Coaching Matters: NFC South Play-Calling Impact on RB

August 28, 2020

Eli Grabanski analyzes offensive play-calling tendencies of NFC South 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 NFC South. The Atlanta Falcons, New Orleans Saints, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers will be bringing back their key offensive coaches from the 2019-2020 season, while the Carolina Panthers will have a completely new coaching staff following the firing of head coach Ron Rivera.

In Atlanta, Dirk Koetter will be in charge of the play-calling since Dan Quinn is a defensive-minded coach. In New Orleans, head coach Sean Payton is the clear offensive play-caller but we will also take a look at Pete Carmichael's success as an offensive coordinator as well. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will have offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich be the primary play-caller, but we will also look at head coach Bruce Arians' extensive history since he is also an offensive-minded coach. And finally, in Carolina, the former LSU offensive coordinator, Joe Brady, will be the primary play-caller for the Panthers, but we will also take a look at head coach Matt Rhule's coaching history at Baylor and Temple since he comes for an offensive background as well.

Atlanta Falcons

Primary Play-caller: Dirk Koetter

Dirk Koetter rejoined the Falcons coaching staff last year after being fired as the Buccaneers head coach. Last year, Koetter led the Falcons to one of the best passing offenses in the NFL and one of the worst rushing attacks in the NFL. Should we expect more of the same from Koetter in 2020 with regards to the ground game?

Let's take a look at how Dirk Koetter uses his running backs in the ground game.

Dirk Koetter has had some mixed results for the ground game. His RB Room gets 22.36 carries per game and he gives his RB1 14.09 carries per game. These numbers are eerily close to the league average among active offensive coaches, which is 22.46 carries per game for the RB room and 13.91 carries for the RB1.

Dirk Koetter's use of running backs in the passing game is also right around league average as well. He gives his RB Room 6.38 targets per game and it leads to 38.11 receiving yards per game, while the average among play-callers is 6.55 targets for 40.90 receiving yards.

Play-caller Net Impact On RB: Neutral - Dirk Koetter is as average as you can get for providing opportunities to his running backs. He's a coordinator who won't elevate the play of his running backs, but also won't be a negative influence on their fantasy value either.  

New Orleans Saints

Primary Play-caller: Sean Payton

Sean Payton is one of the best offensive minds in the league, consistently having the Saints as one of the best offenses in the NFL. But specifically, what impact does Sean Payton have on his running backs production? We'll start by taking a look at his production on the ground before looking at how he utilizes his running backs in the passing game.

On the ground, Sean Payton runs the ball a little more than the average play-caller but also tends to use more of a committee approach with his RB1 receiving less work and performing slightly below average in the run game.

Sean Payton is one of the best in the business at getting his running backs receiving work with his running back room averaging 9.22 targets for 55.93 receiving yards per game.

Play-caller Net Impact On RB: Slightly negative for RB1 in the ground game/Positive for RB2 & RB3 in the ground game/Positive in the receiving game - Overall the historical outlook on Sean Payton's running backs is one of the more favorable in the league, with his RB room receiving 32.81 opportunities (rushing attempts+targets) per game, second only to Shane Steichen (who's only been a play-caller for eight games). In the ground game, Sean Payton traditionally runs a committee which we should expect again with Alvin Kamara and Latavius Murray. Where Sean Payton shines for running backs is the receiving game, where he gives his backs a ton of targets. So if you are ever looking for a strong value in a Sean Payton offense, his primary receiving back should be one of the first places you look. 

Secondary Play-caller: Pete Carmichael 

Pete Carmichael has been in New Orleans since 2006 and took over as the offensive coordinator for the team in 2009. While Sean Payton has been the primary play-caller in that time, it isn't a bad idea to look and see if Pete Carmichael has made any significant impact on the team's running back production. We'll start with Carmichael's impact on running backs in the ground game and then move onto his impact on their receiving production.

In general Pete Carmichael is going to have near-identical stats to Sean Payton since he's been Payton's offensive coordinator the last eleven seasons. In the running game, Carmichael gives his backs an average amount of work on the ground but generally runs a committee approach much like Sean Payton.

Through the air, Pete Carmichael has proven to be a valuable asset for his running backs, with his RB room averaging 9.64 targets per game. If Carmichael gets put in charge of play-calling at some point this year expect it to be an extremely similar distribution to Sean Payton's offense.

Play-caller Net Impact On RB: Slightly negative for RB1 in the ground game/Positive for RB2 & RB3 in the ground game/Positive in the receiving game - Overall the historical outlook on Pete Carmichael's running backs is very similar to Sean Payton's due to the fact that Pete Carmichael has been the New Orleans Saints offensive coordinator the last eleven seasons. 

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 

Primary Play-caller: Byron Leftwich

Byron Leftwich will enter his second full season of play-calling for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this season. Leftwich is a former NFL quarterback that competed against his new QB Tom Brady. Though young, Leftwich has shown a lot of potential as a play-caller, getting Jameis Winston to throw for over 5000 yards last season. But what kind of job has Leftwich done with his running backs? Let's start by looking at how Leftwich has used his running backs on the ground in his young career as a coach.

Overall Byron Leftwich has been slightly below average for providing an opportunity for his running backs on the ground. His RB Room gets slightly fewer carries (21.36 carries per game) than the average play-caller (22.46 carries per game), and his RB1 (12.96 carries per game) also gets about a carry less than the average coach (13.91 carries per game).

As for using his running backs as pass-catchers, Leftwich has done a pretty good job giving his RB room 7.08 targets per game, which is about half a target more than the average play-caller (6.55 targets per game).

Play-caller Net Impact On RB: Slightly negative in the ground game/Slightly positive in the passing game - While he hasn't been a coordinator for very long, at the moment we can categorize Byron Leftwich's impact on his running back opportunities as neutral: slightly below average in the ground game and slightly above average in the passing game.

Secondary Play-caller: Bruce Arians

Bruce Arians has been around the NFL for a long time as a coach and is one of the most experienced offensive minds in football. While offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich is going to be the primary play-caller for the Buccaneers, it's important to look at Bruce Arians' coaching history since Leftwich comes from Arians' coaching tree and in case Arians' takes back play-calling duties at any point. Here's a little look at how Arians' traditionally uses his running backs in the ground game.

Overall Bruce Arians gives his RB room more carries than your average coordinator/play-caller, with 23.84 carries per game going to running backs. But it doesn't seem to materialize into a premier usage of his RB1 on the ground, with his RB1 averaging 13.85 carries per game (league average: 13.91 carries per game).

As for giving his running backs receiving work, at face value Bruce Arians is slightly below the average play-caller/offensive coordinator. Historically his running back room averages 5.81 targets per game for 34.54 receiving yards per game which isn't phenomenal. But what has been interesting is that over the course of his last six seasons as a head coach, his RB room's targets per game has been 7.24 per game. While it remains to be seen if this trend will continue, it makes Ke'Shawn Vaughn and Ronald Jones fantasy outlooks look more positive.

Play-caller Net Impact On RB: Neutral - Arians gives his running back room more carries than the average play-caller/coordinator, but only an average amount to his RB1. Through the air, he is historically below average in targeting his running backs in the passing game over the course of his career, but in recent times he's been above average in providing opportunities for his backs in the passing game.

Carolina Panthers

Primary Play-caller: Joe Brady

Joe Brady was one of the biggest hires in the NFL this past season after he directed a historic 2019 LSU Tigers offense that had over 6000 yards passing and 2500 yards rushing. He is a former offensive assistant of the New Orleans Saints and disciple of Sean Payton, and will have an opportunity to go head to head this year with the offensive guru.

While we do not have statistics on Joe Brady as an offensive coordinator or head coach at the NFL level, we can dive a little deeper into his statistics at LSU. Here's a little look at how Joe Brady utilized his running backs on the ground last year for LSU.

The pace of college football is much different than the NFL so we can't just look at the counting stats when examining Joe Brady's profile and need to pay more attention to the percentages. Last year at LSU Joe Brady gave his lead running back, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, 58.27% of the total running back room carries. For reference, among the active NFL play-callers and coordinators, the average RB1 got 62.57% of the total RB Room carries.

It's hard to say if Brady only used his RB1 58.27% of the time on the ground because that's his personal preference or if it was because LSU consistently blew teams out last year. But it's a situation worth monitoring in his NFL career considering he worked under Sean Payton who runs a committee approach on the ground.

In the receiving game, Joe Brady's running back room caught 79 passes (5.27 receptions per game) for 629 receiving yards (41.93 receiving yards per game) last year at LSU. Clyde Edwards-Helaire caught 55 (3.67 receptions per game) of those passes for 453 receiving yards (30.2 receiving yards per game). So it appears that he will feature one running back in the passing game, which is a great sign for Christian McCaffrey retaining his receiving value.

Play-caller Net Impact On RB: Inconclusive - We shouldn't draw a ton of conclusions for one season of calling plays for a college offense so, for now, we will consider this inconclusive. If we extrapolated his numbers from last year, he would be considered as more of a neutral influence with regards to providing opportunities for his running backs.

Secondary Play-caller: Matt Rhule

Matt Rhule successfully turned around the Baylor and Temple college football programs and now he is tasked with doing the same for the Carolina Panthers. While he will leave the play-calling primarily up to Joe Brady, it is vital to look at Rhule's history as a play-caller himself, just in case he needs to take over duties at any point this season. One of the most interesting aspects of Rhule's play-calling history is his use of his running backs. Let's start by taking a look at how he utilizes his running backs in the ground game.

As touched on earlier, the pace of college football is different from the NFL so it's probably not a good idea to just look at counting stats when comparing a college coach to an NFL coach, and better to utilize percentages. In the course of his coaching career, Matt Rhule has preferred to run more of a committee approach on the ground at running back with his RB1 only getting 47.49% of the carries, and topping out at 68.3% in 2015.

While it's possible that Rhule used the committee approach on the ground due to a lack of talent, this is a situation to monitor and could mean that Christian McCaffrey gets his rushing workload scaled back a little bit from last year.

Through the air, Matt Rhule's RB room has gotten anywhere from 33-61 receptions in a given collegiate season and averages 3.74 receptions per game. In terms of effectiveness, they have ranged anywhere from 296-688 receiving yards and historically averaged 37.62 receiving yards per game. This seems slightly below average, but it remains to be seen how Rhule's offensive philosophies may translate to the NFL level.

Play-caller Net Impact On RB: Inconclusive - Rhule does like to run the ball, with his teams averaging more rushing attempts (36.03 per game) than passing attempts (33.52 per game) in college. Rhule prefers to utilize a committee approach to the run game which means that we could see a scale back from the 287 carries that Christian McCaffrey received last year on the ground. As for giving receiving work to his running backs, Rhule is worse than Joe Brady is and would be a downgrade if he decides to takeover play-calling duties.

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