Stealing Signals, Week 2, Part 2
More league-wide discussion, plus Biggest Signals and Biggest Noise from Week 2
Man, yesterday was wild. I worked through that post so fast, and I legit can’t believe I got an 11-game edition out in time to do some some fun evening birthday stuff here on the west coast (I was always going to, but I thought I might have to skip some games and push them to today). I hadn’t meant to do a long intro, then got way too involved there, and probably didn’t work through that as delicately as I meant to, but I think it came out pretty well.
And then I absolutely cruised through 11 games — just locked in, without feeling like I was sacrificing too much — while the kids were at school, finishing just in time to pick up my older daughter from her softball practice so we could all go out and celebrate my younger daughter’s birthday, which we did with some arcade games, laser tag, then dinner. We do the arcade stuff somewhat frequently, and I’m from the video game generation, so part of it is dad’s sometimes gotta win enough tickets so the kids can get what they want, which for my younger daughter is usually always a stuffed animal, and after they’d finished playing, they were short and your boy threw a few more bucks on the card and got to cooking and set a few high scores (pop-a-shot and this nerf shooting game) which actually netted way more tickets than they needed.
Then we hit Cheesecake Factory for a late dinner and got home just in time for bed and everyone was happy, and I mean you always try to be a good parent, but it just doesn’t always go smoothly despite your best efforts, and I’m just absolutely going to appreciate the victory. The most important part is just being engaged and present, which is all kids really want, and I was worried I’d be thinking about my writeup a little too much, or paying attention to MNF, or whatever, but I don’t think my work impacted my little girl’s birthday at all, and the morning treasure hunt where I wrote up 12 rhyming clues went off beautifully before school, and I mean as far as my life goes, as a dad plus football analyst, yesterday was my four-TD performance. I legit don’t know if I have ever had a better and more productive day, in line with who I want to be, and you guys hear about it when I’m frustrated and all that, so let this intro be my victory dance for being in an absolute zone yesterday on my Super Bowl.
Also, I’m a streaky shooter, so let’s see if we can keep it rolling with a great post today.
I do need to issue a correction, and a clarification. A few people — including Thinking About Thinking’s Jakob Sanderson, who had his own great writeup on where we’re at in the current football landscape yesterday (if you enjoyed my intro, definitely check his piece out) — pointed out Tyjae Spears left with an injury after the Will Levis disaster, and was actually being used ahead of Tony Pollard before that point. Pollard then played most of the rest of the game.
To put some data behind it, Jakob mentioned Spears out-snapped Pollard 20-15 in the first half, though Pollard had an 11-8 edge in opportunities, then Pollard had a 12-0 advantage in opportunities in the second half. I’ve moved the Pollard “Signal” from the second-to-last game yesterday to the “Noise” section.
I also have to comment on J.K. Dobbins. I was all exuberance yesterday, and I want to stay that way, but I do then get the questions about whether to go acquire him, and I mean, no, you can’t go trade for him. His specific production is not going to maintain; he can’t stay way ahead of all the other RBs in the NFL with the massive RYOE numbers I’ve been citing, and we typically fade profiles built on rushing efficiency. He’s also getting the routes, and the receiving might develop, and the offensive line is great, but also the offense isn’t going to throw a ton, and the game script has been very nice, and matchups good, etc.
Bottom line: His production to date out-paces his expected production going forward, but I do still think he’ll see work and be efficient and perhaps there’s some receiving potential there and all that’s great. That also doesn’t factor in injuries, and they have been such an early-season storyline, and I’m not jinxing him by pointing out the obvious that this is a dude recovering from an Achilles’ tear last year and the likelihood of him being very good and healthy for 17 games is still probably on the wrong side of a coinflip.
These things flip on a dime; I was all hype for Cooper Kupp last week; I also spent last week telling everyone to be ready for Week 2 to be way different than Week 1, which it was. You always have to square that, and it’s why I do think even if you have to cut Kimani Vidal in some spots — and I realize if some of you shallow-leaguers might have to — he needs to be on your watch list speed dial, and I’d frankly prefer to just hold him a little longer before having to make that tough cut if necessary in a couple more weeks.
The thing with Vidal is the inactives are definitely bad, but anything changing could be quickly massive for him, and if you can wait until say after Week 4, or even after Week 3, I do think it’s a lot easier to understand what you’re cutting if we’ve seen three or preferably four weeks of him being inactive and no movement. That may feel like what’s going to inevitably happen, but again, if anything other than that happens, it’s Vidal rocket ship emojis. You’re holding something that feels worthless, but I’m trying to emphasize the truth is there’s the potential for massive value gain, and that does justify the hold right now in most situations. (I’m convincing myself as much as you guys, but I do believe this is right.)
The injuries suck. Kupp and Isiah Pacheco and Deebo Samuel and Kenneth Walker already missed a game after the big Week 1, and Jordan Addison missed Week 2, and A.J. Brown joined Christian McCaffrey giving us first-round fantasy picks as late-week deactivations for Monday Night Football in each of the first two weeks, and we have two first-round fantasy picks on IR already (CMC and Puka Nacua), and Hollywood Brown probably isn’t playing all year, and Jordan Love is out, and Tua Tagovailoa’s is the most serious of all of these, and you think this list is going to end but I just remembered Keenan Allen, and Raheem Mostert, and Evan Engram.
I’ve been trying not to stress about it too much, and probably part of that is that my own biggest plays haven’t been hit too drastically, certainly not like two years ago, or even last year with Dobbins and how Aaron Rodgers impacted Garrett Wilson. And I also don’t have a ton of insight, because that list of injured players does include some older guys who were at risk but also plenty of guys we had no real reason to believe would be prone to injury.
The only thing I do want to emphasize is how the randomness of it all is why we draft with contingencies built in. It’s why we draft for depth, and try to maximize a roster that can withstand the uncertainty of these early weeks and not be completely decimated. In August, the replies I get make it feel like people expect all of their picks to work out great. I was saying a bunch, just a few weeks ago, that your rosters might look like some of your rosters look now.
On the other end, some of you guys are frustrated because you have a bunch of backup RBs and no idea how to play your benches, but I wonder if those teams are actually in a really bad spot? They are if you have Kupp and Deebo, obviously, but I still would wonder if they are dead, because of how you could also be gaining value with those late-round RBs. Are the other early pass-catchers helping you score enough early? If you’ve lost some games, is it due to stuff that you do think is going to turn around, like some of what we’ve seen with the high-end TEs not necessarily playing like it yet?
None of the strategies are going to be perfect in the face of extreme bad luck, but these questions I’m asking are the hope. And now that we’re two weeks in and the injury reports look so brutal, and some of the teams look so bad that some of the early picks look irredeemable, I just want to reiterate the concepts, because I find that thinking through this stuff in-season is when it really sinks in for people. Somebody sent me the “we’ll see” Chinese proverb yesterday, and that’s definitely the NFL. “We’ll see.”
We need to find strategies that are either robust to the uncertainty, or else actually benefit from it, which is what the word “antifragile” means, and I realize when I wrote about that last week I didn’t necessarily define it particularly well for anyone who was unsure (I have written about it a lot before, and I recommend this evergreen 2021 piece if you want to learn more about it, but last week I sort of made a faulty assumption everyone has read everything I’ve ever written rather than linking back or establishing that it’s a term from a book).
We might break a record for different intro topics today, but people are doing such awesome stuff I want to highlight. Let’s follow up on yesterday first, because I saw some more blaming of the offensive coaches on Twitter, and I frankly loved that and obviously agree based on yesterday’s rant. I would love if this was one of those things that picked up steam, because if the past half decade tells us anything, it’s that we have started to see sharp football observations from outsiders start to influence the way the league works.
I also saw some flowers for Matt LaFleur from the always-great Pat Thorman, who highlighted this thread from another fantastic football account (perfectly named “smartfootball”), who broke down several intriguing run concepts that included misdirection with “false” guard pulls and things that helped the Packers find success offensively despite a limited QB. This is a great example of how sharp play design isn’t related only to route concepts and the passing game, and it’s really about moving around defenders through deception. You can’t be bland, and play action and motion and all of those things are just shortcuts to either confusing the defense, or perhaps figuring out what they are doing by getting them to show their hand in earlier reaction (ideally pre-snap), because of course that’s the whole thing we wrote about defenses with the Cover-2 shell is how it’s all about disguise and confusing the offense now.
And some coaches are just leaning heavily into the run because the confusion is too much but they have a numbers advantage in the box and they are just trying to find something that works, but obviously that’s what the defense is designed to do, to get you to do the less efficient thing. But the different with the Packers here is actually building a dynamic running gameplan, rather than settling for it. Innovative coaching, dynamic thinking, same stuff as we talked about yesterday, right?
Then I also want to shout out this sweet visual from PFF Moo on Twitter. I have written a ton of times about how dropbacks have three results: A pass attempt, a sack, or a scramble. This visual also breaks that pass attempt into three categories: A targeted pass, a throwaway, or a batted pass or something else.
This is an underdiscussed thing for fantasy, although I do believe it’s baked into the market, since we look at pass attempts and targets. But when people focus on the intersection of called pass rate and pass volume specifically, it’s important to think about things in the terms of the below visual to get a better understanding of the ranges of outcomes, i.e. to know exactly what can happen within an offense.
That the Lions easily top this list is indicative of Jared Goff’s ability to get the ball out and on target without taking basically any sacks, all of which leads to a really high targeted receiver rate, in addition to the fact that he doesn’t scramble, so you’re talking about the potential for him to throw 55 times like he did in Week 2, and you’re talking about understanding why three Lions were ranked so highly in ADP (even as Goff himself was not), because that’s massive for fantasy production within an offense.
Moo’s thread on Twitter included great notes on Anthony Richardson and Caleb Williams, particularly the Richardson one.
This was one of my concerns for Richardson as it relates to his fantasy scoring, in that his designed run rate is a huge key for his rushing value, as his scramble rate is not great. It’s also a minor positive for his passing upside, of course, though he doesn’t tend to hit those underneath checkdowns accurately, so as far as fantasy is concerned you’d frankly just prefer a mobile QB who does get out to the scramble, at least as far as his own scoring is concerned.
To that point, Jayden Daniels’ numbers are insane here, and then Lamar Jackson is also down there, and it’s the point I’ve tried to drive home with the passing weapons for both of these teams basically every time I talked about them all offseason. The range of outcomes for the targeted pass-catcher volume in these offenses is just lower, even if you get a high called pass rate. If you don’t even get that, you’re in real trouble. (To that point, while Richardson does get a lot of pass attempts off per dropback, Colts’ receivers are going to deal with a low called pass rate because he’s just not a very accurate passer, and he has a smart coach who isn’t going to build an offense around something that isn’t his strength.)
Justin Fields is the guy who has traditionally been league-worst at this, but it’s fascinating that in an Arthur Smith offense that is very run-heavy and only throws situationally, that’s mitigated some of his sack issues and allowed him to get more passes off within the flow of the play design. I’m starting to feel like Fields and Smith were made for each other, in that he’s obviously a dynamic player, and Smith’s skills as a run designer do seem to help some elements of the pass game, and the ways Smith is otherwise limited in his vision for offenses probably align with the ways a sharp coach should be designing things for Fields. It’s sort of like how I was giving LaFleur and Steichen credit for the Malik Willis and Richardson approaches, except Smith has always tried to force every player he’s ever worked with into his system rather than designing for the player because he’s a bad coach, except he might now be in a position where he actually has the quarterback who does fit the system, so there’s a synergy and forcing him into the system is the same as building the system for him. It all sucks for me because I’ve long argued Fields could find success despite his deficiencies, but Smith is also my archnemesis, so I’m larrydavid.gif here.
But Goff, Matthew Stafford, Geno Smith, Derek Carr, the Vikings’ offense, the Dolphins’, etc. — these teams at the top of this list are huge for fantasy receiving production. This exact concept is a major thing I’ve tried to drive home through my projections research and commentary on ranges of outcomes and offenses and a lot of different stuff all offseason. It’s: a) does the team call a lot of passes?, but also b) do they get targeted attempts off on those passes?
I’m not kidding you, there were at least two or three more topics I wanted to write about in the “intro” today, but I can’t necessarily remember all of them — I guess I need to take better notes about the intro topics I want to hit, which is an absolutely absurd thought given all the other notes I have for this post — and I gotta move on. It’s 2 ET and I haven’t even begun the meat of this post (but the good thing about knocking out 11 games yesterday is we only have five today, before this week’s Biggest Signals and Biggest Noise).
You can always find an audio version of the posts in the Substack app, and people seem to really like that. You can also find easier-to-see versions of the visuals at the main site, bengretch.substack.com.
Data is typically courtesy of NFL fastR via the awesome Sam Hoppen, but I will also pull from RotoViz apps, Pro Football Reference, PFF, the Fantasy Points Data Suite, and NFL Pro. Part 1 of Week 1 had a glossary of key terms to know.
I changed the visual again. Rather than Yards After Contact it’ll be Rush Yards Over Expected for RBs, which is going to be somewhat similar to YACo but is a metric I like a little better as a broad guide (it’s important to understand it’s broad).
Cardinals 41, Rams 10
Key Stat: Marvin Harrison — 33% TPRR, 150 air yards, 1.02 WOPR
Marvin Harrison, Jr. (8-4-130-2) has arrived, blowing up in the first quarter with two long touchdowns, and posting enough fantasy points that by the end of that first period, he was the WR1 on the week despite 11 other full games being completed before his game started. That was the good, but not catching another pass the rest of the game was the not so good. He’s obviously very good, and this game was fantastic, but it’s tough to see it as glowingly as, say, Malik Nabers being targeted 18 times yesterday. Still, this was a smash game, obviously.
Trey McBride (6-6-67) was off the field for an early pass TD to Elijah Higgins (1-1-18-1), which was a little bit tilting, but he still wound up with an 81% route rate, and steadily posted a strong day despite circumstances where MHJ went nuclear early and the Cardinals weren’t pushed, so they only threw 21 times. McBride’s market share looks great, and they were going to him with TE screens while he later went up and got a very nice catch between two defenders on a play-action throw, then also got the fluky fumble recovery touchdown (but we’ll take it). Also, to the point in the intro about creative offenses, a legit edge in fantasy right now is finding smart Xs and Os analysis and how it might apply to what defenses have to do. Earlier today, I saw Mina Kimes talked about explosive plays out of 12 and 13 personnel for this offense, and then Dan Orlovsky opined that it also helps the scramble drill when those formations get the defense into base, and then Mina jumped back in to mention how McBride could benefit from that, in this short clip she shared on Twitter. I’m absolutely valuing things like that right now in the 2024 landscape.
To be clear, I don’t mean to sound like this game was somehow better for McBride than MHJ; just sharing those two things relative to expectation, as MHJ’s great day was known, and McBride’s stuff more under the radar. What’s also notable is just that this passing game did look like it should — a two-man attack with Michael Wilson (2-2-31) and Greg Dortch (2-2-11) as solid supporting figures.
James Conner (21-122-1, 1-1-2) had a nice day, rushing for over 120 and a touchdown in plus script. Trey Benson (11-10, 1-1-7) got plenty of work as well, but really struggled, and Conner remains the clear lead.
Things were really rough on the Rams’ side. Cooper Kupp (6-4-37) exited just before half with an ankle injury that will cost him several weeks it sounds like. With Puka Nacua already on IR, the whole passing game is wide open. Demarcus Robinson (4-2-50) and Tyler Johnson (3-2-20) ran the most routes here, but Jordan Whittington (2-2-22) took over a chunk of Kupp’s slot role, and then Tutu Atwell (4-3-48) was in a rotational role but posted a massive 40% TPRR, and if he’s a situational but high-TPRR WR, that will limit production for other guys. I truly don’t know where the upside in this offense is, but it feels like Johnson and Whittington are the biggest unknowns, with perhaps now Whittington as the best overall bet simply because he’s the most unknown, and sure, he might be a star for all we know. But he only got 2 targets and -4 air yards here, so it’s not like I’m saying go spend all your FAAB on him, either. If you want the next Puka Nacua, you’ll have to reckon with the fact that Puka Nacua had 15 targets the first game Cooper Kupp missed, and no one did anything like that over the second half of this game.
To be clear, I’m not trying to discount Robinson. He’s just the most known, and already had value as a high-routes guy, and he’s not suddenly going to be an alpha at this stage of his career, so his value is in some ways least impacted. Colby Parkinson (2-1-12) also isn’t likely to become a superstar as a TE.
Kyren Williams (12-25-1, 5-4-27) posted 8 HVTs in the blowout loss, while Blake Corum (8-28) did get some reps here, but his eight carries were on the final eight plays of the game, as the Rams ran out the clock.
Signal: Marvin Harrison — 8 targets, 150 air yards, 1.02 WOPR, two long TDs; Trey McBride — 6 targets in 21-pass game where Harrison went nuclear early (designed TE screens, favorable intentional usage); Kyren Williams — 8 HVTs in blowout loss (very strong all-around usage)
Noise: Rams WR splits — it’s extremely tough to parse, and no one really stepped up here in the way Puka Nacua quickly did in Week 1 last year, but there’s obvious opportunity, and Jordan Whittington and Tyler Johnson are probably the best bets, while Tutu Atwell should have some situational production (had a 40% TPRR here but won’t run full routes, likely); Blake Corum — 8 carries (final 8 plays of the game in blowout loss)