Flooding the Zone: Week Eight

As always, a stats refresher before we dive into the fun stuff:

Time Left on Play Clock at Snap – this represents how much time the offense let run off the clock on average before snapping the ball. Teams that snap the ball quickly will have the opportunity to fit more plays into a game, while teams that snap it slower will be burning more clock per play.

First Downs Per Play – this represents how often an offense generated a first down. Offenses that generate first downs often will hold on to the ball longer and have more offensive plays, whereas teams with many three and outs will be forced to punt often.

Offense Plays/G – the above statistics help us understand how a team ran the number of offensive plays per game that they did, and help give us a sense whether or not this statistic should regress in coming weeks.

PAs/G Over Game State Expectation – this is how many pass attempts more or less a team threw relative to what we would expect of the average team in similar score/down/field location/etc. situations. Teams that pass more than expected will give receiving options on the team more opportunities.

Share of Targets to WRs – this gives us an idea how what portion of attempts are making their way to WRs, who will generally be the focus of this piece.

**Going forward, I’ll be using an average of the last six games in these various charts, so that we can try to capture recent trends.**

Team Level Stats

Some brief takeaways for your fantasy team:

• ARI: the Cardinals still aren’t quite up to the pace from last year, but they’ve at least surpassed league average. It will be difficult to rely on anyone specific while they’re distributing targets the way they are, but if DeAndre Hopkins can find his way back to dominating volume, the upside’s still there.
• BUF: the Bills are starting to roll on offense and Stefon Diggs still has top-five wide receiver for the rest of the season easily in his range of outcomes. Either Emmanuel Sanders or Cole Beasley can be solid flexes for contenders.
• CAR: this offense can still support DJ Moore as a top-12 WR, but it will be difficult to see him hit huge upside without them operating efficiently or quickly. We’ll see if switching to PJ Walker unlocks anything.
• JAX: this offense keeps fighting its way towards competency. I continue to be a big of Marvin Jones Jr for contenders, and Laviska Shenault is interesting too if his price is down to a second.
• TEN: the Titans are a bit surprising on this chart – they ran an extremely fast offense last season, but have broken that trend so far this year. I wouldn’t bet on that changing with the injury to Derrick Henry. Part of the argument on behalf of AJ Brown coming into the year was that a low pass rate could be offset by a high play volume. That looks increasingly unlikely, though perhaps we see the pass rate tick up now.

Now let’s look at pass volume:

Quick takeaways:

• BAL: Marquise Brown and Rashod Bateman are both holds with a lean towards buying. Not only is this offense passing more, but it looks efficient in the process. I’m excited to see what Bateman in particular can do in the second half.
• CIN: slight uptick in neutral situation passing continues. If we can get back to 2020 levels, Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase can both be consistent starters for your fantasy teams. Count me somewhat skeptical of Chase as the overall WR1 right now, though. I’m not buying at that price.
• KC: the offense is fine, the volume is there. Travis Kelce will bounce back, and contenders should feel comfortable buying if there’s a value dip.
• PHI: they’re continuing to pass more vs. 2020. You’re unlikely to see blow-up performances from their passing game with the lack of passing touchdowns, but both DeVonta Smith and Dallas Goedert should generally be high-floor starters. Smith continues to look promising in the context of this offense.

Individual Team Spotlights

Let’s briefly run through some of the stats I’ll be highlighting here again:

Pass Snaps – calculated stat using the team’s pass/run ratio and the number of snaps the player played. This is a knock-off version of routes run.

Air Yards – the total distance the ball traveled down the field across all targets a player received.

Targets Per Implied Pass Snap – target total/pass snaps. The hope is this lets us catch a glimpse of some part-time players (rookies in particular) who are excelling in smaller roles.

Air Yards Per Implied Pass Snap – air yards total/pass snaps. Helps us understand the role various players are playing – players with a higher number in this stat relative to teammates may be playing more of a downfield role.

Carolina Panthers

The DJ Moore breakout continues, even if Sam Darnold is doing his best to slow it down. Moore is a great buy candidate while everyone’s falling over themselves to be the highest on Ja’Marr Chase. Can you get Moore and a 2023 first for Chase? More? I’d be interested.

The Robby Anderson experience may be near done. He’s getting enough volume to be relevant on a decent offense, but Carolina currently isn’t that. Don’t go dropping him or anything, but I wouldn’t be working too hard to go buy.

Tommy Tremble looks interesting long-term as a flyer. No one else on this offense moves the needle for me.

Cincinnati Bengals

I’m just going to keep telling you to buy Tee Higgins. His per-pass snap usage is comparable to Chase’s, he just hasn’t been as (unsustainably) efficient on that usage. Bet on that efficiency continuing to trend up.

Chase is tricky. He’s not a sell exactly, because his raw production has been excellent so far, even if it’s unsustainable, and there are reasons to think the usage trends up to offset efficiency regression. Plus, he’s 21 with too much narrative support to really let his value tank much. That said, we know it can’t go up from here. If I had a rebuilding team, I would consider selling Chase for another young stud WR ++. In a rebuild, you want assets that will accrue value, and all the risk to Chase’s current value is to the downside.

CJ Uzomah isn’t real. Sell if you can get anything more than a third for him.

Dallas Cowboys

CeeDee Lamb’s usage wouldn’t typically lend itself to top-12 production – historically it’s been more consistent with WR3 finishes. He can certainly overcome that by grabbing a larger share of the pie or seeing overall volume in this offense continue to ramp up. But with Michael Gallup returning and the Cowboys seemingly happy playing balanced offensive football, I wouldn’t bet on it. Like Chase, I’d explore pivoting at his current inflated value.

While Amari Cooper has been inconsistent, he’s holding his own as the WR1A/B in this offense. I’m not interested in paying up for him, but don’t mind buying on contenders.

Michael Gallup doesn’t make the chart, but he should return from injury soon. It will be very interesting and important to watch how his snaps interact with Lamb’s – he was getting the 2WR set snaps prior to his injury, but it’s reasonable to think Dallas might stick with Lamb in those going forward. Whichever way it breaks, someone’s production is going to be stunted by it.

Indianapolis Colts

Similar to Lamb, Michael Pittman’s scoring is outshooting his usage by a bit, though it’s still very solid. He looks like a legit WR2, but I’m not sure yet how high the upside is. He’s probably a hold, and I’m closer to selling than buying.

Can you buy TY Hilton for a third? The injuries are frustrating, but I think he’s a viable flex.

No one else besides the RBs really matters.

Miami Dolphins

I’m having trouble evaluating Jaylen Waddle. The target share is very impressive, but it’s coming predominantly on short passes. That’s fine, but in the long term, it spells concerns for his upside. If you have him I’d just hold for now, but keep an eye on his usage in the coming weeks to see if the return of Tua Tagovailoa changes his usage.

DeVante Parker is another of ~20 solid, cheap flex options. Buy the cheapest one.

That’s it for this week. If you’ve got any feedback about the structure of this report or questions about the topics, please leave a comment or hit me up on Twitter @cooper_dff.

For every team’s individual chart, click here.