NFL under center trend analysis: 47 percent early downs

A quarterback moving from shotgun to under center is only a few steps. In the NFL economy, a few steps can change what gets copied, what gets measured, and what gets sold as the next edge. The latest data makes a useful mess of a tidy assumption: shotgun and spread concepts did not simply swallow the sport.

That matters beyond the whiteboard. Tactical fashion becomes coaching hires, scouting filters, broadcast graphics, and sports tech roadmaps. When the formation data turns, the people who built products or reputations around the old direction need to update the model before the market does it for them.

The asset: early down ambiguity

The Athletic reports that NFL offenses are aligning under center 47 percent of the time on early downs through Week 4, up from 40 percent last season and a low of 33 percent in 2023. The same report says that rate would be the highest since 2017 if sustained. The key business lesson is not that the league has discovered an old stance. It is that a widely assumed direction of travel can reverse while the scoreboard looks nearly the same, since The Athletic also notes average offensive points per game has barely moved from last season.

@title Under center early downs
@source The Athletic

  2023 ············· 33 percent
  Last season ······ 40 percent
  Through Week 4 ··· 47 percent

@caption The Athletic data shows early down under center usage moving back up.

For a deal breakdown, treat the formation as the asset being repriced. The buyer is not only the offensive coordinator. It is also the analyst deciding which variables matter, the media partner explaining the product, and the vendor selling a dashboard that claims to capture modern football. If the taxonomy says modern means shotgun by default, the taxonomy is already leaking value.

Distribution: coaching trees as scheme rails

The Athletic attributes part of the move to Kyle Shanahan of the San Francisco 49ers and Sean McVay of the Los Angeles Rams, noting that eleven coaches hired or promoted to call NFL offenses over the past three seasons previously worked with Shanahan, McVay, or both. That is not romance about mentorship. It is distribution, with a playbook moving through labor markets the way a software pattern moves through engineering teams.

ESPN offered useful context in 2018 when it described McVay as the only current NFL playcaller to use 11 personnel 80 percent of the time over a full season. The same ESPN piece contrasted that with Jon Gruden, who had used 22 personnel at least 20 percent of the time in a season over the previous 10 years, doing so in 2008 with Tampa Bay. The point is not that one package beat another forever. It is that the league keeps laundering old and new ideas through whatever personnel, hiring, and defensive pressure make them useful again.

The margin: why the countertrend matters

The Athletic frames these changes as part of a schematic exchange between offensive and defensive strategists, with hiring also playing a role. That is the part worth underlining for anyone building around football data. If defenses are paid to erase the last advantage, then an offensive trend is not a straight line. It is a price signal with an expiration date.

This is where sports business gets less glamorous and more practical. A team may not announce that formation mix changed its roster board, and a software vendor will not lead a sales deck with an apology for stale labels. Still, scheme data shapes what front offices value and what outside companies package as insight. Fans are sold innovation, but the contract is usually for adaptation.

What to watch next

The Athletic says the 47 percent early down rate would be the highest since 2017 if it holds, so durability is the first test. A month of data is useful, not permanent. If the number stays elevated, the under center turn becomes more than a September tendency. If it fades, that is also information about how quickly defenses answered.

For readers building models, products, or media strategy around the NFL, the lesson is simple enough to be annoying. Do not hard code the league into yesterday's future. Watch coaching hires, personnel groupings, and formation usage together, because the money often follows the first place where the sport stops behaving like the slide deck said it would.