| |
|
| Friday, September 27, 2024 |
| Thank you for all of your feedback -- I received hundreds of replies from FFT Newsletter readers to my Week 3 'In The Lab' Google form and read through them all! This is fun! I love having this interactive space where I can get a better idea of where your heads are at. Here's who you wanted to hear about the most this week: |
Caleb Williams
Bucky Irving
Bijan Robinson
Calvin Ridley
Jameson Williams |
| I'll also include a side-by-side comparison for Jayden Daniels and Anthony Richardson. Y'all were very curious about those two, even after I covered them in depth in the Week 3 version of 'In the Lab. Generally, I'd like to avoid repeats in this space. But these two are two of the most important and interesting players in Fantasy, so we'll put them under the microscope again. |
| One of the most common pieces of feedback that I've received is that it would help to have rest of season rankings updates. I love it. I'll try to carve out time to give you some updated thoughts on rest of season rankings in this space going forward. Fortunately, I just recorded a podcast with Dan Schneier of FFT and Adam Levitan of Establish the Run , where we talked about rest of season rankings! You can find the most recent Beyond the Box Score episode here! |
| In The Lab -- Week 4 |
| |
| UNDER THE MICROSCOPE: CALEB WILLIAMS |
| Before getting into anything specific regarding Caleb, the offensive line, coaching, or the pass-catchers, I want to first point out two things: |
| 1. He is a soon-to-be 23-year-old in his first year as a professional. |
| 2. The upcoming schedule is as inviting as it could possibly be. |
| Pressure rates for the upcoming defenses on the Chicago Bears schedule: |
Week 4 -- Los Angeles Rams (9th)
Week 5 -- Carolina Panthers (27th)
Week 6 -- Jacksonville Jaguars (22nd)
Week 7 -- Bye
Week 8 -- Washington Commanders (23rd)
Week 9 -- Arizona Cardinals (25th) |
| Defensive EPA per dropback rates for the upcoming defenses on the Chicago Bears schedule: |
Week 4 -- Los Angeles Rams (31st)
Week 5 -- Carolina Panthers (27th)
Week 6 -- Jacksonville Jaguars (30th)
Week 7 -- Bye
Week 8 -- Washington Commanders (32nd)
Week 9 -- Arizona Cardinals (22nd) |
| |
| Okay, let's talk about the Bears offense. It took a whopping 56 dropbacks, but we finally got some production out of Williams and the pass game in an inviting Week 3 matchup against the Colts. Forty-four of D.J. Moore's yards came on a deflected 'Hail Mary' at the end of the first half. The rest were actual yards produced as the Bears played from behind for basically the whole game. |
| I watched all 56 dropbacks. It was not a fun watch. You can watch a good portion of those plays and find my analysis in this Twitter thread. |
| I do not feel encouraged that this offense will take advantage of the upcoming matchups, simply because I am BEFUDDLED at what is going on inside of Shane Waldron's head. The offense feels so fragile, ready to fall apart at any given time, as there are very few easy buttons for Williams to push. The first-down play calling is particularly concerning. Chicago's offensive line is not playing well, and yet Waldron repeatedly dials up deep play action dropbacks on first downs. I love play-action; don't misunderstand me. But this offense needs some wins! This offense needs some rhythm! This offense needs some confidence so everyone can loosen up! Chicago's Week 3 opponent was the Indianapolis Colts. Gus Bradley's defense is arguably the most predictable in football. If ever there was a matchup to find some flow in, Indy's defense has to be near the top of the list. And instead, we got strange exotic calls from Waldron over and over in Week 3. |
| I don't mean to panic you. I don't feel panicked at all about Caleb Williams in the long term. And really, I'm barely worried about the 2024 outlook. Barring serious injury hits, the Bears offense simply has too much talent on it to not give us some production, even if it's sort of fluky garbage time production like we got in Week 3. And really, it feels like all we need is for Waldron to get out of his own way. Rome Odunze is so good. Cole Kmet keeps getting better every season and looks like one of the best tight ends in the NFL. D.J. Moore and Keenan Allen are reliable route-winners. And Williams has the arm talent, discipline, and footwork to consistently deliver an accurate ball and keep this offense humming if he settles in and trusts his environment. That's a big if, unfortunately. We saw Williams develop some less-than-ideal habits in an often dysfunctional offensive environment during his final season at USC. Something similar is within the range of outcomes if forced to pilot a Waldron-designed ship that is missing second and third gear. |
| |
| UNDER THE MICROSCOPE: BUCKY IRVING |
| Questions from FFT newsletter readers: |
| It seems like his big plays are on gimmick plays like jet sweeps with lots of misdirection. Surely this isn't sustainable? |
| The optimist in me (White's on my team) is thinking that White still holds enough value as a pass catcher that, at worst, he'll still be worth starting on a near-weekly basis. Am I on point, or am I nuts? |
| Well, has White been worth starting so far? He led the RB position in routes run in 2023, which contributed in a massive way to his Fantasy production. In 2024, 10 running backs have more routes run than White. The Bucs aren't throwing quite as much, but White's route participation is down, too. In Week 3, his route rate hit a season-low 60%. He had a 70% rate in 2023 and was only at 60% or lower in three games. |
| I'm not so sure that White will retain enough Fantasy value as a pass-catcher to be a flex play. Bucky Irving has been a willing and capable pass-blocker when given the opportunity, and I loved his preseason pass-pro reps. He was a three-down back at Oregon who had 87 receptions across his final two collegiate seasons. |
| I'm not suggesting that it's likely, but it does feel like a possibility exists where Irving simply usurps the starting role, and White works in as a change-of-pace relief option. For what it's worth, head coach Todd Bowles sure seems committed to White. He's given no indication that a role change is imminent. You can find details on how Tampa's backfield opportunities have been dispersed here . White has a 100% snap rate when the Bucs have been in the red zone. That's wild to me, as Irving has been the clear better runner on up-the-middle attempts and has nearly doubled up White when it comes to rushing success rate. |
| How rush success rate is calculated: |
Success on a first-down run = gaining at least half of the required yards for a first-down
Success on a second-down run = gaining at least half of the required yards for a first-down
Success on a third-down run = gaining a first-down
Success on a fourth-down run = gaining a first-down |
| This feels like the right time to address the first question about "gimmick plays" benefiting Irving. |
| You can watch Irving's biggest plays, sorted by yards after contact, in this video cut-up that I created. |
| I'm intrigued by Tampa's new offensive coordinator, Liam Coen. He empowered Ray Davis to a career-best season in 2023 at Kentucky, and I've enjoyed watching his Bucs offense so far. As for the sustainability of Irving's rushing efficiency -- you're probably right, he's likely not going to average 6.2 yards per rush this season. I don't see a reason that we would expect Coen to stop dialing up creative ways to get his playmaker in space, though! |
| And Irving is more than just a jukebox hero. He is a dawg. If you wanna watch his preseason touches, you'll see more up-the-middle tough running. So my answer to the question about sustainability is this -- I expect Irving to be an efficient rusher in Coen's system, even if what we've seen so far is almost certainly inflated by a few big plays in a relatively small sample size. |
| |
| UNDER THE MICROSCOPE: BIJAN ROBINSON |
| This question essentially encapsulated the general sentiment I found within all the Bijan questions: |
| Why is he not prime CMC? |
| There was lots of mention of his usage and the fact that Robinson's actual Fantasy points are not yet meeting his expected Fantasy points. It's fair to be frustrated with Robinson's output, especially when his name regularly appears at the top of playing time-based metrics at the RB position. And it's not just the three-game 2024 sample. Relative to the obviously awesome tape that he puts out each week, Robinson's Fantasy output has often been underwhelming to this point in his career. What gives? |
| |
| Any Bijan Robinson Fantasy discussion starts with the Atlanta Falcons offense |
| Atlanta ranked 27th in touchdown rate (percentage of offensive drives that resulted in a TD) in 2023. Aside from any of the Arthur Smith shenanigans, Robinson also contended with an offensive environment that simply wasn't conducive to scoring. |
| In 2024, Atlanta has produced only five offensive touchdowns. One has gone to Robinson. The Falcons rank 28th in offensive plays per game. Atlanta simply hasn't produced much offense in general. |
| I think this could change. The Falcons are playing at the second-fastest pace in the NFL, and when filtering to only include neutral plays (score within seven points), still, Atlanta is second only to Dallas. The NFL average situation-neutral pace of play (time remaining on the play clock at the snap of the ball) is nine seconds. Only six offenses have a rate of 10 seconds or higher. Atlanta's rate is 12 seconds. This offense is playing really fast. |
| The offense is playing pretty well, too! Even including the data from a bizarre Week 1 in which Atlanta ran the most limited offense that I can remember watching in recent memory, the Falcons are above average in EPA per play and offensive success rate. |
| Why is the total play number so low, then?! |
| The Falcons rank 29th in third down conversion rate. Only the Jags, Panthers, and Browns have lower third-down conversion rates. That seems fluky. |
| |
| I'm not worried in the slightest about Bijan Robinson. I feel like Kirk Cousins has looked better with each passing week, and I'm really encouraged by the underlying rates for this Zac Robinson-called offense. Atlanta is fifth in pre-snap motion. If we see third downs converted at a rate that resembles Atlanta's overall offensive success, this offense might be really fun for Fantasy. |
| |
| UNDER THE MICROSCOPE: JAMESON WILLIAMS |
| The role that Williams is playing for Detroit in his third season is entirely different than what he did for the Lions in limited action during his first two seasons. You can watch every target for Detroit's third-year WR and former 12th-overall selection here. Apologies for the lower quality on this one. I'm traveling this Friday and dealing with lower wifi quality. It's been more frustrating for me than you, but here we are still delivering the goods! |
| Williams didn't deliver the goods in Week 3, and so people are now worried about the player that they drafted in Round 10. He's going to have some inconsistency. He might not deliver the goods in Week 4, either. He has the goods, though. That much is clear if you watch him. |
| |
| |
| Some dope context from the FP Data team on horizontal-breaking routes. |
| The Lions have been intentional about getting Williams involved in the early going. I'm not sure if he'll continue to be used this way all season, but here's the range he falls into in terms of first-read target rates: |
| |
| More over-the-middle targets often lead to more avoided tackles, which is a welcome addition to Williams' offering. His average depth of target is still really high (14.1 yards), but that's down from 15.9 across his first two seasons. The deep shots are still there, which is great. He's probably one of the best deep threats in the NFL already. Adding more over-the-middle short and intermediate work gives Williams a chance to become a reliable Fantasy option. We'll see if reliability ever actually materializes! There are a lot of mouths to feed in Detroit. We don't yet have a large enough sample size to make educated guesses as to how this target distribution will shake out. |
| In my head, Williams profiles similarly to players like Tank Dell, Rashid Shaheed, and Xavier Worthy for Fantasy purposes. My perception of his value is basically right on par with Dell -- ahead of Shaheed and Worthy -- that's a HUGE W for anyone who drafted Williams late! |
| |
| UNDER THE MICROSCOPE: CALVIN RIDLEY |
| You can watch all of Calvin Ridley's targets here! |
| He's getting open. To my eyes, it looks like Ridley has considerably more burst than in 2023. He's getting behind defenses with what appears to be relative ease. He separates from corners on a few balls in the air in a really noticeable way; the ball just sails on him almost every time. |
| I just traded for Ridley as part of a Brandon Aiyuk acquisition in Dynasty. I still believe -- whether with Will Levis or Mason Rudolph -- that Ridley can put points on the board. The Titans mostly ignored him in what appeared to be a gameplan to avoid Jaire Alexander in Week 3, but Ridley's opportunities were massive in the first two weeks. He was an occasionally useful Fantasy WR last year with similar opportunities, and he looks more explosive than he has in years. Ridley has a winnable matchup against the Dolphins in Week 4, then a Bye week, and then another winnable matchup against the Colts in Week 6. |
UNDER THE MICROSCOPE UPDATE:
|
Anthony Richardson
-or-
Jayden Daniels |
| These have been two of the most-asked-about players each week. In a conversation that I just had with Dan Schneier and Adam Levitan on the latest episode of Beyond the Box Score, we compared the two. This link will take you to the exact timestamp at which we got into where to rank Daniels and Richardson for the rest of season at the QB position. |
| |
| Comparing these two to the NFL's other premier dual-threat QB |
| Keep in mind that we're dealing with small sample sizes early in their careers, so the rates I am about to feed you aren't exactly predictive of the types of career outputs we can expect from these two. This data might not even be predictive of what we can expect going forward in 2024. Take it for what it is -- descriptive. This data describes what we've seen. What we've seen is that these two QBs are scoring more rushing Fantasy points on a per-play basis than other quarterbacks in the NFL right now. |
| |
| Daniels is rushing by far the most in non-red zone situations, while Richardson actually is middle-of-the-pack in non-red zone situations but rushes more than any other when in scoring distance. |
| |
| The Colts have struggled to find the red zone, thanks in part to Richardson's erratic QB play. As an end result, below, you'll find the Fantasy point per dropback rate leaders at QB since the start of the 2023 season. Shoutout Sam Darnold! |
| |
| Another interesting note here is the +20% sack-to-pressure rates for Daniels, Darnold, and Richardson. This was an area that Daniels struggled in college, but it was supposed to be a strength of Richardson's. To me, it feels like Richardson is trying to do too much right now. He doesn't seem comfortable. It feels like the pressure rate that is happening inside of him is much higher than the actual on-field pressure rate. The Colts have a great offensive line. Richardson's pressure rate is only 29%. That's the ninth-lowest rate among 31 qualifiers. Daniels has a 35% rate. |
| Pressure problems? Not really. |
| On plays where the two quarterbacks have remained in the pocket, they each actually have really low-pressure rates. The league-average in-pocket pressure rate is 28%. Daniels has the sixth-lowest rate (20.8%), while Richardson's rate (22.4%) is ninth-lowest. |
| These two have a propensity for extending plays in an effort to create something out of nothing. It's a common quality of young dual-threat quarterbacks. Some grow out of it; most do not. Josh Allen is the model when it comes to pocket navigation and progression in sack avoidance ability, and even he still loves to play hero ball. He knows when to take a small L in order to live and fight another day, though. That takes time and experience to learn. Particularly for Richardson, who actually has significantly less playing experience than Daniels, this is an important lesson to keep in mind. Learning takes time. Patience will be paramount when it comes to the progression of these young multi-talented quarterbacks who are developing several aspects of their work at once. |
| Kliff Kingsbury catches a lot of flak -- I am not exempt, his WR alignment and horizontal-raid offense are easy to critique amid a league-wide move to more unpredictable and agile offensive play designs -- but I will commend him for his approach in easing Daniels in. He's made things simple and appears to be progressively adding to Daniels' plate. Most notably, when making a throw from the pocket, Daniels has just a 2.33-second average time to throw. The NFL average in 2024 is 2.48 (from the pocket). Richardson's time to throw from the pocket is 2.63. That's well above average but below Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts, and Justin Fields. |
| We saw the deep passing unleashed for Daniels in Week 3, but Kingsbury has mostly just asked his rook to execute a simple offense that gets the ball out of his hands quickly. Another area this difference can be felt and clearly quantified is first-read targets. |
| |
| For Fantasy purposes, Daniels has clearly moved ahead of Richardson, in my opinion. He's my QB1 for Week 4, and then Daniels draws a real test in the form of a matchup against the Cleveland Browns in Week 5. And in general, I consider his remaining schedule easier than Richardson's. |
| A Rich has what may be the scariest possible matchup in Week 4 vs. the Steelers. Things may improve after that, but there are still plenty of brutal matchups remaining. And, to be honest, I have been a bit underwhelmed by Shane Steichen in 2024. I hate to say it. I was so bullish on his offense and the long-term outlook for Richardson as its operator. Going forward, I still view Richardson as a potentially elite Fantasy QB option. But there's plenty of risk involved. He's my QB14 for Week 4, and I have him penciled in as the QB6 for the rest of the season. I've moved Daniels and Kyler Murray ahead of him and moved Patrick Mahomes behind him. C.J. Stroud was behind Richardson in my draft rankings and remains there. You could move Joe Burrow ahead of him. There are a number of pocket passers who may outscore Richardson if touchdown variance goes their way. I feel more confident in predicting rushing contributions than touchdown rates. |
| That's it for today! If you want to give me feedback on our first 'In The Lab' installment, go to this Google form and scroll to the bottom. There's an area there where you can give longer-form general feedback. I'd love to hear from you as we continue to grow and shape this space together. I hope that today's 'ITL' was helpful! |
| If you have any feedback on the newsletter, feel free to send them my way. Thank you for reading! And please, do check out Beyond the Boxscore on FFT! Dan and I put a lot of work into that podcast project and aim to make it fun and accessible for any level of NFL fan! |
| |
| | | | | NFL | | Big Ten | Quarterbacks headline a CBS Sports Sunday of NFL week 4. Watch your local game live this Sunday at 1 ET on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
Watch Live
| | Wisconsin heads out west for a matchup with #13 USC this Saturday at 3:30 ET on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
Watch Live
|
|
| |
| |
