Too Many Mouths to Feed? The Myth of Overcrowded Offenses

I wasn’t always an ill-successful fantasy manager with a soft spot for oft injured and underappreciated players. In my early days of co-managing a team with my dad in his work league, we triumphed many historic victories that I still remind people of today. Shout out to RB Ryan Matthews, you’ll always have my fantasy heart.

One of the greatest success stories of my co-managing days was back in 2013 while my dad and I were enjoying some preseason games fresh after our fantasy draft in which we had acquired a duo of Denver Broncos WRs: Demaryius Thomas and Wes Welker. During the Broncos preseason game however, a TE seemed to be stealing all of the catches, making play after play in which my dad and I raced to the computer to pick him up, and added a third Bronco, TE Julius Thomas to our roster. What followed was a season long stampede of Broncos weaponry that helped us reign in a fantasy championship as our 3 guys combined for over 3000 yards and 36 touchdowns. Meanwhile, from week to week, we would complain about WR Eric Decker and RB Knowshon Moreno vulturing targets and touchdowns. Yet, at the end of the season, it was on the backs of our famed WRs and TE that we lifted the trophy and collected our prize money.

Since that glorious season, I have gotten in numerous fantasy debates over which offenses can sustain viable fantasy options. I have long rejected the concept of an overcrowded WR corps inhibiting potentially valuable players. Holding onto the promise of another 2013 Broncos offense, where 5 offensive weapons managed to share the target distribution and all find fantasy value, I have criticized the ever popular thought of having too many mouths to feed on an offense. Surely it is popular for a reason, and the logic seems to check out: there’s a limited resource in a team’s fantasy points and competition among targets to get opportunity. Having more viable weapons means having more players fighting for targets and the fantasy points end up depleted with no one winning. Why shoot for a WR that is 2nd or even 3rd on the depth chart when you can have another team’s top, undisputed target. Right?

I, for one, am not so sure. The 2013 Broncos’ ability to sustain 5 elite fantasy players still makes me question the idea that fantasy points are actually a scarce resource. A deeper dive into the offense’s target distribution might help us gain some clarity.

*Market Distributions gathered from thefantasyfootballers.com*

Apart from the extra 118 targets, the Denver offense did not differ much from the NFL average in terms of target distribution. Furthermore, the Atlanta Falcons outpaced the 2013 Denver Broncos in pass attempts while 6 other NFL teams threw the ball over 630 times as well. Yet none of these teams were able to support more than 2 viable pass catchers. Was Denver’s 2013 historic season a fantasy fluke? I was not ready to give up so easily and decided to search elsewhere, outside of the size of the pie and how it was being cut. If the 2013 Broncos’ pie was no bigger than usual and the slices were being allocated the same across positions, how did all of the pass catchers get their share while players on other teams still end up starving? Hidden, underlying factors must be at play here.

My first thought was that maybe the 2013 Broncos just were so fantasy rich of an offense because they scored so many points. This idea falls apart though when taking a look at the 2015 Panthers team, an equally as electric offense that somehow could not support even 1 solid WR fantasy option. Below are the fantasy point finishes for the pass catchers on each of these renowned all time offenses.

*Standard Scoring. Data obtained from pro-football-reference.com*

The discrepancy is astounding. Not even included in the chart is the teams’ RBs, in which Broncos RB Moreno outscored Panthers RB Jonathan Stewart: 227 points to 147 points. How could two high powered offenses be so completely different in fantasy where the Broncos could steadily support 5 top 24 fantasy options at their position while the Panthers could barely support 2. The key, I presume, seems to be in exactly where those targets are going…

*Denver threw for 675 total targets. Carolina threw for 501 total targets. Data obtained from pro-football-reference.com*

This chart reveals where each slice of the pie was being handed (or thrown) to. The columns represent the teams 1st, 2nd, or 3rd WR weapon based on their fantasy finish, their top TE option, and finally their 1st and 2nd RB option. These represent the players getting the most snaps and being the players that might be getting rostered and plugged into starting lineups on fantasy teams. The “WASTE” column pictured above denotes the targets that were thrown to a player that was not one of these potential fantasy viable weapons. Despite throwing 174 fewer times than the 2013 Broncos, the 2015 Panthers managed to throw more passes to backups and third string players, players who were buried on the fantasy waiver wire. Therefore, despite being a high powered offense, QB Cam Newton wasted plenty of targets in the eyes of fantasy managers by giving the pie slices out to charity rather than feeding his top players. 119 of his targets were completely useless to fantasy managers as no one was starting WR Corey Brown or, fantasy gods forbid, WR Brenton Bersin.

A quick, elementary school level analysis can uncover why QB Cam Newton “wasted” so many targets. Take a look at just who he was throwing the ball to. His top WR, Ted Ginn Jr. has bounced around 5 teams having never posted a 1000 yard season, while his 2nd option, rookie WR Devin Funchess was cut not many years after and has yet to meet expectations anywhere. Meanwhile, QB Peyton Manning was passing to 5-straight pro bowler WR Demaryius Thomas, who holds numerous Broncos franchise records, electric WR Eric Decker who has found success on numerous teams, and perhaps the greatest slot receiver of all time in WR Wes Welker. It is no question that QB Manning was able to find some open receiver on any play without the need to bring in his 4th or even 5th option. QB Newton and the Panthers were instead forced to be constantly funneling WRs in and out in search of someone to finally step up and show some talent.

“Wasted” targets are the true evil that is keeping fantasy points away from fantasy rosters, not offenses having too many mouths to feed. Instead, what seems to be happening is NFL offenses do not have enough mouths to feed and are constantly in search of talent to earn their share of the pie. A look at every offense from the 2019 season matches this presumption.

*Fantasy points gathered from fantasypros.com and pro-football-reference.com*

The average NFL offense “wasted” 147 targets last season, nearly 27% of their total passes. Furthermore, a look at each offense reveals that in general, the teams that were not known for having viable fantasy pass-catchers, or known for having a deficit of talent at those positions, are the teams with the highest Waste percentages listed above. Using the “Usable Receiving Fantasy Points” column and comparing it to a teams Waste percentage, a coefficient of -.51 was calculated. While not the strongest of correlations, this does reveal at some level that teams with more Usable receiving fantasy points (fantasy points scored by a team’s top 3 WRs and top TE) are wasting less of their targets to backup TEs or WRs buried on the depth chart. While this certainly does not reveal anything necessarily groundbreaking, a team throwing more to their top targets will result in more usable fantasy points, the cause of this trend hints at a shortage of talent more so than a shortage of opportunity. The Los Angeles Rams offense last season supported 3 more than usable WRs throughout the season as well as a mix of two TEs in Gerald Everett and Tyler Higbee. Rather than overcrowding the WR room in talent between their top 3 receivers, the targets were taken away from the Waste portion of the pie, as they were 7% under the average. In contrast, Washington’s Football Team, who only had a notable WR in Terry McLaurin, wasted over a third of their targets due to not having any pass catchers commanding to be the 2nd or 3rd option on the team.

Of course, these statistics are subject to outside variables as well, such as injuries and scheme changes altering who is on the field to be acquiring targets. Additionally, NFL offenses use different personnel, troubling the use of a standard outline of “usable fantasy scorers” as some teams use 2 TEs while other teams might have a designated pass catching back. However, I believe, as I hope the data seems to support, that teams prefer talent over being forced to throw to a wide range of backups at the receiving positions, and are currently at a talent deficit. When given the chance to have 3, or even 4, skilled receiving weapons, teams have found ways to support their top players within the fantasy realm. Offenses have sliced their pies to make sure everyone deserving of targets gets their fill, chipping away at their extra resource of “Waste” targets.

Ultimately, while yes, passing targets and in turn fantasy points are a limited resource, they are by no means a scarce one, and teams have plenty of leftover targets they would love to be throwing to better pass catchers. Although this by no means brings finality to the ancient fantasy search to understanding how teams manufacture targets, I hope these findings will quell the misconceptions of offenses having too many mouths, and not enough targets to feed them with. In conclusion, when teetering over adding a player to your fantasy roster, him being in a “crowded” WR corps should not scare you away. If you believe in the talent of a player, and are convinced their team thinks the same, there will be no shortage of targets to give that player the opportunity to score points for your fantasy team. You might just be ahead of the curve on the next 2013 Broncos.