Forgetting Brandon Marshall: Analyzing The Brandon Marshall Trade

Just like the Baha Men following up their first single "Who Let The Dogs Out" with "You All Dat"- essentially the same exact song- I will be following up my Santonio Holmes success with Brandon Marshall.

Last year Marshall was 14th in receiving yards (1120), 4th in receptions (101), 5th in targets (152) with an average 11.1 YPR (yards per reception), and 10 TDs- all while only starting 13 games. Marshall is more of a possessions receiver with decent big play ability so his catch rate (61% in the last three years) is going to be higher than someone like a Randy Moss- but Marshall's ability makes him at the lower level of the elite wide outs.

Marshall has also shown to be consistent and productive despite the quarterback throwing to him. Marshall catches 102 passes like clockwork (102, 104, 102 respectively for the past three years) all with a different QB. (Yes, technically he had Jay Cutler throwing to him in '07 and '08, but let's be real with ourselves, the Cutler in 2007 was a different and crappier QB than the Cutler in 2008). While his targets have increased (per game) depending on the QB throwing to him (180 targets during Cutler's best season versus 155 last year), there was not a drastic shift in the amount of balls coming towards Marshall. (Yes, I realize what I wrote, feel free to pause for a little chuckle)


My guess is that the consistency in the targets Marshall gets from year to year is more due to Marshall's skill than it is the QB. I'll be making this assumption throughout my analysis because I know that Chad Henne is probably not even close to Kyle Orton's level yet, but Henne has shown he is a capable QB in the NFL (a 60.8% NFL completion percentage, having a percentage better than 63% in his past four starts, while having 320+ yards in three out of his past five starts), so that if Marshall does get open, Henne can complete passes to him. Plus, the fact that Marshall is somewhat of a possessions receiver leads me to believe that Marshall's Denver numbers will translate to Miami.

Plus, receiver's stats are obviously tied into attempts. The less the QB throws, the less balls thrown a receiver's way and the less catches a receiver has. But Henne still threw for 451 attempts in only 14 games in '09. So even though Henne was only 20th in passes attempted, if you extrapolate his attempts to an extra two games- he would have thrown for about 515 attempts- making him 10th in the NFL (right above Drew Brees). So even though the Dolphins appear to be a running team and like to run the wildcat- Henne and the Dolphins will still throw a lot- which bodes well for Marshall

Last year, 22.8% of Henne's passes went to Devone Bess, 12.6% went to Ted Ginn Jr., 14.6% went to Greg Camarillo, 10.6% went to Ricky Williams, 10.8% went to Anthony Fasano, 3.1% went to Ronnie Brown, and 25.5% went to other receivers. About 50% of Henne's passes went to his top three receivers, one quarter went to other receivers, 15% went to his RBs, and 10% went to his TE.

Henne liked to toss the ball around, but Henne never had a legit #1 receiver to throw to so he had to pass the ball around. So let's take a look at a QB who did have a Marshall as a number one target.


Last year, about 28.5% of Kyle Orton's passes went to Marshall. In 2008, 29.7% of Cutler's passes went to Marshall and in '07, 36.4% of Cutler's passes went to Marshall. This is a wide range of passes that went Marshall's way and the way Henne improved the past year, predicting Marshall for the next year is going to be a tad imprecise. But here we go.

First of all, let's try and predict Henne's attempts for next year. As mentioned earlier, if Henne had played in all 16 games, he would have thrown 515 yards. Even as good as this is, Henne will probably get better. Not only will Henne improve with age, but getting a stud receiver helps all. So let's say that Henne gets about 540 attempts- along the lines if Orton and Aaron Rodgers. And the extra 25 attempts would only equate to an extra pass and a half per game- not unreasonable.

Now let's say about 30% of Henne's passes go to Marshall- which falls along with what quarterbacks have done in the past. That means that Marshall should get about 162 targets. Add that to Marshall's recent 61% catch rate and that means Marshall should get about 99 receptions (although him getting 102 is not out of the question). 99 receptions with Marshall's 12.07 YPR over the past three years and that equates to 1195 yards. Now the biggest question (especially for fantasy owners) is how many TDs will Marshall get? Well, over the past three years, he's gotten 6, 7, and 10 TDs respectively. But you know what, you can never predict TDs. Last year in less games and with a "crappier" QB, Marshall had more touchdowns than he did in 2008 and 2007. On the flip side, Henne only threw 12 TDs last year. So in this spectrum, I'll say Marshall gets 7 TDs next year. So what do I think will Marshall's line will look like next year:

162 targets, 99 receptions, 1195 yards, 7 TDs.

Forgetting Brandon Marshall

Denver needed to win in Week 17 in order to even have a shot of making the playoffs. In turns out it wouldn't have mattered if they won or loss, but head coach Josh McDaniels didn't know that at the time. So in a crucial game for Denver what do they do? They bench there best offensive player- WR Brandon Marshall. Apparently Marshall had a "disagreement" with McDaniels (although I am assuming it didn't escalate to Gilbert Arenas territory), so McDaniels benched his star player. This is not a new phenomenon-a coach benching his star player after an off field discretions. During the very first college football game of the year, Oregon RB LeGarrett Blount did his best Flozell Adams impressions and punched a Boise State opponent because the Boise State players seemed to be talking shit to Blount after the Boise State win. Blount was then suspended for the entire year by the school, and by the entire year I mean half a season because the school realized it was much harder to make it to the Rose Bowl without him. But this got me thinking, should coaches bench their star player for discretion like these? It helps to teach athletes discipline and respect, but should it be done at the cost of the team as a whole?

We as a society put a huge value on recreation and sports. It's because of this that this question should even be posed. Because in any other instance, the answer is a clear and definite, "Yes, the person who did something wrong needs to be punished for his actions". When a student severely misbehaves in class, he will get a detention. If his misconduct is severe enough, he will get suspended or expelled. Getting an education should be a high value for us in society and thus, even though the student did something wrong, it seems the student still should be able to get an education- yet sometimes the child does not. Occasionally we see a Ryan Perrilloux- a great talent for LSU who would have been the school's starter had it not been for the multiple multiple indiscretions and illegal activity he did while at the school- but instances like this seem to be rare. NFL commissioner Roger Goddell also takes this approach. In society, if you do something wrong, you get punished. As an NFL player, if you do something wrong, you will get suspended. Logic and our society as whole seems to dictate to us that if you do a bad action, you will receive a consequence for that action- so sports should be no exception.

On the other hand, sports and recreation are held to different standards in our society. It's a sad truth, but a truth nonetheless. If I were a Broncos fan, I would be PISSED that Marshall didn't play in last Sunday's loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. For all you readers who think this counterargument is a dumb one, put yourself in the shoes of a Denver fan, or imagine if the best player on your favorite team was benched during a crucial game for your team? Objectively you would say the player should be punished, but subjectively, I bet you would want that player to play to help your team win (although you may not want to admit it). And players like Perrilloux or Marshall won't change. Part of the purpose of punishment like these is to deter future action. LSU cutting Perrilloux and forcing the QB to play at some shit school still hasn't stopped him from doing bad and dumb things. Chris Henry was cut by the Bengals for his off-the-field actions. But a year later the team re-signed him. Then a few years later, he ended up dying-seemingly from the same actions that cut him suspended to begin with. Brandon Marshall has always been a troublemaker for the Broncos. And I'm not even going to get into Pacman Jones. So by suspending players like Marshall for a crucial game, all you're doing is just hurting your team. You're not teaching the player any lessons, but you are putting an inferior product on the field.

So where do I stand on this? I don't know. I, like I'm sure the vast majority of people, still feel a need for a player to be punished and showed a lesson. I'm just not sure benching a player is the way to do it. I'm sure whatever Marshall did, he deserved to be benched. In football, the head coach needs to be in control and have control over his entire team. I'm sure Marshall threatened this much needed power structure and McDaniels then benched him. But I'm just not 100% that benching a player is the way to do it. Of course with guys like Perrilloux, Blount, and Ron Artest- you do physically hurt someone or do something illegal- then you deserve to get benched or suspended. But when you do something like what Marshall did, I'm not so sure McDaniels made the right decision. I feel there are other punishments that could have been just as effective, like fining Marshall, that would punish your player yet not hurt your team.

And yes, I did write an entire blog post based solely around a creative title I thought of.

Who Had Brandon Marshall In Fantasy?

I did! In fact, I had Marshall and Texans stud Andre Johnson going for me in the first week of fantasy football playoffs. The duo combined for 32 catches, 394 yards, and 4 TD. 63 points from the receiver position is basically good enough to win even if Jake Delhomme is your QB.

But the bigger story was the performance of Brandon Marshall. The Terrell Owens wannabe just broke TO's 10 year old record of 20 catches in a game. On the last play of the game, with the Broncos deep in their own territory on a 4th and forever, Josh McDaniels did the classy thing and called a short route for Marshall to finish out the game. That was his 21st catch and 200th yard of the game. The amazing part was that Marshall's longest reception of the game was only 23 yards, meaning that he was incredibly consistent by accumulating numerous 10 yard passes on his way to a 200 yard game.

I vividly remember Owens' 20 catch game back in 2000. I recall it so well because it happened against the Bears. And yes, their secondary was even worse that year than it is this year. Jeff Garcia fed the ball to TO, in Jerry Rice's last game with the 49ers, as Owens was too fast and strong for the Bears to handle. Marshall shares many of Owens' great attributes, particularly an incredible combination of speed, strength, and creativeness. Too bad it came in a loss