By James Reber, Next Gen Stats Research Analyst
Over the last decade, defense began to outpace offense in the NFL, driven by the league's focus on drafting and developing lighter, faster, more athletic defenders. But in 2025, offense struck back.
Upon seeing that defenders were pressuring their quarterbacks more quickly, gang tackling their rushers earlier and becoming more effective in coverage, many of the league's greatest offensive minds developed a counter: get bigger. Offensive sets with multiple tight ends, extra offensive linemen and fullbacks swept through the NFL this season, and the AFC champion New England Patriots and NFC champion Seattle Seahawks were each on the cutting edge of this trend.
For much of the NFL's history, the default offensive grouping was known as 21 personnel. This would feature two running backs (a halfback and a fullback) along with one tight end, hence 21. Necessarily, two wide receivers would be on the field, as well. With the gradual decline of the fullback and rise of spread offense from the 1970s through the 2010s, teams increasingly played 11 personnel (one RB, one TE, three WRs), which remains the predominant grouping in 2025. The most effective way to defend spread offenses was with nickel defense, which features five defensive backs and takes optimal advantage of the lighter, faster defenders teams have been adding to their rosters. Defenses matched 11 personnel with five or more DBs 95.6% of the time this season, and the rate has been steadily increasing over time.
The idea of using heavier personnel is to force defenses into base (four defensive backs), as they generally do not want an undersized extra DB to get steamrolled by a tight end or offensive lineman in run defense. This works well for Ds when offenses do what is expected from heavier sets: run the ball. When they pass, however, the defense in base is left with less flexibility to deploy various coverages and less athleticism to effectively contain route runners. The prevalence of heavy personnel induced defenses to play base on 29.7% of plays in 2025 after they had not done so at a rate above 25% in any of the preceding five seasons, dropping to a low of 20.5% in 2023.
The Patriots and Seahawks were two of the teams that best exemplified the shift away from WR-heavy spread offense, as they were two of nine squads to use sub packages (personnel sets other than 11) more than 50% of the time this season. Consequently, Drake Maye and Sam Darnold took advantage of base-defense looks as much as anyone. Maye surgically completed 73.9% of his passes against base, while Darnold aired the ball out so effectively in these scenarios that he averaged 11.1 yards per attempt. At the close of the regular season, Darnold's +52.8 expected points added (EPA) against base defenses was the highest figure posted by any quarterback, while Maye generated a +33.5 EPA of his own, the fifth-best mark.
In 2025, the league recognized that offenses were more versatile than defenses with bigger personnel on the field. Offenses used sub packages with fewer than three wide receivers on 41.7% of plays; the average had been below 38% in every one of the prior nine seasons since Next Gen Stats was established in 2016. What's more, sub-package usage increased as the season progressed. In Weeks 1 through 9, the league used heavy sub packages on 38.8% of plays -- a higher rate than what we saw in any other season since at least 2016, but not overly noteworthy. When the NFL averaged 44.5% heavy sub-package usage from Week 10 onward, it became clear we were in the midst of a revolution. The league never used these sub packages on at least 42% of plays in a single one of the 157 weeks of regular-season NFL football from 2016 through 2024. Over the final nine weeks of the 2025 regular season, though, it happened eight times.
The teams we will see battle it out on Sunday have revitalized their offenses through creative personnel mixing. The Seahawks used 11 personnel at the third-most-frequent rate of any team (77.4%) in 2024, playing the type of spread offense that had dominated the league's landscape in the 2010s and become overly formulaic. With heavy influence from his father, Gary, and the Shanahan coaching tree, new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak was always going to be the type to buck trends. In 2025, he instituted an offense that played condensed formations at the second-highest rate in the NFL (54.2%), called pass plays less often than anyone else (51.3%) and, pivotally, used heavier sub packages on 54.2% of plays, the sixth-highest rate in the league. In 12 personnel (1 RB, 2 TEs), the Seahawks led the league with an average of 7.5 yards per play -- the fifth-best mark by any team in the last decade.
Seattle's final opponent had nearly as enterprising an offense in its own right. Like the Seahawks, the Patriots began to rely on fullbacks and multiple tight ends more frequently this season, a key factor in their offensive improvement under Josh McDaniels. Their most interesting shift occurred midway through the season, though, as they developed a jumbo package. New England deployed at least six linemen -- or five along with nose tackle Khyiris Tonga -- on 87 plays in Weeks 10 through 18 after doing so just six times during their first nine games. Altogether, their running backs had averaged 3.8 yards per carry (seventh-fewest) through the first nine weeks, then led the league with 5.5 YPC from Week 10 onward, helped massively by the incorporation of jumbo groupings. In the final eight games of the regular season, Patriots RBs averaged an astounding 7.9 yards per carry and scored 10 touchdowns with an extra offensive lineman (or defensive lineman) blocking for them.
From a roster-construction perspective, the Seahawks truly saw this entire trend coming, and the proof lies in their elite defense. They've had the confidence to leave their nickel personnel on the field for 77.8% of plays against offensive sub packages -- no other team this season was above 60.5%. When doing so, their average of 4.5 yards per play allowed was better than all but three other defenses. Rookie Nick Emmanwori has granted Seattle great flexibility. The 6-foot-3, 220 pounder's size gives the Seahawks' nickel defense the strength of a base unit, while allowing it to remain as fast and athletic as any other team's five-DB grouping.
The Patriots, who start four defensive backs weighing at least 200 pounds, have been comfortable leaving their nickel personnel on the field against sub packages on 39.6% of plays, the seventh-highest rate in the league. However, whereas the Seahawks have thrived by eschewing base, the Patriots have shown their defense is prepared for contemporary football strategy by playing base as well as almost any team in the NFL. New England's base unit, which most often features three huge defensive tackles rather than the conventional three linebackers, allowed just 4.1 yards per play, the fifth-fewest of any base D.
Super Bowl LX will showcase two organizations that have mastered the chess match between offensive and defensive personnel. The two teams' unheralded role players drove their massive year-over-year offensive breakouts; their fullbacks, blocking tight ends and extra linemen served as the catalysts that propelled their respective quarterbacks and skill players to great heights. No matter who wins, Sunday's game will showcase an unprecedented strategic shift seen throughout the league this season.
