You gotta place your bets

There's risk with everything, and we can argue for days

We’re at the point of the season where people want to defend every pick, and maybe I haven’t been clear enough, but something I know firmly well is the group of strong stances I take every year is not going to be wholly accurate. I’m going to be blindsided by stuff. I’m not a warlock, and can’t see the future, so if you’ve followed my advice, I’d like to suggest that you get prepared to think I was a total idiot about some player or situation very, very soon.

But we have to make our bets. As everyone is doing their drafts this weekend, I’m getting a ton of feedback about individual drafts, and then about individual players. I’m loving everything I’m seeing from Stealing Signals subscribers — you guys are building some awesome teams in those home leagues and I’m excited we’re riding into the season on so many of the same players.

As an aside, I also have heard a couple times from a few of you that you are getting those draft grades, and maybe for the first time are getting an “F” or something bad, and I just want to say to never worry about those. Those need to be automated and built off projected points, and our strategy is literally built off leveraging how projected points are more fragile at the RB position specifically, so this isn’t just some badge of honor thing — you quite literally should be getting bad scores for your projected points in Week 1.

Again, the whole idea is as the fragile rosters weaken throughout an NFL season that is chaos and a war of attrition, your value stores at non-RB positions will hold better, and your later-round RBs will become more valuable. It might literally start from Week 1 with someone like Bucky Irving playing a bigger role than any of the projections expected; we did this last year when everyone was certain Najee Harris was a workhorse still because he’d always been a workhorse but when you go into Year 3 and still can’t be efficient, sometimes you just lose work, and Jaylen Warren was a 50% split backfield guy from Week 1, crushing Najee teams that graded well because he projected well because the whole play was built off workload, and that workload wasn’t there. (It needs to be said Bucky is a rookie while Warren was already an efficiency star, and had proven that, so the comparison isn’t as strong on that end; nonetheless Rachaad White looks like this year’s Najee in that regard, where every projection — even my own — assumes a lot of work, because last year is all we have to work off, but they have a new offensive coordinator and there’s very real risk those assumptions are just wrong from Day 1. Happened to Cam Akers last year with Kyren Williams as another example of what we learned Week 1.)

So anyway, if you want a great draft score, draft a balanced roster with plenty of early RB volume (and then finish somewhere between the middle of the pack and last). I’ve won many a league — and your fellow subscribers have, too — where the draft grade was literally dead last. It’s not just a badge of honor thing, but it’s also a badge of honor thing.

The individual player thing is very interesting, as well. It’s probably just the concentration of people drafting right now, and people finally checking back in, but it seems every time I turn around someone is firing off a take about why some position I have is dead wrong, and the market is right. But this is the key point — it’s basically always like, “You think you identified a Target or Fade opportunity, but there isn’t one there,” because the person either wants to be able to draft the Fade I don’t like or let the Target I do like fall even when he’s undervalued by multiple rounds.

And that part is fine! You’re very much entitled to not work directly off my rankings. But I don’t even know how to respond to these things. I’ve explained the stuff I’ve explained about why I’m making the bets I’m making, and it’s a holistic view on a probabilistic range of outcomes. You have to come to a conclusion. You can’t just say all good things and bad things are the same and follow the crowd with this stuff.

Yesterday, I sent this tweet, and I got a few “well actually” guys responding that in 2020, if you extrapolate A.J. Brown’s fantasy points per game, it’s right there with his Eagles’ seasons (because he had a higher rate of TDs per game that year).

And the whole point seemed to be that there’s not actually much difference between these stat lines, by people rushing to tell the timeline they don’t know ball. The thing of it is: A.J. Brown is really good. You’re going to get production out of him regardless. This is as strong an example as I can give where you have a great player who in one situation was held back a little bit statistically by his team not featuring him enough — I know this because I write the weekly column Stealing Signals and spend hours researching this type of usage every week, and have for Brown’s entire career, and probably have written more about Brown’s usage since 2019 than any other player in the NFL. And for those of you that remember the Tennessee years, I was begging the team to feature him more, integrate quick-hitting opportunities to feature his elite YAC skills, drop back more overall to then help Derrick Henry out too by balancing things instead of the traditional “establish the run to set up the pass” mentality.

Brown has been between 2.5 and 2.7 YPRR in all five of his seasons so far, and his best two were in Tennessee (2.67 as a rookie and 2.65 in 2020). On a route-run basis, he’s been a superstar since Day 1. The Eagles, when they got him, decided they’d drop back a bit more, and they’d run him on a route in every situation, whereas Tennessee had a habit of rotating him out and treating him like he and Corey Davis were interchangeable.

That A.J. Brown still put up numbers is because he’s elite — possibly the very best WR in the NFL when you think about how he does what he does with the physicality that he also brings. Part of why he scored so many touchdowns in 2020 is that’s the highest-scoring season in NFL history, where scoring was up leaguewide with no fans in stadiums. Things immediately reverted back in 2021, and then some, as defenses made stopping explosive plays a focus. Brown has still thrived in the new meta, putting up 88.0 and 85.6 receiving yards per game the past two years after topping out at 76.8 in Tennessee (that 2020 season, with 66.8 being his next highest figure there).

The point is not that my analysis is right, and the mild pushback is wrong. It’s that if you parse this as if there’s nothing here, then I’d argue you’re inclined to say there’s nothing there with anything. I had someone quote-tweet me with, “It’s literally just a few more go balls down the sideline and an extra game per season,” and I get that impulse, but again: You do have to make your bets at some point. It can’t be all vibes. Something has to matter, or you’re just following the market.

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Player movement

One of the other things I’ve been surprised by is how cutdown day and player movement hasn’t impacted guys as much as I thought it would. When Dalvin Cook signed with Dallas, I took to Twitter to defend Rico Dowdle a little bit, but that was anticipating he might fall quite a bit. Dowdle’s been underpriced relative to his standing on the roster basically all offseason, which to me read as people not buying into him as the lead, and worried if they added someone, it would be that player plus Ezekiel Elliott as the main guys, and Dowdle — a 26-year-old who had seven offensive touches in three years before 106 last year (which is still not enough to show us any level of workhorse ability) — would be relegated to No. 3.

But I’ve observed maybe the opposite thing, where people are just taking Dowdle in the same spot, or seemingly in some cases wanting to push him up, employing a line of thinking that the Cowboys were always going to add someone and Cook is the type of add that makes the Dowdle bet stronger. It would be tough for me to take a strong stand on Cook at this stage, and I do think Dowdle plays a decent amount in the early going, but I want to be clear I absolutely think he needed to move down.

One thing on the timing, which I think people are seeing as an unequivocal positive since it was so last minute with the season around the corner, is waiting until after the 53-man cutdown protected the Cowboys from guaranteeing Dalvin’s contract (I don’t know the specifics off the top and can’t easily find via Google but so part of veteran contracts get guaranteed if they make the 53-man initially, and teams will sometimes cut a vet and re-sign him — presumably with his knowledge — just to circumnavigate that). Obviously this means that they aren’t as committed to Dalvin as they otherwise would have been, but this quote from Jerry Jones also stood out to me:

“We had hoped that as time went along in this offseason, we would have an opportunity to maybe look at a player of his stature if the right circumstances came along. They came along. We’re appreciative of it.”

It was interesting that they worked him out before cutdown day, because I figured if they were waiting that long, they might as well wait to see who was available after cutdowns from other rosters. And then they signed him between cutdown day and when the first waiver claims went through the next day, which suggested this was all predetermined, with the Cowboys, Dalvin, and his agent all anticipating he’d come work out and sign after cutdowns. The Cowboys didn’t wait to see if they got Samaje Perine or anyone else.

We all might think Dalvin is washed in the fantasy community, but that does say something about the Cowboys’ confidence in Dowdle, which for a while seemed high. Previously, he just needed to be “not bad” to probably beat out Zeke for volume. Now it feels more like he has to be good, because just having two name-brand guys in the backfield likely means opportunity can be siphoned off. I recognize that Dowdle’s old price did include risk of a bigger name landing here, and Cook for the record will likely be a gameday inactive to start the season. It’s possible he never even suits up, and Dowdle is never threatened, but I do think it’s worth noting that for as bad as Cook looked on his 82 touches last year, he put up 1,500 and 10 the year prior, in 2022, and we have less evidence he’s clearly washed than the 3-4 year decline we have on Zeke.

A better example of the point I’m trying to make here is Perine, who landed with K.C. This is a guy who has size and is a trusted passing-down back, and literally as I’m writing this we got confirmation Clyde Edwards-Helaire is going to miss at least four games as he continues to battle PTSD (we’re all supporting him there), which locks Perine into a real role early on. To me, this is very reminiscent of Damien Williams, who was a career passing-down back who had caught 20+ balls every year of his career before K.C., but was never much of an early-down guy. He eventually had an early-down role for K.C., largely in the playoffs on a Super Bowl run.

Damien or even Darrel Williams are bigger passing-down guys who did a lot in the Andy Reid offense, perhaps even more than what we think of when we think of the “Jerick McKinnon role.” Meanwhile, Isiah Pacheco has a very lofty price in fantasy largely because there was no Jerick McKinnon role this year and he seemed destined for three-down work. I was still skeptical, but since the Perine signing, I’ve seen people steadfastly drafting Pacheco as high as Round 2. I just don’t get it.

Like Cook, Perine isn’t going to be obviously up to speed on everything by Week 1. But we don’t win any awards for correctly predicting RB usage in Week 1; we have to think dynamically about how these backfields evolve through seasons. Have we not seen that enough as football fans? Do I not emphasize that exact point enough?

And the Cook/Perine comparison isn’t fair to Perine, either. He’ll be active Week 1, and I do suspect we’ll see a solid role. I’m of the mind we’re going to see a lot more of Perine early than Pacheco drafters are going to be comfortable with, and I’ve moved him up even further in the ranks.

That said, emphasizing this lack of movement on Pacheco and Dowdle is a little odd given the theme of this post. I’m tying in how we evaluate information, and decide what matters, but at least the Pacheco and Dowdle drafters are making their bets. I’m making mine, too.

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Why do you think Stefon Diggs doesn’t suck?

I think I’ve been asked about my Stefon Diggs position more than any other player this offseason. I gave a passionate defense of him on one of my recent livestreams (starts about the 1:12:00 mark, per the timestamps). I got this in the comments of my draft review yesterday, from Alonzo:

I just can’t get on board with Diggs, a declining 30+ yo who is very likely the third best wr on his own team, in the 5th. Keenan Allen in the 8th, as a very appropriate comparison, does seem like the bargain of the century.

“Very likely the third best WR on his own team” is a take, and yes, we do have to make our bets. That’s not where I’m making mine. The title of this post came from these questions — this one and the next one — where I just don’t know what to say at this point other than, like I said in a recent reply, I reject the premise of this.

To this idea of “declining,” here are Diggs’ career wTPRRs, starting with his rookie season: 0.50, 0.55, 0.56, 0.59, 0.64, 0.67, 0.65, 0.69, 0.69.

We know target-earning to be the stickier of the stats, and YPT efficiency to fluctuate a bit by situation, like when a team changes coordinators midseason and shifts up roles.

I had a commentor — I think maybe in that video? — asking a lot about Diggs vis-a-vis DeAndre Hopkins this year, where Hopkins also had strong target-earning peripherals but I’m a bit more out on him this year. I talked through it, and noted Hopkins is older, and his production has bounced around more in recent years than Diggs’, and the offense is worse, and all situations are different. But it also struck me after the fact that Diggs is last year’s Hopkins — the guy a team brought in because he’s been an elite WR for years.

And so the idea that Hopkins did see a rebound in TPRR and spike his wTPRR up near the league leaders is kind of the point. I was in on second-year WR Treylon Burks last year in that offense; he’d be like the Tank Dell of this analogy, and I know Dell was better as a rookie, but Burks was not bad by any means with a 1.75 YPRR in 2022. Burks was also hurt last year, but his role changed to a more deep threat, situational role, while the team prioritized the star.

And look, Dell goes in the same range as Diggs — and this commenter is undoubtedly one of the many taking Dell over Diggs — so it’s not like people aren’t saying Dell can be good, too. Again, no situation is identical. But Burks taking a back seat when healthy last year, including in the ways he was deployed, is a good reminder that teams rethink everything, every year, and people are way too confident last year’s data is going to matter. We gotta place our bets, and my bet is the Texans will be actively trying to keep Diggs happy and make him a centerpiece. (I also take a ton of Dell, obviously.)

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The Saquon conundrum

A really thoughtful and strong question from Jack:

On Saquon: I do think you're overestimating the accuracy and predictiveness of stats like missed tackles forced and yards after contact per attempt. These metrics *attempt* to isolate the player's performance from their environment, but it's highly implausible that they do so with anything approaching perfection, to the extent that it seems unreasonable to ask "[h]ow is it the Giants’ fault that he’s not forcing missed tackles anymore?"

The answer is that it's easier to make people miss in some situations than others, and it's fairly easy to see how the Giants might have been putting Saquon in unfavourable situations in this respect.

That's why YAC/att is not all that sticky nor predictive (although moreso than some other stats). It's only got a 0.33 correlation year to year, which suggests environmental factors explain *most* of it! In other words, it probably is the Giants' fault to at least some extent, and yet Barkley was still 15th of 44 qualifying backs in the stat, level with James Cook and Kyren Williams.

Your passing game skepticism makes sense, in my opinion- but in half-PPR and especially standard leagues, where passing game involvement is not wildly disproportionate in value (the primary reason that they are better, despite your well-argued protestations to the contrary), the apparent bellcow RB1 on an offense that should be at least on the fringes of the top 10 (with some chance to be considerably better than that)- who may have been selected in large part for his suitability for short yardage situations- has enough league-winning upside that it at least seems overconfident to be labelling him a "bad pick" in the second round.

This is another one of those, just like the Diggs thing, where we have to make our bets. My passing game skepticism makes sense — that’s probably enough to not take him in Round 2. The stats I reference aren’t sticky enough — we know that about RB stats, but it’s still worth noting, in a large sample, he’s been much worse for years, in line with his lack of production on the same level as his early career, than he was in those stats when he was dominant. Those stats aren’t great necessarily, but he’s shown decline in his own numbers, in relatively similar situations with the Giants. I wasn’t comparing him directly to other RBs, but to himself.

There’s more there, but to disagree with each point, and then say it “seems overconfident to be labelling him a ‘bad pick’ in the second round,” is what I want to respond to. If you disagree with all those notes, then you might disagree with the conclusion! That’s always OK. We gotta make our bets.

But I’m going to label him what I believe he is, which is a bad pick in the second round, because there’s no other player in those ranges where you have to write four paragraphs explaining why all the pretty clear counters are in fact misleading, to have to justify their cost there. And one of the things not mentioned there, as this was in response to the Offseason Stealing Signals writeup on the Eagles, was my heavily-discussed concern about the overall TDs, relative to betting market expectations on Philly’s scoring.

Even in half-PPR and Standard, where he won’t get hit as hard for not catching a ton of passes, he’ll need double-digit TDs to justify a second-round price tag, at minimum. Given it’s harder to put up huge yardage numbers without being able to approach 500 receiving yards, which looks unlikely for him, he’ll actually need to be the kind of back that can really rack up TDs. For guys like Jonathan Taylor and Derrick Henry, I think 15+ TDs are plausible, to offset potentially limited receiving. It’s harder to see with Saquon, and that is another minor part of the equation that matters.

But that’s just where I land on it. I don’t really have a response to someone who sees it very different other than I’m going to make my bets. It’s not overconfidence, at least not in the outcome; I’ve written a million times, maybe more, that I know I’m going to be wrong on a bunch of stuff. But we have to make decisions. And when I’m making content, I have to be clear about the strength of the bet.

I want my subscribers to know when I am confident in the bet, and when it’s a tossup, and none of that should be misconstrued as confidence that we’re going to get everything right. We just gotta place our bets. We determine what we think matters, and all the analysis we do is to make those bets the things we have the most conviction in.

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Good luck in your Labor Day drafts!