By Joseph Nichols, Staff Writer 

Ushered in by the 2000 Rams team aptly named the “Greatest Show on Turf,” the 21st century has seen a historic uptick in production on the offensive side of the ball, particularly with passing quarterbacks. Pioneered by current and future Hall of Famers such as Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Peyton Manning, the signal-caller generation previous to our current one set a contemporary standard for what it means to be a National Football League (NFL) quarterback. 

Of the 15 times a player has thrown for 5,000 yards, only one instance came before the 21st century. The league has become a more entertaining dogfight as exceptional quarterbacks can entirely turn the tides of war.

The current quarterback generation, heralded by the likes of Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow and Josh Allen, has seen immense success on the field, but their explosive passing has since simmered off. Passing production is down across the board in the NFL, and offenses are no longer the fireworks show that they once were every Sunday. It’s becoming boring.

Quarterbacks in the league are taking fewer downfield strikes, primarily due to the rise of the nickel two-deep defense. After Mahomes launched a scorched-earth policy against NFL defenses in his first season as a starter in 2018, head coaches and defensive coordinators needed to adapt.

Enter Vic Fangio, the newly-hired head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs’ division rival, the Denver Broncos. Since his squad has to play the Chiefs twice a year, he began to experiment with placing additional pieces in the secondary defensive players instead of linebackers. Essentially, his defensive scheme worked to restrict explosive passing plays rather than limit the run game, which had previously been the standard. 

However, it was not until the Cincinnati Bengals defeated the juggernaut Chiefs twice in 2021 that people began to take notice. Utilizing the nickel two-deep defensive scheme, the Bengals held off the most potent offense in the NFL to win the AFC North division for the first time since 2015. The Bengals then vanquished their foe once more in Arrowhead Stadium, punching their ticket to Super Bowl LVI.

With the formidability of the nickel two-deep defense on full display in the AFC Championship game in 2021, NFL coaches began to implement the strategy into their own scheme. Three years later, the result is apparent as the deep third of the field, which once was a place for quarterbacks to send a missile to their receiver, is now shut down like a Spirit Halloween in May.

While quarterbacks will still take deep shots, they’ve been significantly hampered by the additional player in the secondary that the nickel two-deep look brings in. Quarterbacks are now encouraged to simply check the ball down to a receiver or running back instead of taking a shot downfield, while offensive coordinators are almost required to reinstitute a strong run game, which was not necessary for the previous generation of superstar quarterbacks. 

This has been reflected in this season’s stats as Mahomes’ yards-per-attempt (YPA), which helps track how far downfield a quarterback is throwing, has dipped from a lethal 8.8 YPA in 2018 to an uninspiring 6.7 YPA this season. After sending opposing defensive coordinators through a trial-by-fire weekly and throwing for over 5,000 yards and 50 touchdowns in his first season as a starter, Mahomes is now on pace for a little over 4,000 yards and an anemic 22 touchdowns. Bleh! Sunday afternoons aren’t a punchout war of attrition between quarterbacks and opposing defenses anymore. Short, high-efficiency throws are now the engine of NFL offenses.

The NFL has gone back to a game in the trenches and between the tackles as explosive passing plays are no longer the tools for the best offenses. While the football “old heads” will likely be punching the air right now in triumph, the league is devolving into old-fashioned check-downs and runs, which is a far cry from the weekly eye-popping plays that this century instituted. There’s something not right about check-down king Bo Nix, who is holding the seventh seed right now over the Bengals, who have the quarterback with the most passing touchdowns and the wide receiver with the most receiving yards in the entire league. 

Maybe I’ve been spoiled as a fan and haven’t been around long enough, but man, something is mesmerizing about Cincinnati nearly winning the Super Bowl in 2022 with little more than Burrow, Chase and a prayer. Take me back to the Sundays of Stafford heaving rockets to Megatron and Brady finding Edelman in the endzone off a sixty-yard go route. Nostalgic for Brady? Maybe I have gone to the dark side. I suppose the old adage is true: you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.