We’re at the part of the season where all I want to write is the intros, and the game-by-game stuff is starting to feel tedious and less interesting by comparison. It’s just that time of year where there’s so much fascinating stuff taking shape in the broader NFL, while in fantasy, that stuff probably already took shape to some degree, and you know what your teams are. And for those borderline teams, you know how you need to the season to go for those teams to succeed, so you’re kind of just waiting to see if those things happen (the ones that need the Ravens’ offense to hit on its higher end look great this week, while the ones that need Josh Jacobs or Rhamondre Stevenson to be an Anchor RB are in some ways stuck waiting for the same thing next week).
Obviously you’re working the waiver wire or looking for trades or all that stuff, but there’s a period here where in seasonal it’s not as impactful as the first five or so weeks where your team was really taking shape, and it’s definitely not as impactful as the stretch run and playoffs will feel, so you’re in some ways just flipping over cards to reveal outcomes, and stacking weeks into a narrative of the 2023 season.
As for what I do want to really want to write about, there are so many things. The scoring environment continues to be a big story, and I saw a really interesting note in the past couple weeks that I hadn’t heard before that we entered 2023 with the youngest average age of starting QB for quite some time.
You guys know I’ve hit on the generational stuff quite a bit when thinking through macro stuff, and how the league is in a bit of a transition since Peyton Manning really was the first to retire, and then Drew Brees, Philip Rivers, Tom Brady, Eli Manning, Ben Roethlisberger — those dudes all retired in the past few seasons and had started their NFL careers in 2004 or earlier, which in many ways can be thought of as the mainstream fantasy era (I started playing in 1999, and we were still doing newspaper stuff; those early ’00s years like 2002 and 2003 when Priest Holmes was an absolute superstar were definitely key to fantasy football’s development, but the point stands that we had a generation of QB play for the majority of fantasy’s life cycle until now).
That group I just listed doesn’t even mention Brett Favre and the transition to Aaron Rodgers which kept Green Bay great for that whole stretch — Rodgers is also now on his last legs, obviously. Carson Palmer was drafted in 2003 and played until 2017. Matt Ryan came in a bit later in 2008, and didn’t stick as long, but was a useful QB for fantasy. Joe Flacco even — he was also the class of 2008, and as I’m right now looking at a list of career passing yards, Flacco sits 19th, while Palmer is 15th, and every other name I’ve mentioned makes up nine of the top 10.
Setting aside Favre, Peyton, and Palmer, the other eight QBs were all in the league from 2008 all the way through 2019. In just the past three offseasons alone, five of the top seven all-time passers in terms of yardage retired (Brady, Brees, Roethlisberger, Rivers, and Ryan). Rodgers sits ninth on that list, while Eli retired in 2019 and sits 10th. Actually, when I sort by completions, which in some ways might be the most important stat, you’re talking about the recent QBs elevating even higher (Flacco jumps into the top 15, which is now basically only made up of the players I’ve mentioned, plus Dan Marino, John Elway, Warren Moon, and Matthew Stafford, who obviously fits with the group I’ve mentioned but is still playing so I haven’t gotten to him yet).
There’s some selection bias here where passing evolved over time, so the most recent retired QBs are going to rank high in sort of the same way that the most recent QB contracts are going to reset the market. But it’s not quite the same, is it? Of active players, it’s Rodgers and Stafford, then you go way down to Russell Wilson in 20th all time, and after him it’s Kirk Cousins, Andy Dalton, Derek Carr, and Ryan Tannehill. It’s not like that next generation of long-time starters is definitely going to contend with all-time records. Stafford maybe, health permitting, but as a group these are not the same class of QBs.
Now obviously we do have some youth at the position that is going to be around for a long time. But not all are pocket passers like almost all of the names I just wrote about, who were your more “prototypical QB” types. Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, and Justin Herbert will all likely pilot offenses with elite receiving production for many years to come. The same is probably true for Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, and Lamar Jackson, but we’re already starting to move away from being super fantasy friendly. This isn’t so much about the top names — it’s not about Brady and Brees retiring, versus Mahomes taking over — but rather the fifth or eighth or 12th most fantasy-friendly QB.
In the past era, you had the guys like Rivers and Eli — there are so many more names like Tony Romo that pop up, too — where guys like Carson Palmer or Matt Ryan were often your 10th or 12th most fantasy-friendly QB (I’m specifically talking about how beneficial they are for the skill position guys), and those dudes might average like 10 more pass attempts per game than a Jackson might (and they were probably going to complete a higher percentage of passes, in part because of more checkdowns and a lower aDOT, so we’re talking about a gulf in completions in some cases).
In today’s NFL, I’m legit grateful for Jared Goff, no sarcasm, but there just aren’t a ton of guys like him. I’m sorry but I’ll take Ryan Fitzpatrick over Derek Carr any day, and we’re frankly way more reliant on Carr types in today’s fantasy ecosystem than the bygone era ever was on Fitzpatrick, who never needed to be a top-12-ish fantasy-friendly QB.
As with anything nostalgic, things weren’t as great as they seem, and they probably aren’t as bleak now. I’m looking at a wide range of seasons, and I mean I threw Joe Flacco’s name into my first list so obviously I’m cheating a little bit. (While I’d probably kill for how much he reliably targeted RBs, I never actually liked him for fantasy when he played.) And guys like Gardner Minshew are always going to pop up through the years, and hopefully he continues to be a fun infusion into the 2023 fantasy season.
But there’s definitely a shift, and it’s important to note and consider. Hopefully Tua Tagovailoa plays a long and healthy career, and Trevor Lawrence elevates, and C.J. Stroud is everything he looks like he is. As the next generation grows, things will improve. We just had a bit of a lull in terms of good QBs entering the league in the early and mid 2010s — you know who we have really missed? Andrew Luck. He’s from the same draft class as Tannehill, Russell Wilson, and Cousins, and his retirement has definitely impacted fantasy five years on.
As we sit, though, there are two elements. First is that we’re in a bit of a QB rut while the next generation develops. Second is that QB mobility is definitely prioritized today in a way it wasn’t for most of fantasy’s history, and mobile QBs are just not as fantasy-friendly for skill position guys. The first element is going to ebb and flow with time, but I suspect this rut won’t last long.
The second is trickier. We’ve talked about what defenses are trying to do, and you’d suspect that’s going to stick. But also one of the major issues is the QBs then taking more hits, and I worry about the Anthony Richardson situations, and what we’ll learn over time about injury rates with mobile QBs. There’s some data that has shown injury rates aren’t way higher, but we also frankly haven’t had a ton of mobile QBs, and from everything I feel like I know about football, the concern for me with injuries just always comes down to quantity of hits. If you’re running with the ball a lot, and defenders are chasing you, you can’t always protect your head and your lower legs and everything in between, often from that second defender when you’re already being dragged down by one. It’s just part of it.
So I do wonder if NFL teams will start to question these schemes that are dependent on mobile QBs, and making mobile QBs into franchise guys. And when I say mobile QBs, I’m not talking about Mahomes types. Mahomes is an elite passer with mobility. I’m talking about guys where mobility is central to their skill set. I’m talking about 100+ rush attempts per season. Mahomes’ career high is 66. But five other QBs had 100+ last year, which was the most in a lot of years (like decades of years, and maybe ever).
These injury rate things — it’s also really interesting when I talk about whether NFL teams will want to make them franchise QBs, to think about how fantasy might be impacted. For many, Richardson was a glaring value this year. And that appears to have been right, except it isn’t going to pay off obviously. Trey Lance and Kyler Murray and Lamar Jackson were all values for rushing-QB enthusiasts last year, and all missed significant time. But Jalen Hurts was, too, and he did not, and he was a star.
It’s just interesting to think through how the market might start to evaluate this risk, particularly I think in formats like best ball. One of the things that can impact ADP in those formats is when multiple high-volume drafters are really pumping their bags with that player in tons of drafts. You see sometimes where a guy is a value in part because there’s just no one who wants to be heavily exposed to that player. I think Kyle Pitts fits that this year, where I will argue he was under-drafted given his entire profile, but the Pitts bulls were not going to be heavy on him again after 2022, and the Pitts bears basically don’t like him at any price. I wonder if something similar might happen with rushing QBs in the future, making them risky but high-upside plays.
Anyway, there are a ton of directions we could continue to go with the macro stuff, and I’m sure I’ll continue to have ideas. One of the things that I do think is true, and this isn’t meant to be dramatic but is just kind of the reality of it all, is that with the defensive schemes and scoring being down and also the QB play, that we’re probably in the worst stretch for fantasy football in this hobby’s history. Things will get better! I absolutely believe that. But I also think it’s pretty tough to argue against that point.
There’s also the element of how expanding the regular season, even just by a game, plus the increased focused on player health, definitely seems to have impacted the degree to which teams are willing to just pack in a game, or perhaps more accurately the degree to which they’re willing to protect individual players who don’t have major injuries but will still get held out of a game. It’s good, in the big picture, but I do think there’s “signal” that there’s less of an every-game-is-everything pressure with modern NFL decision-making (and that’s probably for a variety of reasons, including advancements in player safety plus the longer schedule, and perhaps even other elements like data/analytics/understanding the bigger picture).
There were still other introductory concepts I wanted to get to, and I could write about this stuff forever, but we better close out Week 7 here today. I do real quick want to give a shoutout to “JCH” who noted in the comments last week that Rhamondre Stevenson left the game briefly for Ezekiel Elliott’s TD last week, and then “quag’ in my Twitter DMs who noted that this week all four green zone touches Elliott got came on two drives where he was already in. Shoutout to those two readers who have convinced me the Elliott green zone takeover is perhaps more “Noise” than the “Signal” I called it yesterday. Given Stevenson showed a little flash on the game-winning drive, and Elliott’s snap shares haven’t really risen at all, my bigger-picture viewpoint of Stevenson is much more favorable after considering those notes.
(Also, I’ve said this before, but one of the coolest parts of writing this column for so long is you guys who have read, and who are like-minded but are also watching/studying the games yourselves and have your own thoughts, and share them and I get to hear these ideas bouncing around. There’s zero chance I can analyze each situation in the entire NFL to my best ability every week, so I love when you guys catch me on stuff like this.)
Data is typically courtesy of NFL fastR via the awesome Sam Hoppen, but I will also pull from RotoViz apps, Pro Football Reference, PFF, Next Gen Stats, Fantasy Life, the Fantasy Points Data Suite, 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.
You can always find an audio version of the posts in the Substack app, as well as easier-to-see versions of the visuals at the main site, bengretch.substack.com.
Steelers 24, Rams 17
Key Stat: Puka Nacua — 0.99 WOPR, George Pickens — 0.93 WOPR (second and third highest in Week 7)
The Steelers exited their bye with a big come-from-behind victory on the road, as their defense really caused Matthew Stafford and the Rams’ passing game fits. Najee Harris (14-53-1, 3-3-15) had a solid game, and his 56% snap share tied a season high, while Jaylen Warren (6-32-1, 2-1-(-1)) also looked good, but for whatever reason was down to a season-low 25% routes.
George Pickens (8-5-107) continued to dominate the passing volume in Diontae Johnson’s (6-5-79) return. One big note from Johnson’s return was the YPT-type efficiency being there, and while he has hardly played this year, we saw a little more vertical of a role in the preseason and it’s seemed to carry over at least a little. Johnson has often been a good drawer of volume but has not posted a YPT of even 7.0 since his rookie year, and even that year was only at 7.4. I know it’s just one game, but for his career, Johnson has posted a better single-game YPT than the 13.2 from this game just two times, and he only saw 4 and 2 targets in those games. This game was literally Johnson’s highest career YPT in a game where he saw at least 5 targets, and while part of it was a long reception of 39 yards, he still had 40 yards on the other 5 targets and 4 receptions, which is still a strong YPT by his standards even with the big play removed. Pickens overshadowed Johnson here, but Johnson was only at 86% routes and even lower at 71% snaps in his first game back, which meant his 6 targets were still a 25% TPRR. As that ramps up, and Pickens works as a helpful drawer of defensive attention, Johnson should be able to earn plenty of volume, which has always been his calling card and has always been supported by metrics like ESPN’s open score. If there’s anything to this YPT thing with a new, developing QB, we’ll look back at this moment as a perfect opportunity to have been trying to buy Johnson. At the same time, the notes on Pickens are positive, too, and the fact that Allen Robinson (1-1-7) has been the total zero we expected but is still running routes allows for Diontae and Pickens to coexist.
The other element is obviously Pat Freiermuth being sent to IR, and you could do worse than taking a stab on Connor Heyward (3-2-23) and his 96% routes, as rookie Darnell Washington stayed in his same blocking-heavy role and Heyward was the direct Freiermuth replacement.
For the Rams, the story was their ground game, where they were actually at a season-low -14.6% PROE, and used Darrell Henderson (18-61-1, 2-1-5) and Royce Freeman (12-66) to Establish It. I have to imagine that was matchup-related, but it led to just 29 Stafford attempts, and the completion percentage really lagged on those below 50% to where they completed just 14 passes. Henderson got the start and the bulk of the work, including the clear edge in routes run, while Freeman ran more efficiently, and looked like a version of Royce Freeman we legitimately may not have seen since the Oregon days. I tried to make some educated guesses on this backfield last week (and was pretty correct on my Zach Evans concerns), but ultimately nothing competed with getting the Adam Schefter tweet Saturday night that more or less told us this would be Henderson’s and Freeman’s backfield to split. Schefter is a great resource, and you need to be paying attention to those last-minute notes which can be extremely valuable. Henderson by the way got all three green zone touches, although they came on three consecutive plays during series he was in for the whole way. Expect a similar two-back split going forward given the effectiveness, and Myles Gaskin and probably also Zach Evans can be safely released.
The passing game was quiet, but after Cooper Kupp (7-2-29) had a tough drop early and then seemed to get a ton of defensive attention the rest of the way, Puka Nacua (12-8-154) went off. Tutu Atwell (2-1-31-1) also hit for a 31-yard TD, but the target issues with him having fallen to a clear third on the totem pole remained. Nacua continued to show that he’s right there with Kupp, and we know Stafford is going to attack certain matchups and push toward certain players, with Kupp being the obvious but Nacua being right there with him any given week. Tyler Higbee (3-1-7) saw very little volume again, and you arguably can’t play anyone but Kupp and Nacua in this passing game at this point. With Atwell, you’re just banking on a TD.
Signal: Diontae Johnson — 25% TPRR, routes at 86%, not all the way back usage-wise, but also had a 13.2 YPT that was a career-high single game (min. 5 targets) and is a positive note to be buying on given his long-established ability to earn volume; Connor Heyward — 96% routes, direct Pat Freiermuth replacement, could be a reasonable streamer; Darrell Henderson — got the start, was the lead and ran more routes, while Royce Freeman also played extensively as the 1b and ran effectively (expect similar for the coming weeks given the effectiveness)
Noise: Jaylen Warren — season-low 25% routes (team seemed to want to feature Najee Harris a bit here, and he looked solid but snaps were still split and Warren was explosive as a runner, so can’t imagine the routes dip sticks); Rams — (-14.6%) PROE, only 29 pass attempts, and a sub-50% completion percentage meant only 14 completions; Tutu Atwell — TD in two of past three games (only 8 targets in those three since Kupp’s return, tough start right now)