Fantasy Football Today - Fun With Advanced Stats (05/25 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: May 25, 2022

Hopefully you'll learn a lot today about some new metrics and which players stand out in certain advanced stats. We're joined by SportsLine's Jacob Gibbs to discuss how much advanced stats actually help our Fantasy evaluations (4:00) and the ones we rely on most (5:30) ... We update the "Best Shape of His Life" list and then Jacob dives into advanced stats on rookie wide receivers (10:0). He looked at which incoming rookies ran the types of routes you'll see a lot of in the NFL. Which players ran them efficiently and which ones struggled? Treylon Burks and George Pickens were among the standouts ... News and notes (19:15) focused mostly on the Cardinals signing Darrel Williams. Then let's get back to our advanced stats! We cover intended air yards per pass attempt (25:50), off-target pass percentage (31:00), average depth of target (41:00), per route efficiency (49:30) and the RBs who are best at avoiding and breaking tackles (52:10). Included among the advanced stat standouts are Joe Burrow, Javonte Williams and Tony Pollard ... Email us at [e-mail] Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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He's just going to go the distance. Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. Today on Fantasy Football Today, ADOT, broken tackle rate, off-target percentage, batting average on balls in play, more advanced stats that you need to know on this special edition, this Wednesday, May 25th edition of FFT. Did anybody laugh at batting average on balls in play? I gave you a little chuckle. Yeah, I think Jacob did. He's still polite.

Thank you. That's why you're on the show. Jacob Gibbs is here, stats guru, sports line writer. You've heard him on the show plenty of times. He had a great call about Braxton Berrios in week 17, I think, last year. So he tells you what the numbers say, the numbers that we don't often talk about on the show. In fact, Jacob, also Dave and Heath are here.

But Jacob, give me, what's the most obscure stat you've been messing with lately? Yeah, something I've really been digging into lately. I've got an article coming out on Sportsline later this week, actually. Just really diving deeper into all of this is route data. And just like really looking specifically at the big four routes, which make up roughly two thirds of the total NFL routes run over the past five seasons.

And that's go routes, hitch routes, out routes, and crossing routes. And they're some of the most popular routes at the collegiate level as well. Typically out routes aren't run quite as frequently in college as they are at the NFL level. But just looking at which players and which prospects have performed well on these routes and have also run a lot of these routes, because some, you know, some college route trees just don't use these all that often. And so like which ones are consistently running, you know, NFL level routes and consistently performing well on those routes. And so that's something I'm just really geeking out on lately

and really excited for. And I think there's some stuff that I kind of uncovered that maybe you're not going to hear about some of these prospects elsewhere. So I'm really excited to dive in with these guys. Yeah, I'm excited to talk about that too. It'll be one of the first things we talk about today. We're also going to talk about James Conner

and if the addition of Darrell Williams matters, some updates on the 49ers and who's going to be at the OTAs and who won't be. Aaron Rodgers is not at Green Bay's voluntary OTAs. An update on Terry McLaurin. That's about... Oh, Tyson Williams is with the Colts, so we got some news and notes,

but it's going to be a pretty statsy show. Dave, as you've been covering fantasy football for how many years now? More than two. More than two. Are you up to 15? I think what I'd like to know is when Dave started covering fantasy sports, what grade of elementary school was Jacob in? Or was he in elementary school yet?

Which year was it? 2003. Oh, my gosh. I graduated high school in 2013. In 2003, I would have been 9 or 10 years old. Well, it's good to know I've done so much with my life since you were in elementary school. That was an excellent, excellent question.

Yeah, that wasn't a good question. I'm just not going to talk anymore. I thought, you know, what would have been an even better question was when you first started, what were the advanced stats? That's what I was thinking. There were not very many. And that was part of the problem. That's why I gravitated toward watching players and games as much as I could back then. And any way that I could, because there wasn't all 22 film readily available either back in 2003.

So, I mean, honestly, we did not have a lot. The teams had a lot. The teams were using this type of data, but I think they had to get it themselves. I think they literally had to have grunts getting together, collating all that data and not using the full power of computer programming at that time. This is a good time to admit that I have kind of a love-hate relationship with advanced stats in football. Same. I think you should. I think this is a great time to admit that. It's not just about the stats that we're using, how how effective are they and how much well and it's i think part of it is coming from like the baseball world where it's been embraced and made normal uh so much sooner than football and now if football it's it seems almost siloed where you can go to three different sites and find three different metrics

for how good someone was at avoiding a tackle last year. Right. And we've got a lot of different things trying to tell us the same thing. I'm looking forward to like five years from now, 10 years from now, we've decided, you know what, these stats are the most predictive and the most useful and we should just focus on those.

Yeah. I think one thing that we're going to look at today is avoid rate, you know, avoiding tackles by running backs. How good are they at avoiding tackles and broken tackle rate and who showed up high on both lists and last year, 2020. So two, two seasons ago, number one in broken tackle rate and number one in avoided tackle rate was mike mike davis he was number one in both which was really interesting uh all right so jacobs uh what you know what are some of the the staples for you the ones that you rely on the most uh event stats yeah besides yards per carry well i know he likes the per route run stuff for example yeah for sure i do like the

program stuff but really with all of it it's just like having the full understanding and using it to contextualize things rather than like leaning too heavily on them because like some per hour on metrics target per hour and particularly like targets are coming in completely different ways for different players and so understanding you know average depth of target like we're going to get into later in the podcast, all that is important as well. But yeah, I love the per-hour run stuff. I really dig into that a lot.

I just think the predictive data we have on the advanced data we have for like evaluating receivers and tight ends is really where I like to like really nerd out is there's just way more stuff than there is for running backs that I think is useful um just route data in general like understanding route involvement rates for running backs for tight ends i think is really really useful like understanding which tight ends are being allowed to get out and run routes um when the quarterbacks are dropping back rather than uh standing in and blocking um can you give me an example of a wide receiver or a tight end where the advanced data really showed you something that,

that maybe the, the conventional data didn't, and then it showed up the following year or something like that. Yeah, for sure. Uh, Deontay Johnson, I think is the most recent one where like his per route data just

continue to point towards him as being one of the league's premier target hogs, even just like two or three years ago and i don't think the um consistence on him was to that point yet but it has kind of come around to that now um i'm really curious to see what his numbers will look like without big ben but yeah he's somebody who like injuries and other things have kind of gone in inconsistency it got in the way of him producing at a high level prior to like the last year or so. But he'd been producing extremely well in his per route data for years up to that point. The per route data really like helped point out Devonta Adams breakout season a couple years ago.

He had only played, I think, like 10 or 11 games the season prior. And so a lot of people weren't targeting him as the number one receiver, but his per route data was better than Michael Thomas's, better than anyone, and had been following a consistent trajectory up to that point. And then he just really erupted and was clearly the best receiver in fantasy all of a sudden. So I just think it really helps contextualize and point out players

who maybe have dealt with unfortunate circumstances that have kept them from really, really shining in the way that they can. And A.J. Brown is another one who I'm really excited for. His per route data last year was absolutely insane. And of course now there's more volatility with him going to a different situation. But his trajectory year over year is pointing towards him being one of the best producers in football. So he's who I guess will be next up for me, who I'm really excited to see how it pans out. Okay, that's A.J. Brown.

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in the best shape of his career club or best shape of his life. We got Mac Jones. We got Amari Rogers. And I think we got a repeat here. Ezekiel Elliott. Last year, I thought he was in the best shape. He's apparently now in even better shape. So Ezekiel Elliott, welcome to the best shape of his life club.

Adam, what year was the best shape of your life? The best shape of my life? 10 years ago, I'd say. Something like that. I was running a lot. I thought you were going to say when you were 10. Yeah, I was not lifting, but running. I was in good shape.

Oh, no. When I played soccer in high school for one year, the drills we had to do for a freaking backup goalie. I shouldn't have had to do any of that stuff, but I had to do it all, and I got in great shape that year. So, yeah. And I made a couple of saves. Yes, Dave, we can call it the BS list. That is a good one. The best shape list. That's very good.

That is good. The BS list. We finally found a name for it. So, Jacob, you can start us off with the rookie stuff that you want to talk about. So you're looking at the types of routes that these guys are running, the ones that are seen very frequently in the NFL. Who are the ones that you think could make the smoothest transition? Or do we not know yet? Can you not answer that question? Yeah, I think definitely check out the article if you have the time and just look at it in more detail because there is a lot of context with all these. But the players who stood out as performing particularly well in the big four routes, which again are go routes, hitch routes, out routes, and crossing routes,

George Pickens really stood out. He has a small sample size. I don't know how much I trust it, but he was insanely efficient on these routes, particularly on go routes and hitch routes. He was just kind of uncoverable. He just dominated people physically. Garrett Wilson, really, really good across the board in all the routes and had a really NFL route-ready tree. Jameson Williams really stood out, performing well, particularly in his last year, of course. Drake London performed really well. Traylon Burks was extremely efficient on these routes.

And then two kind of under-the-radar guys are Alec Pierce and Jalen Tolbert. Tolbert was actually below average prior to 2021 on these routes, but made a huge jump last year among 80 players with at least 250 big four routes run in 2021. He ranked first in targets per outrun and third in yards per outrun. I'm super excited for Tolbert. I think the landing spot is great. Cowboys, in case anybody is not recalling,

George Pickens with the Steelers uh garrett wilson jets james williams lion james and williams lions drake london falcons trailing burks titans alec pierce colts jaylen tolbert cowboys go ahead um and then just weak performers uh john dotson really um i i just was overall not very impressed with his analytical profile. Of course, part of that was quarterback play. But he was weak in the Big Four routes as well. He's much better on other routes that aren't used as much in the NFL. Sky Moore was kind of the same.

I'm a little bit concerned about that. But overall, kind of excited for his landing spot there. Another chief, Justin Ross, really did not perform well on Big Four routes. And then Wanda Robinson, which shouldn't come as much of a surprise. spot there another chief uh justin ross really did not perform well on big four routes and then wanda robinson uh which shouldn't come as much of a surprise right but i will say i will say his data was much more encouraging uh at kentucky uh he was above average um above league average on these routes at kentucky whereas in nebraska he was pretty abysmal um but those four stood out as pretty weak performers i really

appreciate this list because pretty much almost all of the guys that i like um did well and all the guys i did i think the sky more is like one of the more interesting ones just because like it's not as surprising the guy who's only played receiver for three years um maybe isn't quite as good and was used in a variety of different ways to find success. So, I mean, I think he's just somebody you probably shouldn't expect maybe as much from in year one. I don't know what Tyree Kill's numbers would have looked like on this, but I don't think it would have been good coming out of college. Now, he's not Tyree Kill, but it's kind of a similar thing where it's probably going to take a year or two. He's

going to have to develop in the NFL. i think pickens might just be the best dealers wide receiver in like six months well pickens was interesting he barely played you know as as jacob mentioned small sample size tours acl came back late in the season um but he was a first class recruit and yeah a lot of people are very high on him, so he's interesting. Dave, Jalen Tolbert, I just want to bring this up. Nobody really seems to talk or care about him in NFC drafts anyway since May 1st.

There are 12 DSTs that are going ahead of Jalen Tolbert. He's 211th overall, and he does have a nice opportunity, doesn't he? I mean, are we sleeping on Jalen Tolbert? Do you think he should be drafted in a in a 15 round draft i think it's going to be easier to answer that if we know what the deal is with michael gallup and we know how good tolbert is in training camp and even in mini camp with the cowboys how well does he assimilate into that offense there is a potential great opportunity there to begin the season if he's the de facto

number two wide receiver in the dallas cowboys offense he builds that rapport with with uh with dak prescott i think he can absolutely get there but he he felt to me like a pretty under the radar prospect just to begin with like at the senior, I don't think he necessarily stood out. And then during the draft process, there were just, there's so many other receivers that got so much attention that it just felt like Tolbert was under the radar.

I know he's talented. I know the potential is there for him to contribute all year long in Dallas. But there's also the downside. He's a rookie receiver who went to South Alabama. He's, how much does he play once Gallup is healthy? Can that Cowboys offense support three receivers

and a tight end? I know last year there were times where it felt like they could, but they didn't really do it. I have a little bit of a hard time saying that Tolbert's going to for sure come through at this point, but he's one of, goodness, dude, like 30 players that we could look at and say, things break right. He's worth a late pick. He's in that boat. Okay. You know, Traylon Burke showing up on there was encouraging. And I guess that was kind of a question. Was he really a polished wide receiver or was he just sort of this physical freak who it's kind of how i felt about rondell moore a year ago uh i didn't and ron and moore one of the weirdest seasons his a dot was was like one yard it was pudding it was uh ron del

moore's a dot was 1.4 1.4 yards as average depth of target. So he wasn't really used as a conventional wide receiver hardly at all. And I was wondering if Traylon Burks was a similar sort of player, but Jacob, you're saying that he actually did very well on the big four routes that we see in the NFL. Yeah, I was extremely encouraged the more I dug into Burks' data. It is a relatively small sample size. Arkansas really kind of like forced them into this slot role and designed all this stuff around line of scrimmage for him. But the more I dug into it, I think that the slot usage actually maybe hurt his efficiency.

The average college football yard per route run rate has risen by 6% on routes that came from the slot compared to non-slot routes. But Burks actually fell by 44%. He was much more efficient from the perimeter. And then, yeah, his big four route data was dope. He had the highest career yard per route run rate on big four routes of the 20 receiver prospects I evaluated. His rate rose by 49% on those routes compared to non-big four routes, which was the third highest increase I found in that group. And then one final note on Burks was he really stood out when I compared rookie prospects to the collegiate teammates. He was the only player

from the 2021 class with a discrepancy above 100% between his yard per outrun rate and his college wide receiver teammates. And what really caught my eye with the college teammates stuff was his efficiency on deep targets. His yard per outrun rate on targets that came 15 or more yards down the field was 110% above all other Arkansas wide receivers during that time, which is by far the highest discrepancy among prospects in the class.

Romeo Dobes and Alec Pierce were the only two that even had a discrepancy above 70%. So limited sample size, but when he ran downfield routes, when he ran NFL routes, he dominated. I don't know if I've translated or not. Yeah, that's great okay so that's trailing burks all right i'm gonna say this i'm gonna say let's let's leave the rest for

the article and check it out on sportsline when is that going to be out uh hoping to have it on friday okay check it out on sportsline on friday and we've got a lot of nfl players you know veterans to talk about with more advanced stats when we take this quick break we'll be right back on fantasy Football today. What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to powers your scale with no preset spending limit. More cash on hand to grow your business

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The Cardinals signed Daryl Williams. Dave, does this matter? Oh, a heath, not a sigh. A heath is the sound of disgust. I'll go to Dave first here. Dave, does this matter? Oh, a Heath, not a sigh. Heath is the sound of disgust. I'll go to Dave first here. Dave, does this matter? Darryl Williams going to the Cardinals? He goes ahead of Keontae Ingram as a late round pick. That's the guy who's probably going to be, I don't know if 1B is the right way to put it. I would probably say more of like the backup running back in Arizona and the guy who might end up getting four or five touches per game, but he'd be in line if Connor or when Connor misses time,

he would be the one that would probably take the lead in that run game. I actually just tweeted about Darrell Williams a couple of days ago because I was looking up a number. There've been one 36 running backs over the past three seasons with at least 100 targets. There are four of those running backs who have averaged better than seven yards per target. Austin Eckler, Christian McCaffrey, Darrell Williams, and James Conner. Wow.

Now, I talked about this a lot last year when it was Conner and Chase Edmonds, and I really thought going into the year, and Arizona clearly didn't think this because Conner didn't get the chance until Edmonds got hurt, but I thought Conner was a better pass-catching back going into last year and Arizona clearly didn't think this because Connor didn't get the chance until Edmonds got hurt but I thought Connor was a better pass catching back going into last year than Edmonds was um I just I think that bared itself out when Edmonds got hurt Connor was a superstar in the passing game but I do not like this for James Connor because like Clyde Edwards-Alaire came into the NFL and the thing that we all thought he should be able to do is play the passing game role with Patrick Mahomes and not run between the tackles. And the Chiefs chose to put Darrell Williams into that role and have Clyde handle the early downs.

I'm concerned that I don't think Williams is going to have the Chase Edmonds role necessarily, but I don't feel good about Connor having the passing game role. Does this move him down your draft board? It will move him down my deal. If you think he's not going to, right. So what round three, four? Yeah,

I think round three, four. Wow. Dave, how about you on Connor? Three. Jacob. Yeah.

I'm so comfortable with him in three. By the way, in case you're curious, James Conner had the third best pass blocking grade from PFF among running backs last year. And he had the fifth most pass blocks. He had 85 pass blocks. So he was very good at it. Darrell Williams has not really been so good

in his last three seasons, I'd say, in terms of his past blocking grade. So, Conner, according to PFF, is better at that. But that doesn't necessarily, you know, trying to spell James Conner could make sense to just say, all right, Darrell Williams, you take third down. Kyle Shanahan said Jimmy Garoppolo is likely to get traded, but it's not guaranteed.

He also said that Debo Samuel will, he's expecting Debo Samuel to be at the mandatory OTAs, and he thinks that the relationship can be repaired. Aaron Rodgers is not at Green Bay's voluntary OTAs. I doubt we care about that.

Ron Rivera says it's just a matter of time regarding Terry McLaurin's contract. That's good. Christian McCaffrey will not play in the preseason. The Colts signed Tyson Williams, formerly of the Ravens. Who's the handcuff to

Jonathan Taylor? No one that's going to help you in your fantasy league. Maybe Naheem Hines picks up a little bit more work in the passing game overall. He's going to see an uptick in work anyway. Now I wonder if he gets

you know a couple extra touches overall if jonathan taylor misses time but philip lindsey he'd be ahead of tyson at this point i don't think tyson matters and i think lindsey barely matters the only thing like if something happens to taylor and hopefully it doesn't. I'm not drafting Tyson Williams. Please, God, no. The main thing that Tyson Williams could not do last year was handle the football in the way that the Ravens hand off and handle that mesh point with Lamar Jackson. That's not going to be a concern on the Colts.

So maybe he does have a little bit more success if he gets a chance there. And the NFL is considering making pretty big changes to the Pro Bowl. What changes would you make if you were in charge to the Pro Bowl? I want

the Olympics for football players. In what regard? To have them do the 100-meter dash? 100%. To have the quarterbacks, like who can throw the ball the furthest. To have some weightlifting competitions.

So you want the NFL combine? Maybe some wrestling. Are they throwing footballs or are they throwing javelins or shot puts um lawn darts okay i actually think that'd be pretty cool to have a 100 meter relay or 400 meter whatever the heck it is with four players on each team i could dig that. Yeah. All right. I hope you're listening. Good Dale. Not no beach football game. That's what I was about to say. Don't do that.

No rookie beach bowl. No. Chad Johnson had a fun idea of playing a flag game of pro bowlers versus legends. Should 100% have a Madden tournament. I wouldn't watch that. I wouldn't watch anything that is being suggested right now, and I wouldn't watch what they've been doing for the past few years. You wouldn't watch if we had Mahomes and Josh Allen lined up

in the who can throw the ball? No, because I already saw them do that in Super Bowl 55 and a half, and it was amazing. That's where I want to see them do their thing. Or if it's Tyreek and whoever else running in the hundred yard dash tyreek versus dk metcalf i would sign up for that i'll watch it on i'll see the highlights on twitter like wrestling tyreek versus dk metcalf wrestling i think I know who'd with that. All right. Let's get to some more advanced stats. Talk about air yards here. Intended air yards per pass attempt.

This tells you which quarterbacks are throwing the ball downfield the most, basically. Who's averaging the most yards per pass attempt. I think that's pretty easy. That's an easy one. And ADOT is talked about a lot. It's not really... It's not... It's mainstream. It's mainstream. ADOT is talked about a lot. It's not really, it's not, it's mainstream.

It's mainstream. ADOT is average depth of target. How many yards downfield is the average target for every player, wide receivers, you know, every player. So ADOT, I thought one thing that was pretty interesting, or not, so not ADOT, intended area yards for pass temp. You look at the quarterbacks and how far downfield they're throwing on average.

Once you get to 18th, once you get lower than 18th, you don't, you really don't find good fantasy quarterbacks with a few exceptions. Patrick Mahomes was 25th this past year. And in 2020, yeah, well,

uh, but he's the only one. Tannehill was 23rd. Technically he finished top 12, but you know, didn't have a good year. But in 2020, Drew Brees was 34th. I think he was last among qualifying quarterbacks.

Justin Herbert was 25th. But for what it's worth, over the last two years, and it's the only two years I looked at it, over the last two years, if you're lower than 18th in 10th and there you are, I don't want to make 18th a specific number or anything, but if you're very low, you're probably not putting up good fantasy numbers.

So it's, you know, that's just what it is. Heath, any reaction to that? Does that matter? Yeah, I think we, like, that makes a lot of sense if you don't have just incredible weapons after the catch on the roster or a really creative system that just creates a bunch of yards after the catch on the roster or a really creative system that just creates a bunch of yards after the catch. I think it'd be interesting to look at the rookie quarterbacks from last year,

except that I don't know how many of them are going to have similar offenses to what they had last year. Well, Justin Fields was second. That was shocking. And he's got a new coaching staff. I knew that was the case. Trevor Lawrence has got a new coaching staff. Max Jones has got a new offense. Like, I just... Maybe. You know who was really low was Davis Mills. Davis Mills, low intended air yards, very bad passing grades.

Advanced metrics. Didn't really like Davis Mills. Jacob, do you know any of this stuff offhand? Have you looked at any of this stuff? No. He would probably be better at uh cpoe completion percentage over expectation because it really helps if you don't have a lot of good wide receivers in that stat i know daniel jones always very good at the downfield uh

completion percentage over expectation could you also add the context of what the offensive line was like because some quarterbacks they don't is, this is the argument I'm here from every single Tua Tunga-Vailoa fan out there is that Tua didn't have time to throw deep. And that's why he, he didn't have a lot of deep pass attempts. I think he was like in the twenties for that last year. He graded well on the pass attempts that he did have going 20 plus yards but he just didn't have that time to throw i think he was like second from the bottom in time to throw last year well i think i think that context needs to be added to i i look context needs to be added to every step but

certainly for intended air yards and regular air yards and i think this that might be more useful like a month into the season or six weeks into the season to see whose performance might be more sustainable as opposed to year over year when we just don't know. There's too many things that have changed, especially like for a third of the league, their offense. Yeah. Well, two is a good name to bring up because he was 30th out of 33 qualifiers in intended air yards per pass attempt, seven yards he averaged.

So he's going to have to increase that. On the surface of that, that's going to make you cringe because now he's got Tyreek Hill on top of having Jalen Waddle, and he had Waddle last year. But if that offensive line's better, then theoretically he'll have more time to throw. That means that extra second that he has, he can aim a little bit more when he throws downfield and he attacks further downfield, and that would bump up that number. Offensive line feels like an excuse to me, to be honest. He just wasn't throwing the ball. Are you saying offensive lines don't matter? No, but I'm saying Joe Burrow had a terrible offensive line.

He didn't throw the ball seven yards downfield. He threw the ball downfield. What did he throw it down? I know he was top 18. Right, so how much better was he? How many more yards was he than Tua? It's just going to take me a second to look it up. Okay.

Because if it ends up being like eight, it's one yard. It's not eight. No, Joe Burrow was 8.1. But it is a big difference. Sure, because you're multiplying that by all the attempts that he has. How many more attempts did Joe Burrow have than Tua last year? Probably a lot, because Tua missed plenty of games. 520 to 388. so it's 100 some odd air

yards and you know that's right the difference i don't know anyway uh two is a guy that if he's going to be fantasy relevant probably has to throw the ball down field more and he probably will well we want him to do that because of the receivers that he has and if he's gun shy about it which he wasn't at alabama yeah if he's gun-shy about it, which he wasn't at Alabama, if he's gun-shy about it, that's obviously going to hurt the numbers for Tyreek and Waddle. Maybe not Waddle, because Waddle did great

last year catching all those short throws. He barely ran routes downfield. But he PPR'd it. He PPR'd his way. I'll take it any way I can get it. Not the first time I've ever said that sentence. Jacob, do you ever look at off-target percentage and see which quarterbacks were basically the least accurate? Justin Fields had the highest off-target percentage in the NFL,

but he also had the second highest intended air yards for pass attempts. So that makes sense. Oh, there's a lot to dig into here but but i guess general question do you ever look at off target passes i do some it's not on the database um that i use most times so i have to kind of go out of my way to find it where do you reference it normally from true true media where okay maybe i'm just missing the dave is the the true guru he's the goo media. He is so good. True goo. Yeah, whatever.

He's so good at finding things. I am lazy and don't want to do it. So I just asked Dave, hey, could you look this up for me? And he sends me a link and I bookmark it. He likes to figure this stuff out. So I'm happy to help him. All right, goo media. You're going to have to share that with me after this.

Okay. Yeah. Dave, do you like it off target pass percentage i use that data point to help make my arguments but again that that's more of like an in-season thing i also feel like for years like we never really saw quarterbacks vastly improve their accuracy and now we're seeing like two years of josh allen doing it and now we're wondering well can this can this start happening more and more around the league and there's a bunch of new quarterbacks in the league that have this issue i'm curious to see what it means i'm really curious for what it means for daniel jones because the guy that helped Josh Allen become more accurate is Brian Dable. Dable's now working with Jones, and I wonder if Dable sees Jones as a lower-rent version of Josh Allen, which could end up being really good for fantasy.

I want to see how this impacts Jalen Hurts. Is he going to be more accurate with his throws? Justin Fields has been a cannon thrower, but I'd like to see him be a little more accurate. Can I get in there on Hurts, is he going to be more accurate with his throws? So Justin Fields is a cannon thrower, but I'd like to see him be a little more accurate. Can I get in there on Hurts, Dave? I want to get in there on Hurts. Yeah. He had the sixth best,

the sixth lowest percentage of off-target passes, which was really impressive to me because Hurts had the third highest or fourth highest intended area per pass attempt. So he was throwing the ball downfield. And obviously, well, maybe it's not obvious. A guy throws the ball downfield more, you expect more off-target throws. Those are harder throws to make.

So Hertz was throwing the ball downfield, yet sixth lowest off-target rate. However, PFF graded him 26th among quarterbacks in his passing grade. So I don't really know how all of that squares. You would think you're really accurate while throwing the ball downfield, but 26 is pretty bad. So I thought that was interesting on Hertz. Was that 26th on deep attempts? No, just the overall PFF grade.

That's overall. I can tell you what PFF had him at deep. I actually have it open right here. All right. On deep attempts, Jalen Hurts, first of all, 15.8% of his overall attempts were deep. So he didn't throw deep. He threw, actually, compared to other quarterbacks, that's pretty high. That's pretty high.

That's a high concentration. His adjusted completion rate was 37.3%. that's pretty high. That's pretty high. That's a high concentration. His adjusted completion rate was 37.3%. That's pretty bad. That's 29th among qualifying quarterbacks. Look, I'm just going to be honest with you. Sometimes this stuff is just noise to me. So help us sort through the noise, Jacob. Just relevant, like two hertz i looked up aj brown splits

um on short targets intermediate targets and deep targets over his career i love that compared to the league average um he was short targets was clearly where he's been the worst he was 39 above league average on short targets um he was 121% above the league average on intermediate targets and 68% above the league average on deep targets in terms of converting yards per outrun on these targets. And so obviously that has something to do with the quarterback delivering the ball, but it is just exciting going to an offense that does throw downfield quite a bit. And I'm telling you, this is research that I figured out two years ago and I still buy into it and I plan on writing about this in our magazine.

The quarterbacks that take that step and break out are the ones that improve on their intermediate passing. It's that 10 to 19-yard range. Those that improve their accuracy there, they're the ones that break out in fantasy. They're the ones that put up big numbers. That's exactly what I think theagles are going to try and do and i thought they were going to do it with davante smith last year because smith was good on those intermediate routes well now he's got two really good intermediate receivers three if you count dallas goddard so i'm i would probably heath will love this i would expect hertz to make some improvement on those intermediate throws. QB1.

I moved him into my top 10. Part of it had to do with the schedule, because I do my schedule breakdown, and the Eagles had the easiest schedule, or one of the easiest schedules, both at the beginning of the year and overall, according to my grades. Okay, I want to give you guys a couple more off-target numbers slash PFF passing grade numbers.

Lamar Jackson was 29th in off-target numbers slash PFF passing grade numbers. Lamar Jackson was 29th in off-target percentage. He, well, I guess he was third. He was third worst. Only Zach Wilson and Justin Fields had a higher percentage of off-target passes. Lamar Jackson ranked 31st, even worse than Jalen Hurts, in PFF's passing grade.

He was 7th in 2019. He was 17th in 2020 with a minimum of 100 pass attempts. And he was 31st. Actually, there's no minimum on that. So it's probably a little bit higher than 31st. Probably something like 27th again, something like that for Lamar Jackson.

But a lot of off-target passes and a bad passing grade for Lamar Jackson. Does anybody care about that? I don't really. Do you know what his adjusted completion rate was on intermediate throws last year? No. 67.1.

That's fourth best in football. That's good. I mean, make it make sense, right? I would just like, from this point forward, every other stat that adam has prepared for this show dave if while he's giving that stat you could provide a stat that blows this is on intermediate stuff and we know that on deep stuff he's been a total not a total nightmare but he hasn't been very good i'll confirm that i want to look up his short adjusted completion rate. And it's a little, it's at 83.2%.

That's 15th among quarterbacks. The best was, and again, this is getting into the semantics of, well, what does that really mean? Tannehill was at the top of the list. He was at 88%. So while he was 15th, that just means that he's really close to being right where the best quarterback was in short passing. So if you give me a minute, I'll look up his deep rate and see what his adjusted completion rate there was. It was 40.7%. And that was good for 22nd. And the top guy was Tua.

I mentioned that earlier. 55.2% was his adjusted completion rate. So that's significant. And I wonder if there was, again, one more time right here uh 14.1 percent of his throws last year were deep throws who's this two or lamar jack this is lamar we're talking about lamar so 14 of his throws were deep he wasn't good on those throws he was off target on plenty of those that's probably contributed heavily to your stat adam okay i don't have an agenda here heath i'm just throwing i don't think you have an agenda it's i do have an agenda which is what for sure which is that i really like it when

you give a stat and then dave gives a stat that says the exact opposite adam doesn't have an agenda he sent at least two emails and three texts going into this podcast to us to make sure that we were ready to go and with notes in them all yeah no. No, I don't have an opinion like, oh, this is the advanced stat. This is what it means. I'm just giving the stats. Joe Burrow's last one. Joe Burrow, lowest off-target rate in the NFL, and he was second in 2020 as a rookie.

So he's been very, very accurate. He also was the number one or number two PFF graded quarterback. Jacob, I think the advanced metrics love Joe Burrow. Is that accurate? Oh, yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. All right. That's it. He was numero uno in adjusted completion rate on intermediate throws. 78.9%. That was 8% higher than anybody else in the National Football League. So by the way,

adjusted completion rate, let's define that. What does it exclude? How is that different than completion percentage over expectation? Because I struggle with the over expectation part. But adjusted completion,

just for the definition there's it takes out throwaways and what it takes out throwaways and drops i believe okay according hold on i've got it right here adjusted completion percentage is the percentage of aimed passes thrown on target so it's completions plus drops over the total amount of aimed throws so yes it is going to take out throwaways it includes drops those or passes that the quarterback should have completed, but the receiver didn't hold up his end of the bargain. When you say on target, is a throw on target if it's like right here

and then it gets knocked out of the receiver's hands? Yeah, that's on target. By a defender. Yeah, it's an accurate throw, right. It's not just drops. It's also deflections. Well, I would imagine if it's deflected at the line of scrimmage, no. But if it's deflected... it's also deflections well i would imagine if it's deflected the line of scrimmage no but if it's deflected it's an aimed pass yeah but we don't

know if it's on target oh so that would count against that would count against the i mean it's a question for pff they would be able to answer that but i would imagine that it's an aimed target let's get them on the phone all right let's go to a dot here uh jacob how much do you use like uh count on a dot average depth of target uh a ton yeah i think it's super important to understand um because especially with the more and more i dig into this route data um a crossing route for one team is entirely different than a crossing route for another team like the jaguars for example their crossing routes were basically just drags um they were really close to linus scrimmage um the whole season was a drag oh damn it i hit the wrong button yeah uh and so like christian kirk

has like really exciting you know crossing route data but like his average depth of target on those routes was almost double what we saw for jamal agnew and LaVisca Chanel occupying the role that he would likely be in or a similar type of role. So yeah, it's just really important in contextualizing everything. And it's definitely something that I try to be as cognizant of as I can. Do you, we were talking about this on FFTN5, and this is kind of something I've settled on, but I've not actually done the work to see that it's right.

It's just what I think or what it feels like. But 11 to 12 or 11 to 13 is kind of like the sweet spot for most really elite fantasy production. If you're up in the 15, 16 range, you're probably not getting enough targets. And if you're down below, like Debo can make it work, but most guys below that range are not having a ton of fantasy success. That's a general rule. What about a guy like, what about a true slot receiver?

Amandra St. Brown, 7.1 ADOT last year. I'm thinking like a Julian Edelman. Yeah, I don't think Amandra St. Brown, 7.1 ADOT last year. I'm thinking like a Julian Edelman. Yeah, I don't think Amandra St. Brown's profile is that of an elite fantasy wide receiver, unless everybody gets hurt. There's exceptions both ways. I guess my question is, is the only way to have the elite production

is to just catch a bunch of passes, you know, with the low ADOT. Yeah. Or have touchdowns. Or have six 50-yard touchdowns. With a lot of yards after the catch. Yeah.

I don't know if there's any players that you guys want to talk about. I don't want to hijack the show here. You're the host. I have topics to talk about. Courtland Sutton. Heath and I talked about this yesterday. He was second among about i don't want to hijack the show here you're the host well yeah but i want to i mean i have topics that talk like courtland sutton heath and i talked about this yesterday he was second among all players in a dot with a minimum of 50 targets it was 15.4 only marquez valdez scantling had a higher a dot and he just said you're probably not getting a lot of enough targets if you're up in

the 15 range you look at courtland sutton his best season came when he was in the 11 range but he's been a downfield guy for much of his career. He also is now being paired with Russell Wilson, who led the NFL last year in air yards per pass attempt. So do we like this? Are they a good fit or is his ADOT too high? How does Sutton and Wilson fit, given these numbers? Both of them either number one or number two in the air yards or the ADOT, you know, on the per target, per pass attempt. I think everybody understands what I'm saying, hopefully, even though I don't anymore because I'm rambling. How do Russell Wilson and Corlin Sutton mesh?

Jacob, what do you think? I actually dove really deep into this when they made the trade. I think it might be my pinned tweet still, but I do have an article out and it just like dives into everything with Sutton and Patrick and Judy and in terms of Alberto, in terms of the types of routes

that Russ has targeted at a significantly higher rate compared to league average, it really favors Jerry, Judy, and Albert O, and doesn't look as good for the perimeter receivers. But I think it's just, it's really hard to, Cortland Sutton is one of the hardest players to feel confident about going into this season, honestly.

I think there's a ton of upside with the fact that Russell Wilson has thrown downfield at a really high rate, like you've talked about. And like, obviously there's touchdown upside as well, but I just think he has a really, really wide range of outcomes. So sorry for not cleaning that up at all. No, but I think the fact that Cortland Sutton had a very successful year over

1100 yards, I believe with an 11 ish a dot has shows me his versatility, you know, and he's not married to just being a downfield threat every time. I was going to say that actually, I really like it when you get a receiver like Stefan digs or DJ more, He's not married to just being a downfield threat every time. I was going to say that, actually. I really like it when you get a receiver like Stefan Diggs or DJ Moore who has shown the ability to have very good seasons with both a high A-dot and a different type of role.

I just don't think Cortland Sutton's shown us that yet. Shouldn't Cortland Sutton's shown us the ability to have a great fantasy season with a lower A-dot? Yeah. But he hasn't had a great season season with a lower ADOT. Yeah. But he hasn't had a great season with a high ADOT. That is definitely true. How much does consistency hitting that ADOT from game to game matter? Because I looked at Sutton's ADOT by game this past year.

He had three games where his ADOT was below 10. He had one where his ADOT was above 20. Had a bunch of games in the middle. And it might be like that for every single receiver. And if it's going to be like that for every single receiver, then I don't know how strong this stat is. But I almost feel like I need somebody to tell me that that's not right, that there are receivers that do have a consistent ADOT most weeks of the year. They're right on this number. It's a reliable number and they're catching the ball further downfield they're getting more yards with each catch that they get

my impression impression would be that it's not very consistent because the the number of targets is so low on a per like you're talking about seven or eight targets one deep shot could completely throw the number off yeah yeah totally um so i don't think looking at it but i think this could be wrong but i don't think looking at it on a week-to-week basis is going to uh give you give you a whole lot of insight i agree and so my my next thought was well why don't we look at the average route depth so this is just the route that they're running and we have that information but i've gone and i've looked at that too And these receivers have like very similar average route depths. And I'm not talking about the receivers on the broadcast.

I'm talking about across the whole league. A lot of these guys, it's, it's somewhere between seven and nine. I don't think that there's anything quantifiable out of that either, unless there's an outlier or three that makes you think, okay, well,

they're consistently running routes, you know, 10 yards downfield, something like that. I can think of some examples of ADOT really mattering. And you look at DJ Moore and how he's changed year over year. Marquise Brown. Yeah.

And it really correlates to are you going to be better in non-PPR or half PPR or full PPR? Because DJ Moore, when he, I think it was 2020, was running much deeper routes. Did he even have 70 catches that year? I don't remember the numbers, but the catches went way down. He looked like a PPR stud at first. Then he looked like a non-PPR guy, and then he kind of went back.

So that's the other problem is it's hard to predict. But ADOT does matter. And Mike Williams, this was the argument I made against Mike Williams. First four or five games of the year, he was incredible. And his ADOT was much lower. He was running shorter routes, and he was catching more passes. And then he went back to being more of a downfield guy, and the catches went way down.

But I can't exactly predict what he's going to be. But I liked him better. His best stretch, I'd say, was when he had a lower ADOT, Mike Williams. It was, but just because I have to say this every time you bring that up. Mike Williams had an incredible stretch that we shouldn't expect to be repeated the first month of the season, and then he was absolutely awful for a month. And then he was just a really good number two wide receiver for the rest of the year. There's like 12 PPR points per game.

Jacob, before we get into the running back stats. When you include that four game awful stretch. I'm including everything after the first five games. Right. You can choose a variety of different sample sizes to say different things about Mike Williams. But calling him a number two receiver is fair.

If you want to break his sample size down into A-dots, though, I think if you have a higher A-dot, you're more likely to have terrible games. You know? I mean, those are harder passes to catch. That sounds like a project. No, I think it's fewer catches. It's fewer catches. It's more boom or bust.

Yeah, I think that's true. Yeah, there's definitely more volatility with higher ADOT players. Okay, per route run, who are some of the standouts that you think could be the next Deontay Johnson? I know you mentioned AJ Brown. Anyone else on this list?

No, I really haven't been able to dive into this as deep as I would like to. That's going to come later in June. Just off the top two guys that really stand out are Darnell Mooney and Michael Pittman. They both made huge strides in year two. And I'm like super, super excited for the setup they have going into year three and the per route data that they did give us. If you want like one of the most, one of the guys I've been researching recently is the college prospects and Drake London's per route data is insane. And that was inflated some by design touches, but like even on non-design routes, like screens

and flares and everything else slants, um, it was still really, really, really high last year. Um, he was really high in the big four routes as well. So I think you got to talk to me more about Darnell Mooney. Gladly. Yeah. I love Darnell Mooney. Uh, yeah, he, he really took over.

Um, um, he was already taking over for alan robinson at the beginning of the year um and was pretty much a wide receiver one from from the get-go and once alan robinson went down uh he was a fantasy wide receiver one and in almost all um volume metrics um obviously the efficiency is going to be a concern um in chicago and um the overall volume uh like i'm looking at rates the overall volume is going to be a concern in Chicago. And the overall volume, like I'm looking at rates, the overall volume is going to be probably pretty low as well, probably pretty run heavy.

But yeah, he finished last year with a 27% target share and a 36% area audit share over the past 15 seasons. There have only been 12 receivers to hit both those marks at the age of 23 or younger. Brandon Marshall, Calvin Johnson, Josh Gordon, Kelvin Benjamin, Josh Gordon again, Mike Evans, Odell Beckham, DeAndre Hopkins, receivers to hit both those marks at the age of 23 or younger uh brandon marshall calvin johnson josh gordon kelvin benjamin josh gordon again mike evans odell beckham deandre hopkins mike evans odell beckham justin jefferson dk mccaff like you wouldn't expect arnold mooney to be on that list everyone that's on that list was really really good except for kelvin benjamin

um so that's really really exciting what he did last year at that age but he didn't really but he wasn't that good in the normal stats well and it's the it's but that's the deontay johnson thing like i and i've gotten stuck in that as well it's like these guys that are so good at earning targets and seemingly so bad at turning targets into fantasy points but if you get 150 targets it doesn't really matter if you're not very good at turning targets into fantasy points. And also just showing an ability to do that at such a young age. I think the cream rises to the top. And that's kind of what we've seen with Deontay. He still hasn't turned into an elite efficiency receiver, but he has improved.

And I think that it's likely that we will continue to see that from Mooney as well. Okay. That's really interesting stuff. All right, thank you. Let's talk about the running backs then. So avoid tackle rate and broken tackle rate. Who's the best at avoiding tackles and who's the best at breaking them?

There were a number of players who were in the top 10 in both. Let's see, one, two, three, four, five. Five players who were top 10 in both metrics, avoiding tackles and breaking tackles. Javante Williams. Let's see. One, two, three, four, five. Five players who were top 10 in both metrics, avoiding tackles and breaking tackles. Javante Williams. He was top two in both.

Dearness Johnson. By the way, this is a minimum of 100 carries, and Dearness Johnson had exactly 100. Dearness Johnson was top five in both. Josh Jacobs. Ramondre Stevenson. Stevenson surprised me. He was top six in both.ji harris and nick chubb

so giovante dearness johnson josh jacobs remandre stevenson naji harris and nick chubb dave those are the five running backs who are top 10 in both avoid rate and broken tackle rate i'll repeat what i said at the beginning of the show in 2020 mike davis was number one in both metrics so what if anything does this mean to you, those five guys? Well, my favorite thing about this specific stat is that it's done by the running back and the running back alone. The quarterback doesn't help the running back avoid a tackle. The offensive line doesn't help the running back miss a tackle. I don't think maybe there's something I'm missing there there but this is the running back creating yards

and that's something that i like i don't want to slug at running back unless it's a guy who i know is going to get 300 touches over the course of a season i want a guy who can make a man miss or break a tackle and pick up an extra chunk of yardage or even take it to the hizzy that's what that that's a stat that matters to me when it comes to looking at running backs. And this is an encouraging number for Javante Williams. And I'll tell you right now, I've talked with enough coaches to know this, they love this too for the exact same reason.

They want to put the ball in the hands of people who can make a play, playmakers, game breakers. These guys qualify. This is good evidence that these are really good football players even dearness johnson they've asked i will i will add this though hold on sorry he dearness johnson probably had a lot of those numbers against denver in that thursday night game and denver had a depleted defense in that game a lot of backups were playing so i wonder what his numbers were without that game included.

And I do think like David made the comment about the offensive line and it almost seems to me that there's a little bit of bad offensive play, offensive line play that can help you with this stat because you have multiple defenders getting toward to you in the backfield. And we see God, sometimes guys who are really inefficient, but hop around and make one or two guys missed in the backfield before they get tackled after a two-yard gain and like they they missed avoided two tackles on that one run they also gained two yards right like when i was playing uh tackle football in college i remember we would do

punts or something and i would be the one who would run down first and, you know, had no chance to tackle them because I weighed like 100 pounds. But I would make them reroute, so they would avoid my tackle. Stop their feet and change direction. Right. More physical, athletic, gifted, talented, legit people could actually make the tackle. So, you know, you got to get in the backfield, make the guy avoid the first player, and then he can, you know, be tackled by better players. I see what you're saying.

Thank you for making this about me, Heath. I do appreciate that. I think, Jacob, you were laughing earlier. Was it hizzy? Was that what got you? Yeah, that did get me. Yeah. That was pretty good.

All right. I don't know if there's anything else you guys want to add on running back metrics. I'll tell you one good. All right. I don't know if there's anything else you guys want to add on running back metrics. I'll tell you one thing. Do you have anybody who sucked at avoided tackle rate? Yeah, I've got some. Over the past five seasons, this is avoided tackle rate. Over the past five seasons, minimum 150 carries. There have been 34 instances among 147 qualifiers to post an avoided tackle rate below 16%.

Two backs were added to this prestigious list in 2021. Can we guess? Yes, yes, yes. Of course, one of them was Ezekiel Ayala. We don't know. That was going to be a neat guess. We're not going to waste time with that. Who was the other one?

I'm going to say Saquon Barkley. No, I think Saquon's one of those guys that avoids two tackles while he gains two yards. He was at 16.7%. Saquon was really bad last year, but yeah, not quite there. 150 tackles. It carries, huh? It's got to be somebody relatively good right it's a surprise oh wow i see who it is the deandre swift no no he's great he's a first round pick maybe early second but but yeah fantasy the swing pick i know who it is too who is it

joe mixon joe mixon typically not a great you know he typically doesn't grade out well in I know who it is too. Who is it? Joe Mixon. Joe Mixon. Typically not a great, you know, typically doesn't great out well in avoiding tackles, but like he was really bad last year. He was, that was the 116th of 147 qualified backs in the past five years.

Yeah. And you know who wasn't much better was Derek Henry, by the way. But go ahead, Yeah. And you know who wasn't much better was Derek Henry, by the way. But go ahead, Dave. And this ties into, this is going to put a pretty little bow on this whole conversation. He had 45 carries go for zero or negative yards. What was the biggest problem that Joe Mixon dealt with last year? And technically, Burrow had to deal with it too. And the one that the bengals address this

offseason with three big moves yeah offensive line there it is so i know that he wasn't great at avoiding tackles in general right jacob like you said previous years he wasn't this bad this is where i think the offensive line does matter because I remember countless plays where he gets the ball and he's just stuffed like a double stuffed Oreo. It sounds really good milk right now. I've got four other guys who really fell off last year. Do you want those? Yes, please. Saquon Barkley, 26.6% across 2018 to 2020, was down to 16.7% last year.

Obviously not encouraging coming off an injury. Derek Henry, kind of like mixing, he's never been a big tackle avoided guy. He was 21 to 24% in each of the seasons from 2017 to 2020. That was down to 16.4% last year. Yeah. He had 40 carries of zero or negative yards and he played half the season antonio gibson 28.2 as a rookie um was something i was really excited about a lot of his advanced metrics as a rookie as a rusher were pretty me too dang good that was down to 18.2

um you have to think edry probably had something to do with that 45 zero or negative rushes same as uh joe mixon and then alvin camara uh has been an elite tackle breaker like one of the absolute best uh 34 2019 35 2020 in 2021 that was down to 21.7 and guess who who do you think had more missed tackles alvin camara or joe mixon slash uh the other guy that i said had 45 missed tackles deontay foreman uh camara had 46 runs of zero or negative yards and he had a good offensive line yes he did it's kind of strange and he's washed it's stop i mean look i mean he might be but it's the term is washed up obviously but i washed his wrong there's one player that shows up pretty pretty high and a lot of the advanced metrics that i look at for running backs a couple years in a row maybe even

three years in a row and i've mentioned this before but it's tony pollard tony power not necessarily broken tackles i think two years ago he was good there. Last year he was fine, but avoid tackles. He was better than fine last year. Rushing grade on PFF, the elusiveness grade on PFF. Tony Pollard looks like a top 10 back based on those metrics. If he could get 15 to 18 touches of exactly the same type that he got last year. Then he would be a top five back. I just don't know what happens to those metrics. If you add seven carries between the tackles to them.

Do we know for a fact that he doesn't run between the tackles or is this just a guess? I'm not saying he doesn't run between the tackles, but I don't, I know a much lower percentage of his carries are that type of carry than others. I actually think I can look that up pretty quickly. Go. Do it. Well, I also have a trivia item, and maybe this negates everything that I said about this might negate

everything that I said about rushes for zero or negative yards. Who led the NFL in total number of rushes for zero or negative yards? So not percentage of rushes, but the total number. It's the total number of rushes for zero or negative yards. So not percentage of rushes, but the total number. It's the total number. Najee Harris. That's what I was going to guess.

Yeah, that's what I was going to guess. Najee was close. He was third with 51 such runs, and he still had a great avoided tackle rate, 30.9%, which is crazy. He had a lot of opportunities to avoid tackles. He did, but there's two somebodies who had more. Zeke? No.

Leonard Fournette. Well, I'm just going to say the dumb thing. Jonathan Taylor. Jonathan Taylor is number one. That's why you need to use it for zero or negative yards. Well, it's still a pretty high percentage. It's 19% of his runs went for zero or negative yards. And again, a dude who had a really good offensive line,

that 19%, maybe around 15th. I'd have to count backwards. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. To me, this is why I love explosive plays. And if that's an advanced stat, which I say it is, the explosive play percentage. Because Ramond an advanced stat, which I say it is. The explosive play percentage. Because Ramondre Stevenson, for example, the fact that he's top six in both

avoided tackles and broken tackles, his longest carry of the year was 21 yards. So maybe he can become more explosive, but if he can't, that's gonna really cap his ability. That's the argument against David Montgomery, is he breaks a bunch of tackles but before he gets going anywhere, somebody else tackles him. No's the argument against David Montgomery, is he breaks a bunch of tackles, but before he gets going anywhere, somebody else tackles him.

No, the argument against David Montgomery is he doesn't have top-end speed, so he's not going to break off 60-yard touchdown runs. That's exactly what I just said. Not really. You put it on like, he's so good at breaking tackles that you had a positive spin on it.

I had a negative spin on it. Because that's, You just like... We'll give him the benefit. The spin is what reflects the reality of the statement. We were saying the same thing, just spinning it different ways. You were saying that he doesn't have explosive plays because he's always breaking tackles.

I was saying that Montgomery doesn't have explosive plays because he's not explosive. I was saying that he gets caught before he makes an explosive play after he breaks a tackle. Yeah, that's not – he doesn't break a tackle on every play. Thank goodness this is after the hour mark and no one's listening. Yeah, I know.

I know. All right, Dave, you got your Tony Pollard stat? I'm close. I don't know that I could kill any more time. Another guy whose broken tackle rate was really encouraging last year was Josh Jacobs. He was elite in 2019, 33%. And then only average in 2020 dealt with injuries. He was down to 23%.

But last year, he was back above 33%. Had the sixth highest rate of any running back in the past five seasons. I just thought that was really exciting. I think he could have a really big year. I don't know. I just thought that was really exciting. I think he could have a really big year. I don't know. I've been doing dynasty ranks lately, and so I'm a little bit unsure of how to rank him just with this possibly being his last year there.

Right. But, yeah, I don't know. I haven't heard people talk about Jacobs much. I think it all comes down to whether or not McDaniels wants to have a different pass catching back or not. If they're going to use him in the passing game, then yeah, he might be a, like a top eight back. Right.

Yeah, for sure. And I'll tell you. Oh, go ahead. Yeah. I've got Pollard with 33 rushes to the left end or the right end. I did not include left tackle or right tackle. If you want me to, I will. He had 130 carries overall last year.

So that's a hundred carries between the tackles? If you include tackles left. I would say a run off tackle is not between the tackles. Okay, I'll add it. Let's see how many more that is. But this is completely arbitrary also. Also, I'm going to say, this is the most important thing of the entire show.

When I was on the baseball podcast, I would get into some arguments, BABIP versus BABIP. I was a BABIP guy. I eventually had to go to BABIP because that's what the industry was saying, because they would say, well, it stands for average. It's batting average on balls in play. So it has to be BABIP. But to me, BABIP sounds stupid. Sounds like an animated elephant. And BABIP sounded better and more professional so you know you look at scuba the u is underwater it's you so you don't pronounce it scuba because that's stupid so it should be baby and a dot is my proof that it's that we should be going back to baby because

babbitt sounds dumb and a dot you know you don't say add dot for average depth. You don't say add dot. I've got the number if you're ready to. Yeah, I'm ready. 56 carries for Pollard. Anything that wasn't inside of the tackles. Okay. I don't even know how the percentage is out of 133. It's not quite, not even 50%. So more went between the tackles.

Slightly more runs between the tackles than outside the tackles. I wouldn't say slightly. It's what is almost 80 to 77 to 56. Yeah. Look at you. Math genius. What can I say? Not so much a grammar genius.

No, listen to me. Pronunciation genius. There is no, if you want to call it Babbitt, fine. But don't give me the average. Don't give me the pronunciation of the word average reason, because there are plenty of examples where we say the acronym you know we say it the way it sounds better because we're not beholden to what each initial

blah blah blah say the word tournament goodbye everybody Jacob thank you for coming on thanks for having me as always alright we'll talk to you soon Dave and Heath thank you guys everybody we we appreciate you being here for this. Thank you,

show. Say frog and dog. Frog and dog do not rhyme. I think I just beat that. Later.