Stealing Signals, Week 2, Part 2
Replacing Trey Lance, plus late Sunday games, SNF, and Monday games
I discussed Kyle Pitts in yesterday’s intro, and I’ve gotten a ton of questions about Trey Lance, so replacing him will be the focus of the intro today.
In any league where Tua Tagovailoa is available, I think you have to go after him. He has Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, he just threw for six touchdowns in a game, and he has a coach who might be the new hit thing this year because his offense has been pass-happy and efficient in a way that looks a lot like his former employer Kyle Shanahan’s offenses where it’s gotten the ball into playmakers hands in space. Some of that has been coverage busts and the league might also figure that offense out, but scheme matters and right now it’s a huge boost to Tua’s profile and potentially through the season if it sticks.
In deeper leagues, I think Marcus Mariota is the perfect candidate, given his rushing ability. I can buy Jared Goff given his weapons. I really don’t believe in Carson Wentz, but I get it given his weapons, as a guy to tack onto bids.
And then right now a big part of me is trying to find ways to capture upside from the rookie class. First things first, I think it’s perfectly fine to roster two QBs for a stretch as you try to solve the hole in your roster through the waiver wire. And for me, perhaps the perfect combo in these deeper leagues where options are limited is Mariota and Kenny Pickett, especially in leagues where you can see the result of Thursday Night Football and still make a transaction after it. The Steelers are going to roll with Mitchell Trubisky again, but with the game on the road in Cleveland on a short week, it could get bad, and he’s been bad enough to this point that as I wrote yesterday, I’d expect a pretty good probability of a change in advance of the Steelers’ Week 4 home matchup with the Jets. Certainly there’s a possibility of an in-game switch in that game if Trubisky makes some early mistakes, and maybe even the possibility of an in-game switch on TNF if it goes real bad for Pittsburgh. Mason Rudolph has been the inactive third QB each of the first two weeks, for the record.
The reason this prediction about Week 4 is so relevant is much like with the RB churn, there’s a possibility to stack QB bets throughout the year. Pickett is one that I’d love to see play in Week 4 not because I’m certain he’ll be great right away, but because I’ll get information soon on whether he can be solid given the weapons the Steelers have. I wasn’t in on him as a prospect, but he was very good in the preseason, completing 29-of-36 passes (80.6%) for 261 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions. His passer rating was second highest among the 45 passers with at least 35 attempts this preseason. His PFF grade was seventh best of that group.
I think there’s a decent chance Pickett is the answer here, but if he’s not, I think we’re on a little longer timeline for Malik Willis or Desmond Ridder, both of whom could be intriguing. I saw some excitement for Willis after he took over in the Titans’ blowout loss on Monday night, but I think Ryan Tannehill has a little longer leash than that. Mike Vrabel is a bold coach, though, so I might be reading that wrong. It’s just that Tannehill is a highly-paid incumbent who led the team to the No. 1 seed in the AFC last year with Derrick Henry hurt, so I’m guessing Vrabel would wait at least somewhere closer to midseason to pull that cord for good. I don’t even think the Titans’ struggles are all on Tannehill, given his weapons.
And then for the late season portion, I’m still hopeful we’ll get a look at Sam Howell. So as I see it, Pickett is a really nice bench stash right now, with someone like Mariota as the short-term starter, and then hopefully we get more information on that soon. That will require Trubisky to not play any better. If Trubisky starts playing well, then Pickett isn’t a long-term hold and you can move on to another QB and have a tandem and play matchups for a few weeks, before it feels like the right time to strike on either Willis, Ridder, or Howell.
Alright, there’s a lot to cover for the rest of Week 2, but a couple other follow-ups from Part 1. Reader Andrew threw out a comment on the post about D’Andre Swift that I think was probably very accurate: “A reason for Craig Reynolds snap involvement over Swift compared to Week 1 might also be the ankle injury Swift had. He was questionable coming into the game and only had a limited practice last Friday (missed Wed/Thu). The ankle didn't seem to affect his performance when out there, but it probably impacted his workload for this week.” That’s one I let slip my mind while writing, but adding in the plus script the Lions were playing with, it makes perfect sense, so good call Andrew.
(Andrew also had a good call on Damien Harris and Rhamondre Stevenson appearing to split drives and that might have tricked me with the routes and green zone usage, but you’ll have to go to the comments for that one, because it’s long. But definitely worth reading.)
I also got good notes on Russell Gage being banged up early this year, which is probably fair relative to my comments on him, and C.J. Uzomah being out for the Jets which might have impacted my positive notes on Tyler Conklin (who is probably in the same boat as Corey Davis anyway, as long-term afterthoughts to the dynamic young WR duo). As such, I didn’t include my Gage or Conklin notes in the Biggest Signals recap section below for this week, and don’t think they are as actionable as I let on yesterday. (I did leave the Stevenson and Harris note in the Biggest Signals, because there’s still actionability there either way; it was a positive the Patriots didn’t use a third back and two guys are splitting the HVT, even if I don’t have the split exactly correct.)
The last thing for this intro is just a practical note that I didn’t do a good job of watching the afternoon games for about an hour after the Lance injury. I’ve watched a lot of football and seen a lot of disappointing injuries, but that one really did get me, both on the human level as I really felt for him, but also on admittedly very selfish levels. One such selfish element was an acute knowledge, right away, that the Lance teams that overwhelmingly struggled in Week 1 we going to get such a poor QB score for the second straight week that they were likely to fall to 0-2, on top of the obvious loss of a player I thought was headed for a fantastic year that will negatively impact those rosters going forward. As I briefly mentioned yesterday, I had Lance on a bigger chunk of teams than I’d intended, about a third of my high-stakes stuff when the dust settled. I do still have a lot of very fun rosters, and some of the Lance teams aren’t 0-2 or even some that are, aren’t dead yet. But for all the comments you guys sent about how helpful the intro was yesterday, know that I was writing it for myself in several leagues as well, and I’m right there with you. Kenny Pickett is going to be our savior.
But yeah, I legitimately went through the stages of grief, including convincing myself he might be back soon for a brief second, then telling myself QB doesn’t really matter that much in seasonal, then when the depression hit I decided to take a quick break from the games to do what any self-respecting adult would do in a situation like that: I went to Taco Bell. It slapped, too. I think it was the reliability that broke me out of my fugue state. That may have been the first time I’ve left the house during games on a Sunday in years; I can’t remember the last.
Anyway, I’ve gone back and watched quite a bit of Rams-Falcons, particularly when the Falcons were on offense, as well as Bengals-Cowboys to mostly focus on the Bengals. But I probably missed some key stuff in other late Sunday games — I have only one note from DEN-HOU, for example, and there was no shot I was watching that SF-SEA game closely. So apologies for a few of these writeups being a bit thin. I tried to make up for it this week with a strong Part 1 yesterday, and frankly, there were way more interesting situations in Part 1, because Part 2 below includes a ton of run-heavy football.
Data for Stealing Signals 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 31, Falcons 27
RB Snap Notes: Darrell Henderson: 56% (-26), Cam Akers: 43% (+25), Cordarrelle Patterson: 59% (-6), Tyler Allgeier: 31% (debut)
WR Snap Notes: Drake London: 82% (+10)
TE Snap Notes: Kyle Pitts: 93% (+9)
Key Stat: Drake London — 48% target share, 47% air yards share, 1.00 WOPR
The Rams looked much better than in Week 1 for most of this game, but got into some trouble late and were at risk of blowing a 28-3 lead to the Falcons of all teams. Cooper Kupp (11 catches for 108 yards and 2 TDs on 14 targets) had another monster game, and we’re back to me claiming I always knew he was the true WR1. Allen Robinson (4 for 53 and 1 TD on 5) also had a big game, and lost a second touchdown on a weird play where a late whistle stopped the play after it was already won and Robinson was destined to score. The whistle was for a medical timeout as the booth called down to have a player removed for a concussion check, but the referees didn’t blow their whistles until well after the ball was snapped. That bizarre situation aside, this was a solid outcome for Robinson, as the concern for him was always going to be targets, but the red zone usage was an out his supporters frequently pointed to, and it does look like he has the potential to be a big factor on touchdowns this year. Still, only seven targets through two games is a significant concern.
Tyler Higbee (7 for 71 on 9) had another big target game, which furthers the concern for Robinson, because when Higbee is earning substantial targets over you two weeks in a row, that’s not ideal. Kupp is the guy in this offense, and then Robinson and Higbee appear to be players that could get carried along by virtue of there being no one else to throw to. For me, that just means Kupp is going to absolutely smash again, and I don’t really want to play the available opportunity game with Robinson and Higbee.
Darrell Henderson (10 rushes for 47 yards and 1 TD, no targets) still led the backfield in snaps and with a 54% route share, but he ceded considerable work to Cam Akers (15 for 44, 2 for 18 on 3). Akers’ routes were at just 22%, and while he got more early-down carries, this game wasn’t a huge positive note for him. It wasn’t great for Henderson either, but he still played more, ran more routes, got two of the three RB green zone touches (Akers got the third), and importantly converted one green zone touch for a TD.
I talked about Kyle Pitts (2 for 19 on 3) at length in yesterday’s intro, but the key points were he did get a deep shot that drew a defensive pass interference, and he’s uniquely talented and utilized in a way that as soon as something like that hits, he’s going to vault up a TE leaderboard that is very week. Through two games, only 10 TEs have average 10.0 PPR points per game or better, and only four have 25 total PPR points, or 12.5 per game. Pitts was inline for just 14 of 57 snaps in Week 2, a huge improvement over Week 1. He pass-blocked just three times after seven in Week 1, and ran routes on 88% of dropbacks. I hadn’t even looked at that data when I wrote about him last week, but that’s all extremely bullish. He’s as obvious of a buy low as there is if people are actually panicked.
Tyler Allgeier (10 for 30) was active and got carries as early as the first drive, working in the role Damien Williams vacated. Williams went to IR, so Allgeier should have a similar role over the next few weeks.
Cordarrelle Patterson (10 for 41, 0 catches on 1 target) had a down game, and saw his routes fall to 39%. Despite a trail script, the Falcons had a significant run lean with a -10.4% PROE, but that was in part due to a blocked punt touchdown as well as two short fields after a third-quarter Stafford interception and a fourth-quarter Kupp fumble, meaning the Falcons scored a lot of points in comeback mode without running a lot of plays.
Marcus Mariota wound up throwing just 26 passes, and the run lean is an obvious concern for the pass-catching weapons, but there were unusual circumstances here and we should definitely expect more passes than this most weeks. I’ve buried the lede in part because I think it’s obvious, but Drake London (8 for 86 with a TD plus a 2-point conversion on 12 targets) is an immediate fantasy stud. I might be a touch more concerned about Pitts if his lack of targets wasn’t correlated with London hitting a 48% target share, and it’s not like other dudes are playing a big part in this offense (Pitts tied for second on the team with his three targets, not including the one that got erased by the penalty he drew, and his 10 targets through two weeks puts him easily second on the team with no one else seeing more than six). It was just a London week, and it’s a positive for Pitts if London hits this early and there are two key weapons to threaten defenses. Going forward, I expect these two guys to combine for a significant chunk of the targets, and some weeks the offense will be a little light on pass attempts and the targets might coalesce on one of them at the expense of the other. Right now, it might also look like London is just better than Pitts, but there are still other reasons to be wary of writing off Pitts, including the media already asking Arthur Smith postgame why they weren’t using their 1,000-yard TE who was a top-five pick last year. This is the kind of thing where outside pressure starts to mount to the degree that — as silly as it sounds — it does influence things. It’s one of those little antifragile points where everything will move in the direction of a guy like Pitts, and there’s basically only one way he continues to fail, which is if he’s just really bad all of a sudden. And the sample is way too small to be buying that. But look, I’m also extremely pumped for London, so let’s not ignore that here. And it’s big for Mariota’s value that he’s been pretty solid through two weeks without even having to use Pitts much, and has two really good, complementary weapons.
Signal: Allen Robinson — caught a TD, had another taken off by a late whistle on a medical timeout, also had an end zone shot last week (appears to be a red zone focal point, though the 7 total targets through two games is an obvious concern); Drake London — monster 48% target share, 1.00 WOPR, looks like an absolute star; Tyler Allgeier — took over Damien Williams’ role and got 10 carries, included rushes as early as the first drive (should work in tandem with Cordarrelle Patterson at least until Williams returns)
Noise: Kyle Pitts — four catches through two weeks (routes jumped to 88%, only three pass-block snaps in Week 2, drew a DPI on a deep shot, was inline less than 25% of the time in Week 2; there’s very little to be concerned about other than two poor games coming in the first two weeks of the year); Cam Akers — led the backfield in touches (took some work back but still played fewer snaps and ran far fewer routes than Darrell Henderson, and also got just one of three green zone touches); Falcons — 26 pass attempts (heavy run lean, but also a lot of late-game variance played into this with a special teams TD and some short fields off turnovers that limited play volume in trail script)