Our 2015 passing offense - how much does the past inform the future?

Since we have had Manning at QB our passing offense has been our major weapon that we have used to move the ball and to score. In the past three seasons our offense has scored 135 TDs through the air and 46 on the ground (roughly 3:1). While this ratio had been going up slowly over the past twenty NFL seasons, the entire league over the past three seasons has almost exactly a 2.0:1.0 ratio (2368:1191). Since we have had the same QB, but different receivers, let's look at who Manning has chosen to throw to over the past three years (excluding guys with 10 or fewer targets) through the lens of three stats:

1. YAC% = (yards after the catch)/(total receiving yards). Our offense has been predicated on a lot of YAC

2.  Catch% = (receptions)/(targets). The guys with the highest catch % are generally the guys that Manning has confidence in because he knows they have the best chance of catching the ball if he throws it to them.

3. 1DN% = (receiving first downs)/(receptions). This number will be lower for guys who catch short balls on 1st and 2nd own, but generally you want the guys with the higher numbers here because the have the ability to move the chains on 1st, 2nd AND 3rd down.

Broncos Receiving Stats 2014

To refresh your memory here are stats that our receivers put up last season (all data is from pro-football-reference.com unless otherwise stated).

NAME	REC	TAR	YDS	AVG	TD	LONG	20+	1DN	YAC%	Catch%	1DN%
Demaryius Thomas	111	184	1619	14.6	11	86	25	69	40.0%	60.3%	62.2%
Emmanuel Sanders	101	141	1404	13.9	9	48	24	69	26.4%	71.6%	68.3%
Julius Thomas	43	60	489	11.4	12	35	7	30	37.0%	71.7%	69.8%
Wes Welker	49	64	464	9.5	2	39	5	24	36.6%	76.6%	49.0%
C.J. Anderson	34	44	324	9.5	2	51	4	13	84.3%	77.3%	38.2%
Ronnie Hillman	21	34	139	6.6	1	16	0	6	78.4%	61.8%	28.6%
Jacob Tamme	14	28	109	7.8	2	26	1	4	22.9%	50.0%	28.6%
Virgil Green	6	6	74	12.3	1	38	1	5	32.4%	100.0%	83.3%
Montee Ball	9	13	62	6.9	0	16	0	2	85.5%	69.2%	22.2%
Andre Caldwell	5	15	47	9.4	0	15	0	4	36.2%	33.3%	80.0%
Juwan Thompson	4	7	25	6.3	0	14	0	0	84.0%	57.1%	0.0%
Cody Latimer	2	4	23	11.5	0	14	0	1	52.2%	50.0%	50.0%
Totals	399	607	4779	12	40	86	67	227	39.8%	65.7%	56.9%

Keep in mind that RBs generally have YAC% that is significantly greater than WRs or TEs. So we see from above that DT and ES combined for 61% of the receiving first downs that we gained last season.  WW had the best catch% last season while Caldwell's was one of the worst in the league. The 12 TD catches from JT are going to be difficult to replace, particularly if you look specifically at red zone targets below (RZ data from NFLsavant.com)

Name	Team	Pos.	Completions	Targets	Comp %	TDs	Target %
Thomas, Demaryius	DEN	WR	18	40	45	6	33.6
Sanders, Emmanuel	DEN	WR	17	25	68	6	21.0
Thomas, Julius	DEN	TE	13	15	86.7	9	12.6
Welker, Wes	DEN	WR	6	10	60	1	8.4
Tamme, Jacob	DEN	TE	5	9	55.6	1	7.6
Hillman, Ronnie	DEN	RB	5	9	55.5	1	7.6
Anderson, C.J.	DEN	RB	7	7	100	1	5.9
Ball, Montee	DEN	RB	1	2	50	0	1.7
Green, Virgil	DEN	TE	1	1	100	1	0.8
Caldwell, Andre	DEN	WR	1	1	100	0	0.8

JT only got 13% of the RZ targets (15) but he caught 13 of those targets leading to 9 TDs. One of our TEs will need to prove to Peyton that he can be this type of a weapon in the redzone for our offense to as effective at scoring in the red zone next season.

Three Season Aggregate Receiving Numbers

So who has PFM had the confidence in over the past three years - noting that we don't have many guys who got targets in all three seasons - see below. Only stats accumulated with the Broncos shown

		2014			2013			2012
	YAC%	Catch%	1DN%	YAC%	Catch%	1DN%	YAC%	Catch%	1DN%
Demaryius Thomas	40.0%	60.3%	62.2%	49.2%	64.3%	71.7%	37.5%	66.7%	63.8%
Emmanuel Sanders	26.4%	71.6%	68.3%
Julius Thomas	37.0%	71.7%	69.8%	49.5%	73.0%	63.1%
Wes Welker	36.6%	76.6%	49.0%	42.8%	66.4%	67.1%
C.J. Anderson	84.3%	77.3%	38.2%
Ronnie Hillman	78.4%	61.8%	28.6%	71.4%	85.7%	58.3%	117.7%	83.3%	30.0%
Jacob Tamme	22.9%	50.0%	28.6%	39.7%	80.0%	70.0%	38.7%	61.2%	55.8%
Virgil Green	32.4%	100.0%	83.3%	46.7%	75.0%	0.0%	93.7%	83.3%	80.0%
Montee Ball	85.5%	69.2%	22.2%	97.2%	74.1%	50.0%
Andre Caldwell	36.2%	33.3%	80.0%	20.5%	53.3%	68.8%
Juwan Thompson	84.0%	57.1%	0.0%
Cody Latimer	52.2%	50.0%	50.0%
Eric Decker				31.4%	63.5%	72.4%	27.3%	69.1%	61.2%
Knowshon Moreno				89.1%	81.1%	48.3%
Joel Dreessen				53.2%	77.8%	42.9%	43.3%	70.7%	46.3%
Brandon Stokley							26.5%	77.6%	66.7%
Willis McGahee							108.6%	78.8%	38.5%
Matt Willis							27.8%	45.5%	50.0%
Lance Ball							55.7%	63.6%	57.1%

So there is a lot to pick through in that table above. The first thing that should jump out is that almost every one of our receivers was better at getting yards after the catch in 2013 than in 2014. The other interesting thing to note is how much lower the 1DN% for many of our receivers in 2014 relative to 2013.

Does what Kubiak did in 2014 in Baltimore tell us anything about our 2015 passing offense?

This is debatable since while Joe Flacco is elite (that joke never gets old), he is very different from Peyton Manning. We don't know how much influence Kubiak is going have over the offense since Dennison is the OC (some with still contend the Manning is the OC).

Name	Pos.	Completions	Targets	Comp %	TDs
Smith, Steve	WR	82	144	56.9	5
Smith, Torrey	WR	51	101	50.5	11
Daniels, Owen	TE	49	76	64.5	4
Forsett, Justin	RB	46	61	75.4	0
Aiken, Kamar	WR	24	34	70.6	3
Brown, Marlon	WR	24	33	72.7	0
Juszczyk, Kyle	FB	19	28	67.9	1
Pitta, Dennis	TE	17	23	73.9	0
Jones, Jacoby	WR	9	19	47.4	0
Gillmore, Crockett	TE	11	15	73.3	1
Taliaferro, Lorenzo	RB	8	10	80.0	0
Campanaro, Michael	WR	7	9	77.8	1
Pierce, Bernard	RB	2	7	28.6	0
Toussaint, Fitzgerald	RB	3	6	50.0	0
Supernaw, Phillip	TE	2	2	100.0	0

It's key to note that BAL lost their best pass-catching TE (Pitta) to a season ending-injury early in the year so that might have changed their target distribution. Owen Daniels appears to have stepped-up admirably as their main receiving TE. I do like the fact that the FB was targeted 28 times. Baltimore threw the ball 112 times to their RBs last season (20% of total passes thrown) compared to 98 RB targets for us (16% ot total passes thrown).

Now let's compare RZ targets:

Name	Pos.	Completions	Targets	Comp %	TDs	Target %
Smith, Steve	WR	9	21	42.86	2	24.7
Smith, Torrey	WR	9	18	50	7	21.9
Daniels, Owen	TE	10	15	66.67	4	17.7
Aiken, Kamar	WR	6	7	85.71	3	8.2
Juszczyk, Kyle	FB	3	6	50	1	7.1
Forsett, Justin	RB	1	5	20	0	5.9
Pitta, Dennis	TE	0	4	0	0	4.7
Gillmore, Crockett	TE	1	3	33.33	1	3.5
Toussaint, Fitzgerald	RB	1	2	50	0	2.4
Campanaro, Michael	WR	1	2	50	1	2.4
Brown, Marlon	WR	1	1	100	0	1.2
Jones, Jacoby	WR	0	1	0	0	1.2

While Manning threw the ball 54% of the time towards Demaryius and Emmanuel in the red zone, Flacco last season spread the ball around a lot more. That being said our RZ target distribution was fairly similar if you break it down by position group. Below is a comparative chart by position group of RZ targets in 2014

Comparative 2014 position group RZ target%

	BAL	DEN
RB	15%	15%
TE	26%	21%
WR	59%	64%

The Ravens last season threw a few more balls to the TE in the RZ than we did, but they threw more to the TEs overall compared to us last season (20% to 16%)

Comparative overall target% by position group 2014

	BAL	DEN
RB	19.7%	16.1%
TE	20.4%	15.5%
WR	59.9%	67.2%

PFM threw 2 out of 3 balls to our WRs last season. So let's get back to the discussion of who he threw to on critical plays (3rd and 4th downs).

Going further back in Time

From 2010-2013 Kubes was the HC in Houston with Dennison as his OC. Let's look at their target distribution by position group over those 4season.

Houston Target Distribution under Kubiak/Dennison

	2013	2012	2011	2010
RB	17%	14%	21%	18%
FB	2%	8%	7%	5%
WR	56%	52%	45%	56%
TE	25%	26%	28%	22%

Again we have to remember the this was mostly Matt Schaub operating the offense and that who he chose to target may be very different from who Manning would have chosen to target had he been in Houston for these four seasons. That being said, it would appear that if history is our guide, then we will be throwing more to the RBs and the TEs next season and less to the WRs. The supposition here is that we will be running an offense similar to the offense that Kubes and Dennison ran in Houston and that may not be the case, but we will see.

Manning's most trusted receivers in 2014

We threw the ball 176 times on 3rd or 4th down last season - looking at who Manning threw to in those situations is informative.

Conversion% is (1DN or TD)/(targets)

Name	Targets	Catches	Catch%	Yards	1DN or TD	TDs	Conversion%
Emmanuel Sanders	41	29	70.70%	433	24	4	59%
Demaryius Thomas	53	31	58.50%	371	19	5	36%
Julius Thomas	20	15	75.00%	214	13	5	65%
Wes Welker	20	13	65.00%	119	9	0	45%
C.J. Anderson	10	6	60.00%	109	4	2	40%
Virgil Green	2	2	100.00%	39	2	1	100%
Montee Ball	4	3	75.00%	24	1	0	25%
Jacob Tamme	10	4	40.00%	15	1	0	10%
Ronnie Hillman	2	1	50.00%	9	0	0	0%
Isaiah Burse	1	0	0.00%	0	0	0	0%
Juwan Thompson	2	1	50.00%	0	0	0	0%
Andre Caldwell	4	0	0.00%	0	0	0	0%
Totals	169	105	62.10%	1333	76	17

Manning got sacked 7 times on 176 drop-backs on 3rd and 4th down.  While DT had more targets on 3rd or 4th down, his catch rate with below a lot of the other receivers on the team (Was PFM trying to get him more difficult passes on 3rd down than the others?). 76 of these passing plays on 3rd or 4th down last season resulted in a first down or a touchdown (43%). If you focus on the conversion% we see that JT and ES were our best "clutch" receivers last season (of the guys who got a lot of targets). Now we will most likely throw the ball less next season (Baltimore has 568 passing attempts while we had 607), but with J. Thomas, Welker, Tamme and (not yet) Caldwell not coming back next season, that's 54 targets in clutch situations that will need to be replaced by Latimer, Daniels, Green or someone else.