How we count

Usage Yards

What a player's usage was worth in one game he played. A straight-line fit, per position group, of each stat on the work he got: targets, air yards and red-zone targets for receiving yards and catches; carries, red-zone carries and carries inside the 5 for rushing yards; all six for scrimmage yards; and for a quarterback's passing yards, his dropbacks, the air yards he threw and his attempts inside the 20.

Built from

Each play of the game, counted per player, and his box score. The fit is trained on the three seasons before the one it scores.

Floor

A game already played, in a stat the fit covers. A quarterback's carries the completion rate over the average throw (CPOE) beside it.

Shown

Always beside the yards he gained, never alone and never for a game not yet played.

Role

The change in a player's job, in yards: his Usage Yards a game over his last four games against the season's other games (last season's, while fewer than four of this season's remain). Positive: more work, of the kind that has been worth yards. Of our numbers it is the one that carries from one game to the next (below).

Built from

Usage Yards on his position's main stat: receiving yards for a receiver or tight end, scrimmage yards for a back.

Floor

4 games in the window and 3 outside it. The bar fills only when the change is at least 2 standard errors from zero.

Shown

First on a page when it clears that bar: the home page's list of bigger and smaller roles, a player's, a team's and a game's lead.

Beyond Usage

The yards he gained minus his Usage Yards, averaged over a stated span: his last four games (L4), a season, or the games in a split. Positive: he did more with the work than it was usually worth. It is the gap between the box score and the job, so read it as a discount on the box score, never as a ranking of players: about a third of a gap has carried into the next game, and a season's gap has carried into the next season at r = 0.27 (what holds).

Built from

Usage Yards and the box score, on his position's main stat: receiving yards for a receiver or tight end, scrimmage yards for a back.

Floor

Printed from 3 games. The bar under it fills only when the average is at least 2 standard errors from zero; tap the number to see the error.

Usage TDs

What a player's touches were worth in touchdowns: each carry at the league's touchdown rate from where it started (1, 2, 3–5, 6–10, 11–20 or 21+ yards out), each target at the rate for that spot and how deep it was thrown (behind the line, 0–9, 10–19, 20+), summed over his season. The gap is his touchdowns minus it.

Built from

Every play of the three seasons before the one scored; a cell with fewer than 200 plays uses its yard line's rate.

Floor

8 games in the season. The bar fills when the gap is at least 2 of the sum's own spreads. A season figure only: one touchdown is one event, so a single game never gets one.

Holds

About a tenth of a season's gap has carried into the next season: the touchdowns beyond it are the part of a line least likely to repeat.

Swans

The outliers the site is named after: the results nobody's recent role allowed for. Three kinds.

Weekly

One game at least 2 spreads from what his last four games' usage was worth going in (the same fit, on the usage he had been getting), either way, on the position's main stat. Printed split in two: role, this game's Usage Yards less that reference (a bigger or smaller job than usual), and beyond, his yards less this game's Usage Yards (what he did with it). Final stat lines only.

Season

A regular season's Beyond Usage over 3 games or more, at least 2 standard errors from zero.

Playoff

The weekly bar applied to a postseason's games.

Built from

Final stat lines and Usage Yards on the position's main stat: receiving yards for a receiver or tight end, scrimmage yards for a back, passing yards for a quarterback.

A Swan marks a game not to read as typical; the next game has kept about a third of the role part and about a tenth of the beyond part. The reference is read only after the game, for that game.

Funnel

Where a defense gives up the most: of backs' rushing yards, backs' receiving yards, receivers' yards and tight ends' yards a game, the one it ranks worst at in the league.

Built from

The defense's profile after each week: every final game it played, season to date and the last four.

Floor

Top 5 in the league (1 = allows the most) in either window, over at least 3 games.

Situations

A player's yards beyond what his recent usage was worth, in one situation his next game is in. Seven kinds, each with a football reason: without a teammate who is out, with this quarterback, under his own play-caller, against the defensive play-caller or head coach he faces, against a man-heavy or two-high defense, against a blitz-heavy one, and against light boxes (each style: the top quarter of the league that season).

Built from

His games over the last three seasons, the coaching staffs, the injury report and each play's charting of coverage, rushers and box.

Floor

The split's own minimum games (3 to 5), at least 2.5 standard errors from zero, and at least 3 of his games in the window outside it. Measured Tuesday, for the week's game only; a game already played has none.

Second week

A change in a player's role that happened again: the same kind of move, on the same player, two weeks running.

Built from

What changed, week over week.

Floor

Two weeks in a row.

First on it

The report that broke a story, when a club site or a city outlet had it before any national one, with how long the national coverage took. Later reports of the same story fold under it.

Built from

Headlines grouped by the player and the kind of news within 48 hours.

Floor

A national outlet reported it later.

What holds

A number is worth reading only if it carries from one stretch of games to the next. We check each one three ways, over every running back, receiver and tight end final line we have fitted, on the position's main stat, and print the result here as it stands.

Season to season, a player's Usage Yards a game have carried over at r = 0.83 and his Beyond Usage at 0.27. Over his last four games, Usage Yards have tracked the next game (r = 0.60) as well as his yards have (r = 0.60); about a third of a gap has carried into the next game, and about half of a change in role has shown up in the next game. That is why Role leads a page and Beyond Usage sits beside the box score. A Swan marks a game not to read as typical: the next game has kept about a third of the role part and about a tenth of the beyond part.

Efficiency stats

The standard advanced stats on player and game pages, checked the same way. Shares of the work and rates per route carry over; per-play results such as EPA per target, yards per carry and drop rate mostly do not, so read those over a season, not a month.

r is the correlation between the two stretches, from 0 (none) to 1 (the same number). Seasons 2022–26, measured Wed Sep 30 8:05 AM EDT; rerun each Tuesday.

Data and licences

Stats, play-by-play, participation, schedules, rosters, injuries and depth charts: nflverse, CC BY 4.0. Next Gen Stats (rushing yards over the average back on the same carries, separation, YAC over the average catch): the NFL's tracking numbers as nflverse publishes them, CC BY 4.0. Charting: FTN Data via nflverse, CC BY-SA 4.0, shown and never exported. Headlines link to their publishers. Not affiliated with the NFL or any team.