Stealing Signals, Week 1, Part 1
TNF, Friday Night Football, and the early Sunday games
I’ve talked about my struggles with writing before. Sometimes it just doesn’t come naturally. My good buddy who is a professional telling me, “Writing’s painful. No one likes writing.” The Emerson quotes about it from American Scholar.
But people tell you if you want to write, just start writing. That writing consistently will help words flow, and you can write more. I wrote almost every day in August, but then I did allow myself a little break with the Vegas trip before Week 1. I’m back now, and I’m some lethal combination of primed and rested. I’m ready to rip, you guys.
Week 1 is all about confirmation bias. There’s no way I’m beating the allegations that all I said today was everything good that happened to the guys I liked mattered, and everything else was fluky.
That won’t be the whole thing, but it’s part of it. And I’d argue it makes sense. There are things I could see, and made sense to me, and then I saw those things play out in Week 1 in a way that made me think I was “right for the right reasons.” And then there were things I didn’t think were likely to happen, and so for me, those things don’t feel as likely to stick on first blush, because they didn’t match my expectations. I have to work harder on those analyses, but I want to address that bias, because it’s natural for everyone. And part of what’s very true, in my experience, is you don’t want to be caught overreacting — and then overcorrecting — in the pursuit of some type of intellectual purity that can’t actually exist. If you’re just waving the white flag on anything that looks like you were wrong after one week, you’re going to wind up chasing your tail all season.
That doesn’t mean my mind wasn’t changed, because it was. A ton. That’s what makes Week 1 great.
I actually don’t have much issue with the being wrong part of all this, because it was my expectation (to be fair, I do sometimes have a problem with people telling me I was wrong). I’ve been writing all offseason how wrong we were going to be. I can’t see the future. This is a game about probabilities. My draft strategies are based around the idea that so many more of your picks were bound to be wrong than you wanted to believe. Everyone feels like they were wrong, to some degree, after Week 1. That’s the whole point I tried to drive home before we drafted, not to draft like everything is going to be all roses.
So remember this feeling. Internalize it. It will help you next year during draft season. Part of what comes with me not being on running backs like Saquon Barkley and Alvin Kamara is I also avoided a lot of other running backs in Week 1 that I’m glad I don’t have much exposure to. I sometimes avoid whole groups of players because it’s so hard to pick the one that will work out. I also wrote about pockets of value at different positions, as a way to think through draft strategy.
There’s never certainty there, though. I make my player decisions based on trying to thumb the scale wherever possible. And based on the idea that when I’m right, I want the impact to be huge. I note Barkley and Kamara specifically, because after Week 1 they look like guys where the impact could be bigger than I was able to see. But that’s part of the risk I took in trying to find better probabilistic bets. It’s not an exact science, and can’t be.
Pockets of value. Elite TE was my biggest one. It had to be part of the intro.
If you allow me to be the judge for a moment, “Tight end is the same as it always was: Promises of depth that isn’t actually there,” is a bad take. Every position has misses. Tight end being thin is already the whole deal; it’s why the hits are worth so much. When I talked about Elite TE, I talked about seven draft profiles that were stronger than we’ve ever had. I also tried to consistently add that we shouldn’t expect seven hits.
That would be like expecting every early-round RB to hit. Or every mid-round WR. Or every mid-round QB. Every position has misses and hits in every pocket of player value. When TE has seven or 10 strong profiles, the expectation is not that it will be deep in practice. The expectation is that something of that group will hit, such that late-round TE seems difficult to envision winning. So you take your swings on what can provide big value, but you know that you’ll have misses, just like some of your RB and WR and QB picks will miss.
Yes, the Week 1 results were worse than I anticipated. But the whole position was down. Outside Isaiah Likely, no TE through Sunday scored more than 15 PPR points. On six scored more than 9. Only five more scored more than 7. The current TE12, a “TE1” in fantasy speak, has 6.7 PPR points.
Five total touchdowns were scored from the position, which elevated Foster Moreau to TE2 on the week, and Juwan Johnson and Chig Okonkwo to TE5 and TE6 with two total catches each, because all three of those guys scored. Think about how this plays out going forward. Other than Likely, would you prefer a late-round or early-round guy? Because I would strongly prefer the players I think have real weekly ceilings if this is the landscape for everyone else. If Trey McBride has a 20-point game next week, he immediately starts to distance from everyone at the position. And McBride had 9 targets on a week where, so far, only three TEs had more than 5. Another one of those three was Brock Bowers.
So there are three things going on with Elite TE. First, you never should have expected all of them to hit. There’s a slightly higher bust rate at the position, but every position has a bust rate, and we do know TE is a lower-scoring and shallower position — that’s inherent in me emphasizing there were a whopping seven elite profiles this year.
Second, TE is indeed lower scoring, and even strong TE seasons include down games. George Kittle was the only 1,000-yard TE last year; there were 27 WRs over that threshold. In special cases, the very best TE seasons can reach heights that match top-10 WRs, but we should be more accepting of one-week dud performances at this position.
Third, there are concerns. Some of these dud games were really bad. I’m very concerned about Dalton Kincaid. Travis Kelce is still going to score, but Rashee Rice taking over that short-to-intermediate work was part of the longer-view upside case for Rice, not something I necessarily expected to be slapping us in the face in Week 1. I will talk about each of those players individually as I get to their games.
So, three answers: Your expectations were probably too high, and one-week duds aren’t the end of the world at the position, and also it’s a valid concern. But again, I’d still be betting on someone from the early group (or Bowers) to distance in a way that is super valuable, because that’s always part of the deal with targeting TE-eligible players. The gap they can provide over the guys your leaguemates have to start can be massive.
It’s important to keep in mind it’s Week 1. And often we expect the Week 1 trends to define the season, but as far as Week 1s go, this one was relatively muted. There’s still a ton to discuss, and often the biggest notes are the ones that don’t immediately scream at you as major.
But play volume and scoring was down, teams seemed to be leaning into the run a bit more as they continue to workshop answers for modern defenses, and I do want to warn that for several teams, part of my analysis will essentially boil down to, “I would expect them to open things up as we go.”
There were just a lot of those “It’s Week 1” performances. Sometimes those can be scary, and we do need to be careful. I’ll link to a lot of observations I saw from other people, as we try to figure out what is going on across the league. We’re not in meeting rooms, we get practice reports but teams are always trying to obfuscate — we’re guessing across the board, and a lot of today’s writeup is just what I found interesting.
Let’s get into the analysis. You can always find an audio version of the posts in the Substack app, and people seem to really like that (apparently there’s a new voice this year, and it was a big improvement). You can also find easier-to-see versions of the visuals at the main site, bengretch.substack.com. Also, Shawn Siegele and I did a three-hour show Sunday night, if you want to listen to other takes.
If you’re new around here, I talked about what to expect last week. As the season goes, I like to discuss real football stuff when it comes up. For Week 1, I’ll be most focused on the player usage notes. We’re essentially recalibrating every player’s value through one week.
Data is typically courtesy of NFL fastR via the awesome Sam Hoppen, but I will also pull from RotoViz apps, Pro Football Reference, PFF, the Fantasy Points Data Suite, and the new NFL+ service.
Here are some of my most commonly-used metrics to know for Stealing Signals.
Team
PROE — Pass Rate Over Expected: How frequently a team calls pass plays relative to what we’d expect considering factors like down and distance, time, and score. There is a formula to calculated Expected Pass Rate based on those factors, then PROE is the difference between actual pass rate and that number.
Receiving
Route Share/Route Participation/Route Rate — I use these interchangeably but I’m almost always referring to routes run divided by dropbacks. Routes are the true opportunity metric for receiving value, while targets are more of a hybrid opportunity/efficiency metric.
aDOT — Average depth of target. The number of yards downfield, with the line of scrimmage being zero, that a player’s average target traveled, with higher meaning deeper passes.
TPRR — Targets Per Route Run: Pretty self explanatory, and my preferred way of breaking down the popular stat Yards Per Route Run. Targets are earned, not handed out. I wrote substantially more about TPRR here.
wTPRR — Weighted TPRR: Includes air yards, with targets and air yards weighted similarly to WOPR.
WOPR — Weighted Opportunity Rating: A metric created by Josh Hermsmeyer which balances team share of targets and team share of air yards. Because a player’s WOPR is a share of his team’s overall opportunity, it’s important to consider team volume as additional context.
RB workload
Green Zone — Inside the opponent’s 10-yard line. Some use inside the 5 or goal-line specific data, and I’ve discussed in the past why I use a bit wider view, including the intro to Week 1 in 2021. In short, I care more about the usage in a predictive sense than the descriptive nature of properly valuing a carry from the 1 versus the 6 (there is still obviously a difference in this usage).
HVT — High-Value Touches: Green zone touches plus receptions. Touchdown potential and pass-catching upside are the keys to RB upside in PPR, while rush attempts outside scoring range are far lower in fantasy value.
TRAP — Trivial Rush Attempt Percentage: For running backs, the percentage of all touches that are not High-Value Touches, which are low-value rush attempts outside scoring range. A higher TRAP means a high percentage of low-value touches, which is worse for fantasy production.
RYOE — Rush Yards Over Expected: Looking at the NFL’s Next Gen Stats model, which tries to isolate RB success from what’s blocked and the strength of defensive looks (e.g. light boxes, etc.).
Chiefs 27, Ravens 20
Key Stat: Isaiah Likely — 69% routes, 12 targets, 34% TPRR, 0.68 WOPR
What a season opener! The Ravens took the defending champs right down to the wire, and Isaiah Likely (12-9-111-1) had a shot to tie the game had his toe not come down just barely out of bounds, on what would have been a second touchdown on his breakout game. A play earlier, Lamar Jackson missed a wide open Zay Flowers (10-6-37, 2-14), who also could have scored the tying touchdown.
Jackson rushed for 122 yards in a game where Baltimore got off a Week 1-high 80 snaps. The Chiefs totaled just 50 plays, in part because they created some explosives on their scoring drives. Kansas City was at their typical positive PROE, at +4.9%, while Baltimore was slightly negative at -2.7%, but that was against a high expected pass rate give they trailed; the Ravens threw over 70% of the time, in terms of actual pass rate, which is certainly exciting for their pass weapons.
Likely was the huge story, but Mark Andrews (2-2-14) actually ran more routes. PFF’s Nathan Jahnke had the stat that Andrews was double-covered on a higher percentage of his routes in this game than any of his games from 2021-2023. A big takeaway here is the two-TE usage, with Likely checking in at a very strong 69% routes alongside Andrews’ 75%. The Ravens are thin at WR, and they were talking up Likely all offseason; I did have Likely as a fade, as I was reminded Thursday night, but also removed that tag and elevated him a tier, the buzz was so strong. That’s not to say I didn’t miss on him, because I clearly did, and I didn’t even move him to where he was really going to be draftable; I’m just saying the Ravens were saying this in August, so much so that even I had to acknowledge it, and that does make the Week 1 role easier to believe. At the same time, 69% routes is not a super strong role, Jackson’s 41 pass attempts were two off his regular-season career high, and Andrews should be expected to do more against other defensive looks. I’m thinking of Likely as the No. 3 weapon for these guys going forward, but where I still expect Andrews to probably out-target him the rest of the way. But he’s still a fantastic add; you get a TE-eligible player who is basically playing a ton of WR in a spread offense. Jahnke also had a stat that Likely and Andrews were on the field together for 39 plays in the opener, after a season high last year of just 16. This is meaningful usage, but we also have to control for a high number of dropbacks (and total plays) in the game, Andrews essentially being taken out of the game by a defensive gameplan (which helped elevate Likely’s TPRR to 34%), and the fact that Likely did still only register a 69% route rate, which leaves some meat on the bone. Some of his early targets felt very designed, and we see teams sometimes really try to feature something early in the season that they knew they wanted to do, only to see it go by the wayside over time. But later in the game, in catch-up mode and a little more off script, Likely had the long TD, and then the near miss at the end of the game. When you see that, and you see the combination of scripted usage and also unscripted usage, you do get excited and expect the player is going to be very involved.
For what it’s worth, Andrews being in a route on 75% of dropbacks is also a bit of a knock on him; that was lower than any of his nine healthy games last year, and his average in those games was 85%, so it wouldn’t be fair to say that Likely’s role didn’t cut into him at all. That’s part of the nature of two-TE setups. As with all the data in this game, it’ll be interesting to track going forward when these guys aren’t in a repeat of last year’s AFC Championship and playing like the game will decide the No. 1 seed. You did get the impression the Ravens were pulling out all the stops. But to sum it up: Big bump for Likely, minor ding to Andrews, would put them in the same general value range rest of season (think the Kittle to Njoku area in preseason rankings), but still lean Andrews for overall target volume (Likely feels like the better efficiency play). I do realize that says two top-12 TEs, and I don’t necessarily expect them both to be top-12 TEs, but the position was down in Week 1 and I do think they have independent cases for both being valued there.
Flowers was the other big winner, with an 88% route rate, 10 targets, and plenty of involvement. He only totaled 54 air yards at a 5.4 aDOT, and we’d like to see more downfield from him, while I think we will. Rashod Bateman (5-2-53) was also out there for 88% routes, a positive sign, and made a nice play on a late 38-yard gain to get the Ravens down to the Chiefs’ 10-yard line and set up the final sequence. I would expect both Flowers and Bateman to see bumps in production most weeks with these roles, which concentrated the WR routes in a positive way. In other words, Likely was the focal point this week, but probably won’t be most weeks, depending on matchups.
Derrick Henry (13-46-1, 2-0-0) didn’t look great, and notably gave up a ton of third-down work to Justice Hill (1-3, 8-6-52), who played more snaps overall and ran 55% routes to Henry’s 27%. Henry had just 1 HVT, his short touchdown plunge, but he did get two targets; Hill had 7 HVTs, and his only carry came from the 10-yard line during the 2-minute drill, which was more positive usage. While I don’t expect the pass volume to be this high most weeks, Hill’s role is worth paying attention to. He’s not a huge waiver priority, but could be a pretty viable spot-start option if he averaged even half that many HVTs going forward. Henry looks like a TD-or-bust TRAP back.
The Chiefs were so fun to watch in Week 1, man. Xavier Worthy (3-2-47-1, 1-21-1) brought the explosive play element, and while he did spend plenty of time running routes that just moved safeties out of the way, his two long TDs and whopping 80% route rate are nothing but huge bull signs when you think about how rookie usage grows over time. He’s going to be a little boom/bust in the short term, but the explosiveness is clearly there, and there will be more booms. You can point to just three targets and one rush attempt, but the way I’d frame it is “If he did this on that usage, what happens when they manufacture more for him?”
Meanwhile, Rashee Rice (9-7-103) feasted in the space that was created by the threat of Worthy’s wheels. Rice is an underneath stud, catching short and intermediate stuff as a possession receiver who also naturally turns up field and has a big-time knack for YAC. He had four catches right away in the first quarter, and felt like he’d frankly wind up with a bigger stat line. He was also at an 80% route rate, and as I said in the intro, it frankly kind of shocked me how clear it looked that Rice is now the best option in that area of the field as soon-to-be 35-year-old Travis Kelce (4-3-34) is naturally going to slow down a little bit. But both Worthy and Rice were the types of plays I thought they’d be in Week 1, so I don’t have much to add to my preseason bull expectations. We’ll have to see how Hollywood Brown fits, but as of now, things are looking great here.
Kelce will still put up some numbers, and his 87% route rate was bullish, plus we know he’ll score a TD or two on some creative shovel pass in the green zone at some point. But like Andrews, Week 1 was a downgrade for Kelce, and he looks more like an ancillary piece in the best version of this offense going forward, rather than its focal point. I do think he’ll have enough efficiency — and the Chiefs will pass enough overall — to finish something like TE5 or TE6 if he stays healthy. He’s not likely to bottom out. But when I say TE5 or TE6, I’m envisioning him near the top of the “best of the rest” group of nonelite TE scores, and perhaps meaningfully behind whoever finishes top three. Both Kelce and Andrews would make sense to trade if you can get good value that believes Week 1 is an overreaction, but also could be buy lows if people are seriously panicked and think they won’t score at all, and you could use some TE production. How to play them is entirely dependent on leaguemate perception.
Isiah Pacheco (15-45-1, 3-2-33) was the clear No. 1, logging a huge 80% snap share and running 73% routes. Of course, Samaje Perine (no carries, 2-1-10) just joined the team a week prior, and Perine did play 15% of the snaps, mostly on passing downs, with a 27% route rate. I’d assume some degree of Pacheco’s huge role was the intensity of the matchup and opponent, and the Chiefs play Perine’s former team (Bengals) after a 10-day break in Week 2, so I’d probably expect Pacheco’s usage to scale down starting right away in Week 2. It’s nice to know this level is possible, but Pacheco also had a bad game — he had a bad drop on a wheel route that got him perfectly open, and didn’t rush particularly effectively. It’s not out of the question we see Pacheco maintain a much bigger role this year, but there’s also the element where this offense will always be pass-first, and is so fun with their new weapons, that Pacheco isn’t always going to get enough touches to put up actual stats that back up the huge snap shares. He did have 17 touches here, but only 3 were HVTs, including a 1-yard TD plunge. I mostly faded Pacheco because I didn’t see the legendary upside, and I feel fine about that after Week 1. He has the potential to be a real silent killer that just isn’t doing enough to justify his cost, particularly if he starts to hemorrhage passing-down work.
Signal: Ravens — heavy two-TE usage, and both were very strong in routes, but there will always be some cannibalization with heavy two-TE sets; Isaiah Likely — clearly involved, both scripted and unscripted, and while the 69% routes and Mark Andrews’ double-team rate suggests he won’t be the focal point all year, he should still have some value (would value him in the low-end TE1 range now, with volatility both ways); Justice Hill — 55% routes to 27% for Derrick Henry, 7 HVTs to 1 for Henry; Xavier Worthy, Rashee Rice — perfect complementary profiles, produced as I’d hoped to see in Week 1
Noise: Mark Andrews — highest double-team rate in three years (the 75% routes is still a bit of an issue, after being higher than that in every healthy regular season game last year); Isiah Pacheco — 80% snaps, 73% routes (looks great on paper, but could lose some as Samaje Perine gets more work, and also gets a little less work from his routes than you’d expect because of the pass-first nature of the offense, so these numbers might both not stick and also be a bit misleading in their value)
Eagles 34, Packers 29
Key Stat: Eagles — 74 plays (fifth-most in Week 1), 34/38 pass/run ratio
Other than the unfortunate Jordan Love injury, my biggest takeaway from this game was the Eagles’ much-discussed pace really playing up, and allowing them to cover up some issues. One of the things we saw around the league in Week 1 is how good coaches create more chances for key players, where even after a start like the Eagles had with two quick turnovers, smart concepts allowed them to get things going. Other coaches might just fall into a shell and start running the ball and punting. You always have to have answers, and the Eagles found some here, in part because they are so willing to play fast and maximize opportunities to impact the game. Their 74 plays were fifth-most in Week 1 despite a pretty big run lean that saw them register more rushes than pass attempts, which also obviously keeps the clock moving.
Another big thing that needs to be noted here is the field conditions. The footing was clearly an issue across the board, and it seemed to help the offensive players (who know where they are going and aren’t the ones trying to react). We saw several guys breaking free for big ball-in-hand plays.
Saquon Barkley (24-109-2, 2-2-23-1) looked like a star, generating 86 yards after contact, although he only forced two missed tackles. I’ll probably be on a bit of an island here, but a fundamental way of how we play fantasy here is a belief 1,200 rushing yards aren’t worth nearly what the market thinks they are, and I still think we won’t get enough receiving here to justify a cost at the Round 1/2 turn, despite Barkley being someone I very obviously wish I had more exposure to. Barkley did wind up with 5 HVTs, including 3 green zone carries, and will be the biggest beneficiary of what I just wrote about pace. His first touchdown was an incredible individual effort on a wheel route where he got his feet down on a play I very much did not think would stand on review, while watching live. He later scored on 11- and 2-yard runs, and I mean it’s a gorgeous Week 1 line, but I would have questions about the sustainability of the 26 touches and 80% snap share (felt like showing off their new weapon Week 1), the repeatability of the TDs (particularly the fantastic catch, but also the 11-yard run), and whether the field and perhaps a poor Packers’ run defense influenced things here. Obviously for Week 1, though, if you drafted Barkley, you look like a genius. He looked exactly like the thesis: This former No. 2 overall pick in a way better environment creating big plays and looking like his younger self. And I would definitely move him up based on that, to be clear, and I do think you can already clearly say I missed something the market did see. I’m not sure I’m worried it’s going to ruin my season that I faded him, though, is the point I’m making here.
Dallas Goedert (5-4-31) was the only other Eagles player with multiple targets, outside the big two, and he totaled -4 air yards, seeing all five of his targets around the line of scrimmage, typically on RPOs or just straight play-action quick passes to get him the ball in space. He did run a route on 79% of dropbacks, and certainly wasn’t the worst TE we saw in Week 1.
But all the downfield volume was dominated by A.J. Brown (10-5-119-1) and DeVonta Smith (8-7-84). On a field where run-after-catch ability was going to be elevated, you knew Brown would take advantage, going 67 yards for a monster catch-and-run TD in the early third quarter. Other than that play, though, Smith seemed was the far more consistently efficient player in the passing game, and if you’re on Smith this year, the opener felt really positive. Both guys ran 100% routes, and there’s a big boost from their target concentration. Jahan Dotson ran routes on 63% of dropbacks with the team but earned just one target, and after struggling to earn volume in Washington, it’s hard to imagine him mattering in a big way alongside these two stud WRs.
Jalen Hurts started slow, throwing an early third-down pick in his own territory, then losing a fumble on a botched snap miscommunication for another turnover in his own area. Later, the Eagles were stuffed on their first “tush push,” and then botched a snap on it in the end game situation. It wasn’t all bad for Hurts, who nearly threw for 300 yards and had two passing scores, but he ran for just 33 yards on 13 tries, and without a TD. One of the reasons I was out on Barkley at cost was how the TDs would fit together across the roster, as I detailed in Offseason Stealing Signals. If Barkley does hit in a major way, it very well might mean Hurts’ status as QB1 is negatively influenced. That said, what we saw in this game sort of suggested the whole offense can be right — again, the high-level takeaway was the Eagles’ pace and aggressiveness, especially with a concentrated skill position group. I guess what I’m saying is I really don’t know how much of Week 1 to buy — we got a back-and-forth shootout with a ton of big plays on a bad field in a foreign country. I don’t know if I have a good idea what a normal Eagles’ game might look like, but if I had to guess, it would definitely be “fantasy friendly.”
I thought Josh Jacobs (16-84, 3-2-20) looked brutal in the early going, but he did get loose for two runs of 32 and 22 yards, ultimately turning in a decent game. His 54% routes were solid, although not really ideal given expected No. 2 MarShawn Lloyd was out. Emanuel Wilson (4-46, 3-2-2) had a strong showing as the No. 2, with multiple impressive runs on 18, 14, 9, and 5 yards. By comparison, Jacobs’ third and fourth longest runs were also 9 and 5 yards, except Wilson only had four total carries and Jacobs had a dozen more that didn’t produce much of anything. Overall, as a Lloyd fan, I took this as a positive sign for the rookie the team took in Round 3 and has been high on through the offseason. Lloyd should work into a split role alongside Jacobs, though the team may also use Wilson more in the short term after a nice showing here.
The Packers came out with a clear plan to rotate their receiving weapons, starting with two-TE sets that only featured Romeo Doubs (7-4-50) and Christian Watson (5-3-13-1) at WR out of the gate, but quickly subbing in Jayden Reed (6-4-138-1, 1-33-1) and Dontayvion Wicks (3-0-0), as well as even Bo Melton (no targets) in the first couple series. In the end, Doubs clearly led in routes at 92%, but struggled to be highly productive, while Reed and Watson both found paydirt on solid 76% roles. Watson had a dropped TD that OPI would have nullified anyway, and then Love missed him right after that; adding in the score later, he was a clear focal point in the end zone. Reed was the star, putting together his most impressive play on with a fantastic after-the-catch maneuver early, only to see it wiped by offsetting 12-men penalties, only to then back it up with later TDs of 70 through the air and 33 on the ground. Yes, the field was a mess, but Reed showed he plays at a different speed, and in a passing game that has a lot of weapons and will spread volume around some, you’re looking for this type of playmaking ability. Wicks really struggled with a couple drops on tough plays, and at only 43% routes, is in a tough spot. He’s still a Year 2 WR who put up very strong efficiency as a rookie and could come on as the season moves on, but with Love set to miss some time, he’s probably a short-term drop in plenty of leagues and then a watch list guy to re-add after a month or so.
The other huge note was Luke Musgrave (2-0-0) taking a total back seat to Tucker Kraft (3-2-37) who was the very clear starting TE and ran routes on 81% of dropbacks. This one’s fairly easy: Musgrave is a cut in basically all shallower formats (I might hold him one more week in TE Premium just to make sure the role doesn’t build out), and Kraft is an add in basically all formats, as a Year 2 guy the team is obviously high on in a passing offense that still has long-term upside.
Of course, with Malik Willis set to start next week, the Packers’ pass catchers are virtually all unstartable in the very short term, even Reed if you have decent alternatives.
Signal: Saquon Barkley — looked fantastic, should be a strong RB option in this offense (not necessarily buying high on him, though); DeVonta Smith — strong opener alongside A.J. Brown in a highly-concentrated passing game; Jayden Reed — played at a different speed, has the playmaking ability to matter in an offense that spreads work around; MarShawn Lloyd — missed Week 1, but a nice stash going forward after Josh Jacobs had a questionable Week 1; Tucker Kraft — 81% routes, clear TE1 over Luke Musgrave
Noise: Packers, Eagles — field conditions led to several huge plays for the offense, which helped create a shootout environment that is at least something to keep in mind; Packers — passing game is going to look extremely different with Malik Willis under center
Steelers 18, Falcons 10
Key Stat: Bijan Robinson — 89% snap share, 81% routes, 6 HVTs
Speaking of legendary upside in RBs, Bijan Robinson (18-68, 5-5-43) is a legendary buy in home leagues where people might actually move off a guy if he doesn’t score a TD in Week 1 and his yardage is just OK. We got confirmation of a lot of what I hoped for when I wrote about the Perfect Storm elements to this offense this year, with the part that wasn’t confirmed being that Kirk Cousins looked horrendous. But let’s talk about that in a second. First, we have to celebrate that the three main receiving weapons all ran routes on 100% of dropbacks, and then Robinson was out there for 89% of snaps and a massive-for-an-RB 81% route share. If Atlanta wasn’t a total disaster in Week 1, this might have been the biggest story in fantasy, and it is extremely bullish for the upside of these pieces going forward. Buy lows are never a certainty, and I can’t promise you Cousins will work into better health, but they do have a top-10 rookie QB backing him up, and more importantly this is a clear “what do you get when you’re right?” situation where the answer is “everything.” Focusing on Bijan first, he played more than 80% snaps for the first time in his career (again, was up closer to 90%, right in line with Kyren Williams’ average snap share from the Rams’ offense last year, that OC Zac Robinson came over from), and even as Bijan didn’t show off great efficiency, he still went over 100 yards from scrimmage. He also had 5 missed tackles forced, and over 3 yards after contact, grinding things out against a stout Steelers’ defense where T.J. Watt just lived in the backfield and freed up other defenders to key on guys like Bijan. I don’t think Bijan’s definitely going to stay at a 90% snap rate all year, and all of these hyper-concentrated situations do feel a little like Week 1 things at times, but you look at the 100% in the passing game, and you look at the old Rams’ tendencies, and you see a coaching staff that is telling you they want to play their guys, and even when they do try to rotate some, the range of weekly usage is going to trend toward being very high.
You should want to buy everyone else in this offense, too, but we have to talk Cousins. Field Yates had this note about the predictability of the Falcons’ offense after the game:
Hayden Winks added these notes:
Clearly, that’s not ideal. It’s not promising about Cousins’ health, nor about Zac Robinson’s decision-making. It also seems impossible to repeat. Cousins missed all of the preseason, and the simple explanation for the Week 1 gameplan was to keep the training wheels on and ease him in. The bottom line is if he can’t move, he won’t play, and Michael Penix will. It might take a few weeks — this reminds of the year after Joe Burrow’s ACL, when everyone panicked about the Bengals for about four weeks despite there being a reported necessary ramp-up timeline — and I would be really concerned if we don’t see anything by about Week 4 or Week 5. But I actually tend to think we’ll see things open up right away in Week 2, because this was so egregious, and it’s one of those things where the broadcast booth will be like, “They told us in the production meetings they wanted to get Cousins moving around a little more this week, and they did it on the first snap right there.” Again, if he literally can’t move, it’s very hard to imagine they would put him out there. It reads way more to me like being overly cautious, and then Cousins is just kind of a dork so he probably leaned into it a bit. But again, if I’m wrong, then in time Penix will play, and I will say that for a rookie, he’s not that much of a concern to me for the skill guys, because of his aggressiveness. So either way, we’re talking about things improving. The least likely outcome is the Falcons built a whole offense for 17 weeks around a QB who can’t move and he plays the whole year while not being able to move. That’s not a logical endpoint of the very real concerns that sharp people have raised about what we saw in Week 1 (and they are real concerns, but we have to think about how to play it and what happens next and this is the kind of storyline we can often look to exploit, with again the objective being to move onto players who could be big hits).
The reason this is all so important is because 100% route rates would be big if the scheme and QB play does improve, even if that’s a somewhat compromised Cousins or a rookie QB. We want the guys who lead the NFL in routes, and the biggest reason people have issues with the Falcons is largely these young dudes haven’t run enough routes so far in their careers. Drake London (3-2-15) had a really poor game, and Kyle Pitts (3-3-26-1) was saved by a blown coverage that left him wide open for a TD, while Darnell Mooney (3-1-15) and even slot guy Ray-Ray McCloud (7-4-52) were more involved, targets-wise, than you’d expect most weeks. The routes are especially bullish for Pitts, who we just learned might be the favorite to lead the NFL’s TEs in routes this year, when his previous career high is 508 (Engram led TEs last year with 617). The Falcons travel up to Philadelphia next week to face an Eagles’ team that was just in a shootout with the Packers, and plays fast. They should wind up dropping back a good amount, and these guys should run a lot of routes. It’s tough to know whether to turn around and start a guy like London because you kinda need the “complete 180, overcompensation” explanation rather than the ramp-up explanation, but I don’t think it’s out of the question to play them in Week 2.
One of the reasons this game wasn’t great for fantasy was Pittsburgh had Week 1’s lowest PROE at -11.6%, and Atlanta also — while hiding their rehabbing QB — was among the bottom, at -9.7%. This is obviously no surprise for Arthur Smith offenses, and with Justin Fields under center, we saw some designed QB runs as well, with Fields rushing 14 times for 57 yards. Fields is the type of runner we’d expect a little more rushing explosiveness out of if he’s running 14 times, but it’s also true that scrambles tend to average more yards than designed runs, and scrambles require called pass plays, which again, Arthur Smith. The Steelers did still win the game, so I will reserve my criticism for when this costs them, but for now, “just good enough” and six FGs with no TDs worked.
With Jaylen Warren (2-7, 2-2-13) still rehabbing a hamstring injury, Najee Harris (20-70, 2-1-9) was the clear lead, and looked about as stuck in the mud as ever. Cordarrelle Patterson (4-13) also worked in, because Arthur Smith. I’m not really buying into the workload splits here as heavily predictive given Warren had the hamstring thing in preseason. We did see Warren play almost as much as Najee on pass downs, though, which perhaps suggests a different type of split this year. It would be very Arthur Smith if he came in and focused on the far less talented back.
The passing game was as toothless as I expected, except George Pickens (7-6-85) kind of dominated, and felt like a big play waiting to happen. Of course, when “kind of dominated” equates to 85 yards and 14.5 PPR points, it’s not great. He’ll have his big games, but I’m not sweating not having any of him even a little bit. Some teams will make shutting him down the whole gameplan, because why wouldn’t you, in which case Arthur Smith will just run the ball some more.
Pat Freiermuth (4-4-27) was the only other Steeler with more than two targets, and Van Jefferson (2-1-1) ran routes on 76% of dropbacks, if you’re a masochist.
Signal: Bijan Robinson — 89% snaps, 81% routes, 23 touches, 6 HVTs (legendary upside confirmed); Kyle Pitts, Drake London, Darnell Mooney — 100% routes for all three (especially bullish for Pitts, as a TE); Steelers — (-11.6%) PROE
Noise: Falcons — concerns the Week 1 gameplan, and Kirk Cousins’ total immobility, will sink their whole season (they were probably overly cautious, also have Michael Penix if need be); Najee Harris — 56% snap share, 20 carries (Jaylen Warren not 100% feels like a big part of this)