Stealing Signals, Week 8, Part 2
Biggest Signals and Noise of Week 8
I wrote kind of a long intro yesterday, and I’m unfortunately dealing with a little sickness that’s kept both of my kids home from school for at least a day in the past week, though my body tends to fight those things off reasonably well.
But I’m going to use that as an excuse for no introduction today. I wrote the long one yesterday, then hit a wall going through the games, and that led to me getting the piece out so late again. Today, I’m going to start my work on the meat. Probably tomorrow or Thursday I’ll try to hit on some bigger-picture stuff, as I had a lot of fun with the massive in-season Field Tippers check-in last 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 Jay (follow Jay on Twitter at FFCoder or check out his Daily Dynasties site), but I will also pull from RotoViz apps, Pro Football Reference, PFF, NFL Pro, Next Gen Stats, Fantasy Life, and the Fantasy Points Data Suite. Part 1 of Week 1 had a glossary of key terms to know.
Buccaneers 23, Saints 3
Key Stat: Saints — +9.5% PROE, 85.7% actual pass rate (highest rate for any team in a game all season)
This was a sloppy game early, with turnovers on both sides, and the Bucs eventually getting a pick-six where the defensive lineman batted Spencer Rattler’s pass from deep inside his own 5, then caught it, tossed Rattler aside, and scored, in one of the most “big brother picking on little brother” moments of the season. The Bucs also got short fields on multiple field goal drives; all three of their FG drives netted fewer than 20 yards before the kick. In the end, Tampa won this game easily, not needing to push late, but this was another example of the trend I wrote about in yesterday’s intro, where they won by 20 due to some early breaks and then taking their foot off the gas, and they gained just 212 total yards.
Rachaad White (13-35, 2-2-26) got a little banged up early in this one, and went off for a couple Sean Tucker (12-42-1) carries, before returning. I was sort of tracking this in my notes as I wasn’t sure how healthy White was, and he was coming and going, but he did seem limited by the injury, which would explain a 57% snap share that was way down from his previous three-week low of 78%. After the injury, the Bucs got a goal-line sequence where White got three straight carries from the 1 and was stopped all three, and the Tucker got stopped on fourth. They got down to the 1 again in short order, and threw twice on the first three downs, with Tucker getting stopped as well, but then Tucker converted on fourth that time. Tough success rates down there. White did open the second half after this injury issue, but in the third quarter we also got rookie UDFA Josh Williams (4-11) getting the first carries of his career, and playing for a little stretch, so again it clearly felt like White wasn’t 100% throughout this game.
Tucker looked good, and he has burst, but it’s also always kind of vaguely unclear if he knows where he’s going. White actually seems to have that part down, but he’s just slow to start and is mostly just leaning his big body downhill and hoping for the best. They’re very different backs. I don’t think Tucker is taking over lead duties or anything, though.
Baker Mayfield threw just 24 passes, and Emeka Egbuka (9-3-35) had a quiet day, but he was especially quiet early and yet I was very impressed at how he still made his mark with 9 targets and a 0.95 WOPR in a game like this. He had a shot at a vertical TD and then a second end zone target in the second half, and while the lack of production might be used to argue it was tough on his efficiency when he was the clear No. 1, the volume suggests a more favorable reading.
Tez Johnson (6-5-43) and Sterling Shepard (2-1-8) were the other main WRs, while Cade Otton (5-4-40) caught a pass down to the 1-yard line in the third quarter, and was stretching for the goal line but just didn’t get there. The Bucs go on bye this week and Chris Godwin might return for Week 10. I haven’t heard much from Jalen McMillan but he might also be back to shake things up at some point.
Despite people who only look at specific stats thinking Rattler was better than he’s been, he was benched this week, and Tyler Shough took over. Kellen Moore has already said Shough will be the starter moving forward. Rattler wasn’t terrible or anything, but I have had a hard time with the “he’s lowkey been good” stuff that floated around. He just really hasn’t, despite a couple strong throws here and there, because football is not a highlight sport — and quarterback specifically is not a highlight position — but a down-to-down consistency and execution sport/position (highlight plays are more significant at some other key positions, but even at WR or whatever, you still need that down-to-down consistency element or you have big misses that negatively impact as much as the big hits positively impact). Anyway, Shough isn’t perfect either, by any means, and in reality the team just needs to see what they have in him so that’s probably part of it. They took him 40th overall and he turned 26 in September after his 7-year college career; they can’t afford to just burn a high second-round pick without ever finding out, and can’t afford to not play him all year when he’s an old prospect. So he’ll play. One thing about him is why he’s not perfect, he definitely stood back there and ripped it, and despite dealing with a couple drops, he looked like a guy who is going to throw plenty of passes and should be able to generate some completions.
In the first full game without Kendre Miller giving them a solid 1-2 punch at RB, the Saints shifted from a run-based offense drastically, hitting a +9.5% PROE despite negative script pushing their expected pass rate up, which is to say that their actual pass rate was 85.7%, the highest number for any team in a game all year. Alvin Kamara (6-21, 2-2-24) was the lead, but was down to a season-low 52% snaps in the big loss here. He’d played 85% of the snaps in Week 7, so some of it might have been load management to some degree, as they weren’t really ready to deal with Miller giving them just 4% snaps in Week 7 before his injury. But the other side of this coin is Devin Neal (3-3-11), who didn’t get a single carry, but did go from just 11% snaps when thrust into backup duty in Week 7 all the way up to 45% in this Week 8 game. Again, Kamara seemed to be limited after taking on the huge workload last week, and Neal didn’t even get a carry, but that’s a pretty bullish rate that makes him an intriguing stash for now.
Chris Olave (12-8-63) made a couple of decent plays, but also had an INT ripped out of his hands, although he couldn’t exactly see the guy making the break on the ball on that one. Juwan Johnson (8-5-53) also had a decent day, while Rashid Shaheed (12-9-75) wound up leading the team in part thanks to three catches on the game’s final drive, and five total in the fourth quarter alone. He was Shough’s favorite target, as Shough threw to him 8 times on 30 attempts. He threw to Olave 6 times and Johnson 5 times, so it was still pretty spread. He interestingly never targeted a RB, though, and while he scrambled a couple times and took a couple sacks, he also never threw a pass that didn’t have a credited target. To the point Jakob Sanderson wrote about with Dropback Conversion Rate, Shough might be closer to that Joe Flacco mold of chucking it around and getting good downfield targets than Rattler was. He did miss Shaheed for a potential 34-yard TD late where Shaheed was open, but he overthrew it.
Signal: Saints — 85.7% actual pass rate (I usually put the one-week outlier team stuff down in Noise, but I’d frame this one as after a run-heavy stretch, and after losing Kendre Miller, the Saints went extremely pass heavy, even adjusting for negative script, which presents pass volume upside going forward); Tyler Shough — 30 pass attempts on four drives, no throwaways or RB targets, some scrambling and sacks but looks like a high Dropback Conversion Rate guy, meaning his presence could be good for downfield volume for WRs and TEs
Noise: Emeka Egbuka — 3 catches (35% TPRR, 0.95 WOPR, strong volume); Rachaad White — 57% snaps (down from three-week low of 78%, banged up in second quarter, seemed limited at times); Devin Neal — no carries (45% snaps was way up from 11% in Week 7, did catch three balls, and team just went very pass heavy, but if his snaps stick anywhere close to this range, expect some rushing work)
Broncos 44, Cowboys 24
Key Stat: Troy Franklin — 86% routes, 32% TPRR, 8 targets, 109 air yards
This was the high-profile game of the week, with a massive over/under and massive fantasy expectations. And it’s not so much that it didn’t live up to that with 66 combined points, but I guess maybe it didn’t really live up to that? The Cowboys weren’t great, scoring just 17 points until a late Joe Milton touchdown pass to Jalen Tolbert (2-2-47-1) with the game out of reach, and their two earlier TDs came after a completion to the 1-yard line and then a later DPI in the end zone set up a pair of 1-yard TD plunges for Javonte Williams (13-41-2, 2-1-8). But the Broncos were strong, with Bo Nix overcoming a bad early INT to look sharp the rest of the way. After that first drive, the Broncos scored touchdowns on four of their other five first-half possessions, and all four drives spanned at least 60 yards. Then they started the second half with a field goal drive, an 84-yard TD drive, and a 55-yard TD drive, their sixth of the game. The Cowboys’ defense was just not able to do anything to slow them down.
One of Nix’s best throws of the day was a deep fade to Pat Bryant (4-2-40-1), who made a great play for a vertical TD. In a game where the depth of Sean Payton’s rotations was on full display, Bryant was the only touchdown scorer other than Troy Franklin (8-6-89-2) and RJ Harvey (7-46-2, 1-1-5-1). Franklin was the star in this one, catching a big pass early before a 40-yard TD run for Harvey, then hitting for a 25-yard TD of his own right away. Franklin added multiple nice catches, then a second touchdown from 7 yards out early in the fourth quarter. Perhaps most notable for Franklin, his routes were way back up to 86%, establishing that he wasn’t losing routes over the past few weeks as much as hitting the lower end of his range, and then he was back up to the higher end here. At this point, we can be pretty confident Franklin will play enough to matter.
Courtland Sutton (6-4-67) was still very involved, but lost a TD to OPI on a pick that got him loose, and then dropped a TD on the very next play. That was a rough sequence, and the drop was a well-placed ball right on his frame that was uncharacteristic, but he’s still a key part of the passing game.
Marvin Mims (1-0-0, 3-18) and Evan Engram (4-4-36) were quieter as more rotational pieces. In Week 7, Engram had climbed to a season-high 71% routes, but he was back down to 59% in Week 8. Mims had also risen a bit in Week 7 to 60%, but fell back to 35% here. In terms of how to parse all of this, you have Franklin right up there with Sutton, a pretty big gap down to Engram where he’s almost not fantasy viable but maybe is as a TE, and then another small step down to Mims where he’s arguably not really fantasy viable in most formats, in his ranges. He’ll hit at times, but this was a reminder that while he’s talented, the scoring is going to be pretty erratic.
Harvey had the hat trick in this game, but still played just 28% of the snaps. JK Dobbins (15-111, 2-2-10) remained the clear lead, and ran for over 100 yards, while Harvey had the long TD run and then some situational usage in close. His second TD came after an Engram catch down to the 2, then a Dobbins run to the 1, and then Harvey got his chance and punched it all. Definitely a positive that he converted. The third TD was a 5-yard reception as the Broncos’ final score in the fourth quarter, while up 20. Again, all of that was fantastic, and efficiency tends to lead to opportunity for rookies, but at the same time Harvey had just 5 more yards in the entire game outside the 46 he gained on the three touchdown plays, and he touched the ball just eight times overall. Splitting the green zone reps with Dobbins is a plus — both guys got 2 — and the efficiency is helpful as he continues to earn more work. But the three-score game doesn’t make him a locked-in start or anything.
CeeDee Lamb (10-7-74, 1-2) led the way for the Cowboys, while George Pickens (9-7-78) played well alongside him, continuing to make some plays on slants and in isolation situations. Lamb had a near miss on a deep shot to the end zone, and that came after an early big catch. It felt like these two were the core of the passing game, and we didn’t get much Jake Ferguson (1-0-0), who was weirdly down to 55% routes while Luke Schoonmaker (3-2-25) and Brevyn Spann-Ford (1-1-9) ran some routes, each approaching personal season highs while Ferguson was at a season low. Ferguson has been down at 60% and below a couple times before, and then rebounded to up around 75% the next week both times, so this is likely just a bump in the road. But it’s a bit concerning because there didn’t appear to be an injury consideration here. It seems this was likely formational preferences in the given matchup.
I mentioned Williams had the two short TDs, and he got 5 green zone touches in the game, most in Week 8. They were actually trying some stuff down in close, but the only thing that wound up working was pounding it with Javonte. He’s the new Zeke, and should be expected to have strong TD upside most weeks.
Jaydon Blue (8-29) had a nifty hurdle on an early run, and was getting some solid work before a fumble. They did get it back, and he did get touches after that. His burst is evident and he remains an important handcuff.
Signal: Troy Franklin — 86% routes, 32% TPRR, 8 targets, 109 air yards, 6-89-2 receiving (season high in routes after three straight games below 75%, and the rebound establishes that his stronger early-season role wasn’t temporary and slipping, but rather he’s still very much in it); CeeDee Lamb, George Pickens — 7 receptions each, no one else had more than 2 (Ferguson will also factor in obviously, but these top WRs can coexist as focal points); Javonte Williams — 5 green zone touches (led Week 8, converted two, strong TD equity)
Noise: RJ Harvey — 3 TDs (green zone usage and efficiency were both positives, but Harvey played just 28% of the snaps, and gained just 5 yards outside the three scoring plays, as he remains more of a situational player than a hat trick implies, though good play tends to bring more opportunity for rookies); Jake Ferguson — 55% routes, no catches (has been down at 60% and 58% routes in two earlier games, and rebounded to ~75% the next week both times, so this seems to have just been formational preferences given the matchup)
Colts 38, Titans 14
Key Stat: Tyjae Spears — 51% snaps, 43% routes, 5 HVTs