Input Volatility, Week 5
Bye weeks, the Falcons, and optimism for the season
I woke up today feeling more optimistic about fantasy than I have in a while. Last night’s game was that fun — a 66-point overtime classic with the Falcons throwing 59 times, and not for a bunch of low-impact short completions, but 509 yards and 4 TDs.
I got a ton of questions about the individual players, and I wanted to start today recapping that a bit in a Stealing Signals way. Kyle Pitts (8-7-88) had a really solid day, but I do have to note that we talk about market share stuff for a reason. The team talked about using him more, and they did from the early going, but when this turned into comeback mode and they needed completions, they were going to the other guys.
It’s nice that Pitts had 8 targets for the first time since Week 13 of last year, but in the same game, Darnell Mooney (16-9-105-2) had double, Drake London (13-12-154-1) erupted, and even Ray-Ray McCloud (9-6-66) out-targeted him. None of Pitts’ production came at the expense of anyone else, and that’s not a great sign when you think about games where there isn’t this much pass volume.
For a longtime Pitts fan who has plenty again this year, it was cool to see. But honestly, I’d be trying to package him in a two-for-one or something after this game. There were flashes here, but then there were still some weird moments, like him double-catching a wide open curl for a short gain. He just doesn’t look comfortable; it never feels easy. We got to see how London can make it look easy; I got a question that referenced me calling London “bad,” and I had to go back to Stealing Signals last week to find where I did use that word, but I’d meant it in the context of what his production had been, since his efficiency has been weak. I’m only bringing this up to try to contextualize where I’m at because Siegele has seemed I think a little more down on him on Stealing Bananas, but I would say I was holding out hope, and so this week for me was really optimistic. I think London can still be a really important piece this year.
Part of that is while Mooney is drawing all this volume, and he made a few plays, he also had a bad drop late, and probably isn’t the player that matches his utilization so far. He’s probably the equivalent of a sell high, but only in those leagues where you can actually get something for him. The reality of this game — the part where Pitts was the fourth highest-targeted player and still had a very strong TE performance — is that we saw the promise of the Atlanta offense, with its concentration and how that can manifest in huge upside. And Mooney is very much part of the core of that, now just four targets behind London (44 to 40) as they both average at least 8 per game. That is the type of situational boost that can play up a decent-if-unspectacular talent into a solid situation, and it’s where even someone like Ray-Ray McCloud, who I’ve felt weird about including in the “Biggest Signals” sections at times this year, is very fantasy-viable. It just can’t be ignored.
Still, we have to normalize for the volume here. We’re not going to see 59 passes every week, for obvious reasons. This was just such an exciting game, though, because the Falcons were able to get the ball down the field, and while the Buccaneers went pretty run-heavy, they also were able to find efficiency passing, with Baker Mayfield throwing for 180 yards and 3 TDs on just 24 attempts. I’ll save most of the Buccaneers stuff for Monday — it wasn’t a great night for Bucky Irving, as Rachaad White ran efficiently for the second straight game and Bucky lost a fumble late that just can’t happen when running with a lead, but he still just looks so much more dynamic, and White’s production was essentially all just one long run that was perfectly blocked up front though he did make a nice evasive move on a safety. The team had talked up White and wanted to get him rolling after a decent Week 4, and that seemed to be a focus, and then he hit another long run so we’ll see some more of him in the short term. In the long term, it’s still gotta be Bucky.
But back to Atlanta — we’ll still need to normalize the numbers from this game for the passing volume, but we also saw a team that came out and threw with intent, and then wasn’t afraid to call a ton of passes in the close trail script all second half. It was fantastic stuff from a fantasy perspective, and their ability to attack downfield on plays like Mooney’s second-quarter 24-yard TD in traffic was the kind of thing we just haven’t seen enough of in the past few years.
I’d felt OK about the Falcons finding this type of potential within their offense, even after the Week 1 catastrophe. The Week 2 win in Philadelphia was huge to keep their season together, and then even after the Kansas City loss in Week 3, they’ve now taken back-to-back divisional games in dramatic fashion — and importantly, they’ve ratcheted up the PROEs in both games. I don’t have the PROE numbers for last night yet, but I anticipate a solid positive lean there, which we saw in Week 4, after the first three weeks of -9% or lower.
I’ve compared that to 2021 with Joe Burrow coming back from his ACL — there’s a whole paragraph about those specifics in the 2022 Offseason Stealing Signals, but basically they went pretty run heavy through the first three weeks, and were slow-paced, after he couldn’t play in the offseason, and I reference there how I’d predicted in that preseason that “by about Week 4 he’ll have had enough real game reps that we probably won’t even be talking about it.” The other reason I’m going back to this is the Bengals’ range of PROEs the rest of that season basically never worked down to the range they were in during Weeks 1-3 (their two lowest games were in Weeks 1 and 3, and Week 2 was only a couple percentage points closer to neutral than their run-heaviest over the course of the rest of the year). Put more plainly, by the time Burrow was good to go, the first couple games of the Bengals’ season weren’t predictive of much the rest of the way, and I do believe the Falcons have crossed a Rubicon here and their team-level stuff is just going to be underrated by those first three weeks of skewed and not-likely-predictive data.
So that’s bullish going forward for everyone, and it does create a bit of a floor for someone like Pitts even if the way things are breaking, his ceiling pretty clearly isn’t going to hit. That was a huge reason I was willing to play him again at cost, of course — I felt the team-level improvement created a bit more floor where the 2022 and 2023 outcomes were more or less off the table, except that’s what we’ve gotten so far, in part because he’s seemingly regressed as a player. So now you have a slightly worse version of that floor expectation, where he’s more dependent on surroundings and is adding even less than expected in a worst-case scenario from a talent perspective. Still, given the TE landscape, you can probably do worse than just riding with him.
The other guy I got pinged about a ton was of course Bijan Robinson. I don’t understand the rush to declare it over for guys — it took me like three years to finally declare that last week for Pitts, and look what I got for that — but it’s definitely not over for Bijan. This is a former top-10 overall pick still only in his second year, and while he absolutely does not look as good as I want him to — and while Tyler Allgeier absolutely looks better than I expected him to, and arguably better than Bijan — everything I just described about the team will work well in Bijan’s favor, and his status is going to keep him in a lead role. Allgeier looked better for most of the game last night, and Bijan still led 58 to 31 in snaps, and kept getting opportunities, and actually did make a couple plays with them eventually. If you look at the box score, his numbers are far stronger than Allgeier’s, but that obviously doesn’t tell the whole story. I’m just saying we’re all responding to Bijan’s struggles from really lofty expectations, but he’s not in as much trouble as it seems, and the positive offensive momentum is eventually going to be good for him. This is not the same deal as White, for example, because of the draft capital, and because it’s only Year 2 and not Year 3.
Does is suck that we got an absolute scoring bonanza and Bijan only scored 10.7 PPR points? Totally. But one of the things about taking an early RB is you hope he has at least a consistent enough role to score most weeks, and Bijan’s bad games should stay in at least this range. More to the point, I do still think this dude is going to have multiple 20+ point games, and perhaps several. I don’t know what the end-of-year scoring looks like, because through five games he’s at just 13.5 PPR points per game, but I would definitely bet on the over there. The receiving role is still solid — he should have had another catch but it was a swing pass that went backward so it was recorded as a rush attempt, and Cousins was just finding all his guys downfield so the checkdowns weren’t the play most of the night — and it’s not hard to envision scenarios where he pairs a good rushing day with 5+ catches and a TD or two, in his ceiling outcomes. What I’m saying is while he looks a little less explosive than we’d been hoping for, the workload still has the potential to be pretty uniquely valuable in an HVT sense, although the Allgeier stuff is absolutely an issue. That’s not great.
The very last thing on Atlanta I want to say is just that the Kirk Cousins thing is pretty bullish for a theory I floated on Stealing Bananas lately that these veteran pocket passers that can read defenses well post-snap and get through progressions might be able to save fantasy by being part of the solution. It was a little bit in response to Andy Dalton taking over the Panthers and looking good, and what Geno Smith has done in Seattle, and Baker in Tampa, and what a guy like Jared Goff has become bigger picture. I’ve never thought Cousins was perfect, but he’s obviously part of this type of player and would fit into this theory, and so to see him being able to rip it 58 times for 500+ yards in 2024 was just so damn fun. We need these non-elite QBs to at least keep offenses fun on some of these mid-level teams to just lengthen the whole player pool, and all of that was just so great.
I feel like I could talk about that game all day, but we have to move on and we’ll save some of it for Monday. The other thing I wanted to talk about before getting to the games is where we’re at with the byes starting to hit. Our guy Malik Nabers is out this week, and while that’s absolutely a bummer, I looked through some of the teams where I have him, and I was able to put some pretty darn good players into starting lineups as a result. In one case, it was Dontayvion Wicks, in another I think it was like Jerry Jeudy, but the range there is better than it will be for most people, and that’s something I want to discuss today.
It’s only been four weeks, and with a lot of early RBs scoring, it hasn’t been great for some of the builds, especially if you’ve run into some injuries or poor situations. But I have some teams that, even going into last week, were both 0-3 or 1-2 and struggling, and also deep enough that I was able to do things like bench Jaylen Waddle and get some more upside into the lineup.
We’re at the point of the season where depth helps teams rise. It’s been annoying to concede RB points over the first few weeks, but having those extra WR options is so key right now, even if you have some injury issues. This is another reason I’m really optimistic, just looking at the lineups I’m able to trot out there even on teams where I have key producers like a Jameson Williams on a bye. And then looking at some of my opponents, where in deeper leagues I’m going up against guys like Greg Dortch and Olamide Zaccheaus.
If we get a period where the RBs who have been really scoring slow down a little bit, those teams that have drafted those guys are going to come back to earth, quick. I’ve had some periods of time in the first month where I’ve looked at some rosters I really liked but felt like they were dead because they probably need to make up something like 100 total points (or just string together wins, depending on format), but I guess with the byes finally hitting, I’m looking at it quite a bit different today. I’m not gonna lie — it’s been a bit of a struggle the first month, but suddenly even in those spots where I’m trailing I feel good about my teams’ ability to make up the ground over the next several weeks, as in that feels like the most likely scenario, that I’d predict being able to beat my league’s median by an average of 25 or so points for the next four to make up that 100, and that there’s upside for some 200-point games that make up that ground even quicker.
I don’t know; I just wanted to share that optimism, because I’m often pretty pessimistic, but probably because of last night’s game, things are just lookin’ up.
Let’s get to the games. As always, I offer these considerations solely because you guys have asked, and because I might have a thought about a different part of a range of outcomes in some cases, relative to what you’re seeing elsewhere. I don’t offer these thoughts because I think they will be explicitly great predictions, and it’s basically just me going game-by-game and throwing out what hits me.
Jets at Vikings (early Sunday game, 9:30 ET!)
The Vikings have a good defense, but I want to believe this could be a Garrett Wilson eruption spot. He’s struggled and the Davante Adams rumors are overwhelming, but it seems in the best interest for everyone — trade or not — for the Jets to get their young star going, and for everyone to have a kumbaya week. If they don’t get him going, and then they make the Adams trade that I think we’re all waiting for, they risk losing Wilson mentally, and there’s just no sense in that. You still want him engaged and feeling like there are co-No. 1s, and it’s a lot easier to convince him of that if he’s coming off about a 15-target game. I guess you could also make a narrative-based point the other way that Aaron Rodgers could try to prove to the org they need Adams, but that just seems weird to me; they do whatever he says anyway. I’m not sure of this take, but upside opportunities are usually worth chasing.
I’m also not sure what to expect from Breece Hall and Braelon Allen after the weird week last week and then the comments about goal-line stuff. Much of what I said in the intro about Bijan still applies to Hall.
The Vikings are pretty well known at this point, but the Jets do present a more difficult matchup for the passing game than RBs, and Aaron Jones could really be the focal point over Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison, as far as this trio of the clear top guys in this offense goes.
Panthers at Bears
Similar to the Vikings, we kind of have one strong RB, one strong WR1, and a fun WR2. Xavier Legette is a nice upside bet here, and Chuba Hubbard is the clear play over Miles Sanders as that has played out. The Bears have a tough defense so there’s maybe some team downside risk here, but as I said in the intro Andy Dalton’s provided a nice floor and the hope is that sticks on the road here.
D’Andre Swift looked like the worst RB in football up until last week, and then he looked like one of the best for one game. Now he gets a great RB matchup, and the range is massive. If you have him, you have to start him, but who knows what happens here.
The passing game is equally difficult to parse, but I’d probably guess Rome Odunze will be the somewhat clear third after writing in the TPRR piece this week how he’s not really earning volume per-route at a high level. That could mean some upside for the other two, with Keenan Allen always being the guy I think can consolidate targets.
Cole Kmet is also a volatility guy where if I didn’t have great TE options I’d be perfectly fine plugging him in and living with the low floor risk because I do think he’s very good and a justifiable talent-based play.
Ravens at Bengals
I don’t even know what to say about Mark Andrews, and it’s really just a bench and wait and see thing. Some of you have probably cut, and that’s justifiable. If he’s been cut in your league and you’re looking at it, I think adding and holding is also justifiable. They haven’t really thrown lately, so I’d be curious what it looked like when they weren’t building the whole offense out of the ground game, although they have no reason to stop that. But Andrews might weirdly have contingent value on a Derrick Henry injury, for example, because of how that might impact gameplan and pass rate. There’s a ton of uncertainty and he’s sort of antifragile now where the value is low but things could break in a way that benefits an obviously talented football player.
Justice Hill is a big volatility guy, where the upside is obviously there but he could also be out of some gameplans. Zay Flowers needs to get going and I’m still buying he’ll be good when they throw enough.
Chase Brown is more of an efficiency volatility guy, because Zack Moss isn’t going anywhere and the inputs are probably pretty solid on Brown, but it’s a question of whether he breaks a few plays. The goal-line work is interesting after his two touchdowns last week, as his explosiveness looked great in that area.
Obviously Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins are the main part of the passing game. I’ve been asked to comment on Erick All, who is a rookie TE that tore his ACL last year so he couldn’t test and is still working his way back to 100%, but has had four receptions in three straight weeks. The thing is his aDOT on the year is 2.2 yards, which is how they used Drew Sample for years, and All also profiles as a blocking TE like Sample (who they took in the second round, so the people talking up All’s fourth-round draft capital need to reckon with TEs being drafted high for their blocking sometimes). He did show up at the top of the TPRR list this week and I didn’t even comment, in part because he’s only run 38 routes in four games, and with that super low aDOT, we’re talking about block-and-release dump-offs and small-sample variance, not target-earning skill. One note I got on him talked about how Mike Gesicki isn’t great, and setting aside how he never really gets his due, All and Gesicki are about as different as two players ostensibly playing the same position can be; All “taking” Gesicki’s role is extremely unlikely. One is a stretch TE who doesn’t block, while the other is a block-first guy who is playing a lot of snaps but not running routes. And then even if he did consolidate a higher-routes role, you have Chase and Higgins and two good RBs on this team and I’m not sure any third option really matters. The path is thinner than it looks, and the upside is probably not worth it, setting aside that he’s in Year 1 post-ACL and even if I’m wrong on all that and he can be a true three-down threat long-term, then he’s probably more of a fantasy player for 2025. (I love this conversation so much though because it validates everything I do that even when I write tens of thousands of words every week, if I take a shortcut and ignore a rookie blocking TE running a high TPRR on only 38 routes at a microscopic aDOT, the Stealing Signals readership will ask, “What’s going on with that guy?”)