RADIO
Things finally got serious. If you're here, it's only because of one of two reasons: 1) you have followed the series all along and want to keep reading just so you don't feel bad about yourself, or 2) you won your first round of the fantasy playoffs and are still on the lookout for the smallest of tidbits that can help you gain an edge over your next opponent and make it to the final. No matter what, I'm here to help you both get entertained and win your matchups. You are limited now with only two weeks to go. Trades are a non-factor. The waiver wire is drained of talent, but there are still things to know that can help you make the decision that ultimately gets you that coveted W and gets you closer to the trophy in Week 16.
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!
Editor's Note: Our incredible team of writers won two writing awards and received 12 award nominations by the Fantasy Sports Writers Association. A big congrats to our very own Byron Lindeque (Golf) and Jordan McAbee (NASCAR) for both winning Writer Of The Year awards! Be sure to follow RotoBaller's analysis and advice all year long, and win more. Win More With RotoBaller!
Week 15 - 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 113 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.
With Sam Darnold playing weekly games in Carolina, PJ Walker is not the quickest thrower in the NFL anymore as he failed to qualify for this week's leaderboard. The right belongs to Colt McCoy now, although it might be a brief one as he got banged up last weekend, too.
Tom Brady is the (realistic) quickest passer in the NFL, as ridiculous as that sounds, considering he's about to turn 73-years-old next Wednesday. Now, seriously, he's 0.06 separated from Joe Burrow, which is the same distance between Burrow and seventh-place Carson Wentz.
There isn't a great difference between the aDOT on Brady's passes (7.2) and that of Burrow (7.1), so it's not that throwing the ball quickly is a product of throwing shorter passes in the case of Brady.
That said, Brady's completing passes at just 4.7 yards down the field compared to Burrow's CAY average of 5.8 yards.
Justin Fields and Zach Wilson, who have both missed time because of injury and underperforming, are the two slowest passers in the league, and it's not even close. Lamar Jackson ranks third-slowest and he's already a distant 0.11 seconds quicker than Wilson. Again, that distance is similar to the one between Jackson and the ninth and 10th-slowest passers.
All quarterbacks taking at least 2.95 seconds to throw their passes are aiming for at least 8.7 yards downfield. Only Fields (6.7) and Wilson (6.6) are completing passes at further than 6.1 yards among the four players in that group.
Daniel Jones (66%) is the only QB completing more than 62.5% of his attempts while taking more than 2.90 seconds on average to throw the ball.
On the other hand, 10 of 13 quarterbacks taking fewer than 2.70 seconds to throw their passes are completing at least 65% of their attempts, and nine of them are completing at least 66%.
The 12 quickest passers are averaging 13.4 passing FPPG. The 12 slowest are averaging 12.1. Remove the outliers (McCoy, Fields+Wilson), and the remaining players in each group would be averaging 14.0 (quickest cohort) and 12.7 (slowest).
The 17 QBs averaging 14+ paFPPG are throwing passes at an average time of 2.72 seconds. The 12 QBs averaging fewer than <11 paFPPG are taking 2.81 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:
It is a shame Jameis Winston might not throw another pass this season if Andy Dalton keeps starting (and winning) games for the Saints. That would remove him from the top of the CAY leaderboard and make Tua Tagovailoa the no. 1 on that front as Winston wouldn't reach the minimum attempts by Week 18.
Tagovailoa has already secured his qualification for the final chart and his CAY is in a league of its own at 8.4 yards per attempt. He's one full yard above Trubisky (180 attempts, not the largest sample) and more than one yard above "true" second-place Josh Allen.
As ridiculous as it sounds, the top-six players in the CAY leaderboard have TT figures ranging from 2.58 seconds to 3.12 seconds, virtually covering the full TT spectrum of figures.
Only three players are completing passes for fewer than 4.5 CAY through Week 15 and two of them belong to the Arizona Cardinals: Colt McCoy and Kyler Murray. None of them might play again this season as both are injured, banged up, and trying to recover from their health issues ahead of the home stretch.
McCoy also boasts the shortest IAY of the whole NFL at a measly 6.2 yards. Matt Ryan and Daniel Jones are the only other QBs with figures below 6.5 IAY through Week 15.
The difference in experience between the players with the largest AYD figures and those with the smallest is staggering. Veterans such as Marcus Mariota, Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers, and Derek Carr have AYD of -2.8 or more, while the likes of Tua Tagovailoa and Joe Burrow feature in the top-three at the exact opposite end not even at -1.5.
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.
None of the four most aggressive players in the leaderboard above have thrown more than 180 passes to date. As things stand, if none of them attempts one more pass over the year, only Mitch Trubisky and Cooper Rush would make the final cut.
Among high-volume passers (let's say, "true" starters), Prescott is the most aggressive passer and nearly the only one throwing 20% of his attempts into tight, one-yard windows. Derek Carr and Ryan Tannehill have thrown more total aggressive passes over the year, though, having much more attempts through Week 15.
Tom Brady leads the NFL in total aggressive passes with 97 on 623 attempts. Justin Herbert (93) is the only other QB with more than 90 throws into tight windows this season. Carr ranks third but Tannehill, even with a gaudy AGG%, only ranks 12th in the total leaderboard.
Passers throwing at least 16% of their passes into tight windows are completing an average of 63.5% of all of their throws. On the other hand, less aggressive QBs (AGG% < 13%) are completing 65% of theirs.
No need to mention that the passing FPPG of all quarterbacks and their levels/styles of aggression vary wildly. The top-six quarterbacks in FPPG make for a rollercoaster of AGG% figures: 10.1, 15.6, 12.5, 14.7, 12.5, and 15.4 percent values are the aggression rates they boast.
For context, those range from the second-lowest (Patrick Mahomes) to the 15th-highest (Joe Burrow).
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 8.6 yards per attempt (he was at 9.0 Y/A the last time we checked, three weeks ago).
Interestingly enough, 12 of 13 QBs with 7.5+ Y/A have attempted at least 274 passes this season. In other words, they are all good to trust in terms of their true talent, with no small-sample outliers entering the picture at the top.
On the other end, though, the two only Y/A figures below 6.0 yards belong to Joe Flacco and Colt McCoy. None of them have reached 160 passes over the full season (they have appeared in four games each).
Kyler Murray and Kenny Pickett are tied for the worst Y/A at 6.1 each. Tom Brady has the third-lowest value at 6.3 yards per attempt, but considering he's thrown the most passes in the NFL through Week 15 (623), he's more than made up for that as he's thrown for the third-most yards over the season.
Justin Herbert (602) is the only other passer with more than 552 pass attempts. Mike White only has attempted 129 passes in three games played, but on a per-game basis, he ranks third, on par with Tom Brady (44.5) and Justin Herbert (43.1) with 43.0 passes per outing.
Mahomes fell just four yards short of reaching 4,500 over the season last weekend. He's on pace to finish so close to 5,500 if he starts and completes all 17 games on the Chiefs' schedule. Nobody has thrown for more than 5,477 yards this century. Mahomes is on pace to reach exactly 5,459.
Tua Tagovailoa has the best TD:INT ratio in the NFL with 4.8 scores per interception to date. Jalen Hurts and Jimmy Garoppolo are the only other two quarterbacks at 4+ through Week 15.
On the other end (min. 200 attempts), Kenny Picket has the worst ratio with 0.5 touchdowns per interception. In other words, he is throwing two interceptions per touchdown, having four TDs against eight INTs over his full rookie season.
All quarterbacks with more than 9+ INT through Week 15 have at least thrown 13 TDs and all boast positive ratios. Two players with eight INT have thrown fewer touchdowns than interceptions (Pickett and Mac Jones).
Daniel Jones is the only QB throwing interceptions only every 100+ attempts, at 101. Brady with a pick every 89 throws, followed by Hurts at 85.
Winston trails the league on that front with an interception every 23 attempts, followed by Dak Prescott (every 25) and Justin Fields (every 27).
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.
At this point through the season, we have just to accept Geno Smith is as good as his completion rate is telling us. Yes, the percentage is more than 5.5 points above where the model thinks it should be, but it's been 14 games and 472 pass attempts coming from the veteran, so you have to trust such a large sample.
Jameis Winston and Mitch Trubisky, who have the only other two figures above 3.2% on the CPOE leaderboard, have just thrown 115 and 180 passes respectively, not even half of Smith's total volume.
If you look at heavy-workload passers, Geno is 2.4 percentage points above the second-best such passer (Jalen Hurts). Nobody else has completed more than 2.7% (Prescott) passes above expectations.
Smith's completion rate, of course, is the only one in the NFL past a 68.2% figure, let alone into the 70s. Burrow and Prescott are the only two other QBs at 68%+ expected to keep throwing passes on a weekly basis with McCoy banged up and Stafford done for the year.
Zach Wilson and Joe Flacco trail everybody with the lowest COMP% in the NFL. Both play for the New York Jets and both are considered reserves if/when Mike White is available and fit to play (which right now, he's not). Only four players have completed fewer than 60% of the passes they have thrown through Week 15.
Winston, though, is the only player with an expected completion rate below 60% on the year, sitting at 58.3%. Only three other quarterbacks are into the 60-to-61-percent clip, including Wilson.
The fantasy breakdown after Week 12:
- QBs averaging 15+ FPPG are completing passes with a CPOE of +0.5%, slightly overperforming expectations.
- QBs averaging <12 FPPG are completing passes with a CPOE of minus-1.6% clearly underperforming expectations.
On average, qualified quarterbacks have underperformed by completing (minus-)0.7% fewer passes than the model expected. Removing the four largest outliers from both ends, that figure still remains at minus-0.6%.
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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