Alright, some of you seemed to find these numbers interesting from week 1 against the Browns, so I did it again for the Colts game. Alot of 11 personnel again in this game, some 10, especially on the "two minute drill" drive at the end of the first half. It's interesting to note that the 5th WR in those formations on that drive was actually Charles Clay, our TE. At least as best as I could tell from the copy of the game. Im pretty sure it was him, not Rishard Matthews. Now in those instances I documented it as 10 personnel, rather than 11, because Clay actually lined up as a WR. Im not 100% sure of the proper way to classify him, maybe someone who has some more knowledge of this can chime in here. I did note the plays where he lined up straight out as a WR, so I can go change the data if need be. I thought the interesting thing to see from this game was our rushing numbers. Most of our runs out of 12 personnel sets, for 54 total yards. We only ran 3 times from 12 personnel for 6 yards against Cleveland, instead choosing most of our rushing plays against cleveland from 11 personnel (5 for 9 yards) against the Browns. Curious to hear what you guys think about these numbers, in comparison to Cleveland. Of course its hard to do a straight comparison, different opponents, different game plans etc. There's some interesting stuff in there though. Here's the quick link to the Cleveland stats too for those interested in a quick comparison. http://www.thephins.com/forums/showthread.php?78147-Week-1-Dolphins-Browns-Charting-the-Phins-Offense
Thanks for the work. Great stuff. First thoughts: 1) coaching staff still fond the most efficient personnel groupings in terms of yards per play, and put most of our snaps into the most effective groupings. That confirms that we gameplan well, script the first bunch of plays well to test our groupings against the opponents response and see which are the most favorable personnel matchups for us, then adjust quickly to put most of our eggs in the most effective basket. 2) 5 wide is the anomaly, and I would argue it's 01 pesonnel. Note the diagram here with a TE split out in a 4-wide with a RB is considered 11 personnel. http://www.patkirwan.com/play-diagr...-group-most-effective-formation-right-now-nfl Also, note how Kirwan calls 11 personnel th e most effective grouping in the NFL (albeit in 2009 or so). And it's the one we run the most. I'll be keeping an eye out for the plays he describes in that blog post. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
More thoughts: - Way more variety of groupings vs the Colts. This tells me we had to search more for adjustments as the Colts staff did a better job of adjusting themselves to slow our roll. - another great article explaining why 11 grouping is so effective. If you read his description of the players that make it work, we have them all, except. Wallace is more a Z receiver than an X. We lack a true X, but Hartline is good enough because he is a versatile threat. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000...redicting-success-11-seems-to-be-magic-number - we love to pass out of 10 according to your chart but I'll bet several of those had Clay split wide and are truly 11 grouping - 4 runs vs 15 passes out of 11 personnel tells me the Colts were unwilling to commit 3 guys to Wallace and our slot guy, plus 3 more to Clay and Hartline.if they had respected the pass, that would have meant a 5 man box and dictated run. But clearly that was not happening and the numbers made it an easy call for Tannehill. At the line to go pass. While many mod us combined about Sherman not running enough, in truth, the Colts were probably putting 6 men in the box if not 7 at times, and Tannehill was making the correct read in 11 personnel which is to throw in that case. - exact opposite in 12 personnel. Which is run heavy. Makes sense with Sims, a strong run blocker, as our second TE into the field. Versus Cleveland we threw a ton from 11 personnel and barely ran, but had almost even run-pass from 12 personnel. This is now a trend. 11 means pass, 12 means run. This is what. The Falcons will expect. I hope our staff is smart enough to call. Pays against this trend this weekend or we will become predictable, and the offense will dry up in the next few weeks as defenses know what we'll be doing on any play just by our personnel. - 21 is a nice balanced package, run/pass, but 22 is run heavy and we need to mix it up with a play action out of 22 this week. This is the most like grouping to produce a Dion Sims play action touchdown pass. - another trend, 12 personnel on 1st down means run,. The other groupings are less predictable. Can't wait to see how this shapes up with the Atlanta data to add next week. Great job Brandon!!! Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
We are averaging 25 snaps per gam in 11 personnel. That is 400 snaps per season. Note that Kirwan shows all the playoff teams and division winners play 300-500 snaps in 11 personnel per season. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
Im willing to bet all of those are truly 11 then according to what you've found. I can go back and revise the data today. Thanks for doing that digging for me! If I keep doing this moving forward, that;s how I'm going to treat it from now on. I dont believe there were any instances of it in the Brows game, so we should be good there, but this game, I at least noted it down because I was unsure, so its easy enough for me to go back and fix. I think you'll see all those 10's disappear. That being said, I also took it as a 4 WR set, because sometimes with only the TV copy to go by, it was tough for me to see if it was indeed Clay, or possibly Matthews or someone else. Moving forward, I'll classify Clay as a TE, unless he's lined up in the backfield in a traditional fullback position in the I formation or something similar, then I'll treat him as a RB, as I have been. Making sense there? Again, with those 10's, that are going to become 11's once I double check for sure, that was all during that 2-minute drill at the end of the first half.
I've updated the original post now with the revised data. It was interesting to me to see how we used Clay in so many roles on Sunday. I think dj started a thread here with a comment from Dan Campbell our TE's coach about how versatile he is, we definately saw that on Sunday as I'm sure we all know by now. I think it's worth noting here again those seeing how often we're in 11, and that Clay is filling what could have been Keller's role. I think it's great that we have a player at TE that we can line up split out, on the line as a receiving threat, or a blocker, or at fullback as a runner or blocker. I think we put alot on film Sunday for teams to worry about. If you're the defense you've got to be worried when we come out in 11. Who do you try and stop? Wallace, Hartline, Gibson or now Clay.. not to mention our RB assuming he's not kept into block, which they were alot on Sunday. If we could get better running production from 11, then it would make it even scarier. That may have been our intent week 1, to show we have the threats to throw, and run, but Cleveland shut that down on us. It's no surprise to me we ran better against the Colts, theyre front 7 isn't as good, and we did most of our running damage out of 12 personnel with some extra blocking help up front. Part of me wishes we'd tried that more against Cleveland. I think if we can establish a running game from our 11 package, things could get even better for this offense.
This is exactly what Philbin has been talking about since he's been here. Versatility to strike with any skill position depending on the defense. A lot of people say you have to establish what you want to do with defense, but Philbin would rather look for each defense's weakness and exploit it.
It's pretty obvious for us to figure that out, so hopefully Sherman and Philbin are aware (as I'm sure they are) and hopefully they will mix it up a bit more, especially over this three game stretch coming up. It looks like against Cleveland we ran a bit more out of 11 if I remember correctly, it just wasnt working. I'd like to see us be able to, as I mentioned earlier, if we can successfully, I think it would go a long way towards keeping defenses guessing, because looking at the Colts game its pretty easy to assume if we come out in 11, we're likely going to pass. Id like to see more mystery there. Time will tell. I should have built in a column in to track play action as well. I feel like it would be a helpful thing to track too. It took me as long as it did to build the damn spreadsheet, so I dont think I want to mess with it right now
