[Projections] Total Offensive Plays by Team Discussion (1 Viewer)

[Scoresman]

I don't know who else does their own projections here, I think a few of you do.

For me, one of the starting points is to project the total amount of offensive plays each team will have and then distribute these plays amongst the team from there.

While looking into this, I discovered that Jacob Gibbs from CBS found a bunch of stats that highly correlate to the total number of plays a team runs. They are, in rough order of correlation:

- Opponent 3rd Down Conversion %
- Team 3rd Down Conversion %
- 4th Down "Go for it" rate
- Rush Success Rate
- Rushing EPA (Expected Points Added)
- Pass Rate

Some of these are pretty surprising but kind of make sense if you think about it. I put all of these together in a google sheet, and I feel this does validate these correlations.

Total Plays 2024

Sheet1 2023,2024 TEAM,Total Plays,Opp 3rd Down,3rd Down,4th D %,Rush Succ,Rush EPA,Pass Rate,Total Plays,Delta,Notes Seattle Seahawks,SEA,957,0.28,-0.085,0.195,-0.092,0.386,0.601,1005,48,New Coaching Staff, trending more to league average Pittsburgh Steelers,PIT,993,0.017,-0.09,0.176,-0.071,0.40...

docs.google.com

TLR:

The table below shows my projected number of offensive plays for 2024 along with comparison to 2023 total plays. This is sorted by largest change from 2023. Interested to hear people's thoughts on these. I'm still tweaking them.

	2023	2024 Proj.
TEAM	Total Plays	Total Plays	Delta	Notes
Seattle Seahawks	957​	1005​	48​	New Coaching Staff, trending more to league average
Pittsburgh Steelers	993​	1032​	39​	Better QB, easiest SOS
New England Patriots	972​	1008​	36​
Atlanta Falcons	1052​	1088​	36​	New coaching staff, new QB. Maybe too high?
Washington Commanders	995​	1030​	35​
Baltimore Ravens	1035​	1063​	28​	Rush success rate and EPA might get even better. Lamar trending towards higher pass rate.
San Francisco 49ers	990​	1012​	22​
New York Jets	989​	1009​	20​
Las Vegas Raiders	970​	990​	20​
Tennessee Titans	938​	953​	15​
Miami Dolphins	1022​	1036​	14​
Denver Broncos	964​	974​	10​
Tampa Bay Buccaneers	1007​	1015​	8​
Indianapolis Colts	1053​	1060​	7​
Arizona Cardinals	1026​	1032​	6​
Green Bay Packers	1022​	1026​	4​
Cincinnati Bengals	998​	1000​	2​
Philadelphia Eagles	1073​	1075​	2​
Minnesota Vikings	1024​	1022​	-2​
Kansas City Chiefs	1052​	1046​	-6​
Detroit Lions	1106​	1100​	-6​
Houston Texans	1036​	1029​	-7​	Probably should increase this.
Carolina Panthers	1031​	1023​	-8​
Chicago Bears	1047​	1037​	-10​
New York Giants	972​	955​	-17​
Dallas Cowboys	1082​	1065​	-17​
Los Angeles Chargers	1063​	1040​	-23​
Los Angeles Rams	1060​	1035​	-25​
Jacksonville Jaguars	1073​	1047​	-26​
Buffalo Bills	1091​	1061​	-30​	Loss of offensive/defensive talent, still above league avg
Cleveland Browns	1142​	1085​	-57​	Chaotic 2023. Plays should reduce a bit
New Orleans Saints	1086​	1022​	-64​	Tougher SOS, Numbers indicate 2023 an outlier

 

[Scoresman]

A couple of team notes

Seattle's total plays last year was abysmally low. Their Opponent's 3rd Down Conversion rate was last in the league by a large amount. With a new, better coaching staff coming in, I see them trending a little closer to the average.

One of the mysteries of the offseason for me was trying to figure out Cleveland's abnormally large number of plays run last year. Looking at their Opponent's 3rd down conversion rate seems to tell a lot of the story here. They were best in the league in this stat by a huge amount. This may not change, but I don't think they'll hit last year's high. They should still be one of the leagues highest in total plays ran.

New Orleans is still a bit of a mystery. They ran 1,086 plays last year, well above the league average. Their Opp 3rd Down Conversion is good, but the rest of their stats were pretty bad. I don’t think they are a good team and have them reducing back down towards league averages.

 

[TheWinz]

I noticed you removed sacks from the total plays.

 

[Scoresman]

I noticed you removed sacks from the total plays.

Yeah, this is to keep everything in my spreadsheet apples to apples when I do comparisons to pro-football reference data.

 

[cheese]

One metric that I think was missing in the OP is average seconds on the play clock when the ball was snapped. For example, the Jets are rightly projected in your spreadsheet to increase plays a lot with an improved offense, defense gets off the field, etc. But that won’t happen if Rodgers plays 17 games. The data has proven for years and years that because he snaps the ball with 1 second left every play his team gets fewer plays.

 

[cheese]

A couple of team notes

Seattle's total plays last year was abysmally low. Their Opponent's 3rd Down Conversion rate was last in the league by a large amount. With a new, better coaching staff coming in, I see them trending a little closer to the average.

One of the mysteries of the offseason for me was trying to figure out Cleveland's abnormally large number of plays run last year. Looking at their Opponent's 3rd down conversion rate seems to tell a lot of the story here. They were best in the league in this stat by a huge amount. This may not change, but I don't think they'll hit last year's high. They should still be one of the leagues highest in total plays ran.

New Orleans is still a bit of a mystery. They ran 1,086 plays last year, well above the league average. Their Opp 3rd Down Conversion is good, but the rest of their stats were pretty bad. I don’t think they are a good team and have them reducing back down towards league averages.

One factor on Cleveland was the insane incompletion rate. They threw 269 incomplete passes. First by a lot. League average was 203. I don't have any deep analysis on why or if that is predictive, but it obviously stops the clock and probably had something to do with why it happened last year. The defensive metrics you mentioned earlier are likely to stay good though.

 

[Scoresman]

A couple of team notes

Seattle's total plays last year was abysmally low. Their Opponent's 3rd Down Conversion rate was last in the league by a large amount. With a new, better coaching staff coming in, I see them trending a little closer to the average.

One of the mysteries of the offseason for me was trying to figure out Cleveland's abnormally large number of plays run last year. Looking at their Opponent's 3rd down conversion rate seems to tell a lot of the story here. They were best in the league in this stat by a huge amount. This may not change, but I don't think they'll hit last year's high. They should still be one of the leagues highest in total plays ran.

New Orleans is still a bit of a mystery. They ran 1,086 plays last year, well above the league average. Their Opp 3rd Down Conversion is good, but the rest of their stats were pretty bad. I don’t think they are a good team and have them reducing back down towards league averages.

One factor on Cleveland was the insane incompletion rate. They threw 269 incomplete passes. First by a lot. League average was 203. I don't have any deep analysis on why or if that is predictive, but it obviously stops the clock and probably had something to do with why it happened last year. The defensive metrics you mentioned earlier are likely to stay good though.

Yeah Cleveland was an oddity last year. Who would have thought a team that loses its star RB for the year, and having its QB replaced by Joe Flacco would comfortably lead the league in offensive plays?

 

[Scoresman]

One metric that I think was missing in the OP is average seconds on the play clock when the ball was snapped. For example, the Jets are rightly projected in your spreadsheet to increase plays a lot with an improved offense, defense gets off the field, etc. But that won’t happen if Rodgers plays 17 games. The data has proven for years and years that because he snaps the ball with 1 second left every play his team gets fewer plays.

I think this is pace, and apparently it's behind all the other stats I used in terms of correlation to total offensive plays. That is not something I would have guessed.

But yeah, that's why I don't foresee a huge increase for the Jets. They are right around their plays from last year. Rodgers takes forever to run the offense, but he should also help keep them on the field longer.

 

[Grid71]

A couple of team notes

Seattle's total plays last year was abysmally low. Their Opponent's 3rd Down Conversion rate was last in the league by a large amount. With a new, better coaching staff coming in, I see them trending a little closer to the average.

One of the mysteries of the offseason for me was trying to figure out Cleveland's abnormally large number of plays run last year. Looking at their Opponent's 3rd down conversion rate seems to tell a lot of the story here. They were best in the league in this stat by a huge amount. This may not change, but I don't think they'll hit last year's high. They should still be one of the leagues highest in total plays ran.

New Orleans is still a bit of a mystery. They ran 1,086 plays last year, well above the league average. Their Opp 3rd Down Conversion is good, but the rest of their stats were pretty bad. I don’t think they are a good team and have them reducing back down towards league averages.

One factor on Cleveland was the insane incompletion rate. They threw 269 incomplete passes. First by a lot. League average was 203. I don't have any deep analysis on why or if that is predictive, but it obviously stops the clock and probably had something to do with why it happened last year. The defensive metrics you mentioned earlier are likely to stay good though.

Yeah Cleveland was an oddity last year. Who would have thought a team that loses its star RB for the year, and having its QB replaced by Joe Flacco would comfortably lead the league in offensive plays?

Very fluky last year. Probably less efficient but had a great OLine to stay on schedule paired with possibly Cleveland's best defensive effort since the SuperBowl era.