I wrote a bit on Saturday night in the Input Volatility post last week about trying not to worry too much about start/sit outcomes that don’t go your way. It’s an impossibility, but it truly will make all of this way more enjoyable if you can accept that losses are what they are.
The large Main Event contests I often write about are structured a little different at the couple different main sites, but the common thread is the Week 15-17 period being a three-week shootout with a substantial prize pool. You have to do well enough in your 12-team league to get your roster qualified for that three-week shootout, and I’m happy to have a few teams that will be in some of those.
But I’m going to miss out on one this week that brings to mind that discussion on start/sits. Tonight’s game is still relevant, but it looks like we’ll fall short, and the question will be whether that’s by 10 or so points or by, like, 30. And in that roster this week, we started Saquon Barkley (debated it), D’Andre Swift (didn’t really debate sitting him), and James Cook (our biggest debate, and the last player in), while our biggest start considerations were Pat Freiermuth (out-scored all three) and J.K. Dobbins (out-scored all three by even more). And then we also had Jerick McKinnon on the bench.
Now I can sit and lament that the whole season for that team came down to a final week where we had a shot but didn’t have the right guys in there, but the far more reasonable response is this team just wasn’t good enough. After a hot start, Barkley fell victim to his offense. Swift was never really healthy. Despite the lineup not being optimized, we still had a shot to be in position to advance with a big Jaylen Waddle game last night on Sunday Night Football, but we didn’t even get close to that. Waddle’s been our biggest WR hit (along with Garrett Wilson) on a roster that also features guys like Diontae Johnson, Drake London, and DeVonta Smith.
It very much could have been a better team, and I would have loved to get it into the shootout because I still see upside for this group, but I look at the team and I don’t really regret the final week start/sits as the reason it didn’t win. Years ago, I would have, and judging by a lot of the comments I’ve gotten since my writeup Saturday, most of you are still in that place where it’s natural to blame yourself for the lineup decisions, or at least put way more weight on that then is fairly attributable, in terms of why a team didn’t advance.
Some of the stuff I’ve seen from you guys is just objectively smart decisions having not worked out. It sucks when you make the smart play and get the wrong result, but it’s also important to understand that’s what it was, and not to go looking for inconsistent hindsight reasoning for why you could have done things differently, which can then seep into future decisions in a way that takes some misfortune and compounds it into a future process mistake.
I can’t look back at the team I just described and wonder why I didn’t start McKinnon, because that’s not particularly reasonable given what was known prior to the week. Dobbins, maybe, but that was a pretty big health-related gamble. Freiermuth certainly could have been a play in the Flex spot, and had been as recently as last week, but that’s probably a 50/50 with the upside scenarios for Cook being a bit higher. Freiermuth obviously happened to score a TD this week, his first since Week 2, and that was pretty big for his fantasy total.
That’s how it goes in fantasy football. What I’m most bummed about is a guy I did think needed to help carry this team, Waddle, had another rough game on SNF. The whole Dolphins offense struggled, for sure, but Waddle had a couple catchable slants early on that he just didn’t haul in, and some of that might have helped Miami build on some things overall, so it’s not like the overall offensive dud just happened to him and his performance wasn’t part of the issue. It was a bummer, and yet his performance all year was a big reason this roster was even in position to advance at this late stage, and so I can look back at other elements of the other players’ seasons to identify other things that could have gone differently.
Ultimately, a ton of stuff builds up over the course of the season, almost so much that it’s impossible to keep track of it all, and that all adds to the end result. But we wind up putting a ton of weight into those lineup decisions at the very end, or else maybe a couple of other memorable lineup decisions — I know in past years I’ve done the thing where I lost a Week 3 game because I started the wrong TE and then I’ve carried that forward all season and at the end of the year blamed that when I missed the playoffs, or the bye, by one game.
But I mean that’s holding yourself to an expectation of perfection, and we’re mostly just talking about variance here — that hypothetical team that lost because of the Week 3 TE decision probably won another game because of some other coinflip decision, but I just ignored that because I was right and that’s how it was supposed to be. But really, that was positive variance and the Week 3 thing was negative, and it balanced out a bit, and I can’t hold myself to an expectation of perfection just because the start/sit decisions feel like they are in my control and so many other elements of this hobby are things we feel pretty powerless about. And at a psychological level, that’s really what it is — wanting to blame ourselves for the things we did have a say in, while we explain away the guys who did bad as not really in our power, even though we also made a choice to draft those players, or add them, or what have you.
Now, having said all that, sometimes the variance doesn’t balance out. And if you’re more or less agreeing with all this, but you’ve been tracking all this really negative variance that’s been pretty frustrating and you don’t think it really applies to your team, well, that might be true. The whole season is still a pretty small sample of decisions, and some seasons are just doomed to bad luck, or bad decisions, however you want to look at that. Some stuff breaks incredibly well on the other end, where your fill-in spot starts always score, and your points against stays low, and everything goes really swell. Again, that’s part of it.
My point here is to just to try to be honest about it, because we really do tend to skew negatively on this stuff. I’ve heard it a lot just since writing about this on Saturday, and like I said, some of it is objectively correct, sharp decisions going awry. Dwelling on that is in my opinion a mistake.
Let’s get to Week 14, as we head into the fantasy playoff weeks. Getting a late start as I finally made a doctor visit this morning (after writing the intro) and found out I have bronchitis, but they ruled out pneumonia via x-rays, so I’ll take it. The writeup might be short, as I’ve tried and failed at before, or it might just hit your inbox super late. At least we only have eight games today.
Data is typically courtesy of NFL fastR via the awesome Sam Hoppen, but I also pull from RotoViz apps, Pro Football Reference, PFF, RotoGrinders, Add More Funds, and I get my PROE numbers from the great Michael Leone of Establish The Run. Part 1 of Week 1 included a glossary of important statistics to know for Stealing Signals.
Rams 17, Raiders 16
RB Snap Notes: Cam Akers: 42% (-30 vs. Week 13 high), Kyren Williams: 30% (+2 vs. W13), Malcolm Brown: 28% (highest since W9)
WR Snap Notes: Tutu Atwell: 61% (+9 vs. previous season high), Keelan Cole: 48% (lowest since W9)
Key Stat: Raiders — (-20.8%) PROE (lowest in Week 14, through Sunday)
Well, Baker Mayfield showed up in Los Angeles, didn’t start, took over for the second drive, looked solid in leading the team to a field goal, and stayed on for the remainder of a game he would eventually get a comeback victory in. The Raiders helped, of course, going offside on a four quarter punt while up 16-3 to keep the Rams on the field with about 11 minutes to go, which eventually led to the first of the two fourth-quarter touchdowns. Then they also failed to convert a third-and-1 in between the touchdowns, opting to use Josh Jacobs (27-99-1, 2-2-15) from a fullback alignment for some reason. Then after punting, the Rams needed to go 98 yards with no timeouts, but the Raiders gave them a pretty immediate 27 penalty yards, including a defensive pass interference that negated an interception and a taunting call after a first-down sack with 1:20 left and a running clock, with the Rams moved back to their 13-yard line and facing a second-and-19. To be fair, Mayfield did play well beside that, but I mean the overall lack of execution and poor discipline from the Raiders was pretty clear.
We got a lot of Cam Akers (12-42-1, 1-1-1) again, although he lost a fumble in the second quarter and we started to get more Kyren Williams (3-19, 2-1-10) after halftime it seemed. Malcolm Brown (1-5, 2-2-12) played a lot too, for some reason, and he actually led in routes with 35%. Akers is the only vaguely playable guy here, but even he is a pretty TD-dependent option.
Van Jefferson (4-2-44-1) continues to run a ton of routes and score fourth-quarter touchdowns. Tutu Atwell (9-5-50) actually led the team in targets on his 65% route share, and Ben Skowronek (8-7-89) also posted a nice day. I mean, I can’t even get up for vague excitement about these guys, and would never recommend actually playing any of them.
Apart from the late miscues, the Raiders also had some really confusing game management. They got an early lead, then sat on it with a ton of runs, leading to just 20 total pass attempts. To be fair, that seemed to be their plan throughout — I had some notes from the early part of the game that said their offensive gameplan seemed to be run, run, run, deep shot to Davante Adams (7-3-71), and then run some more. Adams had a ridiculous one-handed catch early, and made another nice play downfield a bit later, and I’d written in those early notes how this offense validates the value of a true No. 1 WR, and kind of works if you do have Adams to just chuck it up to. But they went away from that, and after a stretch of five games where Adams had seen at least 11 targets in each and averaged 133 yards with seven total TDs, the Raiders more or less voluntarily took him out of the game with the pass rate stuff, because his seven targets still amounted to a very strong 35% share. It was purely their overall pass attempts that was to blame for his weaker performance, and it arguably cost them the game.
Jacobs got a massive workload, even despite going to the locker room for x-rays on his hand in the second half. Like a true contract year player, he was back out there basically the very next series. He and Adams remain basically the whole offense, with Mack Hollins (4-2-22, 3-40 rushing) the only other skill guy to total more than 20 yards.
Signal: Rams — probably just don’t start any of their players; Raiders — also them, too, with Davante Adams and Josh Jacobs as the exceptions
Noise: Raiders — 20 pass attempts, -20.8% PROE
Bills 20, Jets 12
RB Snap Notes: Devin Singletary: 49% (+5 vs. W13 low), James Cook: 41% (-2 vs. W13 high), Nyheim Hines: 17% (-14 vs. W13 high), Michael Carter: 50% (return), Zonovan Knight: 47% (-8 vs. W13 high)
WR Snap Notes: Elijah Moore: 82% (+14 vs. W13, highest since W4), Corey Davis: 12% (injured)
Key Stat: Elijah Moore — 10 targets, 104 air yards, 92% routes
The Bills more or less controlled this one throughout, though it stayed close and low scoring in poor weather. The Jets continue to have a very strong defense that did create trouble for Josh Allen, but the Bills also created trouble for the Jets, and the opening score in this game didn’t come until there were 26 seconds left in the first half. Things opened up a bit more in the second half, but the outcome was never really in doubt, though the Jets did enough for the backdoor cover.
Allen threw for just 147 yards, with just 16 completions on 27 attempts. Stefon Diggs (5-3-37) and Gabriel Davis (4-3-31) had quiet days, while Dawson Knox (7-4-41-1) caught the lone touchdown and led the team in targets. Isaiah McKenzie (5-3-21) ran routes on 73% of dropbacks again, but he was also hit by the negative passing environment. Knox was up at 94% routes, which was a season high, and just his second game over 85%, with the first coming one week ago. That little bump in routes makes him a little more viable down the stretch.
Devin Singletary (8-39, 2-1-4) remained the lead, and James Cook (4-6, 1-1-9) ceded a couple snaps, but was still very involved. Nyheim Hines (1-3, 1-1-4) ceded more. It wasn’t a great offensive environment for a split backfield to generate big production. Singletary led with 42% routes to 39% for Cook, and Hines fell back down to 15%.
The Jets had more interesting storylines. Michael Carter (5-5, 6-3-15) mostly took Ty Johnson’s (no touches) snaps, while Zonovan Knight (17-71-1, 2-2-6) stayed in a similar role to the one he’d been in. Knight did give up a few routes down to 29%, which is a bit of a concern, but he had a dominant share of the rushes and put up an impressive 13-yard TD run for the Jets’ only score. He remains very startable, because even if the routes are down, you can feel pretty good about at least a little bit of receiving work to go with a pretty strong rushing line.
Elijah Moore (10-6-60) was a big story, as we’ve been kind of waiting for him to do something. The routes were back up to 92%, his first game over 90% since the early part of the year. Corey Davis (1-1-15) got injured early and played just nine snaps, which help open room for the Moore increase, as well as Denzel Mims (5-3-35) getting a lot of run. We’ve already reached the point with Garrett Wilson (7-6-78) where if he doesn’t lead the team in targets, it feels like a minor disappointment. He still led the team in yards because his efficiency was much stronger than Moore’s or Tyler Conklin’s (8-5-28), who also saw more looks than Wilson.
Signal: Dawson Knox — 94% routes after 89% in Week 13 (only two games over 85%, and it certainly makes him a little more viable down the stretch); Zonovan Knight — lost a few routes, but maintained the clear early-down lead and Michael Carter mostly took over Ty Johnson’s snaps from the past couple weeks
Noise: Elijah Moore — 92% routes, 10 targets (it’s at least a little unclear how much Corey Davis getting injured after just nine snaps impacted this, but it’s still great to see)
Bengals 23, Browns 10
RB Snap Notes: Joe Mixon: 58% (return, -7 vs. low in previous healthy games), Samaje Perine: 43% (+7 vs. high in previous healthy Mixon games), Nick Chubb: 62% (+0 vs. high)
WR Snap Notes: Trenton Irwin: 84% (+10 vs. high), Trent Taylor: 78% (+43 vs. high), Tyler Boyd: 3% (injured), Tee Higgins: 1% (injured), David Bell: 68% (+4 vs. high)
TE Snap Notes: David Njoku: 96% (return)
Key Stat: Ja’Marr Chase — 47% target share, 1.02 WOPR (second highest in Week 14)
Deshaun Watson played better in his second start, but the Bengals were just the better team than the Browns in this one. Perhaps most notably, the Bengals’ offensive line improvement we’ve been quietly hoping would stick made a big statement in limiting Cleveland to just one sack, after they’d gotten to Burrow five times and really disrupted Cincinnati’s passing game in their last meeting on Halloween. Since then, Burrow has been sacked just six times total across five games, and the Bengals have won each of those contests.
Tee Higgins got the start, played on the third snap of the game, and then that was it. He didn’t have an injury designation for the game, but the team apparently decided they just weren’t going to use him, after he had some discomfort in pregame, and also that they weren’t going to communicate that.
TV sideline reporter just said that Tee Higgins (who hasn't played much so far) is available but may not play that much due to a hamstring injury. This was a "coach's decision". He was left off the final injury report after two limited practices. Brutal run out for fantasy.One of my favorite things with these outcomes is nincompoops being like, “Oh, fantasy analysts thought…” and it’s like, okay, but literally everyone thought Higgins would play, including the broadcast team, beat reporters, fans, et al. I mean, there are some dumb fantasy analysts, don’t get me wrong, but some people are so quick to dunk on them that they basically argue we should be able to see the future. This was an unknowable outcome. The Bengals were being dumb.
Meanwhile, Tyler Boyd (1-0-0) got hurt early, and logged just two snaps. That left Trenton Irwin (2-2-58-1) and Trent Taylor (4-1-34) — as well as Mitchell Wilcox (2-1-10) with Hayden Hurst out — as the secondary receiving weapons. In other words, the Browns just had one assignment: Stop Ja’Marr Chase (15-10-119-1). They didn’t, because Ja’Marr Chase is a superstar. It’s a huge bummer he missed some crucial time for fantasy this year during the byes where anyone who drafted him got really thinned out and his advance rates are really poor as a result.
Joe Mixon (14-96, 2-2-10) led the backfield, but Samaje Perine (4-22-1, 5-1-2) played more than he had in any other healthy Mixon game to date. Unfortunately, Perine had two pretty bad drops out of the backfield and only hauled in one of five targets in a game where the Bengals could have really used his receiving as a boost to their passing game. The usage suggests his play while Mixon was out endeared him to the coaches, and yet the play in this game can’t have been very endearing. He did score on a 6-yard TD run, which was the only green zone touch of the game for Bengals backs. That came in the two-minute drill, so I wouldn’t read into it too much that Mixon didn’t get it — Perine was on the field as the passing back and they were in a hurry, not really looking to specifically sub in Mixon for a running play. Perine ran routes on 51% of dropbacks, while Mixon was at 43%.
Donovan Peoples-Jones (12-8-114) had a big day for Cleveland, while Amari Cooper (7-2-42) had another dud with Watson. David Njoku (9-7-59-1) also returned to a really strong role, and he continues to produce big numbers for a passing game that remains pretty concentrated. Though the Browns threw 43 times in this one, their PROE was still -1.8%, as they trailed throughout and had an expected pass rate over 70% for just the third time this year (they’ve had negative PROEs each time, as well as all of their other games for that matter, outside Week 10).
David Bell (3-3-27) was good to return to his role, and Demetric Felton barely played as a result. Bell remains somewhat interesting, but has struggled to earn volume all year, so that star is fading.
Nick Chubb (14-34, 3-3-20) got back into a larger role, and Kareem Hunt (4-6, 4-2-6) suddenly looking like his former self the week Watson took over faded, as Hunt looked more like his unproductive 2022 self in this one.
Signal: Donovan Peoples-Jones — career-high 12 targets, 8 receptions, 114 yards (31% target share, and while that won’t stick, there was obviously a QB change so developing a quick rapport with Watson is pretty notable); David Njoku — season-high 94% routes, healthy, looked great
Noise: Tee Higgins — one of the noisiest things all year, where he was supposed to be fine but played just one snap; Samaje Perine — got the TD on the only RB green zone touch (was in the two-minute drill, so not some data point that Joe Mixon isn’t the goal-line back anymore)