NHL Best Bets for Tuesday (11/19)
Kenneth Le
During the season we’re going to use the Directional Passing Tool to break down how different offenses are utilizing their weapons all over the field. As the year goes on, patterns begin to emerge that will allow us to anticipate and exploit mismatches between a defense and an offense that we’re targeting.
Short Passing
In the short left section of the field, we have our typical list of studs here. Cooper Kupp continues to lead the way in yardage here with over 100 more yards than anyone else. CeeDee Lamb is next up and with the news that Amari Cooper is out on Sunday (and for their Thanksgiving game), the door is wide open for him to explode. At the very least the absence of Cooper will raise his target floor, which should translate into fantasy points. Just one non-wide receiver makes the list with Najee Harris tallying 188 yards in this section of the field on -18 air yards.
Speaking of non-wide receivers, Travis Kelce is the leader in the short right portion of the field. Tyreek Hill is 7th on the same list and completes the only teammate pair here. Brandin Cooks is in the middle of this list and arguably doing the most with the least.
We have two tight ends in the short middle part of the field, which makes sense intuitively. Here’s how usage breaks down across the league in different sections of the field.
The presence of multiple tight ends in the short middle zone of the field isn’t terribly surprising once we look at the data. The middle of the field in both short and deep targets is where tight ends see the most targets.
Deep Passing
The deep target leaderboards are a hodgepodge of high usage and unsustainable efficiency. Cooper Kupp leads the way with 320 yards on 17 targets, compared to Deonte Harris’s presence here despite seeing only 4 targets to the deep left portion of the field.
It’s more of the same here in the deep right section of the field. From Ja’Marr Chase with 490 air yards on 16 targets all the way down to DeSean Jackson (across two teams, mind you) turning 4 targets into 161 receiving yards.
Lastly, it’s exceedingly rare to see many deep middle targets. Marquise Brown is the only player in the entire league with double-digit targets in this portion of the field.
