I am looking at NFL stats for the first time this week. The last few weeks, I’ve been satisfied checking out rosters and making some assumptions. Now, I feel like we have a sample size and can create some context for how the season might develo—oh, what? We’re postponing games now? Word. Word. And we’re changing the schedule to make up for it? Cool. Okay.
Well.
Fuck.
My two cents: cancel the games affected by COVID and don’t look back. Roger Goodell said before the season that there would be inequities—he meant inequalities, but that’s a conversation for another day—so let some teams have 15 games and others have 16. You already added the playoff spot. This entire year is one big asterisk in human history anyway, so who gives a shit if the 10-5 Steelers win the division over the 10-6 Ravens because technically they have a better win %? I mean, Ravens fans, probably, and maybe it forces money to change hands somewhere, but it’s like Shelby said: we chose to gamble on sports during COVID. Owning a sports franchise isn’t much more sophisticated than gambling; it’s just more complicated and lucrative.
In the larger context, think about some of the awful things happening to people this year, and then try to compare any of it to a football season where some people played 13 games and some people played 16. The only reason it’s national news is because of how much money is tied up in it. Be a good pilgrim. When your settlement floods, move to higher ground and rebuild.
Okay, so stats. Sample sizes. Etcetera. Let’s talk context. The first three weeks of any season tend to be an adjustment period. It’s like the beginning of the school year. Oh, look at Ted’s new haircut. Hey, Raj came out of the closet. Woah, Angelica grew boobs. That’s just step one. We are spending the first couple weeks just keeping up with who kissed who and where and which class looks like the most mostly to tank your GPA and why and where are you going to fit in all of it and how.
So let’s take some time and keep up with what’s happening. You can use pro-football-reference.com to see it all; I’m just doing a quick sweep.
Do you even know who’s leading the league is passing? There are five passers over 300 yards per game and three more above 290.
Dak Prescott tops the league at 396 passing yards per game. Jesus. Second on the list at 346, any guesses? Josh Allen, whose QBR and ANY/A puts him in a class with other 300-yard passers Mahomes, Russ, and Rodgers. Third in yards per game, granted he’s only played two games: Justin Herbert at 320, tied with Matt Ryan. Then you’ve got Mahomes, Russ, and Rodgers checking in with around 300 yards each, then at 290, good for eighth overall… Teddy Bridgewater. Wow.
And it’s not volume-driven for Teddy, who sports a 74% completion to tie him for third along with Derek Carr and Gardner Minshew. First in completion %, with 78%? Philip Rivers, who is basically at the bottom of the league in attempts otherwise he might actually be worth something in fantasy, seeing as he’s 11th in ANY/A—which is a stat I’ve talked about before that basically is passing efficiency and explosiveness rolled into one number. To wit, the top five in ANY/A (Adjusted Net Yards Per Attempt): Russ, Rodgers, Allen, Goff, and Mahomes. Realistically, these should be the top five QBs in fantasy, and… four of them are in, and you can guess who is out. Goff just doesn’t have the touchdowns, which is how Dak, Kyler, Cam, and Ryan end up leaping him.
Lamar Jackson is 12th in QB scoring, a full 65 points out of first place. If you need me, I will be sobbing in the shower.
Let’s look at the flip side of these stats. Looking at the bottom of ANY/A, we see Wentz, Darnold, Dimes, Haskins, Cousins, and Burrow each below five net yards per attempt. You can explain away any of them with circumstance, but only Cousins and Burrow feel like realistic options to climb out of the hole. Joe Burrow has the second most passing attempts in the league, often in really disadvantageous position because of gamescript and a shit O-line. Meanwhile, Cousins has the second fewest attempts and the second worst completion percentage, which I attribute to the change in offensive philosophy and scheme in the shift from Kevin Stefanski to Gary Kubiak. While I don’t think Cousins is a good quarterback, I believe he’s capable of not totally sucking.
But so, before we get into the weeds, let’s draw back to the theme. We are looking at new haircuts, discovered traits, and developing bodies. There are adjustments to these developments in the works, but they aren’t fully realized.
The obvious examples are our top two scorers, Russell Wilson and Josh Allen. These were projected to be run-first teams led by dual-threat QBs who have huge weeks every now and then but not all the time. Now we’ve seen it three straight weeks. Russ isn’t just averaging 300 yards and 5 TDs; he’s basically hit exactly that every week, with 20-40 rush yards. Allen’s numbers have more variance: 300, 400, then 300 passing yards again. He had three TDs in Week 1, four in Week 2, and five in Week 3. His rushing yardage: 57, 19, and 8 yards respectively.
So when we think about which of these is more likely to last, I think we have to lean toward consistency. We also have to appreciate that Allen’s schedule is tougher. He faces the Pats in Weeks 8 and 16, which means they will have their shit together, unlike what happened when Russ got to face them Week 2. The point is: Allen’s schedule is brutal. Russ has two tough games on the slate: San Fran and Buffalo in Weeks 8 and 9. It’s debatable whether the 49ers game will even be that tough with their injury woes. From Week 12 to 16, Russ faces (in order) the Eagles, Giants, Jets, Football Team, and Rams.
Look, none of it even matters. Offenses are at an immense advantage. You have to just fucking suck to not be able to score in an empty stadium. (I’m looking at you, Ravens.) Well, okay, that’s not fair. The simple truth is that experienced QBs with a knack for diagnosing defenses can create leverage on every snap. This is especially true when the QBs have familiarity with the system and even more true with familiarity with the other players. Cohesion, or whatever.
In the long run, Josh Allen’s numbers will dip. How much they dip depends on how much he’s learning while the Bills’ playbook is wide open. I think he will be stellar until Week 6 against KC. He’ll probably stay pretty hot until the Week 11 bye. After that, he sees (in order) the Chargers, 49ers, Steelers, Broncos, and Pats. Even if you think the Broncos’ defense is whatever, remember (if Corey starts him over Brady by then) he’ll have to get through the Steelers’ matchup just to get there, and even if he dominates the Broncos, he has to take on the Pats, possibly for the division title, during our championship.
So look, I don’t have time this week, but I want next week’s note to be a detailed breakdown of who teams were in the first month and who they will be going forward. I think we have evidence year over year to support the idea that the first few weeks merely set the stage for the rest of the year. Don’t get complacent. The situation can change overnight.
For the hell of it, let’s talk about Tom Brady, specifically why he is basically a streaming candidate and not a legitimate starting QB in fantasy. Even when the offense jells around Halloween, the defense will be too good to get us stuck in shootouts that would raise Brady’s ceiling to the 40-range we’re seeing from the studs thus far. Brady’s also a turd who likes throwing slants in the dirt on third and short when the sexy young QBs are getting playaction for huge yards in that situation. I am convinced the Bucs don’t have analytics experts on staff, or if they do, they don’t listen to them. I return again to our decision to punt on 4th and 1 on our second drive of the Saints game. We were never even in it after that. I understand the risk-aversion associated with being close to one’s own goal on fourth down. But I doubt the decision is being broken into it’s rational outcomes beforehand. Obviously they can’t do this in-game. That’s what they analytics expert does ahead of time so they can just tell the coach to go or not. So we were on like the 18, and I believe we were two feet away from the first down. I’m not going to suggest what play we could have run. We had just run the Brady sneak, so maybe we could have set up like we were going to sneak and given Brady 20 seconds at the line to decide what to actually do. I have faith he could figure out how to setup a slant pass in the dirt if nothing else. But let’s talk about outcomes.
Outcome 1: You get two feet and sustain the drive. It was so early in the game, they could just jump back into their scripted plays and at least get a better look at the defense, if not put together a drive nearly as good as the first one.
Outcome 2: You whiff on the attempt and the Saints get the ball with like 18 yards to the goal. They are not in the endzone. The ball is not through the uprights. 18 yards feels scary, but it’s actually limiting to the offense because it’s nearly impossible for a receiver to get behind the defense on such a short field. I believe we let up a TD on the ensuing drive anyway, so realistically the worst that could happen happened anyway. I realize this is flawed reasoning.
Outcome 3: You willingly give the other team the ball, and unless you hit a record punt, they probably get the ball with 60 yards to the goal. You triple your chances of holding them out of the endzone, technically, but you also open up their playbook. You also subject a defense who just played a full, long drive to get right back on the field after basically two minutes rest. Now, you might argue this also happens if you miss the 4th down attempt. Uh huh, but you get them back on the field with only 28 yards to defend instead 70. They ended up playing like 12 of the first 15 minutes of the game. That doesn’t set you up for success later, especially when there were concerns that players’ conditioning would suck anyway.
Look, I’ll get off Bruce Arians’ lawn about it. I just want us to be aggressive and competitive. We didn’t lose the game by much, but I think our defense was the reason we didn’t get blown out. The offense needs to be better.
Dude, this was two weeks ago. Yeah, okay, but what can we glean from games against the Baylor Panthers and the Denver Replacements. The offense tried to blow those games, too, as far as I could tell. The Denver game barely entered my long-term memory. I feel like our defense is just too solid to even have to worry against a backup QB, no #1 WR, and an average offense besides. Oh, and Tom Brady thrived against a defense with one pass rusher, zero linebackers, and zero corners. This week against the Chargers is a trap game, 100%. People are thinking it’s Denver all over again with LA banged up on defense and starting their backup QB, but their defense is only as banged up as it was last season, so they have cohesion, and their backup QB is actually their franchise QB; he’s just a rookie. He’s a rookie facing a truly sick defense, so it should be bad, especially since the knock on Herbert is that he doesn’t stand up to pressure in the pocket. One thing I believe you can do against the Bucs’ D is get the QB moving laterally before he throws. The line is slow enough to lose contain on Herbert, who’s pretty spry for a white guy, and the secondary is young enough that a 30-degree rotation to the geometry could leave dudes wide open all over the place.
Tom Brady, please do shit.
Going back to bad QBs, aka dudes to avoid forever and never get cute about starting unless you want pain, the lowest completion percentages so far have been recorded by Haskins, Cousins, Trubisky, Darnold, Wentz, and Danny Dimes. Haskins is in a league of his own at a miserable 56%, and the other are between 59 and 60. They’re trash for different reasons, the only good games any of them have had have come against super-trash defenses. Sam Darnold opened Thursday’s game with a 46-yard TD run, which is good for 12.6 points in our league, and he finished the game with 24.9. Carson Wentz is 23rd in QB scoring right now, but if you only look at QB passing points, he’s 30th. Only Haskins and Dimes are worse, and… let’s just leave it there.
Rushing: Derrick Henry leads the league in attempts, yards, and first downs (tied with Zeke and Nuk on the last one), but he’s getting smoked in the points because other RBs are adding entire WR’s worth of stats to their lines every week. If we looked at receiving points alone, Alvin Kamara would be the 4th WR in fantasy scoring. When we look at all of it, though, he’s averaging 145 scrimmage yards and two TDs per game. He was not only worth being taken over Barkley; he was worth the to pick. Only Aaron Jones is even close, and 60% of his points came in one game, while Kamara has spread it out: of the top five RB performances this year, Kamara’s last two games have been third- and fourth-best. Through three weeks, the top three in scrimmage yards are Kamara, Jones, and… Austin Ekeler. Yes, we of little faith let Ekeler slip past use two times over before he finally landed on Coleman’s team. Other scrimmage leaders we didn’t let slip: CEH and Josh Jacobs, both very worth their first-round draft slots. The real surprise near the top of the leaderboard is my slumlord James Robinson, not only undrafted by the NFL but undrafted by us and honestly unwanted altogether until I looked at my Week 1 roster and saw I had literally zero starting RBs. The Jags continue to be a good luck charm for me.
The leaders in receiving TDs (with four) are Calvin Ridley, Tyler Lockett, and Mike Evans. Ridley is first in WR points, Lockett is second, and Evans is th—oh, he’s nineteenth because he’s had one game with just a two-yard TD, one game with just two one-yard TDs, and a 100-yard game in between. He is on pace for 576 yards and 20 TDs. No player has ever finished with 20+ TDs and fewer than 100 yards. Personally, I’d be fine if he only had two yards per game, as long as both of those yards were TDs. If it were all about catches and yards, DeAndre Hopkins would be king, leading the league in both. We don’t have many target monsters. There are just five WRs (and one Kamara) averaging ten targets per gaem: Nuk, Keenan Allen, Amari Cooper, Ridley, and Allen Robinson. Only Nuk and Ridley are averaging 100 yards per game. Close, but no cigar: DK Metcalf, Stefon Diggs, and… Robby Anderson, who might be a “steal” but you’ll actually have to find room to play him. Luckily, he landed on Sean’s team, where he only has AJ Green and Hollywood Brown to battle for playing time. Dudes, Sean is starting two Panthers and three Bengals, so I am crowd-sourcing atrocious cat puns that we can call this team. Obviously, Cat Daddy is on the list, but I feel like we should emphasize just how bad these cats are. Maybe Shitty Kitties… Shitten Kittens? Let me know.
Anyway, bah. I’m sick of going down the lists. Let’s do something different.
Lady and Gentlemen, give it up for…
The “Is This Guy A Thing?” All-Stars
The Nominees are…
At QB, Ryan Tannehill and Derek Carr
Tannehill has 800 yards, six TDs, and one INT. He’s led the Quarantitans to a 3-0 start.
Carr has 800 yards, six TDs, and zero INT, plus he’s 74% on completions. The Raiders are 2-0. However, Carr has lost three fumbles already, so Tannehill wins.
At RB, James Robinson and Darrell Henderson
Because I’m shameless about celebrating what should have been the weakness of my team. Instead, my team is weak despite finding league-winning free agents. Fantasy! Each of these RBs has over 100 scrimmage yards and a TD per start. Henderson has more competition but also a better team. I just like Robinson more, so he wins!
At WR, Corey Davis and Keelan Cole
Which begs the question, is the AFC South a thing? Davis and Cole were both a few years back, looking like locks to hit 1,000-yard seasons early in their careers, but somehow both were derailed. We seem to be seeing this was QB-related, I think. Mariota couldn’t get it to Davis the way he needed it, and somehow Keelan Cole went from nearly being cut to being the #2 WR this offseason, probably because Jay Gruden doesn’t give a shit about athleticism and just primarily relies on starting WRs who can, you know, catch the ball, unlike former darling Dede Westbrook. Well, if Tannehill is a winner, so is Davis by association.
At TE, Mark Andrews and Austin Hooper
For the worst position in our dumb game, let’s talk about these two assholes doing fucking nothing. Andrews had a couple open TDs in Week 1 and has since been getting disappeared by double-teams. He’s never leaving my starting lineup because I’m not wasting a second roster spot on a TE. Hooper, we can hopefully agree, was a product of the Koetter system like Cam Brate before him. Nobody wins except for those of you who somehow found worthwhile players at this position.
At kicker, Younghoe Koo wins by default.
This guy is a thing!
At DL, Aldon Smith
In his second season in the NFL, Smith had 19.5 sacks, making many people think he had a realistic shot at the record eventually. Injuries and suspensions fucked up his shit so many times, I don’t even remember what happened. Before this season, he last appeared in a game in 2015. He is currently leading the league in sacks, and he leads all DL in tackles. I know he was a legitimate thing, but at 31, with this much time away, can he keep it up a whole season?
At LB, I got nothin’.
At DB, James Bradberry and Mike Hilton
The only DBs averaging more than 13 a game, Bradberry is at 14 and Hilton is at 16. Bradberry isn’t an exceptional athlete, but he’s long and strong and down to get… in the way of passes. He’s already recorded nine pass-breakups, when the league lead each year—for a whole year—is like 25. If you don’t feel like doing the math, Bradberry is on pace for 48, which would make him a hall of fame fantasy DB in our league. Hilton has also been heavily targeted, leading to plenty of tackles and PBUs for him, but he’s also been used in a hybrid role that’s led to sacks and tackles for loss. I don’t watch enough Steeler football to know if it’s sustainable, but I’m intrigued. Still, I’ll go with Bradberry because the events that led to his point so far seem more likely to repeat.
Okay, that was a thing, I guess.
Let’s preview Week 4, but let’s do it quickly. This week is barf.
Lamar is for sure playing, while Mahomes is iffy. I do not believe Chiefs-Pats will happen this week, but I believe Spe will play the ball as it lies and leave Mahomes where he is unless the NFL makes an announcement tomorrow. I don’t actually know if Sleeper has proper code in place to keep up with a Tuesday night game as part of the weekly matchups. If you have Pats or Chiefs, you should probably bench them and give me better odds of winning. I was loving being able to finally stack three RBs in my lineup before the uncertainty forced me to bench James White. Spencer’s best matchup is probably Ridley @ GB, but Ridley is truly questionable, and the game’s on Monday night. All told, he could have four starters just not play with no time to change it. Give me that asterisk win!
Oliver’s bench is just a sea of inactives with Brees listlessly floating about. I hate to say it with all the QB controversy Oliver’s already steeped in, but this is probably a Brees week @ DET. Ryan might be playing with Russell Gage as his #1 WR, and Gage would be matched up against Jaire Alexander… then again, Oliver has no replacement for Julio Jones on his bench. Everyone is either out or has already played. He might just be banking on Julio being in because that’s the only narrative that keeps his life from spinning out of control. Ah, cognitive dissonance. Cameron has the distinct advantage in this one. His players have been playing better, and he already has 30 on the board from Melvin Gordon.I will say, if there’s finally a week for Dak to cool off, it’s this one. Cleveland isn’t great on defense, but they have a more than capable pass rush and one of the league’s best corners. I see that game leaning more in Zeke’s favor. Then again, these no-crowd battles favor everyone on every offense.
Dudes, do you think Oliver would have dropped Shaq Barrett if he knew Corey would give up a 4th-rounder for him a week later?
Brian and Kennedy’s matchup started with Jets D vs. Broncos D. The Jets D won despite giving up 15 more points than the Broncos. The upset is brewing. Kennedy’s team is clearly superior, but some weeks, it just doesn’t matter. Brian has Fitzmagic in the driver’s seat and his starting WRs are Parker, Golladay, Lamb, and Adams. En. Fuego. One day, he’ll get rid of Isaiah Simmon and score some points on defense. Such garbage. Is this a protest over the point you didn’t get last week? What is this? He’s played 37 snaps combined across the three first games. The opportunity is just not there! Like I said, Kennedy’s team is just superior. Brian has that star tetrad of WRs, but Kennedy has a top-5 QB, two top-10 RBs, a top-10 WR, the top TE, and whatever happens in Seattle’s backfield from week to week. Oh and DJ Chark will probably return and prove the Jags’ offensive nightmare against the Dolphins was a Thursday night fluke. Kennedy should win, but Brian will somehow thwart that.
Corey and Evan are starting Josh Allen and Carson Wentz, respectively, and there’s kind of a Freaky Friday thing happening there. Allen might cool off against a somewhat competent Raiders defense that disguises coverage, but Carson Wentz will absolutely not heat up going from facing the league’s worst defense to facing whatever the 49ers are. Even if they’re banged up, they’re at least ten spots above the Bengals. So Corey has a top-5 QB, the top RB, and a top-10 WR, while Evan has the #2 WR and the cream of the Cleveland Browns. With Wentz and Sanders bottled up by the Niners, Evan’s hopes might hinge on Ronald Jones and the Bucs defense, who can be the wild card spark in a possibly even matchup. If Corey weren’t forced to bench Juju, I’d give him the easy win, but with Josh Kelley in the flex going against the best rush D in the league, I’m not sold. Still, this is a Kenyan Drake get-right game and possibly a Gronk breakout game. Okay, twist my arm. I’ll say Corey wins.
The Shittin’ Kittens have their work cut out for them, going against Russ, Zeke, McLaurin, Moore, and Ekeler. I think it’s a straight-up blowout, and I’m not doing the jinx thing. Sean might not even have Mixon for this one, as he was added to the injury report Saturday morning. With Butker’s game probably cancelled, Sean will be without his best player. Bloodbath. Pure carnage. Embarrassing.
In all, there are eight players inactive ahead of Shelby’s game against Tim. Cam Newton’s positive test forces Tim to start Deshaun Watson, which was probably the move anyway. Shelby has the advantage on paper, but Tim has kind of an oddball lineup. Each of his starters has had a 20-point game already, and half of them have had literal zeroes already, too. Anything could happen, but I think it’s gonna be bad. Tim will probably get a zero from the Pats D when that game doesn’t happen, but Shelby will probably pivot away from Tyreek Hill to either Nyheim Hines or Justin Watson, which makes the matchup a little more palatable for the three stooges of Ant Miller, Will Fuller, and Sammy Watkins. Yuck. I don’t have to pick winners at all, but I’ll take Shelby in this one.
Okay, that’s it. There was some build up, but ultimately I couldn’t deliver in the short window of time I gave myself to write it. I basically write for about five or six hours on Saturday since I’m kind of exhausted during the week. Anyway, I’m going to try a trends thing next week, which will require more words and more time. So who knows, maybe we’ll get a high quality note that delivers on its premise. Maybe we’ll get more random nonsense. It’s all good.
