What players will the Eagles target in free agency? Sheil Kapadia, Bo Wulf and Zach Berman have some ideas:

Kapadia: Malcolm Brown

“This is another area where I wouldn’t spend. You can find a complement to Miles Sanders in the draft or sign someone in August. But for the purposes of this exercise, I’ll go with Brown. He’s a physical inside runner and ranked seventh in TruMedia’s success rate metric last season. Brown produced a career-high 581 yards from scrimmage with the Rams in 2020.”

Full article: The Athletic

With their tight salary-cap situation, whom might the 49ers pursue in free agency? David Lombardi looks at their options, including edge rusher Carl Lawson:

“It’s been assumed that, if the 49ers spend top dollar on re-signing Williams, they’ll have to acquire a bookend for Nick Bosa through the NFL Draft. But given an extra $10 million, the 49ers might change gears and look seriously into signing a player like the 25-year-old Lawson, who’s been very productive for Cincinnati.”

Full article: The Athletic

With the Seahawks releasing defensive end Carlos Dunlap, they’re putting themselves in a risky spot, writes Michael-Shawn Dugar:

“Extension talks clearly stalled and now Dunlap, after a season in which he transformed Seattle’s pass rush, will get to see if another team places a greater value on his services.

This is a risk for Seattle because Dunlap was Seattle’s best defensive lineman in 2020. He led the position group in pressure percentage (12.6), according to TruMedia, and finished second in sacks and fourth in total pressures despite playing just eight games.”

Full article: The Athletic

Ben Baldwin goes deep into the numbers to figure out what happened to Russell Wilson and the Seahawks offense in the second half of the 2020 season:

“Here is another place we can bring data to bear, thanks to PFF coverage labels provided by TruMedia. Let’s take a look at the percentage of early downs where opponents played a coverage that uses two high safeties, as charted by PFF:

If we compare the dots in each week (how a defense usually plays on the back end) to the logos (how they played against the Seahawks), we indeed see that as Carroll noted, teams played more two-high looks against the Seahawks than they did in their other games, with the major exceptions being the Eagles and Jets, which were both comfortable wins for the Seahawks. Of the three big outliers in the chart who played more two-high than usual — the Cowboys, Vikings, and Giants — the Seattle offense struggled in two of those three games (the latter two).”

Full article: The Athletic

How do the Texans replace J.J. Watt and improve a defense that struggled last season? Aaron Reiss looks at Houston's options:

“Not only did Watt lead the team in sacks (5.0) and QB hits (17), he also had 14 TFLs, which doubled the next-closest Texans defender, inside linebacker Zach Cunningham. The 2020 Texans had the fourth-worst defense since 2000, according to TruMedia’s EPA per play data. They might be even worse in 2021, but they won’t simply be a Watt-less version of last season’s unit. There should be a lot of turnover on this portion of the roster.”

Full article: The Athletic

Mike Sando examines Dak Prescott’s contract situation, including how Prescott compares to other quarterbacks in the 2016 draft class:

“Of the 15 quarterbacks drafted in 2016, Prescott … ranks first among them in EPA per pass attempt. He leads his draft class in total touchdowns (106 passing, 24 rushing), yards per attempt (7.7), winning percentage (.597, counting playoffs) and passer rating (97.2).

Yet, even if Prescott has outproduced 2016 first-round picks Goff and Wentz, he was not evaluated as a first-round talent entering the NFL, which could affect how some teams see him today.”

Full article: The Athletic

Mike Sando compares Carson Wentz’s numbers to those of his Colts predecessors, Andrew Luck and Philip Rivers:

“Wentz’s drop in production during his final games in Philadelphia shows up on the chart below, which shows cumulative team expected points added (EPA) by passing for Wentz, Luck and Rivers over each quarterback’s most recent 69 starts, using TruMedia’s EPA model. The 69-start cutoff allows for comparing Wentz’s entire career against equal time frames for other recent Colts quarterbacks. …

• Rivers’ pass offenses: 5.8 EPA per game. That would rank inside the top 10 for the 32 teams over the past five seasons.

• Luck’s pass offenses: 4.5 EPA per game, which would rank just outside the top 10 over the past five seasons.

• Wentz’s pass offenses: 2.0 EPA per game, which would rank just outside the top 20.”

Full article: The Athletic

Michael-Shawn Dugar predicts which Seahawks free agents will stay and go, using TruMedia’s research platform for context:

“Benson Mayowa ranked second on the team in quarterback pressures with 34, according to TruMedia, tying strong safety Jamal Adams (defensive tackle Jarran Reed had 38). Only Carlos Dunlap had a higher pressure percentage among Seattle’s defensive linemen. Considering Mayowa’s price point, producing six sacks and a nearly identical pressure rate as Defensive Rookie of the Year Chase Young is a solid season. Other teams could be interested in his services but a number of potential cap casualties at his position could hurt his market; there are going to be some very young, talented pass rushers on the street this offseason regardless of what the salary cap ends up being next month.”

Full article: The Athletic

Sheil Kapadia uses TruMedia’s research platform and success-rate metric throughout his rankings of the NFL’s top free-agent running backs:

“If there’s one back in this class who can expect to get a big payday, it’s (Aaron) Jones. With 3,017 yards from scrimmage since the start of 2019 (ranking fifth league-wide among running backs), Jones has been one of the best all-around backs in recent years. He ranked 16th out of 55 qualifying backs in RPOE and 14th in success rate last season. Jones’ 829 receiving yards over the past two seasons rank sixth among all backs, and his 51 runs of 10-plus yards are tied for sixth.”

Full article: The Athletic

On his list of potential NFL free agents, Sheil Kapadia ranks Dak Prescott first, with stats to support his claim:

“Prescott has completed 66 percent of his passes, averaged 7.7 yards per attempt (YPA) and thrown 106 touchdown passes with 40 interceptions in his career. If we want to go to advanced stats, he’s averaged 0.14 Expected Points Added (EPA) per play over the last three years, according to TruMedia’s model. That ranks ninth out of 44 quarterbacks.”

Full article: The Athletic