The Sketch: Week Two

Fade Noise; Emphasize Ceiling

Intro

Welcome to The Sketch, Reducing Uncertainty’s flagship article for the 2024 season. Each week, I’ll recap a few key things that stood out to me from the previous week, before diving into the upcoming week. The first part of this article, which includes a conglomeration of key data I use for my own fantasy success, and my analysis on that data, is free. The second part, which includes more specific recommendations for season-long, best ball, and DFS requires a paid subscription either $5/month or $50/year. As always, thanks for reading, and let’s dive into Week Two of The Sketch.

Three Thoughts On Week One

1. Despite a rough week one… Elite TE is poised to smash.

It was hard to have a worst raw scoring start for the elite tight ends, with Kyle Pitts leading the way with a whopping 10.1 half-ppr points. However, as both I and BBM3 winner Pat Kerrane have written before, the weakness of the position is a feature, not a bug. Essentially, when tight end scoring is low, it makes the impact of a 20 or 25+ point spike week that much greater. Historically, a much greater percentage of those spike weeks comes from the guys we drafted in the top few rounds. I’ve written more words on this than any one person probably should (with my buddy Sam Sherman even tempting me into a twitter rant over it this week), so I’ll just link my article from earlier this season here and move on.

2. Your favorite Zero RB target sucks

Man, what a disgusting week for our favorite zero RB candidates. Javonte Williams, Rotoviz darling of the summer (and one of my favorite zero RB bets)? Yeah, he’s in a split backfield with “Jaleel McLaughlin” on a bad offense. Chase Brown, who was “getting the majority of the snaps with the starters” just a few weeks ago? He’s filling the small part of the committee and racking up low-value touches. Rico Dowdle? Jaylen Warren? Zamir White? Nothing so far. While it is obviously early, and I do still paths to upside for these guys, I don’t feel great about making that group of RBs from ADP 80-120 a feature part of my 2024 best ball strategy. I’m not panicking about zero RB as a strategy as a whole, but week one was undoubtedly rough for many of our favorite Zero RB candidates.

3. Motion and play-action remain two of the best levers offensive can pull for success

Over the summer, Jacob Gibbs turned into one of my favorite new follows on twitter, as he’s posted numerous gems, including this.

As we can see, pre-snap motion and play-action are awesome for both real-life and fantasy success. This summer, the Saints changed offensive coordinators, replacing dinosaur Pete Carmichael with Shanahan disciple Klint Kubiak. Jacob, along with Sam Sherman, were all over Kubiak using motion and play-action at high rate this summer, and after week one, the results could not be much better.

The Saints led the league in pre-snap motion on pass plays and nearly dropped a 50-burger on the hapless Panthers. 8 of the above 10 teams won their games, with only the Packers and Rams losing close shootouts. While the Saints will probably not be in as good of a spot again this year, the macro returns on motion and play-action could not be better. I’d encourage you to give Jacob and Sam a follow, as I expect each will continue following this carefully all year.

Now, let’s move on to week two.

Week Two Data

This chart is intended to be a one-stop shop for each matchup that details a bunch of key factors to the game, including O/U, team implied points, pace, team pass/rush rates, each teams offensive and defensive efficiency, and the strength of each teams offensive and defensive lines.¹ Below the chart, I’ll analyze a few key points that stand out to me for this week. Please note that much of this data will be extremely volatile early in the season, which reduces how actionable that information is. As the season progresses, that data will become more and more useful.

For this week, I’m primarily focused on implied team totals, pace, and pass rate over expected. While we know more than we did last week, I’d still encourage you to lean into your own opinions this early in the season.

Game Environment

Each week, this section will include analysis on each team’s projected points, pace, and matchup for their upcoming game.

Totals

Each week, I break matchups down into Slight Favorites, Clear Favorites, and Toss-up games, as those teams (that also have high game O/Us) are often who we want to target most.²

Slight Favorites (-3.5 to -6.5)

No surprises here, as five of the best offenses in the league project to be in explosion spots in week two. The Eagles (-6/27) are 6 point favorites with an implied team total of 27 vs the Falcons, while the Chiefs (-6/27), Texans (-6.5/26), 49ers (-6.5/26) and Cowboys (-6.5/26) rank at the top as well.

Of these teams, the greatest shootout potential is probably in Chiefs-Bengals, with those two teams posting the two highest pass rate over expected (PROE) in week one, and each playing at an average neutral pace. While a leap of faith is required given yet another Bengals slow start, the shootout upside is sky high.

My second favorite of the slight favorites is probably the Cowboys-Saints matchup, as each played at an average pace and ran slightly more than the average number of plays. The Saints PROE was among the league-lowest in week one, but given their absolute shellacking of the Panthers, it’s possible the metric isn’t fully capturing their preferred pass rate. Add in the aforementioned Kubiak’s infusion of motion and play-action as offensive efficiency boosters (which has absolutely destroyed this Dallas defense in recent seasons), and Cowboys-Saints could make for a fun contrarian game stack in DFS if the ownership isn’t there. However, given the preseasons expectations of a strong Cowboys pass rush and poor Saints offensive line, I want no part of this game if ownership projects to be high.³

Other slight favorites include the Jets (-4/23), Jaguars (-5.5/23), Colts (-3.5/22), and Seahawks (-4/21), but with a big gap in their implied team totals. Each of these games would need to really overshoot expectations to match the top clear favorites.

Clear Favorites (-7 or more)

The Lions (-7/29) and Ravens (-10.5/26) are the two top clear favorites this week. Of the two, the Lions-Bucs game has the higher O/U at 51, but the Ravens and Raiders both played at at faster pace and have a slightly higher combined PROE after one week. While I’m not one to bet sides often, it is intriguing to me that the market is pricing the Ravens defense as one of the league’s best, despite the Chiefs onslaught against them last week. With numerous player and coach departures, the Ravens defense projected to be much worse this season. Raiders to cover the spread and the over is interesting to me this week. The Lions-Bucs matchup will feature heavily in the DFS Plan of Attack.

The other clear favorite is the Chargers (-7/23). Given the O/U’s (39) first digit starts with a 3, points are likely to be at a premium. Factor in both the Chargers and Panthers strong preference to run the ball and it’s likely to be a quick and low-scoring affair.

Toss-up games (-3 to +3)

The Cardinals (-1/26) vs Rams (+1/25) game easily tops this list, with an O/U of 51, tied for the highest of week two. While the loss of Puka Nacua and the sloth-level-slow start from Marvin Harrison Jr are concerning, the market is projecting a shootout. It’s easy to see why, as each team finished above average in PROE and neutral pace on offense and had clear flaws on defense, with the Rams dead last in defensive Rush EPA and the Cardinals dead last in defensive Dropback EPA.

Next up is Bills (-1.5/24) vs Dolphins (+1.5/22.5), which will be over by the time you’re reading this. Each team was very run-first in week one, but the Dolphins played at a fast pace and the Josh Allen lead the league in Dropback EPA. While the combination of injuries and run-first philosophy probably limit play volume, there are some paths to a shootout here.

Finally, the Commanders (-2.5/23) and Steelers (-3/20) round out the toss-up list. Neither the Commanders or their week two opponent, the Giants, played fast last week, and both were middling in PROE. The Steelers finished dead last in PROE, as we would expect from a team with Arthur Smith at playcaller and Justin Fields at quarterback. The Broncos might try to push them, with a better than average PROE and neutral pace, but a heavy dose of Bo Nix facing a Steelers defense after finishing with the 6th-worst yards per attempt since the *NFL merger* doesn’t seem promising.

Pace

Fast Pace Matchups

The Eagles played fast and had a high PROE in week one, and could push the run-heavy (but fast-paced Falcons) to throw more if they get a lead early. Kirk Cousins inability to push the ball downfield due to his still-recovering achilles (as predicted by doctors this summer) was obvious last week, but hope springs eternal. If the Falcons can fight back, there’s some shootout potential here.

The other potentially fast-paced game is Colts-Packers. However, given the Colts low PROE and Malik Willis as the Packers new starting quarterback, I expect lots of rushing attempts, with a small chance at elevated volume if there’s a long touchdown or two.

Slow Pace Matchups

While the 49ers are a slight favorite this week, they remain a run-first, slow-paced bully that wants to bludgeon you. The Vikings did finish with an above average PROE last week, but they were also the slowest offense in neutral scripts. If we get outsized fantasy points from this matchup, it will likely come from efficiency rather than volume (though both teams are certainly capable of that).

Similarly, the Lions and Bucs were two of the best offenses in week one, but each was glacially slow on neutral situations, finishing with two of the three slowest week one paces. With an O/U of 51, the market isn’t buying their slow pace, probably due to each’s poor performance on defense in week one. In DFS, this will be an interesting game to watch from an ownership standpoint, as there are certainly paths to both a low-volume slow that limits fantasy production and the best game environment of the week.

OL/DL

Three DL Mismatches

• Eagles 71% pass rush win rate (PRWR) vs Falcons 47% pass block win rate (PBWR)

• Lions pass rush (49%) vs Bucs (33%)

• Raiders run defense (35%) vs Ravens run blocking (71%)

Three OL Mismatches

• Bills pass blocking (88%) vs Dolphins pass rush (38%)

• Rams pass blocking (51%) vs Cards pass rush (12%)

• Eagles pass blocking (71%) vs Falcons pass rush (26%)

DFS Plan of Attack

Each week, I’ll go through my plan of attack for the Draftkings main slate. This will usually consists of a few different subsections, listed below:

• The Centerpiece (the player, team, or theme that the slate hinges on)

• What to do with the chalk

• Input Volatility

• Games to target

• Lineup starters