Week 11 Hitchhiker's Guide

Hi folks, Let’s hop right into it. As usual I’ll run through some of the top storylines and uncertain workloads, followed by my streamer stock watch ranking.

Metrics Legend:

From Pro Football Focus

PFF Grade / PFF Rushing Grade = Qualitative Film Grade assigned by Pro Football Focus

Snaps, Routes, and Carries data provided by Nathan Jahnke

From NFL NextGen Stats

RYOE/A = Rush Yards over Expectation per Attempt (NFL Next Gen Stats)

ROE% = Percentage of Rushes over Expectation (NFL Next Gen Stats)

From the FantasyPoints Data Suite

YAC/A = Yards After Contact per Attempt

YBC/A = Yards Before Contact per Attempt

MTF/A = Missed Tackles Forced per Attempt

EXP%: Percentage of rushes of 15+ yards

YPRR: Yards per Route Run [from PFF in previous seasons]

TPRR: Targets per Route Run [from PFF in previous seasons]

Other Terminology

HVT: High Value Touches (receptions and carries inside the 10)

LDD: Long Down and Distance situations — 3rd and 5+

2MD: Two-Minute Drill

TreVeyon’s Arrival

We’ll be back here next week breaking down our expected touch share between Stevenson and Henderson assuming the former returns from injury and I don’t want to go over everything twice. But I have some macro-lens stuff I want to get to. For what it’s worth, I’d back Henderson as the higher scoring back rest-of-season with reaosnable confidence, though I am under no illusion that Stevenson won’t play. Something in the range of 55-45 or 60-40 seems reasonable, or even a 50-50 with Henderson scoring better due to his receiving and big play upside.

My first tangent is pretty unoriginal but I just frustrated by how often we have to go through this cycle in this space with rookies. There is a large group of analysts who seem to be actively hostile toward conviction in talent. So they just formulate their takes based on whatever is happening in the moment, what the coach speak says, or what the workload projects to be. If you are always providing analysis with a tail wind it’s hard to look bad in the moment, but I’m not sure how much value you’re providing for your followers, readers, or listeners.

What I take pride on in this substack, or on Dynasty Points, is that I will not always give you the popular view. But I am transparent about my process, why I feel the way I do at a given moment, and when or how that view changes. You don’t always have to do agree with my view and I’m certainly not always correct. But I hope that I’m clear-eyed in where I’m coming from, providing a well-reasoned opinon, and most importantly providing you what I actually believe. While I of course don’t always agree with my co-hosts on Dynasty Points or with my other frequent collaborators, I earnestly believe each of them offers you a mix of conviction in their own beliefs, while always acknowledging uncertainty and falability.

What is frustrating to me is not that people are wrong. I’m frequently wrong. But I get frustrated by the apparent double-standard in this industry about acceptable and unacceptable misses. You don’t see a lot of tweets dunking on Chuba Hubbard drafters this year. But when rookies fail, we see it constantly, and it’s espeically funny when things turn around so dramatically before the season is even finished. Have we watched an NFL season before?

I’m not saying Henderson’s arc was inevitable of course. As a counter-example you can look at Kaleb Johnson who seemingly has little chance of being a meaningful contributor this year. Or you can look to Travis Hunter who was trending upward into the mid-season, but rather than benefitting from a teammate injury he suffered a season-ending injury himself, and now we’ll never get to find out if he’d have had a second-half breakout or not.

But acting like Henderson’s recent swing upward is unforseeable or purely fortunate is a failure of imgination, and a poor understanding of macro-trends.

A rookie running back playing poorly on a limited number of snaps in the early is quite common. Go back just two years ago and check out the discourse over the first six weeks of Jahmyr Gibbs’ season. It’s also common that said rookie will start to play more in line with their college profile.

I’ve written about Henderson almost every week in this column and while I acknowledged that he was not playing at the level I’d hoped he would in the early-season, I consistently stated that we should still prioritize the longer view of what he was in college compared to a small number of snaps in the NFL. We got our first peak into Henderson’s improvement in Week 8, when he was unleashed on a bevy of outside runs and turned in a 10-75 performance alongside Rhamondre Stevenson. We’ll never know what happened behind the scenes, but Henderson saw two carries on the team’s first drive — which went for 30 yards. I’d estimate he started to turn a corner in practice that week and was rewarded with a re-integration into the game plan which he immediately paid off.

After that, Henderson’s fantasy managers got lucky with Stevenson missing the next three weeks. I’m not obtuse. I’m not telling you he’d have scored 24 PPG the last three weeks if that injury did not occur.

But a running back missing three weeks with injury is not an unforseeable or shocking outcome. We can’t predict exactly how good fortune will manifest or when, but we know that the NFL season is chaotic, and a huge way to generate upside on your teams is to target players who can benefit from and maximize chaotic events that break in their favour (i.e. “anti-fragile” profiles).

While Henderson’s explosion the last three weeks would not have occured with an injury, I also think it’s fair to say that not all backs could have taken as much advantage of this opportunity as he did. Henderson’s profile mixes several ceiling raising elements:

• Pedigree: top-40 pick who then team will be anxious to show case if given a reason to

• Pass-catching

• Talent — particularly as a breakaway runner

We saw all three of these elements contribute to Henderson’s ceiling. He’s caught 10 balls (including a TD). His skillset and pedigree allowed him to work up to a near every-snap role this week. And he unlocked a massive ceiling in Week 10 from two breakaway runs that several starting backs in the NFL would have converted into large chunk plays, but not week-winning TDs.

Lastly, just as it was not inevitable that the last three weeks would go this well, it was also not inevitable that the start would be this slow. People act like what did happen was the only thing that could have happened, but it was within the range of outcomes that we saw an immediate ascension from Henderson as we did with Cam Skattebo for example. The goal in making the pick is not to prescribe exactly what will unfold, but to make a bet on a profile you believe in and let the chips fall from there.

The last thing I’ll touch on here is a format distinction. In a home league redraft if you’re telling me that Henderson was over-priced I’m faily sympathetic to that view. The early season production matters a ton in that format, and you also get the benefit of being able to possibly trade for rookies if they under-perform to start the season.

In Best Ball Mania though, we are not even through Round 1 yet in a four round tournament. Henderson is currently at a slight positive advance rate (though it will likely be negative after this week given he’s played in the only game of record so far). If the split is what I expect for the next two weeks, he’ll probably in neutral-ish at the close of Round 1. From a purely descriptive lens, if you’re telling me I can draft a neutral advance rate player in Round 1 who is rapidly ascending into Rounds 2, 3 and 4… that’s a smash! It doesn’t always work out this cleanly (and of course we don’t know yet how Henderson will actually perform in the playoff weeks) but this is the exact kind of play we are trying to chase to take advantage of the unique elements of this format.

I know I harp on the fact that best ball commentary is too similar to redraft commentary all of the time, but it’s hard not to conclude there is still meat on the bone seeing the way Henderson is talked about in best ball circles (and the way advance rate is talked about overall).

Projecting the Broncos Backfield