"What is your process for calculating projections?"
I get asked this question quite often, and after making my usual "how much time do you have?" dad joke, I get into the major variables. One of those is an examination of tendencies of head coaches and coordinators.
For years, I've been relying on coach and coordinator trends as part of the process to determine things like snaps per game, pass rate and positional target shares. This information is well-documented and publicized, which is why it's easy to track and utilize. While that data is valuable, something that has been missing from the industry for a long time is offensive playcaller (OP) info.
Missing, that is, until now.
I collaborated with our team of 32 NFL Nation reporters to create a weekly rundown of each team's offensive playcaller tracing all the way back to 2007. I then applied that data to our database of statistics and put that data to work, to help determine which players should be upgraded and downgraded in fantasy.
Note that this research is limited to the regular season and includes only games in which the noted coach was the primary playcaller. So, for example, weeks in which Saints coach Sean Payton surrendered playcalling to offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael Jr. are excluded.
Before I break down each team's current offensive playcaller, here are the leaders in notable categories over the past five seasons (active OPs only, minimum 16 games):
Pass-heaviest playcallers