Last season, we kicked off the summer with a series of “Notebook” posts that covered notes, regression analysis and some fun data points on a themed topic. Their goal was to highlight specific data points that could go into our diagnosis of players or teams.
We’re back again to kick things off with a look at play calling and game scripts for teams in the 2016 season with eyes on the potential of those moving into 2017. If you’re someone who creates personal projections, projecting the number of overall plays and ensuing split of passing and rushing plays is one of the first steps in a top-down approach.
Gase of Base
Adam Gase’s first year as Miami Dolphins head coach didn’t get out of the gates as expected. Miami began the season 1-4. Over the opening month, they hardly had any offensive balance while attempting to run out a running back by committee. Through four weeks, Miami had passed on 66.8 percent of their offensive snaps while their leading rusher had just 75 yards with no individual player having more than 18 total rushing attempts.
Gase admitted that the lack of backfield cohesiveness was a poor job of coaching. Starting in Week 5, he began to lean on Jay Ajayi as the team’s feature running back as Ajayi played 68 percent of the team snaps and averaged 71.9 percent of the team snaps per week going forward. Miami went on to close the season 9-4 and make the postseason for the first time since 2008 as Gase implemented a methodical approach that he’s leaned on since he wasn’t attached to Peyton Manning as his quarterback.
| Year | Team | Pass Plays/Gm | Rank | Ru% Trailing | Rank | 2nd Half Run% Trailing | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | DEN | 43.5 | 1 | 27.5% | 28 | 25.0% | 27 |
| 2014 | DEN | 39 | 10 | 26.4% | 27 | 21.5% | 30 |
| 2015 | CHI | 34.9 | 25 | 41.3% | 3 | 34.9% | 3 |
| 2016 | MIA | 31.7 | 32 | 38.5% | 5 | 32.6% | 9 |
Post-Manning, Gase has been run heavy throughout game script. Miami ran the fewest number of plays (57 per game) and passing plays per game in the league last season. That dip in volume had ramifications on the fantasy output for the passing game, leaving volume stud Jarvis Landry in a position where he lost 35 targets and 29 offensive touches from 2015. Landry’s bottom line was still strong in overall wide receiver scoring, but his output after the Ajayi-based offense was implemented suffered mightily.
Miami Receiving Output Over the Final 12 Weeks of 2016
| Player | TGT/G | WR Rank | Rec/G | WR Rank | ReYd/G | WR Rank | PPR/G | WR Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jarvis Landry | 7.2 | 36 | 5.3 | 20 | 63.4 | 25 | 13.1 | 28 |
| DeVante Parker | 5.5 | 63 | 3.6 | 56 | 47.3 | 51 | 9.8 | 57 |
| Kenny Stills | 5.1 | 69 | 2.8 | 74 | 43.4 | 58 | 10.6 | 52 |
After catching seven or more passes in each of the opening four games, Landry caught more than five passes in just three of the final 12 and caught four or fewer in six of those contests. Miami can take a step back this season and throw the ball more, but if any of that script is rolled over into 2017, Landry becomes a dicey selection at his current WR18 draft slot since he doesn’t carry the ceiling of some receivers going around the same area.
That also doesn’t paint a rosy outlook for this year’s puff-piece All-Star, DeVante Parker. Parker improved across the board in his second season, catching 56 passes for 744 yards and four touchdowns while improving his catch rate from 52 percent to 64 percent., but that was only good enough for a WR50 finish. Parker had nearly an identical target split to Kenny Stills per game to close 2016. There’s allure that Parker is the most complete receiver on Miami with the highest ceiling and his price has continuously dropped for fantasy, but the rub is that his role in the offense is cannibalized a touch since Miami already has a strong intermediate option in Landry and a long-ball specialist in Stills, rendering Parker’s ceiling and usage capped without an injury to one.
Koetter Cutting out the Pass
Another team that found success as the season rolled on was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They started the year in a similar fashion as previous seasons, but then hit their stride midyear as they became a more balanced offense. That newfound balance wasn’t just found by game script alone as coach Dirk Koetter specifically stated he needed to reel in Jameis Winston’s pass attempts and that he was concerned that Winston was trying to do too much in mid-November. From that point on, Tampa Bay successfully accomplished pulling back the reigns on the passing game.
| Weeks | W-L | Plays/G | Rank | Pass % | Rank | Run % | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-9 | 3-5 | 69.6 | 3 | 60.3% | 17 | 39.7% | 16 |
| 10-17 | 6-2 | 63.8 | 15 | 54.7% | 27 | 45.3% | 6 |
Koetter kept his word and this was a true offensive climate change, because the Bucs weren’t even good at running the football. Tampa Bay ranked third in the NFL with 231 rushing attempts over that span, but was dead last in yards per carry (3.26) with just four rushing touchdowns (28th). Running backs Doug Martin and Jacquizz Rodgers had the highest and second highest percentage of runs that failed to gain positive yardage for all backs with 100 carries on the season.
While that brand of winning football was a positive for the franchise, it wasn’t conducive for fantasy points. Over the final eight weeks, Winston was the QB17 and his highest rank in weekly scoring was QB11. Winston has yet to demonstrate a major weekly ceiling as he’s scored as a top-12 quarterback 11 times over his first two seasons with just six of 32 games inside of the top-10 of his position. Everything is in place for Winston to take the next step with the additions the Bucs have made, but he’s not someone to overly extend your reach for if Tampa Bay wants to still play a controlled style of offense. Of course, If Winston was affected by the climate shift, so was Mike Evans…
| Weeks | TGT/G | WR Rank | Rec/G | WR Rank | ReYd/G | WR Rank | PPG | WR Rank | Top-12 Weeks | Top-24 Weeks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-9 | 12.7 | 1 | 6.9 | 3 | 93.1 | 4 | 22.4 | 1 | 5 | 6 |
| 10-17 | 8.8 | 9 | 5.1 | 18 | 72.0 | 14 | 15.6 | 14 | 3 | 4 |
Over the season’s back half, Evans was feast or famine for fantasy, and mostly famine. He finished outside of the top-40 scoring receivers in four of those eight games and above WR12 just once. Evans has only known one offensive climate for his career prior to that stretch of team success and has had minimal competition for targets since entering the league. With Tampa Bay’s receiver additions and the Bucs expected to make another stride forward, Evans may not be a locked-in WR1 like the wide receivers in the top tier, and this uncertainty of volume should be enough to warrant him failing to join that top tier in terms of draft capital. That said, the 24-year-old receiver is still one of the NFL’s premier touchdown threats and vertical playmakers, so it’s hard to push him down too far. I still prefer A.J. Green to Evans in a vacuum, but have no issues with where Evans is being selected in drafts.
All of this makes Doug Martin an intriguing option for where he falls in drafts. Martin is suspended for the opening three games as he finishes his penance for violating the league’s PED policy, He didn’t fully capitalize on a similar opportunity when he returned from injury a year ago, but the raw opportunity Martin again has is one of the best at the position. When Martin returned from injury last Week 10, he was fourth in the league in touches (128) up until being shelved for the remainder of the season after Week 15. On those 21.3 touches per week, Martin was just 15th in yards from scrimmage, however, averaging only 72.7 total yards per game. Martin has reached 600 yards from scrimmage just twice in his five years in the league and has two or fewer receptions in 27-of-35 games played since Tampa Bay drafted Charles Sims. The team has maintained Martin is still their lead back and due for healthy volume on the ground once he returns. His suspension does eat a roster spot for three weeks, but also potentially alleviates some concern about his floor. Martin is someone I’m not outright pursuing in each draft, but will be happy to take shots on as a part of rosters where I don’t pursue running backs early because he seemingly has the support of the staff and can inherit a large workload. As a sidebar, Jacquizz Rodgers is a prime pick for those looking for running back touches and starts to begin the season.
Running with Rodgers
The Green Bay Packers needed Aaron Rodgers more than ever last season as their running back roster fell apart. Rodgers attempted a career-high 610 passes as the Packers ran the ball just 36.4 percent of the time, the lowest rate in a season with Rodgers at quarterback. Adjusted for game flow, the 2016 Packers were the fourth pass-heaviest offense of the past decade. Rodgers paced the position in fantasy scoring once again, averaging 23.6 points per game, the second-highest points per game for fantasy of his career after his incredible 2011 season.
With the Packers altering their offensive approach out of necessity more than choice, there should be some recoil to Green Bay’s raw passing volume. That reduction shouldn’t be treated as any cause for concern for Rodgers himself as he’s shown to be impenetrable for fantasy output. Rodgers has finished as the first or second scorer at quarterback in seven of his past nine seasons, and one of those was cut short due to injury. While we should not bat an eye at Rodgers, it should raise an eyebrow for the Packers’ receivers.
Packers receivers totaled 407 targets in 2016, the highest total for the group since Rodgers has been under center. Over the previous eight seasons, the receiver group averaged 356 targets per year with a high of 370. Both Jordy Nelson (152) and Davante Adams (121) set career highs in targets last year. Nelson will be 32 years old and is more expensive than Adams, but he’s still a more stable fantasy commodity and progressively returned to the Nelson we know as last season picked up. Even with all of that added volume onto the passing game, Adams had four or fewer receptions in 10 games and 50 or fewer receiving yards in 10 games because he found the end zone in nine different games, trailing only Nelson in that category. 42 percent of Adams’ standard scoring stemmed from touchdown production, trailing only Kenny Stills on touchdown dependency for top-30 scoring receivers. With the addition of Martellus Bennett and Randall Cobb coming back healthy, Adams’ touchdown production could be shaved down as well as his target volume, leaving his current WR19 ADP at the higher end of outcomes. When attacking the Packers’ passing game in drafts, I find myself taking on the cheaper commodities in Cobb and Bennett over paying for Adams’ breakout.
Deja Jaguar and Feeding the Crow
For the second consecutive offseason, the Jacksonville Jaguars have made no secret that they want to grind down games and take the ball out of Blake Bortles’ hands while riding their running game and defense, but that may be easier said than done since they unsuccessfully executed a similar game plan a year ago. The Jaguars were a high candidate to run the ball more in 2016, and they did, tacking on 39 rushing attempts to their 2015 total. It wasn’t enough to make a big change, though, as they were just 24th in rushing attempts (24.5 per game) and 29th in rushing attempts in the second half (11.3) per game.
That was the highest Jacksonville has finished in rushing attempts since 2011 as they’ve had five or fewer wins in six straight seasons and they’ve thrown the ball at least 62 percent of the time in every one of those years. In 2016, they trailed for 60.1 percent of their offensive snaps, 30th in the league and threw the ball 68.7 percent of the time in those situations. In second halves of games, they trailed for 74.3 percent of their snaps, only better than the 49ers. This all happened with a defense that allowed just 4.99 yards per play, the third lowest in the league behind Denver and Arizona. Having a potentially elite-level defense may not be enough for them to establish the balance they desire.
Jacksonville has an over/under win total of just six games in 2017, another problematic sign for potential to lean on the run game. Jacksonville can surely attempt to build on reducing their passing volume and build on the small steps they made in 2016 on adding rushing attempts, but they’ll need to be a far more productive team on the scoreboard to make a significant dent in getting their rushing volume elevated well beyond 40 percent of their snaps. Warren Sharp pegged Jacksonville with the easiest schedule in the league per projected wins for their opponents, but underneath the hood, their offensive rushing strength of schedule ranks the 8th hardest in 2017. What that suggests is that they should have more favorable game script for the tradeoff of facing tougher rushing defenses. I’ll have more on the Jaguars’ running game in my upcoming RB Notebook.
Those thoughts on the Jaguars roll over into the Cleveland Browns, who are assuredly in a worse spot heading into 2017. The Cleveland over/under win total is just 4.5 wins, tied with the 49ers for fewest in the league (and the Cleveland over line is set at even money). The Browns trailed by two or more possessions on 66.8 percent of their 4th-quarter plays a year ago, better than only the 49ers. Cleveland totaled 147 pass plays in the 4th quarter down multiple possessions, which accounted for 23.2 percent of their pass plays on the season. Those 147 passes in such dire game conditions were fifth most by a team since 2010. Of the teams with more, they were able to decrease their passing volume by an average of 49 passes the following season, but added just an average of 26 rushing attempts in the following seasons as well. The Browns totaled just 62 4th-quarter rushing attempts as a team in 2016, 29 behind individual league leader Ezekiel Elliott. Isaiah Crowell had just 37 of those rushing attempts, ranking 27th in the league in 4th-quarter rushing attempts and 34th in 4th-quarter rushing points for fantasy. Evan Silva talked about Crowell’s ability and offensive line upgrades being big positives, but also highlighted that the ADP cart for his fantasy ceiling may be getting ahead of the horse of him being a true upside pick.
Know Your NFL Script
*NFL PaPT%/RePt%/RuPt% = Percent of total Fantasy Points scored
The above data goes through all 164,722 offensive plays in the NFL over the past five seasons and when and where they occurred in terms of the offensive team’s scoreboard. The first thing that sticks out is that parity is real. Partially. Nearly two thirds of the plays run in the league have come with the game within one possession and subsequently, nearly two thirds of the passing, rushing and receiving output for fantasy is scored under those circumstances. On average over the past five seasons, 83 plays per NFL game were run with the score within one possession. That parity is short lived, however. Teams may trade places on the scoreboard and stay within each other for the opening half, but 60 percent of the offensive plays run with the score within one true possession occur before halftime, and a higher rate of snaps are run leading and trailing by multiple scores in the 4th quarter than within one possession.
The second highest bucket of plays comes from teams behind on the scoreboard, with just under half of the plays run in the league by teams trailing in the game. 57 percent of those snaps spent trailing by teams also come in the second half of games. Just two teams in the top-10 in offensive plays a year ago (New England and Houston) were playoff teams. The better team doesn’t run a higher volume of plays because inefficiency has a strong relationship in creating volume.
This is represented across the board in percentage of plays run in the negative version of the same scoreboard bucket even before the game becomes a game in which each team is opposing the game clock more than their opponent. While the efficiency of passing plays is severely lowered while trailing and drops as the game gets deeper and the deficit grows, the overall fantasy output under those circumstances still out-kicks the play volume and makes up half of the passing output for fantasy purposes. I’ve penned a few times that pursuing off-script offense is misleading for passing efficiency, but the raw volume of plays and fantasy production are still the highest source of passing plays and passing scoring outside of neutral conditions.
It’s not surprising that play calling efficiency is tied to the leverage of the scoreboard. You’re going to have more productivity going against the grain of what is expected by the defense and dictated by the scoreboard. Therefore, rushing efficiency increases in negative game script and decreases when teams are hammering the run and the inverse for the passing game, but the volume of the play calls offsets any efficiency created negatively or positively. Teams with a heavy lead run the ball less efficiently for fantasy because the defense is also more prepared to defend those plays, but also are stacking more running plays in that script.
Play splits don’t strongly deviate from the overall averages until after halftime and then all hell breaks loose in the 4th quarter depending on where each team is represented on the scoreboard. While those specific late-game environments are inherently represented by a smaller piece of the overall pie as they grow more detailed, they are still large in bulk, especially for certain teams. A team like the Patriots has led the NFL in percent of snaps led in three of the past five seasons while ranking in the top three in percentage of snaps led in the second half of games over that span. They’ve ranked in the top-10 in second half rushing attempts three of those five years while ranking in the top-six in fourth quarter rushing attempts in another three seasons.
Having a grasp on when, where, and what create the most advantageous fantasy conditions can aid your preparation for the season and weeks inside of the season. With that in mind, here is a team by team recap of play splits per a few of the specific game conditions to close this all out.
