Your leader in NFL passing yards per game so far in 2015 is…Philip Rivers and the San Diego Chargers – by a mile, actually. It seems like many of the upper tier quarterbacks have taken a step back this season, so as the 10th highest scoring QB 2014, has Philip ascended to the upper echelon of QB1s? Let’s look under the hood to see if the top ranked Chargers passing offense is more trick or trend moving forward.
First off, Rivers’ production has definitely been helped by two things through the first part of the season: a poor running game and the fact that San Diego has been pretty poor overall and often trailing late in games:
45% of the Chargers’ total scores in 2015 have come in the fourth quarter of games. Another mark of a struggling football team is a heavily skewed run/pass ratio and the Chargers are currently calling pass 65.6% of the time.
The knee-jerk reaction to seeing this numbers would be to classify the 2-5 Chargers as a team that is just getting blown out every week. Outside of last week’s game against the Raiders though, this hasn’t really been the case. It’s more a function of the Chargers’ ability to control time of possession in the fourth quarter, a category they currently rank first in the league in. This is particularly interesting since you generally think of winning teams as those who control time of possession in the fourth quarter (and in fact, some very good football teams round out the top five).
The run-pass ratio spikes a little bit for San Diego in the fourth quarter, tilting to 69.8% pass, but what’s really happening is that Philip Rivers just catches fire late in the game. The Chargers have accumulated 996 fourth quarter passing yards, which is nearly 200 more than the second place team (Saints). Also encouraging is the fact that the Chargers are one of only four teams to call a higher number of pass than run plays when leading in the fourth quarter.
Danny Woodhead has served as the team’s primary goal line back this year after getting very limited red zone work in 2014. Last season, Woodhead received four combined red zone targets and carries over the entire year. In 2015, he is already up to 18. The good thing about this for Rivers is that on the year, Woodhead has just one fewer target than rush – his inclusion in red zone formations increases the odds of Rivers throwing for a short TD as opposed to the team punching it in via the running game.
Look, Philip Rivers is a pretty obvious regression candidate – he’s leading the league in passing yards by almost 400 yards right now. But he also has a lot going for him that will limit his downside that he hasn’t really had in the past. The team’s willingness to stick with the pass even when leading in the fourth quarter is rare and helps nullify some game script concerns when the matchup brings those into question. Along the same lines, using our Favorite/Dog filter, we can see that Rivers has smashed value when Vegas likes the Chargers to win:
Combined with a largely ineffective running game and a lead back who is one of the best dual threats in the league, the stars seemed to have aligned for Rivers in 2015. Though he will probably fall from the #1 overall spot, the opportunity is there for Rivers to continue to rack of points with the best of them, which is why I am going TREND on this one.
