Trends in schematic football make up a constant see-saw between innovations and adaptations of offense, then defense, then offense again, and so on. It’s been that way since the advent of the game, and it will be that way until the game one day inexplicably disappears. Every new scheme is the solution to what’s happening on the other side of the ball, and every new wrinkle is a counter to how teams have exploited that scheme.
With over a century of pro football behind us and with an exclusive club of those who coach at that level, truly original schemes aren’t found very often anymore. More so than anything else, the “new” schemes we see these days are a product of recycling and tinkering with the conceptual innovations of coaches past, still to great effect when touched by some of today’s best football minds. Over the next 20 Sundays, we’re going to witness regularly the influences of Don Coryell, Bill Walsh, and Mike Shanahan, among others, on offense while seeing the fingerprints of Tom Landry, Buddy Ryan, and Bill Belichick on defense, to name a few.
On either side of the ball, you can look around the league and place teams into a small handful of proverbial buckets in regard to the origins of their predominant schematic emphases, many of which will go back to the coaches named above. As such, the primary innovations taking place right now have little to do with which concepts are being run. They have a great deal, though, to do with which players are on the field running them.
If you spent the offseason getting your football fix by listening to as many podcasts and reading as many articles as you could, you were probably bombarded by discussion of Sean McVay and the Rams frequently putting three tight ends on the field in 2025. The rest of the league took notice and followed suit, particularly the substantial portion of teams whose offensive philosophies come from the same schematic family as McVay’s offense. 22 tight ends were drafted in the 2026 Draft, the most in over two decades. And early returns indicate they’ll be used, as Week 1 had significantly more 13 personnel (1 RB, 3 TE) usage than we saw in 2025. 13 of the 16 games played last weekend had at least one tight end touchdown, and six of the 16 games had a tight end as the game’s leading receiver. I have a guess as to which position will be seeing greater emphasis this year.
On the defensive side, we’ve been seeing a steady increase in recent years of additional safeties on the field. Three of last year’s preeminent defenses – the Seahawks, Texans, and Eagles – play very regularly with three safeties on the field. For the former two teams, safeties Nick Emmanwori and Jalen Pitre both play the nickel position, keeping the modern-day de facto base personnel of nickel intact, but leaning into the use of extra safeties that dictates roster-building decisions. This year’s top-drafted safety (the first of 25), Caleb Downs of the Cowboys, is doing the same for them. New Ravens head coach Jesse Minter frequently utilized additional safeties in his two years as the defensive coordinator for the Chargers, and would seemingly be wise to do the same with the roster he’s inherited in Baltimore, especially given All-Pro Kyle Hamilton’s excellent track record in the slot. Though it may manifest itself differently in each defensive scheme and on each roster, it’s evident that three-safety personnel groupings will continue to be adopted this year, likely even regardless of which positions the offense is putting on the field.
So, why do I bring this up? Honestly, because I think these trends will define the 2026 NFL season, and could even be the deciding factor in a number of playoff games. The tight end and the safety have long been natural foils for each other in both the pass and run games, and now we’ll be seeing more snaps from both positions than we’ve seen in a long time, and maybe in fact more than we’ve ever seen. It’s unclear whether McVay’s heavy use of 13 personnel (and 12 personnel while allowing Puka Nacua to be used in tight end-like role) was in response to defenses like those of the Eagles and the division rival Seahawks, or if he was simply maximizing the talent on his roster in a clever way. What is clear is that other coaches will be applying his wisdom this season and presumably for the next couple of years at least. And it’s almost certain that teams will continue to apply the wisdom of Vic Fangio, Mike Macdonald, and DeMeco Ryans, especially as their position coaches get more and more coordinator jobs.
In the long run, this is probably leading toward changes in the focus of roster-building decisions league-wide, as evidenced by this year’s draft and nearly 20% of the draft being dedicated to those two positions. This, in turn, will likely lead to the prevalence of different schemes on both sides of the ball than we see now, in order to further take advantage of the skill sets found on these teams. Included in this will be the increased emphasis on the middle of the field, as alluded to in the title of this article.
As for short-term ramifications, many of the teams adopting one or both of these ideas are expected to be playing well into January this year. Enough of them are doing both that we could see plenty of games that are 60 minutes of tight ends vs. safeties, their battles becoming the cruxes of several of the matchups we might see. And given the wide variety of skill sets found in the league’s best safeties and tight ends, it’s not like those battles will only be in the middle of the field, though many will be at least somewhat concentrated there. Regardless of whether they’re in the middle of the field, though, I expect they will be in middle of the action.
