred to his “first 15”, which was a predetermined set of plays a team would run to start the game. The idea with the 15 plays was to create a script for offenses to execute and build confidence to start the game. The script would also set the tone for the game by quickly exploiting a key matchup weakness identified in the defense.
It is more complicated than the perfect start, though. Defenses can create negative plays that push the play caller off the script. Teams may just use drive openers or play lists for specific situations like 3rd and long or not script plays at all. Still, fast starts can mean so much more than gathering information for an offense as playing with a lead can set the path to victory.
Since 2007, 60% of NFL and 53% of NCAA teams performed better on scripted plays by EPA/play than when going “off-script” (i.e., plays called the rest of the game). We all watched games and were excited about our team’s fast start only for a second half collapse. In this article, I want to dive deeper into how the script looks in the NFL and at the NCAA level.
Scripted Play Stability
Scripted plays are meant to build confidence, attack defensive weaknesses, and give the offense information about how the defense is treating specific looks to start the game. With its focus and intent on the opponent, the year-to-year stability of scripted plays isn’t as high as one would assume (NFL: 0.25 Pearson correlation year to year, NCAA: 0.31), but that makes sense given the nature of adjusting to match the opponent each week. Non-scripted plays have a higher year-to-year stability than scripted plays (0.40 for NFL, 0.47 for NCAA). Given the nature of change in play callers and new offensive talent each season, I wouldn’t assume this value to be very high from season to season either.
Scripted Play Mix Tendencies
In looking at play calling tendencies, we need to first identify different buckets of plays called for both run and pass plays. For passing plays, we divided the pass play type into depth of target:
- Underneath/No Pass: For plays that didn’t have a target associated with it (i.e., scramble, sack, etc.) or were behind the line of scrimmage, we decided to combine them based on how they showed up in the data set. This captures plays that had a pass depth less than or equal to 0.
- Short Pass: 1-to-5-yard passes
- Medium Pass: 5-to-20-yard passes
- Deep Pass: 20+ yard passes
For Run type plays, we grouped the plays into the following buckets:
- Zone Run: Inside or Outside Run concepts
- Man Run: Runs defined as all OL blocking players primarily in front of them
- OL Pull Run: Run concepts where an OL moves or pulls (i.e. Pull Lead, Counter, Power, Trap concepts)
Other play types include Draw Run, Triple Option, FB Run and others, but those plays are few and far between. Overall, the trend for both levels is for shorter/underneath passes (both for scripted and non-scripted) given the rise of two-high safety defenses. Deep passes, though, seem to perform at a higher rate when scripted versus when not scripted at a consistent basis per season in both leagues. This likely speaks to OCs identifying a specific weakness in opposing coverages and look to take advantage.
The other interesting trend is how well OL pulling run plays perform when not scripted (particularly true in the NFL). One hypothesis here may be tied to run defenders adjusting to moving OL or survivorship bias related to teams running more when leading (leading to some variance in non-scripted plays). NCAA teams use much more OL pulls run concepts than that of the NFL and see mixed results due in part to varying degrees of talent.
Scripted Play Sequencing
Now that we understand the play mix for scripted plays, we can dive into the potential sequencing of plays that offensive coordinators start to put together when building their script. We first need to define a sequence, and for our circumstances we combine three sequential plays together (i.e., assume 3 downs of football).
With the play-level sequence, we can come up with a string of play types together and then examine their summed performance. For scripted plays, we get the most common sequence of plays used during scripted plays (removing plays in the “underneath” grouping given that is most likely a disruption to pass play) is different combinations of Zone Run and Medium Pass. After the Zone Run / Medium Pass combinations, we get combinations of Zone Runs with Short Passes. In college especially, those who have come out pass happy have seen higher degrees of success on scripted plays (again likely exploiting a matchup advantage).
Passing early within the script can give rise to settling in the offense for the rest of the game. It gives an opportunity to spread out the defense in an effort to establish a more potent ground attack. This is why passing within scripted plays is imperative for teams wanting to run more. With the rise of two-high coverage usage here, the takeaway here too shouldn’t be taking more deep pass attempts but utilize the offensive script to take the deep pass attempts.
Those still looking to run more should look to do so with more pulling OL as that seems to still be effective when mixed with a standard zone or man run concept. Currently for the 2024 season, some of the top offenses in the NFL are attacking early and helps explain why teams like Detroit, Baltimore, and Tampa Bay are having offensive success this season.
Here are the top offenses in the past to specifically have success with deep pass usage added in the script:
- Detroit 2019: Saw nearly +2 EPA/play when scripted vs non-scripted
- Cleveland 2017: +1.39 EPA/play when scripted vs non-scripted
- Kansas City 2019: Saw nearly +0.6 EPA/play when scripted vs non-scripted
- Miami 2022: +0.34 EPA/play when scripted
In college, here’s some notable teams from the most recent season that had success with the deep pass when scripted:
- SMU 2023: +1.45 EPA/play when scripted vs non-scripted
- Washington State 2023: +1.53 EPA/play when scripted vs non-scripted (Note: Cam Ward has since transferred to Miami)
- Kentucky 2023: +1.42 EPA/play when scripted vs non-scripted
- Maryland 2023: +0.80 EPA/play when scripted vs non-scripted
Notable with the collegiate teams is all had experience within the offense to be able to let the ball fly. I think more OCs can build confidence for younger QBs by finding wins for them when throwing early in the game and getting comfortable stretching the field. As the 2024 season evolves, remember to keep in mind that scripted plays are meant to perform well and the true test for the offense is what they do with that momentum as the game goes on. With increased defensive performance, data would suggest scripted plays are becoming ever more important to get the ball rolling.
