People still do not understand antifragility

Week 1 is the least important week, you guys

This time of year is always filled with so much excitement and optimism, and everyone is more engaged than they will be at any other point in the calendar. It also basically doesn’t matter, and the way we react is probably part of why people disengage by about Week 5, because they were wrong in their preseason assumptions, and then they got confident they knew the answers, and then they were wrong again.

Everyone is so primed and geared up right now to say what the truth was, despite the face that what we learned is that things don’t go as expected and will change again. Please let that comment sink in. It never ceases to amaze me how people rush to declare that unexpected things are the new True and Obvious things that can’t change, when the whole point is to probably be a little cautious with our declarations.

This impulse to shout who the biggest winners were — who got the most right — after one week of data, is stupid and wrong. To the people who would call this “bag defending” or saltiness or what have you, make sure you read what I’m saying: You’re wrong, and stupid. That’s not how any of this works.

Don’t read what I’m not saying: I do not know what happens next. I’m not the one person who is smarter than all others. But I promise no one is, not someone who claims that because they have 30% Isaiah Likely as a handcuff play that they know everything, nor the person who won a bunch of bets.

This stuff doesn’t piss me off because I spend Week 1 being told about all the things I missed (it’s that a little bit, let’s be honest); it pisses me off because I live my life hyper-analyzing things, obsessively seeking what is actually “true” about situations, to the extent those things can exist. And I get told about all the things I missed when what I know to be true is “Let’s wait and see” is the real answer.

But that’s not satisfying, even for those of you who think I’m the best analyst there is, because even as you’ve read and listened to everything I have to say all offseason, there was that one thing I kept repeating that you just didn’t really agree with, and wouldn’t you know it, Week 1 showed I was wrong on that! We’ve had a one-way relationship all offseason and you’ve had to hear me spout my nonsense all summer and yeah, I do deserve that joke about how I missed it!

I wouldn’t take that joy away from any subscriber, or friend. But also, I do very earnestly believe that the way we live this week as if we just learned everything there is to know is extremely dumb. The way we live the whole month of September is dumb.

I wrote about Elite TEs this week in the intros to Stealing Signals, but there are other trends we expect to develop over time that need to be addressed. If you understand how things progress over the course of a season, and what we should be looking for in Week 1 in terms of how that might impact the fantasy playoffs, in my estimation the single biggest note from Week 1 is something mostly flying under the radar: Rookie WRs. We got some fantastic usage notes, and even some legit production, up and down the spectrum. You’re just looking for routes and a little efficiency early on, to see if these guys can play, because things tilt their way as we move along through the season. Xavier Worthy, Brian Thomas, Brock Bowers, Ladd McConkey, Keon Coleman, Adonai Mitchell, Jalen McMillan, Xavier Legette even — these guys are going to develop through the season and play a major role in 2024, and it’s disproportionately going to come when fantasy leagues are actually won, not when people claim the most victories (because nobody checks back in around Christmas to point out they overreacted in September).

That’s that concept of “antifragility.” As more unexpected things happen — injuries, weird game environments, schematic edges or deficiencies — the players who can thrive despite the uncertainty of their surroundings are antifragile. And that’s why we keep using that word, year after year, because that’s the goal. For the most expensive players, we want robustness — those who can maintain through shocks to the system — not fragility (those who lose value easily). But for everyone else, it’s antifragility. Gaining value. Those are the players who win fantasy leagues.

So when Week 1 happens, and all anyone wants to talk about is the results, it’s important to keep that squared. I wrote favorably about how Elite TEs might wind up this week not because my head is in the sand, but because I expect unexpected outcomes like the position having one of its worst weeks of any week in years, right out of the gate, and I’m trying to think about what that means going forward. What happens if the unexpected is the position is down again in scoring? The players who can score have that much more of a positional advantage. They of course have to score, but value over replacement-type analysis isn’t new or cutting edge; we know it’s easier to be valuable if there aren’t good alternatives readily available.

The RB Dead Zone has come up. Basically every year, for as long as I’ve written about it, people have made bold declarations about it in the first month of the season. The whole point of the Dead Zone is emphasis on projectable volume in Week 1. The rookie RBs I was hammering? Sure, Bucky Irving immediately looked ready to take work from the veteran Dead Zone back, but we’ll see how long that lasts, right? Jaylen Wright and Kimani Vidal were inactive Week 1! Blake Corum didn’t get a touch and then became the most dropped player in ESPN leagues.

What are we doing? Play volume was down tremendously, run rates were up, teams treated Week 1 like an extension of the preseason. Can we at least see how these teams get into the season?

I mention Wright being inactive because of course he could be the dude right away tonight. I’m not necessarily expecting it, but as I mentioned in one of my many sections, he’s an input volatility guy where I’m sort of expecting 15% of the offensive snaps if De’Von Achane plays, but it’s asymmetrical upside, especially if Achane is out, and there are paths to a Week 2 breakout. Speaking of Achane, he sat Week 1 last year, played six snaps in Week 2, then had 233 yards and 4 TDs in Week 3.

“He’s an outlier” — sure, the specifics are, but the arc is not. People just refuse to pay attention to history. It drives me nuts how much research is done into all these aggregate points in fantasy football, and then it’s like people have never actually observed a real football season. End-of-season stats carry all this weight, but no one talks about how things evolve through a season. Has everyone commenting just been playing for two years? I’m getting old so I like to blame the Zoomers for everything these days. I think it’s all your fault.

Wright is just one example, but you can see how things are breaking in his favor. And every time it happens, it gets chalked up to uncertainty. “Well you couldn’t have predicted Raheem Mostert would already be injured.” I don’t think anyone is actually saying that, because Mostert is Mostert and was priced — and Achane was priced — like everyone and their mother knew Mostert was a threat to miss Week 2 after taking his first hits of the season.

Wright will get his opportunity quicker than expected. Irving gets his because White opened Week 1 with the worst RYOE in the NFL for I think the second straight year? Ray Davis should also already benefit from Ty Johnson getting banged up Week 1. Vidal and Corum and MarShawn Lloyd and so many others are being cut because it didn’t happen for them right away. What lessons are you learning? What are you watching? Does anybody think critically anymore?