Stealing Signals, Week 9, Part 2
Trade deadline reaction, plus the importance of scheme fit
The relevant part of yesterday’s intro was about player profiles, and how elite ceilings tend to come from certain types of players, and why it’s so important to always keep those things in mind. But I’d wanted to jump off that and contrast it with scheme, and what we’re seeing right now in a sport that feels increasingly micro, dictated by the nuances of the cat and mouse game that’s always existed, because of the macro framework of defenses finally adjusting to take away the most important thing (explosive plays, and primarily in the pass game).
I didn’t necessarily work through yesterday’s writeup as efficiently, which is what happens some weeks for me, so I pushed this part of the intro to today (though in my defense, I’d probably argue the game-by-game commentary yesterday was one of the better editions of this post on the year, and I still managed to leave out my criticism of Brian Daboll kicking a field goal down 13 in the second half, inside the 5-yard line, which was just in sharp contrast to how every coach does it these days, and especially made no sense with how well the Giants have used Jaxson Dart’s legs in close; the Giants just absolutely had to get 7 on that series, given how that game was going, but opted to delay their loss and make it look better than it was, rather than risk a bigger blowout by actually going for it).
One of the things I did get into in the games was how Brian Flores’ gameplan wrecked Jahmyr Gibbs in Week 9. Dan Campbell was literally asked in his media availability yesterday “Why was there maybe not a better effort to adjust that and kind of relieve him of some of that stress?” And Campbell responded by mentioning how they went to David Montgomery as a result, and also said, “But no, we don’t want him having to go hammerhead for 12 plays.” And then he also acknowledges that was Minnesota’s plan, and says “kudos to them,” and so you get all the confirmation that it was the Vikings specifically trying to neutralize Gibbs through this tactic. If you follow that link, there’s a video, but here’s a good synopsis:
These are the reasons I called that Noise. These kinds of games don’t necessarily happen to every team, every year, but it’s a staple of the sport that a gameplan quirk can totally disrupt a game, every now and then. It’s fascinating how that works, but in Campbell’s answer he also talks about some of the different things they can do, including some of what I mentioned yesterday, like keeping an extra blocker in for a seven-man protection scheme if that’s necessary. What they aren’t going to do is let what happened on Sunday become a trend.
Now, there’s a fair question about my optimism here because I was optimistic the Lions would get Jameson Williams more involved out of the bye, and they really didn’t do that for the first half of Week 9. But this is where the difference between a one-week blip and a trend comes in. The difference in my confidence here is that Gibbs has been the centerpiece of the offense all year. Williams is different, in part because a lot of speedy WRs like him become de facto decoys whose unfortunate schematic roles are to threaten vertically and run off safeties to open up space underneath. Some of the quotes around Williams over the bye did concern me, including Jared Goff talking about how they are winning and everyone has their role and some of those things. It wasn’t, “We’re all focused on winning, and getting him the ball more is crucial for us to keep winning,” but more like, “We’re winning, and sometimes people have to make sacrifices for the team.”
So the point is there’s a broader picture, and it’s far less of a concern around Gibbs than Williams, as far as not just whether the Lions are able to free that player up, but more so whether they are committed to doing so.
But the main discussion around scheme this week is about the popular ball-knowing conversation du jour, which is how offenses are throwing efficiency out of two-TE formations. And honestly, I think the whole conversation has been overblown within the fantasy community in an effort to sound smart. I’m going to break all that down, but let’s start with the background.
Sam Bruchhaus from Sumer Sports had a great video breaking it down, and then Greg Olsen amplified that and helped make it a larger discussion with more commentary. To give a quick rundown, Sam makes a great point with data that when teams go to heavy-TE formations, they are throwing efficiently when defenses match with base personnel. This is an important caveat; to provide more clarity, the match point is just that when the offense substitutes, the defense gets to also substitute, and teams have defensive packages ready for when the offense brings certain packages onto the field. Because the multiple-TE look is a run look, some defenses go to “base” which means your standard four defensive backs and more linebacker types that aren’t as good in pass coverage. The main alternative to base is going to be nickel, i.e. bringing on a fifth defensive back.
You can also go all the way to dime, which is six defensive backs and just five players on the field that aren’t DBs. Sumer Sports’ Shawn Syed, who we leaned on for more about the Gibbs’ blitz pickups yesterday, had a great video on this as well, showing how the Bills used dime looks against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs to great effect, even against the two-TE looks the Chiefs will sometimes employ.
I reposted that and got tagged in a reply saying, “this is the blueprint,” which is going to be my whole point here. It’s not. There is so much more nuance than one answer. A short response about why it worked in this spot is because the Chiefs had Kareem Hunt at RB. But you can’t go to dime against two-TE looks every time and not get gashed via the run, and while we know defenses should have a bias toward asking opposing offenses to run on them, the answer is not selling out to the degree that you’re in a constant deficit against run looks, in terms of having actual willing run stoppers. It’s just flat out not a simple answer to say, “Just force them to run.”
That doesn’t negate the point that defenses should be adjusting. My main thesis here is there’s interesting insight, but it’s interesting in the subtleties of the cat-and-mouse game that is always occurring between NFL offenses and defenses. It’s not interesting from the perspective that this is some massive new macro evolution of the sport.
I believe that because I’ve fallen for that before. Throwing out of multiple-TE sets has been a discussion point for several consecutive seasons now. It was a big one in 2023, and I leaned kind of heavily into some of the personnel moves teams were doing to believe we’d see more TE production in 2024 that didn’t necessarily materialize, including for guys like Dalton Kincaid alongside a Dawson Knox. Kincaid got hurt some, and he’s having a solid year this year, but not as a full-time superstar TE. Another way I was intrigued was through Juwan Johnson, and the Klint Kubiak offense that is now in Seattle has leverage passing out of two-TE formations I think better than anyone. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the TEs are smashing, and what we’ve seen with Johnson is the production is way better in 2025 in a more traditional offense where he’s just accumulating routes rather than being used interchangeably in a two-TE structure with Foster Moreau (not interchangeably in terms of role, but in terms of responsibility between protection and route volume/depth).
What Sam was saying is offenses are getting into these two-TE sets really just to create a better look to pass against, and then Greg says what defenses need to start doing is not matching in neutral situations and play the down and distance instead, so they aren’t just playing into the offense’s hand by giving them an easier look to throw against, because the whole sport is about trying to throw effectively, when we cut right down to it. As we know, if you can throw effectively, you create schematic advantages in the run game and the short passing game and all those things by spreading the defense out, and stretching it vertically, even if you do have a bad running back and bad run-blocking OL, a lot of the time. And if you can’t throw, you have an uphill climb to win just by running, even if you have Derrick Henry or Saquon Barkley or whatever. That’s just how the sport works.
But the operative element to what Greg is saying that I think is being missed is the down-and-distance element. If you watch Shawn’s Bills-Chiefs video, you’ll see him highlight what the down and distance was in a few spots, emphasizing that it’s interesting the Bills are doing what they are doing on stuff like second-and-6 relative to something like third-and-10.
Greg’s not pretending that you should bring a bunch of DBs on the field every down, no matter what, and give up a massive rushing advantage against multi-TE formations on third-and-short and in those spots. His point is a specific coaching approach, that defenses need to match substitutions differently, but not in all situations. If you’ll remember Sam’s initial point, it was not that teams are throwing amazingly well period out of two-TE sets, but specifically against base. This is the micro ebb and flow of seasons in the NFL.
We’ve been in this period where defenses have had the upper hand for a little while now, and it’s kind of shocking to me the way other people are taking this point and acting like defenses are not aware of it, and they should be doing something obvious but just aren’t. To be clear, I do think Greg and by extension Sam are right, and that a slight shift is in order. But defenses have been able to dictate their goals for years now, and one of the things they were figuring out how to do early this year was also start taking away the run from some teams. There’s this mentality we’ve written about for years — and I have to credit Jordan Rodrigue on the The Playcallers podcast series I’ve been citing for so long now — where defenses don’t have a “this or that” approach, but “this and that,” and it has continued to push yardage down. Scoring is rising because of special teams but this isn’t some leak that is revolutionizing offense in the NFL. Offenses are getting bludgeoned and have found some small openings for counterpunches in the late rounds so as to stave off further bludgeoning, and we’re out here positioning this like defenses are blowing the fight. Again, I don’t interpret either Sam or Greg as saying that, but it’s where it’s been taken by a lot of people not understanding what they are saying, and where their statements are limited by caveats.
It’s very fascinating and I’m glad they are sharing! But I get asked about how these things will impact the NFL and what the big fantasy changes are, and to me this is just the chess match that goes on within seasons. Defenses have improved, so offenses have found something that works back, and defenses can and will make some concessions to combat that. Another element that fits in here is the RB air yards — someone could probably write about how running backs getting downfield is a massive efficiency leak right now, because of the same thing about getting an athlete on a weaker pass defender in space.
That offenses have been able to generate some explosive plays in the passing game as defenses have still mostly been able to accomplish their objectives is not something I personally want to overreact to as an observer. You can go all the way back to the Rob Gronkowski-Aaron Hernandez offense with Bill Belichick for how this specific two-TE thing has been leveraged in the past, and again it’s something that’s been discussed — throwing out of multiple-TE sets — a lot over the past couple years since the rise in Cover-2 shells and shift to lighter defenses. People love to talk about these things as cyclical — and I always point out that just because things do come back into style doesn’t make it cyclical because it’s a constant evolution and the old thing is answering new problems — but this actually is in a lot of ways a pretty cyclical part of what’s been happening.
That we’re in a moment here in 2025 where some teams are really executing it well doesn’t equate to defenses not understanding what’s happening. That’s sort of my whole point, is this is going mainstream with aggregators like Awful Announcing picking it up and calling it “the latest offensive evolution.” I like Awful Announcing, but they get it backward in quoting Olsen as correctly noting that defenses want offenses to run more, and are making them run more, and then saying “that’s the game right now” before they write the opposite.
That latter note is also part of Olsen’s point, of course, but there’s a misunderstanding of the subtleties of his point, as Olsen circled back to the larger issue at hand about defenses forcing offenses to run, while also talking about this isolated passing advantage offenses have right now.
I’m not trying to downplay all this, but my point is this isn’t an evolution. This is a totally known element of the ways different personnel packages align. This whole conversation about modern TEs being unguardable by linebackers was a thing 15 years ago when Gronk and Jimmy Graham were crushing it, and the shift to more defensive backs and lighter defenses in just the past five years has counteracted this idea of modern TEs being unguardable by linebackers for a while now. We’re like multiple cycles into that being the obvious answer; putting more DBs on the field is not something defenses don’t know about; that’s been the whole game, and it was a multi-year thing where DBs started getting drafted in higher numbers, and different styles of linebacker have declined in numbers. There are some subtleties I don’t understand, and smart people like Greg and people at Sumer Sports do, but my main point is while I think they shared some really interesting insights into micro adjustments that have been going on, people acting like this is some massive macro shift are missing the mark.
Part of the reason I don’t think this is revolutionary necessarily is you have to have the personnel to accomplish these things. And for the 12 personnel stuff, as is the point with Olsen’s note about playing down-and-distance, you can’t create this advantage in obvious passing downs. You can’t be down 14 and just line up with multiple TEs and get defenses to make this mistake.
Seattle has been doing the multiple-TE thing very well, and the Seahawks are the team I probably missed on most this offseason. The stuff I wrote about Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s profile fits with the shifts in scheme — that’s really the only way you wind up with a YPRR figure over 4.0. But a massive part of what Seattle does well offensively is marry the run and pass, and then they’ve constantly stayed in neutral or positive game script.
Look back at Klint Kubiak’s Saints last year. Remember how dominant they looked in Weeks 1 and 2 when they could run this offense and throw out of these formations in nonobvious passing situations, and they looked like the best team in the league? And then remember what happened when they started suffering injuries and were in negative scripts, and they started getting absolutely demolished because you can’t just get defenses who are up multiple touchdowns into base like that?
While I agree Greg’s onto something here, I just think it’s pretty silly to act like defenses aren’t aware they could just play nickel all the time, simply because a second TE is on the field. It’s not novel to say to just do that, and that’s the blueprint. It’s why Greg Olsen is specifying down and distance, and Sam was specifying the benefit was against base. The answer does seem to be that we’re getting too much base when offenses are in these spots, but that’s not because defenses don’t understand what it going on. It’s a calculated move, and they are starting to have some leaks.
But there’s also an element where the Seahawks and the Colts and some of these teams have stayed remarkably healthy for a half-season, and have stayed in neutral and plus scripts almost exclusively. That’s part of why I keep cautioning that the specific stuff Seattle has done is stuff I still want to see tested more. They’re just a fascinating team to me. Certainly, adding Rashid Shaheed is a huge lift, and I’ll talk trade deadline in a second.
But the whole thing where the Saints looked like the best team in football for two weeks last year is kind of happening on a larger scale right now. It doesn’t mean the collapse has to be as hard, and I’m definitely not predicting some massive demise for the Seahawks at this point. But things got so bad for the Saints, so quickly, that Klint Kubiak was available after last year and that’s how he wound up in Seattle in the first place.
I think it’s fascinating that the Seahawks are adding to their offense. I think it’s fascinating that the Colts made a huge trade for a cornerback. These teams absolutely should be going for it, and particularly Seattle given I don’t think the Eagles or Packers or Lions or 49ers or Rams or whoever are actually some massive roadblock. The NFC doesn’t have a clear favorite. Seattle’s side of the postseason bracket this year is going to look tight, assuming the teams stay healthy and look similar to how they do now when we enter the playoffs in a couple months. Games will come down to execution. And Seattle has a well-conceived offense that can really work when it’s in neutral situations and asked to execute those concepts.
I’m not trying to take away from Sam Darnold, either. He’s playing great football. He’s also in a great situation. Two things can be true. He hasn’t dealt with a lot of injuries around him, and the defense is playing well and keeping them in games, and they’ve controlled stuff. Even great teams don’t control games, every single week, the way the Seahawks have been able to. There will be challenges down the line.
I do think, as I’ve pivoted to talking more specifically about Seattle, that the answer of what I missed is about Mike Macdonald. Teams have letdown games or whatever else you might want to call it. To have weekly gameplans, no matter what, that keep you in these spots where you can consistently succeed, really with pretty limited personnel — on offense, the RBs aren’t doing great, it’s JSN and then basically very little in the pass game (hence the Shaheed acquisition), the line isn’t viewed as some top-flight unit, and Darnold is playing great (without much help!) but he’s still not some top-flight QB, either — speaks to absurd coaching, to me. That Kubiak has been this much better is about situation, but I think is probably about who he’s working for, as well.
Anyway, the two-TE passing efficiency stuff is very interesting, but to me it’s not something that redefines the sport. This is the cat-and-mouse stuff, the ebb and flow, the punch and counterpunch. I’m seeing people respond to Greg and to Sam and act like these points they’ve made are a bigger thing than they are, and it’s super insightful to suggest to get into nickel against 12 personnel. It’s not the case that defensive coordinators haven’t thought of that. And it’s not a leak that’s going to take a long time to plug, because these answers to multi-TE formations aren’t actually new.
I got off on multiple tangents there, and I’m not sure I have that all figured out, to be clear. I’m writing more confidently than I am, because I do think I have a point, but I don’t want to make it seem like there’s no gray area, because there very much is.
But part of why I wanted to go into scheme was to balance my talk about player profiles yesterday, and talk about how scheme can really elevate (or hurt) players. And what’s true about the above discussions, in the descriptive sense, is several of the offenses in question have found formulas that are really working right now, and then those formulas are difficult to stop without creating other issues, and it’s another thing it all comes down to in fantasy football is just wanting pieces of those offenses.
It’s both things. You want the very best profiles, as I wrote yesterday, but you also want access to the very best offenses. I used Bowers, JT, and JSN as examples yesterday, and Bowers isn’t a great fit here, but the other thing JT and JSN have in common as league-winners this year is not just their past profiles, but also that they play for those offenses that are the biggest surprise crushers this year. Shane Steichen and Mike Macdonald are fantastic, and the Colts and Seahawks are those teams overperforming preseason expectations as defined by Vegas win totals and all that. As always, this stuff seems easier in hindsight, but if you think it was obvious, you could’ve made a killing betting directly on these offenses, and wouldn’t have even needed to figure out how that mattered for fantasy.
But it also doesn’t require massive hits. Sometimes the fit is just perfect. I’ve been saying since the offseason that Michael Penix was perfect for Drake London, and basically that it was going to lead to a ton of targets, and then situations like we saw Sunday where Penix is throwing these tight spirals high to the boundary in the end zone, and London is using his basketball background to go up and high point the ball which he does so well in those spaces, and that combination looks completely and utterly unstoppable. They connected for three scores, all of that variety, and it’s I guess not even scheme so much as just the pairing of skillsets of the two. But in my head I bucket that kind of thing as “situation,” if you will.
But this is the other so, so important part of fantasy football. There are a million of these types of things to consider, and the point is to locate the most valuable ones. When I’m spending all the time I did above talking about the two-TE thing, it’s not because I’m meaning to criticize, but because I’m trying to articulate that we’re already seeing those benefits in the offenses that are leveraging that best, and as far as predicting the future, I’d probably guess we’re more likely to see that stuff get pulled back on by a defensive adjustment than find that we should’ve known this offensive evolution that was changing the game. What I’m trying to say is we need to understand what we can actually leverage for future value changes, not chase trends after they are the equivalent of a bubble and every creator in the space is talking about them, and frankly some like Awful Announcing are simplifying the concept so much as to really (unfortunately) miss the core part of what’s going on, here in 2025.
Alright, trade deadline rapid reaction: