"We have been running 2-TE sets"

[superpunk]

Interesting stuff, all around, and I think ogt and ice have something, maybe we don't all consider "base" the same, or differently in this context.

IMO, what we're going to see in the future, is completely new, with Fasano as a viable option from the TE position. He is a second round draft pick, he needs to be on the field at least more than 50% of the snaps, IMO.

Does everyone agree with that?

That is a far cry from what we saw last year. Depending on how your stats are compiled, I think we can say we ran 2-TE sets somewhere from 20-40% of the time. (bare minimum and maximum.) And the second TE we trotted out there did absolutely nothing in the way of being an offensive threat. For all intents and purposes, he was a FB that we lined up in different spots.

I don't see that being the case this year.

At least, it better not be.

 

[theogt]

Interesting stuff, all around, and I think ogt and ice have something, maybe we don't all consider "base" the same, or differently in this context.

IMO, what we're going to see in the future, is completely new, with Fasano as a viable option from the TE position. He is a second round draft pick, he needs to be on the field at least more than 50% of the snaps, IMO.

Does everyone agree with that?

That is a far cry from what we saw last year. Depending on how your stats are compiled, I think we can say we ran 2-TE sets somewhere from 20-40% of the time. (bare minimum and maximum.) And the second TE we trotted out there did absolutely nothing in the way of being an offensive threat. For all intents and purposes, he was a FB that we lined up in different spots.

I don't see that being the case this year.

At least, it better not be.

I'd say this nicely sums it up.

 

[iceberg]

This is precisely what the numbers discussion is about above, and I believe my post addresses it pretty well. At a maximum we could have possibly had about 43% of plays with two TE sets because of this discrepancy. However, the true number is much much less than this. I'd assume its close to 33%. Is 1/3 a base offense? Well that's up for debate. I wouldn't consider it to be, and I definitely would assume we'll run 2 TE sets much more than 1/3 of the plays in the future. Not to mention, the whole problem that our "new 2 TE set" will be run much differently than our "old 2 TE set".

i can see this. what happens is that people tend to think all people put a puzzle together the same way and see the same things in the pieces, so we get lost in the argument not on defining the pieces.

you have to first come to a common ground on some very simple things before you can figure out how it's viewed above those.

in the end, i agree. we'll see more (2) TE sets than we have in the past. arguing beyond that i just don't get.

 

[Bob Sacamano]

And some people can completely miss the obvious in their zeal to be right... re-read Adams post on the matter for why you are wrong.

The idea of a two TE set is to create mismatches. It doesn't matter if they are playing along the line, spread wide, or in the backfield. If you really want to calculate the number of plays we were in a two TE set, then take every play last year and list off the skill positions personel. Anytime that list includes any two TE's or a TE and one of our big bodied short line blockers (Spears) it's a two TE set.

Before you start fawning over Stat's Inc, you should look into how they calculate their stats. They have been wrong on many many stats before and certainly cannot be taken at face value. A stat is worthless until you understand what exactly they are measuring.

Personally I could care less what the results are. As I understand it, a teams "Base" formation has nothing to do with what they run the majority (or more accurately plurality) of the time. The base is the primary formation from which to adjust out of of. Smaller changes from base are easier to teach and grasp by the players. If you want to throw the ball often in 2-4 reciever sets, then it makes sense to have a 3 wide base. If you want to run the ball you might start with a 2 back set. Parcells is looking for a balance while giving the team additional options in case protection is weak. That is why he is starting with the two TE set, and why he did so last year as well.

yikes

 

[playit12]

Therefore, we can assume the the absolute maximum percentage of plays that a 2 TE set was on the field was 43.3% (19% + 34.3%) of the plays. However, we do know that the true number is MUCH LESS. I'd say somewhere closer to 33%. Now this may be a bit of semantics but I wouldn't consider 1/3 of the plays to be a "base offense". I'd assume most teams in the NFL run a "2 TE set" close to 1/3 of the plays.

HOWEVER, as other posters pointed out, even if this 1/3 number is correct and if someone considered that a "base offense" that offense is nowhere near the offense we're going to be running this year. Dan was not a receiving threat. He was not treated as such by us or our opponents. This offense we're planning now, I assume, will run the 2 TE set much more than 1/3 of the plays and will have our 2nd TE much more active in the passing game (or at least a threat of being more active).

How are you defining a Base Offense then? Does any team in the league use one set a "majority" of their plays? It's not like there are only 2 sets...

Off the top of my head I'd say popular sets are

4 - Wide, 3-Wide, 2 Back, 2 TE, 3 TE, ext... I would guess then that your most popular set would be the pluarlity set and not the majority set. 33% might well be the most popular set.

Anyway, it's sort of a moot point, unless you think the base set is the one used the most often, which I know we don't all agree with.

Anyway I'm not trying to resort to symantics to avoid the conversation, but I think we are arguing at this point without both sides really seeing eye to eye on what the terms even mean.

As for me... I think we switched to a Two TE base last year after Flozell went down. Up to that point I think Parcells wanted to run a 2 back set as our base. Of course down and distance drastically effected what we ran and factors heavily into the statistics.

 

[Bob Sacamano]

This looks like a little bit of "fuzzy math" to me Adam. If there were 363 times that a TE was not counted as a TE, then out of 1058 plays you say that 34.3 of which a TE was not counted. First, this is a mistake. Certainly not 34.3 percent of these plays a TE should have been counted. For example, if there were times when neither 2 TEs were not being counted as a TE then the number would drop. Second, this is misleading. There are a number of plays in which no TE was counted and in fact there was a TE on the field, but there was only one TE. As you stated earlier that number could very well be close to over 100 plays as there were a number of Witten's plays where he wasn't counted. Third, there may have been a TE not counted when 2 TEs where already counted. Truth be told, we don't know how much of this 34.3 percent number is 2 TE plays that should be added to the original 19% number, but we do know that it is some fraction of that amount.

Therefore, we can assume the the absolute maximum percentage of plays that a 2 TE set was on the field was 43.3% (19% + 34.3%) of the plays. However, we do know that the true number is MUCH LESS. I'd say somewhere closer to 33%. Now this may be a bit of semantics but I wouldn't consider 1/3 of the plays to be a "base offense". I'd assume most teams in the NFL run a "2 TE set" close to 1/3 of the plays.

HOWEVER, as other posters pointed out, even if this 1/3 number is correct and if someone considered that a "base offense" that offense is nowhere near the offense we're going to be running this year. Dan was not a receiving threat. He was not treated as such by us or our opponents. This offense we're planning now, I assume, will run the 2 TE set much more than 1/3 of the plays and will have our 2nd TE much more active in the passing game (or at least a threat of being more active).

interesting argument but once a TE goes into the backfield, he becomes an H-back, but initially, we lined up in a 2-TE offense, not as much as we're going to this year, but enough to where it was our base offense, but stats INC wasn't able to count it cuz once the ball snapped, there was a TE and an H-back

 

[playit12]

Since this might actually lead to a more productive conversation...

What do you see as the major difference between the new Fasano two TE sets compared to the Cambell two TE sets?

I'm looking back at the 2003 season here, since it's really the last time he played a full healthy season. He played 3 games in 2004.

That season he was thrown to 30 times and caught 20 passes for about 200 yards. He also got 8 first downs and 1 TD. Some might remember the TE TD machine was Jeff Robinson, who had 2 TDs that season (as much as Jason and Dan combined). Basically Dan was used in short yardage situations because of his sure hands and because he was a blocking threat, and thus often left open on likely running downs. Catching 67% of his passes was pretty decent and right up there with the two best TE's that season, Tony Gonzales and Shannon Sharpe - 67 and 66% respectively.

Dan was primarily a blocker and occasional pass catcher. This is really the same role I see for Fasano. The major difference is that Witten is a much better player now than in 2003.

I'm not entirely sure what I see Fasano doing that Dan didn't do that year? I certainly don't see him stretching the field vertically like Witten can. I don't see him lead blocking as a full back either. This was never Dan's strength as he didn't get good leverage at the point of attack.

Mostly I see Fasano being Dan, but allowing Witten to stop doing the duties he picked up when Dan went down. He won't be asked to run block as often and will be free to get down the field more. I mostly think the difference will be we'll have Jason in more of a cross between a TE and a Split End this year.

 

[superpunk]

Wasn't Campbell our starter in 2003?

 

[playit12]

Wasn't Campbell our starter in 2003?

In name, but Witten was targetted for almost twice as many passes (54 compared to 30). Campbell was in on first down because he was a better blocker and BP likes to run on first down. I'm not entirely sure it won't be the same thing this year. Witten can sometimes be a liability on power run plays...

 

[hogwild]

This looks like a little bit of "fuzzy math" to me Adam. If there were 363 times that a TE was not counted as a TE, then out of 1058 plays you say that 34.3 of which a TE was not counted. First, this is a mistake. Certainly not 34.3 percent of these plays a TE should have been counted. For example, if there were times when neither 2 TEs were not being counted as a TE then the number would drop. Second, this is misleading. There are a number of plays in which no TE was counted and in fact there was a TE on the field, but there was only one TE. As you stated earlier that number could very well be close to over 100 plays as there were a number of Witten's plays where he wasn't counted. Third, there may have been a TE not counted when 2 TEs where already counted. Truth be told, we don't know how much of this 34.3 percent number is 2 TE plays that should be added to the original 19% number, but we do know that it is some fraction of that amount.

Therefore, we can assume the the absolute maximum percentage of plays that a 2 TE set was on the field was 43.3% (19% + 34.3%) of the plays. However, we do know that the true number is MUCH LESS. I'd say somewhere closer to 33%. Now this may be a bit of semantics but I wouldn't consider 1/3 of the plays to be a "base offense". I'd assume most teams in the NFL run a "2 TE set" close to 1/3 of the plays.

HOWEVER, as other posters pointed out, even if this 1/3 number is correct and if someone considered that a "base offense" that offense is nowhere near the offense we're going to be running this year. Dan was not a receiving threat. He was not treated as such by us or our opponents. This offense we're planning now, I assume, will run the 2 TE set much more than 1/3 of the plays and will have our 2nd TE much more active in the passing game (or at least a threat of being more active).

fuzzy math: 19% + 34.3%= 43.3%???? try 53.3%

 

[dboyz]

This looks like a little bit of "fuzzy math" to me Adam. If there were 363 times that a TE was not counted as a TE, then out of 1058 plays you say that 34.3 of which a TE was not counted. First, this is a mistake. Certainly not 34.3 percent of these plays a TE should have been counted. For example, if there were times when neither 2 TEs were not being counted as a TE then the number would drop. Second, this is misleading. There are a number of plays in which no TE was counted and in fact there was a TE on the field, but there was only one TE. As you stated earlier that number could very well be close to over 100 plays as there were a number of Witten's plays where he wasn't counted. Third, there may have been a TE not counted when 2 TEs where already counted. Truth be told, we don't know how much of this 34.3 percent number is 2 TE plays that should be added to the original 19% number, but we do know that it is some fraction of that amount.

Therefore, we can assume the the absolute maximum percentage of plays that a 2 TE set was on the field was 43.3% (19% + 34.3%) of the plays. However, we do know that the true number is MUCH LESS. I'd say somewhere closer to 33%. Now this may be a bit of semantics but I wouldn't consider 1/3 of the plays to be a "base offense". I'd assume most teams in the NFL run a "2 TE set" close to 1/3 of the plays.

HOWEVER, as other posters pointed out, even if this 1/3 number is correct and if someone considered that a "base offense" that offense is nowhere near the offense we're going to be running this year. Dan was not a receiving threat. He was not treated as such by us or our opponents. This offense we're planning now, I assume, will run the 2 TE set much more than 1/3 of the plays and will have our 2nd TE much more active in the passing game (or at least a threat of being more active).

As someone else pointed out, your math is fuzzy. It should be 53.3% rather than 43.3%. Also do you realize that the most common personnel grouping might have been used less than 50% of the total plays. It's still the base package. There are a lot of possible formations. Goaline formations, 3 WR formations, 4wr formations, short yardage formations, etc.

 

[AdamJT13]

This looks like a little bit of "fuzzy math" to me Adam. If there were 363 times that a TE was not counted as a TE, then out of 1058 plays you say that 34.3 of which a TE was not counted. First, this is a mistake. Certainly not 34.3 percent of these plays a TE should have been counted. For example, if there were times when neither 2 TEs were not being counted as a TE then the number would drop.

I already explained that the number of times two tight ends were mislabeled on the same play could balance out with the number of times a non-tight end (such as a backup lineman in an elephant formation) was labeled as a tight end.

Second, this is misleading. There are a number of plays in which no TE was counted and in fact there was a TE on the field, but there was only one TE. As you stated earlier that number could very well be close to over 100 plays as there were a number of Witten's plays where he wasn't counted. Third, there may have been a TE not counted when 2 TEs where already counted. Truth be told, we don't know how much of this 34.3 percent number is 2 TE plays that should be added to the original 19% number, but we do know that it is some fraction of that amount.

I didn't say all 363 of those snaps must have been two-TE formations. I'm just saying STATS' splits aren't helpful because they count where guys line up instead of who it is on the field. Last season, they counted one of our tight ends as a running back or a wide receiver at least 363 times.

Therefore, we can assume the the absolute maximum percentage of plays that a 2 TE set was on the field was 43.3% (19% + 34.3%) of the plays.

Your method of calculation is completely wrong, and your answer isn't necessarily correct. We AVERAGED 1.43 tight ends on the field per play. If there were 37 plays with no tight ends on the field (the maximum we could have had) and 10 plays when a backup lineman was used as a third tight end, that means we could have had two tight ends on the field 46.2 percent of the time.

However, we do know that the true number is MUCH LESS.

And how do you think you know that?

I'd say somewhere closer to 33%.

The absolute lowest it could be is 37.1 percent -- and that's if we had a tight end on the field for EVERY play last season AND if every single "three-TE formation" had three tight ends on the field (never an extra lineman counted as a tight end). It would be mathematically impossible to fit all 1,508 of our tight ends' plays into our 1,058 offensive plays if it was less than 37.1 percent.

Now this may be a bit of semantics but I wouldn't consider 1/3 of the plays to be a "base offense". I'd assume most teams in the NFL run a "2 TE set" close to 1/3 of the plays.

Here were the average number of tight ends on the field last season for each team (I adjusted Washington's number to include Chris Cooley as a tight end, even though the NFL considers him a fullback) --


1.63 Washington
1.60 Tennessee
1.54 Indianapolis
1.54 Kansas City
1.49 Tampa Bay
1.47 Minnesota
1.43 Dallas
1.38 Denver
1.37 Baltimore
1.35 Atlanta
1.35 New England
1.31 Miami
1.30 N.Y. Giants
1.25 Chicago
1.23 San Diego
1.22 Detroit
1.21 N.Y. Jets
1.20 Jacksonville
1.19 New Orleans
1.19 Oakland
1.18 Green Bay
1.17 Carolina
1.17 Philadelphia
1.17 Pittsburgh
1.16 Houston
1.15 Cleveland
1.08 Cincinnati
0.98 Arizona
0.96 Seattle
0.91 Buffalo
0.85 San Francisco
0.31 St. Louis

 

[theogt]

Adam, you completely misread virtually every sentence I wrote. Strange.

Oh, and yes, I added wrong. Doesn't change a thing.

 

[AdamJT13]

Interesting stuff, all around, and I think ogt and ice have something, maybe we don't all consider "base" the same, or differently in this context.

IMO, what we're going to see in the future, is completely new, with Fasano as a viable option from the TE position. He is a second round draft pick, he needs to be on the field at least more than 50% of the snaps, IMO.

Does everyone agree with that?

Barring injury, he could play more than that. Last year, Dan Campbell got 42.3 percent of the snaps, and we've got what was Lousaka Polite's 28.1 percent of the snaps to divide among our tight ends, basically. Depending on how much Ryan Hannam plays (our third tight end played 3.8 percent of the snaps last season) and how much we keep Fasano on the field when we would have used a third receiver last season, Fasano could get 60 percent of the snaps, easily. We also might be able to give Jason Witten a breather from time to time. He has played more than 95 percent of the offensive snaps in each of the past two seasons, plus some on special teams.

Depending on how your stats are compiled, I think we can say we ran 2-TE sets somewhere from 20-40% of the time. (bare minimum and maximum.)

The bare minimum would be 37.1 percent of the time, and the maximum would be 46.1 percent of the time.

By the way, Dan Campbell started 12 games. Lousaka Polite started three. That sounds like a two-tight end "base offense" to me.

 

[AdamJT13]

Adam, you completely misread virtually every sentence I wrote. Strange.

Oh, and yes, I added wrong. Doesn't change a thing.

I twould help if you could adequately explain what you're talking about.

 

[iceberg]

By the way, Dan Campbell started 12 games. Lousaka Polite started three. That sounds like a two-tight end "base offense" to me.

then we're not doing anything new this year over last?

 

[AdamJT13]

then we're not doing anything new this year over last?

We're getting rid of Lousaka Polite's three starts and his 28 percent playing time and giving it to someone who is more of an offensive weapon (mostly Fasano, and some to Hannam). If we do keep Polite on the roster, his playing time should drop to about five percent. But from Jerry's "getting out of the fullback business" talk, I think that's a longshot.

I also wouldn't be surprised if we kept two tight ends on the field more often instead of bringing in a third receiver.

 

[theogt]

then we're not doing anything new this year over last?

Yes, we are. We're changing the way we play 2 TE sets. Campbell caught 3 passes last year. Do you think Fasano will only catch 3 this year? Also, we're playing more 2 TE sets. Where we ran only ran 2 TE sets 30-50% of the time last year we'll run it more this year.

 

[playit12]

Thanks for all the calculations Adam, but I was wondering if you could break something else down for me if you have time...

Could you calculate our TE's per play before and after the Flozell injury? I think many people will agree that our O-Line was significantly worse during that time, and it might give us a baseline to compare if running two TE sets was mostly a factor of protection necessity, or if it was a season long desire.

I ask because starting into next season, if our line is playing at the pre-injury level, should we expect Parcells to actually run two TE sets or instead go with more dynamic patterns?

 

[playit12]

I twould help if you could adequately explain what you're talking about.

I can translate it for you...

"I have no idea what I'm talking about... Clearly I was completely wrong and now I'm going to ignore the sheer volume of proof you have provided to contradict my points... Further I will be taking my ball and going home, I don't want to play with you anymore..."

But seriously, nice work on the numbers as usual Adam.