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You won't believe it, but you weren't dreaming. That turkey you stuffed your face with a few days ago? Real. Your weekly meeting with football on the telly this past Sunday? Also real. All of that together only meant one thing: the fantasy football regular season is almost over, and with just one/two more weeks of games ahead before most leagues enter their playoffs stage, it's time to gear up for that deep postseason run toward the championship.
To gain the biggest edge in your fantasy football league, it's necessary to understand how to apply the advanced statistics being used in sports nowadays. Back in the day, it was all about wins and losses, passing yards, and touchdowns scored. It's not that those stats are now worthless, they just don't offer enough information to savvy analysts. While football is still in its infancy compared to baseball in terms of analytics, the evolution the sport has seen lately in those terms is notable.
Each week, I'll be tackling NFL's Next Gen Stats, bringing you data from the previous week's games with notable takeaways you should consider when assessing fantasy players for the upcoming week. In case you're new to the series, or Next Gen Stats altogether, I recommend you read our NGS-primer. Now, let's get to the data!
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Week 12 - The State Of The Passing Game
One of the most important concepts to consider when analyzing players is air yards. The metrics around it are key to knowing who is really overperforming or underperforming among receivers and passers, but it doesn't have much to do with rushers.
Today, I'll present each of the stats from the NFL's advanced metrics site, its correlation with quarterback-fantasy points, and a list of leaders and trailers in each category along with some notes and takeaways on both the players' and the metrics' impact on fantasy football as a whole.
As we'll be discussing quarterbacks and their passing stats, I will reduce the fantasy points per game averages to just those related to passing. That means that I have removed the rushing/receiving fantasy points the qualifying quarterbacks have logged during the season. I've called this metric paFP/G, which is to say passing Fantasy Points per Game.
So let's dive in. Note: The cutoff is set at 90 pass attempts.
Time to Throw
Correlation with Passing Fantasy Points (based on the 2021 season): 6%
Leaders and Trailers:
Leaderboard Notes:
Although there is some relation between TT and FPPG (paFP/G, I mean), the truth is that randomness is the calling card of this metric.
The Carolina Panthers started Sam Darnold for the first time this season after he finally came back from injury, Sammy won the game against Denver, and now the Panthers are facing the real possibility of starting him ROS. The implication? PJ Walker might have thrown his last pass of the 2022 season, and thus he could finish the year leading the TT leaderboard.
Tom Brady has been the quickest thrower for the full season on a weekly basis. Walker was close to him the last time we checked, but not quite there. They are now tied, but we have to assume Brady has more games to play ahead, and thus his TT might fluctuate a bit, giving Walker the chance of staying at 2.43 seconds without the latter doing basically nothing.
Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence, Aaron Rodgers, and Brady are the only quarterbacks throwing passes in under 2.65 seconds while having appeared in at least 11 games this season.
PJ Walker and Cooper Rush are two of the quickest four QBs but they have played only six and seven games, respectively, barely qualifying for the leaderboard on a pass-attempt basis.
The NFL missed staging a true snoozefest last Sunday when the Chicago Bears and the New York Jets played against each other. That's because Justin Fields (injured) and Zach Wilson (benched) share the slowest TT among all qualified quarterbacks at 3.12 seconds. Only Daniel Jones (another New York QB) is above three full seconds to throw through Week 12.
Wilson might never see the field again this season even if Jets coach Robert Saleh won't admit it. Even if that's the case, Wilson's 189 pass attempts would still qualify when the season is over, giving him a good chance of earning the slowest-QB title. The same scenario is in play for Fields, although he should recover in time to play at least a few more games down the road if all goes, according to reports.
The 10 slowest passers are averaging 11.8 passing FPPG. The 10 quickest are averaging 13.8. Remove the outliers (Walker+Brady, Fields+Wilson) and the remaining two players in each group would be averaging 12.5 (slowest cohort) and 14.8 (quickest).
Daniel Jones and Justin Herbert are the only two quarterbacks taking more than 2.75 seconds to throw their passes on average while aiming them shorter than 7.0 IAY down the field.
Tua Tagovailoa (9.2 IAY) is the only quarterback with an IAY figure above 8.3 yards while throwing his passes in less than 2.75 seconds on average.
The 17 QBs averaging 14+ paFPPG are throwing passes at an average time of 2.71 seconds. The 12 QBs averaging fewer than <11 paFPPG are taking 2.82 seconds to throw passes on average.
All things considered, don't put much weight on this metric, as it is way more descriptive of past performance and style than predictive of future fantasy outings.
Completed/Intended Air Yards & Air Yards Differential
Correlation with Passing Fantasy Points (based on the 2021 season): 32% / 17% / 24%
Leaders and Trailers:
Leaderboard Notes:
If Jameis Winston can't retake the QB1 role and start/play in at least two more games, he will miss out on the year-end table without meeting the final amount of pass attempts. That would remove him from the top of the CAY leaderboard and make Tua Tagovailoa the no. 1 on that front.
Tagovailoa has already secured his qualification for the final chart and barring a rather ridiculous underperforming ROS, he will take the CAY title easily. It's been 12 weeks of play already so it's going to be hard for anyone to change their style and production too much to catch up with Tua's 8.3 CAY.
With Winston and Trubisky getting eventually removed from the leaderboard without meeting the minimum pass attempts, it's going to be Tua, Josh Allen, and Marcus Mariota at the top-three. Tannehill has a chance to break into that top-three while Jacoby Brissett shouldn't be in that position with Deshaun Watson making his comeback this weekend.
On the other end, all three of Kyler Murray, Justin Herbert, and Jimmy Garoppolo sit alone at the bottom of the leaderboard. That's because Matthew Stafford is out, Baker Mayfield got benched, Aaron Rodgers seems to be injured, and Davis Mills also got sent to the pine last week.
All things considered, though, Russell Wilson is your #WashedKing. He's combined for an average of minus-3.4 AYD between his 18th-worst CAY and seventh-best IAY. The willingness might be there with the veteran Bronco aiming for nearly 10 yards downfield per pass, but he's just not connecting further than 5.7 yards down the field on average.
Nobody is even close to Wilson's yard differential with Mariota, Fields, Walker, and Rodgers sharing the second-largest negative figure but already "up" at -2.9 yards.
Even though Tua and Matt Ryan/Kirk Cousins have very similar AYD figures between minus-0.9 and minus-1.2, the difference in their styles cannot be wider. Tua is aiming his passes 9.2 yards downfield and completing them at an average of 8.3 yards while none of Ryan or Cousins are even throwing passes much further downfield on average, topping at 7.1 yards (Cousins), let alone completing them so deeply (5.9, Ryan).
There is an interesting relationship between IAY and interceptions thrown: the shorter the attempted passes, the more interceptions quarterbacks are throwing (r-squared of minus-0.18).
Aggressiveness
Correlation with Passing Fantasy Points (based on the 2021 season): negative-30%
Leaders and Trailers:
Leaderboard Notes:
NGS defines "Aggressiveness" as the percentage of passes a quarterback throws into tight coverage, that is when a defender is within one yard or less of the receiver at the point of the catch/interception. Don't take this metric as a sign of "braveness" or anything like that, though. It relates more to reckless passing than anything else.
After three weeks of play, Bailey Zappe is still sitting at 92 pass attempts and that shouldn't change barring a catastrophe (performance or injury-related) in New England. Even then, though, Zappe is no longer the only quarterback with a single-digit percentage of AGG% passes as he's been joined by Trevor Lawrence (9.4%) and Justin Fields (9.2%).
Zappe, Walker, and Joe Flacco are the only quarterbacks qualified for this week's leaderboard with fewer than 20 aggressive passes. Flacco (155 attempts) has done enough to qualify by year's end, so he will be the only qualifier with fewer than 20 such passes if he doesn't get to the field anymore ROS.
Patrick Mahomes has thrown the 13th-most total AGG passes (48) although he has the fourth-lowest AGG% rate (10.9%) and the smallest among QBs in double-digits.
The eight QBs throwing 12% or fewer of their passes on tight windows are also throwing an interception every 55 pass attempts. The 12 passers with an AGG% figure of at least 16% are doing so every 47 pass attempts.
From a touchdown-pass perspective, the less-aggressive passers are throwing a touchdown every 21 attempts compared to the most-aggressive passers doing so every 33 attempts.
As always, beauty is in the middle and there is not much correlation between all of these descriptive, not predictive, statistics. That's why the four quarterbacks with 20+ touchdowns over the season have AGG% figures ranging from 10.9% (Mahomes) to 15.9% (Joe Burrow).
Similarly, the three QBs with 10+ INT through Week 12 have AGG% figures between 12.4% (Josh Allen) and 15.9% (Davis Mills).
No need to mention that the passing FPPG of all quarterbacks and their levels/styles of aggression vary wildly. Mahomes and Tua lead all QBs in FPPG with super-low AGG% below 11.5 percent figures... but Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert average the third and sixth-most FPPG with AGG% figures above 15.5 percent. Just a tiny example.
Attempts & Yards & Y/A
Correlation with Fantasy Points (based on the 2021 season): 70% / 78% / 68%
Leaders and Trailers:
Leaderboard Notes:
Not many big secrets are hidden in these three stats, am I right? The correlation is high with fantasy points basically because fantasy points rely mostly on pure yardage, and to rack up yards, you have to throw the ball (the more the better, that is).
Although he's missed games and although his Y/A has dropped a bit since the last time we checked, Tua is still leading the NFL at 9.0 yards per attempt.
Excluding Zappe (8.5), who qualified by a measly two-pass-attempt margin, only three more quarterbacks are above 8.0+ Y/A and all three of them (Tannehill, Mahomes, and Jalen Hurts) are nearly a full yard (8.1) behind Tua's Y/A figure.
Instead of looking at the total volume of attempts, if we look at pass attempts per game, things take a different outlook. Among passers throwing 35+ passes per game, Mahomes has the largest Y/A at 8.1 yards followed by Josh Allen's 7.8 figure.
Along with Mahomes (326), Flacco is the only qualified quarterback throwing for 300+ yards per game sitting exactly at that rounded figure.
At the other end of the per-game spectrum, only 10 qualified quarterbacks are reaching fewer than 200 yards per game through their passes: Walker, Fields, Rush, Trubisky, Mariota, Zach Wilson, Mayfield, and Zappe. All of them except Mariota and Fields have already been benched strictly because of their underperformance.
Tom Brady and Justin Herbert lead the way in total attempts, the only two QBs that have already broken the 450-pass barrier. Aaron Rodgers (392) and Marcus Mariota (276) have played in all 12 weeks but they have yet to crack the 400 and 300-attempt barriers, respectively.
Mahomes, Allen, Burrow, and Rodgers are the only quarterbacks that have 30+ combined TD+INT through Week 12. All quarterbacks with 10+ games or 200+ pass attempts have at least 11 such plays.
Kenny Pickett is the only qualified quarterback with a difference between his TD and INT counts of more than one point in the negative (three TDs against eight INTs). All other quarterbacks with a negative balance have just one more interception than their touchdown counts.
Tom Brady has the best TD:INT ratio at 7:1, although his volume is far from great with only 14 total touchdowns through Week 12. Tua is second, slightly above 6:1, followed by Hurts at a bit more than a 5:1 ratio.
Completion Percentage & xCOMP & COMP Above Expectation
Correlation with Fantasy Points (based on the 2021 season): 67% / 26% / 69%
Leaders and Trailers:
Leaderboard Notes:
The world of hypotheticals is cool, but what truly matters is what actually happens on the field. That is why the real completion percentage is the stat that matters, and why the expected rate doesn't cut a good deal for fantasy GMs.
That being said, the difference between both marks (CPOE) is the strongest indicator of fantasy performance, which makes sense considering that those who "overperform" or play to higher-than-expected levels on average are the ones who more often than not put on high-octane performances.
Even though Geno Smith keeps regressing to the mean weekly, he's still clearly and by a good chunk atop the CPOE leaderboard, thanks to completing 6.7% more passes than the model would have guessed.
Geno's almost one full percentage point above second-best Dak Prescott (5.8%) and a point-and-a-half above third-best Jameis Winston (5.2%). Winston will most probably fall from the leaderboard if he doesn't get to the field ROS, and that means Jalen Hurts would make the top-three with a way lower 3.1% CPOE figure.
Another future non-qualifier, Bailey Zappe (70.7%), is the only QB not named Geno that has completed more than 70% of his pass attempts through Week 12. Tua comes next but misses by a hair, sitting at 69.7% to date.
As ridiculous as it sounds, Geno's 72.8% completion rate is even better than the highest xCOMP posted by any quarterback through Week 12 (Zappe's 69.3%).
At the other end, both Zach Wilson (55.6%) and Mayfield (57.8%) have completed fewer passes than the worst xCOMP% among qualified players (Winston's 58.3%). Winston, just in case, is outperforming the expectations by 5.2 percentage points.
The Panthers got a win in Week 12 with Sam Darnold starting for the first time this season, and they must be thankful for the former Jet. That's because the other Panthers QBs, PJ Walker and Baker Mayfield, have the absolute worst CPOE figures in the NFL at minus-9.5% and minus-8.7% through Week 12.
Walker, Mayfield, Zach Wilson, Rush, Flacco, and Mills have all been benched already while they currently rank in the bottom- seven of the CPOE leaderboard (Justin Fields is the other one, but his benching was related to an injury). Next in line: Russell Wilson and Carson Wentz (already benched).
Garoppolo, Stafford, Brady, Lawrence, and Murray are the only passers with 300+ attempts to date and an xCOMP% above 67%. None of them has completed more passes than expected, and Stafford is the only one of them at 68%.
The fantasy breakdown after Week 12:
- QBs averaging 15+ FPPG are completing passes with a CPOE of +0.3%, slightly overperforming expectations.
- QBs averaging <12 FPPG are completing passes with a CPOE of minus-2.7% clearly underperforming expectations.
On average, qualified quarterbacks have underperformed by completing 0.8% fewer passes than the model expected. Removing the three largest outliers from both ends, that figure still remains at minus-0.7%.
That's it for today. Until we meet again next week, I hope you can crush your waiver wire, set up the best possible lineup, and get ready for another weekend full of fireworks!
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