Inside where nothing shows, I am the essence of a man spinning double-headed coins, and betting against himself in private atonement for an unremembered past.
– Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

When you embrace players with a wide range of outcomes – betting on talent, betting on the emergence of elite youth – the first month is occasionally epic but frequently scary. You sometimes start to wonder about personal atonement. You know that the sun went up about as often as it went down, but it doesn’t always feel that way.

We Were Sent For

And then the bye weeks arrive . . .

For our RotoViz portfolios, the initial month brought individual wins, but this was the team-wide explosion we needed, even if duds still liberally sprinkled the landscape.

Ben and I scored 193 in our Main Event despite Jonathan Taylor, De’Vonta Smith, and Jahan Dotson combining for a total of 12.

Blair and I reached 172 (again despite Taylor). The Chasing Stolen Bananas squad ripped off 175 with Tee Higgins out and J.K. Dobbins long gone. Bjorn and I reached 4-1 with our Perpetually Reloading dynasty startup that selected only two players in the first five rounds (one of which was Jaxon Smith-Njigba).

Week 5 provided a wide variety of paths to a big score, but also offered land mines aplenty. Some of the teams mentioned above are pulling away, while some are merely fighting back into contention. It is a short season, and yet if you’ve created exposure to players who can post the occasional 40- or 50-point performance, there’s still time. I hope your particular combination worked or that you’ve got stars like Davante Adams or Christian Watson ready to carry you across the finish line tonight.

The Writers Break Out

I’m very biased, of course, but on a high from Week 5, I hope you’ll indulge me in some warm thoughts about the 2023 writing team. I’ve gotten great feedback from new subscribers and those that have been with us for a decade. The 2023 content structure has been a hit with Curtis penning the Dynasty Command Center, Dave the Passing Matchup series, and Blair the Wrong Read. New features like Jake Boes on the Best Ball Advance Rate Model and Matt Spencer on K-Means Clustering for DFS have been instant successes. They’re great complements to our recap, streaming, DFS, advanced stats, and weather content. Mat Irby has been a standout with his three columns, and I love what he’s doing with the NFL Pace tool.

As a preview for the Week 6 content, here’s a look back at last week.

Win the Waiver Wire – Bjorn Yang-Vaernet
An Aesthetic, Moral, and Logical Conclusion – Shawn Siegele
5 Things That Mattered (and 5 That Didn’t) – Mat Irby
TE Streaming – Neil Dutton
K-Means Clustering for DFS Insights – Matt Spencer
The Dynasty Command Center – Curtis Patrick
The Zero RB Dynasty Watch – David Phillippi
Best Ball Mania IV Advance Rate Model – Jake Boes
Streaming Defense – Ross Durham
The Buy Low Report: Advanced WR Metrics – Ryan Ramsarran
The Passing Game Matchup Report: WR/CB Battles – Dave Caban
NFL Pace Report: Shootout Options – Mat Irby
Zero RB Universe – Shawn Siegele
Wrong Read: Every Key Matchup Note from the Advance Team Stat Explorer – Blair Andrews
How to Think About Small-Field DFS Tournaments (DK) – Michael Hitchcock
Beating the Week 2 FanDuel DFS Slate – Justin Herrera
The NFL Weather Report – Mat Irby

The RotoViz Radio network also brings you a wide range of content each week. In my free Monday articles, I’ll be looking at Sunday’s key storylines through the lens of our newest episodes.

Stealing Bananas

Ja’Marr Chase Is Always [Expletive Deleted] Open, Always

The most frustrating element for Bengals fans – reality or fantasy – is the inconsistency with which they take advantage of their superstar. As a rookie a mere handful of games into his NFL career, Chase had to break protocol and publicly remind coaches that they were allowed to throw over the top of defenses. He ended up with 13 games that season with an aDOT north of 10 and eight with at least 100 air yards, including the transcendent Week 17 performance against Kansas City.

Year 2 brought positives and negatives. His aDOT dropped more than 3.5 yards per target, but an increase in target volume bolstered the results. He went over 100 air yards in nine of 12 games. The controversy arises when considering that his 26 targets per route is good-not-great, and the 7.8 yards per target is very pedestrian for a player of this supposed caliber. He accomplished the volume by running 97.5% of the routes for a team that attempted 38 passes per game. As was the case this year, he got off to a slow start, averaging 15.7 PPG over the first five and 24 PPG the rest of the way.

The first month of the 2023 season brought a further decline in aDOT (7.3) and only one WR2 or better fantasy finish. Through the first two years and one month of Justin Jefferson’s career, the superstar finished below the WR2 level in only 35% of his appearances. That number jumps to 52% for Chase.

It shouldn’t require a post-game blowup to force coaches into the optimal game plan, but thankfully it sometimes works. On Sunday against Arizona, Chase generated the second 50-point game of his career, and he did it with all types of routes and targets (which is more or less required to reach 15-192-3). Although his overall aDOT (8.1) was still disconcertingly low, he finished with 154 air yards (51%), and got behind the defense for a 63-yard TD.

It was a big day for a variety of NFL receivers, and the Monday Review tool gives us a look at the WRs with at least 50% of their team’s air yards.

It was a bit of a mixed bag, with Garrett Wilson only lassoing three of his targets and Michael Thomas doing little better. The two combined for only 24 yards after the catch. By contrast, Tyreek Hill only needed 64 air yards on a day where Tua Tagovailoa ranked No. 6 in passing yards but No. 27 in air yards during the Dolphins’ weekly explosive play extravaganza.

Returning to Chase, we get a performance that even trumped D.J. Moore’s 49-point outburst on Thursday night. Chase led the group in WOPR (1.0) and was second in RACR (1.25).

I asked Ben if the absence of Higgins unlocked Chase, and while I won’t spoil his sober and accurate answer, it was hard to watch this game and not to feel like this was a case of addition by subtraction in the short term. The first month had been an unmitigated disaster. Despite being targeted 3.1 yards further down the field, Higgins was drawing almost the same rate of per route targets (26% to 25%) but had caught only 38% of them. That included an egregious rate of 12 receptions on 23 “catchable” balls, with five pure drops.

This is not to say that Higgins is something less than a star or that he won’t recover, but it should benefit both the player and the team for him to get a week to recover from injuries and clear his head.

Removing all of those drive stopping plays – Trenton Irwin (8-60-0) was more reliable than Higgins and more explosive than Tyler Boyd – allowed the Bengals to right the ship, at least where it relates to Chase. (The rest of the offense still struggled. The game turned on a pick-six after Joe Mixon was yet again stuffed repeatedly at the goal line.)

Beyond Chase’s enthusiastic “I’m always open,” and the break for Higgins, much of this result was predicated on matchup, as Blair described in Week 5’s Wrong Read.

Maybe this is the week Joe Burrow will finally find Ja’Marr Chase open for a couple of long touchdowns.

Arizona is a bottom-five team in EPA allowed, success rate allowed, and boom rate allowed. Only one team creates less pressure on opponent dropbacks.

Make sure you have that article bookmarked for the duration.

The Breece Hall 2024 1.01 Campaign Is Now Fully Underway

Hall came into this game averaging a humorous 0.9 yards before contact and 5.9 after. Among backs with at least 25 carries, Hall led the league in YAC by a full yard (over Achane, who, to put it mildly, has a better pre-contact average). That’s the impact of poor blocking/design married to a shocking propensity for long runs. Following Hall’s depressing usage during their three-game losing streak, the Jets unleashed their superstar on a very weak Denver rushing attack.

Hall ripped off a 72-yard score and gained more than 100 yards on his other carries, and yet the second-year player is so dynamic it almost felt disappointing. The comparisons to 2021 Jonathan Taylor feel more and more apt.

Across the way, Denver’s passing attack was utterly dominated. Courtland Sutton broke into the scoring column in the waning moments, and Jerry Jeudy continued to look an uncomfortable fit. Meanwhile, the genius of Sean Payton again failed to deploy Marvin Mims (who managed to fumble both a punt and a reverse pitch, although that one is attributed to Perine).

Dave’s passing matchups column nailed the carnage about to be unleashed by Sauce Gardner and his fellow secondary stars.

Things won’t be nearly as easy for the Broncos. The Jets have been the hardest matchup for opposing WRs, allowing just 68% of PPG. None of the team’s corners are susceptible in individual matchups and WRs are averaging a full 0.3 points per target less than average when facing New York.

It’s not been a good start to the season for coaches like Bill Belichick and Sean Payton, who will never lose their rings but may lose their reputations after formerly trading on the cachet of star QBs.

• Ben and I debate the performance of the Jets passing game. Did Zach Wilson look slightly better? Did Garrett Wilson get dominated by Patrick Surtain?
• What’s the outlook for Jaleel McLaughlin, who averaged 7.6 yards per carry and broke a 22-yard catch of the highlight variety, when Javonte Williams returns? Samaje Perine isn’t going anywhere either. He led all Broncos receivers with 73 yards. I moved McLaughlin up to No. 92 overall in my Friday dynasty update, and that might not be high enough.

Puka Nacua Is Going to Remain Relevant

When you see Chase blow up without Higgins, or consider the weekly splits for A.J. Brown across Weeks 1-2 and DeVonta Smith across Weeks 3-5, the potential for a sea change in L.A. created no small amount of angst for Nacua managers awaiting the Cooper Kupp debut. The results were perfect on both sides of the ledger.

Add in Kyren Williams, and only one target slipped to anyone outside of the core. Van Jefferson disappeared entirely, and Tutu Atwell continued as the field stretcher (although his TD was of the short yardage variety).

Kupp looked fantastic, and his superior explosiveness was on display early, drawing a flurry of targets and posting better YAC (which led to a superior RACR). But Nacua remained a steady and integral part of the offense, again posting a target share above 30%. If the question was whether these two “possession” receivers could complement each other, the answer was an emphatic yes through one week. Nacua’s aDOT was two yards deeper than his season average – his deepest connection was the impressive 22-yard TD – while Kupp’s was more than 4 yards deeper than his depressing 2022 barrage.

Rapid Fire

• The Baltimore Ravens gave away a key divisional game with key drops by Rashod Bateman, Nelson Agholor, and Zay Flowers.
• George Pickens fails to separate early but draws 196 air yards. In the end, Kenny Pickett threw off the Matt Canada shackles and lobbed him a game-winning 41-yard TD.
• Ben has a great note about Kyle Pitts and Drake London and the first time they hit a threshold that will hopefully become routine as the season progresses.
• Ben and I discuss Zach Moss’s big game and what Taylor’s dud means in the short term.

RotoViz Overtime

Sam LaPorta Is Your Overall TE1

It’s not as visually arresting, but this is an arguably even more shocking result than what Achane is doing at RB.

In articles and pods I’ll occasionally discuss my philosophy of high exposures to top targets, but the best examples come from how it can influence the actual results. Over an 84-team BBM sample, I’m sitting on 34% LaPorta and 28% Achane, which puts a lot of teams in position to advance, especially if players like Hall (29%) and Brandon Aiyuk (26%) do what looks possible and/or players like Smith-Njigba (34%) or Dotson (28%) eventually emerge.

The combination of Achane, Hall, D’Andre Swift (22%), and Kenneth Walker (20%) create lots of individual rosters with RB upside, and that’s before considering what Tyjae Spears (37%) could eventually accomplish.

Back to LaPorta.

Beyond the obvious – he’s a rookie in a position that simply doesn’t lend itself to fantasy relevance in Year 1 – the Lions’ new star has impressed with his balanced profile. The two-TD game in Week 5 puts him into a tie for the lead in that category, but he also leads in receiving yards (289), due to a strong combination of target share (20.5%), air yards (217), and yards after the catch (131).

LaPorta is the clear No. 2 target in Detroit, and they schemed him a short-yardage score on Sunday. The ballyhooed athleticism has translated immediately, as only Evan Engram has more YAC (and that’s on a much shallower target depth).

Every week, LaPorta looks more like the next Kittle, and that’s especially true on a day when the actual Kittle scored three TDs on four targets.

• Colm and I discuss Brock Purdy’s brilliance, and what it means for the San Francisco receiving targets who have to scratch and claw for value behind Christian McCaffrey.
• Speaking of elite TEs in a bit of a traffic jam, Dallas Goedert scored 21.8 points over the first four weeks and 25.7 on Sunday. Is DeVonta Smith the next Eagle to enjoy a massive spike week?
• With the calendar flipping over into October, can we count on Good Justin Fields for the rest the duration? Blair profiled Cole Kmet as evidence-based breakout target for 2023, and he’s responded with 43 points over the last two weeks. During these two blowup performances, Moore (33%) and Kmet (25%) have consolidated targets in an offense that still features Darnell Mooney (14%) but doesn’t have to deal with the headache of Chase Claypool.

Travis Etienne Again Looks a Little Bit Like Jamaal Charles

Of all the evidence-based arguments this offseason, I’m perhaps most invested in the idea that Etienne could be a poor man’s Charles.

His performance in London can get lost in the Achane enthusiasm, the Hall eruption, and the provocative nature of Moss blowing up at Taylor’s expense. But Etienne’s 36 points led the position.

It’s not all roses. He came in averaging only 3.8 yards per attempt after a brutal showing against Atlanta. Etienne was struggling to gain yards despite ranking among the league leaders in forced missed tackles (10%) and stuff rate (12%).

As a contrast to how the Dolphins get Achane the ball in space and on the edges, Jacksonville hurls their star into the line and they made a big point to emphasize it this offseason. Regardless, Etienne beat every Bills defender to the edge on his early six-yard score and broke through that wall for a 35-yard TD to seal it. Despite concerns about Tank Bigsby (three carries, including a failed short yardage plunge) and JaMycal Hasty, the starter touched the ball 30 times and gained 48 through the air, seamlessly ripping off 32 of those in the two-minute drill, a situation where other backs are frustratingly losing touches to players like Michael Carter.

Rapid Fire

• Rashee Rice barely played outside the red zone, but still drew five targets and scored a TD. How long do we have to wait? Please Mr. Reid, or alternatively, please Mr. Rice. Get in your playbook. You’re too good not to be on the field.
• Adam Thielen has been a revelation, and Bryce Young looks like he’s going to be a garbage time gold mine.
• Is Cam Akers about to usurp Alexander Mattison in Minnesota?

Good luck tonight. If you’re staring down the barrel of a Fields, Moore, Chase, or Kittle performance, I hope you get the corresponding scores from your playmakers on Monday. And don’t miss the newest episode with Blair and Hasan on the RotoViz Report.