Cross posting this in Big Data.
I’m starting to put together some notes about passing in 4.6. First off, passing is harder, period. But it’s not as impossibly hard as it first seems.
Passing in 4.5 is all boom/bust with the dice rolling boom more than they roll bust. Most of this is because of coverage on backside slant routes, specifically the FL Hitch, that get targeted more than other routes by the QB. This had a way of blowing up passing stats, but actually is pretty inefficient to running an offense when you faced a team that knew how to take away those plays.
Here are some of the things that make passing in 4.6 different:
By volume passing is in. - This is what’s going to hurt most game planners. There are no built in analytics that give you numbers like completion percentage and average yard per play is basically useless since you’re not going to run enough plays over the course of a season to make it meaningful. As such, it’s going to be hard for the casual player to find enough plays that consistently get 5-10 yards per play to the primary target (see point 2).
The big plays are coming on the second or, even, third read. - The big plays that I’m seeing consistently show up are coming on the QB’s second or, even, third read on the play. I’ll show some data about this later, but here’s an example now.
The reads on the 311 PA Flats go like this: TE1, WR1, FB2. With a good TE (see next point), the play gets between 5-7 yards per play. (My TE in League of Legends has a 91% completion rate for a median of 5.5 yards per play, which will keep a drive moving.)
The big play opportunities are the WR1 and FB2. The FB2 has always been a big play threat for this play because the WR5 goes uncovered by a lot of defenses. The wrinkle in 4.6 is how often the WR1 gets targeted. In 12 games in LOL, my WR1 has been targeted 11 times for 8 completions and a median of 21 yards per play. He’s ripped multiple 40+ yard TDs on the play.
This is just one example. But it’s becoming a theme in the data that I’ve seen. I’ll have laid out some other examples elsewhere but without a lot of data, it’s hard to see all the patterns.
The TE is back. - In 4.5 TEs basically went away. They were great utility players on plays like the 311 PA Flats and the 113 TE Quick Out, but it was hard to get a TE above 50% catch rate. This changes in 4.6. TEs can now be considered a primary target, and should be targeted a lot if you have a good TE.
For example, let’s take the 113 TE Quick Out. Most player know and use this play, but it works better now. My low B&R, overall average TE in LOL has caught 11 in 19 targets on this play for a median of 6 yards per play. OK, 11 of 19 is not impressive, but the fact that his median is 6 yards despite catching just 57% is hugely impressive. I’m sure that a better B&R TE with the same attributes would do better, but he’s getting the job done.
TEs are also becoming more reliable secondary targets. My TE1 has caught 5 of 7 targets for a median of 5 yards as the second read on the FL Hitch.
It’ll be interesting to see how these things play out with more data and we start identifying more plays that work. The overall right now is that we will have to think about passing as more complex than the one route and go plays that we saw in 4.5.
