Starts of the Week + Boom Boom Conclusion, The Oppersnap - Fantasy Football Podcast for 1/6

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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the podcast. Oh, welcome! That's the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Get it right. Don't be nasty. I'm your host, Mike the Fantasy Hitman Wright. Andy, the Andrew all the way. We'll be back tomorrow for those matchups. But today, he is not here. So I'm joined by my best friend, Jason Moore. Happy to be here. Happy to go through these matchups with you, Michael.

Is this how we're, are we doing NPR? Yeah, yes. The rest of this episode will be presented in a very straightforward newsworthy manner. If you want to follow the show on socials, please do at Instagram.com slash fantasy footballers. Well, now you're just, now you're just boring me. No. Oh, I feel like we're getting real close to ASMR. We're just, we're starting newsworthy. We're starting serious, but we're going to end a little whispery.

Follow us on socials. We're on IG. We're on Twitter. Twitter is at the FFBallers at Jason FFL, at FF Hitman, at Andy Holloway. On today's show, we are never not working yet again. Well, not yet again. Right, because we never stop. Yeah. If you're never not working, we are still, we are still never not working. News and notes, we got the first part of the matchups, the starts of the week, and.

Ladies and gentlemen. Is it the conclusion or is it? I don't know. You got to tell me the thrilling end of this chapter of the boom boom kicker of the week. Where were we last week, Jay? Do you remember? Oh, man, I believe I just had duked a couple of kickers. Oh, okay. And, man, I put them down, you know, very handily. You put.

The kickers or the Hadoon? The kickers. Also, we have incredible news. Oh, hold on. Breaking news. I've just received word just now. The boom boom kicker of the week has been picked up for 2022. Yes, that is such. It will be back. So, so happy to hear that. Also. That news was brought to you by me. Thank you. You broke it. I developed the news and I broke it.

That's what Chefty's doing. That's like, who's, how have people not thought about this? Just be the one who creates the news and then you break the news. I don't think you're, I don't think you're thinking of this for the first time. I think this is being done. Oh, is it? Oh, yeah. The Illuminati? Yeah, this is out there. Speaking of breaking news, this is incredible. Earlier this week, earlier this week, we congratulated Joseph Mason, the winner of.

The 2021 listener to league who gets to play with us next year. And then Derek Logan said no. And he dunked on you. Boom, Shakalaka. He found the scoring issue of the Chicago Bears. He had only lost by 0.2 points. And he ran it up the flagpole. It was seen. I don't know if this has anything to do with his work on the matter or not, but he found it right away. He did.

And Joseph, he said he was scared. Joseph knew it was too close. And the scoring change actually happened. And we have a new champion. My apologies, Joseph Mason. You will not be in the listener league next year. But Derek Logan, you will be. You just apologize to a big loser. Oh, man. I apologize for nothing. So that was, that was incredible because every time you win or lose by less than two points, but.

especially less than one point, you have to wait for stack corrections. They do come, and every now and then they have an effect on the game. But the fact that they had an effect on the championship week of the listener league is incredible. So what a crazy happening, and we'll see you next year. Yes, congratulations. Never not working. Presented by Head and Shoulders, Scamp Shield Technology, available at Walmart.

All right, so earlier this season, we took a deep dive look at targets per route run, and it has turned out to be very valuable, a very telling stat. Targets per route run is basically not necessarily how many targets you're getting a game, but when you're on the field, when you've got the snap and you're running a route, how often does a quarterback actually throw you the ball? Because that's an earned...

You know, the target is an earned stat. That means you got open. That means the quarterback trusts you. That means that the team called your number, whatever it is. And so you can see that when this player is on the field and he's getting the ball more, that means good things for their future. That's the way that it has worked out for targets per route. We'll run. So we were curious about how this might work for running backs.

Because, you know, we look at the snap percentage. We have a weekly article that comes out about snap percentage breakdown. And who's on the field more, who's on the field less, who's getting the first down, the third down work, who's, you know, breaking down running backs. But what about how much running backs touch the ball per the times they're on the field? How many opportunities per snap or, as we're workshopping it around here? Upper snap. So the opera snap. The upper snap. How do you feel about that foot clean? We are.

We're taking a new look, a fresh look at a way to look at the data, the statistics. And you could have coined any phrase you wanted. And you've gone with operasnap. Yeah, I did it. I mean, I'm freaking home run to that thing. The operasnap sounds like a, you just discovered a new prehistoric fossil. And you've named the animal the opera snap.

Well, let's see how the upper snap is applying to running backs and see if there is anything. Because here's the reality is the quarterback is deciding the routes, you know, the targets per route run. But it's kind of the head coach that's deciding the opportunities per snap. When this guy's on the field, I've got to get him the ball. And I think that that could be very good for future utilization. Sure. So we want to look at guys who are both high.

on the opportunities per snap and low on the extremes. And then we're going to keep a look at the stat as time goes on, see if it is telling if that's something we should be looking at behind the scenes more and more. Here are the players that stand out as the hot diggedy dogs, the high-end operasnappers. First and foremost is the- This is good stuff. Yeah, it's great stuff. First and foremost is Deontiformant. He leads the NFL in Opper-Snap.

62% of his snaps when he's on the field, he is touching the ball. And we have seen him dominate last week. 132 rushing yards against Miami. He was PFF's highest-graded runner. You know, he's like 80% of Derek Henry, which is pretty darn good. Ironically, Derek Henry was also very high in opera snap before. It's in fact 100%. That's not true, but that feels like it. When Derek Henry, 100% of his snaps, he should.

He should get the ball. But then his foot would break. Oh, no. Too soon. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Another player, and we've seen this man, Elijah Mitchell. They love him. And this is another way that I'm looking at this. It's like, who does the team really love? Going into next season.

There's a big question. Are they going to rely on Elijah Mitchell? Are they going to go out and get a higher end running back, a free agent, a high draft pick? He has a 51 percent, which is the highest opera snap for a 49ers running back over the last decade. I love just casually using upper snap. Yeah, it's good. So he is a rookie, and he is already getting the highest opportunity per snap of any San Francisco 49ers running back in a decade.

I believe he's the dude going forward. They clearly trust him and love him when he's on the field. And then the other one to look at is a guy I brought up as a dynasty buy yesterday. Ramandre Stevenson at 57% along with Damien Harris. Both of these guys, when they're on the field, they are getting the ball.

And combined, they have 12 touchdowns inside the five. So as a team, that would be tied with Jonathan Taylor. And man, if Damien Harris goes away, Ramandre, we'll be here to stay. But on the other side, like who is maybe on the way out, maybe getting trusted less, maybe the coach is saying, I think we're stronger going elsewhere. Ezekiel Elliott is near the bottom.

He has seen an opportunity on just 36.5% of his snaps, which is 51st among qualifying running backs. He's run the second most running back routes at the position, but he's targeted on only 15% of routes. I mean, Zeke has always been a workload guy. Sure. He's always been a volume guy. I mean, he had breakaway speed as like rookie and sophomore year, but he's been more like, I want a guy who's going to touch the ball 300, 350 times. And they're not giving him the ball, even when he's out there.

as much. So going forward, I don't think that's going to change for the better. I think that's going to only get worse and worse. And then the other guy is Miles Sanders, which this one is fascinating. This one was infuriating. Oh, yeah. At the beginning of the year. Because you look at, well, he's on the field a lot. So it's going to come, but it never came. 40% on the season. And what is insane about this is that you want to know who's pretty high in OpperSnap? Jordan Howard.

Boston, like when those guys were on the field, they were getting the ball. But with Miles Sanders, he wasn't. So I don't know if this is just simply when Miles Sanders was here, they were passing the ball more, and he's just in past protection. I think that's what it was. The shift that the Philadelphia Eagles had, it happened in that mark of the season where Miles Sanders got hurt. And then I feel like he came back to a high opera snap. I don't have the numbers in front of me.

But I would assume so because you had 46% of the snaps yet 17 opportunities, 58% of the snaps yet 27 opportunities against the New York Jets. So I think that that number moved around. But it's interesting to see the data from this point of view for Zeke. And what do you believe is the future?

of the Dallas Cowboys, the future of Ezekiel Elliott, who's still on a massive contract, was it because he got banged up this year? Because they didn't take him. He was still on the field. Yeah, I was going to say, it's not because of that. This is a stat that says it's not because he's banged up. Otherwise, he would be on the field less. He's on the field. They're just saying he's not our strongest option on the field. I think that's what it's saying. And the truth is, the eyeballs back that up, right?

He's not the strongest option. He's not looking. Like, would you rather give the ball off to Zeke? Or would you rather give the ball off to Tony Pollard right now? If you're a Cowboys fan and it's second and eight, I feel like I'm more confident in Tony Pollard. And this is showing that the Cowboys might be less confident in Zeke as well. Get up to 100% dander of protection. That's never not working like Jason, who's coming up with hot ticket items like Oppersnapp. Oppersnapp.