Stealing Signals, Week 8, Part 1
The Signal and the Noise from TNF and the early Sunday games
In as many ways as I knew how, and even while talking through my own doubts and concerns, the theme of what I’ve been preaching so far this year has been patience. No individual Signal or Noise on any team or player level has been as clear as how obviously high-variance the entire league has been to start 2022. Something had to give.
I don’t want to be too insufferable this morning, but I always write these intros based on how I’m feeling and what I’m thinking about that week. I got an important reminder in the Discord when someone mentioned they were curious what my takeaway would be for D’Onta Foreman this week, since I’d called the Panthers’ RB success Noise last week, and they’d been in a shallow enough league that it made sense to release Foreman for another potential upside back. It was a good reminder of what this is — an endless pursuit of understanding a highly-variable game, where the misses are absolutely certain.
But Week 8 of 2022 will probably otherwise go down as the most enjoyable of my career in this industry, particularly from an analyst perspective. Maybe that was just the difficulty of the first seven weeks of this year, I’m not sure, but I’ve done this long enough to know the way I felt yesterday is rare, and fleeting. When you write about as many topics as I have every single week for the last six seasons, you learn very quickly that it’s always an ebb and flow. There are good weeks and bad weeks, and even in the good weeks, where a lot of individual trends you might identify go the way you think, there will be offsetting examples of situations that you couldn’t have been more wrong about. That push and pull is something I often find frustrating, and you guys are well aware that emotion comes out in my writing.
My Foreman advice may have been a negative for some, even as that math changed once Chuba Hubbard was ruled out. I still missed on how good this Carolina offense could be — it supported two 25-point skill players this week! — and that’s frankly a bit funny because I always make sure to note I’m a P.J. Walker fanboy from his XFL days, and maybe that’s something I should have been more willing to expect! What Carolina did in Walker’s first start — completely neutering him en route to 19 total air yards — was hard to forget. But once they’ve let him play a little bit, he’s been a clear upgrade for the whole unit, reviving what was perhaps the most hopeless situation in the league.
There are undoubtedly other examples where my analysis fell short for you guys this week, and that’s always part of the gig. I’ve gotten better at dealing with it over the years, and not expecting myself to be proven right in everything I argue, though that’s candidly difficult for me. I want to be right, for you guys, and also for me, when I’m honest with myself about my own ego. We all do when it comes to sports. We argue stuff, and it’s awesome when it’s proven right, especially if we’re discerning enough to recognize whether it’s for the reasons we argued, and we were indeed “right for the right reasons.” That’s the absolute best.
But I know not everyone has the same mix of player exposures. I know the feeling all too well where I see people celebrating a great week and it was maybe just a good but not great week for me, or maybe it was a bad week, and it’s frankly kind of annoying. To some degree, what is hitting at any given moment is probably plus variance, where a reasonable thesis is running particularly hot in a small sample. The good is being magnified. I talked about this in my introduction to Week 7, Part 2 last week, and shared some writing from the 2021 offseason where I noted “the true heights [Stefon Diggs] reached [in 2020] were something I didn’t foresee at all,” and that’s how I reflected on what was probably my best call that season, and a thing I was getting a lot of positive feedback about. You never want to get too high, and it helps you to never get too low if you can implement that same type of balance to the tough weeks.
But setting aside that perspective, I do want to take some time to appreciate Week 8 for what it was. I heard from some of you who felt the same way about Week 8, and I’d want you to do the same. If you don’t necessarily follow all the takes here like gospel, and it was more of a “good” not “great” week, then I guess my advice is try to enjoy the positive more than the negative. If this wasn’t the week for that, remember this idea the next time something cool happens and you win a game by a point, or you make a great start/sit call. If we’re going to stew on the Sundays that don’t go well, then damnit we need to enjoy the ones that do.
And while I’m trying not to make this too much about myself, and also trying to respect those who didn’t feel the same way about Week 8, I just genuinely can’t remember such an enjoyable Sunday as an analyst, where so much felt like it was coming up Milhouse. I heard from subscribers, family, and friends, about a ton of players. This was a week where A.J. Brown, D.J. Moore, Kyle Pitts, Stefon Diggs, Rondale Moore, Romeo Doubs, Tony Pollard, and whoever else I heard about all did fun and good things. (Tough break for Skyy Moore that he was on a bye, but maybe that was for the best.)
So the lesson today is just about gratefulness. Seeing the good for the good. I completely understand if my ambiguous writing makes it so you don’t necessarily associate all those above players with me personally, and it’s definitely not meant to be a victory lap. I’m just trying to bottle up this week and be grateful, because I of all people know my analysis isn’t perfect, fantasy football will always throw us another curveball, and you just can’t expect a lot of — or any — Sundays to go like yesterday did, at least for me, or at least how I perceived it. Just the simple fact we got some points in some of these games would have been enough!
Let’s get to the games. There’s a ton of new stuff to analyze with the way scoring went, and despite my intro, most of it pertains to guys I don’t talk about all the time.
Data 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.
Ravens 27, Buccaneers 22
RB Snap Notes: Gus Edwards: 21% (-15 vs. Week 7 debut)
WR Snap Notes: James Proche: 63% (+35 vs. high), Rashod Bateman: 17% (injured), Julio Jones: 57% (return)
TE Snap Notes: Isaiah Likely: 67% (+22 vs. high), Mark Andrews: 13% (injured)
Key Stat: Isaiah Likely — routes on 83% of dropbacks, 7 targets
I wrote a little about this game in the opening to Saturday’s Input Volatility, but we got a Ravens’ win where they were more efficient and ran more plays, and where the Buccaneers racked up plenty of pass volume. Tampa’s +9.6% PROE was their fourth game at least this pass heavy in their past five contests (and +9.6% is quite pass heavy, checking in at the 22nd most pass heavy game of the year for any team).
Baltimore’s game was a tale of two halves, with a 30/7 pass/run ratio in the first half, then an 8/26 run-heavy ratio in the second. Both Mark Andrews and Rashod Bateman left early in the first half, and that likely contributed to the shift, though the Ravens also ran the ball well and protected their lead. Isaiah Likely (7-6-77-1) and Demarcus Robinson (8-6-64) led the team in receiving, and Likely would be interesting if Andrews were to miss time, while the WRs are a bit unpredictable. Likely ran routes on 83% of dropbacks, and no WR was over 71%, with Devin Duvernay (4-4-31, 2-33-1 rushing) and James Proche (4-3-24) at that number and Robinson down at 55%. Duvernay would be the top option to consider if Bateman were to miss time.
Kenyan Drake (7-62, 4-4-5-1) was playing over Gus Edwards (11-65) early, and wound up out-snapping him by a healthy margin, with Drake easily leading the backs with routes on 57% of dropbacks and also getting the lone green zone touch, a reception for a 5-yard TD. Edwards is presumably the lead back for the green zone rushing role, and Drake presumably the lead for passing downs, but nothing here is particularly certain. Justice Hill (4-28) also worked in some, and he more than doubled up Drake’s routes just one week ago in Week 7.
Tom Brady missed Mike Evans (11-6-123) on what should have been an easy touchdown in the back of the end zone, where the pass led Evans out of the back of it. This was the second straight week Evans had a wide open touchdown miss, though he was to blame with the bad drop last week. Evans’ air yards are through the roof the past two weeks — 217 and 184 — and he’s seeing much stronger volume than Chris Godwin (11-6-75) right now, which explains the yardage efficiency differences. While Godwin’s targets have been solid, his aDOT over the past two weeks is just 3.6 (Evans’ is 15.4). If we look at just Week 8, Godwin’s aDOT was 1.6 on his 11 targets.
Julio Jones (4-2-21-1) ran routes on 57% of dropbacks, his highest rate since Week 1. He could pretty easily work into fantasy relevance in an offense throwing this much. Cade Otton (5-2-15) had a touchdown called back by penalty, but ran routes on 94% of dropbacks and is a usable TE as long as Cameron Brate is out.
Leonard Fournette (9-24-1, 3-3-34) ran routes on a season-high 79% of dropbacks, pushing Rachaad White (4-19, 3-3-24) into a season-low 15% routes despite White’s three receptions. Fournette also got three green zone touches to one for White. The split remains the same, with Fournette the clear lead but White playing enough to have at least some usability if you’re desperate.
Signal: Isaiah Likely — 83% routes, 7 targets in Mark Andrews’ stead; Buccaneers — in four of their past five games, have clocked PROEs among the 25 pass-heaviest for any team this season (helps make guys like Julio Jones and Cade Otton potentially streamable); Chris Godwin — 11 targets, 18 air yards, 1.6 aDOT (role has been very weak in terms of target depth so far)
Noise: Demarcus Robinson — 8-6-64 (never been a target earner, this actually tied his career high for receptions in a game, and his routes weren’t even strong); Mike Evans — no TDs past two weeks (should have had one in each game, one being his fault, one Tom Brady’s)