A Data Driven Breakdown of the Washington Offensive Playmakers in 2020
January 14, 2021
by Alex Zeese
. . . may the football gods help you all for what you are about to read.
The season is over for the Washington Football Team. One thing I personally like to do at this time of year is start to dive into some of the team’s stats to get some metrics that can help us understand the usage rates of players on the offense and defense. It helps in getting a better sense of who’s been a real contributor for the team, where playcalling has failed and succeeded, and where they should look to improve in the future.
Steve’s usually our go to stats and data guy, and we talk frequently about analytics in football, but I’m no stranger to the spreadsheet world. So I thought I’d take some time to share with our readers some of the data I usually put together for my own use.
I’m going to share two charts. The first one breaks down the total number of touches for each offensive weapon, player usage rates relative to the rest of the offense and their ultimate contribution to the team in terms of their yardage vs the team as a whole. The second chart is a breakdown of how each offensive weapon performed with different QBs at the helm.
Total number of touches and yards for Washington’s Offensive Players & How Each Relates to total offensive production
| Possition | Name | Total Touches: | Total Yds: | % of touches on offense | % of Yards on offense | Runs: | Run Yds: | Rec Tgts: | Rec Yds: |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WR | Terry McLaurin | 136 | 1148 | 13.99% | 21.23% | 2 | 30 | 134 | 1118 |
| WR | Cam Sims | 49 | 482 | 5.04% | 8.91% | 1 | 5 | 48 | 477 |
| WR | Steven Sims | 38 | 283 | 3.91% | 5.23% | 1 | 18 | 37 | 265 |
| WR | Isaiah Wright | 38 | 213 | 3.91% | 3.94% | 3 | 16 | 35 | 197 |
| WR | Dontrelle Inman | 28 | 163 | 2.88% | 3.01% | 28 | 163 | ||
| WR | Robert Foster | 6 | 37 | 0.62% | 0.68% | 6 | 37 | ||
| WR | Antonio Gandy-Golden | 8 | 25 | 0.82% | 0.46% | 1 | 22 | 7 | 3 |
| RB | Antonio Gibson | 214 | 1042 | 22.02% | 19.27% | 170 | 795 | 44 | 247 |
| RB | J.D. McKissic | 195 | 954 | 20.06% | 17.64% | 85 | 365 | 110 | 589 |
| RB | Peyton Barber | 101 | 270 | 10.39% | 4.99% | 94 | 258 | 7 | 12 |
| TE | Logan Thomas | 113 | 675 | 11.63% | 12.48% | 3 | 5 | 110 | 670 |
| TE | Temarrick Hemingway | 2 | 10 | 0.21% | 0.18% | 2 | 10 | ||
| TE | Jeremy Sprinkle | 3 | 6 | 0.31% | 0.11% | 3 | 6 | ||
| TE | Marcus Baugh | 1 | 2 | 0.10% | 0.04% | 1 | 2 | ||
| QB | Dwayne Haskins | 20 | 46 | 2.06% | 0.85% | 20 | 46 | ||
| QB | Kyle Allen | 7 | 26 | 0.72% | 0.48% | 7 | 26 | ||
| QB | Taylor Heinicke | 3 | 22 | 0.31% | 0.41% | 3 | 22 | ||
| QB | Alex Smith | 10 | 3 | 1.03% | 0.06% | 10 | 3 | ||
| Team Totals: | 972 | 5407 | N/A | N/A | 400 | 1611 | 572 | 3796 |
Note: The data for this chart was taken from Pro-Football Reference’s team page. In the end I thought it’s more accurate to use passing targets rather than receptions for each player to give us an idea for how they are used. It’s also worth noting that the team had 601 pass attempts on the year, but only has 572 targets – this is partly due to sacks, throwaways, and other things.
There are some general things you should know when looking at these numbers. Having done this in the past, any time a player gets 20% or more touches or yardage overall you should consider them a good to great contributor for their team. Even though there are 5 playmakers on the field any given time, it is rare for more than one or two players to actually contribute a 5th or more of the offense. The exception is for a classic workhorse RB’s who can typically have a large number of touches overall.
Secondly, Washington was middle of the pack in terms of total plays with 1001 on offense. The range usually varies through the league but 1000 is fairly middle of the pack. This season the team that ran the most plays on offense had 1,127 with the lowest number being 940 plays.
Here we have my chart showing the contributions of our play makers to the offense in 2020, and there probably aren’t many surprises if you’ve been paying attention. Terry McLaurin was the major contributor at wide receiver, accounting for just under 14% of the offensive plays and 21% of the total yards by the offense. The three running backs carried a bulk of the load on the year, as they were used on a combined 52% of all the offensive plays. Logan Thomas and Cam Sims were also key contributors at 12% & 9% of the yardage contribution, respectively.
But looking further, there are two interesting things worth considering. Of all the players on this roster, Cam Sims had nearly a 2 to 1 ratio when it comes to how frequently he was targeted vs his yardage value. While that’s not unusual for a wide receiver his numbers are high in this regard. That data would suggest that Sims, a longtime favorite of mine and many fans, needs to be a bigger part of the offense in the future.
The opposite could be said about Peyton Barber. Despite having over 100 plays go his way on offense, he had relatively low production. Part of this is because of the way Barber was used – he’s the power back whose job is to get 1st downs in short yard situations. However, I dug a bit deeper into the stats of Barber and the other running backs. Only 26% of Barber’s runs were for 1st downs. In my estimation, they used him way more than they should have, and more of these runs should have gone to other players.
What does this tell us about the team’s needs for 2021? Of their top 5 contributors on offense 3 were running backs, with 1 tight end and 1 wide out. This is clearly far out of balance with how the modern NFL works. You have to hope that we either see some more growth from Antonio Gibson and J.D. McKissic so they aren’t using Barber as much, or a new 3rd running back, who makes more out of his opportunities is brought in to replace him.
Clearly, the team also needs an upgraded receiving target, either a tight end or a wide receiver, however they may not need to be elite. You can see there were 40 touches from Dontrelle Inman, Robert Foster, Temarrick Hemingway, Jeremy Sprinkle, and Marcus Baugh. 40 touches would be perfect for a solid 2nd tight end or 3rd or 4th receiver, rather than being spread over a bunch of guys. As much as I like guys Isaiah Wright and Steven Sims, they are both slot receivers. An upgrade to that position in particular to a premier receiver who could do more with those 75 targets would be worthwhile. A reduced role by some of these back of the roster guys in 2021 in favor of better weapons next year should show some immediate results..
The QB Receiver Relationship
The second chart I want to discuss today is something I’d not thought of before this year. But it can show how each receivers played with each of the QB’s this season. To do this, I decided to add up each receiver’s numbers in their games with Dwayne Haskins, Kyle Allen, and Alex Smith. One thing to note is that I only used games where one quarterback played the whole game start to finish. As a result, four of the 16 games are not added into this calculation. But the data still shows some interesting results.
| QB | Reciever | Tgts | Ctchs | Yds | Tds | Tgts pg | Ctch/pg | Y/pg | Catch% | Games Played |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Haskins | McLaurin | 51 | 33 | 464 | 1 | 10.2 | 6.6 | 92.8 | 64.7% | 5 |
| Allen | McLaurin | 23 | 14 | 164 | 1 | 11.5 | 7 | 82 | 60.9% | 2 |
| Smith | McLaurin | 39 | 28 | 325 | 1 | 7.8 | 5.6 | 65 | 71.8% | 5 |
| Smith | McKissic | 39 | 27 | 190 | 7.8 | 5.4 | 38 | 69.2% | 5 | |
| Allen | McKissic | 8 | 8 | 59 | 4 | 4 | 29.5 | 100.0% | 2 | |
| Haskins | McKissic | 29 | 21 | 131 | 1 | 5.8 | 4.2 | 26.2 | 72.4% | 5 |
| Haskins | Gibson | 10 | 9 | 101 | 3.33 | 3 | 33.67 | 90.0% | 3 | |
| Allen | Gibson | 6 | 4 | 25 | 3 | 2 | 12.5 | 66.7% | 2 | |
| Smith | Gibson | 14 | 11 | 57 | 3.5 | 2.75 | 14.25 | 78.6% | 4 | |
| Allen | Thomas | 8 | 7 | 102 | 2 | 4 | 3.5 | 51 | 87.5% | 2 |
| Haskins | Thomas | 44 | 26 | 203 | 1 | 8.8 | 5.2 | 40.6 | 59.1% | 5 |
| Smith | Thomas | 24 | 18 | 161 | 3 | 4.8 | 3.6 | 32.2 | 75.0% | 5 |
| Smith | C Sims | 21 | 16 | 209 | 5.25 | 4 | 52.25 | 76.2% | 4 | |
| Allen | C Sims | 2 | 2 | 44 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 22 | 100.0% | 2 |
| Haskins | C Sims | 10 | 7 | 43 | 5 | 3.5 | 21.5 | 70.0% | 2 | |
| Allen | Inman | 5 | 5 | 45 | 5 | 5 | 45 | 100.0% | 1 | |
| Haskins | Inman | 21 | 11 | 105 | 2 | 5.25 | 2.75 | 26.25 | 52.4% | 4 |
| Smith | Inman | 1 | 1 | 15 | 1 | 1 | 15 | 100.0% | 1 | |
| Smith | Wright | 11 | 8 | 71 | 3.67 | 2.67 | 23.67 | 72.7% | 3 | |
| Allen | Wright | 5 | 4 | 25 | 5 | 4 | 25 | 80.0% | 1 | |
| Haskins | Wright | 13 | 10 | 59 | 4.33 | 3.33 | 19.67 | 76.9% | 3 | |
| Allen | Barber | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 100.0% | 1 | |
| Smith | Barber | 1 | 1 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 100.0% | 1 | |
| Haskins | Barber | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.0% | 1 | |
| Haskins | S Sims | 10 | 7 | 114 | 3.33 | 2.33 | 38 | 70.0% | 3 | |
| Smith | S Sims | 17 | 14 | 90 | 1 | 3.4 | 2.8 | 18 | 82.4% | 5 |
| Allen | Gandy Golden | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.0% | 1 | |
| Haskins | Gandy Golden | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1.5 | 0.5 | 1.5 | 33.3% | 2 | |
| Allen | Hemingway | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.0% | 1 | |
| Haskins | Baugh | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 100.0% | 1 | |
| Allen | Sprinkle | 1 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 100.0% | 1 | |
| Smith | Badet | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.0% | 1 | |
| Haskins | Foster | 2 | 1 | 9 | 2 | 1 | 9 | 50.0% | 1 |
Note: The final column shows how many games a receiver played with the QB. If they didn’t play or didn’t have any receptions in a game I didn’t count it into the total number of games, this factors into the per game averages.
Games 5, 8, 13,15 all had 2 QB’s play and were left out of these numbers. Smith started 5 full games, Games 9, 10, 11, 12, 16. Allen started 2 full games, games 6 and 7. Haskins started 5 full games, Games 1,2,3,4,14.
Interestingly, many of our receivers had better games with Haskins under center rather than Smith. Star receiver Terry McLaurin in particular had a serious drop off in terms of targets and yardage with Alex at quarterback. While Cam Sims was much more productive with Smith throwing him the ball doubling his yard’s per game average. Logan Thomas seemed to be at his best with Allen and worst with Smith, though he was targeted more often by Haskins than either other QB.
One thing I didn’t expect it seems that Haskins did a better job working with the team’s slot receivers, Steve Sims and Isaiah Wright, than did Smith. One would have thought that Smith’s West Coast, dink and dunk style would favor these two in the short passing game, but that’s not the case.
What do this mean for the team going forward next year? Haskins is already gone. Kyle Allen was on a one year contract and will be an Exclusive Rights Free Agent when free agency begins. There’s talk that Smith may retire after the season, so we well could be looking at 3 new names in 2021, unless Allen is re-signed. But if somehow Allen is the starting QB, some serious work should be put in to find him a second tight end option. So many have said that success is all about a player being in the right situation. The big takeaway from this effort is that for whoever is the quarterback in the future, the team needs to make sure that they are finding targets that fit his play style, and with whom he can develop a good relationship with on the field.