Stealing Signals, Week 2, Part 1
Humility, the year of the rookie RB, and how to respond to two weeks of data
Sunday was a reminder about humility. I was about as wrong on my Quinshon Judkins read as someone can get, and I kept emphasizing that point, including on Saturday, and then even privately on Sunday morning when Ian Rapoport had a report that we would probably see 10-15 snaps, which was a figure I’d mentioned Saturday. It was a miss.
Meanwhile, in another situation where I kept harping on something for weeks that basically no one else seemed to believe was true, Wan’Dale Robinson went nuclear thanks to three completed deep shots, including one where he was just a couple yards shy of paydirt and another where he very much was in the end zone for a go-ahead score late in the fourth quarter. It’s so funny that in Input Volatility, my specific comment was that Robinson “does have more air yards upside than anyone but me thinks.”
Those two situations really ran the gamut for me, serving as reminders both to stick to my guns when I feel confident the groupthink is missing something that could wind up being pretty significant, but to also always be aware you can be on an island and very wrong, too. The hope is that across all the outcomes, I’m getting more right than wrong, and the hits are big ones. I do think we’re really well positioned through two weeks.
One big reason for that is the rookie RBs have already won in so many spots. We talked all offseason about how this class was going to take over the NFL, and you have situations in Washington and Jacksonville where veterans were traded to clear room for Jacory Croskey-Merritt and Bhayshul Tuten, you have Cam Skattebo just taking over a backfield in Week 2 and emphasizing that these early Day 3 RB profiles were much stronger than what that draft capital meant — in just his second game, Skattebo looked like an “identity back,” where he’s just clearly gotta be the dude — and you have a ton of “next guy up” candidates beyond them, not to mention the guys with the really high draft capital.
It was actually a pretty disappointing week for both TreVeyon Henderson and RJ Harvey, as their usage wasn’t strong and also the veterans in front of them looked good. But that’s going to work itself out over time. Ashton Jeanty and Omarion Hampton play tonight. Judkins looked pretty solid and could be a meaningful piece of the discussion.
But the Day 3 backs I had as the top targets in my RB30-RB35 ranking range — JCM, Tuten, and Skattebo — all look so well-positioned right now. Skattebo looks like the guy, JCM appears inevitable, and Tuten is behind a good veteran in Travis Etienne but got stronger usage in Week 2 than Tank Bigsby got in Week 1 — Tuten started the second drive and got designed pass game looks, including in the red zone — and on that work Tuten just looked so, so good. And the offense looks as favorable for RB scoring as we’d hoped, although we do still need to control for defense as the Panthers and Bengals is about as easy a first two weeks as RBs could face. Regardless, the Tuten outcomes at this point, in my mind, span from good to great.
Maybe you can still get on board those moving trains in some situations, but if not, the “next guy up” candidates include Kaleb Johnson, Jaydon Blue, Ollie Gordon, DJ Giddens, Jarquez Hunter, Kyle Monangai, Tahj Brooks, and Trevor Etienne. It’s not the case that these guys will all hit in the ways the immediate hits did, and some of them won’t hit at all, so that does need to be known. But by the end of the year, I feel confident at least one or two more of these names will have solid win rates, based either on short or long stretches of plus fantasy viability (the spot starts can obviously be pretty huge even if they don’t extend beyond short-term windows).
This year already is and is only going to become more obviously the year of the rookie RB.
I’ve said this before, but post-Week 2 reactions are often so much more important than post-Week 1. After Week 1, everyone is talking about not overreacting, and it’s just one data point. Once we get Week 2, and then again after Week 3, things can start to feel confirmed. Once we’ve had a week to digest the Week 1 occurrence, and then it happens again, we can feel like it’s obviously a trend.
And yet, that’s not totally how it works. Certainly, that’s the case in some instances. The way to think about player and team usage is as an evolution through a season. Offenses evolve, based on success and failure, as well as things like available personnel. In some ways, even if something does look likely to change eventually, you wouldn’t expect it to right away in Week 2, because the teams are mostly at one point in their season-long evolution, and they’re more likely to do what they did in Week 1 and keep compiling information than anything else.
This is part of what makes the movement for guys like Skattebo so exciting. Teams usually slow play that sort of thing. The Giants didn’t need to move that quickly with him — they wanted to, and that tells us something major.
But the flip side of that coin is just because we saw something in Week 2 that we also saw in Week 1, doesn’t mean it’s going to be there through the whole season. Our confidence does — and should — start to climb about that possibility, but we’re still predicting an uncertain future, and the one thing we have to always expect in the NFL is change. The NFL is chaos.
What we confirmed in Week 2 is more foundational. This is where the teams are now, near the starting line. These are their early-season intents. Understand where we are, because inertia is also real, and these things matter. But don’t get too confident in anything.
As I’ve said before, and I’ll probably say a thousand more times before this newsletter shuts its doors, the lesson you should learn about being wrong about something NFL-related is not that the new thing we think we know is the true answer. Don’t get sucked into that overconfidence. The lesson is that we were wrong, and we never really know what we think we do, and that will happen again.
That doesn’t mean you don’t have confidence. It should embolden you. How you win in this game — where you find the value gains — is by attacking what people are not seeing, before it materializes. There may not be a better time all year than after two weeks of results.
Greg Olsen made a great point on the broadcast of the Cowboys-Giants game, where he noted that after the Giants failed a fourth-down try from well in the red zone, the Cowboys were pinned a little bit. He said that with the new kickoff rules increasing starting field position off kickoffs, he expects more teams to make similar calculations, where settling for a field goal is now slightly worse, because of the field position after the next kickoff. The Jaguars made a similar calculation in their loss to the Bengals, and we saw it elsewhere, as well.
What’s fascinating is with kickers getting better and better, it’s not necessarily a huge knock on them. Kickers are still getting chances, and from deep. The short field goals do seem to be rarer, though.
What Olsen was talking about is the type of thinking that’s behind EPA models, which look both the expected points on a given drive and also the expected points on your opponent’s next drive. As you move down the field, the question about starting field position of the opponent’s next drive helps inform how valuable different gains and losses and conversions are.
I hadn’t really thought through how the new kickoff rules impact close field goal decisions yet — I imagine this has been discussed elsewhere, but it’s escaped my purview — but it makes sense that settling for 3 when you’re deep in opponent territory versus going after 7 is going to get even more scrutiny in a world where the opposition could theoretically start up across the 30 on average for their next possession, even if you do make the field goal. There could be 20+ yards of opponent field position difference between not converting the fourth-down try versus kicking off, and while you’d still kick off after a touchdown, you’d do so with 7 points on the scoreboard, which becomes something worth chasing relative to just taking the 3 and giving your opponent 20+ yards toward field goal position of their own.
Anyway, good point from Olsen there that I just wanted to quickly share before we jump into the games. As far as the fantasy-relevance if you do play in leagues with kickers, it does make guys like Brandon Aubrey that much better, given how he’s both so good from deep and has also earned the trust of his team to get those chances even from 60+. I would extend that to Cam Little and the other young kickers with the huge legs. You want guys who can boom it, because “field goal range” has probably just shifted back, where it goes deeper but teams can also move through it on the shallow side.
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 Jay (follow Jay on Twitter at FFCoder or check out his Daily Dynasties site), but I will also pull from RotoViz apps, Pro Football Reference, PFF, NFL Pro, Next Gen Stats, Fantasy Life, and the Fantasy Points Data Suite. Part 1 of Week 1 had a glossary of key terms to know.
Packers 27, Commanders 18
Key Stat: Commanders — 79.7% actual pass rate, 13 called rush attempts
The Packers look so good. In this one, Jordan Love had a 13.2 aDOT on his 31 pass attempts, highest in Week 2, through Sunday. Green Bay was really trying to stress Washington vertically, and they could have gotten there on multiple occasions. Matthew Golden (2-0-0, 2-15) had the loudest 2-target, no-catch game ever, getting behind the defense early on a ball Love just underthrew and allowed the corner back into the play to dive and tip it away, and then getting behind the defense again later for what could have been a 92-yard touchdown but was narrowly overthrown this time. Golden’s 65% routes and 9% TPRR were both disappointing, especially considering Jayden Reed left early in this game, but the big plays are still clearly coming for him. He’s a buy-low candidate right now as his manager may be frustrated with the goose egg. Pass volume remains something of a concern with the Packers just looking so good and being OK playing conservatively on offense when they control things, so the size of a hit in this receiving corps is in question.
Reed’s injury is obviously a bummer, and insult was added to it when the long TD he did haul in on the play was called back by penalty. The talent is just so clear, but we’ll need to wait quite a while now to see him out there, and in shallow formats you can pretty safely cut and move on. When he does return, he’ll likely need a ramp-up period, and other guys might really be hitting and all that. He’ll be someone to look at getting back in on as his return date nears, but if someone else picks him up and burns a roster spot on him for that many weeks, that’s fine. (Again, this refers to shallow leagues. In deeper formats, I think you do want to find room to stash if you can, because the eventual upside is probably greater than the replacement level by enough to justify it.)
With Reed out, though, the routes did consolidate. Early in the game, you had five different dudes mattering to the pass game, but with Reed knocked out, that moved down to four. Dontayvion Wicks (6-4-44) took the biggest jump from 39% in Week 1 to 62% here, and he actually opened this game with three straight targets even before Reed’s injury. There wasn’t much more from him throughout, and while he’s a fine waiver add, he’s not someone to spend up on. Golden’s routes rose from 57% to 65%, and then even Romeo Doubs (5-3-28-1) ticked up a bit from 70% to 74%, despite starting higher. We may see more of Savion Williams (2-24 rushing) on designed stuff that might have been Reed’s in the past, but I do think the main three WRs should get more consistent routes as a result of this injury, which is obviously notable for fantasy and can help offset the volume concerns a bit.
The real star of the passing game was Tucker Kraft (7-6-124-1), who also saw his routes rise from 65% to 77%, and who looked like a man possessed. Kraft’s after-the-catch skill was evident last year, and was a big reason he was a mid-round TE target this year. It was on display here as he racked up 74 yards after the catch, comfortably the most among TEs this week (through Sunday). There may not be huge volume, but you’re hoping for something like George Kittle’s profile with monstrous efficiency upside.
Josh Jacobs (23-84-1) played a ton and had a good game, consolidating volume and compiling rushing yardage, while also punching in one of his four green zone touches. Chris Brooks (4-3-27) was a bit of an annoyance, catching three balls in long down and distance situations. Jacobs’ 70% routes from Week 1 fell to 41% here, as Brooks rose from 9% to 24%. Jacobs is going to score, because his team is going to lead and he’s going to get a ton of work. He’s as good of a bet as any to lead the NFL in rushing attempts. Fantasy’s not purely a game of volume, and not having access to Jacobs isn’t all that concerning, though he’ll have some ceiling games through multi-TD efforts, for sure. I’m not saying he’s bad at all.
I wrote a long recap of Dan Quinn’s misadventures at the top of Input Volatility last week, but suffice to say I was not impressed with his game management. One of the effects I discussed was how it limited their first-half possession, and the Commanders ran just 25 plays before the break, totaling just 82 yards and four first downs. Because of that, their total play volume was tilted toward negative second-half script, as Jayden Daniels was given more of an opportunity to try to bring Washington back into this game, and they were able to sustain some things and actually ran 39 plays in the second half to total a relatively average 64 for the game. So when we look at their full-game data, it’s disproportionately weighted to where their snap volume came — in the second half — and we wind up with a very high expected pass rate, and they did go over that but not even by that much with a +4.9% PROE to hit the highest actual pass rate of 79.7% in Week 2, through Sunday. Putting that in layman’s terms, this is how and why we use PROE, to control for situations that can occur like this where the team winds up running way more plays in the second half, and it’s mostly script that leads to something like a near-80% pass rate. So in this case, the PROE not even being that crazy high would help us understand that Washington only having 19 rushing attempts total in the game — and 6 of those were Daniels scrambles, so just 13 called rushes — isn’t something to assume will stick.
That’s super notable in relation to Jacory Croskey-Merritt (4-17, 1-0-0), who basically didn’t get a chance to impact this game. Austin Ekeler (8-17, 4-2-7) started and was out there for the first two drives again, but has unfortunately been lost for the year due to an Achilles tear late. Jeremy McNichols (no touches) got a little bit of run, and Chris Rodriguez (inactive) will be up next week and involved in the rushing attack, but we should comfortably see JCM take on a much bigger role in basically every game going forward. Those talking about how Rodriguez might win out are not technically wrong, but the shape of the first couple weeks makes clear that JCM is Plan A for these guys right now. That was almost certainly already where it was trending, but that timeline probably gets sped up now. If it doesn’t (i.e. if Rodriguez starts next week and gets early carries), JCM will still be likely to take over in short order. Note that McNichols will likely take on key passing-downs work that Ekeler has typically covered, and I do think both Rodriguez and McNichols are worth chasing on waivers to see what happens here.
Terry McLaurin (9-5-48) had a quiet game, while Deebo Samuel (8-7-44-1) found paydirt very late, and Zach Ertz (8-6-64-1) felt like the most consistent target throughout. The pass game weapons here are not ideal for Daniels, but Ertz made a couple nice plays in this one, and Deebo doesn’t look completely dusty through two weeks. It’s a three-man group, but Jaylin Lane (4-1-2) is already running more routes than Noah Brown (4-1-9) and Luke McCaffrey (1-1-19), and that’s notable for deeper leagues.
Signal: Packers — top three WRs and TE all saw routes increase from Week 1 as Jayden Reed left very early (things consolidated by necessity, which is a positive for fantasy); Tucker Kraft — 74 yards after the catch (fantastic with the ball in his hand, should be relied on more with Reed out, volume a small concern but the bet is on efficiency upside); Dontayvion Wicks — 62% routes (big jump from 39% Week 1, waiver option with Reed out); Chris Rodriguez, Jeremy McNichols — both viable waiver adds, with Rodriguez likely active and in the rushing attack, and McNichols likely taking over the passing-down work Austin Ekeler vacates, but neither are the best bet to be the biggest fantasy winner here
Noise: Matthew Golden — 2 targets, 0 catches (both were potential long TDs that were just off target, but created the separation needed, will only see more opportunities with Reed out, buy low option); Jacory Croskey-Merritt — 23% snaps, 4 touches (this will almost certainly be the last time we see these types of usage numbers, and he should be Plan A for the Commanders’ RB usage moving forward); Commanders — 79.7% pass rate, 13 called rushes (very little first-half play volume, did abandon the run but only a +4.9% PROE total)
Ravens 41, Browns 17
Key Stat: Quinshon Judkins — 26% snaps, 13 touches, 2 MTF, +22 RYOE
The Ravens put up 41 points on 50 plays, and continue to look like the only thing that will stop them from everyone smashing is blowing teams out. It was a slow first half, and only 10-3 at the break, but Lamar Jackson got hot, throwing four touchdowns, but to none of the fantasy-relevant guys.
Zay Flowers (11-7-75, 1-4) continued to look like a clear offensive focal point, dominating volume. DeAndre Hopkins (2-2-64-1) caught two bombs, one for a TD and the earlier one down to the half-yard line, nearly going for another long score. Hopkins was supposed to take the Nelson Agholor usage, but he’s cut right into Rashod Bateman’s (4-2-15) air yards, to the extent I wondered if I missed a Bateman injury. But he was out there for 73% of routes, which was the same amount as Mark Andrews (3-1-2, 1-2), who totaled 4 yards. If he can’t score now with Isaiah Likely out, I’m not sure what will change when Likely returns. I do think the lack of Andrews production probably speaks highly of Likely’s potential, though. His routes don’t suggest this, but Andrews might be the new Nick Boyle, i.e. more of a blocking TE. Maybe everyone still blames him for how 2024 ended and this is just going to be an elaborate public shaming all season. Oh, don’t chase Tylan Wallace (2-2-25-1) or Devontez Walker (2-2-26-2), either, but it’s fun to see guys with fun profiles that were former prospect favorites ball out.
Derrick Henry’s (11-23) poor game seemed to be a combination of things. Early on, the Ravens seemed to want to involve Justice Hill (3-7, 3-3-18), after he had a quiet opener. Then Henry had another ball punched out, and obviously he lost a costly fumble in Week 1 that led pretty directly to their loss to the Bills. But mostly it was just that the Ravens only ran the 50 plays, and he didn’t get going early and then Lamar was dealing late. The Ravens wound up with a +7.5% PROE, and it wound up a weird game where the TDs went to ancillary guys, but there wasn’t a ton that was new information here about Baltimore. I don’t even think the PROE is all that relevant — it mostly just argues they threw from ahead late, but their actual pass rate of 66% was middle of the pack and they had a low expected rate.
There’s a lot more to discuss with the Browns, which it seems like is going to be the case every week, but is especially true this week. Quinshon Judkins (10-61, 3-3-10) was naturally a big story. It’s worth noting his 31-yard run came with under five minutes to play in a 41-10 game, with Dillon Gabriel under center so potentially against backup defenders as well. But the volume was clear, and the Browns seem to really want to feature this guy. Cleveland started him, played him on all of the first three snaps, then played him in the second, third, fourth, and fifth drives, too (that probably continued but I stopped keeping track after he came on the field on each of the first five drivees). It felt like way more than 20 offensive snaps, because while they gave him some breathers, they didn’t keep him off for long, and mostly because they gave him the ball 13 times on those 20 snaps, a massive rate for any player that signaled clear intent to get him going. Unfortunately, for most of the game those touches did seem to slow the offense down a bit, and the passing game was less fun this week overall. But I said I’d be shocked with this kind of result, and I was. I don’t really have a ton to add to that, but I’m frankly impressed by his knowledge of the playbook and ability to get to the right spots with the right calls. I know that’s easier for RBs than rookies at other positions, but I don’t think it’s quite as easy as people sometimes imply, which I tried to emphasize Saturday in discussing other rookie RBs who haven’t played a ton yet.
The snaps tell one story, but the touches tell another. Based on the snaps, Jerome Ford (6-31, 6-5-23) was the lead, and Judkins and Dylan Sampson (4-6, 3-3-13-1) split behind him. Based on the touches, it was more like Judkins as the lead and Ford and Sampson splitting. In either case, Sampson got lost a little bit, which was disappointing. We got bailed out big time with a late TD reception from Gabriel, on what wound up being the Browns’ final play of the game, but Sampson doesn’t look like a Week 3 option with Judkins back. Hopefully we’ll see him take back some of the Ford snaps and it will eventually be a Judkins-Sampson backfield, but for now it seems like Judkins will be ramping up in Week 3, and Sampson should be avoided.
All of the main receiving weapons saw their routes dip a bit as the team had some garbage time late where guys like Isaiah Bond (3-1-6, 1-9) got to play a little more (39% routes). Dillon Gabriel did look good during that stretch, which was exciting to see as we think about the second half of the season. But Harold Fannin (5-5-48) dipped only slightly in routes from 63% in Week 1 to 61% this week, and that’s basically a nonissue. His target rate wasn’t quite as high as Week 1, but Jerry Jeudy (8-4-51) and Cedric Tillman (7-2-22-1) were the only guys who had more, while David Njoku (5-4-40) tied him (and actually fell slightly further in routes, from 75% to 69%). Tillman’s TD came on a deflected pass, and wasn’t even probably intended for him; Njoku looked like he was definitely part of the gameplan and he had a solid day; Jeudy continued to struggle but will probably assert himself as the No. 1 sooner than later; Fannin is still well-positioned. In some ways, a boring game like this just builds on Week 1. It’s not a bad thing he caught 5 passes, and he currently leads the team with 12 catches through two weeks.
Signal: Zay Flowers — 0.90 WOPR (another dominant WR1 volume game); Quinshon Judkins — 13 touches on 20 snaps, very bullish early usage, will likely only ramp up in Week 3; Harold Fannin — routes didn’t dip much, and caught 5 more balls (not a great game, but enough to show Week 1 was no fluke)
Noise: Ravens — 50 plays; Derrick Henry — 23 yards (limited team play volume, fumbled again); DeAndre Hopkins — 64 yards and a TD (only 21% routes, rotational deep shots probably aren’t worth chasing, but they’re hitting); Tylan Wallace, Devontez Walker — 3 TDs on four catches (these will go to the main guys most of the time); Dylan Sampson — receiving TD, two strong performances so far (was basically RB3 in usage, and Judkins will likely ramp up, so needs to be on most benches for Week 3)
Bengals 31, Jaguars 27
Key Stat: Travis Hunter — 58% routes, 6 targets (75%, 8 in Week 1)
Well, the big news is obviously that Joe Burrow is out. As I write this, I just saw a report that the Bengals have engaged the Giants about Jameis Winston, which would be amazing. I was pretty rough on Jake Browning two years ago, but for those who don’t remember, he was good enough for a couple games, largely because of after-the-catch plays and a couple big plays where he did place balls well, that people were convinced he was a legit hidden gem as a backup QB. And he wound up playing OK, but he doesn’t have a ton of arm strength, and he started throwing some interceptions in his later starts. He’s probably fine, but we saw some of that stuff in relief here, where he threw three interceptions. He did complete 21-of-32 passes, and Ja’Marr Chase (16-14-165-1) didn’t miss a beat. I’m more concerned about Tee Higgins (8-3-56-1), though he hit for a 42-yard TD from Browning late, and per the RotoViz AYA App Higgins now has a 14.4 AYA on 27 career targets from Browning. Chase is at 8.3, which is also fine (Chase is at 9.0 from Burrow, while Higgins is at 9.2).
Honestly, I don’t have a ton of notes on what to do with the Bengals. They have three key guys, and those guys’ values have all fallen with the news Burrow is out. I don’t think you sell low. You sort of have to sit on them for now, if you want to move them at all. I think Chase will be fine, but I’m worried about Higgins. I think the market would look at it the same way. Chase Brown (16-47, 3-2-18) couldn’t find much room in this one, but got 100% of the RB touches, and will probably continue to be heavily relied upon, so he’s also not one to sell for 50 cents on the dollar. You sort of have to just wait it out and see how things play out. Jameis could legit be a godsend, as his aggressive style tends to lead to a lot of play volume, and frequently also turnovers that lead to deficits where he has to get even more aggressive.
In the end, the Bengals snuck out another win, despite being out-gained by 50 yards and committing one more turnover. Jacksonville did have a late turnover on downs, where they tried to push their lead to double digits instead of taking a field goal to make it 6 and kick off back to the Bengals with better field position and a four-down mentality. The decision didn’t work, but it made sense, and unfortunately for Jacksonville they didn’t convert and then the Bengals went 92 yards for the game-winning score, converting multiple fourth downs (one by penalty).
For Jacksonville, we got another glimpse of how Liam Coen’s offense can bring production even when Trevor Lawrence is out here firing balls to the guys on the other team. One of the things with the Bucs last year was 7 receiving TDs for the RBs, which is a very healthy number; both Travis Etienne (14-71, 3-2-18-1) and Bhayshul Tuten (8-42, 2-2-32-1) had one in this game on well-designed concepts that got them into space. Etienne remained the clear lead, though the vibe with Tuten was like the Tank Bigsby trade opened things up so he could play more than even Bigsby was. Last week, Bigsby didn’t record an official first-half touch, as his one opportunity was called back for a hold. He finished with 14 total snaps for a 21% snap share, and 5 official touches. This week, Tuten got 10 touches on 18 snaps for a 26% share — not a massive increase, but a decent one. He got 2 HVTs, and he looked explosive, notching a +7 RYOE plus a 24-yard gain on one of his two catches, which also happened to be his second touch of the game so he made his impact quick. Etienne’s not going anywhere, and looked very good in this game again with a 30-yard carry of his own, but Tuten very much looks the part, has already forced the team to trade a veteran teammate, and looks like the clear future Bucky Irving in this Coen system with LeQuint Allen (2-13) as the Rachaad White for passing downs. Etienne might even be deemed expendable before the deadline, as he’s in a contract year. I’m a huge Etienne fan, but Tuten remains the RB stash I want on every roster, and who I’m most annoyed about when I don’t have him on a team I really like.
Travis Hunter (6-3-22) saw his routes dip to 58% in this one, as he also played 62% snaps on defense. It was obviously only his second career game, and the Jaguars are just finding out what he can and can’t do. Early in the game in the red zone, he was open in the end zone and Lawrence underthrew him by quite a lot for an interception — there was room over the top of the defender toward the back pylon but Lawrence just didn’t get any air under the ball. You may want to bench Hunter for the time being, but I’m not that worried. We knew the learning curve might be steep, but the fact is he has 14 targets in two games. The production hasn’t been immediately great, but this isn’t a sinking ship.
Brian Thomas (12-4-49) saw a massive amount of volume with 166 air yards and a 0.77 WOPR. He struggled to bring in several catchable targets, playing weak at the contact point, to the extent Liam Coen has been asked about it and we’ve learned BTJ had a wrist injury entering the game and was worried about hurting it further. But Coen outright said he knows he has to have a good week of practice, and there’s this implication the team is upset with him right now. Not a great start to the season for Thomas, but my expectation is this becomes nothing in a few weeks’ time. Social media is having a field day with this, and some of the stuff I’ve seen is nonsense. Highlighting that he didn’t go after a non-fumble that more than half of players don’t go after, acting like a play where he leapt in the back of the end zone and was forced out was somehow tied into the shying away from contact or whatever — I mean the jump at the back of the end zone was too much effort, if anything. It wasn’t a great play, and he also had a drop, and there were obvious concentration issues here. But we have a silly narrative forming from bad social media accounts that should be ignored. The unfortunate thing is the lack of production to this point, but they need Thomas in a major way whether or not Hunter is ready to produce. That said, if Thomas does have a weird week of practice, maybe it would mean more reliance on Hunter on offense next week.
Dyami Brown (7-5-57-1, 1-9) had a nice day, while Brenton Strange (5-3-17) was quieter, as far as the ancillary guys. Brown’s one of those best ball types that will have a few splash games this year but probably isn’t too much of a redraft concern. That’s maybe not entirely fair given the uniqueness of Hunter’s profile, and how things could develop here, but I’m not chasing this from Brown.
Signal: Chase Brown — 69% snaps, 100% of RB touches; Ja’Marr Chase — 16 targets, 34% TPRR, 0.74 WOPR; Bhayshul Tuten — 26% snaps, 10 touches, 2 HVTs, +7 RYOE (looked good in first real action, should stay involved as the explosive secondary back)
Noise: Travis Hunter — 58% routes (a dip from Week 1, but it’s only his second game and he still got 6 targets with an end zone shot, they are still figuring this all out); Brian Thomas — 33% catch rate (the toughness being called into question is a problem, but we’re not ignoring 12 targets and 166 air yards for talented young players on narratives); Dyami Brown — 17.6 PPR points (splash game while the two star WRs were underperforming, but not something to chase too hard)