In this new weekly column, I pick out five of the most important stats that I think fantasy players should know from our Fantasy Points Data Suite.
I watch every game from every week to collect our advanced data, and while watching I make notes of things that I want to see the data behind when our charting process is complete.
Sometimes they will be player or team performance-based, and other times they will be player usage based.
All of the stats can be found though using the Fantasy Points Data Suite, and I promise there is so much more to find than just these five stats.
Desmond Ridder threw 8 catchable passes to non-backfield targets and had a 3.2 average depth of target
We knew the Falcons would be a run-first team, but it needs to be stated how potentially bad this could be for the Falcons’ receiving weapons. Ridder had 16 total catchable passes, which would be tied for the lowest amount of Ridder’s career in a game. For perspective, Mac Jones threw 43 catchable passes this week. The Patriots receivers had almost three times the catchable ball opportunities than the Falcons. Then you take it another step further and exclude targets to players lined up in the backfield, and you get just 8 catchable targets for receivers and tight ends. That is 2 per quarter… 17 receivers this week had at least 8 catchable targets for themselves.
On top of that, Ridder’s 3.2 aDOT would have been the 2nd lowest aDOT in a game in which the QB had at least 20 dropbacks of the entire 2022 season. He isn’t pushing the ball downfield on inaccurate throws, and when you just look at his aDOT on catchable throws, it falls to 2.7. It is hard to imagine both Kyle Pitts and Drake London having big games in this offense.
Richie James led the Chiefs in Red Zone Snaps
Last year many people fell in love with Isiah Pacheco and thought he would take over the Chiefs backfield late in the season. What people failed to notice was the Chiefs LOVED Jerick McKinnon in the red zone, and McKinnon was a fantasy league winner in the playoffs because of it. The Chiefs WR room is a mess right now, so I’m looking for the guy they like when they get into the red zone.
Skyy Moore and MVS led the team in overall snaps, but Richie James was third and saw 71% of the red-zone snaps, 75% of inside-the-10 snaps, and 67% of inside-the-5 snaps. If he can earn more playing time over the other struggling WRs, he could be valuable the same way McKinnon was last season. I will point out rookie Rashee Rice matched or bettered James’ inside the 5 and 10 snap rates, so he is also a name to watch.
Only one flex-eligible player played 100% of his team’s snaps in Week 1 — Durham Smythe
This is a name I didn’t expect to be writing up, but with how gross the TE position is, particularly with Travis Kelce and Mark Andrews missing time, this could be valuable. Smythe played all the snaps for the high-powered Dolphins offense in Week 1. Without Mike Gesicki, he has little competition for playing time, and we expect the Dolphins to score points. Not only that, he was actually second on the team in first-read targets.
Now I highly doubt he stays ahead of Jaylen Waddle as the season goes on, but if he can become a third option for this offense at the grossest position in fantasy, he is worth rostering.
Kyren Williams had 3.5 YPC, 40% Stuff Rate, and 2.9 YACO/Att compared to Cam Akers 1.32 YPC, 73% Stuff Rate, and 1.6 YACO/Att
Now I don’t totally know what happened to Akers this week, but he had some weird playing time. If you split it by quarter, you can see he barely played in the first two quarters, but then in the second half, it became more of a 50/50 split.
The other thing to note is that Akers doesn’t play on passing downs. In the second half, he played no more than 27% of the passing snaps in either quarter. If Williams is getting most of the passing work and splitting the rushing work, he is going to crush Akers in volume.
On top of having more volume Williams was a much better runner than Akers. Among backs with 15+ carries in Week 1, Kyren ranked 6th in stuff rate, 8th in yards after contact per attempt, and 9th in missed tackles forced per attempt. Akers ranked 12th, 16th (Last), and 12th in each of those categories.
If you remove designed throws, Zay Flowers’ first read target share falls from 60% to 37.5%
Flowers had an awesome debut game for his NFL career, but the Ravens offense was likely very different than what it will be the rest of the season. First, both Rashod Bateman and Odell Beckham Jr. played in their first game in a long time. Mark Andrews (quad) already was out, and then during the game, J.K. Dobbins went down. It had to completely change what OC Todd Monken was planning.
I’m not saying Flowers won’t continue to look good and be an important part of the offense, but the coaching staff clearly felt limited in their skill player options, and therefore designed up plays for Flowers. Removing the designed plays brings him from 1st in first read target share to 18th. His total target share also drops from 45.5% to 28.6% when removing designed plays. Those are still great numbers, but we likely don’t see him hit these highs again this season.
Here are the leaders in first read target share — without the designed targets.
The Raiders likely have an extremely condensed offense with both Adams and Meyers reaching the top 10. Flowers’ fellow rookie Puka Nacua looks even more impressive surrounded by other elite receivers.
