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The Top 10 from Week 4

Matt Waldman's The Top 10 from Week 4
By Matt Waldman, September 26, 2023

The Top 10 from Week 4
Photo: USA Today Sports

MISSION

The mission of this column—and a lot of my work—is to bridge the gap between the fantasy and reality of football analysis. Football analysis—fantasy and reality—is often dramatized because there's a core belief that it's more important to entertain than to educate.

Why not both?

Whoever said it's better to be lucky than good did not understand the value of the process. Being good generates luck.

The goal of this feature is to give you actionable recommendations that will help you get results, but the fundamental mission is to get the process right. It's a rush to see the box score or highlights and claim you made the right calls. Without a sustainable process, success is ephemeral.

The Top 10 will cover topics that attempt to get the process right (reality) while understanding that fantasy owners may not have time to wait for the necessary data to determine the best course of action (fantasy).

My specialty is film analysis. I've been scouting the techniques, concepts, and physical skills of offensive skill talent as my business for nearly 20 years.

The Top 10 will give you fantasy-oriented insights rooted in football analysis, making the Rookie Scouting Portfolio one of the two most purchased independent draft guides among NFL scouts. This is what SMU's Director of Recruiting Alex Brown has told me based on his weekly visits with scouts during his tenure in Dallas as well as his stints at Rice and Houston.

Sigmund Bloom's Waiver Wire piece, which is available Monday nights during the season, is also a good source of information to begin your week as a fantasy GM. Bloom and I are not always going to agree on players—he errs more often toward players who flash elite athletic ability, and I err more toward players who are more technically skilled and assignment-sound.

STRAIGHT, NO CHASER: WEEK 3'S CLIFF'S NOTES

This week, I'll be examining a lot of players who should be on your Waiver Wire Rolodex. Are you young enough to wonder what a Rolodex is? It's the precursor to your smartphone's contact list, and after your fantasy drafts, it's wise to build a preliminary list of free agents who have the talent, depth chart spot, and/or offensive scheme to deliver fantasy value for your rosters if and when an opportunity arises.

The article below will provide expanded thoughts and supporting visuals for the following points. I always provide bullet points for those lacking the time to see the tape examples and expanded commentary.

Let's roll...

1. De'Von Achane's Debut and Miami's Ground Game

Football takes notice when a rookie running back's debut (not counting the handful of opportunities in Week 2) is a 22-touch, 4-touchdown romp through an NFL defense that averages 11.3 yards per carry. Take speed, this gaudy debut, and add it to an inventive scheme, and DeVon Achane is the hottest name in fantasy football.

While Achane (pronounced A-Chan) is a good rookie with a scouting profile the Rookie Scouting Portfolio (RSP) compared to an aspirational Warrick Dunn or what LaMichael James would have looked like in this era (a period that his career just missed), the real story is Achane's fit with the Dolphins. Let's begin with the Achane angle and work our way to the scheme.

The RSP's Elevate Pitch on Achane is a good starting point for what we saw on Sunday against the Broncos:

Achane is a straight-line runner with some bend and cutting ability who thrives off quickness and speed. He finishes with good pad level to work through reaches and he gets skinny through creases to find open lanes. On first impression, he didn’t appear as either a powerful or creative runner despite his athletic gifts.

As I got deeper into his tape, it became clearer that Achane has enough power to generate some yards after contact between the tackles with the combination of his lower-body strength, burst, pad level, and effort. I also began to see a creative runner who can pair 3-4 moves in succession to maximize gains within the scope of the play design.

Achane will likely begin his career as a change-of-pace runner who also earns a game plan of selected schemed plays to leverage his speed. If he can prove he’s a worthwhile contributor in a backfield who can hold up at his size, he could expand his role as a key part of a committee and deliver fantasy value.

If he can’t hold up during his first contract, his value may fade to that of a journeyman kick return and passing-down specialist who is considered an on-call reserve and/or occasional gadget in an offense.

Pre-draft, I saw Achane's best fit in an offense that incorporates a lot of reads from Pistol or Shotgun and spreads the field while running zone or gap blocking, or as a change-of-pace runner in an offense that uses a lead fullback or H-Back.

Miami incorporates all of these elements in its ground game and turbo boosts it with Tyreek Hill, Jalen Waddle, Raheem Mostert, and occasionally Robbie Chosen. All four of these players could be the fastest options on most other teams, and Miami usually has at least three of them on the field together.

Counting Achane, you have an unheard-of number of world-class speedsters with legitimate football skills on the field at the same time. It affords Mike McDaniels the opportunity to simultaneously stretch the field horizontally and vertically in ways no offense has been able to do in the NFL.

The rest of the post: "No way to simulate all that speed in practice. Virtually impossible to prepare for."

Because of the surplus of speed and skill on the field, Achane and Mostert are benefitting from even greater man-on-man box advantages than D'Andre Swift earned last week against the Eagles.

In addition to inventive alignments that place box defenders in binds, it creates even more opportunities for creative play. Many have said that aspects of offensive football will evolve into the quick-touch and open-field elements we see in basketball and soccer. No-look shovel passes have that feel, even if this is more of a half-court environment.

Although these inventive elements of the Dolphins' offense add sizzle to Achane's fantasy potential, he's not a fad. While he's at his best working outside, he runs with the pad level and contact balance to exploit bad pursuit angles and suboptimal tackling.

Put Achane in the Cleveland Browns or New York Jets offense and you won't see him match the best of Nick Chubb or Breece Hall, but he's a capable fantasy option in the ideal system for his talents.

The Bills (Week 4), Eagles (Week 7), Titans (Week 14), and Cowboys (Week 16) look like the biggest tests for Miami's rushing attack. I'm not confident that any of these teams will incapacitate Achane's and/or Mostert's fantasy value.

Jeff Wilson Jr. might be the biggest threat.

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2. A Year of Lobbying (and Nick Chubb's Injury) Leads to Deshaun Watson's Offense

Watson has been lobbying Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski for a year to use more spread alignments. While the money that the Browns paid for Watson's services indicates the obvious answer to Watson's requests should be a resounding yes, the true and logical answer has been a hard no because the offense ran through Chubb.

Chubb was the heartbeat of this offense that was built to cater to his elite game. Watson was the front office's choice to add sizzle — damn the potential fit with the scheme. That's the coaching staff's problem to solve. To many of these billionaires, the operations staff is just "the help," no matter how much they appear in public.

Now that Chubb is gone for the year — and based on the latest reports, thankfully, it will only be this year if the speculation of only a torn MCL and partially torn ACL are true — the battle between Stefanski and Watson's styles is no longer a problem because, for the rest of the year, it's Watson or bust on offense.

The Browns couldn't deliver on the ground against a good Titans' run defense in Week 3, but Stefanski's capitulation to Watson's requests bore fruit. Spreading the field led to Watson's best week of the young season.

Watson completed 81.1 percent of his passes on Sunday and was just 11 yards shy of 300. While the over-the-top creativity of the play below excited fans, it's the plays shown above that have more lasting value.

Look for Jerome Ford and Kareem Hunt to earn more yardage against lesser defenses, but they will no longer be the centerpieces of the Browns' scheme. For better or for worse, Watson is the new focal point, and it means you should elevate all the complementary receivers to Amari Cooper at least half of a tier. Unless Watson falters dramatically, the Browns' defense will keep Cleveland in every game and give its quarterback the opportunity to deliver fantasy QB1 numbers against all but the top defensive units in football — 49ers (Week 6), Colts (Week 7), and Steelers (Week 11).

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3. Jared Goff Is the Present and Likely Future of the Detroit Lions Offense

Once upon a time, there was a Cal Bear named Goff who could throw the ball with great accuracy and was renowned for his pocket movement and toughness under pressure. When he joined forces with a herd of rams, it appeared that this bear either forgot what made him good or that he didn't fit in. The lead Ram had a lot of knowledge but was known to be a know-it-all and a control freak.

The lead ram implied this bear was kind of dumb at football and sent him off to the lions. Being the regal beasts they are, this pride didn't coddle Goff the Bear. They didn't demand him to be a herd animal that didn't think and then cast blame for doing what he was told.

The lions put more on Goff the Bear than the herd animals thought he could handle. Instead of getting eaten alive, Goff the Bear rediscovered who he always was: a savvy and quietly tough animal who was a lot more dangerous than the Rams gave him credit for being.

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