Gross Bombs: NFL Props for Week 16
Josh Gross
A year ago at this time, if I had told you Austin Ekeler would only have 4.6 yards per touch in the 2023 season, you would have drawn some conclusions. Ekeler, who had never been lower than 5.3 yards per touch and had combined for a 5.4 mark in his elite 2021-2022 seasons, fell to RB26 last year, in part because of his worse efficiency.
If you had known that ahead of time, you’d have drafted Ekeler lower than his RB2 ADP from a year ago. And with that elite weapon struggling, you probably would have been more hesitant on Justin Herbert, who was drafted as QB6 but finished QB17 (QB11 per game) under the assumption that either the overall offense would be worse without its running back producing, or at least that an offensive line that couldn’t help Ekeler would also ding Herbert.
We don’t know what’s going to happen, and there are a lot of paths to and away from a player producing. But there are certain numbers every year that would be the most instructive ones for the season to come. They are the numbers that will tell the story of the season, the ones that, if you knew them ahead of time, would influence your draft decisions the most.
(No, you funny person you, “How many fantasy points” doesn’t count, that’s the “wish for more wishes” of this exercise.)
There are the numbers I wish I knew for 2024:
The Fantasy Football Stats That Would Tell the Story of 2024
Kirk Cousins’ Pass Attempts
Yes, if we see that Kirk Cousins has a lot of pass attempts in 2024, it will tell us he was healthy enough to play all year, and that’s a good thing as he returns from an Achilles tear. But it would also tell us a lot about the Falcons offense. The last five years, Arthur Smith teams (Falcons 2021-2023, Titans 2019-2020) averaged 490.2 pass attempts per year. Over that same span, Cousins averaged 584.4 pass attempts per 17 games. If the Falcons increase by 5 pass attempts per game, Drake London, Kyle Pitts and even Bijan Robinson become that much better as fantasy options.
Aaron Rodgers’ INT Rate
This is a repeat of last year’s article, because we didn’t get to see Rodgers throw last year. So I’ll just echo myself:
From 2018 to 2021, Aaron Rodgers threw 15 interceptions on 2,223 attempts, an absolutely unfathomable 0.7% interception rate. He led the league in that number all four years and never topped 1.0%. And then in 2022, he had 12 interceptions on 542 attempts, a 2.2% rate that was far off Dak Prescott’s league-leading (min. 150 attempts) 3.8% but still was a far cry from Rodgers’ norm. If we can chalk that up to Rodgers’ hand injury, the Packers’ O-line woes and/or a diminished receiver room, then maybe it can come back down. But that INT rate certainly was the canary in the coal mine.
If you told me today Rodgers’ INT rate was over 2.0%, I’d definitely be out on Mike Williams and would be a lot more nervous about Breece Hall and (especially) Garrett Wilson. A successful Aaron Rodgers is a doesn’t-throw-interceptions Aaron Rodgers, so we could do a lot with that information.
Anthony Richardson’s Snaps
There is certainly a chance that Anthony Richardson stays healthy all of 2024 and just isn’t that good. Not so bad that he gets benched (because that would lower the snap count), but that he’s just a guy who doesn’t run like he did last year and turns out to not be a good enough passer to support a high fantasy stock. But really, everything we saw from Richardson last year tells us that when he’s on the field, he produces fantasy points. So if we know how many snaps he can account for in 2024, we have a really good idea of where to draft him in fantasy.
Jalen Hurts’ Goal-Line Carries
Will the Tush Push continue to dominate the discourse in 2024? Or does the departure of Jason Kelce and arrival of Saquon Barkley change things? If we know how many carries Hurts gets at the 1-yard line, we’ll be able to draw a lot of conclusions. Either the team shies away from the Brotherly Shove in favor of more Barkley runs, or Barkley simply gets tackled at the 1 way less often than D’Andre Swift. Either way, if Hurts’ goal-line carries drop off, we can ding him in fantasy and upgrade Barkley, and if his numbers stay high, the opposite.
Tony Pollard’s Missed Tackle Rate
Early last year, Tony Pollard’s forced missed tackle rate was in the tank. He was also only about eight months removed from a broken leg. Later in the year, he was further removed from his broken leg, and his forced missed tackle rank skyrocketed. It’s possible those were connected! It’s also possible, of course, that CeeDee Lamb’s ascension to Jet Li’s character in The One diverted defensive attention and Pollard’s return to form was just a fortunate byproduct. Tell us now what his missed tackle rate looks like in 2024, and we know whether Pollard could rise back to the bell cow many projected him to be a year ago or whether he and Tyjae Spears will split time in a frustrating-for-fantasy committee.
Raheem Mostert’s Carries
“Just how good will De’Von Achane be?” is one of the key questions of 2024, and Raheem Mostert’s role in the Miami offense will be a big indicator to the answer to that question. At first I wanted to use Mostert’s touchdown total here, after he more than doubled his career touchdown total last year, but that would tell us more about Mostert alone. Instead, we look at Mostert’s carry total, because if he can repeat his 200-plus carry total of 2023, he’s going to find his way to touchdowns and be fantasy relevant. And if Mostert gets 200-plus carries again, that tells us Achane is not going to rise up into the full-time role many are expecting out of him. A lot of carries for Mostert equals very limited upside for Achane.
Jameson Williams’ Receptions
As I’ve written several times this offseason, Jameson Williams is coming up on his sixth football season since high school, and he still has exactly one productive season in that time. Take out his 79 receptions for 1,572 yards and 15 touchdowns at Alabama in 2021, and he has 40 receptions for 661 yards and 3 scores in the other four years combined, with last year’s 24-354-2 the best year. There are reasons for all of his struggles, but eventually you have to just produce. If we can see a Williams with 40-50 receptions, he’s interesting. If he can get to 70-plus, he might be a superstar with his explosive ability. And if he is, then the ceiling for Jared Goff becomes about as high as it is for any non-running QB. Conversely, if Williams has another year with sub-30 receptions, we have to wonder about Goff’s upside, and then Jahmyr Gibbs/David Montgomery become more interesting.
Tyreek Hill’s Snaps
As Tyreek Hill ages, he’s actually getting more efficient, but that’s at least in part because his team is using him less. Ignore his four games missed to injury in 2019, and his snap total has dropped every year since 2019 (905 to 901 to 866 to 799 to last year’s 695). Nico Collins (669 snaps) was the only top-24 fantasy receiver with fewer snaps than Hill, with the top 10 other than Hill averaging 956.9 snaps. It hasn’t hurt Hill’s is productivity, with him threatening 2,000 receiving yards last year for most of the season, but there becomes a point where limiting a guy’s playing time to keep him fresh hurts his overall production. If Hill’s snap total drops again in 2024, say it’s 650 or something, we can’t really count on his elite efficiency to continue ad infinitum.
Cooper Kupp’s and Puka Nacua’s Target Shares
So what is it going to be, Los Angeles? Is the offense going to run through the guy who had one of the handful of best receiver seasons ever, albeit three years ago, or the guy who had one of the best rookie seasons ever, albeit you need the “rookie” qualifier in there? There are perfectly fine arguments why either of Puka Nacua or Cooper Kupp might be the true WR1 in Los Angeles in 2024, and just as fine arguments as to why they might not. Nacua’s target share was 28.7% last year, with Kupp’s at 25.6% when he was active. If they both float in that range, they can both be fantasy WR1s. But if one jumps to the 30% range and the other down near 20%, well, that’s a mid-range WR1 and his lower-end WR2 (or below) teammate.
The Raiders’ Snaps in 12 Personnel
Las Vegas seemed like one of the least likely landing spots for Brock Bowers in this year’s draft. After all, they had just drafted Michael Mayer in the second round a year ago, and sure, he only had 304 yards and 2 touchdowns as a rookie, but you don’t bail on a rookie tight end that fast. Still, the Raiders need good players, and Bowers is a good player, so they made the move. It seems in training camp like there’s a reasonable chance the team uses the rookie Bowers as a de facto wide receiver and keeps Mayer in a more traditional TE role. Their number of snaps in 12 personnel (two tight ends on the field) will give us a real indication on the upside for both tight ends. If they don’t employ two-TE sets very often, it hurts both of them, because neither is going to get zero playing time. But if the team goes two tight ends a lot, Bowers could be a low-end TE1, and Mayer will have some spike weeks of his own.
