Fantasy Football Stat of the Day: The 2020 leaders in points per drive

Tyler Loechner

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(Leading up to the 2021 NFL season, FTN’s Tyler Loechner will dive into the fantasy football numbers to bring you his Fantasy Stat of the Day, five days a week.)

This week, we’ve been taking a look at drive-based stats for our Stat of the Day articles, starting with the teams that had the most most drives during the 2020 season as well as the teams that gained the most yards per drive.

The goal is to identify the teams that give their players the most opportunity to score fantasy points — and the best teams when it comes to actually gaining yards and scoring points.

Today’s Stat of the Day will dive into the teams that scored the most points per drive. There’s a big, big gap between the top and bottom teams.

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The Titans offense may reach unexpected heights with Julio Jones, and both New York teams bring up the rear

Here are the top 10 teams from last season ranked by their points per drive:

Team	PPD
Green Bay Packers	2.84
Tennessee Titans	2.74
Buffalo Bills	2.59
New Orleans Saints	2.57
Kansas City Chiefs	2.56
Tampa Bay Buccaneers	2.41
Seattle Seahawks	2.40
Baltimore Ravens	2.36
Las Vegas Raiders	2.29
Indianapolis Colts	2.27

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And here are the bottom 10 teams based on points per drive:

Team	PPD
New York Jets	1.13
New York Giants	1.46
Philadelphia Eagles	1.52
Denver Broncos	1.53
Cincinnati Bengals	1.55
Washington Football Team	1.57
Jacksonville Jaguars	1.63
Los Angeles Rams	1.67
New England Patriots	1.79
San Francisco 49ers	1.79

A few thoughts:

The Tennessee Titans have a chance to be the league’s best offense. The Titans already ranked second last year with 2.74 points per drive — well ahead of third place (the Bills at 2.59). The nucleus of the offense remains intact with Ryan Tannehill, A.J. Brown and Derrick Henry, and the addition of Julio Jones has a very real chance of making one of the league’s most efficient offenses into the league’s most potent offense. Do not leave your fantasy draft without exposure to the Titans.
Where will the Saints land in 2021? New Orleans scored 2.57 points per drive during the 2020 season, but they scored only 2.16 points per in the four games Drew Brees was sidelined. The number would have ranked 14th last year, instead of in the top five. With Michael Thomas out indefinitely, the Saints offense might take a bigger step backward than we’re collectively willing to admit.
How much can Zack Wilson save the Jets? The Jets weren’t just bad in this metric last season — they were absolutely putrid. Their 1.13 points per drive is so unimaginably bad that it’s hard to wrap my head around. How bad? Aaron Rodgers could have thrown 0 TDs instead of 48 and the Packers still would have had more points per drive (1.15) than the Jets. (I cheated a little for this stat, since I counted 6 points per TD instead of 7 for the extra point, but you get the picture.) Even with so many new faces, it’s hard to get excited about any Jets player in 2021.