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We're past Week 9 already and entering the home stretch of the season, which means you will be fighting harder than ever to procure that sweet playoff spot. And knowing the importance of having a solid quarterback in your lineups (or two, if you are part of a 2QB/Super-FLEX league!), it's only right we highlight them in this week's column.
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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The State Of The Passing Game
One of the most important concepts to consider when analyzing players are Air Yards. The metrics around it are key to know who is really over-performing or under-performing 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 68 pass attempts.
Time to Throw
Correlation with Passing Fantasy Points: 2%
Leaders and Trailers:
Leaderboard Notes:
- When it comes to explaining fantasy points, there are few less predictive metrics than Time to Throw. We're already past the halfway point of the 2020 season, and with a relatively stabilized data set the relationship is only at 2%...
- The no. 1 quickest TT (Ben Roethlisberger) is leading for the second column in a row (three weeks have passed since the last time we checked) and averaging 17.8 paFP/G. Due to the barely-existent correlation with paFP/G, the no. 2 slowest (Josh Allen) is averaging a very similar 18.5 paFP/G. Don't base your fantasy-decisions on TT, folks, you'll be doing soooo wrong.
- The TT metric tells us that the time a quarterback spends before throwing passes is better while it ranks in the middle of the pack. Quarterbacks at either the quickest or slowest extremes are almost all flawed in some heavy way.
- Roethlisberger can't move his body around for the heck of it. Haskins, Fitz, Foles, and Mullens are all subpar quarterbacks either backing up others, already benched, or early in their careers.
- Josh Allen, Lamar, Lock, Cousins, Wentz, Trubisky, and Flacco are pretty much the same in that they are either playing below expectations or have very radical traits (Allen's booming profile, Lamar's and Cousins' low-passing rate,...).
- In fact, dividing the qualified QBs in three groups from highest to smallest TT, we have the following data:
- QBs with TT < 2.65 seconds: 14.2 paFP/G
- QBs with 2.65 < TT < 2.82 seconds: 16.7 paFP/G
- QBs with TT > 2.82 seconds: 14.8 paFP/G
- Through nine weeks, there are five QBs averaging 20+ paFP/G, and their TT marks are all in the second-or-third quartiles, with the exception of Russell Wilson (2.92).
- The average TT of those five quarterbacks, including Wilson, comes out at 2.79 seconds. That would rank 22nd of 37, which is pretty much the middle of the field. The beauty is in the balance.
- The highest correlation this metric has with any other stat is at 58 percent with Completed Air Yards, followed by 52 percent with Intended Air Yards. Makes sense, considering that the longer a quarterback takes to throw, the more his pass-catchers' routes will develop and the further down the field they will get, allowing for more air yardage.
- On the other hand, there is a negative-48% relationship between TT and expected COMP% entering Week 10. As air yards go up, and passes go for longer distances, they are always harder to complete. Nothing new, and very reasonable indeed. The same (to a lesser extent) happens with actual COMP% (negative-29% relationship).
- All things considered, don't put much weight on this metric, as it is way more descriptive of past performance than predictive of future ones.
Completed/Intended Air Yards & Air Yards Differential
Correlation with Passing Fantasy Points: 50% / 28% / 24%
Leaders and Trailers:
Leaderboard Notes:
- While there is a rather high relationship between Completed Air Yards and paFP/G, the relation between Intended Air Yards and paFP/G comes out just slightly over half the strength. This is more normal and understandable than the zero-correlation we saw the last time we checked three weeks ago.
- Take CAY and IAY for what they are. In fantasy leagues, what amounts to points are the things that happen on the field (CAY), not what players want to happen (IAY). That's why the former is double as important as the latter.
- Through Week 9, no quarterback is boasting a CAY mark of 10+, and only two quarterbacks are posting IAY marks of 10+ yards (Drew Lock at 10.0 and Flacco at 10.3).
- Although he doesn't lead any of those two categories, Kirk Cousins has the highest combined CAY+IAY at 17.3 yards. Cousins is the only quarterback above 16.6 through Week 9 (Matt Ryan).
- Among players with at least eight games played, Ben Roethlisberger has the lowest CAY at just 4.5 yards. The closest player is Teddy Bridgewater at 4.9, and no other QB is below 5.1 CAY yards (Drew Brees).
- At the other end of the leaderboard, Cousins (7.9) and Matt Ryan (7.6) are the only players above 7.5 CAY with at least eight starts.
- The five QBs averaging 20+ paFP/G this season are all averaging 5.7+ CAY per attempt, and four of the five have marks of 6.2 yards. Only Justin Herbert (5.7) is currently averaging 20+ paFP/G while having a CAY value below six yards. The average CAY for those top-five QBs comes out at 6.4 yards.
- There are nine players with paFP/G averages below 12.0. They are averaging more than a yard below their top-tier counterparts, with a CAY of just 5.3 yards. Joe Flacco (6.0), Drew Lock (6.0), and Lamar Jackson (6.7) are the only quarterbacks among those in this trailing group with a CAY of 6.0+.
- Drew Brees keeps the no. 1 lowest IAY of all qualified quarterbacks at just 5.8 yards per attempt. Nobody is below 6.2 at this point in the season (Jimmy Garoppolo), and the next lowest IAY mark belongs to Teddy Bridgewater (6.7).
- It's surprising to find Flacco leading all quarterbacks in IAY at 10.3 yards per attempt, considering how he's not known as a deep gunslinger. That being said, the Jets pass-catchers are not helping him in any way, as he's only completing 6.0 of those intended 10.3 yards per attempt (-4.4 difference).
- Drew Lock, the only other QB at 10+ IAY through eight weeks, is also posting a difference between completed and intended yards of -4.0 himself.
- Only two more quarterbacks are at-or-below -the 3.0-yard difference between their IAY and CAY marks: Dwayne Haskins (-3.2) and Carson Wentz (-3.0). One has already been benched, the other is clearly underperforming.
- While Brees and Ryan Tannehill are the only two quarterbacks with a CAY-IAY difference above -1.0, Tannehill (-0.8) has been much more impressive than Brees as he's posting that difference while aiming for 2.3 more yards per attempt (8.1 IAY compared to Brees' 5.8).
- When it comes to the relationship between CAY and paFP/G (remember, a positive 50% one), we can split the 37 qualified quarterbacks into two groups with the highest and lowest marks to see how their fantasy outcomes vary. Here are their paFP/G through Week 9:
- QBs with the top-18 highest CAY marks: 17.5 paFP/G
- QBs the bottom-18 lowest CAY marks: 13.2 paFP/G
- Similarly, here are the quarterbacks split by their IAY averages:
- Top-18 highest IAY: 16.9 paFP/G
- Bottom-18 lowest IAY: 13.3 paFP/G
- And in terms of CAI-IAY difference:
- Top-18 smallest difference: 16.1 paFP/G
- Bottom-18 biggest difference: 14.9 paFP/G
Aggressiveness
Correlation with Passing Fantasy Points: negative-8%
Leaders and Trailers:
Leaderboard Notes:
- We define "Aggressiveness" as the percentage of passes a quarterback throws into tight coverage, that is, when a defender is within 1 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.
- A quick peek at the most aggressive passers gives you an idea of what we're dealing with here: Trubisky has been benched already, Foles replaced him, Fitzpatrick hit the pine too, Flacco is the Jets QB2, and Joe Burrow has been forced to risk the biscuit on a weekly basis...
- As it already happened the last time we checked, five of the most-aggressive quarterbacks of the season (Flacco the exception) are averaging between 14.1 and 15.9 paFP/G, in the exact same 1.8 FP-clip as three weeks ago.
- Going a little bit down the leaderboard from that side, we still have four of five players with the five-next most-aggressive marks all averaging 14+ paFP/G.
- Does that mean that aggressive quarterbacks are better on average? No, sir. The relationship with paFP/G sits at a paltry 8 percent for a reason. Looking at the 10 least-aggressive quarterbacks (all below 14 percent AGG%), six of them are averaging 15+ paFP/G with both Russell Wilson and Patrick Mahomes belonging to that group (they rank first and second in paFP/G; go figure).
- Joe Burrow is leading the league in AGG attempts by a mile. His 22.4% rate is not the highest, but due to his passing volume, he's already thrown 74 tight passes through Week 9. Nobody has more than 61 such passes this year (Nick Foles), and there are only four more quarterbacks with 50+ aggressive attempts.
- Of QBs with at least 100 passing attempts, Nick Mullens and Jimmy Garoppolo (both 49ers, that's a trend!) are the only quarterbacks with fewer than 20 AGG attempts (Jimmy 19 and Foles 13). Flacco and Darnold (another couple!) follow them with 20 and 21 respectively.
Attempts & Yards & Y/A
Correlation with Fantasy Points: 65% / 79% / 65%
Leaders and Trailers:
Leaderboard Notes:
- Not many big secrets 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). Doesn't take a genius.
- As ridiculous as it sounds, Joe Burrow has been able to keep his passing-pace up through nine games, currently sitting at 41.3 pass attempts per game. He only trails injured Dak Prescott (44.4 per in five games) and is joined just by Nick Foles (40.7) among those throwing more than 39 passes per game.
- Matt Ryan dropped from 40 to 39.0 attempts per game since the last time we checked, leaving the top-3 if we count Dak. He'd retain the position if we don't count Prescott, though. Minshew also dropped his 40+ average to 38.1 in the past three weeks (two games played).
- On the flip side of the coin, Jimmy Garoppolo and Kyle Allen (both injured and Allen done for the year) are the only QBs attempting fewer than 24 passes per game. Jimmy G is at 23.3 and Allen closed his 2020 at 21.8 last weekend before getting done for the season.
- The next lowest-volume passer is Flacco at just 26.0 attempts per game with 104 in his four appearances.
- Among quarterbacks with at least 100 pass attempts through Week 9, only Kirk Cousins (15.8 paFP/G on 26.1 attempts per game) is averaging 15+ paFP/G while attempting fewer than 31 passes per game. Ryan Tannehill (18.8 paFP/G) is second but he's attempting almost five more passes at 31.8.
- All five 20+ paFP/G scorers on the season are averaging 35+ passes per game, with Justin Herbert having the highest mark at 38.4 passes per game (excluding Dak's 44.4).
- Nobody is averaging 9+ yards per attempt through nine weeks of play. Kirk Cousins has the highest mark (8.9 Y/A) falling just short of it. Three more quarterbacks are above 8.5 yars per attempt, although Nick Mullens has thrown a measly 133 total passes so that average should regress a bit on a larger dose of passes.
- Josh Allen (8.2) has the highest Y/A average among quarterbacks with 300+ pass attempts. No other quarterback is reaching 8.0 on that amount of throws, with Bridgewater clocking in at 7.9 on 306 attempts followed by Matt Ryan (7.8 on 351).
- Sam Darnold, injuries and all, has thrown 191 passes so far this season in his six appearances. He's got the lowest Y/A by far at just 5.5 yards. Nobody is below 6.1 Y/A among qualified QBs, with both Daniel Jones and Nick Foles boasting 6.1 marks...
- ...and it is not that Joe Flacco has improved on Darnold's low numbers. Backing up Sam, Flacco is averaging a paltry 6.3 yards per attempt, fifth-lowest among qualified QBs.
- Y/A for quarterbacks with 20+ paFP/G: 8.6, 8.4, 8.2, 8.0 (x2)
- Y/A for quarterbacks with fewer than 10 paFP/G: 7.4, 6.3, 6.1, 5.5
- That explains the really-high 65% relationship between Y/A and paFP/G.
- Only five of 37 qualified QBs have still to reach 1,000 yards on the season. If Haskins doesn't play any more games, he'd finish at a close 939 on four games and 146 attempts.
- Andy Dalton trails everybody, although he's just attempted 85 passes and played in three games.
- Matt Ryan leads all players at the position with his 2,746 yards through nine games and 351 attempts. He's been a monster at racking up yards, and he also has 15 touchdowns on the year although he's thrown five picks already.
- Getting into the touchdown-to-interception ratio territory is not advisable if you're not named Patrick Mahomes. That's because Mahomes is freaking lapping the field this season with 25 touchdowns against a measly single interception!
- Only Russell Wilson has more touchdowns (28), and Aaron Rodgers (24) is the only other quarterback with 20+. The problem for those two, though, is that they have thrown 8 and 2 picks respectively, which drop their ratios to 12.0 and 3.5 TD:INT compared to Mahomes' almost-impeccable 25:1.
- Often forgotten, Derek Carr has the third-best ratio among qualified QBs (8 touchdowns per pick) as he's thrown 16 TDs against just a couple of interceptions on a good 258 volume of attempts.
- Cam Newton, as expected, has been atrocious throwing the ball. He's completed just 2 TDs against a massive 7 INTs for a 0.29 ratio. That trails everybody, followed by Dalton's 0.33, Darnold's 0.50, and Jones' 0.89. No more quarterbacks are below 1.0.
- Both Carson Wentz and Drew Lock are at a square 1.0 ratio of TDs and INTs, with similar values in each statistic. Wentz is 12:12 and Lock 6:6. Definitely something not important at all that will catch my attention as we get into Week 10 games.
Completion Percentage & xCOMP & COMP Over Expectation (CPOE)
Correlation with Fantasy Points: 51% / 10% / 56%
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 also a very strong indicator of fantasy performance. In fact, CPOE has the highest correlation with paFP/G than actual COMP%. This makes sense considering that those that "overperform" or play to higher-than-expected levels on average are the ones who more often than not put on high-octane performances (sure, someone could be overperforming a putrid 50 percent COMP% to connect in 55 percent of his throws, but that is not what happens in real life).
- The last time we checked the leaderboards three weeks ago, Wilson was at an impossible 7.7 CPOE, and he was the only player above 6.1 percent. He's still the leader with a CPOE of 6.7 percent, but that is one percentage point below his last mark.
- Also, nobody other than Wilson is currently posting a CPOE percentage above 5.7, and just three players (including Wilson) are at 5.0+ percentage points in terms of COMP compared to xCOMP (Joe Burrow and Kyle Allen).
- That last point is impressive. Allen's sample is too small so we can leave him out of the equation (only 87 attempts), but Burrow is killing it as a rookie in this league. Not that Justin Herbert is far from Burrow's numbers, though. Herbert himself has a CPOE of 4.4, good for fifth-highest among qualified QBs and top-4 without Allen in the mix.
- Both rookies, Burrow and Herbert, are completing above 67% of their passes (221 and 181 completions respectively through Week 9). Only 19 passers are doing so: 11 of those QBs have more attempts than Herbert's 269, and only Matt Ryan (351) has more than Burrow's 330.
- Wilson has added 7 more completions over expectation to his Week 6 mark of 13. He leads the league at 20 "unexpected" completions, the only QB into the twenties. Burrow is second just one shy of Wilson with 19 himself. No other quarterback has more than 13 completions over expectation.
- The bottom-three: Haskins with 10 fewer completions than expected, followed by Wentz (-11) and league-trailer Sam Darnold at -12. Neither of them is averaging more than 14 paFP/G.
- Currently, no quarterback sits at zero completions above/below expectations. The closest to that neutral mark are Tom Brady (one completion over expectation) on the positive side of things, and Cam Newton/Mitchel Trubisky (one completion below expectation).
- Brady has the closest-to-zero CPOE at 0.3% (he's completed 65.3 percent of his attempts compared to 65.0 percent expected).
- With the exception of Patrick Mahomes (-2.2 CPOE), every other 20+ paFP/G averager this season is posting CPOE marks of 2.7+ percentage points.
- Don't be surprised at Mahomes' negative mark, though. As I wrote three weeks ago: NFL's model doesn't love Mahomes because it works with knowledge of where receivers are at to calculate pass-completion expectations. What does that mean? The model knows Mahomes is usually throwing balls to wide-open receivers, so every time he misses on them he gets ultra-negatively-impacted on the CPOE front.
- Even with that, Mahomes has gone from a negative-3.7 CPOE to his current -2.2 mark, "improving" 1.5 points in just three weeks of time while not losing a single game for Kansas City. Not bad.
- Every player with a CPOE of 2.5+ percentage points is currently averaging 15+ paFP/G. The only expectation is Kyle Allen, although he's done for the year and he only has 87 attempts on the season (Fitzpatrick is next in fewest-attempts among those, at 197 already).
- At the other end, every quarterback (except Mahomes) having a CPOE below -2.0 is averaging fewer than 14.0 paFP/G.
- The model isn't dumb and Wentz has been plain bad, though. Don't get it wrong and bench him for good (if you're reading this, then yes, you too, Doug).
- Although Brees' passing profile is rather underwhelming at just 5.8 IAY and 5.1 CAY, that is obviously helping complete a league-leading 74% of his passes. No other player is even at 72% and only Bridgewater (71.9%), Wilson (71%), and Fitzpatrick (70.1%) are at a 70% or higher completion rate. All of them are aiming for at least 0.9 IAY more than Brees this season, though.
- I love me some crazy Drew Lock, but the poor man is completing a league-trailing (and putrid) 56.5% of his pass attempts. That's on par with Joe Flacco (56.7%)...
- Both Sam Darnold and Carson Wentz are close at 58.6% and 58.4% COMP% respectively, and Mitchell Trubisky (59.3%) is the only other QB with a COMP% below 60 percent.
- Speaking of Flacco (58.8%), he's the only player with an xCOMP% below 60 percent. Labeling it as horrific is falling short of a proper description of Flacco's passing game.
- More worrying, though, is Baker Mayfield's xCOMP of just 60%, and his CPOE of only 1.4 percentage points over that... Could Cleveland be on the verge of a quarterback change come next season?
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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