Welcome to The wrong reading. This weekly article uses advanced team-level metrics to look at the week’s upcoming matchups. The goal is to try to understand how an upcoming matchup might play out in terms of each offense’s ability to execute their game plan. How successful will they be when attempting to pass? How much will they be able to run the ball?

It’s impossible to answer these questions definitively, but by exploring advanced statistics, we can better understand dynamics that may not show up in the box score every week. We can use these statistics to find hidden signals that can indicate how a team wants to play soccer and how likely they are to play the way they want to against an upcoming opponent.

The numbers below include data from early 2024 and the final weeks of 2023. This means that personnel changes aren’t fully reflected in these numbers — in cases where that’s relevant, I’ll point it out. But we can still get a good sense of what to expect from each of these teams. I’ll highlight the most notable features of the matchup below each chart.

New England Patriots at New York Jets

After both Breece Hall And Braelon Allen If New England doesn’t stack the box often, the Jets could try to get one or both back in the mix early. The Patriots pose a tough challenge for opposing offenses. Only one team allows fewer yards per rushing play, and no team allows a lower percentage of explosive plays. While New England doesn’t often stack the box, they are capable of limiting both yards before and yards after contact.

Still, Hall and Allen might find some room as receivers. Both scored receiving TDs in Week 2, and New England is beatable in the passing game. The Patriots don’t create pressure or play tight coverage. Meanwhile, whether it’s the play of the offensive line or a reluctance to take a hit after his Achilles injury, Aaron Rodgers gets the ball away faster than in any other season of his career.

This means two things: First, the Patriots pass rush doesn’t have much time to get to him. But at the same time, it also means the Jets receivers don’t have as much time to get their routes open. As such, it becomes much more likely that Rodgers’ throws will be to targets closer to the line of scrimmage: Hall and Allen.

The slower than normal time to throw explains why no Jets player who has faced more than one target has an aDOT higher than by Allen Lazard 10.7.Mike Williams (Rodgers has seen just one target in his 20 routes so far, and that was 16 yards out.) Rodgers’ average depth of throw on the season is just 6 yards out. For comparison, it hasn’t dropped below 7.1 in any season in Green Bay. Garret Wilson operates slightly closer to the line of scrimmage than Lazard or Williams, but his aDOT is down more than a full yard from 2023 and he’s averaging just 8.5 targets per game over the past two weeks, also down from his career-high 9.9 in 2023.

While we shouldn’t count on Wilson and Rodgers not being able to find their connection, it could result in an offense that sends more targets to the RBs than we expect.

On the other hand, New England will have trouble passing the ball against the Jets, and not just because New York is the No. 1 defense in EPA allowed per pass. It’s also because the Patriots have one of the worst passing offenses.

The Jets’ pass rush ranks fourth in pressure percentage, and the Patriots’ offensive line ranks 30th in pressure percentage allowed. What’s more, no team’s receivers create less separation than New England’s. Only two teams play tighter coverage than New York’s secondary. This is not a recipe for a big Patriots passing game.

The problem for Patriots fans and fantasy managers who own pieces of this offense is that they, too, can struggle to move the ball on the ground. But if there’s one way for New England to rack up yards and first downs, it’s through the running game. Despite poor rankings in many advanced rushing metrics, the Patriots are No. 5 in yards after contact, and no team allows more rushing yards after contact than the Jets, who are also prone to explosive running plays.

Rhamondre Stevenson won’t have it easy, but he could make some long runs. The Jets stack the box more than most teams, which likely allows them to limit yards before contact. But once RBs get past that initial contact, they’ve been able to pick up yards. Given the likely emphasis on RB play in this game, it’s no surprise that there’s an over/under of just 38.5.