NFC South 2020 Team Stats Review
Those who have followed my writing throughout the 2020 season will know that I’m a projections guy, I released weekly content highlighting key facts and stats about play volume, pass/rush tendencies, Vegas lines, target leaders, etc – my Projections Retrospective.
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Now that 2020 has drawn to a close, I’ll be spending some time reviewing the total season numbers. The goal, to be more informed about what each team did so we can better project how they’ll tackle 2021 (subject of course to coaching and personnel changes over the offseason).
If you missed it, check out my Projections Guide where I looked at some of the key league-wide numbers for 2020 and stepped through how to create your own projections.
Let’s dive in to the NFC South.
New Orleans Saints
The Saints are as reliable as they come when it comes to play volume. They took a slight tick up in 2020 but if you take out the extra plays from their two OT games then you’re right back within 10 plays of 2019. They run the ball when they can, their highest pass percentage games being their losses and their OT games.
Not a single wide receiver saw more than 69 targets as Alvin Kamara benefited from the Drew Brees dump offs to clock over 100. They aren’t long-term reliable targets there with a minuscule aDOT (average depth of target) and next to no air yards, needing the high volume and YAC (yards after catch) to hit the returns. Michael Thomas obviously missed large chunks of the season but he did still command a 28-percent target share in the games he played with more air yards in the games where Taysom Hill was Quarterback.
Kamara may have been one of the best running backs in fantasy in 2020 but it’s not from being a dominant rusher. This backfield is a three way split and in the four games Hill started at Quarterback it was 37-percent/29-percent/29-percent.
The red zone is also a three way split with Kamara’s numbers skewed by 10 red zone attempts in week 16. Murray disappears closer to the goal line but Hill still takes a big share of the attempts, even without him being the starting QB.
Key Takeaway: Focus on the specifics of the players. Kamara made his hay from sheer volume of short passes, if that doesn’t repeat in 2021 then he’s unlikely to make it up on the ground. Thomas may be out of favour but his opportunity when he played positions him well for a bounce back.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
As top five in play volume in 2019, some regression in 2020 was natural. Add in a particularly strange game against the Saints where Tampa Bay only had 43 plays and only ran the ball five times.
A few different options in Tampa Bay, with Evans leading the way in most of the metrics. In the games that Chris Godwin played, he did out-target Evans but only just. Interestingly, from week 9 onwards when Antonio Brown was there, Evans target share actually increased to 22-percent with Godwin and Brown both on 18-percent. With plenty of deep threat options and a spread of targets, Godwin didn’t reach 100 air yards in a game until week 16.
This was a frustrating backfield on a weekly basis so it may be a surprise to some to see Ronald Jones clearly ahead of Fournette in rush attempts. Jones had 20 or more carries three times and 13 or more carries eight times, while Fournette hit double-digits only four times. A split is a split though and neither of them breached 69-percent while the other one was also playing.
Key Takeaway: This is a receiving corps with elite players and top fantasy options but they’re all going to take away from each others ceilings. Similarly on the ground, both Jones and Fournette can put up numbers but they seriously dent each other when they’re both available.
Carolina Panthers
Two things happened to the Panthers in 2020, they lost McCaffrey for most of the season and they won a few games. This led to an overall reduction in play volume, which came mostly from the passing game.
A whopping 94-percent of this team’s air yards went to the wide receivers. It shouldn’t come as a surprise though with one of the most concentrated spread of targets in the league that dumps off to running backs behind the line of scrimmage and gives nothing to the tight ends.
Anderson and Moore made a strong one-two punch with Samuel supporting. Looking at the overall numbers, Moore had the deeper targets and strong YAC (yards after catch) that would rival some of the best in the league. What went wrong for Moore was that catch rate, which is just not good enough to sustain production.
With McCaffrey’s injuries, there’s a lot of 2020 you can throw out. What we did see was that they want to be a one-back system and that’s how they proceeded with Mike Davis in CMC’s absence. However, towards the end of the season Rodney Smith began mixing in more as Davis struggled to put up numbers and ran out of steam. Regardless of who the running back is, Curtis Samuel was consistently mixing in a few carries per game as they looked to scheme him up.
Key Takeaway: A concentrated offence that, as long as volume stays up, will be able to sustain multiple options. DJ Moore may have disappointed many but the opportunity is absolutely there and with a strong Quarterback we could be about to see him explode.
Atlanta Falcons
Overall volume stayed high for the Falcons but, somewhat surprisingly, the passing ratio came down in 2020 as they looked to run the ball far more than in previous seasons. Perhaps reflective of their confidence in Gurley early on in the season, they ran despite losing some agonisingly close games.
I’d like you to take a minute to look at Calvin Ridley’s air yards. Over 2,000 air yards is phenomenal and the highest in the league. He was destined for success in this offense anyway but losing Julio for parts of the season certainly helped his market share. This will come down again in 2021 assuming everyone stays off the injury report. Hurst and Gage played their parts, particularly in the red zone in the back half of the season.
This was a tale of two halves in the running game. Before their week 10 bye, Gurley was the dominant back as the Falcons looked to him often. He never had less than 14 carries in a game and five times had 18 or over. After the bye, he never hit double-digits. Ito Smith took over as the main back but he didn’t get reliable volume.
In the red zone, the Falcons only ran twice inside the 10 yard line after their bye, and never inside the five.
