Coaching Matters: AFC West Play-Calling Impact On RB

September 5, 2020

Eli Grabanski analyzes offensive play-calling tendencies of AFC West coaches and breaks down the fantasy football impact for running backs in 2020.

In fantasy football, many of us 'experts' in the field try to take as much data into account before making a conclusion on players. That includes means looking at things like game tape, the team's offensive line, or their primary play-callers historical tendencies to utilize a certain position. After much research, I've developed a broad knowledge of how each team's play-caller historically has utilized their running backs.

Today we will look at the AFC West. The Kansas City Chiefs, the defending Super Bowl champion, will have Andy Reid in charge of play-calling once again and managed to keep offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy around as well. In Las Vegas, the Raiders will leave Jon Gruden in charge of play-calling with Greg Olson providing suggestions as the Raiders offensive coordinator.

The Broncos fired offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello and brought in former New York Giants head coach Pat Shurmur to be their offensive coordinator and play-caller. In Los Angeles, the Chargers will have offensive coordinator Shane Steichen be the primary play-caller, but head coach Anthony Lynn will have significant input on how the offense is run. Without further ado, let's dive in!

Denver Broncos

Primary Play-caller: Pat Shurmur

Pat Shurmur will be joining the Denver Broncos after they fired Rich Scangarello and had a vacancy for their offensive coordinator spot. Shurmur is a very good offensive coordinator that just hasn't been able to have the same success as a head coach, and should help the Broncos offense improve. But how does Shurmur's play-calling specifically impact his running backs? We'll start by looking at how he has traditionally utilized his running backs on the ground before moving to how much receiving work he tries to get them.

Overall in the ground game, Pat Shurmur's running backs have a pretty positive outlook giving his RB room 23.10 carries per game and his lead back 15.89 carries per game, both of which are above-average. His willingness to feature his lead back in the run game bodes well for free-agent acquisition Melvin Gordon, who had been the Chargers primary back the last few years.

But besides knowing how Shurmur provides opportunities for his running backs in the ground game, in the modern NFL, it is vital to consider how much opportunity he provides them in the passing game. Let's take a peek.

Running backs have gotten more opportunities to catch passes under Pat Shurmur than they would have under the average play-caller, with Pat Shurmur giving his running backs 6.86 targets per game versus the average play-caller giving their backs 6.55 targets. This combined with Shurmur's usage of running backs on the ground shows that Shurmur is very good at getting his backs opportunities to succeed.

Play-caller Net Impact On RB: Positive - The number of rushing attempts combined with targets for his RB room leads to 29.96 opportunities per game, which is very positive for his running backs outlook. Shurmur is above average in providing opportunities on the ground and through the air, making it easy to designate him as a positive influence on the offense.

Kansas City Chiefs

Primary Play-caller: Andy Reid

Andy Reid is a legendary play-caller who will find a bust of himself in Canton, Ohio when he retires. For now, though, he will be focused on getting the Kansas City Chiefs to defend their Super Bowl title. While the team is built on the strength of its offense, the offense has had one flaw - a lack of a talented starting running back. The Chiefs decided to address this issue in the first round of the 2020 NFL draft, taking Clyde Edwards-Helaire. Edwards-Helaire has received a ton of hype in the fantasy community, and it will be important to look at how his play-caller, Andy Reid, has historically provided opportunities for his running backs. So to start, let's take a look at how Andy Reid has utilized his running backs on the ground.

These numbers for opportunity raise a little concern. Giving his whole RB room only 19.98 carries and lead back 12.86 carries is less than the play-caller/offensive coordinator averages of 22.46 carries for the RB room and 13.91 carries for an RB1. What there is important to note is that in the running game Reid will adapt and give his lead back a ton of carries (like in 1999 or 2017) if the talent warrants it. So if you believe that Clyde Edwards-Helaire is that type of talent, he should get plenty of opportunities on the ground.

Andy Reid running backs in the passing game get slightly more work than the average play-caller, averaging 6.73 targets per game but it's not significant enough to get excited about. If you roster Clyde Edwards-Helaire, you are hoping that Reid utilizes him and the rest of his running backs in the passing game as he did from 2001-2008, not like his backs from 2015-2019.

Play-caller Net Impact On RB: Slightly negative for RB1, Negative for RB2/RB3, Neutral in the passing game - Andy Reid is below average in providing opportunities for his running backs in the running game, and right around league average for providing opportunities for his running backs in the passing game over the course of his career. If you are someone who rosters Clyde Edwards-Helaire, you need to bank on him getting a majority of the running back work and goal-line opportunities like Kareem Hunt did in 2017 rather than Andy Reid changing from his pass-first ways.

Secondary Play-caller: Eric Bieniemy

One of the most surprising aspects of the offseason was that the Chiefs managed to retain offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy after two stellar seasons at the position. Bieniemy is a former running back that played for the Chargers, Bengals, and Eagles in the NFL, and in theory, this should help him get the most out of his running backs. Let's see how Bieniemy has done in getting his running backs opportunities in his first two years as an offensive coordinator. We'll start with the ground game.

On the ground, there is quite a bit of concern over how many opportunities the Chiefs running backs have received over the past two years. The Chiefs have only given their RB room 18.88 carries per game which is significantly less than the average play-caller/offensive coordinator. In addition, only 9.13 carries have gone to the Chiefs RB1 over the past two years. There are a few things worth mentioning before going overboard with this data. The first is that the Chiefs haven't had a running back capable of carrying a full workload since Kareem Hunt. The second thing worth mentioning is that while Bieniemy has given his input on the offense, he's ultimately never handled play-calling duties under Andy Reid. Considering his background as a former NFL running back, it's entirely possible that Bieniemy would go for a more running back centric offense if he had 100% control of the offense.

Eric Bieniemy's running backs haven't gotten a noteworthy amount of targets in his two years as a coordinator, averaging 6.09 targets per game which is slightly below the average of 6.55 targets. While it would be nice to see what he can do as the primary play-caller, looking at this data it seems that Bieniemy doesn't seem to bang-the-table and try to get Reid to give the running backs more targets (which in all honesty is fair considering Kansas City has one of the best offenses in the league).

Play-caller Net Impact On RB: Inconclusive - Andy Reid has never officially handed over play-calling duties to Eric Bieniemy, so it seems a little unfair to judge him based off two seasons where he never got an opportunity to be in charge. If we were to grade him just off of those two seasons, Bieniemy would be considered as a below-average coach at getting his running backs involved.

Las Vegas Raiders

Primary Play-caller: Jon Gruden

Jon Gruden made a triumphant return to coaching a couple of years ago, leaving the Monday Night Football booth to be the Raiders head coach. Over the last two seasons, we've seen some steady improvement from the Raiders under Jon Gruden's leadership (knock on wood if you're with me). One of the biggest improvements for the Raiders since Gruden came to town is how he's managed to get the run game going. Let's take a look at how Gruden's running backs have historically produced on the ground.

As you can see, Jon Gruden provides more rushing opportunities than the league average play-caller/offensive coordinator for his running backs. And it may be even more than this data suggests. Throughout his career, Gruden has frequently utilized the full-back position in the running game with players like Mike Alstott. Since the position has become a dying breed in the modern NFL, it's possible that Gruden opts to use his running backs more often to fill the void.

Jon Gruden has coached over 250 games, and in that time he's shown that willing to give his running backs targets. On average Gruden gives his running backs 6.72 targets per game, which is slightly more than the average play-caller (6.55 targets per game). In addition, in Gruden's last five years as a play-caller, his running back room has gotten more than 110 targets in each season.

Play-caller Net Impact On RB: Positive - Jon Gruden is above average in providing opportunities to his running backs on the ground as well as through the air. This is especially crazy to see because for many years Jon Gruden utilized the fullback position frequently, and those carries & targets were not accounted for in these graphs. With fewer talented fullbacks in the NFL, Gruden is likely to use his running backs more and it makes him a very good influence on his running backs for fantasy football production.

Secondary Play-caller: Greg Olson

Greg Olson has been a coach for many different NFL teams such as the Lions, Rams, Buccaneers, Jaguars, and Raiders. He's had many opportunities to call plays for these teams. Let's take a look at how he may impact his running backs in the run game.

Maybe there's a reason that Greg Olson has been unable to stick with one team for very long as an offensive coordinator. Historically, Greg Olson is below average at giving his running backs work on the ground, giving his RB room only 20.62 carries per game and his lead back only 12.90 of those carries. But maybe he gives them more work in the passing game?

Hmmmm...so Greg Olson is very slightly above average at getting his running backs passing work, with his RB room averaging 6.62 targets per game. This is so close to the league average (6.55 targets per game), that it only results in a difference of one target over the course of a full 16-game season.

Play-caller Net Impact On RB: Negative in the ground game, Neutral in the passing game - Greg Olson would be a pretty big downgrade from Jon Gruden in terms of providing his running backs opportunities. He's below average in giving his running back room carries, and near league average in providing his backs targets. Overall he should be viewed as having a negative impact on his backs. 

Los Angeles Chargers

Primary Play-caller: Shane Steichen

Shane Steichen got his first play-calling opportunities after Ken Whisenhunt was fired midway through last season, taking over as the offensive coordinator for the final eight games of the season. While Steichen had to utilize Whisenhunt's playbook since it was a mid-season transfer of duties, let's take a look at how Shane Steichen utilized his running backs during that eight-game stretch.

In the ground game, Steichen did a phenomenal job with utilizing both Melvin Gordon and Austin Ekeler last year, giving his RB room more opportunities (23.63 carries) than the average play-caller (22.46 carries) and still giving his RB1 more carries (14.75 carries) than the average RB1 (13.91 carries).

While it's an extremely small sample size, Shane Steichen's use of running backs in the passing game was money last year in the final eight games of the season. The RB room averaged 11.88 targets per game which is second only to Scott Turner (who only coached four games) among play-callers.

Play-caller Net Impact On RB: Inconclusive - If we were to extrapolate this data, Steichen would be one of the best coaches in the league at providing opportunities for his running backs. But eight games of using someone else's playbook is simply not enough time to make any reasonable conclusions on how Steichen will run his offense. For now, we should consider Steichen's results as inconclusive, but be cautiously optimistic that he's a good influence on his running backs.

Secondary Play-caller: Anthony Lynn

Before Anthony Lynn became one of the biggest stars on HBO's Hard Knocks, he was an NFL running back that worked his way up the coaching ladder to become the Los Angeles Chargers head coach. But despite his background, has Anthony Lynn managed to get good production out of his running backs as a coach? Let's dive in by looking at Anthony Lynn's use of running backs on the ground.

On the ground, it doesn't look like Anthony Lynn has stood out very much as a coach, with his RB room getting 22.42 carries per game and his RB1 getting 13.29 of those carries. These numbers are both slightly below the play-caller/offensive coordinator averages of 22.46 carries for the RB room and 13.91 carries for an RB1, but close enough to consider Anthony Lynn as having a neutral impact on his running backs ability to perform in the ground game.

As for giving his running backs receiving work, this is where Anthony Lynn becomes a very intriguing coach for fantasy running backs.

Anthony Lynn running backs in the passing game are where there's money to be made with his RB room averaging 8.29 targets per game. In addition, we've seen the number of targets increase each year that Anthony Lynn has been an offensive coordinator or head coach.

Play-caller Net Impact On RB: Neutral in the ground game/Positive in the passing game - Anthony Lynn seems to be neutral in the ground game and a positive in the passing game. Overall, Lynn gives his running backs 30.71 rushing attempts and targets combined per game, and we should consider him an overall positive influence for his running backs in fantasy.

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