One of the most interesting stats to look at early on is how teams call plays, specifically the run to pass ratio. This gives us some signal into how coaching staffs across the league view their team's strengths and their best path to victory. Looking at it year over year gives some insight into new coaching staffs and changes in philosophy by old staffs. Play calling is heavily affected by game script (the score differential from the offenses perspective on a play). When analyzing play calling tendencies game script must be account for. To do so, I built a logistic regression model that takes into account the score differential on a given play in addition to the down, distance, field position, quarter, time remaining in the quarter, and timeouts remaining for both both offense and defense. I regressed it against the binary variable of whether or not the team passed on a play (hence the use of a logistic regression). From there I could predict whether or not a play would be a pass. The following is which teams passed more or less than expected versus their overall offensive efficiency in 2019:
The Chiefs, when account for the aforementioned factors, were the most pass-heavy team in the league in 2019. Excellent offenses such as the Saints and Cowboys also showed an affinity to pass, which makes sense given the personnel. On the other side of things, the Ravens (with ball-carrier extraordinaire Lamar Jackson), Niners, Seahawks, and Titans were great offenses who passed less than expected. With these data points in mind, lets look at how teams called plays in week 1:
And here are the expected pass rates versus the actual pass rates from this weekend's games:
The Seahawks finally put the game firmly into Russell Wilson's hands after avoiding doing so before third down throughout his Seattle tenure. Seattle threw the ball almost 15 percent more than expected based on the game state. Upon doing such, Seattle thrived posting the best offensive performance of the week based on expected points added. Buffalo was also successful throwing the ball more than expected, though not to the extent of Seattle. The Bills led week 1 in passing rate above expected. The Eagles, who I will talk about in my next post, were the second most aggressive through the air while posting the worst and most disappointing (given the opponent) results on Sunday.
On the other side of things, the Patriots were the kept the ball on the ground the most relative to expectations behind 15 carries from newcomer Cam Newton. Given the efficiency of quarterback carries, this sort of strategy should pay dividends with a talent like Newton and the Patriots were one of the most efficient teams of week one. The natural questions is whether or not such a strategy is viable over the course of a 16 game season. While there has been research done to prove that such a concern is misguided, Newton did receive a lot of short-yardage work where the lack of space makes avoiding defenders much more difficult. To the eye, however, he did not take any especially hard hits. For the strategy to be sustainable, this will have to continue to be the case. Given the scheme's singularity in conjunction with the player in question (who I personally find to be very fun to watch), I hope the Patriots can continue to bludgeon teams on the back of Cam. The Chargers were also ground-bound and posted the second lowest passing rate above expectation. Given the core of Keenan Allen, Mike Williams, and Hunter Henry and the receiving prowess of Austin Ekeler, one would hope that the Chargers could move the ball through the air. The issue is the quarterback play. Tyrod Taylor, following an impressive stint in Buffalo, has still not been able to find any semblance of success under center. The Chargers first round pick Justin Herbert does not project as much better, so unfortunately I expect this to be the norm in Los Angeles for the rest of the season.
Finally I wanted to look at skill player usage and see if we can find any early indications for heavy workloads and potentially high value touches (i.e. near the goal line for backs, red zone for receivers) from a fantasy perspective. First an overview of the receiver opportunity landscape in week 1:
DeAndre Hopkins, now with the Cardinals, and Davante Adams were the preeminent target hogs in week one, each posting target shares around 40 percent and air yards shares around 45 percent. Julian Edelman, who flew under the radar due to the lack of volume for the Patriots, saw a significant chunk of New England's passing work to the tune of about 60 percent of the teams air yards. Besides James White and barring a major breakout from N'Keal Harry, Edelman should be expected to have a lot of the Patriots passing plays funneled through him. While he does not have monster touchdown upside due to his usage and the deployment of Cam as a red zone weapon, this type of target share should give him a high floor for production this season. Other notables include Jamison Crowder (similar situation to Edelman with even less touchdown upside given the offense), Amari Cooper (who despite the addition of CeeDee Lamb saw a ton of volume in a projected great offense), and Adam Thielen (again, similar to Edelman but with what projects to be a more prolific passing offense). Odell Beckham was very disappointing only posting three receptions for 22 yards, but he saw 10 target and about 35 percent of Cleveland's air yards. The value of those targets and air yards are to be determined, but I would expect Beckham's week one performance to be more of an aberration than a provider of signal for the rest of the season. D.J. Moore was also disappointing, but similar to Beckham saw a lot of volume and I would expect him to be more productive moving forward. D.K. Metcalf and Henry Ruggs stand out by future of their air yards share relative to their target share. Metcalf posted an elite 21 percent target share but even more impressive was the second highest air yards share of the week. Given his quarterback, if Metcalf continues to see this volume and the Seahawks are aggressive throwing the ball, he has more upside than I could possibly imagine going into the season. Ruggs is in a similar boat albeit with a smaller target share and worse quarterback. But if Carr is not afraid to give him looks down the field throughout the season, he should have some explosive performances.
With the receivers out of the way, on to the running backs (disregard Ruggs here he got a couple of carries in week 1):
Kamara, Jacobs, Barkley, Elliott, McCaffrey, and Henry saw massive workloads. I do not expect Kamara to post a target share of an elite wide receiver going forward, but Brees' propensity to dump the ball off to him in the early going in encouraging for his individual value. Barkley got all he could handle on Monday night despite the Giants losing about five expected points on his carries. Given Judge's comments after the game about committing to running the ball, Barkley is going to be one of the best fantasy backs by virtue of workload. Jacobs is the surprising name here. He was in a different tier by ADP going into the year than the other five players mentioned. Fantasy players were concerned with his lack of targets last year despite no real competition in that backfield. That changed in week 1 where he posted a target share of about 20 percent. Four backfields of note are Cleveland, Indianapolis, Buffalo, and the Rams. Kareem Hunt saw more targets and carries than Nick Chubb. Hunt also had the lone goal line carry for Cleveland. If the workload split is anything resembling this for the rest of the season, Chubb owners will be disappointed based on where he was going in drafts. Marlon Mack unfortunately tore his achilles in the Colts' game against Jacksonville. This means rookie Jonathan Taylor is the nominal starter. However, it was interesting the Nyheim Hines saw more targets (17 percent versus 12.8 percent) and similar goal line work to Taylor. I think Hines can be a viable play some weeks due to Rivers' propensity to feed his satellite backs, but I expect Jonathan Taylor with his pedigree to be one of the more productive backs in the league. In Buffalo, Moss and Singletary saw a similar number of carries with Singletary seeing more targets, but Moss saw all the goal line work. That makes Moss the more valuable piece going forward, even if Singletary out works him in the pass game. Finally, Malcolm Brown seems to be the guy to own for the Rams. He saw more targets than rookie Cam Akers and all of the goal line carries on Sunday night. Akers had the reputation coming out of school of being good in pass protection, so maybe that earns him some more third down snaps going forward, but if he is out-targeted and is not receiving those high-value carries, he will be tough to start moving forward.
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