I can’t believe the fantasy season is quickly coming to a close. This will be my last Top 10 article of the season given the upcoming holidays. I want to express my gratitude to you all for reading every week. And to Geoff Lambert for sharing my writing on his platform. This was my first-year writing about fantasy football and I’ve had a blast. I hope you had as much fun reading these articles as I had writing them. And I’m hoping they’ve helped you grab some fantasy championships in the coming weeks! Let’s get to Week 16!
Lions: Opportunity for Jameson Williams
You get a sense of this when watching the Lions, but it’s pretty stunning just how much of their passing efficiency is driven by two players: Amon-Ra St. Brown and Sam LaPorta. In Week 15, about 95% of their player-targeted passing EPA was via attempts to Amon-Ra or LaPorta. However, that number does hide some potential that Jameson Williams had against the Broncos. Williams finished the day with 113 air yards, which easily paced the Lions and was good enough for about 40% of the team’s total.
Given the EPA stat I mentioned, those pass attempts weren’t massively efficient. But you have to view the air yards and his seven targets (2nd most for the team) as strong positive indicators for Jameson. In Weeks 14 and 15, he consistently played in two-WR sets for the Lions. And prior to his injury in the 4th quarter, Williams played 73% of the Lions’ offensive snaps. The usage and opportunities are trending up for Jameson. We could see a big day in the near future.
Falcons: Rushing Deterioration
The graph below shows this season’s rushing EPA on the x-axis and last season’s rushing EPA on the y-axis. The teams in the upper-left quadrant are particularly interesting. They were extremely efficient running the ball last year but have lost that efficiency in 2023. And in that bucket, the Falcons stand out. I think we can rightfully place some blame on the offensive line. This isn’t a perfect stat, but I’d argue a lot of the praise or blame for rushing yards before contact can be placed on the offensive line’s run blocking. And at least with Tyler Allgeier we have a direct comparison with 2022. Last year, Allgeier averaged 1.35 yards before contact per attempt. This year that’s down to 0.52. Ouch.
With the complete lack of rushing success, you might think the Falcons would decide to pass the ball more? You’d be wrong as the Falcons are *by far* the most run-heavy team in the league. Now the Falcons do have a new RB in town, who has averaged 1.64 yards before contact per attempt with Allgeier’s same offensive line. Unfortunately, you’d hardly know they had Bijan based on his Week 15 usage. We are legally required to “teach him a lesson” for fumbling. As a Bijan manager, I’ll be playing him in my semi-final matchups this week. But I’d be lying if I said I was excited about it.
Jets: Zach Wilson Resolution
We, and by we I absolutely mean me, need to stop talking about Zach Wilson. In Week 15, the Jets managed the second-worst offensive efficiency of any team over the past two seasons. And somehow Zach Wilson was even worse than the team mark when focusing on dropbacks and designed QB runs. The graph below shows passing efficiency on the x-axis and rushing efficiency on the y-axis for the 2023 season. The Jets are about to fall off the graph in the bottom-left next to the other New Jersey team. I’m going to make a New Year’s resolution (that I’ll probably break) that I will never write about Zach Wilson again.
Titans: Will Levis Throwing Bombs
I wanted to give some credit to Will Levis for his performance this year. He’s playing a lot better than I would’ve expected. And he’s certainly willing to push the ball down the field. The graph below shows completion percentage over expectation (CPOE) on the x-axis and air yards per attempt on the y-axis. Since Will Levis took over as starter, he’s been pacing the field in aDoT. However, even considering the context of those deep attempts, he continues to complete passes at a rate below expectation. You wonder if the Titans dropped that target depth whether they could boost their success rate. That could lead to more sustainable, predictable success rather than solely relying on hitting big plays.
Bills: They Established It
Speaking of passing, the Bills barely did any of that against the Cowboys. The graph below shows defensive passing EPA on the x-axis and defensive rushing EPA on the y-axis. The Cowboys have a top-5 defense against the pass and, partially a result of this game, a below-average rushing defense. The Bills opted to fully exploit the Cowboys’ run defense in Week 15.
Excluding kneel downs, the Bills generated 264 rushing yards on 47 carries. This was good enough to hit what would be an elite *passing* EPA mark at 0.24/play. The Bills consistently pass the ball at one of the highest rates in the league. However, that was not the case in Week 15, where they passed the ball 15.3% below expectation. That is about twice as low as any other game for the Bills in the past two seasons.
This is all to say that I don’t think anything like this continues. The Bills get the Chargers in Week 16. Now the Chargers defense is soft against basically anything, but they’re especially weak against the pass. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb to say we’ll get more than seven (!) pass completions for the Bills this week.
Packers: Reed Without Watson
Jayden Reed has earned his highest target totals of the season in the past two weeks. The receiving yardage totals haven’t quite been there, but he’s scored in back-to-back weeks, with a rushing TD against the Giants and a receiving TD against the Buccaneers. Two notes about his recent performance, though. They’ve both been against soft pass defenses, whereas Carolina actually has been above average in defensive pass efficiency on the season. Additionally, Christian Watson has been out both of the previous two games. According to JJ Zachariason, Jayden Reed’s target share in games where Christian Watson plays is only 14.6%. That jumps to 23.1% without Watson playing. In a game with the second lowest over/under of the week and Watson potentially returning, Jayden Reed unfortunately isn’t the smash play he’s been recently.
49ers: Deebo One-of-One
Deebo has 20 touches (rush attempts + receptions) over the past three weeks. He’s scored a TD on seven (!) of those touches. Now that’s an absolutely insane run that would regress for literally any player. But if you had to pick one player to bet on that run continuing, I’d probably pick Deebo.
Love our content? Check out the GoingFor2 Live Podcast Network!
I reference ESPN Analytics and their receiving tracking metrics a lot. I really like that they provide a success value for each route a receiver runs, and not just the routes that result in a target or reception. And their yards after the catch (YAC) score makes intuitive sense. Since 2020, they’ve tracked about 700 individual receiver seasons. Deebo’s four seasons over that span rank 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th in YAC score. The run he’s been on is insane. But so is Deebo as a player. He’s truly a one-of-one talent.
Commanders: Brissett Remembered McLaurin
Terry McLaurin has had a surprisingly small target share on the season at 21.6% through last week. So, it was fun to see Jacoby Brissett come in and boost that mark to 27.3% on his small number of attempts in Week 15. That included a 4th quarter TD, which was only his 3rd TD on the season. McLaurin also narrowly missed another touchdown from Brissett on the following drive. It gave me the same vibes as when Jameis Winston entered for the Saints and immediately peppered Chris Olave with targets. Why is it taking the backup QBs in these offenses to remember to highlight their star WRs? Regardless, it seems that Howell will be back under center against the Jets and their elite defense. But it was fun seeing the old McLaurin again for a quarter of football.
Eagles: Play Calling Woes
I am an Eagles fan. And as is tradition with this article series, I only talk about the Eagles after a devastating loss. The Eagles have a ton of issues. Our secondary in particular looks truly terrible and that’s something that Matt Patricia and his pencil will not be able to fix. On offense, Jalen Hurts has been really strong in CPOE for the season, ranking 3rd in the league among qualified QBs. Unfortunately, that has dipped in recent weeks. Against the Seahawks he had an especially bad mark, hitting -4.3%, which was 8th-worst in Week 15.
In addition to Hurts’ accuracy issues in the game, I don’t think the offensive play calling did him a lot of favors. The graph below shows passing efficiency on throws to the middle of the field on the x-axis. And the y-axis shows passing efficiency on throws to the outside. In their last three losses, Jalen Hurts is the most efficient passer in the league on throws to the middle of the field. Granted, it’s a small sample size, but that is part of the problem. Only 11.6% of his attempts in that span have gone in that direction, compared to 17.4% for the entire league. It feels like we’re missing those explosive, in-breaking routes to AJ Brown in recent weeks.
Interception Model: Fancy New Table
Week 15 was one of the best weeks for the interception model. Focusing on the sample where the model had the greatest confidence (+/- 5% from 50% odds), it correctly predicted whether a QB would throw an interception 83% of the time. And that includes being correct on Nick Mullens, Joe Flacco, and Gardner Minshew, who were mentioned in last week’s article. For this week, I’m trying something new with a fancy new table that took way too long to format. I’ll be posting these on Twitter @TargetShares including an update closer to Sunday as one of the variables in the model is the Vegas spread for the game. How I like playing these is pairing one of them with a discount provided by Underdog; either a time-sensitive basketball discount or a 0.5-yard football discount. And then you triple your money with most of the risk on just one interception play. Good luck in the semi-finals and finals, and I’ll talk to you next season!
ATTN Dynasty Commissioners: Do you want to do something cool for your league? How about a 1-hour live show dedicated to YOUR league? Team-by-team breakdowns, rankings, and more. For details and to book a show, visit: GoingFor2.com/plp.
