NFL Tight End Evolution, Penalties, and Injuries

James Weaver (0:08)

Welcome to the Off The Charts Football Podcast. I'm your host, James Weaver, and today I am joined by Alex Vigderman and Bryce Rossler to discuss some of the league trends we are seeing through the first four weeks of the season. Couple of weeks ago, we talked about some of the teams and players that we wanted to buy or sell as we move forward into the season. And today we want to take an even further step back and talk about some of the league wide trends that we have seen.

Bryce, you enjoying this NFL season so far?

Bryce Rossler (0:40)

Not really, as a Lions fan. Like this is one of the worst defenses they've had in recent memory. And, you know, it's sort of maybe one step removed from you and me being out there at corner. But, you know, other than that, all is well.

Alex Vigderman (0:58)

I think, you know, people have different styles of sport they want to watch. And, you know, some people like defensive struggles and, you know, really good pitching matchups and that sort of thing. I do think at least in the case of, you know, a lot of people generally just like offense and the Lions at least have that going for them, unlike the teams that James and I root for, where every game is a bit of a slog offensively. So I will, I think, take Detroit's sort of combination of things, but...

James Weaver (1:30)

I take a little bit of exception to that. The Steelers have scored 24 plus points over the last two weeks.

Alex Vigderman (1:36)

That is, I suppose, good. But being forced to watch Aaron Rodgers in 2026 is not my idea of a good time.

James Weaver (1:45)

That's fair.

Bryce Rossler (1:46)

Aaron Rodgers in 2026 or Jalen Hurts in 2026?

Alex Vigderman (1:52)

I think I take Jalen Hurts in 2026 sort of context equal. There's definitely some tough injury stuff and offensive line things like Lane Johnson retiring and whatever for the Eagles. So they're in a bit of a tough spot. And who knows, you know, every year is a different play caller. So who knows if this is real or not. And that's always a fun conversation to have that we get to have every year as Eagles fans because Jalen Hurts hasn't had the same play caller since he was, you know, taking English class in the high school.

James Weaver (2:32)

It's October 7th, 2026, and we are officially calling it an end to the Eagles run of the last, what, half decade here?

Alex Vigderman (2:40)

Yeah, it's the, the, I feel like the sort of Carton Wentz, Nick Foles era Eagles also had this problem where it's like you win and you have a bunch of young guys locked up and whatever, and you think it's going to be great. And then it falls apart pretty quickly. Just a reminder that like life comes at you fast.

James Weaver (3:00)

There's never next year. It's always this year right now.

Alex Vigderman (3:03)

And that's what the, I mean, the Rams to their credit have been, you know, FN picks and whatever like that is, I think, a reasonable strategy just because your window is always one little thing away from closing.

Bryce Rossler (3:19)

Like, like taking Ty Simpson, like something like that.

Alex Vigderman (3:23)

Aside from that one thing, they've had a really unified strategy. It's just they made the one really weird decision for a first round pick. They could use more tight ends.

James Weaver (3:33)

That is a perfect segue into our first topic here. As this week, I wrote an article kind of taking a look at the evolution of tight end play that was inspired by the Rams Broncos game a few weeks ago, when there was a bit of a discussion about how the Rams have five tight ends on the active roster. And they basically use all of them in some way, shape or form. So I wanted to take a deep dive into the personnel's alignments, usages and see what kind of trend the use, the way the tight ends have been used over the past so many seasons and in this current season of 2026

First I took a look at the personnel usage, just how many tight ends being on the field and how often that is occurring. 2026, we see the biggest jump in three tight end looks that we've seen over the past decade. That's gone from 3% to 8%, so still not hovering above that 10% mark, but it's becoming more and more apparent that these teams are trying to get more tight ends on the field. And as we see a bit of a dip in the one tight end look and the zero tight end look as well.