- Getting extra linemen on the field more than ever: This year, we have also observed the most total six-plus-linemen plays over the first 14 weeks of any season since 2016.
- Offenses are gaining a personnel advantage: After defenses countered passing attacks with smaller and faster defensive backs, the other side of the ball has responded with a philosophical shift.
- Get PFF+ for 30% off: Use promo code HOLIDAY30 to unlock the PFF Player Prop Tool, Premium Stats, fantasy dashboards, the PFF Mock Draft Simulator, industry-leading fantasy rankings and much more — everything you need to win your season.
Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes
If you attend a football game in person or even keep an attentive ear out when watching on TV, you’ll know that when a referee declares, “Number [XX] is an eligible receiver,” it typically means the offense has deployed an additional sixth offensive lineman for the upcoming play.
If you feel like you’ve been hearing that phrase with much more regularity as of late, it’s because you have. Formations with six offensive linemen are one of the hottest commodities in the NFL right now.
It ties in neatly with one of the broader schematic themes of the 2025 season. Offenses have realized that modern NFL defenses have become far too small, prioritizing speed over size when evaluating players in recent draft cycles. Now, they have the body mass advantage to punish this.
We’ve seen an uptick in heavier personnel groupings, with multiple tight end formations prominent among some of the league’s best offenses. To counteract this shift in philosophy, base defense personnel usage (four defensive backs) is on the rise for the first time since 2009 after 15 consecutive seasons of continuous decline.
However, no trend is more noticeable than the resurgence of plays with additional offensive linemen. They now account for around 7% of all snaps you see each weekend. For context, there have been more plays with additional offensive linemen over the past nine weeks of this season than in each of the last four entire regular seasons.
This year, we have also observed the most total six-plus-linemen plays over the first 14 weeks of any season since 2016. This isn’t just a trend the league’s offensive minds collectively cooked up last offseason. Instead, we’ve actively witnessed this movement growing throughout the 2025 season, practically week-upon-week.
| 2025 Season | % of Plays with 6+ OL |
| Weeks 1-4 | 2.29% |
| Weeks 5-10 | 5.17% |
| Weeks 11-14 | 7.07% |
Data like this can be easily impacted by one or two teams greatly skewing the figures for the entire league, but that isn’t the case here. What was once a niche area of the game is becoming a staple for many offenses across the sport.
In Week 12, the Texans used an additional lineman on over a third of their offensive snaps to help secure a primetime victory over Buffalo. The Dolphins replicated that feat one week later in their win over the Saints, before the Lions did the same last week to overcome the Cowboys.
That’s not to mention the Steelers, Cardinals, Jaguars and Packers — all of whom have employed additional offensive linemen on over a tenth of their offensive snaps this year.
What’s perhaps more interesting is which teams aren’t using additional offensive linemen whatsoever. Arguably the two most innovative offensive minds of their generation, Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan, are the only two coaches yet to call a single play using six offensive linemen so far this season.
In McVay’s case, he hasn’t used a six-lineman formation in over three years. However, his Rams offense leads the league in 13 personnel usage (three tight ends) by a considerable margin, which is consistent with the theme of offenses generally becoming larger this season.
This trend of six-plus linemen is still in its infancy. After surpassing 100 total snaps in Week 9, the league hasn’t dipped below that figure since. With bye weeks finally wrapped up for the season, there are no signs of this slowing down.
Weeks with 100+ Snaps Featuring Additional Offensive Linemen, 2022-25
| Season | Week | Snaps |
| 2023 | Wk. 18 | 106 |
| 2025 | Wk. 9 | 104 |
| 2025 | Wk. 10 | 108 |
| 2025 | Wk. 11 | 136 |
| 2025 | Wk. 12 | 141 |
| 2025 | Wk. 13 | 126 |
| 2025 | Wk. 14 | 133 |
With this increase in extra-lineman sets, one would guess that offensive playcallers have become more flexible to accommodate this piece of their offense.
When the opponent brings in an additional big body, defenses could make an educated guess that the offense is going to run the ball, and they’d be correct 73% of the time. However, a further 22% of the time, they’d be fooled by a play-action fake.
This means just 5% of six-lineman sets result in traditional passing dropbacks. That percentage of standard non-play-action passing plays is actually lower than what it typically was back in the mid-2010s, when additional linemen were last in vogue. Perhaps playcallers have become more one-dimensional on these looks by design in an attempt to set up run fakes and strike with chunk plays off of play action.
The numbers back up this theory. The league-wide average depth of target on standard-play-action throws this season is 8.0 yards. That rises to 11.0 yards on plays with an extra lineman on the field.
Of course, this is due in large part to the additional time afforded by the extra blocker in front of the quarterback. Although the extra lineman is defined as an “eligible receiver,” these big fellas rarely intend on putting that status to use. Offensive linemen have run only 40 total routes this season, catching just two passes — most memorably, Tristan Wirfs’ touchdown reception against the Cardinals.
We all love to see big guys getting involved in the receiving game. While there’s still hope that these eligible receivers can start getting more designed plays called for them in the weeks ahead, it looks as though playcallers are content to simply let linemen compound the size disparity up front and continue to play fundamental football.
Ben Johnson deserves a shoutout for trying to draw up a big-guy touchdown against the Packers this past weekend which didn’t quite come off. That play led Caleb Williams to find his second read, Colston Loveland, in the end zone instead.
The battle of offense versus defense in the NFL zigs and zags every handful of years. The next big shift is upon us.
Undersized defensive draft prospects with dominant athletic testing numbers who would’ve previously been disregarded as “too small” in years gone by are now littered throughout the league. While their speed and range has been used to great effect to stymie the passing attack, offensive football has struck back in the simplest way you could think of. They’ve just started using bigger guys.
If your team’s season is all but lost, and your attention now drifts toward the NFL Draft, keep an extra eye out for bigger-bodied front seven defenders — particularly at linebacker. Defensive coaches across the league are quickly becoming fed up with their sub-230-pound linebackers getting swept away by mammoth linemen in the run game.
Extra offensive linemen are just one part within the overall tide turning in modern football, but that wave is only getting larger and gnarlier as the 2025 season shifts into top gear.
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