Stealing Signals, Week 13, Part 1
Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and early Sunday games
We’re almost to the finish line, and I’m hopeful you guys have found ways to be successful this season. As I mentioned in the preseason, the plan has been to maybe slow down after Thanksgiving, and that this column won’t run after Week 16, where there are Week 17 games starting on Wednesday, which is Christmas Day.
I’m definitely going to get through the 11 games today, but probably the slowing down means smaller introductions the rest of the way. And as far as how I’ll talk about the various players, there’s so much that’s already known that it becomes just a discussion of the sport and those things. And of course, I love writing about that stuff, and I know many of you guys like reading about it, but it’s a lot to break down. And really, as I’ve written in prior years, at this point in the season I just get sick of analyzing, and more directly of hearing my own voice. I’m sick of the podcasts right now, too, and feel like everything I say is forced and tired and annoying.
Of course that isn’t the case, but it’s the result of the long season, and I’ve been here before and I’m very comfortable with where I’m at. I know I’ll be solid in a month or two, and that it’s just a moment in time brought on by the rigors of the past 4+ months. But that’s why I’m transitioning to where I don’t actually overwork at this point of the year just to get those of you still in contention over the line. The truth of the final month is so much of what will happen is out of our hands now, and there’s a lot of luck and variance and all of those things that goes into who actually wins. The goal is to build these great teams from the start of the July (and earlier) prep, through August drafts, and then the in-season roster management across weeks and months.
At this point, as you might have noticed in recent weeks, when I try to highlight something interesting in Input Volatility, there’s not a whole lot that comes of it. There are always a couple things that pop up, but in truth, things kind of are what they are. I’d written that Kimani Vidal sort of missed his chance to make an impact, essentially because he wasn’t ready to make an impact. He got some opportunities this week with J.K. Dobbins out, and hell maybe there’s still some hope there, but the Chargers used multiple non-RBs in the backfield at times. I wrote in Input Volatility that Vidal would probably have to play a lot of snaps unless the Chargers did something creative, and one of the things they did was use Derius Davis — their kick returner, and ostensibly a WR — in the backfield a little, as well as TEs and their DT/FB Scott Matlock, and they got Gus Edwards far more passing snaps than we typically see from him, and so they more or less said they didn’t want the answer to be a bunch of Vidal.
Things mostly are what they are at this point, and the vast majority of the value add of this column has now passed. And as I’ve written recently, I have some things I really want to focus on this winter, and I’m really excited about tackling that stuff. As a little bit of a sneak peek, it’s been long enough, and I’ve been feeling like I’ve been getting further away from some of the basics, that I have been developing a plan to sort of start from ground zero and build out all my little rules about fantasy football, dusting off some old writing and updating and polishing and reposting it, since so many of the current subscribers weren’t here in 2020 when this newsletter launched.
In conjunction with that, the 2025 offseason is going to be so fascinating in terms of what it means for how we play the sport, because of how the NFL has evolved, i.e. RB scoring, and what that means for strategy, etc. The future of this is exciting, and I’m excited, and I want to bear down and challenge my earlier foundational stuff while also intertwining the forward-looking ideas and pieces I like to write in the offseason. And I mean I’ll obviously do stuff like my TPRR series I do each winter, which is among my very best analysis each year, not just in how it thinks through the players but also in how it thinks through the teams, and how the stats were compiled, and what that might mean for where those teams go forward. I have this vision of trying to get through so much between basically the Super Bowl and the draft, which is crazy obviously. I gotta start like a whole calendar and road map before I get too far ahead of myself.
I did have some longer notes on Jonnu Smith I wrote on Friday, as an idea for an intro today, so I might as well post those given I’ll need to talk about the Dolphins below. The idea came from the reality that we test our process more through our misses than our hits, for obvious reasons, and I think he’s super interesting for a couple reasons, and trying to figure out why he was a miss.
I was really pretty out on Smith as a result of how concentrated Miami’s been, but I see now that was the process error. I’ve strongly believed in Mike McDaniel as a coach who positively impacts fantasy because of his uniquely strong ability to get the ball to the guys in his inner circle, who he wants to be highlighting. My failure wasn’t in analyzing and understanding Miami’s offense or Mike McDaniel, but in not playing into the obvious upside present there if Jonnu could become part of that inner circle, which he clearly has. I preach all the time that seasons are chaos, and we’re seeking upside.
I was really into De’Von Achane being the third guy in the passing game, and that’s how the season started and has mostly continued, but what I missed was the possibility that one or both of Tyreek Hill and/or Jaylen Waddle might have disappointing seasons. Or I guess I didn’t really miss that, as that was part of the Achane play, and also part of why Waddle was worth his cost to me, given that I thought he had massive contingent upside. What I didn’t really think about was a season where Hill would clearly struggle but Waddle would also only have a pace of about 850 yards as a healthy 26-year old after three straight 1,000-yard seasons to open his career.
But that’s not me trying to be like, “That was impossible to see, we need to write that off,” because sort of my whole thing with projections-based thinking is that we make these assumptions that aren’t going to be accurate throughout the season. I always say, “It’s a moving target,” and hell the truth is Jonnu had a bunch of duds through 10 weeks, and I actually have him in a few leagues where I got him off waivers, including even in one of the FFPC leagues which is an 18-man roster league with TE Premium scoring, so if he was acquirable in one of those leagues he was obviously not a superstar throughout.
But I was also very out on him for best ball, and I do very much count this as a big miss this year, on my own ledger. And the miss was in the application of the type of analysis I do in places like TPRR, not necessarily in the way of framing the analysis. In other words, I think the process, and how I looked at things, could have led me to a reasonable position on Jonnu. I frankly should have gotten there, for the same reasons I was willing to take Waddle where I was, which was much, much more expensive. It all related to this very specific idea that being inside McDaniel’s inner circle was massive for volume and fantasy scoring, and so Jonnu was in a situation where he could have a career year.
It was very hard to see, especially with my conviction in Achane, but Tyreek’s been a little banged up, and Waddle has continued to struggle because he’s seemingly just a really inconsistent player, and that moving target created the conditions for Jonnu to smash. Ironically, that’s why I started to add him, and have been writing favorably about him in Stealing Signals — it became clear a little earlier than when Jonnu took off that the conditions for that might actually be there. I mean, if you’d have told me in August that Tyreek and Waddle would have these seasons, I think I’d have been telling you all to draft the depth pieces here. It wasn’t clear really until after Tua Tagovailoa returned what the extent of “these seasons” meant for Tyreek and Waddle, and again, all of this is just a moving target. I just found it an interesting hyper-specific ex post facto analysis, in the mold I’m excited to do more of this winter. I still think the answer is a situation-by-situation understanding of the player, the team, the trends, and all the nuances.
I guess I have a third intro when I started this week saying no more intros. I brought up the FFPC leagues, and the Signals Gold guys asked to go through those teams recently, and so we did, and it reminded me a lot of you might also be curious how my results are in those. It’s been pretty exciting to have some builds where various things came together well, including that Shawn and I have four autobids into the sprint across the Main Events and FantasyPros Championship (two in each, and we drafted five teams in each), plus another Main Event where we won this week to make the division final and have to win next week to make the sprint. If we do win next week, 50% of our teams, including 60% of our Main Events, will advance, when the expectation is roughly 1 in 6.
Then my team with Evan Silva has an autobid, and a few of the Ship Chasing comanaged teams have life as well. All of those teams will have their waivers close on Sunday morning this week, and no more moves will be allowed through the end of the season, so that’s part of why I personally don’t have as much interest in this column the rest of the way.
As for some of the other formats, I’ve been asked to review my Eliminator results, and those did not go very well, because I explicitly focused on a Zero RB approach in those in a season where RBs stayed healthier than ever before. I did have some really good teams that made it into the money weeks, but injuries to guys like Rashee Rice and Stefon Diggs were really harmful to my portfolio. Shawn and I do have one Eliminator still alive on his account, that we drafted on Stealing Bananas.
Then there is the Guillotine Leagues I drafted with several of you guys right before the season started. I’ve written before, but I lost out in one of those literally in Week 1 because it was a Christian McCaffrey team where I took Travis Kelce (had a Week 1 dud), Tee Higgins (sat Week 1), and Jordan Addison (got injured Week 1) as my next three picks in the 18-team format. That team was still live to advance until CMC was announced out on Monday before their game, and I cut CMC and added Kyle Juszczyk in a desperate attempt to stay alive, but it came up barely short when Juice had a near-miss TD.
I reminisce on that because in the other reader league, I’ve been able to navigate the trials and tribulations of the season, but will be eliminated again this week due to CMC once more. I needed just 4.6 more points to advance to the final five with a team where I had a ton of points on the bench.
I thought long and hard about sitting Chuba Hubbard because of the Jonathon Brooks element I wrote about in Input Volatility (specifically writing, “this might be the last point where it feels like he’s not at all a threat to Chuba Hubbard’s workload”). It would have been to flex Taysom Hill, which ultimately would have gotten me through. This team didn’t have any Week 14 bye issues and was super deep, as I’d done a good job of stockpiling overlooked assets through the season — I freaking love the challenge these Guillotine Leagues offer, and it’s always rough to lose a team, but I’m content knowing I built a team that had a real shot to win, and that at this point in the season everyone is so loaded that it does get super tough with the start/sits and needing the monster weeks to advance.
I’m down to one team, and that’s my team with Shawn, where we actually scored fewer points than the above team this week, but were able to sneak through to the final five in that league. I’ll try to keep you guys posted on all the goings on at least once more, including how the rest of the best ball portfolio goes from here on out (it’s not looking great in terms of advance rate for similar reasons to the commentary above about the eliminator leagues, but I do have some teams that are the ideal build for my player targets this year where I’m really pretty excited for those ones, if they can get some pod luck).
And… a fourth intro. One thing I noticed working through the games was a major theme developing of massive pass volume. There were 10 different teams this week who finished in the top 20 of all team games this year in either actual pass rate, PROE, or total air yards. It’s hard to articulate how crazy that is, but I’ve highlighted several as the key stats below.
Relatedly, seven teams recorded 17 or fewer team rush attempts this week, and this is one of the most extreme overall PROE weeks I can remember in some time. The Chiefs, Vikings, and Bengals all posted PROEs in the top five games of the season, meaning three of those top five spots are now taken up by Week 13 games. The Texans and Steelers also finished in the top 15 for the season.
Two other teams had actual pass rates north of 80%, becoming two of just nine teams to do that in a game this year. Those teams — the Dolphins and Bears — ran plenty of plays late in trailing scripts, giving them uniquely high expected pass rates, so their PROEs weren’t even that notable by Week 13 standards. Clearly, though, the extent to which they were willing to lean into the pass was very notable. The Titans also had the 16th-highest actual pass rate in a game this year at 78%, which was of course driven by their blowout loss, but it also led them to record just 11 rushing attempts, tying the fewest in a game this year.
And then the Jaguars and Panthers, despite relatively modest pass rates and PROEs (Jacksonville actually had a -7.9% PROE), both finished with top-15 games in total air yards. Indianapolis is yet another team that, despite a heavy run lean, totaled the 29th most total air yards in a game, so Anthony Richardson was still bombing it when he did throw. That Colts stat line makes them the only team in the top 30 highest air yards games this year that featured fewer than 30 pass attempts, and Indy was all the way down at 24 passes. Put differently, the 16.2-yard aDOT was second highest by a team in a game this year, behind only the Colts’ Week 1 (Indianapolis also sits fourth, seventh, and 16th on that list, in other Richardson games).
Anyway, the Colts weren’t even in the 10 I referenced. The other teams I mentioned — the Chiefs, Vikings, Bengals, Texans, Steelers, Dolphins, Bears, Titans, Jaguars, and Panthers — all had games that in most weeks would have stood out as particularly pass heavy. I didn’t want that to go overlooked, especially for teams like the Texans where we’ve been hoping to see that type of aggressiveness (did someone send Bobby Slowik last week’s intro?), and the Panthers, where it’s great to see Bryce Young building a longer resume of downfield passing, even if that was driven by 46 pass attempts in an overtime game more than anything on a rate basis.
Alright, let’s get to the games. There are 11, and I’m going to work through them quickly. We also had some data issues that can’t be easily fixed today, so the visuals are missing some data, which is a bummer, but we’ll work through it.
As always, you can find an audio version of the posts in the Substack app, and 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.
Lions 23, Bears 20
Key Stat: Bears — 81.0% actual pass rate, +7.7% PROE, 524 air yards (fourth highest pass rate, third highest air yards by a team in a game this season)
You know I could write several thousand words about the end of that game, but I can’t do that today. Probably my most controversial take is while Matt Eberflus deserved to be fired for burning two timeouts in stopped-clock situations on that final drive to bring about the final sequence where they had a real tough time with the running clock but a third-and-long situation which made them believe they needed to hold that final timeout for fourth down, the very final sequence, and the lack of urgency at the line of scrimmage, was not all on Eberflus, and does not speak well for Caleb Williams, either. Now, he’s a rookie, and guys make mistakes, and it’s not some huge issue. But Caleb not immediately understanding the situation called for more urgency, and also the fact that he ultimately checked into a play and threw well downfield — on a pass with a meaningfully lower catch probability than what they clearly needed which was a higher success-rate, shorter pass to get back the lost sack yardage and allow for a makeable field goal at that point — showed a glaring lack of situational awareness at the quarterback position. I’ll also put some of that back on the coaching staff for not having him better prepared both through their two-minute work all season, and also during the time spent talking on the sideline when they’d burned one of their two earlier timeouts just two plays earlier with 43 seconds remaining (again, a huge mistake there, because the clock was stopped, but an especially big mistake given it seems they didn’t use that time to make it painfully clear what the situation was, and that they weren’t going to be able to stop the clock with a timeout again, and they needed a field goal, and all those elements they should have just gone over but it seemed like Caleb was so unaware of — and needing to think through in real time — that they almost couldn’t have gone over them during that timeout, when they were probably way too worried about something as simple as the very next play, and no further details, because the difference in good coaching and bad coaching always seems to show up in details). So, the coaching staff was most to blame, and there was clear confusion perhaps brought on by having an interim offensive coordinator, but also none of it looked great for the rookie QB and his Football IQ and situational awareness, either. Anyway, gotta move on here. That was a crazy moment — as crazy as it felt — and there were just so many elements that could be unpacked, beyond what I’ve written here.
The Bears also really struggled in the first half, and were down 16-0 at the break, but worked all the way back to nearly force OT. During that furious comeback, and even before halftime, they amassed one of the highest pass rates for a team in a game this year, posting a hefty +7.7% PROE above even a high expected pass rate. Now, the interim OC who had a hand in that playcalling, is the interim head coach, and it does feel like Chicago is headed for plenty of passing the rest of the way.
D’Andre Swift (11-39, 3-2-35) had a quiet game, and Roschon Johnson suffered a concussion after just two offensive snaps that might have impacted the pass rate.
D.J. Moore (16-8-97-1) and Keenan Allen (8-5-73-2) have turned into the strong tandem that was expected in draft season since the Shane Waldron firing, while Rome Odunze (6-2-25) continues to deal with off-target throws. I saw somewhere that I think he leads the NFL in off-target percentage, which stuck out because it definitely jibed with the eye test, as I’ve written. Cole Kmet (3-3-26) was also quiet, and for now it feels like Moore and Allen are the only trustworthy members of the Bears’ passing game. Allen leads the team with 31 targets over the past three games, while Moore is right behind him with 30, meaning both have averaged at least 10 targets per game for that stretch since Waldron’s firing.
I gotta let myself get sidetracked again to say there was a play in this game I’ve literally never seen before, which was when Penei Sewell got an end around and looked like he might even have a pass option. I’ve seen offensive lineman catch passes and also take handoffs up the gut, but I don’t believe I’ve ever seen an end around to an offensive lineman, with or without a pass option. You just wouldn’t ever run a big-but-slow player horizontally, and it didn’t work, but it was awesome, and I love the Lions for being who they are.
Amon-Ra St. Brown (7-5-73) had a quiet game, Jameson Williams (7-5-28, 2-18) did as well, Sam LaPorta (6-3-6-2) caught a pair of TDs but had just 6 yards, and the Lions weren’t quite the juggernaut they usually are. Outside the main suspects in the passing game, Tim Patrick (3-2-48) chipped in a pair of decent receptions, and then Detroit really won the game on the ground.
David Montgomery (21-88, 3-3-36) got the bigger workload against his former team, while Jahmyr Gibbs (9-87, 4-2-17) looked as explosive as ever but did lose a fumble. I just wouldn’t read much into a short-week game like this.
Signal: Bears — very aggressive pass rate (81.0%, +7.7% PROE) and now the interim OC is the new interim head coach; Keenan Allen, D.J. Moore — both averaging at least 10 targets per game in past three games (turning into 1-2 punch since Waldron’s firing)
Noise: Sam LaPorta — 2 TDs (hasn’t had more than 3 catches in a game since October)
Cowboys 27, Giants 20
Key Stat: Tyrone Tracy — 73% snaps, 64% routes, 1 green zone touch
Drew Lock took 6 sacks and lost a fumble but his holding onto the ball also didn’t lead to better pass efficiency when he did throw it, as he threw a pick-6 and was below 100 passing yards well into the second half, before a solid fourth quarter in comeback mode got him to 178 for the day. He did have two long scrambles, including one that found paydirt and another that nearly did, but just wasn’t good enough to keep the Giants competitive in this one, and it was 27-10 through three quarters before the Giants got 10 in the fourth to make it look like a better game than it was.
That’s not to really give the Cowboys’ offense too much credit, as they needed more possessions to pull away than they should have. Cooper Rush didn’t take any sacks or turn the ball over, but he wasn’t worlds better as a passer, and CeeDee Lamb (6-2-39) had three pretty awful drops. Late in the game, he was on the sideline, and there was speculation he wasn’t healthy, but they didn’t really need him for what was mostly a run-blocking situation, and he still wound up running routes on a team-high 81% of dropbacks.
Behind Lamb, Brandin Cooks (7-3-16-1) returned and scored a TD, but did little else, while KaVontae Turpin (5-4-53) keeps doing fun stuff, and led the team in receiving yards. His role isn’t large enough to really consider for fantasy, but it cuts into guys like Cooks and Jalen Tolbert (4-2-41).
Rico Dowdle (22-112-1, 3-3-11) played 70% of the snaps, just one percentage point off his season high. His 22 carries and 25 touches were season highs, and he was effective in plus script.
Tyrone Tracy (9-32-1, 3-2-33) ceded some reps to Devin Singletary (7-23, 1-0-0) but was mostly back to his lead role, with 73% snaps and 64% routes, plus he got the green zone touch which he converted for a TD, showing the Giants aren’t too concerned about his ball security after last week’s fumble.
Malik Nabers (13-8-69) got a ton of volume, and was able to put up a half-decent line despite the QB issues. Theo Johnson (5-5-54) was the only other Giant WR or TE with more than 10 receiving yards, as Wan’Dale Robinson (2-2-6) busted.
Signal: Rico Dowdle — 70% snaps, 25 touches (season high in touches, effective in plus script); Tyrone Tracy — 73% snaps, 64% routes, team’s only RB green zone touch (no worries about ball security after last week’s fumble); Malik Nabers — 13 targets, 30% TPRR, 0.84 WOPR (QB issues, but they are still trying to get him as much volume as possible)
Noise: CeeDee Lamb — 3 drops, missed late-game snaps (still ran 81% routes, the drops are nothing predictive, and the late-game stuff was mostly run-blocking snaps in plus script)
Packers 30, Dolphins 17
Key Stat: Dolphins — 80.0% pass rate, +7.8% PROE (tied seventh highest pass rate by a team in a game this year)
The Packers are a really good team, and they got off to a fast start and were up 24-3 by halftime, dominating the ball in the first half after being initially held to a three-and-out on their first drive but benefitting from a fumble on the punt return, which all helped keep the Dolphins from doing much early. But my main point here is sometimes teams just lose, and Miami closed well, not just rolling over or anything, so to me the cold weather nonsense was pretty clearly disproven, though it kept coming up after the game. It was exciting to see Miami’s offensive improvement continue, and they finished with 375 total yards, just shy of the Packers’ 388.
Green Bay played from ahead, and so while their PROE was pretty neutral, their pass rate was very low at 52.8%. They also wound up running just 53 plays, and Josh Jacobs (19-43-1, 4-4-74) accounted for a huge chunk of them, making his biggest play in the passing game on a 49-yard gain late after Miami had started to make it vaguely interesting again. The backs behind Jacobs again split work and weren’t relevant.
Jordan Love missed Jayden Reed (6-3-24-2, 1-23) for a potential long, big TD right at the start of the game, but then after the fumbled punt, he hit Reed for a short one to close the first drive. Then in the late second quarter, he hit him for another, and I guess two short TDs make up for missing one long one. Tucker Kraft (7-6-78) was the other big beneficiary of Romeo Doubs being out with a concussion, and Christian Watson (4-2-67) and Dontayvion Wicks (5-4-30) were a little less involved, though not totally forgotten about in the low-volume game. Wicks’ 82% routes were very solid.
As I talked about in the intro, Jonnu Smith (11-10-113) continues to be massive for the Dolphins, and Tyreek Hill (9-6-83-1) had a nice game as well, while De’Von Achane’s (7-14, 9-8-56-1) receiving role kept him very involved despite Miami’s extremely high 80% pass rate. Achane also still had 3 green zone touches, including a short receiving TD. He did fail on his one rush attempt in close, which led to a turnover on downs at the goal line two plays later. The Dolphins totaled just 14 rush attempts all game, with Raheem Mostert (5-19, 3-2-15) operating as the clear No. 2 and Jaylen Wright playing just a single snap a week after his costly fumble.
Signal: Jonnu Smith — 11 targets in back-to-back games, both season highs; De’Von Achane — 9 targets in pass-heavy game, with 3 green zone touches and another receiving TD
Noise: Packers — 53 plays (second fewest this year, heavy positive game script)
Chiefs 19, Raiders 17
Key Stat: Brock Bowers — 0.86 WOPR, 14 targets, 10 catches, 140 yards, TD
The Chiefs came out trying to throw all over the Raiders and hopefully put them away early, then in one of the bigger signs they continue to struggle, they needed a ton of stuff to go right just to sneak out a win. Their +15.7% PROE was the second highest by a team in a game this year.
Xavier Worthy (7-5-54) is making a few more plays here and there, but he had a late target downfield to potentially ice the game where he didn’t even put his hands out for a potentially massive play, and I thought I must have missed it, and I guess maybe it was just a touch out of reach, but I tried to stop all these stills at about the same point and I mean you tell me. Feels like it was worth reaching for!
It’s stuff like this though that makes it such a contrast to DeAndre Hopkins (9-4-90) with Mahomes, because that’s a guy who actually makes that stuff look easy, and works so hard to get in position and make plays on balls that at times he doesn’t have any business even making a play on, because he’s so skilled. He had a bad drop on an extended play and was clearly upset, and even that was after I’m sure running all over the field and then getting down for a low throw, and it’s just not quite as easy as it looked. Setting that play aside, everything else looked great and smooth and what it should look like on the receiving end, which has not been the case for Mahomes with so many of these dudes for the past few years. He very nearly pulled in what would have been a ridiculous one-handed catch on a ball that was about as far out of his reach as this one was for Worthy, and drew a DPI on the play.
Travis Kelce (13-7-68) did his thing, and Noah Gray (6-4-58) had another solid day, while Justin Watson (3-1-6-1) caught the TD.
Kareem Hunt (7-15, 4-2-0) started and got early work, and the pretty clearly wanted to be careful with Isiah Pacheco (7-44, 1-1-5), though Pacheco did eventually get going with a long run and Kirk Herbstreit in the booth had a, “No offense to Hunt, but…” comparison where he basically said he can’t do that, which is clear for anyone watching. Pacheco’s athleticism is going to make him the lead back as soon as he’s capable of handling all the work. Hunt may still factor into the short-yardage equation.
I know I write this every week, but it bears repeating constantly that Brock Bowers (14-10-140-1) is just so, so good. In this game we got short stuff with YAC, a downfield one-handed catch, an over-the-shoulder TD, a deep in-breaking route on the game’s final drive to try to set up a field goal that was later botched by a bad snap — just everything from Bowers. I saw someone talk about him in terms of Kyle Pitts recently and it’s just nothing like that. It needs to be reiterated that Bowers was a superstar producer as a true freshman on a National Championship team (then backed it up for two more years) and Pitts was a three-year early declare who broke out in his final season, which is still a really nice TE profile when you factor in everything else, but is nowhere near the can’t-miss production that Bowers had. Now that we’ve seen this rookie season, it’s very clear that Bowers is the next generational TE, and Pitts or LaPorta or any of these other guys are nothing like Bowers. Obviously nothing is a certainty, but it’s important to contextualize, and I was telling you guys this dude would be a Hall of Famer after I think it was Week 2, and telling you to buy high all year, and yet going 10-140-1 in a near upset of the two-time defending champs shouldn’t just be glossed over. He’s just increasing the career ceiling with every game.
I don’t want to find a way to look it up, but I’m going to venture a guess that Jakobi Meyers’ (11-6-97) 0.78 WOPR is the highest or among the highest for a team’s second leading volume-earner in a game, which is to say that it all went to Bowers and Meyers. Tre Tucker (1-1-58-1) hit for a deep TD on his lone target, but there were two guys on the Raiders with more than 2 targets, and they both had 11+. You love to see that.
Sincere McCormick (12-64, 2-2-1) looked really good running the ball, and seemed to earn more work as the game went along, though he didn’t play a ton on passing down as Ameer Abdullah (10-39, 2-2-14) still held a clear 62% to 38% snaps edge and 61% to 18% in routes. Still, Abdullah was at 90% last week, and even after the other backs return, I guess I’d be skeptical the Raiders will just not use McCormick anymore in this lost season. He’s looked kind of fun, and these guys often get more chances late in these kinds of seasons. I wrote in the intro that most of what will happen is already known, but if something pops out of nowhere, it’s often in this type of spot, where displacing the starters wouldn’t shock anybody and the team has nothing to play for anyway so they are happy to play into anything positive that might develop if a guy like this starts stacking performances.
Signal: Sincere McCormick — 38% snaps, 14 touches, seemed to earn more work as the game went along, after Ameer Abdullah out-snapped him 90% to 10% last week; Brock Bowers — the second coming; Jakobi Meyers — 11 targets in a game where Bowers had 14 and no other Raiders player had more than 2
Noise: Isiah Pacheco — 37% snaps, 8 touches (clearly being held back a bit, but he has such a better gear than Kareem Hunt and they need that, and will lean into it over time)