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2008 Sample article. Check out our Subscriber-Online Football Homepage here.

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Offensive Identities
by Mike Horn
Staff Writer, FantasyGuru.com
Published, August 1, 2008
 

“It’s still wise to understand a team’s identity” – John Hansen, “2005’s Lessons Learned”

The last few years, I’ve looked at how teams have organized their offenses, as well as what new coaches have brought from their old systems to their new teams, and used that information to try to predict who might surprise or disappoint in the coming season.

Sometimes I identify great opportunities and sometimes I’m wrong. For example, last year in this article, I was high on Ronnie Brown (right), thought Arizona would run the ball more (wrong) but throw to Edgerrin James less (right) and its tight ends very little (right). I was skeptical about Vince Jackson (mostly right) because Norv Turner would throw to his TEs more in SD than in SF (right). I thought Bruce Arians would cut Willie Parker’s carries (not really) and give the Steelers RBs more pass targets than in 2006 (wrong). I was right that Oakland would run more, but wrong that it would benefit LaMont Jordan. My favorite call was probably:

“The players most likely to benefit from Petrino’s system will be the WRs, who should see a lot more throws. Who will catch them, I don’t know, but if you’re late in a draft and looking for some WR depth, there will probably be a Falcon WR available who might help you out.”

because I took my own advice and got Roddy White late in one of my drafts. Anyway, you get the idea – there’s some good stuff in here but plenty of wrong thoughts, too, and some you have to interpret as camps and the preseason develop.

Below is a chart with an overall summary of each team’s run-pass mix, how often it gave its primary runner the ball, what positions get its pass targets, and how often the RB1 and WR1 are targeted. All this information is meant to help you interpret what an offense did the previous year. After the main chart, I look at the major coaching changes to try to predict how they will impact the offenses and fantasy prospects of players on those teams.

As always, there’s no absolute guarantee of what a team will do this year. Injuries last year may have dictated what a coach did, and that could change in 2008 if a key player returns to health. A weak defense may have forced an offense to pass more than it otherwise would have. A free agent addition (or subtraction) or high draft choice may have altered the talent enough to allow (or dictate) a coach to do something different this time around.

So, here’s the data, with the league average for each category included at the bottom and explanations of each column below: