The Offensive Impact of Marc Trestman

Jeff Miller

trestman

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Merriam-Webster defines, “Trestman” as, “The word you’ve entered isn’t in the dictionary.” But if they did have an entry, it would likely say something like, “Regarded as a highly effective offensive coordinator prone to wearing horn rimmed glasses and being terrible at Jay Cutler and handoffs.”

We are all aware of how much Coach Trest likes to throw the ball, especially to running backs. The question is, how much does he actually help players in the fantasy universe? Armed with a box of Slim Jims, a gallon of water and a package of adult diapers, I settled in to find out. 12 hours later, as the haze of a spicy meat snack induced coma lifted, I assembled all the data, producing the following (mostly coherent) piece of prose.

All fantasy football points (FFP) in this article were calculated using standard point per reception scoring. Fumbles were omitted from scoring because they are in no way connected to Trestman’s ability to coordinate an offense.

Offensive Impact

The obvious place to start our sojourn is with an overview of how Trestman impacts the offense as a whole. To do this, I pulled statistical data on the Browns, 49ers, Cardinals, Raiders and Bears for the seasons he coached as well as the seasons immediately before he came to town and after he left. When comparing this data we can see how he affects the offense as a whole.

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Offenses fare about 1.5 FFPPG worse during Trestman’s tenure than they did the year before he took over. From my previous studies on offensive coordinators, this is very abnormal. Of the 16 coaches I collected data for, only two, Trestman and Bill Musgrave, showed a decline in fantasy production from the year prior to their hiring. While this isn’t a good look, it isn’t entirely surprising given the nature of my data set.

Due to wanting a large, reliable sample size, the coordinators I looked at had a minimum experience requirement. Because poor coaches don’t stick in the league for long, they didn’t find their way into the workup. That means my sample is populated by the types of coordinators you’d expect to have good results. Hence only two of 15 showing a decline in production.

Before I say anything else, it is important to note that the NFL has seen a 1.57% average annual increase in fantasy production over the past 23 seasons (1991 is as far back as I tracked this data). So when we look at Trestman’s 2.62% drop in production from before to during, the actual reduction in performance versus the league as a whole is somewhat greater.

At first blush, Trestman seemingly leaves offenses in rough shape (the table shows a 1.04 PPG drop off the year after he leaves). That could be the case, but it could also be that most coaches who get a shot as an offensive coordinator end up being bad at it (something I discovered when trying to find a dozen decent ones to compare Norv Turner to). When a new OC replaces somebody who is statistically at least decent, which Trestman is, there would be a natural fall off.

To that point, in my previous study, only two coaches (Ken Whisenhunt and Bruce Arians) saw offenses improve upon their departure. In both cases the increase was modest.

The inefficiency of Trestman coached teams is a theme we will revisit a couple times. Their per-play efficiency is some 2.3% lower than the combined figure from the seasons before and after his tenure. As promised, there will be more on this later.

In terms of overall fantasy production for the offenses he coaches, Trestman has little impact. That doesn’t necessarily mean he isn’t a boon to certain positions, though. Quarterback, for example.

Quarterback

To get an idea how our protagonist affects QB scoring, I pulled full career stats for every QB who started a significant number of games under Trestman. I then weeded out seasons where they didn’t start at least two-thirds of the games they appeared in (since we will be quoting PPG data, I didn’t want kneel-down mop-up performances skewing data too much). What we are left with is a simple table showing how the players performed with and without Trestman.

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The 11.5% increase in FFP production under Trestman is impressive. If you apply that to Joe Flacco’s career best 2014, he would jump from QB13 to QB7 (16.4 PPG vs 18.3). Even if his numbers only kick up half that, Flacco would be comfortably inside the top 10. Considering current ADP data places him as the 21st QB drafted, the Baltimore veteran is an incredibly attractive buy-low.

As I mentioned in the previous section, efficiency isn’t a hallmark of Trestman’s various tenures. That trend continues here as quarterback’s FFP per attempt efficiency drops 6.8% under his command. Luckily, the inefficiency is marginalized by a 18.9% increase in pass attempts. As long as that volume holds up, life will be good for Flacco owners.

Running Back

Running backs get the same basic with/without treatment as quarterbacks. The main difference is that I created an extra data set. The first, which is just below, shows RB seasons where the player averaged on a per game basis at least 6.25 touches (a 100 touch pace over a full season) or 2.5 receptions (a 40 catch pace). I chose these numbers specifically to attempt to end up with a sample that only includes players who have at least a moderate role in the offense and thus the potential to matter in fantasy.

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Finally, some efficiency! The 1.03% increase isn’t much, but we will take what we can get.

Aside from that, the thing that sticks out most is the surge in output in the passing game. After seeing what he did with Matt Forte the past two seasons, that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

The second set of data pares our group down even further. The trimmed fat came in the form of RB seasons where the player didn’t average at least 10 touches per game. Over the last 15 seasons, that threshold gives us 30-35 players per year, or what is roughly equivalent to a baseline starting RB in the NFL. We ended up with 73 seasons of data, 37 fewer than in the table above.

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By upping our touch per game standard we find ourselves with a high ratio of seasons from players who were the focal point of their offense. It stands to reason that removing players who play strictly in a mop up or pure back up type role would get us a data set more representative of a starting caliber fantasy player. The proof is in the pudding as we see a marked increase in FFP per game.

The more telling info comes out of the receiving numbers. We really see the separation here between what Trestman does with RB’s. Whereas the difference in receiving FFP per game is 15.7% in the first table, it jumps to 27% in the second. This also explains the widening efficiency gap, as running backs who catch passes are markedly more efficient scorers in PPR formats.

Keep in mind all this is being done despite coaching a mostly unimpressive group of RB’s. Ernest Byner, Terry Kirby, Eric Metcalf, Derek Loville, Adrian Murrell, Michael Pittman and Tyrone Wheatley account for the most running back touches in eight of Trestman’s 12 seasons.

Whoever is toting the rock in Baltimore this year is likely to be a very effective player, even if they aren’t all that talented.

Wide Receiver

For our first wide receiver with/without data set, I used only seasons from players who averaged at least three receptions per game. That gives us a full season pace of 48, which works out to around 50 receivers per season. That should encompass the vast majority of fantasy relevant players at the position.

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If the running backs are catching so many passes, it stands to reason wide receivers would suffer, right? I suspect that is the most of the explanation for what we see here.

Curious what would happen if we looked at a more streamlined sample, I upped the requirement to four receptions per game.

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What was once an 8.03% difference in fantasy output has been lessened to 3.68%. After checking through some of the seasonal stat lines I believe this can be attributed to a marginalized role for second and third receivers in the Trestman offense. It seems the better players still see similar production, leaving others to fight for scraps. But as we saw in Chicago the past two seasons, if he has a talented second receiver as he did with Alshon Jeffery, they will get their fair share of looks.

Trestman has been fortunate to coach the likes of Brandon Marshall, Jerry Rice, Terrell Owens, Tim Brown and Jeffery. Of course, this also means he had that group for only 10 of their combined 63 seasons, which may be skewing the numbers I’ve presented. I tried removing all of them from the data set but was left with a sample so decimated it was rendered useless. If nothing else, we know Trestman can keep elite players productive as all but Owens, who he only had for his rookie year, had big seasons under Coach T (Rice topped 400 points, the only WR ever to do so, while playing for Trestman).

Tight End

Due to sample size issues, I don’t have much to report here. Over his 12 years as an offensive coordinator or play caller, Trestman has had only three seasons where a tight end topped 35 receptions. Part of this is the talent he’s had to work with. While he did coach both Brent Jones and Ozzie Newsome, each player was at the tail end of their careers and no longer productive.

The other limiting factor here is Trestman was out of the NFL from 2005-2012. The rise of the pass catching tight end being a major threat outside of a few annual exceptions is really something that only began as he was coaching in Oakland in the early 2000’s. For much of his career he coached in an era where tight ends were blockers first, second and third.

The only conclusion I can draw with the data I do have is that if Trestman has a tight end capable of catching the ball, they will be part of the offense. Martellus Bennett is an example of this as he enjoyed his two best seasons under Trestman, finishing as the TE10 in 2013 and TE5 this past season.

Trestman in Baltimore

Based on everything we’ve covered, the conclusions seem to be fairly cut and dried:

  • In Flacco we trust. Make a move for him now while he is cheap and reap the rewards.
  • Whoever is starting at RB should get every chance to succeed. If they are capable of catching the ball out of the backfield, all the better.
  • The top wide receivers shouldn’t see much change in value. Baltimore doesn’t really have anybody I’d trust outside of Steve Smith and, assuming he re-signs, Torrey Smith, anyway.
  • If Dennis Pitta is back and healthy, he stands to have a good season. If Baltimore doesn’t have a TE who is a threat as a receiver, that probably means more love for the other skill players.

Now please excuse me. I need to email Merriam-Webster about getting “Trestman” added to the dictionary.

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jeff miller