Turf Show Times
Pro Football Focus (PFF) released its 2026 QB Annual. It’s a deep dive into all things analytics surrounding quarterback performance last season and over their careers.
There were some important takeaways for Matthew Stafford in terms of changes that elevated his game en route to the MVP award in 2025. The question moving forward is which pieces are sustainable and which may be primed for regression.
Let’s dive into the annual and put its predictive powers to good use.
With the Rams deploying heavier personnel and addition tight ends more often last season, Stafford moved from a heavily shotgun quarterback to playing under center more often than anyone. In some ways this is a scheme change that sent the NFL back to the early 2000’s. It is truly the best way to marry the run and pass games, and we often saw tight ends and receivers disguised as blockers only to leak out into routes. It’s the latest and most impressive wrinkle from Sean McVay and it worked to great effect for Stafford.
Stafford was the quarterback most often under center on a percentage basis and the least often in the shotgun according to PFF:
And the Rams went to this well often because it worked. Stafford’s PFF passing grade was better under center than in the shotgun. He’s one of the best processors left in the league, and he’s a quarterback of an era gone by. It makes sense how he’d excel in this facet while other quarterbacks don’t have the same depth of background.
The path to winning MVP honors in the NFL is narrow. It takes only one bad game for the media to jump on board and derail a campaign. Stafford was able to stay the course and stave off the bad game.
It also took a little luck for that to happen.
According to PFF’s interception modeling, Stafford threw nearly seven fewer interceptions than expected. Two of these came from turnover-worthy plays (likely dropped interceptions, etc.) and 4.5 were purely good fortune through non-turnover-worthy throws where nothing went wrong (receivers batting well-thrown balls to defenders, etc.).
While Stafford finished with single-digit interceptions with nine, he really should have been closer to 16 when all said and done. Additionally, opposing defenders dropped nine of Stafford’s would-be interceptions. This is additional “luck” that is not captured in the model.
Appearances matter in MVP campaigns. Sometimes the stars need to align. They did for Stafford in 2025. That could all change in 2026 at no fault to the quarterback. This is an area where Stafford is due for regression.
Stafford’ accuracy is a topic I have written about often. The analytics surrounding his performance in this area can be head-scratching.
The QB Annual nails the strange juxtaposition. Stafford throws perfectly aimed passes as often as any other quarterback. He also misses throws at a rate that puts him towards...
