Readers of Football Outsiders' annual play-action offense series will be familiar with a couple of basic facts about play-action passing: first, that play-action passes are generally more effective than non-play-action passes; and second, that teams rarely use play-action passes. In 2016, for example, play-action dropbacks gained 7.8 yards per play, compared to 6.2 yards per play for non-play-action dropbacks, but only 18 percent of dropbacks leaguewide used play-action.
Because the NFL does not include a play-action indicator in the play-by-play data that it releases to the public, there is little else we know about play-action. When do teams use it?