Week 1 Review: Looking Back At Projections
All of my pre-season assumptions were excellent and my process was perfect, it couldn’t have possibly gone wrong. But then the first ball was kicked and all those theories and assumptions were replaced with real, tangible results. For anyone who went on Twitter over the course of the weekend, you’ll know that week one sprang a few surprises and put everyone on tilt – whether it was Austin Ekeler not getting targeted, Gardner Minshew having a 95-percent completion rate, or Peyton Barber getting more redzone carries than McCaffrey and Cook combined.
I’m not going to spend time working through waiver wire adds, or buy low/sell high candidates, but instead I’m going to take a retrospective look at the assumptions I used for my weekly projections. I’ll pick out where I was significantly different, where I was close, and some of the players that sit at either end of some key stats on the week. Let’s get into the Week 1 review.
Week 1 Review: Team play counts
Key Stats
- Highest: Buffalo Bills (81 plays)
- Lowest: Jacksonville Jaguars (47 plays)
In 2019, the Philadelphia Eagles had the highest number of total plays with 1,104. That’s an average of 69 plays per game. At the other end of the scale, Washington had 885 plays. That’s an average of 55 plays per game.
So you can see that 81 plays from the Buffalo Bills is massive. It’s higher than every one of their 2019 games and was far more than I projected. I would suggest that this isn’t going to be sustainable but it will give me cause to bump up my expectation for next week.
Week 2 Rankings!
In fact, eight different teams had 70 plays or more in week one, a pace higher than that Eagles pace from 2019. The Cardinals had their highest total under Kingsbury, the Lions got above 70 plays for only the third time over the last two seasons, the Packers hit a play total that they only beat once in 2019, and Washington hit their highest play total since 2018. What does that mean? It means that teams came out firing to start the season. Were they just eager to play without having had a preseason or is this a sign of things to come?
At the other end of the scale, the Jaguars were one of three teams (Vikings and Jets) with a 16-game pace less than Washington managed over the course of the 2019 season, running less plays than they did at any point last season. The Vikings dropped below 50 plays only three times in 2019 but have achieved that feat already in week one, and the Jets have been consistently low. The Ravens were also at this bottom end with a play total that was lower than all but one of their games in 2019. Again, this might not necessarily be too much to panic over but I’m certainly ticking down my expectations moving forward.
Closing out week one the Titans, having not managed more than 66 plays in any game last year and who made their name on efficiency on low play totals down the stretch, ran a huge 77 plays in week one.
Key Takeaway – not going to over-correct just yet but some play count expectations need to be adjusted moving forward
Week 1 Review: Pass Attempts
Key Stats
- Highest: Atlanta Falcons (54 attempts – 72-percent passing)
- Lowest: New England Patriots (19 attempts – 31-percent passing)
Baltimore’s 46-percent passing ratio was the lowest in 2019 and the Seahawks had the honour of 2018’s lowest with 44-percent. So even in suitable gamescripts, a 31-percent pass ratio was never in my mind for the Patriots. They were the only team with less than 40-percent and I won’t be assuming that the Patriots get there again next week.
At the other end, the Falcons high passing ratio was no great surprise but was a slight tick up from my assumption of 67-percent.
The majority of my assumptions on pass ratio were based on assumed gamescript. At this stage of the season, I did this based on the Vegas over/under and implied team totals. So the biggest differences in ratio to my projections were where the Vegas expectations were somewhat off target.
The Colts were one team that was some way off, where I had assumed they would get to just run the ball down the throat of the Jaguars for most of the game. As we know that didn’t pan out, so my assumption of low 40-percent passing turned in closer to 68-percent. On the opposite side of that, Jacksonville were able to run the ball at a higher rate than anticipated due to the scoreline and also due to the monumentally low number of plays.
Key Takeaway – again, no over-correction this early in the season but with an eye on some of those at either end of the scale
Rush Attempts
- Highest: New England Patriots (42 attempts)
- Lowest: New York Jets (15 attempts)
I’ve covered the ratios above but if we look at some pure numbers, the Jets’ 15 rush attempts would give a 16-game pace lower than the lowest ranked team from 2019 (Miami Dolphins), and the 42 rush attempts from the Patriots is a higher 16-game pace than the Ravens managed with their top-ranked rushing offense from last year.
Key Takeaway – once again, we have to be careful not to over-correct after one week but this will definitely cause some tweaks in my assumptions moving forward
Intended Air Yards per Attempt (IAY/A)
- Highest: Carson Wentz (12.4 yards per attempt)
- Lowest: Gardner Minshew (4.5 yards per attempt)
A couple of surprises here. Firstly, Carson Wentz had the highest IAY/A of all quarterbacks in week one. In other words, he threw it deeper and more often than everyone else, and more so than anticipated. He lacked a deep threat last year so with Jackson and Reagor on the field it shouldn’t have been a surprise that this would increase, but there was a stark contrast in Wentz’s numbers with either deep throws or short targets and not much in between (probably something to do with getting smashed by Chase Young and friends all day!).
2019’s highest mark was 10.7 over the course of the season, so 12.4 is clearly an outlier that is unlikely to sustain over time.
At the other end of the spectrum is Gardner Minshew. At 4.5 yards, this is nearly two yards lower than the low mark set in 2019. Minshew’s completion percentage was phenomenally high in week one (95-percent) but with such a low depth of throw and only 20 pass attempts, it’s not hard to see why he was able to complete the vast majority of them.
Related | Week 1 DraftKings Main Slate Recap
A big surprise for me in week one was Patrick Mahomes. We know he’s got a cannon for an arm and likes to take those deep shots but his 4.6 IAY/A was around half of my expectation. I dug in to this further and found that in 2018 Mahomes IAY/A was below 7 only twice (lowest was 6.2) and in 2019 his lowest was 5.1 (five times it was below 7). There’s a strong correlation with those low IAY/A games being against teams with elite DBs (Jalen Ramsey, Derwin James, Chris Harris Jr, Stephon Gilmore) and in some cases elite DEs (JJ Watt, Myles Garrett). This highlights the strength of game-planning by Andy Reid and also gives me something different to look for when I’m projecting these games.
Similarly, Josh Allen’s IAY/A came down in week one. I expected him to carry on where he left off after a mark of 9.4 yards in 2019, but with the introduction of some new weapons and an increase in volume, his IAY/A came down to 6.2. This really does look to go hand in hand with the volume increase and could signal a change in approach for the Bills in 2020. The even better news for Allen was that this also led to a significant bump in completion percentage.
Key Takeaway – some small adjustments to make across the board with a close eye on whether the trend continues in to week two
Targets
Top Targets
| 1 | Davante Adams | 17 |
| 2 | DeAndre Hopkins | 16 |
| 3 | Amari Cooper | 14 |
| 4 | Jamison Crowder | 13 |
| = 5 | Russell Gage | 12 |
| = 5 | Julio Jones | 12 |
| = 5 | Calvin Ridley | 12 |
Target Market Share (Percentage of Team’s Target Share)
| 1 | DeAndre Hopkins | 40 |
| 2 | Davante Adams | 39 |
| 3 | Jamison Crowder | 37 |
| 4 | Julian Edelman | 37 |
| 5 | Amari Cooper | 36 |
I’m not going to make too big of a jump after week one, with a big impact from gamescripts, matchups and way too many injuries across the board.
If I look at the target leaders and market share leaders, there are a few key takeaways. Firstly, I missed on Hopkins. I’d expected it to take some time for him to settle in to the new system but he came out firing with the second most targets on the week, and the biggest market share of his team’s targets. I still see this coming back a little but I’m moving my expectations on him going forward.
Adams was exactly as advertised as the number one target leader, as was Jamison Crowder getting all the targets he could handle in New York. The market share number for Julian Edelman is nice and high but remembering that the Patriots only threw the ball 19 times, I’m not going to get too carried away here (note that N’Keal Harry also got over 30-percent of the market share there). As a wise man once told me, 37-percent of nothing is still nothing!
Amari Cooper was somewhat of a surprise for me as I expected Jalen Ramsey to do a number on him. When the going got tough, Cooper was a go-to guy for Prescott so I may look to bump up his expected target share next week, particularly with the injury to Jarwin.
Finally, the three Falcons guys cannibalise each other’s market share but with that high passing volume, all three hit equal 5th for the number of targets.
Key Takeaway – Hopkins gets a major change but outside of that, just small adjustments and updates
Carries
Top Carries
| 1 | Derrick Henry | 31 |
| 2 | Clyde Edwards-Helaire | 25 |
| 3 | Josh Jacobs | 25 |
| 4 | Christian McCaffrey | 23 |
| 5 | Ezekiel Elliott | 22 |
Carry Market Share (Percentage of Team’s Carry Share)
| 1 | Derrick Henry | 91 |
| 2 | Josh Jacobs | 81 |
| 3 | Ezekiel Elliott | 81 |
| 4 | Christian McCaffrey | 77 |
| 5 | Saquon Barkley | 75 |
A bit of a surprise in Kansas City that CEH got such a high workload in week one. He was always going to be the lead back from the get-go but I anticipated him being somewhat eased in to things, particularly when they established a healthy lead.
No huge surprises across the rest of the carry leaders or rushing share leaders here. Henry was the only back on his team with Evans sitting out the first game and I expect the other workhorse backs to dominate this list moving forward.
An honourable mention for Ronald Jones who saw 65-percent of Tampa’s carries. This backfield is going to be hard to predict and he looked good when he got an opportunity, but Fournette is still going to make his way in to this setup and reduce that market share.
As for the quarterbacks, the cheat-code rushing quarterbacks were as advertised but both Cam Newton and Josh Allen ended up leading their teams in carries. Kyler Murray wasn’t too far behind, taking 36-percent of the Cardinals carries and denting Kenyan Drake’s numbers on the week.
Key Takeaway – the rushing quarterbacks might get a small tweak and I’m releasing the shackles on CEH
Summary
I have to be careful not to over-correct based on one week of information, but there are definitely some indications of intent from different teams. The implied team totals will continue to drive my expectations so I expect a bumpy ride for a couple more weeks while we really understand the landscape.
In the meantime, I’ll be making some adjustments ahead of week two projections, and I’ll provide another review after week two games have concluded. And yes I’m increasing Hopkins’ target share!
