Fantasy Football Trends & Takeaways: Kyle Pitts, Garrett Wilson, Drake London

Hello and welcome to the Week 2 edition of Hoppen to Conclusions! This is where I, Sam Hoppen, will share some of my favorite charts, which are designed to give you an overview of the NFL landscape. These charts, along with the commentary that I provide, aim to help you make start or sit, DFS lineup construction, betting picks, or any other fantasy football decisions. There can be a lot of noise in fantasy football analysis, but these charts have been carefully selected to give you some of the most relevant and useful decision points.

Each of the charts has been designed in a way that you want to target players and teams that are in the top-right quadrant of the chart as denoted by the dotted black lines, which signify the median value for the stat on either the x-axis or y-axis. Before getting to each of the charts and analyses, here are some brief descriptions of what you will find on each chart and how to interpret them.

Team Pace and Plays: Compares a team’s average plays per game to its pace over expected, using seconds per play as a measure of pace. On the chart, the y-axis flipped to show faster-paced teams (running plays faster than expected) on top. Simply put, teams (and overall matchups) with more plays and faster pace will offer more opportunities for fantasy point-scoring.
Team Pass Rates: Compares a team’s pass rate over expectation (PROE) to its red-zone pass rate. Here we can identify which teams are passing the most when game script isn’t a deciding factor and when they get close to the goal line.
Running Back Usage: Compares rushing expected fantasy points per game to his receiving expected fantasy points per game, with the size of the player’s point as his snap percentage. I use expected fantasy points as a measure of one’s workload in that specific area of the game, so it can help us discern which players are getting strong rushing or receiving workloads.
Wide Receiver & Tight End Usage: Compares player weighted opportunity rating (WOPR) to his yards per route run (YPRR), with the size of the player’s point as his routes run rate (as a percent of the team’s dropbacks). WOPR weights both air yards share and target share to evaluate a player’s opportunity, while yards per route run is a measure of one’s efficiency with the routes (and targets) he’s given. The charts show the same information for both the wide receiver and tight end position.

Fantasy Football Trends & Takeaways

Team Pass Rates

Aaron Rodgers’ season is officially over, and the Jets have (currently) deemed Zach Wilson the starting quarterback. That means Robert Saleh and Nathaniel Hackett will likely do whatever they can to hide him as much as possible. On Monday night, the Jets had a -9.5% PROE on the week, the third-lowest rate in the league. While it likely won’t be that low, New York’s -2.7% PROE ranked 17th in the league last year and they have a defense that should keep games close enough so that they don’t have to become pass-heavy. I still expect Garrett Wilson (who was the WR19 in Half PPR last year) to have a decent season, as he commanded a 27.8% target share in Week 1. But, I don’t think all of Rodgers’ friends — Randall Cobb and Allen Lazard — that he brought along to play with him to remain as high in the pecking order had Rodgers stayed in the lineup.
- Action: sell or drop all Jets’ pass catchers not named Garrett Wilson
I’m not sure why anyone thought the Falcons would act any differently this year, but here we are again with them ranking last in PROE at -12.2%. Desmond Ridder’s 18 pass attempts are a career low in the five games he has played, with the previous low being 26 attempts. With this in mind, Falcons players who earn targets are going to show a remarkable target share, but the raw target volume will be an issue. Newly minted Bijan Robinson led the team with six targets, with Mack Hollins (4), Kyle Pitts (3), and Tyler Allgeier (3) next in line. You’ll notice I didn’t mention Drake London, who was targeted just once and put up a goose egg in Week 1. This was always a part of his downside case, it’s just being realized sooner than many expected. Atlanta plays three teams – Green Bay, Detroit, and Jacksonville – that should create environments in which Atlanta may need to pass (not that that’s stopped Arthur Smith before), so I’m remaining (cautiously) optimistic that the pass catchers can still return value. In any case, Allgeier remains a priority add with the work that he got.
- Action: add Tyler Allgeier and hold only Kyle Pitts and Drake London as pass catchers