NFL trends that will carry into 2023 season: Invest heavily in the offensive line, be aggressive, and more

Recency bias is a helluva drug. And the conference title games and Super Bowl always shape narratives for how to build a team, what style of offense and defense to incorporate, what the rest of the league should prioritize during the team-building process, etc. It happens every year. After the Eagles‘ first Super Bowl win their usage of the “Run-Pass Option” made RPO vernacular overnight. Mahomes’ Super Bowl win the following year pushed the new mold for the prototypical franchise quarterback. 

Last year, I highlighted the league’s growing propensity to go for it on fourth down, pass on first down, and prioritize YAC. Those trends aren’t going anywhere. To touch on them briefly here — teams are still noticeably more aggressive on fourth down than they were even five to 10 years ago. That’s good. 

The Bengals and Chiefs finished third and fourth, respectively, in first-down pass rate during the regular season. Eight of the 14 playoff teams were in the top 10 in first-down pass rate and first-down pass rate in one-score game scenarios. If the NFL is a copycat league, other teams need to mimic what the best teams are doing, and one of those things is passing it more frequently than they run it on first down, even if the game is close. 

And YAC is here to stay for a while. The Chiefs finished with the most total YAC during the regular season. The 49ers had the best YAC-per-reception average. The Chiefs were second in that category, while the Eagles were fifth and Bengals were 11th despite Ja’Marr Chase missing four contests. 

Sometimes these trends are drawn directly from the regular season. But they’re mostly drawn from the playoffs. 

Let’s identify those trends before Super Bowl LVII. 

Invest heavily in the offensive line

The 49ers made the Super Bowl after the 2019 season, ultimately losing to Mahomes and the Chiefs. Less than two months later, they traded a fifth and future third for future first-ballott Hall of Fame left tackle Trent Williams. Big swing. 

While they did allow burgeoning guard Laken Tomlinson to bolt in free agency after the 2021 season, they drafted Aaron Banks in the second round in 2021 and spent a fourth-round choice on guard Spencer Burford last April, two players who were the primary starters at guard in the 2022 season. 

After Burrow led the NFL in sacks taken (51) in 20221, the Bengals spent a total of $22 million in collective…