| |
|
| Wednesday, November 13, 2024 |
| It's Wednesday, which means it's matchup day for FFT Newsletter readers! Today's matchups will be pass-game-centric, with Thursday's newsletter focused more on the run game. |
| Before we dive in, here are a few reminders for the FFT fam: |
| 1. If you did not catch the Beyond the Box Score podcast episode on FFT that I record with Adam Aizer and Dan Schneier every Monday, you can listen to that here! |
| 2. This Thursday's Beyond the Box Score guest will be Jamey Eisenberg of FFT! |
| Under Pressure -- how might blitz/pressure rates impact Week 11? |
| |
Maybe this is a get-right spot for the Jets
|
| New York draws a soft matchup vs. the Colts, and Vegas has the Jets with a top-10 implied point total (23.5) for Week 11. According to the Fantasy Points Data Suite's offensive/defensive line matchup tool, this is the most advantageous individual matchup between two lines set to meet this weekend. |
| |
| The Colts rank bottom-five in both blitz and pressure rate defensively. Indy ranks just above average in pressure rate with DeForest Buckner on the field, for what it's worth, but he started this week's practice cycle sidelined. |
| Even if Buckner plays, this Gus Bradley-called defense is a relatively passive one. Of the past eight quarterbacks to face the Colts defense, only Will Levis and the dreaded Tim Boyle/Snoop Huntley combo did not top 280 passing yards vs. Indy. |
| Also worth noting, each of Indy's past three opponents have posted a pass rate over expectation well above league average. I think that we'll see a ton of targets for Davante Adams and Garrett Wilson vs. this Cover-3 heavy defense. Of the two, Adams has better splits vs. Cover-3 in 2024. |
| And most importantly, Aaron Rodgers has been really sensitive to pressure in his age-40 season. He's near the very bottom of the NFL in catchable target rate vs. pressure but is middle of the pack when not pressured. Rodgers has been much more likely (relative to the rest of the league) to target his first-read when not pressured than when under pressure. This offense hasn't had many answers in 2024. In Week 11, the Jets face one of the easiest-to-predict defenses in the NFL. |
| Drake Maye be running a lot in Week 11 |
| |
| It's hilarious that Maye's Fantasy point per dropback rate is higher when pressured than not. How can the be? He spams the cheat code. Oh yeah, I can just run! |
| |
| This young Rams defense has actually somehow recreated Aaron Donald in the aggregate. Jared Verse is an absolute animal. |
| Maye has scrambled on 29% of his pressured dropbacks! We could see 10+ rush attempts depending on how many plays the Patriots are able to total in Week 11. If the Pats can avoid negative plays and move the chains, this could turn into an entertaining and back-and-forth game. The Rams have been beatable in the secondary. |
| I expect L.A.'s offense to bounce back |
| The Rams (4th) and Patriots (25th) defenses find themselves on opposite end of the pressure rankings, even though the Pats have blitzed far more (34%) than L.A. (27%) in 2024. |
| |
| |
| This feels like a perfect spot for a big week from Puka Nacua. Matthew Stafford has been super sensitive to pressure, but I expect him to pick apart a defense that blitzes a lot and still is unable to generate much pressure. |
| Further boosting the projection for Nacua is the man-heavy nature of New England's defense. The Pats rank second with a 39% man coverage rate defensively. |
| Target per route run rate vs. individual man coverage in 2024: |
42% - Nacua
31% - Cooper Kupp |
| Yards per route run vs. individual man coverage in 2024: |
3.13 - Nacua
2.00 - Kupp |
| Nacua also has a much higher average separation score and route win rate vs. man coverage than Kupp and has been locked in as the top target when healthy in 2024. |
| |
| Week 11 Coverage Data |
| |
| Nico goes nuts or I quit my job |
| Enough is enough. We have suffered through never-ending push-backs of the Jonathan Brooks timeline. We have lost Rashee Rice and Rashid Shaheed and everything in between. For anyone not incredibly well-adjusted like me (I cry every night), the repeated blows dealt by the 2024 season might push an FFT newsletter reader to the breaking point. |
| Nico Collins is back (right?) to deliver us (surely, we have prayed!) from this hell. |
| If he suits up, Collins will face a Dallas Cowboys defense that uses man coverage 31% of the time and has allowed a league-high 0.84 Fantasy points per dropback to opponents within that split. The Cowboys are fifth in single-high safety coverage and second in Fantasy points per dropback allowed when using single-high. We could see 300+ yards from Nico vs. this defense! There's truly no telling how high he could fly. |
| |
| The only problems: |
| The Cowboys rank sixth in pressure rate defensively and the Fantasy Points Data Suite has this graded as the second-worst pass blocking matchup of the entire week.C.J. Stroud is one of six quarterbacks with an off-target rate above 30% when under pressure.Nico Collins has been way less likely to draw a target when Stroud is pressured. The Cowboys have the second-lowest opponent situation-neutral pass rate. Teams have gone way out of their way to attack this defense on the ground, and Bobby Slowik needs no convincing to do just that. He loves to do just that.This game is being played on Monday night, so if Collins sits again, we are screwed again. |
| Good luck, have fun! Hopefully I'm still employed and delivering this newsletter to you a week from now! |
| |
| |
| I'm still starting Josh Downs |
| The Jets just got torched, have looked much worse since moving on from Robert Saleh, and have the worst tackle conversion rate in the NFL. Josh Downs is not an easy man to tackle. Neither is Anthony Richardson. Neither is Jonathan Taylor! Maybe this could work?! |
| The Jets have the seventh-highest man coverage rate (37%) defensively, and Downs crushed man coverage as a collegiate player and as a pro. He's been targeted on 35% of his routes vs. man coverage in 2024. I'm pretty in on the Colts in Week 11, what could go wrong? |
| |
| Also maybe worth noting, Adonai Mitchell has a 49% target per route run rate vs. man coverage. You read that right. AD Mitchell has 53 routes run vs. individual man coverage and has drawn 22 targets on those routes. Both Mitchell and Alec Pierce have an even higher yard per route run rate than Downs vs. man coverage. Start Anthony Richardson? I am in a couple of spots! |
| |
| |
| Trust Jauan Jennings again |
| Has he let you down yet? In Week 11, Jennings takes on a Seahawks defense that uses press coverage at the fifth-highest rate (73%) in the NFL. The only qualified receiver with a higher yard per route run rate vs. press coverage than Jennings is Nico Collins. The last time that we saw this defense in action, the top corner was being cooked in press coverage by Demarcus Robinson. |
| Jauan Jennings is a bad man. |
| |
| Thank you for reading! And please, do check out Beyond the Boxscore on FFT! Adam, 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! We do a weekly recap on Mondays and a deep dive with a guest every Thursday; you can find those on YouTube! |
| |
| | | | | USL League One Final | | CFL Grey Cup | The championship match of USL League One is here! See who takes home the trophy, #1 Union Omaha or #7 Spokane Velocity, in the final battle of the League One season this Sunday at 3 PM ET, streaming FREE on the CBS Sports Golazo Network.
Watch Free
| | The 111th Annual Grey Cup kicks off this Sunday at 6 PM ET. Watch as the Toronto Argonauts battle the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to become the champions of the Canadian Football League on CBS Sports Network.
Watch Live
|
|
| |
| |
