Every cloud has a silver lining, and every NFL team does something well. Even the worst team has certain plays and tendencies in which the players are productive.
We've gone through Football Outsiders' extensive stat databases to point out one specific strength of each offense in 2015. Some of these splits are significant for illuminating the strengths and weaknesses of each team's personnel. Other splits tend to oscillate wildly from year to year, and a great performance in 2015 may not indicate that a team will be equally strong in the same ways in 2016. Either way, the numbers provide an interesting window into what each team's offense did right last season. (We did the same thing for every defense here.)
Football Outsiders' advanced metrics are explained here. The most important is DVOA, which measures success on each play compared to the league average adjusted for situation and opponent. Because it is measured on a per-play basis, it can easily be separated to measure specific splits. You'll see a lot of those ratings below.
Charting stats such as frequency of blitzes, pass pressure and play-action come from research by ESPN Stats & Information. Other charting metrics including cornerback coverage stats and broken tackles come from Sports Information Solutions. You'll be able to find many more of these stats in our book "Football Outsiders Almanac 2016," which will be released online on Aug. 1.
AFC East | AFC North | AFC South | AFC West
NFC East | NFC North | NFC South | NFC West
AFC EAST
Buffalo Bills
Buffalo had a league-high 72.3 percent DVOA when using play-action on passes, and their 9.9 yards per play ranked third behind only Arizona and Washington. Only the Rams had a bigger gap between performance in play-action passes and other passes.
Miami Dolphins
Miami's offense struggled overall but was pretty good on second downs, especially second-and-short situations, which present the most freedom for an offensive playcaller. The Dolphins were 21st in offensive DVOA on first downs and 31st on third downs. But on second downs, the Dolphins ranked 12th in offensive DVOA, and only Cincinnati was better on second-and-short (1-2 yards to go).
