Over the past couple of years, the New Orleans Saints’ offense has been criticized for its lack of wide receiver options. Luckily for Saints’ fans like me, this area has been addressed by the signing of Emmanuel Sanders back in March — or has it? To answer this question, I dived into play-by-play (PBP) data to explore nearly every pass play from the Saints’ 2019 season. Spoiler: Emmanuel Sanders is just what the Saints need — get excited Who Dat Nation!

在過去的幾年中，新奧爾良圣徒隊的進攻由于缺乏廣泛的接球手選項而受到批評。 對于像我這樣的圣徒球迷來說，幸運的是，三月份伊曼紐爾·桑德斯(Emmanuel Sanders)的簽約已經解決了這一領域-是嗎？ 為了回答這個問題，我深入研究了逐場比賽(PBP)數據，以探索圣徒隊2019賽季幾乎所有的傳球比賽。 劇透：伊曼紐爾·桑德斯(Emmanuel Sanders)正是圣徒們所需要的-激動民族國度！

In this analysis, I used PBP data provided by Max Horowitz on Kaggle. An overview of the 2019 Saints’ offense showed that they attempted 602 passes (18th most in the league), which is equivalent to 61% of their plays. Interesting, but let’s look at these pass plays more closely. Since conventional statistics like pass yards, pass touchdowns or even passer rating don’t always tell the whole story (see Blake Bortles Is The Tom Brady Of Garbage Time), I focused on what I think is a more informative statistic called Win Probability Added (WPA). In a nutshell, WPA is a metric that measures how much more likely a team is to win a game after a given play. For example, in the loss against the Falcons last year, Drew Brees completed an 18 yard pass late in the 4th quarter when the game was out of hand. This play had WPA = 0%. Compare this to Brees’ 14 yard completion in the second quarter when the game was still competitive. This play had WPA = 4%. A more detailed description of WPA can be found here, but the idea is that WPA will put pass plays in the context of winning games. So, where did the Saints’ pass offense rank in terms of WPA? As shown below, best in the league:

在此分析中，我使用了Max Horowitz在Kaggle上提供的PBP數據。 對2019年圣徒隊進攻情況的概述顯示，他們嘗試了602次傳球(在聯盟中排名第18位)，占其出場人數的61％。 有趣，但是讓我們更仔細地看一下這些傳球的情況。 由于傳球碼，傳球達陣甚至傳球者評分等常規統計信息并不總能說明問題(請參閱Blake Bortles是《垃圾時間的湯姆·布雷迪》 )，因此我重點關注我認為是一種更為翔實的統計信息，稱為獲勝概率( WPA)。 簡而言之，WPA是一個度量標準，用于衡量團隊在給定比賽之后贏得比賽的可能性。 例如，在去年對陣獵鷹隊的比賽中，德魯·布雷斯(Drew Brees)在比賽失控的第四季度末完成了18碼傳球。 這場比賽的WPA = 0％。 相比之下，布雷斯在第二節比賽仍然充滿競爭力的時候在14碼處完成了比賽。 這場比賽的WPA = 4％。 在這里可以找到WPA的更詳細描述，但是其想法是WPA將在獲勝游戲的背景下放傳球。 那么，圣徒隊的傳球進攻在WPA上排名在哪里？ 如下圖所示，在聯盟中最好：

That means no improvements are needed, right? Not quite, and I’ll show you why. Let’s break down pass plays by deep and short passes. Deep passes are balls that traveled at least 15 yards in the air and short is anything under that. The plot below indicates that Saints’ Quarterbacks (QBs) performed better than the league average for both types of passes. For instance, when Brees threw a deep ball, his average WPA was 2.9% compared to the league average of 1.2%. However, Saints’ QBs had deep pass attempts lower than the league average. For example, only about 14% of Brees’ pass attempts went deep while the league average stood at around 19%.

這意味著不需要改進，對嗎？ 不完全是，我會告訴你原因。 讓我們按長傳和短傳細分傳球。 深度傳球是指在空中至少飛行15碼的球，而在該高度之下，球是短球。 下圖顯示了兩種傳球的圣徒四分衛(QBs)表現均優于聯盟平均水平。 例如，當布雷斯投出一記深球時，他的平均WPA為2.9％，而聯盟平均水平為1.2％。 但是，圣徒隊的QB傳球嘗試低于聯盟平均水平。 例如，布雷斯傳球嘗試中只有約14％的命中率更高，而聯盟平均水平約為19％。

Many critics would point that this is due to Brees’ decline in arm strength, but I’d argue that it’s his lack of weapons. To back this argument, I broke down WPA by receiving options in the plot below. Only three Saints’ players were targeted at least five times for deep passes. Ted Ginn Jr. played the deep threat role with 40% of his targets being deep passes, but didn’t make the most of them based on his below average WPA (1% compared to league average of 1.3%). This makes sense as Ginn had a catch rate of 54%, one of the lowest in the league. Both Thomas and Cook excelled when targeted deep; however, for Thomas, deep targets only made up 11% of his total targets.

許多批評家會指出，這是由于布雷斯的手臂力量下降，但我認為這是他缺乏武器的原因。 為了支持該論點，我通過接收下圖中的選項分解了WPA。 只有三名圣徒的球員入場至少五次。 特德·吉恩(Ted Ginn Jr.)發揮了深遠的威脅作用，其中40％的目標是傳球，但根據他的低于平均水平的WPA(1％，而聯盟平均水平為1.3％)，并未充分利用這些目標。 這是有道理的，因為吉恩的接球率高達54％ ，是聯盟中最低的之一。 當深入瞄準時，托馬斯和庫克都表現出色。 然而，對于托馬斯而言，深層目標僅占其總目標的11％。

Given these findings, it’s clear that the Saints lacked deep pass options. For comparison, I counted the number of players that were targeted at least five times for deep passes on each team:

鑒于這些發現，很明顯，圣徒隊缺乏深度傳球的選擇。 為了進行比較，我計算了每支球隊至少被五次深傳的目標球員數量：

The Saints ranked at the bottom, which is problematic considering the importance of deep passes. The average WPA per pass attempt is more than three times higher for deep passes compared to short passes (1.2% vs. 0.4%). This indicates that one way the Saints can improve their offense is by adding a pass catcher who excels at deep passing plays. Here’s where Emmanuel Sanders comes in. Let’s take a look at some of the notable, pass-catching free agents that were available this year and where they ranked when targeted for deep passes:

圣徒排在最后，考慮到傳球的重要性，這是有問題的。 與短傳相比，深傳的每次通過平均WPA高出三倍(1.2％比0.4％)。 這表明圣徒可以提高進攻能力的一種方法是增加一名擅長深傳球的傳球接球手。 這是伊曼紐爾·桑德斯(Emmanuel Sanders)進入的地方。讓我們看一下一些今年著名的，獲得通行證的自由球員，以及針對深傳球的排名：

As you can see, Sanders was the top ranking deep threat available in free agency — this is exactly what the Saints need! In all, Sanders is a vast improvement over Ginn (3.3% vs 1% Average WPA per Deep Target) and, in my opinion, the missing piece to the Saints’ offense. With Sanders in the mix, I believe the Saints’ offense will 1) incorporate more deep passes in their playbook 2) better capitalize on these deep pass plays. This should maximize the Saints’ opportunities to win as long as the Saints’ defense can maintain their level of play from last year. I know most Saints’ fans were already excited about this signing, but hopefully this will get you extra pumped for the upcoming season.

如您所見，桑德斯是自由球員中排名最高的深層威脅-這正是圣徒所需要的！ 總體而言，桑德斯比吉恩大得多(每個深層目標的平均WPA為3.3％對1％)，并且在我看來，這是圣徒隊進攻所缺少的部分。 有了桑德斯，我相信圣徒的進攻將1)在他們的劇本中加入更多深傳球2)更好地利用這些深傳球。 只要圣徒隊的防守能夠保持去年的水平，這應該使圣徒隊獲勝的機會最大化。 我知道大多數圣徒的球迷已經對這次簽約感到興奮，但是希望這會在接下來的賽季為您帶來更多的動力。

My code for this analysis can be found here

我的分析代碼可以在 這里 找到