Yesterday was the first sort of gut punch of the NFL season, and was a fun awakening that for as much as we love this hobby, stuff like last year’s Trey Lance, Breece Hall, and Javonte Williams injuries were key moments where it was just a huge bummer to not get to see the way the bet might have played out. (Yes, I still contend Lance would have had a strong fantasy year last year, given the trends around the league with the advantage mobile QBs provided, and given Kyle Shanahan’s scheme versatility, but I also believe at this point that he’s probably not that great of an actual NFL QB, so the whole thing is one of those all-time sliding doors moments, which makes sense as an explanation given he played among the fewest snaps for his drafting team of any top-five pick all time.)
Anyway, yesterday felt a little like that. There’s a funny thing in NFL and fantasy circles, where everyone wants to be an expert, but there are certain things that are definite insider information, and the reality is even the sharpest and most plugged in observers are just waiting for those details to leak out. For years, this was the guaranteed money on contracts, where even those who knew that would tell the whole story couldn’t necessarily report or comment on that, because they were only being given the “sticker price,” as it were.
I bring this up because I’ve heard a ton of different takes on the Jonathan Taylor thing. One of the elements has related to his contract tolling after six games, and that the Colts leaving him on PUP actually allows for those first four games to count toward the six, leaving him needing to play just two games if he wants to take the hardest stance he can, on his side. That little detail has made the rounds, but I’ve also heard whispers of the opposite, where he’s a different classification of PUP list where the games won’t count.
To be clear, those are not sources I necessarily trust, and that would just be a logical thing for someone to assume or claim given the alternative is us claiming that the Colts royally messed this up. People who have observed these types of inside-NFL proceedings for long enough know that usually there are details we just aren’t privy to right away, and that making big assumptions about an NFL organization that had time before a deadline to line up their decisions depending on a couple of key potential results — meaning there’s no world where they should have been caught off guard by the deadline coming and no team meeting their demands, even if that caught a lot of observers off guard — is probably faulty. Assuming their response to be a worst-case scenario for them, when they had all the information about the offers they’d received and those things leading into their own deadline, would just write them off as wildly incompetent, and that’s why you can understand the opposite side of the coin about these PUP games counting toward JT’s tolling, and it’s not really bootlicking in this instance to say, “Hey, this is weird, we probably don’t know the real details.”
And yet.
I’m writing this whole introduction in this way because I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such clear agreement on something like this the other way. People who do know better, and do believe everything I just wrote above, still think the Colts might have royally messed this up. I trust a lot of different voices on these types of things, because different people have different understandings — and again, it’s about as clear as mud, with more than 90% of the commentary you see on it being speculation, often informed speculation, but definitely speculation — and in this particular case, it does seem like a unanimous response from different corners of the football-analysis world, with respect to the opinions that I’ve seen, and among opinions that not only don’t always agree but often seem to see things diametrically the opposite, that the Colts did this the worst possible way, perhaps just to be petty. I’ve heard the phrase cutting off your nose to spite your face thrown around a couple times.
That’s not to say everyone is right. But it does tell you something about how the football world views Jim Irsay, among other things. That deference that a team knows the administrative loopholes in their own league and is going to set things up to maximize their own leverage, so we shouldn’t assume the worst — that hasn’t existed here over the past 24 hours. The feeling is the Colts made trading JT more difficult by locking him into missing four games at their own self-imposed deadline, which prevents them from making a move after, say, Week 2, if a contender’s top back goes down. Or at least that said contender might wait to make that move, and prefer trying one of the free agents first, and if that free agent gets off to a fast start, maybe the Colts now don’t have that trade partner.
It’s all about getting teams to pay what you want them to pay, and the player not being eligible to play for four games does not help. People have suggested that maybe he’s actually injured; there’s little to buy that’s actually true, including JT’s camp denying it when that was reported from the team side earlier this offseason. But even if he’s legitimately injured, with some minor thing that presumably wouldn’t cause him to fail a physical (because otherwise he wouldn’t have been on the trade block for the past week anyway), going ahead and broadcasting that he does have an injury by putting him on PUP right after you couldn’t get a buyer here in late August hurts your leverage into September. So that’s to me not actually a viable explanation, or else they weren’t operating in good faith with the trade discussions here in August.
Anyway, JT not being eligible to play, even after a potential trade, does not help the Colts, other than it allowed them to keep one (1) more player from hitting waives and potentially being claimed. And let’s be clear about that side of it, because I’ve gotten Twitter replies that have defended the Colts, so let’s lay that out — the reason they didn’t take him off PUP, and the whole reason this was the deadline, was that to take him off PUP, they needed him to be part of their initial 53-man roster, but when they didn’t take him off that list, they could keep one other player on their initial 53 and he wasn’t part of that list, which is why he automatically misses four games. That’s how that part of it works.
This is important because the Colts’ roster sucks. You’re telling me someone was rushing to claim Zack Moss? You’re telling me they don’t have a nonimportant special teams guy they could have gotten through waivers? There are teams where I might buy that literally anyone else they cut was at risk of being added elsewhere, so they really needed to scratch and claw for every spot on the 53, but I reject the general premise that the Colts could in any way fit this description. Teams do wonky stuff all the time to get down to 53 — the Patriots cut every QB not named Mac Jones, because they were willing to risk losing those guys and having to find a new backup QB. They aren’t actually going into the season with one QB on the roster; these things are fluid right now, and every team is trying to get compliant. Every player that is claimed requires yet another cut from the 53 you have, so you can risk some things, because not every team (like the Colts clearly here) are willing to cut down to 52. So these decisions come down to being about who is replaceable, which a smart team like the Patriots went and said, “It might look weird to only have one QB on our 53, but the backup spots there are who we think is replaceable.”
The Colts absolutely have spots where they could have gotten thin by letting replaceable players go so that they could get JT through. While it’s a fair point that not everyone is going to get claimed because teams did just have to cut their August rosters to 53 and any new name they bring in means they have to get down to 52 or 51 on that list, things are not that tight for every team. Sean Payton had some quotes where he was like (paraphrasing), “We’re going to be here until 2 a.m.” and then “If we were satisfied with the 53, I’d be home at 6 p.m. for dinner,” which was to say that if he needed to cut down to 48 instead of 53, he felt he could, and they were staying until 2 to scout the cuts from other teams. (And they have already made claims today and made the corresponding additional cuts of their own 53.)
The presumption about the Colts’ deadline being yesterday was that they wanted to make that deal before they had to make that additional cut, and if they were forced to make that additional cut and activate JT from PUP, they were going to go forward with JT on the roster. Instead, they took the highest-leverage player on their roster — the one they are reportedly trying to trade for a first-round pick or equivalent — and messed with his status, when the alternative was an extremely minor risk and also potential impact where they could have cut some very replaceable player who very likely wouldn’t have been claimed anyway and gotten him back on the practice squad to be elevated for gameday, like the Patriots are reportedly trying to do with Bailey Zappe. That’s the part that still feels indefensible to me, even as we don’t know JT’s health status 100%, or what the offers they received were. Them not trading him was always a possibility, but to not trade him and also prioritize the thinnest of edges — not having to sneak through the 53rd and most replaceable man on the roster — just can’t be logical. Can it?
That’s not really rhetorical. Maybe there are some scenarios where you can argue they will get more in-season, and there have been some lines drawn to the Christian McCaffrey trade last year as an example. But I think if you’re making that case, you also have to acknowledge you’re taking on some real risk, because the McCaffrey trade and some of the other RB valuations over the past year or two have seemingly gone by the wayside a bit, and I’d be very skeptical of using past RB data to project what might be available for RB valuations in the current market. Isn’t that the whole reason the Colts were hesitant to just sign JT to a long-term extension at the terms he wanted? They do really like the player, that has been clear. But they understand there are risks to valuing a RB too highly in the current market.
(It still feels like all sides could have acknowledged this and gotten something done that was not up to the really high levels of like the Ezekiel Elliott contract, but still compensated Taylor for being one of the very best RBs in the league, and in a way that helped all RBs by setting a blueprint for where longer-term RB contracts could go in the future, even if again it was a step back from some of the long-term RB contracts of the past. But that would require both sides to be rational, and the one thing that feels certain at this point is one side or both are not being rational.)
Anyway, I’ve updated the rankings, which now reflect that I have no idea where this goes. The most important thing I want to drive home for those of you wondering where you can take JT is it is extremely format-dependent for me.
In deeper formats, and larger tournaments like the high-stakes stuff, you have the bench spots to justify holding him a bit more than a home league with five bench spots, and you can get a real game theory payoff where every team drafted up until now that has taken JT has paid a third-round price. So in those formats, I’ve seen him already start to go in about Round 7, and it probably starts to make sense about then or a bit later.
But if you’re in a league with a shallow bench, holding JT through this suspension and potential longer has real consequences on your roster flexibility. He might literally be off my board in some really shallow formats. The payoff is just not worth it when the replacement level is higher on the waiver wire anyway. If I already drafted him in a league like this, I wouldn’t cut him. And if he gets cut by someone else in a shallow league, I’d add and try to stash as best I could. But if I did have him, I might try to trade him to upgrade elsewhere, for example. There’s a cost to holding him through the first month, when you want to be waiver flexible.
So as far as where he landed, I first moved Taylor down into the post-Big Tier Break range, putting him a bit ahead of Alvin Kamara, who is out for three games. I moved up the backups, but only so far, because we don’t necessarily know who is getting the work, I do think this Taylor stuff dramatically impacts the Colts’ offense as a whole — in part based on how defenses play them, as they’ll now likely make stopping Anthony Richardson that much more of a gameplan focus, which is bad for everything — and then obviously Taylor could still return at some point, including possibly in Week 5. And that is absolutely in the range of outcomes here — Taylor returning for Week 5 and just playing for the Colts this year. But it seems super unlikely for a reason, and it’s also very valid to have concern he might not play at all, or might play the minimum games he can get away with and still have his contract toll, which would be a fantasy disaster.
So this morning I moved Taylor down further. On the Kamara comp, Taylor is only guaranteed to be out one more game, and his upside when active is much higher than Kamara’s. But we’re now in a situation where we have evidence the Colts are willing to take on risk — this situation can work out for them, but it can also devolve for them from here — to get a certain outcome. And that’s frankly scary. I wouldn’t want to be buying into that at all. I will readily admit that Taylor could pay off a higher price than where I now have him ranked, because I think this player is incredibly good. But it’s not about that. It’s about opportunity cost. There are only so many bets you can make. And at this point, where I stand on Taylor is he would need to fall very far — further than I’m seeing him fall so far — to where the opportunity cost of the other decisions I could make for my roster were pretty weak, for me to take him. Otherwise, even if I can understand why he’d only fall to Round 7 or whatever, I don’t actually want to take him there relative to the other bets I could make for my team.
This is a similar logic I used to push Jerry Jeudy down quite far after his hamstring injury. I did move him back up a bit today, after news that he wouldn’t start the season on IR, but I’m still a little wary of going into the season betting on him to stay healthy after he’s had some leg and knee issues, and I must admit due in part to the stuff I see on social about his running style and that valgus/varus knee stress stuff people have started to reference (and have obviously done more research on than me, but the idea is some guys run in ways that twist their joints awkwardly and make them susceptible to lower-body injuries, and that Jeudy is a prime example, and I had heard this broadly and specifically about Jeudy before, but this latest hammy and going into another season with a potentially lingering lower-body injury just has me pretty concerned).
So that was a lot of words about a lot of stuff, and at a time where a lot of fantasy analysts are making bold claims about how they have found THE late-round sleeper or that a player is something very specific like a WR1 or an RB2, you’re stuck dealing with me and my extremely wordy way of saying, “I’m not really sure about anything,” which the JT situation just reminded me of.
And then it hit me — this could actually be a really useful post. There are always those situations I’m not actually playing, but where I’m hearing some stuff, and I’ve pointed out in some recent posts how a lot of the analysis I’ve done over the past couple years has been right for the right reasons — in a very detailed way I’m proud of — but where my application of that stuff maybe wasn’t perfect, and it was ideas that were adjacent to how I was playing it that became the right answers (think Lance over Jalen Hurts, or being heavier on Kyle Pitts when the elite TE thesis proved true on Travis Kelce, who I also still very much defended as a first-round pick and liked last year).
So today we’re going to hit on a bunch of situations where I am getting worried I’m going to be wrong. This is a great opportunity for me to address a lot of FAQs I’ve gotten, like what I think about a popular line on the Eagles’ passing attack potentially getting more volume. I don’t always hit on every single thing, because sometimes I don’t buy the logic, but that doesn’t mean you might not find yourself in a draft (or an auction) where a player has fallen (or is going cheaply) and you want to know what my thoughts are about something I haven’t hit on much.
So here are a bunch of things I’ve quickly taken down — and it’s not an exclusive list, but I did my best — where thinking about them does get me a little nervous that I’ve mis-analyzed something.
Eagles passing volume, playing from behind more
Keane asked a great question on this in the comments, that I replied to yesterday, but it breaks down the logic well.
Question for you on A.J. Brown (with some preamble): You’ve mentioned, in this newsletter and on Stealing Bananas, concern about the passing volume for PHI and the amount of red- and green-zone looks for their WR corps.
They had a soft schedule last year and many uncompetitive games. With a tougher schedule this year, do you think it’s likely that they’ll potentially have more play and pass volume in closer games, both from the perspective of less efficiency (expected regression) and more meaningful second halves? Could the pie get bigger overall? Or am I lost in the noise on this one?
Ultimately, I know I’m likely splitting hairs here. AJB is good at football. But spending some time thinking through his true range of outcomes and couldn’t help but wonder if it’s perhaps higher than anticipated (however slightly).
My answer did sort of miss part of the point here, that did reference the expected efficiency fall-off. But here’s how I put it:
“I’ve seen this suggested elsewhere, and it’s a good thing for me to maybe hit on in an upcoming post. But the short answer is I guess I’m not convinced in this argument. One of the big things is if they are in more competitive games, they probably aren’t as efficient on offense, which is leading to more plays. The whole thing about how they led and took the air out of the ball in the second halves of a lot of games last year is because they were hyper efficient at times in the first halves, and had a ton of production that helped them build a big lead. If they don’t have that first half production, the excess second half volume is nice, but it’s not exactly creating a bigger pie necessarily, if we think about how red zone touches and scoring chances are worth so much in fantasy.”
That’s sort of the gist of how I’ve played it, but this still remains something I absolutely am spooked that I might be seeing wrong, because I’ve seen a lot of analysts I respect referencing this potential for more Eagles’ volume this year.
The way I’m describing it, I guess, is more in reference to stuff like EP models, like RotoViz’s, which looks at the expected fantasy points of every play, based on the yard line it started at. If the Eagles are in closer games, first of all they are probably losing first-half play volume as opposing teams are scoring. Or else they are lower-scoring close games as the Eagles’ offense is being held down a bit, which in the EP models would be like three low-value plays on a hypothetical three-and-out, rather than a drive that eventually ran some plays in higher-value scoring ranges.
Ultimately, the Eagles scored the second most points and ran the fifth-most plays in football last year, despite their run lean and taking their foot off the gas in some second halves. So I guess the point is their EP profiles and the ways all their guys got their fantasy points — those were already strong, and already came from a big pie. How much bigger can the pie get? Are they going to not be a run-based team at all anymore?
I get the no-huddle rates (which I wrote about in Offseason Stealing Signals) and some of the positive things working for their offense. I think they are one of the best-run organizations and do things right and will be successful. What I think is missed, and why I don’t ultimately change my ranks about this question, is I think their 2022 was still just that good, maxing out on the ways a team like theirs can succeed, considering all of the elements we’re discussing here.
There are a lot of ways to work back from there, and this note about additional volume and an even bigger pie in 2023 just isn’t particularly compelling for me. But Brown and DeVonta Smith and Dallas Goedert and their RBs and Jalen Hurts and all of these guys are incredibly good at football — and their offensive line is elite — so I mean yeah I am terrified I’m missing something here.