ckparrothead
Premium Member
I posted this in VIP, but I figured there's no harm in sharing it out in the Main Forum. So let's dive right in on some issues.
Run/Pass Selection
Cam Cameron mentioned something during his press conference about only calling runs 40% of the time. That confused me because, like Keith says it looks on the outset like they passed 466 times and ran 522 times.
So, of course, I looked into it. What I found was that Cam Cameron was actually pretty close to being correct.
There are two main problems with the 466/522 accounting: all 28 of the Chargers' sacks are unaccounted for, and all 53 QB runs are counted among the run totals.
The reality I found was that 43 of the 53 QB runs by Rivers, Whitehurst, and Volek came on 1st/2nd/3rd & >2. This means only 10 of the runs were actually called that way in the play-calling. The rest were just scrambles off broken pass plays.
So, as far as I can tell, you can break the calls into called passes, and called runs, and you get the following:
537 called passes (53%)
479 called runs (47%)
Of course I don't want to stop there, because I always like to account for special plays. Special plays proved to be one of the more maddening aspects of Mike Mularkey's regime here. Let's just define special plays as any runs by a non-RB that were not quarterback scrambles, and any passes by a non-QB.
3 HB passes
1 PK pass
10 QB sneaks
29 FB hand-offs
6 WR reverses
1 TE reverse
1 PK run (may have been a botched snap)
So then we have the following:
533 Quarterback Passes (52.5%)
432 Half-back Runs (42.5%)
51 Special Plays (5.0%)
Resting Your Tailback
One trend that I've always noticed in San Diego was the Chargers' propensity to rely on their backup runner in the 4th quarter. At first you may think oh, well that's just the Chargers being ahead by a lot and taking Tomlinson out to rest him. However, I don't think that was the case...based on the games I have seen. I can't prove it statistically without doing a whole lot of work that I do not want to do, however I can at least show you proof of Michael Turner's increase role in the 4th quarter.
Below are the quarter-by-quarter splits between Tomlinson and his primary backups for the last three years (2004-06). You will see Tomlinson's number of runs, followed by the number of primary backup runs. In parenthesis, I've put Tomlinson's run numbers into percentages. Please note that for 2005 & 2006, based on the statistics, I've designated only Michael Turner as LT's primary backup. For 2004, I designated both Chatman and Turner as primary backups, based on the fact that Turner had a fair decent number of runs that year.
Q1: 285/20 (93.4%)
Q2: 258/31 (89.3%)
Q3: 272/54 (83.4%)
Q4: 210/117 (64.2%)
As you can see, Tomlinson's role among halfbacks steadily diminished quarter-by-quarter until it finally takes a dramatic dip in the 4th quarter.
Those of you expecting Miami to pound the ball with their primary back (whether you feel that will be Ronnie, or Ricky, or neither) in the 4th quarter had better consider yourself forewarned...that is not the style established by Cam Cameron and Marty Schottenheimer in San Diego.
In this way I think there is some continuity between Nick Saban and Cam Cameron. Saban cared a great deal about the number of carries Ronnie gets and not wanting to overwork him. Many will say he cared too much. Arguably, Cam Cameron cares just as much about not burning out his runner and that has shown in his play calling.
I would argue that Cam regulated Tomlinson's carries in a smarter way. Where in Miami in 2006 we've shown a preference to regulate this by just passing the ball instead of running it, Cam continued to run the ball, but with his backup runners in the 4th quarter when hopefully Tomlinson had already softened up defenses. This way Tomlinson would not get too many 4th quarter carries, which are arguably more taxing than 1st quarter carries and carry a greater risk of injury.
Formations & Predictability
One of the most interesting trends within the formation splits involves the use of Antonio Gates. The issue at hand is that a very large portion of the Chargers' pass plays came out of a 0-TE formation. However, this doesn't mean that Antonio Gates was off the field, it usually means he was lined up at a WR position.
Here are some tight end splits, limited only to the passing game:
0-TE: 249 calls
1-TE: 189 calls
2-TE: 84 calls
3-TE: 2 calls
Similarly, here are some call #'s for the run game (limited to LT & MT):
0-TE: 46 calls
1-TE: 248 calls
2-TE: 129 calls
3-TE: 18 calls
As you can probably see by just eyeballing the numbers, the lack of a tight end in the formation looks to have been a significant tell in 2006. Discounting special plays, the Chargers came out in 0-TE Formations on 30.6% of their non-special play calls. Of those, about 84.4% were pass plays.
Is this significant predictability? Perhaps. Using the number of tight ends in the formation (zero or greater-than-zero) as a predictor of whether the Chargers were running or passing would yield a hit rate of 66.6%. This would mean that if the defense guessed "pass" every time they saw zero tight ends, or guessed "run" every time they saw more than zero, they'd be correct on 2 out of 3 plays.
Again, this does not mean that Antonio Gates was off the field. Out of Gates' total 71 receptions, 36 of them came from a 0-TE set, suggesting that 0-TE designations are formation-based, not personnel-based. In reality, the Chargers made extensive use of motion (about 56.4% of non-special plays) and on many occasions they either had Gates start out wide and shift back to a TE formation, or they had him start as a TE and shift out wide.
So, even though the 0-TE formation was a relatively significant tell, the extensive use of motion suggests that the pre-snap motion may have limited the effectiveness of the prediction by shortening the time which the defenders can adjust their positions and mindset. After all, Phil Rivers had a 98.0 quarterback rating out of 0-TE formations.
So what about the shotgun formation? One of my biggest pet peeves about Mike Mularkey's offense was that he passed out of the shotgun almost 70% of pass plays. This led to what I feel is a very significant tell that would allow defenses to use the shotgun formation to guess correctly on 75% of Miami's plays whether the play was going to be a run or a pass. Unlike a TE-based tell which can be affected by motion, a shotgun-based tell is evident right out of the huddle as the players begin to line up.
The Chargers used the shotgun on 174 of their normal play calls. All but 9 were passes. Is this significant? I would argue no, this was not a significant tell. Guessing run/pass based on whether the Chargers came out in a shotgun formation would have yielded predictability of about 62%. I do not consider that to be necessarily significant, nor out of line for any offense that makes regular use of the shotgun formation.
I personally believe that, without gathering evidence to support it, the significance of being able to predict a pass play is not much. The shotgun has been in existence for a long time now and has been used extensively. Splitting out 4-WR formations has been done for a long time as well. Teams may know that a pass is coming, but they do not know who will be getting the ball.
On the other hand, I personally believe that run predictability is more dangerous. In the end, my beef with Miami's formation-based predictable nature lay in the fact that with the pass-heavy offense, combined with the extensive use of the shotgun, teams could predict Miami's run plays with a success rate of about 67% I believe. In other words, if it wasn't a shotgun formation, about two-thirds of the time it was a run, and if it was a shotgun formation, about nine-tenths of the time it was a pass.
In the case of the Chargers, if they did not line up in a 0-TE formation (by the time their shifting and motion was done), they still only ran the ball about 59% of the time. If they did not line up in the shotgun, they still only ran the ball about 53% of the time.
As for motion-based indicators, again I have to say they weren't dreadfully significant. Phillip Rivers was just as likely to be getting the call out of motion as non-motion (254 vs. 269). On the other hand, the halfbacks were much more likely to get their calls out of motion than non-motion, as nearly two-thirds of halfback runs came out of motion plays.
Here are some overall formation breakdowns. These encompass all 965 non-special play, with the 10 QB sneaks and 29 FB gives added back into the numbers (still excluding WR/TE reverses, HB passes, etc).
0-TE: 30%
1-TE: 45%
2-TE: 23%
3-TE: 2%
Shotgun: 18%
Single Back: 20%
Pro Form: 8%
I-Form: 54%
Three Backs: 0%
0-1 WR: 17%
2 WR: 40%
3 WR: 29%
4+ WR: 14%
It should be noted that of the 8% of pro formation plays, an overwhelming majority were pass plays, indicating that Cam Cameron does not consider the pro formation a running formation.
It should also be noted that Lorenzo Neal got the overwhelming majority of his handoffs from the I-Formation.
Down, Distance & Zone
One interesting trend to follow on an offense is to figure out what the play callers tendencies have been on various down & distance situations.
My favorite is first down. The media make a big deal out of it for a reason. Do you predictably run the ball on first down, or do you always pass it? Do you have an even split?
First Down Runs: 60%
First Down Passes: 40%
I suppose the next question would be, what about second down? It doesn't seem as important a question, since most media emphasize first downs, but I suppose it is worth looking into.
Second Down Runs: 43%
Second Down Passes: 57%
Now of course, third down is likely to be biased towards the pass by a significant margin. In this case, the Chargers ran the ball only 25% on third downs. However, what I find interesting to look at is the propensity to pass the ball on third and less than two years, as well as the propensity to run the ball on third and three to seven yards. Not necessarily conservative, but rather popular play calling would usually entail running the ball with two or less yards to move the sticks, and passing the ball with three or more yards to go. I would consider passing the ball in the first situation or running the ball in the latter situation to be aggressive.
3rd & 0-2 Passing: 24%
3rd & 0-2 Running: 76%
3rd & 3-7 Passing: 86%
3rd & 3-7 Running: 14%
The last bit of trend-following that I find to be interesting is to break the field up into zones. What kind of calling did we see in 2006 inside the offense's own 20? What did we see between the offense's own 20 and 39 yard lines? What did we see between the 40's? Between the defense's 39 and 20? The red zone?
Inside Own 20 Passing: 50%
Inside Own 20 Running: 50%
Own 20-39 Passing: 54%
Own 20-39 Running: 46%
Between 40's Passing: 63%
Between 40's Running: 37%
Opp. 39-20 Passing: 54%
Opp. 39-20 Running: 46%
Red Zone Passing: 37%
Red Zone Running: 63%
You almost have to admire how symmetrical the play calling was in 2006 within the zones. Between the 20 and 39 yard lines, on both sides of the field, the play calling was slightly biased towards the pass. The area between the 40 yard lines and in the red zone saw opposite play calling. Within the offense's own 20 yard line, calling was balanced.
Conclusions
You have to remember that these percentages, in addition to being subject to human error on my part, also represent tendencies that Cam Cameron developed with a different offense that had different players. Cameron said himself that he adapts the calling to the fit.
That said, I think there are a few main points you want to pull out of this. The first is what I feel may be the most significant, and that is the diminishing role of LaDainian Tomlinson as the game wears on. Say what you want about it, but it is there. Many people love to envision their star runner pounding the rock down the defenses throat in the fourth quarter to win the game, but that does not seem to be Cameron's way.
In fact, given the prominence of the backup runners in Cameron's offense overall, I suspect that if Ricky comes back successfully, we will see a full two-back system with carries split relatively straight down the middle.
Another important thing to take from this is Cameron's preference for the I-Formation. Over half of all his offensive plays came out of the I-Formation, and when he mentioned in his opening press conference how he values players from the center-outward, he was describing an I-Formation. The Chargers ran the ball about two-thirds of the time they went to the I-Formation.
Was that a concern a year ago? Yes, it was. Is it a concern now? No, it is not. In 2005, Ronnie's worst efficiency came out of the I-Formation. In 2006, his best efficiency came out of the I-Formation. Without evidence to back me up, I would attribute this largely to Ronnie's developing patience for the hole. I thought there was a noticeable difference between his running style before the bye week, and after the bye week. Not only did he average nearly a yard more per carry after the bye week, it very much looked to me like he was slowing up his running behind the line in order to be able to see and react to the hole instead of slamming it up into the hole so fast he had no ability to react to developing secondary holes. He ran with more vision, he ran with more patience, and this leads me to believe that he will do well under Cam Cameron.
It should be noted that a year ago, Ricky Williams' best efficiency also came out of the I-Formation.
Other than that the most important thing to note is the 'classic' look of the Cam Cameron offense. There is some question as to the causal relationship between effectiveness and the classical look of an offense, however the bottom line is that this looked like a classic Norv Turner offense in nearly every way. Everything about it, from the run/pass splits on certain downs and in certain zones, to the preference for the I-Formation screams Norv Turner.
The most interesting deviation from the classic Turner look would be Cameron's creative use of the tight end within the offense. It would not be wholly unexpected for him to use Randy McMichael in a similar manner, given his athleticism and ability to catch passes. However, I would not expect Randy to be emphasized the way Cameron emphasized Gates. As such, I would expect the trend of splitting the TE out wide like a WR to continue, however I do not believe McMichael should be in line for 70+ catches or 1000+ yards.
There is some question as to whether the vertical nature of Cameron's offense, with about 66% of pass attempts traveling less than 10 yards, matches with a classic Norv Turner offense. However, as Fineas has noted in the past, short passing became a very popular phenomenon in 2006 with a lot of teams passing the ball short over 60% of the time. In the absence of numbers from 2002 through 2004 to compare with, the short passing of the Chargers may have either been a temporary phenomenon based on style of defense, or it may have been linked with the strengths and weaknesses of the two quarterbacks involved, Phil Rivers and Drew Brees. Neither has a particularly strong arm.
Run/Pass Selection
Cam Cameron mentioned something during his press conference about only calling runs 40% of the time. That confused me because, like Keith says it looks on the outset like they passed 466 times and ran 522 times.
So, of course, I looked into it. What I found was that Cam Cameron was actually pretty close to being correct.
There are two main problems with the 466/522 accounting: all 28 of the Chargers' sacks are unaccounted for, and all 53 QB runs are counted among the run totals.
The reality I found was that 43 of the 53 QB runs by Rivers, Whitehurst, and Volek came on 1st/2nd/3rd & >2. This means only 10 of the runs were actually called that way in the play-calling. The rest were just scrambles off broken pass plays.
So, as far as I can tell, you can break the calls into called passes, and called runs, and you get the following:
537 called passes (53%)
479 called runs (47%)
Of course I don't want to stop there, because I always like to account for special plays. Special plays proved to be one of the more maddening aspects of Mike Mularkey's regime here. Let's just define special plays as any runs by a non-RB that were not quarterback scrambles, and any passes by a non-QB.
3 HB passes
1 PK pass
10 QB sneaks
29 FB hand-offs
6 WR reverses
1 TE reverse
1 PK run (may have been a botched snap)
So then we have the following:
533 Quarterback Passes (52.5%)
432 Half-back Runs (42.5%)
51 Special Plays (5.0%)
Resting Your Tailback
One trend that I've always noticed in San Diego was the Chargers' propensity to rely on their backup runner in the 4th quarter. At first you may think oh, well that's just the Chargers being ahead by a lot and taking Tomlinson out to rest him. However, I don't think that was the case...based on the games I have seen. I can't prove it statistically without doing a whole lot of work that I do not want to do, however I can at least show you proof of Michael Turner's increase role in the 4th quarter.
Below are the quarter-by-quarter splits between Tomlinson and his primary backups for the last three years (2004-06). You will see Tomlinson's number of runs, followed by the number of primary backup runs. In parenthesis, I've put Tomlinson's run numbers into percentages. Please note that for 2005 & 2006, based on the statistics, I've designated only Michael Turner as LT's primary backup. For 2004, I designated both Chatman and Turner as primary backups, based on the fact that Turner had a fair decent number of runs that year.
Q1: 285/20 (93.4%)
Q2: 258/31 (89.3%)
Q3: 272/54 (83.4%)
Q4: 210/117 (64.2%)
As you can see, Tomlinson's role among halfbacks steadily diminished quarter-by-quarter until it finally takes a dramatic dip in the 4th quarter.
Those of you expecting Miami to pound the ball with their primary back (whether you feel that will be Ronnie, or Ricky, or neither) in the 4th quarter had better consider yourself forewarned...that is not the style established by Cam Cameron and Marty Schottenheimer in San Diego.
In this way I think there is some continuity between Nick Saban and Cam Cameron. Saban cared a great deal about the number of carries Ronnie gets and not wanting to overwork him. Many will say he cared too much. Arguably, Cam Cameron cares just as much about not burning out his runner and that has shown in his play calling.
I would argue that Cam regulated Tomlinson's carries in a smarter way. Where in Miami in 2006 we've shown a preference to regulate this by just passing the ball instead of running it, Cam continued to run the ball, but with his backup runners in the 4th quarter when hopefully Tomlinson had already softened up defenses. This way Tomlinson would not get too many 4th quarter carries, which are arguably more taxing than 1st quarter carries and carry a greater risk of injury.
Formations & Predictability
One of the most interesting trends within the formation splits involves the use of Antonio Gates. The issue at hand is that a very large portion of the Chargers' pass plays came out of a 0-TE formation. However, this doesn't mean that Antonio Gates was off the field, it usually means he was lined up at a WR position.
Here are some tight end splits, limited only to the passing game:
0-TE: 249 calls
1-TE: 189 calls
2-TE: 84 calls
3-TE: 2 calls
Similarly, here are some call #'s for the run game (limited to LT & MT):
0-TE: 46 calls
1-TE: 248 calls
2-TE: 129 calls
3-TE: 18 calls
As you can probably see by just eyeballing the numbers, the lack of a tight end in the formation looks to have been a significant tell in 2006. Discounting special plays, the Chargers came out in 0-TE Formations on 30.6% of their non-special play calls. Of those, about 84.4% were pass plays.
Is this significant predictability? Perhaps. Using the number of tight ends in the formation (zero or greater-than-zero) as a predictor of whether the Chargers were running or passing would yield a hit rate of 66.6%. This would mean that if the defense guessed "pass" every time they saw zero tight ends, or guessed "run" every time they saw more than zero, they'd be correct on 2 out of 3 plays.
Again, this does not mean that Antonio Gates was off the field. Out of Gates' total 71 receptions, 36 of them came from a 0-TE set, suggesting that 0-TE designations are formation-based, not personnel-based. In reality, the Chargers made extensive use of motion (about 56.4% of non-special plays) and on many occasions they either had Gates start out wide and shift back to a TE formation, or they had him start as a TE and shift out wide.
So, even though the 0-TE formation was a relatively significant tell, the extensive use of motion suggests that the pre-snap motion may have limited the effectiveness of the prediction by shortening the time which the defenders can adjust their positions and mindset. After all, Phil Rivers had a 98.0 quarterback rating out of 0-TE formations.
So what about the shotgun formation? One of my biggest pet peeves about Mike Mularkey's offense was that he passed out of the shotgun almost 70% of pass plays. This led to what I feel is a very significant tell that would allow defenses to use the shotgun formation to guess correctly on 75% of Miami's plays whether the play was going to be a run or a pass. Unlike a TE-based tell which can be affected by motion, a shotgun-based tell is evident right out of the huddle as the players begin to line up.
The Chargers used the shotgun on 174 of their normal play calls. All but 9 were passes. Is this significant? I would argue no, this was not a significant tell. Guessing run/pass based on whether the Chargers came out in a shotgun formation would have yielded predictability of about 62%. I do not consider that to be necessarily significant, nor out of line for any offense that makes regular use of the shotgun formation.
I personally believe that, without gathering evidence to support it, the significance of being able to predict a pass play is not much. The shotgun has been in existence for a long time now and has been used extensively. Splitting out 4-WR formations has been done for a long time as well. Teams may know that a pass is coming, but they do not know who will be getting the ball.
On the other hand, I personally believe that run predictability is more dangerous. In the end, my beef with Miami's formation-based predictable nature lay in the fact that with the pass-heavy offense, combined with the extensive use of the shotgun, teams could predict Miami's run plays with a success rate of about 67% I believe. In other words, if it wasn't a shotgun formation, about two-thirds of the time it was a run, and if it was a shotgun formation, about nine-tenths of the time it was a pass.
In the case of the Chargers, if they did not line up in a 0-TE formation (by the time their shifting and motion was done), they still only ran the ball about 59% of the time. If they did not line up in the shotgun, they still only ran the ball about 53% of the time.
As for motion-based indicators, again I have to say they weren't dreadfully significant. Phillip Rivers was just as likely to be getting the call out of motion as non-motion (254 vs. 269). On the other hand, the halfbacks were much more likely to get their calls out of motion than non-motion, as nearly two-thirds of halfback runs came out of motion plays.
Here are some overall formation breakdowns. These encompass all 965 non-special play, with the 10 QB sneaks and 29 FB gives added back into the numbers (still excluding WR/TE reverses, HB passes, etc).
0-TE: 30%
1-TE: 45%
2-TE: 23%
3-TE: 2%
Shotgun: 18%
Single Back: 20%
Pro Form: 8%
I-Form: 54%
Three Backs: 0%
0-1 WR: 17%
2 WR: 40%
3 WR: 29%
4+ WR: 14%
It should be noted that of the 8% of pro formation plays, an overwhelming majority were pass plays, indicating that Cam Cameron does not consider the pro formation a running formation.
It should also be noted that Lorenzo Neal got the overwhelming majority of his handoffs from the I-Formation.
Down, Distance & Zone
One interesting trend to follow on an offense is to figure out what the play callers tendencies have been on various down & distance situations.
My favorite is first down. The media make a big deal out of it for a reason. Do you predictably run the ball on first down, or do you always pass it? Do you have an even split?
First Down Runs: 60%
First Down Passes: 40%
I suppose the next question would be, what about second down? It doesn't seem as important a question, since most media emphasize first downs, but I suppose it is worth looking into.
Second Down Runs: 43%
Second Down Passes: 57%
Now of course, third down is likely to be biased towards the pass by a significant margin. In this case, the Chargers ran the ball only 25% on third downs. However, what I find interesting to look at is the propensity to pass the ball on third and less than two years, as well as the propensity to run the ball on third and three to seven yards. Not necessarily conservative, but rather popular play calling would usually entail running the ball with two or less yards to move the sticks, and passing the ball with three or more yards to go. I would consider passing the ball in the first situation or running the ball in the latter situation to be aggressive.
3rd & 0-2 Passing: 24%
3rd & 0-2 Running: 76%
3rd & 3-7 Passing: 86%
3rd & 3-7 Running: 14%
The last bit of trend-following that I find to be interesting is to break the field up into zones. What kind of calling did we see in 2006 inside the offense's own 20? What did we see between the offense's own 20 and 39 yard lines? What did we see between the 40's? Between the defense's 39 and 20? The red zone?
Inside Own 20 Passing: 50%
Inside Own 20 Running: 50%
Own 20-39 Passing: 54%
Own 20-39 Running: 46%
Between 40's Passing: 63%
Between 40's Running: 37%
Opp. 39-20 Passing: 54%
Opp. 39-20 Running: 46%
Red Zone Passing: 37%
Red Zone Running: 63%
You almost have to admire how symmetrical the play calling was in 2006 within the zones. Between the 20 and 39 yard lines, on both sides of the field, the play calling was slightly biased towards the pass. The area between the 40 yard lines and in the red zone saw opposite play calling. Within the offense's own 20 yard line, calling was balanced.
Conclusions
You have to remember that these percentages, in addition to being subject to human error on my part, also represent tendencies that Cam Cameron developed with a different offense that had different players. Cameron said himself that he adapts the calling to the fit.
That said, I think there are a few main points you want to pull out of this. The first is what I feel may be the most significant, and that is the diminishing role of LaDainian Tomlinson as the game wears on. Say what you want about it, but it is there. Many people love to envision their star runner pounding the rock down the defenses throat in the fourth quarter to win the game, but that does not seem to be Cameron's way.
In fact, given the prominence of the backup runners in Cameron's offense overall, I suspect that if Ricky comes back successfully, we will see a full two-back system with carries split relatively straight down the middle.
Another important thing to take from this is Cameron's preference for the I-Formation. Over half of all his offensive plays came out of the I-Formation, and when he mentioned in his opening press conference how he values players from the center-outward, he was describing an I-Formation. The Chargers ran the ball about two-thirds of the time they went to the I-Formation.
Was that a concern a year ago? Yes, it was. Is it a concern now? No, it is not. In 2005, Ronnie's worst efficiency came out of the I-Formation. In 2006, his best efficiency came out of the I-Formation. Without evidence to back me up, I would attribute this largely to Ronnie's developing patience for the hole. I thought there was a noticeable difference between his running style before the bye week, and after the bye week. Not only did he average nearly a yard more per carry after the bye week, it very much looked to me like he was slowing up his running behind the line in order to be able to see and react to the hole instead of slamming it up into the hole so fast he had no ability to react to developing secondary holes. He ran with more vision, he ran with more patience, and this leads me to believe that he will do well under Cam Cameron.
It should be noted that a year ago, Ricky Williams' best efficiency also came out of the I-Formation.
Other than that the most important thing to note is the 'classic' look of the Cam Cameron offense. There is some question as to the causal relationship between effectiveness and the classical look of an offense, however the bottom line is that this looked like a classic Norv Turner offense in nearly every way. Everything about it, from the run/pass splits on certain downs and in certain zones, to the preference for the I-Formation screams Norv Turner.
The most interesting deviation from the classic Turner look would be Cameron's creative use of the tight end within the offense. It would not be wholly unexpected for him to use Randy McMichael in a similar manner, given his athleticism and ability to catch passes. However, I would not expect Randy to be emphasized the way Cameron emphasized Gates. As such, I would expect the trend of splitting the TE out wide like a WR to continue, however I do not believe McMichael should be in line for 70+ catches or 1000+ yards.
There is some question as to whether the vertical nature of Cameron's offense, with about 66% of pass attempts traveling less than 10 yards, matches with a classic Norv Turner offense. However, as Fineas has noted in the past, short passing became a very popular phenomenon in 2006 with a lot of teams passing the ball short over 60% of the time. In the absence of numbers from 2002 through 2004 to compare with, the short passing of the Chargers may have either been a temporary phenomenon based on style of defense, or it may have been linked with the strengths and weaknesses of the two quarterbacks involved, Phil Rivers and Drew Brees. Neither has a particularly strong arm.
