A Frustrating day of Football and What it Means Going Forward

The current state of NFL offense is the worst of all worlds

Full disclosure to bring you behind the curtain — I typically write the introduction for the Hitchhiker’s Guide on Sunday — which can be on any topic really, not just running backs. Then I do the backfield-by-backfield stuff Monday night, and do a final edit Tuesday AM.

Well I wrote quite the long introduction today, and very little of it is directly about RBs so I figured I’d just release it as a standalone article and then jump right into the RB stuff when you see the HHG Tuesday morning.

Navigating a Sloppy NFL

In the last couple years, we’ve seen a few different iterations of a related talking point take hold in fantasy circles: analysts have said we’re living in an era of ‘haves’ and ‘have nots,’ analysts have discussed the degree to which more passive, zone-heavy defenses focused on disrupting explosives (it’s not just the ‘Cover 2 shell’) has changed the game and how that impacts fantasy, and we’ve had plenty of discourse on the degree to which sharp play-callers i.e. the “McSshanny Scams” have separated themselves from the pack to such a degree that it’s deeply distorted our ability to evaluate QB play numerically. And of course, it’s a common theme in my columns and tweets to take umbrage with coaches who hemorrhage win equity over the course of a game and season with sub-optimal game management decisions, often by being too ‘conservative.’ (I actually hate this terminology, because there is nothing inherently conservative about making sub-optimal decisions in a binary game — 99% of football games end in a win or a loss, and decisions that made in order to lose by fewer points aren’t ‘conserving’ shit. I don’t think Edmund Burke had particularly developed opinions regarding punting on 4th and 1.)

Because I’m anything but a paragon of objectivity on Sunday afternoon as I tilt the days’ games — especially the ones which most impact my main event matchups — the degree to which I’m bothered by given coaching lapses generally correlates with whether they hurt me financially. But don’t take my descriptive or forward-looking commentary as any attempt to absolve myself of some takes that aren’t going as well as I’d hoped through two weeks. When we draft a player, for better or worse we are to some degree drafting their quarterback, their offensive line, their coaches, and — from a DFS or start/sit perspective — their opponent. When you take a chance on a player in a situation perceived to be poor, you get the upside of the market being wrong (see: 2022 Texans, 2023 Saints thus far), but you certainly don’t get to complain when all the Panthers who were priced down because of Bryce Young are un-usable in fantasy because their weekly performance is on par with a directional FCS school in College Football ‘25.

I don’t want to sound like a total downer: the Chiefs-Bengals game was legitimately enjoyable (though the Refs involved themselves far more than I’d have liked), and we had some incredible performances from the Saints, Cardinals, and others. But between a ton of injuries to star players, and some other factors I’m going to hit on below, strong game environments for fantasy production are hard to come by.

Pass Rate Nash Equilibrium?

Let’s start with the in-vogue discussion topic: the NFL’s collapsing pass rate / PROE. TLDR: over the last decade, a bunch of nerds started yelling on twitter about how much more efficient passing was than running, NFL teams eventually started to listen, and the NFL became more fun to watch than it had ever been about 3-6 years ago. However, defenses naturally adjusted to this, effectively punted the run-stuffing middle linebacker into the history books, and adopted more athletic base-packages, stocked with versatile back seven players who can hold up in coverage, in conjunction with deep zone shells to prevent explosives over the top. Naturally, one counter to this from an offensive perspective is go back to the run-game now that the efficiency-gap between running and passing has narrowed, and teams have done that. Mina Kimes pointed out that NFL defenses played two-high safeties at a 60% rate in Week 1, an increase from 38.4% five years prior, and correspondingly, NFL-wide PROE hit -3.8% — an increase compared to -1.3% even just one year prior.

I’m curious if the NFL has reached something resembling a Nash equilibrium; a game theory concept that describes the point at which two competing parties achieve the most optimal strategy, irrespective of their opponents’ approach. The issue with a Nash Equilibrium is that it tends not to be much fun. (see: solver-based Poker)

Take for example the famous ‘prisoner’s dilemma, in which two conspirators to a crime are being questioned separately by police and have the chance to either say nothing, or confess to both their own and their partner’s misdeeds in exchange for a plea deal. The following hypothetical scenarios apply:

• 1) A confesses; B does not: A receives 1 years in prison, B gets 10 years

• 2) B confesses, A does not: B receives 1 year in prison, A gets 10 years

• 3) Both confess: Both receive 5 years in prison

• 4) Neither confess: Both receive 2 years in prison

The paradox of this ‘dilemma’ is that the best mutual outcome is option 4, since the total years in prison is 4 (vs. 11 or 10). However, if you look at each party’s set of outcomes individually, confessing is the best choice irrespective of what the other party chooses to do. If B confesses, A gets 5 years if they confess, and 10 if they don’t. If B doesn’t confess, A gets 1 year if they do, and 2 years if they don’t. There’s no scenario in which A winds up in a more favourable position holding their tongue instead of confessing. (The same applies in the reverse of course)

Therefore, each party acting in their own self interest eliminates the possibility of the most mutually beneficial outcome. As we’ve seen offenses and defenses act more rationally, it’s squeezed out the opportunities for exploitative play lighting up the scoreboard.

Quarterbacks are Bad Now

Naturally, the NFL passing nirvana period coincided with a period in which much of the previous generation of QBs — Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Phillip Rivers, Aaron Rodgers, Ben Roethlisberger, Russell Wilson, Matt Ryan etc. — were all still slinging the pill, and were being joined and/or succeeded by an exciting group of young passers who were dynamite both in real life, and for the fantasy value of their teammates: Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, redacted Texans QB, etc.

That generation has now aged out, or is on their last legs in much diminished form, and the new generation of QBs have been a bit of a mixed bag. C.J. Stroud and — when healthy — Jordan Love strike me as the most likely candidates to be a ‘put the team on my back’ type pocket passer, though it’s worth noting that even their play callers don’t consistently treat them like it, relying on the run game to a somewhat irritating degree. Other QBs like Brock Purdy and Tua Tagovailoa (whose career has been intermittently and currently put on pause due to incredibly unfortunate concussions) are clearly quality starters, but limited physically, to the point that it seems justifiable their play-callers have constructed a bumpers-up offense around them, which does hold the pass-rate down a touch, despite their efficiency. Then we have Lamar Jackson, and to a lesser extent Jalen Hurts and Kyler Murray, who are clearly capable of leading dynamic NFL offenses, but their tendency to monopolize drop backs with their own scrambling, plus their usage in the designed run-game, does impact the ceiling of their WRs at the margins.

I don’t really know where Trevor Lawrence fits into all this, and I don’t think he does either.

But the far bigger issue than any of the names listed above are the other two groups of QBs we have: one is the group of Lamar Jackson tribute bands — Jayden Daniels, Anthony Richardson, Justin Fields — who are exciting young players with plug and play fantasy value in their own right, but who massively deflate the value of the players around them, since they’re such skilled rushers, but very much works in progress as passers. And then we have a lot of starting QBs who flat out suck. At this point I think it’s overwhelmingly likely that Bryce Young simply can’t play football, but I wouldn’t be shocked if we’re subjected to him for the rest of this year and perhaps even one more after given the level of organizational investment in him. The hook will surely be shorter on Will Levis, but it’s become increasingly clear that he’s not it. Bo Nix has been absolutely dreadful in his first two starts — I’m a long ways from writing him off, but we are talking about a guy who was probably a Round 2 level prospect, got over-drafted, and is in deeply over his head at this moment. It might not get better for a while.

Teams are — correctly — being more aggressive in how they approach the QB position organizationally. They know how important the position is, how important it is to hit ceiling at the position, and how beneficial it is if you can hit that ceiling on the rookie contract, and so we see teams taking QBs earlier (see: Bo Nix, Micheal Penix), giving more young QBs an opportunity in spots we’d have more often seen retreads in the past (see: Sam Howell and Desmond Ridder last year), and taking shots on more athletic QB archetypes or statistical profiles with premium capital (Trey Lance, Anthony Richardson, Will Levis, Jayden Daniels)

This is one area in which we as fantasy players are being disadvantaged by teams acting rationally. The 32 QBs we see starting games each week are not the best 32 teams in the NFL. And they are even further from the best 32 QBs in the NFL for the fantasy production of their skill players.

For instance, consider that Gardner Minshew helped secure us elite performances from both Davante Adams and Brock Bowers today. Does it make any sense at all that the Raiders are effectively using this season as a fast forward button to 2025 by rolling out a journey man with zero chance to be the long term answer? Absolutely not. But I for one am grateful they’re doing it anyhow. A more rational organization would have taken a shot on Justin Fields, started Aidan O’Connell, or thrown a dart at Spencer Rattler. But any of those alternatives likely result in more run plays to protect the development of the QB, more drop backs being sacrificed to a sack or scramble, and far less cardio from Brock Bowers victory laps.

I put out a tweet today asking how many teams would be better environments at this moment in time for the fantasy production of their own skill players and those of the opposing team if we put Joe Flacco or Andy Dalton at QB. I went to the trouble (masochistic satisfaction) of counting, and I got to 11: Dolphins*, Steelers, Browns, Colts, Titans, Broncos, Commanders, Giants, Bears, Packers*, Panthers.

These problems just compound when you add on some of the coaching we’re seeing. I’m going to pick on Sean Payton here because he’s not the most sympathetic figure, and because I had to watch Justin Fields sit on 13 fantasy points for an entire half, as the Steelers chose to opt out of offensive football, content with their 13-point lead.

Sean Payton’s Very Bad, No Good Day

Sean Payton had four possessions that reached or began in the 4th-quarter today, starting down 13-0. The results were ... something.

On possession 1, Payton passed up a 4th and 6 from the 16 with 10:45 remaining in favour of a FG to make it 13-3: in exchange for giving up the ball, his team went from needing two TDs to take the lead, to needing two TDs to take the lead.

Fortunately for Payton, he did get the ball back quickly. However, he chose this time to punt on a 4th and 8 from his own 33 with 7:57 remaining: effectively locking himself into a best case scenario of getting the ball back with about five and a half minutes remaining, down two possessions. He’d need his defense to get a stop whether he punted or his offense missed on 4th down to keep the game within two possessions — so effectively Payton decided on the second straight possession that being down 10 instead of (maybe) 13 was worth not having the ball and losing two+ minutes of game time.

He did get the ball back, and n Possession 3 Payton faced a 4th and 5 at the 11 with 1:55 remaining. Once again, he chose the path of the foot, making it 13-6, and foregoing a chance to play to win in regulation (and to need only a FG on his potential next drive). #ExtendTheGame

And then… most maddeningly… possession 4 started with 9 seconds left in the game [it ended in an INT]. Why is that? Because Payton had only 1 timeout remaining when he kicked the previous FG, which meant the Steelers could take almost all the time off the clock with three runs. And Payton chose not to attempt an onside kick! This was effectively hitting the ‘forfeit game’ button while down 7. Of course by this point the game was almost certainly lost anyhow, but it was truly the most incomprehensible surrender call I’ve ever seen in an NFL game.

[As a sharp commenter on twitter pointed out to me, the most optimal choice for Payton was probably to kick the FG prior to the two-minute warning on the previous drive so he’d have a chance to get the ball back down 7 with a minute left without recovering the onside kick]

In any event, the result of Payton’s cowardice — coupled with Bo Nix playing quite badly all game — was that the Steelers — led by Arthur Smith — attempted 3 passes in the final 24 minutes of the game (one was completed, for 5 yards). I don’t have to like it, but — as he’ll happily tell you — it’s not Arthur Smith’s job to help Justin Fields and George Pickens fantasy managers. The thing is, there are games Smith has lost by going so conservative on offense he leaves the game to variance and loses at the end, and there are games he’s won where I think he’s still let things stay unnecessarily close. This wasn’t one of those games — this was a game Sean Payton loudly announced he had no interest in trying to win, and the Steelers merely complied. Kent State showed more fight by refusing the referees’ suggestion to play the 2nd half with a running clock after Tenneseee went up 65-0 in two quarters than Payton’s Broncos did this Sunday. It was shameful, and naturally — if you wanted fantasy production from any member of this game, it was painful to experience.

Passive vs. Incompetent

A different situation than Payton’s gross negligence was what happened in Indianapolis-Green Bay today. The Packers won 16-10, with Malik Willis attempting just 14 passes. Of course, at the best of times the Packers are one of the bright spots of the fantasy landscape — which we saw from a 63-point total in their week 1 shoot out vs. the Eagles. But for this week they were starting Willis, who came into this game with a career high of 99 yards passing in three previous starts (he beat that today with 122 !!!). As you’d expect, the Packers came out extremely run-heavy, and piled up 235 rush yards in the first half — not a typo.

*I will keep my thoughts on Gus Bradley’s defense to myself at this time*

The result of the Packers ball dominance was that the Colts’ offense basically didn’t participate in the first 30 minutes of this game — they had 6 minutes and 55 seconds of possession in the first half, and just 1 minute 43 seconds in the first 18 minutes.

One great irony of this game was that the Colts themselves ran for 7.8 yards per carry in this game, and if the early sequencing of this game went in a different direction it’s not that hard to imagine how we could have seen this game in reverse. But for fantasy, much of the same would have resulted.

Anthony Richardson clearly has more passing upside than Malik Willis — he’s fresh off a game with three 50+ yard completions. But his feel for the game and short-to-intermediate accuracy is a long ways away from where it needs to be. He’s not the type of QB to matriculate the ball down the field in comeback mode.

Both of these offenses were totally one dimensional, and to the extent they’d have success through the air, that success would largely depend on shot plays against run-focused defenses. The Packers happened to grab the early lead, played passive defense, and were content to sit on the ball, let the Colts run at-will between the 20s, and dared them to play mistake-free football to complete their comeback — they did not.

Once again, this was an example of “conservative” coaching that was actually just rational coaching. Matt Lafleur knew he had a narrow path to take this game with Willis at QB, one that largely depended on shortening the total amount of plays in the game (there were only 120 from scrimmage, despite a ton of hurry-up offense from the Colts), and hoping to ride a combination of favourable variance and schematic wizardry in the run-game to the win column.

This was unfortunately the perspective of coaches across many of the winning teams in the NFL today. In addition to the Steelers and Packers, the Chargers have gone full boomer in each of their two wins — the first of which I’d argue was only as close as it was because they allowed it to remain so, and today’s 26-3 romp over the Panthers, who are effectively a second bye week.

The Buccaneers attempted 7 passes in the 2nd half (though there some sacks and scrambles), despite Baker Mayfield averaging 9.7 YPA, largely content to let the Lions turn the ball over repeatedly in comeback mode.

The Browns were somewhat aggressive, with 34 pass attempts, given they were playing from ahead all game in the rain. But they just aren’t good enough on offense for it to matter.

The Jets were balanced on the surface, but played excruciatingly slowly, and Rodgers threw 40% of his passes to RBs.

The Giants-Commanders game was close the entire way — Washington scored exactly a Field Goal on every drive — but both teams were largely content to play coin-flip game to the last possession, with just 120 total plays and neither team breaching 30 pass attempts.

One team who played cowardly all game from ahead and was actually burned by it was the New England Patriots — who tried to sit on the ball for most of the game, including a drive with 6 runs and a sack that resulted in a missed-FG to go up 6 in the 4th quarter. The Seahawks tied the game, and the Patriots deferred two 4th and shorts to try and win the game near their own 40. The 4th-and-1 punt on their first drive of overtime — when Seattle would need only a field goal to win coming back the other way (which they got) — was quite bad. This is an example where the same factors which influence an underdog to run the ball and shorten the game actually influence you to be more aggressive in spots like this: you’re the inferior team, so it benefits you to put the game on one play (or closer to it) than a longer sample. Credit to Seattle for slinging it — Geno Smith was terrific today against a strong defense, and I’m counting this team as one of the ‘haves’ so far.

The number one offender of counter-intuitive conservativeness is the Houston Texans. They’ve been decidedly the better side in each of their two games thus far, but both have been far closer than necessary. Last week, I pointed out a spot where Demeco Ryans had his team with the ball and over two-and-a-half minutes remaining in the second quarter, and wound up not even attempting a field goal due to a bunch of early-drive runs and poor clock management at the tail end, where they seemed far more pre-occupied with making sure the Colts didn’t get another drive, than simply trying to score a TD with one of the league’s best passing games.

This week they settled for long field goals all night (which to his credit, Kai’imi Fairbairn refuses to miss), and burned a lot of chances to put the game out of reach late with doomed early-down runs. The Bears actually got the ball back with 1:37 left down 6. They did nothing with it, but this was a game Houston could have lost, when I’m pretty sure they could have won by three scores if they really tried to.

The Texans are frustrating because unlike the Malik Willis Packers or Patriots, this team is good enough that the truly conservative thing to do would be to play as high-event a game as possible. The Texans should be playing fast and dropping back constantly, under the presumption that the gap between them and their opponent is more likely to manifest in a game with more inputs.

As an example, imagine you’re playing tournament DFS: if you’re an elite player with a positive expected value on almost every entry, you want to be playing as many slates as possible all season long, to give yourself as many chances as possible for your edge to be realized. If you’re a casual player, you’re probably more likely to be profitable playing as little as possible and just hoping to get lucky once in a random game.

Right now there simply aren’t enough teams in the NFL who are competent enough offensively that they want to reduce variance through ‘aggression.’ And some of the teams that should aren’t recognizing that.

All this to say that while I think some teams are simply playing the hand they’re dealt, others are playing sub-optimally, and all of these different elements — both rational and irrational — are resulting in games with one incompetent team, and another team just pressing ‘accelerate clock’ until the buzzer sounds.

In fact, I made a tier-list that I’ll update periodically through the season that I put at the bottom of this column.

Actionable Takeaways

I promise there is also some level of actionable content from all this that’s not just an airing of grievances. The big key to me (looking forward) is that when it comes to start-sit decisions at any position we want to be quite mindful of not just that player’s own team, but the game environment they’re walking into.

Teams like the Chargers might be a total nightmare to deal with, where their defense appears somewhere between capable to good, and their offense — with Justin Herbert at QB and JK Dobbins finding his form on the ground — is competent enough to sustain drives despite playing in the mesozoic era. It works well enough for Dobbins (though you’d still probably rather he played on a more dynamic offense for TD and receiving upside), but it’s going to be quite hard to trust any pass catcher or Herbert, and it’s probably a universal downgrade for any player who goes up against them given what a drag they’ll be on play volume.

And if we keep seeing matchups between awful teams and teams who need to be pushed to create fantasy value, those will often result in disappointing fantasy performances from whomever fails to catch fire early.

From a DFS perspective, I’m curious if we see better returns from strategies that were typically reserved for ultra-small fields. If half the games are going to be complete write-offs every week, and you happen to pick the one game between two teams who are competent and wind up pushing one another, maybe a 5 or 6 player game stack gets you all the way to first more frequently than usual. Similarly, I think I’ll be fairly comfortable fading chalk pieces at a median-projection value when they show up in games I’m not looking to prioritize from an environment perspective — this is always true of my play but especially so this year.

And lastly — I think you probably need to take some of this stuff more seriously in dynasty than we have before, or least than I have before. I’m going to do a pretty big rankings edit this week, and one shift I plan to make is really trying to dial up the ranks on anyone who looks set to spend their time with a coach I believe in long term. I don’t have enough time in this already long ‘intro’ column to go all the way into it, but I think one of the biggest ways the best play callers separate themselves right now moreso than their pass rate, is the degree to which they’re able to scheme the ball to their best players.

Kevin O’Connell went into a game down his 2nd and 3rd best pass catcher, and Justin Jefferson went for 7-4-133-1 in less than 3 full quarters. Brian Daboll Randy Ratio’d his way to a 67% target share for Malik Nabers (the Giants are bad but I maintain it’s not his fault, and thus far he’s even exceeding my expectations for his role). Matt LaFleur continually helped come up with creative set ups for Josh Jacobs runs — even when the whole stadium knew he was getting the ball most of the day. Of course the players deserve some or even most of the credit for these lines, but the two things are working in concert.

We have enough of a sample on some players that I’m pretty confident in their skill level, and if a close game goes by where they hardly touch the ball, I’m going to blame the coaching staff more than the player. Defenses are doing a better and better job of taking away the most dangerous plays — and the most dangerous play-makers. Some coaches react to that by accepting easy completions to Mike Gesicki, Brenton Strange, or Deandre Carter. Others find ways to dictate terms, by getting the players they want with the ball in their hands in the matchups they want. If we’re betting on a player to be a superstar in dynasty, we want them paired up with a coach who is willing to use them as such, and do so in an efficient manner.

Alright — that’s enough blabbing: here are your fun rating team tiers.

Fun Tiers

*Not ordered within tier

*Based on fun-level for teams own skill players and the effect of their offensive approach on opposing teams’ skill players

Tier 1 — Always Fun

Dallas Cowboys

Tier 2 — Can Be Fun, Will Press the Pedal if Pushed

Philadelphia Eagles

Detroit Lions

Kansas City Chiefs

Baltimore Ravens

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

San Francisco 49ers

Houston Texans

Seattle Seahawks

Buffalo Bills

Tier 3 — Theoretically Fun, Not Sure They’re Good Enough to Be

Cincinnatti Bengals

Jacksonville Jaguars

Atlanta Falcons

Los Angeles Rams

Tier 4 — Might Be Fun, Haven’t Been Pushed Enough Yet

New Orleans Saints

Minnesota Vikings

Arizona Cardinals

Tier 5 - Sometimes Try to be fun, Not Good

Las Vegas Raiders

Cleveland Browns

Tier 6 — Fun for the QB, Not for Anyone Else

Indianapolis Colts

Washington Commanders

Tier 7 — Addicted to Being Boring

Los Angeles Chargers

Pittsburgh Steelers

New York Jets

Tier 8 — Not Good, Not Fun

Tennessee Titans

New York Giants (Malik Nabers rocks though)

Tier 9 — Relegation

Chicago Bears

Denver Broncos

New England Patriots

Carolina Panthers

Injury Exceptions

Miami Dolphins

Green Bay Packers