In this new weekly column, I’ll be picking out five of the most important stats that I think fantasy players NEED to know.
I watch every game every week to collect our advanced data, and while watching, I often make notes of things that I’m eager to dig into once all of our data is fully compiled. Sometimes this will be player or team performance-based metrics, and other times this will be player usage-based metrics.
All of the stats I’m referencing today can be found using the Fantasy Points Data Suite, and I promise there is so much more to find than just these five stats.
1. Dating back to 2022, Marcus Mariota’s 73.7% catchable ball rate is higher than both Desmond Ridder (72.1%) and Taylor Heinicke (68.6%)
The grass isn’t always greener… Last season everyone wanted Mariota benched in favor of Ridder, thinking it couldn’t possibly be worse. This season people said the same thing about Ridder, and well … it keeps getting worse.
If your complaints were that Ridder wasn’t giving his receivers a chance to catch the ball, Heinicke has been worse in every accuracy metric we have. The one thing Heinicke has going for him is he is willing to push the ball downfield more, with a 10.2 aDOT and 13.6% deep throw rate compared to Ridder’s 7.7 aDOT and 9.2% deep throw rate.
Maybe things get better with Drake London back and a larger sample size, but even if we go back to 2022, there is not much of a reason to believe Heincke is going to improve the fantasy outlook for the Atlanta skill players.
2. 17 pass catchers have a YPRR above 2.5. Rashee Rice is the only one who is running a route on less than 65% of the team’s dropbacks. He is down at 38%.
The Chiefs have clearly been struggling on offense, and they seem to know it is largely their WR room that is the problem (the trade for Mecole Hardman was a signal to this). That being said, I can’t explain what is keeping them from unleashing Rice.
Over the past four weeks, he ranks 13th in YPRR among WRs that have at least 75 routes run
He has the HIGHEST passer rating when targeted at 156.1 over that span as well, yet he has barely topped 50% of the routes.
Here are some names that he is beating in YPRR over the past four weeks despite these players running 85% or more of their team’s routes: Cooper Kupp, Puka Naucua, Stefon Diggs, Garrett Wilson, Keenan Allen, Ja’Marr Chase.
Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes are not stupid. I have to believe a big part of their time during the bye week will be spent trying to fix the offense, and they will see that Rice is their answer at WR.
3. Last season, in four games without Dallas Goedert, DeVonta Smith led the Eagles in target share, air yard share, and 1st-read target share.
We have started to see Smith get more involved in the Eagles’ offense recently — A.J. Brown has been on a historic heater to put himself into Offensive Player of the Year consideration, so it’s hard to blame Jalen Hurts for throwing him the ball. But now, with Goedert expected to miss some time, we could see Smith put up numbers like we saw him do in 2022.
Here is how his numbers would have ranked last season when compared to the full-season
37.7% Air Yard Share - 11th
26.4% Target Share - 8th
34.1% 1st Read Target Share - 7th
The Eagles have a number of tough opponents coming up following their bye, and are going to need to put up points to win. So I hope you bought low on Skinny Batman.
4. Since returning from the bye, Joe Burrow ranks 1st in Catchable Ball Rate, 4th in Passer Rating, 4th in ANY/A, and 7th in CPOE.
Burrow is healthy and all the way back.
Just to show how much getting healthy has meant for his play, here are his ranks in those stats pre-bye.
Catchable Ball Rate: 75% - 21st
Passer Rating: 79.8 - 24th
ANY/A: 4.39 - 26th
CPOE: -3.0% - 29th
With teams like the Bills, Dolphins, and Chiefs struggling to find offensive success at times, the Bengals can make a run for the top scorer offense in the AFC in the back half of the season.
The improved catchable ball rate and higher deep throw rate will mean more fantasy points for Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, and also more endzone opportunities for Joe Mixon. Buy up Bengals players now if you still can.
5. Over the past three weeks, Rachaad White averages 20 FP/G, but he ranks 27th in YACO/Att, 30th in MTF/Att, and 32nd in Stuff Rate.
White has looked a bit more explosive recently, so I wanted to check the numbers to see if the data backed up what my eyes thought they were seeing.
Unfortunately, I didn’t like what I found. White is still really struggling as a runner. Look at the difference between his rushing efficiency metrics vs. his receiving efficiency metrics.
He is basically an inefficient volume runner right now who has broken off some long receptions. Over the past three weeks, he has the 8th highest target share among RBs, higher than Chrisitan McCaffrey, Travis Etienne, Joe Mixon, and Josh Jacobs, yet ranks only 12th in team expected fantasy points share.
I don’t believe the target share is sustainable for White, and he is thriving off of breaking long receptions right now. He is not too different from Mixon, except he’s part of a worse overall offense.
