Stealing Signals, Week 6, Part 2
Davante, Amari trade reactions, plus Biggest Signals and Noise of the week
I wrote a lot in yesterday’s intro about my new viewing experience, because it felt like it was going to get Stealing Signals back to a higher level. Maybe it’s still been strong, because even if I’m not feeling sharp I tend to just work harder when getting through the games to make sure the insights are still there. But I wrote that intro before I had written the game-by-game breakdowns, so I’m just checking back in to say I felt like that was probably my best writeup of the year. Or at least, it was a lot easier to write. Hopefully you guys noticed that, too.
But we’re not going to talk about that a bunch again today. Davante Adams is officially a New York Jet, and we need to devote the entire intro to that. If you told me this trade got done two weeks ago, I would have told you it was a major issue for Garrett Wilson. I’ve felt like this was going to get done since then, because the Raiders really just needed to take whatever they could get, and I was resigned at that time to this more or less casting Wilson off to some weaker No. 2 value.
The very first thing I want to say is that Brock Bowers feels like a must-have player. We need to talk about the Jets, too, but the Raiders have a fantasy playoff schedule that is three indoor games (home vs. ATL and JAX, then at NO), which is a very favorable environment boost that no other team has this year, and only five other teams even play two indoor games during Weeks 15-17.
Setting aside the indoor element, though, the matchups also look very favorable, with RotoViz’s Fantasy Streaming app putting it as currently the No. 4 stretch for TEs and No. 2 stretch for WRs. All three of these games have the potential to turn into shootouts. Bowers is a rookie who may struggle with more defensive attention at times — it’s not something that’s looked like a real issue for him, to be honest — but one of the reasons we see back-weighted production as a long-term trend with rookies is the good ones find ways to cope with that. So even if it’s an issue in the shorter term, betting on Bowers to have a fantastic Week 15-17 stretch is easy. He’s the rest-of-season TE1 by a significant margin and probably one of the 10 or so most valuable players in all of fantasy. Go buy high on him if you haven’t yet.
As for the Jets, one of the first things I’ll say here is while I do think Adams’ hamstring is going to be perfectly healthy and he’s going to look great as a Jet, we gotta keep in mind he turns 32 in December, and he’s not going to be fully the same guy he was in Green Bay. To be clear, I do think he’ll be the Aaron Rodgers’ No. 1 option right away. There was and is just so much between these guys where they get a look and know what they want. He’s going to get a ton of first-read targets. He’s going to probably lead the team in targets once he gets up to speed. He’ll be a major red zone threat. He’s still good, and he’s going to perform. But, people who look at what he did in Green Bay as a baseline are likely going to overrate his impact a bit. Among other points, he never really had a No. 2 like Wilson, especially when at the peak of his production there.
But if we see Adams’ target share as pretty locked in, the conversation becomes how much can Wilson consolidate the other targets? Because I do think Wilson will mostly be efficient, especially now that teams will give Adams way more attention than any of his other teammates were commanding. And if Adams is productive, we’re also talking about this offense sustaining more drives, and running more plays, and scoring more points overall.
I don’t think Wilson’s target share is going to take as much of a hit as it will seem. I saw something earlier today, before the trade, that was referencing how good Allen Lazard has been, and the truth is that it’s basically just all been touchdowns, and now is obviously the perfect time to make that point because he caught a 52-yard actual Hail Mary right before halftime last night. There will never be a better time to say, “Lazard’s points per game are X” than right now. And I referenced after Week 1 how he had two TDs, but all his production was after that game was out of hand, and one TD came on a free play when Rodgers got the defense to jump offsides and he just threw it up to Lazard, and the other TD literally didn’t even come from Rodgers, but rather from backup Tyrod Taylor who finished that game off.
Other than that Week 1 game and last night, Lazard went four games without exceeding 60 yards. He did have two more touchdowns in there, then caught another on the Hail Mary last night, so he is tied for the league lead with 5 on the season. But while Mike Williams is getting a ton of the hate, Lazard has lowkey actually been kind of bad. He has a few highlight plays masking that he’s run way too many routes and not really helped the offense on a majority of them. I recognize that won’t be a popular take, but it’s how I’ve seen it.
And to that end, I think Adams’ targets immediately come from Lazard. One of the things I heard today as well is just that Rodgers loves his guys, and he does, but mostly that’s a strategic thing where he likes timing routes and likes to go to certain concepts against specific defensive looks. I think that’s been part of what’s kept Lazard relevant, but that Adams just takes virtually all of what Lazard was getting on that front, not that the percentage of the offense that is those types of plays suddenly doubles.
See, if you make the case that Wilson isn’t really one of Rodgers’ guys yet, then you have to note that he’s done awfully well the past two weeks at earning volume despite that. He was super efficient last night with 8 catches on 10 targets for 107 yards and a touchdown, and has had a minimum of 8 targets in all but one game, with efficiency being the real issue. I do think he’ll lose a little target share, but more like five percentage points than 10+, and if the offense sustains drives better and runs more plays, that’s mostly a wash. And then the other big key with me emphasizing Adams is 31 is just that I do think there are elements where both Rodgers and Adams will make room for Wilson to be the guy in certain situations. Fantasy Points’ Scott Barrett shared a quote on Twitter this morning where Rodgers was talking about Adams being the first option in the progression on 80% of their plays the last year they played together, and that speaks to the comfort with Adams and obviously that type of thing is going to carry over to some degree, but also that was because the No. 2 was Allen Lazard, with Marquez Valdes-Scantling as the other 50+ target guy. Really, Aaron Jones was the No. 2, but all three of those guys were between 55 and 65 targets and then Adams had 169.
That’s just not the situation here, and the 80% first option in the progression stuff is not ideal, and Rodgers and Adams are both not good enough to execute that type of thing anymore. The worry about Wilson being done is such a fantasy football thing that just doesn’t make any sense for where the team actually is; they’ll need other guys to matter, and Wilson having 33 targets and 21 catches over the past two weeks definitely got me back on board with everyone in the building realizing he’s the other big guy who matters here, not Lazard or anyone else.
I do think Lazard will still get some targets, and the backs will still get targeted at a high rate, and there will be some other stuff for other guys like Tyler Conklin at times. But I guess I look at this now and feel like while I would have Adams as the No. 1, I wouldn’t have him at a 30% target share like he’s often been, and then after I had him at like 26% or something, I’d have Wilson at 24%, with upside for both, but the expectation that they account for half the team’s targets, which is quite a lot for a team’s top two options. But as I wrote in Part 1 of Week 5’s Stealing Signals (right after Wilson’s huge target game), it’s not entirely uncommon in Rodgers’ history:
The feeling I got here was that if Adams was on the roster, it might not actually be a death blow for Wilson, because I think he’d immediately need to replace all of what Lazard has been getting, and then it may actually be sort of a co-No. 1 situation. I’m not sure if I can think of a bullish comp in the current NFL for how that could work for two guys, but I sure can in Rodgers’ history as a QB, including 2014 with Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb (both over 90 catches, 1280 yards, 12 TDs), and 2016 with Nelson and Adams (both over 75 catches, 997 yards, 12 TDs). Those seasons were obviously a long time ago, but in the interim you had Adams’ peak (plus a couple lost Rodgers seasons to injuries) and Adams was obviously a truly dominant No. 1 during that time in a way he may not still be.
So in terms of value changes, I do have Adams adding a lot of value, and I kind of think he’ll get up to speed quickly and that we should expect a huge game more or less right away. He hasn’t played in weeks, Rodgers is frustrated, he’s gonna have a 15-target game in the next two weeks or so.
But I’d still probably rather have Wilson just because I think the true upside is higher there. I’ve seen a couple people call these guys both mid-WR2s, and I guess that makes some sense, to value them close like that. And then Lazard and Conklin can probably still pop up now and then, but they don’t have a whole lot of value in weekly leagues, because if there are two central downfield weapons and then you have Breece Hall as really the third passing-game option, that’s sort of the whole structure. It’s what we’ve seen in several places around the league, like Minnesota and Tampa and Miami, and the Giants, and Eagles to a certain extent, and the Bengals, and the Rams later last year when their two guys were healthiest together — it feels like pretty clearly something on that axis, and outside I guess Dallas Goedert, who gets boosted by the RBs not being as involved in that offense, there aren’t a lot of No. 3 WRs or TEs doing anything in those situations.
After writing that whole intro, Amari Cooper also got dealt to the Bills. This one feels more straightforward, in that they really haven’t had a solid WR and this was a need. It’s big news for Amari, though he doesn’t have the connection with the QB and will have some inconsistencies at times as a result. Ultimately, he’s a bit lower in value than both the Jets guys for me, but still moving up to something like the WR25-WR30 range probably. He’ll have some big games, which he’s known for, because he can make big plays and the offense will be conducive to him going off at times, but I’d expect a few quiet ones, as well.
It’s a tacit admission that the current group isn’t good enough, including that Keon Coleman isn’t doing enough — he’s being targeted on occasional boundary plays where he has man coverage, and it’s basically all 50/50 balls because he’s not creating a lot of separation — and that Khalil Shakir is more of a role player than a true No. 1. Shakir will continue to get some short targets and those things, and he’ll splash efficiency at times, but I think Curtis Samuel will stay involved, and then they’ll really just need to move on from Mack Hollins, who is not the answer for as much as he’s playing.
But basically, Amari is a solidly startable boom/bust type with real upside, and then the rest of the WR group is in a tough spot. How it impacts Dalton Kincaid remains to be seen, and my notes for Monday Night Football below including this comment that I “really don’t know what to make of Kincaid right now, but the usage is fine, he’s on the field for almost every big down (ETA: He did run a season-high 80% routes), etc.” The other point there is he really only seems to get targeted on quick hits around the line of scrimmage still, although he’s getting enough of that work that it’s viable, and Amari would presumably just allow him to operate at his low aDOT more easily. I was just watching him closely in this one and he just never seems to be where Josh Allen is looking when he’s running downfield routes, and I just want to see a little more of that production.
In Cleveland, Jerry Jeudy presumably sees a lot more volume going forward, and that’s favorable, but I guess I’d say it’s even more so for David Njoku, who could have some real TE upside. They are of course dealing with poor efficiency. I also expect this to trend toward a run-heavy offense with Nick Chubb expected back, as he works into game shape.
Let’s get to the games, and then to the Biggest Signals of the week, as we have a ton of key notes and guys you can look at on your waiver wire this week. 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.
Chargers 23, Broncos 16
Key Stat: Kimani Vidal — 24% snaps, 21% routes, 3 HVTs
The big story in this one was Kimani Vidal (4-11, 2-2-40-1) making his debut and playing as early as the first drive behind J.K. Dobbins (25-96-1, 2-2-6), who was still the clear and obvious lead back, with a significant 73% snap share, and we shouldn’t expect that to go away anytime soon. Dobbins continues to look good, but for Vidal one of the big questions was whether he’d even be clearly ahead of Hassan Haskins (2-5), and Haskins played just three snaps, getting two carries but out of fullback alignments. Vidal was playing on passing downs early, and was a strong pass blocker as a prospect, so that tracks. On the second drive, he got a wheel route and caught a 38-yard TD, and it was super exciting if certainly a bit of a fortunate outcome where the playcall was right and the matchup was good and he was open, but he did beat his guy and get to the spot and catch the ball and score, and you want to see that kind of execution. As far as where we are now, the way to think about this is the uncertainty with Vidal was overwhelmingly around whether we’d get to this point. People will talk about base rates for sixth-round rookie RBs, but we’re no longer just in base rate territory, and one of the things I wrote about this offseason is when you control for opportunity and situations like this over the past few draft classes (since RBs have been devalued by the league), you do find several Day 3 RBs being tasked with quite a lot of work, quite early in their careers. For Vidal, as a Round 6 pick who was the 16th RB taken in the class behind multiple RBs I basically never discuss, the risk was he may not even make the team, or if he did that he would basically never be in a position where he was a clear part of the offense. That’s where the uncertainty was, but we’re beyond that now. And going forward, we’re looking at a pretty clear No. 2 or even possibly 1b who has a strong profile that makes him a great bet — he had workhorse credentials in college, also generated a ton of missed tackles forced (second most in college football last year), has the size, is a good pass-blocker, and again it can’t be overstated how his early work was on passing downs, because the Chargers showing they trust him with the hardest stuff for rookies to pick up clearly provides an easy path to three-down upside if Dobbins were to miss time. He’s basically Zach Charbonnet, right now, but with arguably more skill-based upside (if the case that he was a small-school gem that would have gone a lot higher if he had just played his college ball somewhere like Alabama actually proves valid). The announcers at one point actually called him a “Dobbins clone,” which is obviously bullish. As far as immediate-term production, you’re probably talking about him being pretty unreliable, although we saw this week how he could have some sporadic usable weeks for best ball teams. But the whole bet was whether we could even get to something like this moment, where one of the two fragile RB profiles ahead of him had been displaced and Vidal was the clear No. 2, with the other competition seemingly out of the equation (Jaret Patterson could be the Sean Tucker here, but he’s on the practice squad and the presence of Haskins insulates Vidal a little bit and gives him all the opportunity to establish himself further). From here, the bet is straightforward, and Vidal is a very important piece to the fantasy equation, as one of the three or four handcuffs with the best EV equation in the entire league (probability of getting his chance plus payoff if he does, which I’m trying to drive home could be massive). If you don’t have him, he’s someone to go try to acquire with a buy-high offer — I’d float one of those veteran WRs you’re holding that’s probably more of a roster clogger than you’re willing to admit, and whose production you can probably replace fairly easily on the waiver wire. For instance, I would rather have Vidal than Courtland Sutton (6-4-53-1) right now, and you might not even have to pay that much. The bet may still not pay off, and there’s some randomness from here on out, but as we sit, we are very far down the path to Vidal being this year’s James Robinson or Alfred Morris. Again, I do think Dobbins is going to be the workhorse until he either gets hurt or very clearly runs out of gas. But you make these types of bets, from this point, very willingly, because you’re looking for players that can define seasons, and we’re only headed for Week 7 with a long time for Vidal to wind up being the guy in Weeks 15-17. Hell, if the Chargers are just not really in contention anymore, and he’s doing good stuff in an ancillary role for the next couple months, he may just earn a couple fantasy playoff workhorse games that way. This is a very long bullet point, but it was necessary this week to drive home that while nothing from here is a sure thing, we’re past the majority of the uncertainty, which is the whole point of why you try to stash these guys early. You want to avoid the bidding wars, and more importantly you want to avoid the uncertainty of not being the one to secure him. (This week’s guy in that mold by the way is Kendre Miller, who plays Thursday night.)
Ladd McConkey (8-4-43) got banged up in the second quarter of this game, but was able to play through it a little bit. Quentin Johnston (4-3-22) hurt his ankle and played quite a bit less. The volume was pretty spread outside McConkey, but Simi Fehoko (4-2-44) made a nice play at one point. Hayden Hurst (no targets) got banged up, too, and Will Dissly (5-4-26) had a few catches.
Denver did virtually nothing in this game until late, when they were down 23-0. In the first half, the Chargers had a 20-play drive, and so by halftime the Broncos had run only 20 plays. They wound up with just 54 in the game, but they did get some offense going on a couple touchdown drives late.
The aforementioned Sutton had a long reception called back by penalty right before half, and did catch a later TD. Devaughn Vele (6-4-78) was active with Josh Reynolds out, and Vele led the team in receiving yards. But the big story was Troy Franklin (3-2-31-1, 1-5) getting up to 61% routes, and taking advantage of the increased role with one long catch and one short TD. He’s a solid add this week in deeper leagues with one of the better analytical profiles for rookie WRs, but the situation obviously isn’t fantastic.
Because the Broncos didn’t get much going in the first half, they didn’t wind up with much RB volume at all. Javonte Williams (6-23, 6-3-13) was part of that problem by losing a second-quarter fumble, but he continued to play as the clear lead, and he just ran a little cold here on catch rate, only bringing in half of his 6 targets (for the season, his 77% catch rate is still good for a RB). It continues to be a frustrating start to the season for Javonte, as this was yet another game situation where there just wasn’t enough offensive volume and a big enough pie, with Jaleel McLaughlin (3-8, 2-2-17) and rookie Audric Estime (2-13) also mixing in some, but not even that much. JJ Zachariason had a great stat on Javonte, and I do think there’s a process-related win here with having the lead back role right, but it’s just frustrating that we’re both getting a downside outcome on his efficiency and the team situation:
Signal: J.K. Dobbins — 73% snaps, 27 touches (season highs); Kimani Vidal — clear No. 2 role ahead of Hassan Haskins (who only played 3 snaps), played on pass downs early, flashed with the 38-yard TD on the wheel route, has a strong three-down profile to bet on now that he’s clearly in the No. 2 role; Troy Franklin — season-high 61% routes (previous high: 31%), solid add and stash in deeper leagues as he’s shown some flashes and has a strong prospect profile
Noise: Javonte Williams — 3 catches (6 targets, typically runs a high catch rate); Broncos — 20 first-half plays, only 11 RB rush attempts total