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2024 NFL position-by-position breakdown on offense: AFC retains quarterback advantage, but NFC closes gap
By Jared Dubin,
13 hours ago
USATSI
It is, once again, simply that time of year. The regular season is getting closer and closer with each passing day, and as we always do around these parts when those days come, we are taking a wide-lensed look at the entire league before we start getting into our micro takes once the season begins.
As part of that wide-lensed look, we are using this space over the next few days to compare the two conferences at each and every position, to see which group of teams has the advantage. We'll begin today and offense, and finish up with the defense later this week.
Without further ado...
Quarterback: Advantage AFC
This time last year, we declared the game's most important position a massive advantage for the AFC. But after a season in which Dak Prescott finished second in MVP voting, Brock Purdy followed up his magical rookie run with a sophomore campaign that established himself as a very good quarterback, Jordan Love took a step toward elite status, Jared Goff had one of the best years of his career, Matthew Stafford recaptured top form following his return from injury, Kyler Murray looked strong in his return from a torn ACL, and the conference added the top two picks in the draft ( Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels ), the NFC made things much closer this time around.
NFC wide receivers and tight ends actually out-performed their AFC counterparts last year, taking the edge in targets per route run, catch rate, yards per reception, yards per route, explosive catch rate, first downs per target, success rate and drop rate. And the conference added the top three wide receivers in the 2024 NFL Draft in Marvin Harrison Jr. , Malik Nabers and Rome Odunze , each of whom could have been the clear top receiver in their class in any other year.
When you take a look at our offensive infrastructure rankings from earlier this offseason, you can see that on the whole, things were very close along the offensive line.
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