Offensive Personnel Groupings - Shurmur vs. McAdoo vs. Sully

In comment 13802312 adamg said:

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welcome to BBI, home of the BBI police:

In comment 13802308 jbeintherockies said:

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To me, the bottom line to any personnel grouping that an offense trots onto the field is how the defense responds in turn with a personnel grouping of their own. Under normal circumstances, I doubt a defense plays a different personnel when faced with 21 versus 12. And that is the key to the different offensive personnel groupings - which one gives your offense the most favorable match-ups.

Well, doesn't it depend who those players are, to some extent? I mean, let's say that the 21 personnel includes Shane Smith at FB and Ellison at TE, but 12 includes Ellison and Engram. You don't think the defense might adjust their own personnel between those two groupings?

That's why analysis of personnel groupings should be formation-independent, IMO. Can the Giants (or any team) find advantageous match-ups by getting creative with their formations in how they deploy their personnel? Absolutely - that's one of the most intriguing games within the game. When the data blurs the line between personnel and formation, we lose the ability to follow that element of it.

Of those plays with two RB were with Mckinnon and Murray and not a FB

be the case or the process is flawed:

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That's why analysis of personnel groupings should be formation-independent

It only contributes to the false assumption that the two are tied together.

If Engram is a TE, he has to be considered a TE no matter which position he lines up at, because a personnel grouping is a separate thing than a formation.

You can run 12 or even 22 and give an empty backfield or 4 wide set. It’s about trying to get the defensive into favorable matchups for the offense.

just lazy and doesn't want to have to think to much.

1. Clarifying the language to take a more accurate view on stats of what different teams run.

To me that's 'dancing on the head of a needle'

i.E. bit of a side issue, don't care all that much who ran what down to 10% 10 or what have you.

2. Talking about how our own team might deploy given players together in the field, in advantageous ways, that Mac didn't, and implications for new player types.

Often discussed using incorrect language, so what...there's a proactive way to address that and a crap way.

Thread broke down when a few from part 1 got rude or tried to police it.

Is listed as a TE in a personnel grouping even when lined up as a WR, that's an example of how opaque personnel groupings on a simple list might be, makes that aspect a bit narrow. For sake of fans discussion, any way to clarify that within a thread that might be helpful should be welcomed.

In comment 13802505 idiotsavant said:

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1. Clarifying the language to take a more accurate view on stats of what different teams run. To me that's 'dancing on the head of a needle' i.E. bit of a side issue, don't care all that much who ran what down to 10% 10 or what have you. 2. Talking about how our own team might deploy given players together in the field, in advantageous ways, that Mac didn't, and implications for new player types. Often discussed using incorrect language, so what...there's a proactive way to address that and a crap way. Thread broke down when a few from part 1 got rude or tried to police it.

This is the part that you seem to miss because of your tendency to use "personnel" and "formation" interchangeably. Personnel is who you send into the game - by definition (and sometimes by intent), teams telegraph this to their opponent. Your formation is your opportunity to deploy that personnel in its most advantageous fashion.

How many times have we seen New England use 2-TE (12 or even 22 personnel) to draw the defense into a heavy personnel grouping on their side, then motion one or both TEs and/or a RB out wide or into the slot to create mismatches. And if the defense tries to stay with a personnel group that is better equipped to handle the pass, the Patriots have the bodies on the field to simply line up and run the ball.

That's not a matter of semantics - those mismatches come as a result of the personnel, which precedes the formation. Do you think they get as dramatic a mismatch if they send in 11, 10 or 01 personnel to begin with?

That's the point. That's why personnel analysis needs to be formation-agnostic, and why it matters to differentiate between those two terms.

and, as you alluded to, there is a good reason fans use Personnel Groupings in place of Formations:

PG is more universal, whereas many teams use their own language for formations and 'plays' , at the same time, the numerical system for PG, being more universal, is more talkable, (however, in your true language use, less accurate or helpful when you have players like EE who do many functions yet have only one title)

(inside the pylons)

''At the outset, please understand that there is a difference between personnel groupings and formations. Personnel groupings refer to the types of players that are on the field for the offense; wide receivers, tight ends, and running backs. '' (ok, thank you, point taken)

'' Formations designate where those players line up, either on the line of scrimmage, in the slot, or in the offensive backfield. Personnel groupings are the general concept discussed here,

>>>while formations and alignments are often team- and play-specific<<< ''

(less likely that fans will know what something is called)

''Future articles on this site will examine formations and alignments in-depth; the goal here is to familiarize readers with concepts and vernacular such as “Lining up five wide with their 20 personnel.”

is the third 'TE' a Howard Cross or an Even Engram?

Not the same at all.

Whereas with fans here, the discussion is often Giants centric:

We know that in 13 here, you are likely to have EE, Ellison and [?] and the insights gained from the league wide stats listed are fairly irrelevant.

So, wrong language but at least looking in the right place.

But your spot on with the Pats example, exactly where I was going as well by looking at a draftee TE this year.

They both have value. We should take a look at both personnel and formation to learn about how an offense operates. And being able to parse them from each other allows for a greater insight. Treating them as interchangeable, or using formation to define personnel, blurs the data and gives us less information, not more.

You're 100% right that a TE like Howard Cross is very different from one like Evan Engram. But couldn't you say the same about a great blocking WR like Hines Ward vs a disinterested blocker like Randy Moss? Or a dominant outside threat like Julio Jones compared to a slot receiver like Sterling Shepard?

I don't think anyone is suggesting that any particular data point is immune to nuance, but that there is some value in pulling back from that granular level and taking a more macro view for certain analyses. And you can add some of that nuance back in, you can merge personnel with formation, etc. But you can't do any of it if the data itself is murky because it originated in a flawed manner.

I would just say that due to the exact types of players you mentioned ...PG is a -particularly- opaque view.

IMO teams that win use their own self centric view to their own specific roster strengths and weaknesses and their own language for that.

PG ...and formation often simply serve to hide what the actual play is...and outlier players may determine the outcomes as they diverge from the typical use of player types.

So the PG numbers league wide might be fairly meaningless.

Better, maybe, to just look at particular teams in depth.

at various levels from Jr. League to the NFL when a formation or play is called, a QB can say "trade" and identify which receivers or RBs are switching positions. E.G. X/Z trade wherever the X lines up normally in a formation he's trading places with the Z. That trade creates an immediate mis-match, unless the defense is playing Cover 0 Man-2-Man.

Then again, you MUST have WRs that know the play AND the route tree his teammates are running. You can have the same personnel package, even the same formation, but completely confuse the defense if the TE (Y) lines up where the X or H does or the RB lines up as a WR.