Stealing Signals, Week 15, Part 1
Signal and Noise from TNF, Saturday games, and early Sunday games
What a crazy first week of the fantasy playoffs. We’ve been saying the NFL season has a lot left to offer, and Week 15 delivered with some exciting football, a number of crazy finishes, and a whole bunch of interesting storylines.
It always gets tough to do this column at this point in the season. Earlier in the year, this column tends to have a bit of a longer view, where it’s looking at what might happen down the line and not worrying so much about short-term things like a player missing a week or two with a minor injury. But at the point we’re at now, there is no long view, and when a player gets a minor injury, he’s liable to get shut down, a la Jonathan Taylor this week.
Ultimately, the next couple weeks come down to the rosters you already have, and then any tweaks you might make to your lineup is going to be very dependent on who is active. Opportunities are going to arise — like the Colts’ backfield, or the Texans, even — but obviously I’m not doing a ton of start/sit stuff here. (I do cover some of that in Input Volatility later in the week, when more is known, of course.)
Where that leaves me is with a ton of games to write about, but not really much in the way of super interesting conclusions to draw for a lot of them. The teams that I have left, I have like one or two spots on those rosters that I want to dig into deeply. Because they are high stakes stuff, waivers are actually locked.
Anyway, what I woke up passionate about this morning was the broader fantasy implications going forward, across multiple seasons, and I’m really pretty excited to get into that stuff in the offseason. It’s going to be a very fun next 12 months in the fantasy football world, because even among the people I’m inclined to agree with, I’m finding a lot of disagreement about what comes next. I’m seeing a lot of feelings that we need to be more willing to consider a lot of different stuff, but the 2022 season has led me to want to be more discerning than ever about the things I’m chasing. I was excited about the Eagles passing more this offseason. My writeups and comments about the Dolphins basically hit on their upside scenario exactly how it played out. There was a lot of uncertainty this year and there were many ways to play things, and in some instances I got caught buying in too heavily to the wrong things. But I think if I had really tried to drill down further into a few spots, it would have only been more helpful. And other than I think Josh Jacobs, there’s not really a player I was out on that I feel regret for not having more of an open mind too (and 2022 Jacobs is an outcome I’ll have a lot to say about going forward, as I’ve alluded to).
But I mean most of the early RBs I had no interest for weren’t actually that great. The ones that have been solid have done so because of a dearth of other options (I’m referring to like Joe Mixon and Nick Chubb, not Austin Ekeler who I had ranked even with the market at RB3). So many of the team-specific reads and leans were solid and understood the range of outcomes. I definitely have learned some lessons, and I’m really excited to write a breakdown of the three or four biggest things 2022 taught me once the season is over, but I look at where my live teams are in terms of how they performed this week, and I look at the ones that didn’t make it through but also put up big points totals (that didn’t matter), and I’m content from an approach perspective, even knowing I had a low advance rate season relative to my past years, and even if the few teams I did get through don’t do much (but we have some fun sweats coming up that I’m super excited for).
That’s all to come. For now, let’s get into Week 15’s recap, and we’ll call it the “quick game” this week — which seems to be everyone’s favorite term these days — as my kids are on winter break, and there are 10 games to cover today. By the way, since I don’t do the article after the penultimate week (Week 17 this year), next week will be the final week of the year for the column. And given that next Monday is the day after Christmas, that will likely be a quick one, too. But it’s been a blast writing it for you guys all year, and there’s a lot I want to cover in the early part of the offseason before taking any time off.
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.
49ers 21, Seahawks 13
RB Snap Notes: Christian McCaffrey: 89% (+7 vs. SF high), Kenneth Walker: 75% (return)
WR Snap Notes: Jauan Jennings: 84% (+24 vs. high), Tyler Lockett: 89% (injured)
Key Stat: Christian McCaffrey — 8 HVT (tied for Week 15 lead, through Sunday)
Brock Purdy played well in a game manager way again, Christian McCaffrey (26-108-1, 8-6-30) posted a big game through HVTs (including catching a pass out wide), and George Kittle (5-4-93-2) had two long touchdowns en route to San Francisco winning comfortably.
Brandon Aiyuk (4-2-19) annoyingly disappeared, and Jauan Jennings (5-3-31) was part of that issue in a game with limited overall downfield pass volume. Purdy threw just 26 passes total, and for only 152 total air yards.
Kenneth Walker (12-47, 5-4-32) returned to the lineup and played a big role for Seattle, running routes on 65% of dropbacks, his second highest rate this year. Travis Homer (1-5, 4-4-25) also had four catches while playing on obvious passing downs, but he ran routes on just 25% of dropbacks. Walker’s receiving and upside looks stronger than that 50/50 receptions split, and with Tyler Lockett (9-7-68) now injured, it’s possible Walker gets more early-down targets as a bit more of a focal point of the passing game.
Lockett played 89% of the snaps, so we didn’t get a good read on replacement options. We know Marquise Goodwin (5-2-10) has been the next WR, and I would expect him to step into a bigger role. We know the targets typically concentrate on Lockett and D.K. Metcalf (9-7-55), so now there’s opportunity. And we know the TEs are both in the mix for the next reps, with Noah Fant (6-5-32-1) performing well here but still only running routes on 46% of dropbacks compared to a matching 46% for Will Dissly (1-1-13). My expectation is the TEs get a few more looks, Goodwin is a little more involved, Metcalf has an even stronger share, and as I mentioned Walker might get a little involved out of the backfield, too. In other words, I don’t think there’s really a clear Lockett replacement; his receiving volume could spread around.
Signal: Kenneth Walker — 65% routes (second highest rate this year), four receptions; Brandon Aiyuk — hampered by Brock Purdy’s low aDOT
Noise: Seahawks — receiving target shares with Tyler Lockett now injured, which opens up a lot
Vikings 39, Colts 36
RB Snap Notes: Zack Moss: 67% (+60 vs. IND high), Deon Jackson: 32% (highest since Week 9), Jonathan Taylor: 3% (injured)
Key Stat: Vikings — 86 plays, 55 passes (both most in Week 15, through Sunday), Colts — 79 plays
I said I’d write quick today but the second game features the largest comeback in NFL history, so I’m not sure how that works. Minnesota looked like they were throwing the game for most of the first half, just giving away points on two return touchdowns and easy field position, including two Colts’ field goal drives that started on Minnesota’s 31-yard line. Despite Jonathan Taylor getting hurt right away, Indy still went over 20 points for just the third time all season, and they did it in the first half. Then the Vikings got nine possessions in the second half, scoring touchdowns on five of them. I talk sometimes about how football is a game of possessions, and the average game typically features about 11 possessions for each team, and when you’re where the Colts were, your one job for the second half is to limit Minnesota possessions. The Vikings actually punted on their first drive of the second half, but the Colts gave it right back. The Colts didn’t have the ball for longer than 2:30 of game time on any of their final seven possessions of regulation, and five of them were 1:06 or shorter; you could literally kneel every snap and take up more time than that. Anyway, when you add up all the possessions and throw in overtime, both teams ran a huge number of plays, with the Vikings throwing the ball a ton all second half and racking up huge passing numbers.
The Vikings’ five main 11 personnel guys played 80% snaps each even in the massive play volume game, which is a highly concentrated situation. Justin Jefferson (16-12-123-1) had a monster game, while K.J. Osborn (16-10-157-1) was the biggest secondary name to step up. T.J. Hockenson (9-3-33) and Adam Thielen (4-3-41-1) were quieter. And then Dalvin Cook (17-95, 4-4-95-1) took the quick-hitter screen play to the house from 64 yards out to put up big receiving numbers and a strong line for him, as well. No one else was even relevant in a game where Kirk Cousins threw for 460 yards and four scores, so you get these big, big stat lines.
With Taylor out and now expected to miss the rest of the season for a Colts team headed nowhere fast, Zack Moss (24-81, 1-0-0) plodded his way to nothing, and Deon Jackson (13-55, 1-1-1-1) backed him up. Jackson lost a fumble in this one, and Moss got all three green zone carries, while Jackson had the 1-yard green zone touchdown reception. You’re not going to get another game from the Colts with 43 rush attempts overall, but Moss actually ran more routes than Jackson, 38% to 24%. I still lean Jackson if you’re desperate enough to play either of these guys, mostly owing to the fact that Moss probably sucks and Jackson might not. The hope would be Jackson’s receiving role grows and he has some HVT upside there.
Michael Pittman (14-10-60, 2-30) had half as many rushing yards on two carries as he had receiving yards on 10 catches, which is just dumb. No one else had more than 40 receiving yards, with Parris Campbell (4-2-13) and Alec Pierce (4-0-0) being next in target volume but not doing anything. Jelani Woods (1-1-36) had a sweet 36-yard catch early and continues to seem good, but ran routes on just 30% of dropbacks out of the bye, so any hope he might get more playing time down the stretch seems unlikely to come to fruition.
Signal: Vikings — hyper-concentrated usage to their main five skill guys again; Zack Moss — lead RB in Jonathan Taylor’s absence, led with 38% routes, got all three green zone rushes (still tough to play); Deon Jackson — only 24% routes, but got a green zone reception for a TD, and receptions should be the primary source of production here (the split could be different next week after gameplanning to be without Taylor)
Noise: Vikings — 86 plays, 55 passes; Colts — 79 plays, 43 rush attempts