ggplot2

link to data source: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/kan/2021_advanced.htm#advanced_receiving

helpful links:
https://rpubs.com/techanswers88/sankey-with-own-data-in-ggplot

https://r-charts.com/color-palette-generator/

#read in data (had to split download into two parts due to website limitations)
targets_2021 <- read_excel("chiefs_targets_2021.xlsx")

# A tibble: 6 x 22
    No. Player         Age Pos       G    GS   Tgt   Rec   Yds    TD  `1D`   YBC
  <dbl> <chr>        <dbl> <chr> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl>
1    10 Tyreek Hill*    27 WR       17    16   159   111  1239     9    75   795
2    87 Travis Kelc~    32 TE       16    16   134    92  1125     9    63   561
3    17 Mecole Hard~    23 WR       17     8    83    59   693     2    33   191
4    31 Darrel Will~    26 RB       17     7    57    47   452     2    19    17
5    13 Byron Pring~    28 WR       17     5    60    42   568     5    32   381
6    11 Demarcus Ro~    27 WR       17    10    41    25   264     3    13   202
# ... with 10 more variables: `YBC/R` <dbl>, YAC <dbl>, `YAC/R` <dbl>,
#   ADOT <dbl>, BrkTkl <dbl>, `Rec/Br` <dbl>, Drop <dbl>, `Drop%` <dbl>,
#   Int <dbl>, Rat <dbl>

#sankey diagram targets(total) > target position > player

pl <- ggplot(dfd, aes(x = x
                      , next_x = next_x
                      , node = node
                      , next_node = next_node
                      , fill = factor(node)
                      
                      , label = paste0(node," ", n)
)
)

pl <- pl +geom_sankey(flow.alpha = 0.5,  color = "gray40", show.legend = TRUE, node.color =1)
pl <- pl +geom_sankey_label(size = 3, color = "white", fill= "gray40", hjust = -0.2)


pl <- pl + theme_sankey(base_size = 16)

pl <- pl + theme(legend.position = "none")
pl <- pl +  theme(axis.title = element_blank()
                  , axis.text.y = element_blank()
                  , axis.ticks = element_blank()  
                  , panel.grid = element_blank()
                  , panel.spacing.x=unit(-10, "lines")
                  , plot.caption = element_text(size = 8)
                  )

#move x axis labels to top
pl <- pl + scale_x_discrete(position = "top") 


#set custom colors for each node
pl <- pl + scale_fill_manual(values = c(
  'Total Targets' = '#000000',
  'WR' = '#e31837',
  'TE' = '#ec5335',
  'T' = '#f16a32',
  'FB' = '#FFB81C',
  'RB' = "#fb9f27",
  #WR
  'Tyreek Hill*' = '#e31837',
  "Mecole Hardman" = "#e83f58",
  "Byron Pringle" = "#ec657a",
  "Demarcus Robinson" = "#f18c9b", 
  "Josh Gordon" =  "#f6b2bc",
  "Marcus Kemp" =  "#fad9de",
  #TE
  'Travis Kelce*' ="#ec5335", 
  'Noah Gray' = "#ef7057", 
  "Jody Fortson"  = "#a76a1a",
  "Blake Bell" = "#f9c6bc",   
  #T
  'Mike Remmers' = "#f16a32", 
  #RB
  "Clyde Edwards-Helaire" = "#fb9f27",
  "Darrel Williams" = "#d18521",
  "Jerick McKinnon" =  "#d99946",     
  "Derrick Gore" = "#d99946",         
  #FB       
  "Michael Burton" =  "#FFB81C"   
  ))

#titles and labels
pl <- pl + labs(title = "Kansas City Chiefs Pass Targets")
pl <- pl + labs(subtitle = "2021 Regular Season")
pl <- pl + labs(caption = "* Selected to Pro Bowl") #caption from data source
pl <- pl + labs(fill = 'Nodes')

print(pl)

Notes:

I would like to have been able to sort the players by number of targets, but I was unable to find a way to do so that worked with the ggsankey package; this seems to be a known issue, see https://github.com/davidsjoberg/ggsankey/issues/7