The value of team-by-team analyses

An intro to the Offseason Stealing Signals series

Every year, there are really two key series that I think define my offseason work. In the early offseason, I write the pass-catching breakdowns of each offense that use TPRR as a foundational stat but add all the context I think is relevant to each team and player. As I have worked through my projections process this summer, I’ve started each team by re-reading the blurb I wrote on them last March, because so much of it is still extremely relevant analysis.

Then there’s these Offseason Stealing Signals posts. Here’s the passage I wrote three years ago now and have quoted each of the past few as the cleanest explanation of what I’m doing here.

I’m more or less going to just fire off stuff I think is interesting about each team. Things I learned while going through the projections process, including what I think projections will miss. Which trends and narratives being discussed look like signal and which are probably noisy. And definitely a focus on market dynamics and whether the things influencing ADP are valid to provide actionable information on how I’m playing each offense.

I also wanted to be sure to note last year I didn’t intend these to be comprehensive, despite being lengthy, because we always need to be flexible with our analysis and there will be more to lean from offseason programs. This is the benchmark of where I’m at for each offense in July, but so much happens so rapidly over the next two months before Week 1 gets here, so takes will develop from here.

It’s the case for both of my major series of written content that I believe strongly the edges lie within team analyses. We’ve run into a bit of a problem in the fantasy industry of what I’ve often called “misapplying the aggregate to the specific,” where some of the knowns are that we can’t find miracle stats, and that there will always be high rates of “unexplained variance” in how key football metrics try to explain fantasy scoring, and yet analysts constantly chase the same conceptual framework of trying to build out leaguewide analyses to apply to teammates across rosters as if they are all in the same situations.

Don’t get me wrong: I understand the relevance of being situation agnostic. I’ve preached it for years. But we’ve entered the era of fantasy football where player analysis is driving ADP more than ever — the easiest way to identify this is the rise of youth and the fall of aging players year over year in best ball formats, as well as drafters prioritizing the position where talent is a stronger signal (read: WR) and deprioritizing the one where that’s harder to parse (read: RB).

I’ve gotten increasingly vocal in my criticism of the analysis template of finding the “best” stats with the highest r-squareds and then applying them to the league’s players, because I believe strongly that a major reason there will always be meat left on the bone for the predictiveness of said stats is the unique elements of each of the 32 offenses (in addition to things I’ve written about before about the sport evolving over decades, the complications of what I’ve called the “multivariability” of every football play with 22 moving pieces, etc.). There are in reality many challenges, but in terms of our ability to accurately predict player success in the NFL, perhaps the biggest I find is an unwillingness or inability to treat each of the 32 teams as unique entities, with their own blend of roster depth (talent at each spot through to the backups), coaching staff, scheme, concentration of playing time, and more.

While the aggregate analyses can help us define strong or weak bets directionally, it’s the nuance around the individual organizations that truly allows us to build out the range of outcomes, or probabilistic range, for each player. People don’t want to wade into this because it’s subjective. Too often when the aggregate analyses preach one player over another, any context you try to provide about situation gets labeled as a biased take, even if that take draws on several key contextual factors, historical examples, and just logic, but good logic.

Still, even if a subjective analysis is far more robust in the ways it attempts to provide evidence to support its claims, some will always reject it as subjective, because that’s uncomfortable, trusting someone’s opinion. Instead, you can choose to rely on a relatively weak predictive metric on the premise that it is provably relevant.

It’s the major scene from probably my favorite all-time movie, Tommy Boy, where Tommy Callahan finally turns the corner as a salesman.

“I like your line, and I like your prices, but there’s a problem: There’s no guarantee on the box… It should always be on the box. Comforting you. Calling out, ‘I’m good. I’ll never let you down. But if I do, I’m going to make things all better.’”

To which Tommy, amid some wild analogies, responds:

“Here’s the way I see it, Ted: Guy puts a fancy guarantee on a box because he wants you to feel all warm and toasty inside… You figure you put that little box under your pillow at night the guarantee fairy might come by and leave a quarter, am I right, Ted?”

…

“But why do they put a guarantee on the box, then?”

“Because they know all they sold you was a guaranteed piece of shit. That’s all it is, isn’t it? Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time.”

Implicit in this is there was a time when guarantees had a place, but they eventually led to complacency. In the fantasy space, mistakes have been historically made when wading into the highly subjective while denying the best predictive metrics.

As such, there’s a contingent that will still not only tell you it’s wrong to wade into subjective matters, they’ll do so pompously, confidently misunderstanding they are now the dinosaurs in a game where any key predictive metric is table stakes in 2024, and has been baked into ADP since March. (My favorite is the faux humility of “I’m just asking a question” that is clearly making a statement, not asking anything.)

All of this becomes a pitch to read hundreds of words I’ll write on each team over the next month, and in the mean time to go back and read the TPRR stuff I wrote in March (I’ve found it to be plenty relevant, as I said). The other pitch it becomes is to listen to a few recent podcast guest appearances, the first episode of my projections pods with Michael Leone over at Establish The Edge (of course listen to all eight as we go division by division), and a recent guest spot with Robert Mays on The Athletic Football Show where the conceit was to go through the 10 Commandments of how to win in 2024 fantasy football (that pod isn’t live just yet). Of course, always be sure to catch the conversations at Stealing Bananas, Ship Chasing, and on my YouTube channel (subscribe to the channel if you haven’t already!).

As I work through my Offseason Stealing Signals posts, I’ll strive to not only break down the stuff I think is happening with each roster, but to explain to you the things I think could happen but I’m not playing, and other ways my preferred interpretation could be inaccurate. This is designed to give you a full picture of the bets you’re making, allowing you to follow me in my opinion or to disagree but with clear eyes about how best to do so.

Historically, these posts have done a good job of identifying where there’s upside on a team level, and how that trickles down to the players. And one of the major benefits of being a Stealing Signals subscriber is how all of that comes from the same source, me, so you know there’s ideological consistency across the content breaking down the entire league (many sites do a great job of layering different approaches across their content, but I hope I provide some unique value here in that it’s all approached the same way, and you can be sure of a consistent and coherent message).

Of course, as I write all this, I’m about to take off — today — on a family vacation. Because of how my work picks up later in July, we try to plan a few things right at the end of June and early July (my kids didn’t get out of school until June 20 this year). I’ve spent much of the two weeks since our other main trip in late June hammering projections and appearing on podcasts, so haven’t gotten to the many writing projects I’ve wanted to.

So I did just want to check in today and say I’m excited for this stuff to come, but I also have to note it probably won’t be this week (unless I find some time on vacay!). Until next time!