#Trendspotting: Week 15 - Footballguys

Photo: USA Today Sports

Reader's Guide

As you read, you may run into some colors in the text. Blue text is a good matchup for that team's offensive players. Red text is a bad matchup. Some other key items are below:

• All red/blue highlighting in tables is relative to the entire NFL, even when showing only a limited number of teams.
• All reference to fantasy points assumes DraftKings scoring rules unless otherwise specified.
• All stats reference the full 2018 season unless otherwise specified.

This week, we'll discuss the following topics:

• Tempo, Tempo, Tempo
• Going Deep
• Stocking Stuffers
• Looks Can Be Deceiving
• Fantasy Points Allowed Cheat Sheet

Tempo, Tempo, Tempo

How fast teams play is an often-overlooked piece of fantasy analysis and projections. If teams play fast, they give their players more chances for production. Because offenses have more control over tempo than defenses, we'll look at the fastest offenses and how fast the offense of their Week 15 opponent plays.

Note: the pace rankings here are based on neutral situations, so end-game situations that would increase or decrease pace due to factors beyond a team's general preference have been excluded.

Both columns show offensive tempo rankings. 

Commentary and Action Items

As you can see in the top-right of the table, Pittsburgh's offense has the ninth-fastest tempo in neutral situations, so this week features two matchups of top-nine pace teams.

The other high-paced matchup is Baltimore vs. Tampa Bay. Baltimore's offense has been run-focused since Lamar Jackson became the starter, but run-heavy doesn't always correlate with low-tempo. Despite running on 59.1% of neutral script plays, the highest percentage in the NFL, Baltimore runs a play every 29.6 seconds, the fourth-fastest neutral script pace of play.

Tampa Bay runs an offensive play every 29.8 seconds, the sixth-fastest neutral script pace of play. They also allow far more production in road games than they do at home. The following table was shown in this week's Rent-a-Quarterback column. If you're unfamiliar, check it out.

Tampa Bay is a more attractive matchup to passing games than running games, which might suggest that Jackson isn't the type of quarterback capable of exploiting the matchup. The other side of that coin is that Tampa Bay's inability to stop opposing passers only helps to raise Jackson's ceiling. Baltimore has made it clear that they are going to do things their way. But as key third down and other passing situations occur, Jackson should have an easier time converting than he has in some of his other matchups this season.

Between the ability to produce fantasy points via the run and the opposing defense's weaknesses helping to sustain drives, Jackson's ceiling is higher than ever this week. Unless late-week rumors suggest Joe Flacco will have a significant role, don't be afraid to play Jackson this week.

At this point, the bigger reason for concern with Jackson is in-game injury, not Flacco's involvement. Jackson is a QB1 in season-long formats, someone you could start over Aaron Rodgers this week. In DFS, he's a GPP play because the injury risk is real, and there are more attractive options at the same price (Tom Brady) or cheaper (Dak Prescott).

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Going Deep

For this section, a "deep attempt" is a pass 15 or more yards downfield. All numbers shown are over the last five weeks.

"Att/Gm." = deep pass attempts per game
"Deep%" = the percentage of passes that are deep attempts

Commentary

Since Week 10:

• Buffalo attempts a deep pass on 9.1% of its attempts, the highest percentage in the NFL.
• Detroit faces a deep pass on 10.0% of attempts against, the highest percentage.
• Robert Foster has an average depth-of-target (aDOT) of 24.3 yards (on 19 targets), tied for first in the NFL among players with at least six targets in that span.
• Foster has two 100-yard games in his last four and is the WR24 in PPR scoring since Week 12 (Josh Allen's return and the first game after the team's bye week).
• The Rams attempt 2.5 deep passes per game, eighth-most in the NFL.
• Philadelphia faces 3.1 deep attempts per game, most in the NFL.
• Over the last five weeks, the Rams receivers have the following aDOTs: Robert Woods - 12.9 yards (38 targets), Brandin Cooks - 11.8 yards (37 targets), Josh Reynolds - 11.7 (20 targets).

Very few season-long players want any part of the Buffalo duo mentioned above. But if it were Week 9 with six teams on a bye week instead of Week 15 with a bunch of players injured, Allen would be a Rent-a-Quarterback QB1 candidate while Foster would be a "what the heck flex" at worst.

Foster could reasonably be projected anywhere from WR30 to WR60. For fantasy GMs who feel they need upside, he's worth a shot over players like Mohamed Sanu, Quincy Enunwa, Donte Moncrief, and Randall Cobb, all of whom are project ahead of Foster by the great David Dodds at the time of this publication.

For the record, David is the best at projections. But when we get to a 9.7-point projection vs. a 10.4, it's important to remember how razor-thin that margin is. Think of how players profile, how their range of outcomes can vary, and make your decision based on that. For example, Moncrief is projected at 9.4 while Foster is 8.7. Moncrief has a floor around 3 points and a ceiling not much higher than 12-14. Foster, meanwhile, has a floor closer to his projection with a ceiling higher due to his deep ball ability and emerging role in the offense.

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Stocking Stuffers

Here are some tidbits found on Twitter this week with some advice/analysis on what to do with the information for your Week 15 fantasy contests and matchups. In the spirit of the holiday season, consider these miscellaneous-yet-unrelated gifts, a la the kind that would go in your Christmas stocking.

Buffalo Bombers

We mentioned the Allen-Foster combo in the section above, and Rotoworld's Evan Silva tweeted some interesting numbers about them earlier this week. Are they due to regress, or is this a hot streak to ride?

#Bills QB Josh Allen has more rushing yards in the last 2 weeks than he had in his entire senior year at Wyoming.#Bills WR Robert Foster has more receiving yards over his last 9 games than he had in his 4-year career at Alabama.

— Evan Silva (@evansilva) December 10, 2018

It's not only deep passes where Detroit has been a friendly matchup. Detroit ranks 29th (fourth-easiest matchup) vs. quarterbacks in Normalized Strength of Schedule (NSoS) over the last five weeks and 31st vs. wide receivers in the same metric.

Denver Dynamics

The Broncos are not a must-watch offense, but they are an intriguing combination of youth, excitement, and accessibility. In terms of "accessibility," it's in the form of cheap DFS prices or season-long waiver wire availability. First, the running back situation:

In Week 14, Phillip Lindsay played a season-high 65% of the snaps, and that was with a healthy Royce Freeman in the lineup.

— John Paulsen (@4for4_John) December 10, 2018

Denver is a home favorite, which should always raise our antennae. And Cleveland hasn't been the most difficult rushing matchup lately. Let's take a more detailed look at the Denver running back usage: