Stealing Signals, Week 10, Part 2
Biggest Signals and Biggest Noise of the week
For anyone who skipped Part 1 this week, but likes the intros, I’m going to point you back to Part 1, where I wrote 2,500 words that sort of sum up the whole ballgame with fantasy football. It’s all about how NFL teams evolve within seasons, something I’ve referred to before as a moving target, when talking about things like seasonal projections. If you’re interested for more, I’m reminded of my article on antifragility from 2021 that leverages the Loki TV show to talk about NFL seasons as timelines that branch out in unexpected ways.
Today, I’m going to work a little quicker, and then hopefully get out of the house and go for a walk or something, because in my high northern latitude, cloudy-ass city, the post-daylight-saving Vitamin D deficiency hits hard this time of year. All of a sudden, it gets dark at like 4 pm, and it felt like it was summer two weeks ago. The good news is we won’t see the sun again until like May, so we have that to look forward to. (If you’re new to the newsletter, I’m a big “climate impacts mental health” guy.)
One thing I do want to note as I was asked today about Adam Thielen being activated and who that impacts: Jalen Coker played 40 slot snaps this week, and has been playing a lot out of the slot overall. I always think that stuff is a little overstated, and there are formational things you can do to get the guys on the field that need to be on the field, but coming out of Carolina’s Week 11 bye, it’ll be interesting to see if Thielen takes some of Coker’s routes and then David Moore is still playing a lot on the outside, opposite Xavier Legette, who presumably is not at risk here.
That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me in a lost season, and they waited to activate Thielen until the very last day of his 21-day practice window, so that’s just one that we’ll have to monitor. But I’m open to the idea that Thielen has value, as well — I’ve added him in a high-stakes league, in fact. He was obviously productive with Bryce Young last year and if he winds up running 80% routes or more, there’s potential for him to be a high-target option in PPR (especially if his routes are pushing Coker to the bench, as that would weaken his target competition).
Let’s get to the games. You can always find an audio version of the posts in the Substack app, and people seem to really like that. You can also find easier-to-see versions of the visuals at the main site, bengretch.substack.com.
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 NFL Pro. Part 1 of Week 1 had a glossary of key terms to know.
Chargers 27, Titans 17
Key Stat: Chargers — (-10.5%) PROE, 18 pass attempts (tied for fifth fewest by any team in a game this year)
Despite an early Tennessee TD, the Chargers dominated the Titans, holding them to just 3 points between the first-drive TD and a garbage-time one to cut a 17-point deficit to a 10-point final score with under a minute remaining. The Chargers had leaned toward the pass since their bye, but we got just 18 Justin Herbert pass attempts here, with L.A. rushing 39 times. Nine of those went to Herbert himself, who scrambled a bit but also got some designed rushing work, including on a 4th-and-1 from the 4-yard line where he took a sweep out of an empty formation (no RBs in the backfield) and cut back up inside to get not just the first down but the touchdown.
J.K. Dobbins (15-50, 3-3-5) didn’t have a huge day, and then Gus Edwards (10-55) did return to plenty of work, and he looked good. I talked about Kimani Vidal in the introduction yesterday, but Edwards looking good here might have also influenced the rush rate, and frankly Edwards feels like a pickup to me at this point, as it’s been a while since Dobbins has really been hitting on the rushing efficiency. Edwards essentially didn’t play on pass downs and would be a hugely TD-dependent option if you do add him, so it’s more of a low-priority pickup and likely more for half-PPR or non-PPR formats. Somewhat frustratingly, Hassan Haskins (2-4-1) got the other short TD, but Edwards did split the other green zone touches with Dobbins, two apiece.
Quentin Johnston (2-2-24-1) scored again, and honestly he’s starting to look a little smoother, where I’m starting to see it a little bit. I’ve been hesitant to chalk up too much credit for his production so far, but he’s big a fast and his TD in this one was on a route that asked him to weave through the entire defense from the left side of the formation to the back-right of the end zone, and showed an ability to navigate it and get to a spot where it was a relatively easy throw on a key third down to pretty much ice the game. Ladd McConkey (2-2-52) also only had two targets, and it was Will Dissly (6-5-30) who got the bulk in this low-volume game, as Dissly stayed in a decent role with Hayden Hurst (1-0-0) back for his second game since missing some time. Hurst unfortunately let his one target go through his hands for a bad drop, and appears to be behind Dissly at this point. Dissly did have a bit of an alligator arm moment where he had a shot at a TD reception he couldn’t bring in. As always, Herbert’s not necessarily getting the help he deserves.
Tony Pollard (9-44, 4-4-19) got a little banged up in the second quarter of this one, and Tyjae Spears (7-47, 3-3-4) seemed to take most of the work the rest of the half, though Pollard returned after halftime.
Will Levis actually looked quite a bit better in this game, but the Titans were pretty conservative, and ultimately only wound up running 51 plays. Early on, he hit Calvin Ridley (9-5-84-2) on a well-thrown ball on a post pattern for a deep TD, and then he found Ridley again at the very end in garbage time. Don’t get me wrong, Levis missed multiple throws, too, but he also used his mobility well in this game, and with Brian Callahan trying to hide him a little bit and only drop him back in advantageous spots, the net result was decent per-attempt efficiency and the kind of stat line that makes people think it was good QB play. (In other words, what Mike Vrabel got out of Levis at times last year, which is why I wrote in the offseason that Vrabel “covered up some warts at times, and this new scheme more or less intends to put them on display.” After several weeks of that, Callahan is now just choosing to lose with dignity, presumably with the hopes of trying to build something, since actually trying to win the game in front of him isn’t always feasible right now.)
Anyway, Ridley was productive again, and then the backs caught 7 passes, and then there wasn’t much else in a game Levis only threw 23 passes in despite the big loss. Nick Westbrook-Ikhine (3-3-31) caught three balls, and there were three other completions total.
Signal: Gus Edwards — 10 carries, 2 green zone carries (basically zero passing work and only 24% snaps overall, so the range of outcomes isn’t strong and it’s pretty TD-dependent, but he ran well and it does look like he’ll have a role); Will Dissly — 6 targets, 50% routes with Hayden Hurst back for his second game (Dissly was running fewer routes than Hurst before Hurst’s injury but is well ahead of him now)
Noise: Tony Pollard — 54% snaps (banged up in the second quarter, and seemed to miss the rest of the half but return after the break, so Tyjae Spears getting up to 46% snaps doesn’t necessarily feel predictive of the future split)