Snap counts, depth chart and personnel groupings

[panther4life]

Over the last 2 years we roughly average about 1100 snaps on offense and defense in the regular season. Snap count's can be found here. http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/car/2016.htm

In 2015 we saw a more ideal scenario in terms of injuries and gives us a better idea of how snaps are divided when everyone is healthy.

Keep in mind this is 2015 snaps for the offense not 16

An example of this is the offensive line. Remmers played 100% of the snaps that year.

• Oher was at 98%,
• Turner at 97% and
• Kalil at 90%.
• Norwell was right on pace before missing about 3 and half games in the middle of the season. He finished the year at 74% with Amini filling in for him with 21% of the snaps.

 

At WR, as hard as it is to believe Philly led all player's with 68% in 15. 

• Ginn 61%
• Funchess 44%
• Cotchery 38%

No other receiver broke 100 or 10% of the snaps. Bersin was close with 99 snaps.

In terms of 2016 Benjamin, Ginn, Philly, and Funchess were the only 4 to see significant time and in that order.

Cam and Olsen came in at 97 and 95% in 2015.

Another interesting thing from 2015 is Dickson played in 54% of the snaps. Easy math says we used 2 tight end sets on  over 50% of offensive play calls.

Lastly lets look at players in the backfield for 2015

• Stewart finished at 55% in spite of missing the last 3 games.
• Tolbert 39%
• Whittaker 14%
• CAP   10%

Doing the math we lined up most often in a 12 personnel that year. (1 back, 2 tight ends). Leaving 2 WR's to join them. Based on the snap counts it appears our next most common set would have been and 11 personnel (1 back, 1 tight end) leaving 3 receivers lined out wide. Whats interesting is I found this for 2016. Dickson snap count dropped 11% and we shifted back to more 3 wr sets. and 2 TE sets dropped to 34%. 

 

 

 

 

On the defensive line for the past 2 years, KK has been the workhorse for us. Here is the defensive line snaps by percentage.

DE's 2015

• Ealy 59% - Same in 16
• Jared Allen 50% (traded for him when CJ went down)
• Addison 36% -increased slightly in 16 to 40%
• CJ 35%. (he missed games 4-10 with an injury). He was back up 50% in 2016.
• Delaire 20 %(picked up off waivers when CJ went down) Fell back to 13% in 16
• Horton 14% ( he got suspended for peds and didn't play in regular season after week 8) jumped up to 31% in 16.

DT's 15 and 16.

• Short 69% - 73% in 16
• Star 48% - 69% in 16
• Dwan Edwards 34% -not on roster in 16
• Kyle Love 29% - 20% in 16
• Vernon Butler 20% in 16( I assume it would have been almost double that if not for injury)
• Soliai 14% in 16. 

Not exactly groundbreaking but this puts into perspective how we much we value pass rushing DT's to sub in on passing downs. Makes a guy like Butler who is similar to Short much more valuable or a big DE who can slide in on tackle more important than a run stuffer to join the rotation. A back up run stuffer is nice to have to spell Star and be insurance if he goes down with an injury, however they wouldn't be featured in the rotation nearly as often as pass a rushing DT.

LB'S. 

• Davis and Kuechly are warriors who will be in on 90% of snaps or more if healthy. 
• Shaq saw 33% his rookie year and 50% last year. 
• Klein filled in for Kuechly last year when he went down for injury. Time for someone else to assume this backup job now

CB's

• Norman was always on the field with 96% of the snaps in 15. Tillman was on pace to be right behind him before injury.
• Last year Worley saw 80% and Bradberry 75%. Should see the field 90% of the time or more when healthy moving forward.
• Nickels have been a mess the past couple years due to injuries and lack of talent. Either way you can see they average about 50% of the snaps.

This isn't an exact science, however it looks like we are  in Nickel as much as we are our base 4-3. With about a 50/50 split. Davis is just too good for us to resort to a dime package very often, even against 4 WR sets.

This makes having a good cover Nickel nearly as important as SLB (Shaq). As they will both see the field about 50% of the time.

Safeties.

In 2015 Coleman and Harper dominated the snap counts. They were both in top 4 of on field percentage. In 16, it was more of the same with Boston filling the void left by Harper. BTW Mike Adams our new SS, led the colts whole defense in snaps last year.

In conclusion:

Based on how we run our Defense and Offense, it really makes it important to have our best depth at DE,WR AND DT,and RB,nickel corner and 2nd TE.  These positions rotate depth in by design and not just due to injury. Every other position the backup's only see the field because of injury not because we rotate them in for for fresh legs or play designs. 

For those of you who like to predict the 53 man roster, keep in mind we can only have 46 active on Gameday. And you have to dedicate 3 of those spots to kicker,punter and LS. 

Leaving you 43 to split between offense and defense.

I'd imagine it'd be best to have these as the actives on game day's based on how we use our rotation when healthy.

Defense (22)

• 5 DE's
• 5 LB's ( Norris and Mayo were huge special team's contributor's)
• 5 Corners ( One of your nickels should be prepared to play outside in a pinch)
• 4 DT's
• 3 Safeties ( 3rd one needs to be able to play either safety spot). Right now Colin Jones would be that guy.

Offense (21)

• 8 0-lineman ( 2 non starters need to be versatile enough to play inside or at Tackle)
• 5 WR's ( We use a ton of 3 wide set's, via a 4 man rotation and the 5th would be for emergency only)
• 3 RB'S/FB ( Seems like we rolled with Stewart, Whittaker and Tolbert when all were healthy)
• 3 TE'S( 3rd in case of injury and or goal line packages)
• 2 QB'S ( I believe if we get down to Webb in a a game, we are already toast anyway).

Special teams (3)

• 1 Kicker
• 1 Punter
• 1 Long Snapper

 

 

 

More feel good stuff about McCaffrey.

Even with Benjamin back, Cam still targeted Olsen more last year. If you go back and look at target's by year. http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/car/2016.htm

You will find Cams looks For Olsen or whoever our number 1 receiver is in a given year was the most and almost evenly amongst the 2. Third up is the 2nd receiver. 4th and 5th is pretty close to even amongst the 3rd and 4th WR's. Then he looks for a RB/FB. Dickson rarely gets a look as a pass catcher. 

 

This is an NFL wide stat.

http://www.sharpfootballanalysis.com/blog/2017/christianmccaffreyincarolina

Any other interpretations or thoughts from these stat's?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ecu88]

After reading