I’m going to try to keep it brief on each team, but there’s a lot of interesting stuff. The awesome OurLads already has updated depth charts for nearly all 32 teams, and I’m going to look through them all right now and make sure I didn’t miss anything, so I might as well take some notes.

There are a couple key spots I know I want to highlight, like some of the big backfield moves in Dallas, Kansas City, and the NFC North. Ourlads arranges things by division, so I’ll work through the same way. Let’s get into it.

AFC East

• The Bills kept four TEs and only five WRs for now, cutting Mecole Hardman. In the past they’ve had a fullback, specifically Reggie Gilliam for years, but he’s in New England now. They had two guys in camp this year but neither made the team. Gilliam hasn’t gotten a lot of touches, but it does reinforce that the backfield could be used a bit different this year. I’m still not in love with James Cook at cost, but Ray Davis is stupid cheap on most sites and is a great late Target.

• Despite trading Tutu Atwell, Miami kept seven WRs. They also kept four TEs, and three RBs plus a fullback. A lot of skill position depth for a “small-pie” team.

• The Patriots only kept three TEs, and one is UDFA Tanner Arkin. Rookie third-rounder Eli Raridon is locked into a role. They also traded for Corey Kiner from the Cardinals as their RB3, but only kept the main two RBs from camp, plus Gilliam at fullback. Kiner adds some usability, but it reinforces that TreVeyon Henderson should get nearly all the work Rhamondre Stevenson doesn’t get early in the season.

• All 14 skill players I projected for the Jets back in June/July made the team, which is kind of a rarity for a team to go through August without some depth shake-ups.

Signal: TreVeyon Henderson — Patriots went outside the organization for a No. 3 RB, emphasizing the point all offseason that they have been building for their main two RBs to be the guys

NFC East

• Jaydon Blue getting cut was massive news. Phil Mafah also getting the axe reinforces that it wasn’t so much just a Blue thing. The Cowboys kept Hunter Luepke, who I always note they really like in a pass-down role, and then have Malik Davis as the only true rusher behind Javonte Williams. I still have Williams as a fade profile but had to bump him back up the rankings on this, for hopefully obvious reasons. This isn’t meant to be some weird victory lap because I still see it as far away from hitting any meaningful outcome, but I’ve had Davis in a more draftable range than probably anyone in the industry for most of the summer, which I note because I only moved him up a touch and I’m sure some rankings that are more reactive to the latest news will be higher than me on him now. We do want to be somewhat cautious with this profile, but he’s a fine late-round pick. The other implication here is CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens are going to eat, as we’ve now removed some potential for other versions of this offense to be a bit of a nuisance for downfield pass volume. I added a Target tag to Lamb, and I’m still very into Pickens at WR11. I also moved Ryan Flournoy up. I haven’t been super into him but he’s definitely draftable in deeper leagues.

• The Giants were pretty telling that they will use a lot of TEs, keeping four of them, and only five WRs with no real slot profile. Isaiah Likely is probably just the slot receiver, but with Theo Johnson also being notable, and Chris Manhertz playing as a blocking TE, I do still have routes concerns. Likely’s definitely draftable as a take-a-peek if you’re really into him, though. For the WRs, it’s Malik Nabers and four guys that have had higher aDOTs in their careers, in rookie Malachi Fields (as a prospect), Odell Beckham, Darius Slayton, and Darnell Mooney. Nabers could feast on the more nuanced routes underneath these deeper threats, and I’m still willing to be pretty aggressive on his knee rehab. Might bite me but again he’s averaged more than 10 targets per game in his career so far, so we’re grading on a scale. Finally, the Giants also kept all four RBs, including Najee Harris. People are burying Devin Singletary, but still being there seems pretty relevant to the No. 2 RB conversation. They also have fullback Patrick Ricard. I’d expect another move at some point — it’s hard to carry four RBs plus a fullback — and it feels like they maybe still want to trade Tyrone Tracy, but didn’t want to outright cut him.

• Nothing too surprising on the Eagles. I thought Dameon Pierce looked OK in the preseason and they cut him. He could land somewhere else. Grant Calcaterra hit IR which could have thinned out TE early in the season, but they kept four other TEs, so expectations are probably still that Eli Stowers won’t be active early.

• Washington’s depth chart wasn’t updated yet.

Signal: Malik Davis — clear No. 2 RB, solid late-round handcuff, does have a somewhat limited profile but should get first crack if anything happens to Javonte Williams, even if they add someone else at some point; Giants — probably a lot of two-TE sets

AFC North

• Adam Randall hit IR with a designation to return, so I moved him down the ranks. He looked great in the preseason but would be a later-season play, it seems. Derrick Henry is going to feast early in the year. There wasn’t much else surprising for Baltimore, who did keep both the WRs and both the TEs they drafted between Rounds 3 and 5. Some young guys will play, and Ja’Kobi Lane is the best early-season bet.

• The Bengals kept five TEs, and they are prone to this kind of stuff. Erick All has gotten some hype but I expect a TE rotation there. Just three RBs, with Samaje Perine and Tahj Brooks as the only two behind Chase Brown. So that’s as expected.

• The Browns stashed Dillon Gabriel on short-term IR, which didn’t really change much for me relative to my mild optimism yesterday in Preseason Stealing Signals, Week 3. He wasn’t going to play early, so maybe it’s actually a positive note, because they probably were considering cutting him to keep sixth-round pick Taylen Green as the developmental No. 3 QB. I wonder if one of Deshaun Watson or Shedeur Sanders could be off the roster at some point, either via trade or cut, to make room for a Gabriel return. Also, the Browns kept just three RBs, with Raheim Sanders probably in line to be involved if Quinshon Judkins missed time, given Sanders is a bigger back and Dylan Sampson is more of a satellite back. Still, Sampson would be expected to be the clear lead in that outcome. One final note is the Browns kept just Blake Whiteheart and rookie seventh-round pick Carsen Ryan behind Harold Fannin at TE, so this is one of the offenses where we wouldn’t expect a lot of two-TE sets, and Fannin should play basically every down.

• The Steelers kept four QBs, which was notable, and then also behind Jaylen Warren and Rico Dowdle, all they have are rookie fifth-round fullback Riley Nowakowski and rookie seventh-round do-everything guy Eli Heidenreich. Expect the RB duo to handle everything, and both have contingent upside. Finally, the Steelers only kept three TEs, and I still think Pat Freiermuth is going to run more routes than people are accounting for.

Signal: Adam Randall — starting on short-term IR, later-season play; Jaylen Warren, Rico Dowdle — no third RB presence, should get everything and both have big contingent upside

NFC North

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As always, I’m getting some help from Dwain McFarland at Fantasy Life, whose preseason writeups include all the best data and information you can find. (I also drafted a redraft team with Dwain from the 1.03 on a stream this week; you can check it out here.)

I’m writing this Saturday and Sunday, and we’re getting cuts through Sunday’s deadline, and then waiver claims can be made before Monday, so we might get some news on shuffling players in the next couple days.

But here’s what I saw in Preseason Week 3.

Bills 28, Steelers 27

• Neither team really played anyone. Ray Davis didn’t play on offense but they had him work on punt returns a little, and he fumbled the first one.

• Rookie Germie Bernard scored on the very next play for the Steelers, taking a quick-hitter to the perimeter and making his defender miss in space for a 13-yard TD that was all yards after the catch. That’s what he’s good at, but getting reps in this game wasn’t the most promising thing. Roman Wilson sat and may be the early-season leader for the third WR role.

• Rookie Skyler Bell caught 7-of-10 targets for 49 yards to lead the Bills in receiving. I liked the profile but it’s a deep receiver room.

Browns 37, Patriots 13

• Both teams rested starters, but we got to see the Browns’ deeper QBs, who were intriguing in this one. Dillon Gabriel got his first real playing time of the preseason, since the other two QBs each played most of a half in the first two games, and he frankly looked great, leading scoring drives on all five real series he played in the first half, including throwing three touchdowns. The thing about Gabriel is while both the other QBs have more prototypical size, and have plenty of arm strength, he seems like pretty clearly the most accurate passer of the trio, something that was evident in his college profile. When guys are open, and he sees them, he gets the ball on them, in stride, with the ability to catch and run. As far as navigating a young offense with exciting pieces the Browns want to evaluate, that’s a pretty key thing. Gabriel also showed some mobility on a read option carry for a third-down conversion, and found Ben Patterson (who?) on an extended play, nailing him about 20 yards downfield while throwing on the run near the sideline on a play where Patterson was able to add a bunch of YAC for a 52-yard gain. Gabriel finished 12-of-15 for 186 yards and the three scores in a half of football, and the reason I’m carrying on is it legit gave me some hope for the Browns’ receiving weapons to see this. They have a ton of talent.

• Rookie Taylen Green played the second half, and the elite athleticism was on display — he dazzled with the ball in his hands — but the play-calling was a lot more conservative and he ultimately threw just 7 passes. He actually ran more times, with 8 carries for a whopping 66 yards, and I’d be in on him for fantasy if he played, but the passing seemed far enough off that it seems unlikely he’ll play a big role this year.

• Kyle Williams got deep for a third preseason touchdown, and he’s seemingly back from the dead this preseason. The passing game may not be hurt all that much by the trade of Kayshon Boutte is Williams is a real vertical threat. He’s not a fantasy target off this preseason production, but might be a waiver wire consideration at some point.

Signal: Kyle Williams — showing real vertical ability (still probably a rotational guy at best this year, but could help the offense)

49ers 18, Raiders 12

• The 49ers didn’t play starters, but both Kaelon Black and Jordan James played. Black was out there first, and looked good as a runner with 28 yards on 4 carries, but then James got a little more run and also looked very good, going for 35 on 8 carries and adding 20 yards on a screen play. Black’s probably still the preferred handcuff but I moved James up.

• The Raiders played Kirk Cousins and other starters, including Brock Bowers. Cousins played two series, but Bowers was only out there for the first one. And yet that one series looked awesome for the Bowers upside case. On Cousins’ first throw, Bowers got a quick slant from an outside alignment, but the cornerback was sitting on the route and beat him to the spot. Dangerous throw by Cousins ultimately, but the alignment and quick first-read nature of it was telling. On the next play, Bowers lined up in the slot and ran a little in-breaking curl between two zone defenders for a 6-yard completion. On third down, Bowers was the point man in a bunch alignment and ran an over route, clearing space for a completion to Jalen Nailor behind him on a short first-down completion. On all three passing plays, Michael Mayer was on the field as an inline tight end. After a holding penalty, the Raiders brought a fullback onto the field and had Bowers in an inline alignment as the only TE, where he ran a flat route underneath a Tre Tucker curl that pulled a defender down and made for an easy completion to Tucker. For the next snap, they kept the same personnel, but Bowers was out wide as the X receiver essentially; Tucker ran an orbit motion and got a swing pass to the side of the field where Bowers aligned and ran a quick go route to clear space, for a first down to Tucker. Bowers came off the field for some rushing concepts, but was inline for others, and aligned out wide for still others, getting onto defensive backs as an obviously willing and aggressive blocker relative to your typical outside wide receiver. On the passing concepts, he was out there, and the play design went through his side of the field. If you were looking for evidence of Bowers as the TE version of Jaxon Smith-Njigba in Klint Kubiak’s scheme, as the No. 1 receiving weapon that was the centerpiece of every passing concept whether through being the clear target or creating space for others — that was all over the one drive he played.

• Tucker looked like the clear No. 1 WR, and his usage was intriguing as the move guy, and his athleticism plays in space on some of the short stuff when Bowers is pulling coverage away to help create easy separation. I moved him up and he’s a draftable late-round WR. I’m less optimistic about Nailor, though he made a fun one-handed catch (on a short throw for a 5-yard gain). Mayer seemed more likely to be the fifth eligible than Jack Bech, who looks like the slot when the Raiders do go to 11 personnel, but played far more on the second drive with Cousins than the first, i.e. after Bowers left the game.

• I’m not trying to give Bowers credit for everything, and it may have had nothing to do with Bowers being on the field, but Mike Washington ran well with more of a success rate element, as he seemed to find space far more easily this week, and his athleticism does always show up. He went for 49 yards on 8 carries with a long of just 13, emphasizing that he was compiling that efficiency in chunks. It was a big performance for Washington that started to answer some of my bigger questions. Still, Ashton Jeanty doesn’t seem to be out for long and looks like the clear Target. If Bowers being on the field creates the type of gravity it seemed to in the one drive we saw here, that’s good news for Jeanty, Tucker, and Washington, and then ultimately those guys might in turn create space back for Bowers. Everything looked far more functional than anything we saw with the Raiders last year.

• Fernando Mendoza looked shaky after taking over from Cousins. He’s not really seeing it yet, and feels a little skittish in the pocket, wanting to be decisive and make the right reads, but pretty clearly not trusting it and at times rushing throws into coverage. Normal rookie stuff, but with Cousins looking pretty comfortable operating a well-orchestrated offense that doesn’t require a superhero at QB, I got the impression for the second straight week Cousins might be solid enough to keep Mendoza off the field longer than the target weeks I was earlier thinking, like roughly Week, 4 or 5. It’ll depend on how Cousins plays and how the offense looks, but if the Raiders perform decently, it wouldn’t surprise me if Cousins got a shot to play until closer to midseason.

Signal: Raiders — offense looks far more functional than last season; Brock Bowers — really intriguing alignments outside and in the slot, and felt like the focal point of the passing game for his one series; Tre Tucker — felt like the clear secondary weapon working off Bowers, as the move WR; Mike Washington — better success rate on his rushing, looked better to my eye; Kirk Cousins — looked comfortable operating the offense, and Fernando Mendoza did not to the same degree (Mendoza will play, but preseason may have worked in favor of Cousins playing half the season); Kaelon Black, Jordan James — Black led, but both looked efficient and capable

Rams 20, Chargers 18

• Ty Simpson got the start for the Rams, and they didn’t play many people. He put up big numbers again, and made a nice touchdown pass late in the first quarter rolling out to his left, but the commentary has been a lot of what he’s been asked to do is simplified reads and quick throws, and that’s clear when you watch it. It’s obviously a positive he had a great statistical preseason, but it’s just a commentary that it could be more difficult if the Rams are forced to turn to him in the regular season for any reason.

• Justin Herbert seemingly would’ve played just one possession, but he fumbled a handoff try for Omarion Hampton on the second play from scrimmage, so he was out there for a second quick drive after that, which also lasted just two plays as he hit Quentin Johnston for a 65-yard TD on a play-action bomb. Johnston can do this sort of thing, as we know, and the Rams were playing backups and he was running free deep, which may happen a time or two during the season, but is the kind of thing first-string defenses work hard to take away, so it’s not exactly something that rewrites my thoughts on QJ, as much fun as it was for QJ backers to celebrate a long preseason TD on social media. I did make the uncharacteristic decision of moving Johnston back above the Big Tier Break, but I still have him ranked well behind ADP and kept the Fade tag on him.

• Herbert’s first pass, on the first drive, was a quick throw to Charlie Kolar on a TE leak play for a nice gain of 9 yards. His first throw on the second drive was given as a target to QJ, though it was batted down at the line of scrimmage and it wasn’t entirely clear. It seemed like he was throwing to QJ running an out route on the outside, but at first I thought it might have been a target for the inside route on the play, which was run by Oronde Gadsden. Gadsden has famously been discussed as buried, so being on the field for a first-and-10 early was notable, although it was a 13 personnel snap with both Kolar and David Njoku also out there, so I’m not sure it was all that bullish. For what it’s worth, Tre Harris was not active in this game, and rookie Brenen Thompson was also out.

• Ladd McConkey was off the field as QJ was the lone receiver in that set; McConkey’s a fun play in theory, but his profile is not strong enough to justify his ADP, especially if he’s not actually running a route on all downs. He’s going to be productive but he’s too aggressively priced and still looks at least a round overvalued. For example, Garrett Wilson has three healthy seasons and has gone for 147, 168, and 154 targets in those years. He was pacing for 159 through six games last year, before playing just 19 snaps in one more game. There are per-route things you can get excited about with McConkey, but he has seasons of 112 and 106 targets so far in his career. The market clearly preferring McConkey on all major sites is just a misunderstanding of the range of outcomes inherent in these two profiles, which dates back to routes volume and total productivity in college (Wilson had two seasons of 90+ yards per game; McConkey’s career high was 53.1; raw production isn’t everything, but that’s a meaningful gap at two powerhouse colleges with real target competition, i.e. with other variables that are comparable). I continue to grapple with the idea that I don’t like the price on McConkey or QJ, and yet think Herbert is a clear Target, and I realize that feels incoherent to many — and I’ll even readily acknowledge it’s a pretty narrow view of the uncertainty of the sport and requires my specific idea of how this goes to play out, which is tough to bet on. But McConkey being drafted in a range where he needs a ton to go right to be a hit is straightforward to me, and I question whether he can be a smash there, so while I do think he’ll score, it feels like a “small miss” kind of play in a range where there are likely to be huge hits; the opportunity cost equation is just a disaster. He never had an 800-yard season in college, had a great rookie year in the pros, and then reverted to being a sub-800-yard guy last year, too, and he’s a third-round pick in a season where you really need your third-round picks to be league-winners? And then on QJ, I keep hearing about the TDs, and I do expect he’ll catch like 8 TDs again probably, but he just doesn’t show enough skill consistency to be a great bet for the type of ceiling hit we’re looking for where he goes. What I hear as a rebuttal amounts to the idea that if Herbert goes nuclear, it won’t matter, and I do acknowledge that in that scenario, these guys will likely return value. But I guess my ranking needs to address the specific idea that Herbert can be a top-five QB and these guys still don’t need to be “big hits” — especially at McConkey’s ADP, I think him still being a “small hit” in that scenario is straightforward, but probably QJ at his is the bigger concern, because he could score double-digit TDs and then it doesn’t really matter if he’s only a 900-yard guy or whatever (think Davante Adams and his sub-800-yard season with 14 TDs last year). But I also don’t think that’s a lock. I think you could see QJ have a similar to season to what he’s had, making him also look like a “small hit” that had some opportunity cost issues, and then I think you could see Harris be a bigger hit just because of cost even as a guy who maybe wouldn’t match QJ’s full-season numbers, and then you could have one or more of the TEs spiking a TD rate — which often happens in these situations — and also the RBs being big contributors in the passing game, helping bolster Herbert’s passing numbers with a lot of YAC on intriguing designed concepts. In these spots, it’s also normal to have an explosive rookie like Brenen Thompson have a few hundred yards and like 4 TDs, and that doesn’t seem like much, and it really isn’t for Thompson’s fantasy appeal, but it would be more than 10% of passing TDs on a 35-TD season. And that’s sort of the point. It’s not common for 35-TD seasons to not feature a stud No. 1 WR, but that’s more of a chicken-and-egg scenario, and just because Herbert has that upside doesn’t mean there’s a stud No. 1 WR profile on his roster by default. The last time Patrick Mahomes threw for 30+ in 2022, he hit 41, and Travis Kelce did catch 12, but behind him Jerick McKinnon caught 9 and no one else caught more than 4, as nine total receivers had multiple TD catches. Josh Allen threw 35+ each of three consecutive seasons between 2020 and 2022, and Stefon Diggs was a clear No. 1 there, like Kelce in K.C., and Diggs had 8, 10, and 11 (but he was a fantasy force more because he had 100+ catches and 1200+ yards each year). But those aren’t massive numbers, and the third guy on the team in TD receptions each of those years had 6 or fewer. And those are some big pass TD seasons. Looking at last year, the Rams led the league and were concentrated, but the Lions were second with 35 pass TDs, and Isaac TeSlaa popped for 6 as the third leader behind Amon-Ra St. Brown at 11 and Jameson Williams at 7. Drake Maye had 31 last year and is maybe the best example, since that’s a team without such a clear No. 1 like Kelce, Diggs (for Buffalo), and St. Brown, and that team had eight guys with multiple scores and Hunter Henry led the team with just 7 (Diggs was obviously the lead yardage receiver at a later stage of his career on that team, and he had just 4 TDs). The TDs aren’t the only thing, but they are a quick way of representing how the volume could be spread around, but anyway, this was a huge tangent. Just something I’ve wanted to address.

• Hampton played the first two drives, but because of the Herbert fumble on the one called run, Hampton didn’t see the ball. Keaton Mitchell was out and continues to nurse something that sounds minor but isn’t ideal for a back that’s had health-related issues. I’m hopeful he’ll be out there Week 1, and I’m still taking him, just looking to get him a round or two cheaper.

Noise: Quentin Johnston — long TD on busted coverage against backups (not new information that QJ can hit for long TDs, and my Fade call on him has always acknowledged there will be some production)

Ravens 41, Commanders 3

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The Draft Kit 1.0 last week included links to basically everything I’ve written all offseason, as a sort of “in case you missed it” round-up, but I’m not going to include a lot of the offseason stuff here, so if you want more, check that one out. You can always get access to the full archive of posts at bengretch.substack.com.

This is going to be more focused on key reference stuff for your drafts in a few different categories. Below you’ll find the team-by-team breakdowns, the positional tiers discussions, and the draft strategy pieces that will help you build a gameplan for your draft.

At bottom, I’ll include links to the latest rankings, which I did a full update of yesterday, but I will continue to update through the weekend. That will include the access code for the Stealing Signals rankings tool. The access code for the rankings is always at the bottom of these posts, behind a paywall.

Here’s what you need to know for your draft.

Draft strategy

• 2026 draft strategy guide

• Have your cake and eat it, too — breaking down my preferred draft plan

• Cut your fantasy football drafts into quarters — over a year old from July 2025, but probably the best intersection of simplicity and actionability I’ve ever come up with for a draft strategy framework, and I continue to reference it

Positional tiers, strategy, Targets and Fades

• QB Targets and Fades — How to play the tiers

• RB Targets and Fades — How to play the tiers

• WR Targets and Fades — How to play the tiers

• TE Targets and Fades — How to play the tiers

Recent draft target and player-specific stuff

• Best values on CBS, ESPN, Yahoo!, Sleeper

• How to play Ashton Jeanty and Marshawn Lloyd this weekend — plus other rankings updates from yesterday

• Targeting soft early-season schedules

• Rankings updates, risers and fallers — from last Saturday

Offseason Stealing Signals series summary

The Giants and Patriots write-up includes links to longer writeups on all the other 30 teams, but here are the summary posts from my projections process and offseason research, including all of most important stats and information I found.

• Biggest Signals summarizing the Offseason Stealing Signals posts

• Biggest Noise summarizing the Offseason Stealing Signals posts

Preseason Stealing Signals recaps

• Preseason Stealing Signals, Week 1

• Preseason Stealing Signals, Week 2

Couple words before Rankings

That’s about it. As I said, there are links to a ton more offseason pieces, including a ton of macro work about the league and fantasy football as a whole, in last week’s Draft Kit. I wrote one more macro piece on false confidence this week.

You can also buy my e-book on the most evergreen topics I’ve written about over six years, “The Best of Stealing Signals,” at Gumroad. It’s all about risk and probability and draft philosophies and how to think about fantasy football.

Alright, saving the best for last, here’s the last thing you need.

Rankings

• Interactive rankings tool with change log

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I’ve been using this to keep my rankings in check relative to ADP, mostly at higher-stakes sites, but I’m going to do it with the home league sites today. First, I’ll go position by position to show how my tiers fit relative to ADP at the different sites, and then I’ll go site by site to just highlight the biggest targets and fades relative to cost at each site.

The visuals may be difficult to see in email form but click through to bengretch.substack.com or zoom on mobile. In terms of how to look at them, for each site you have a column for ADP, then position rank, then difference in my rank versus position rank. The first few columns are ESPN, the next few are Yahoo!, the next few are CBS, and the far right columns are Sleeper.

The difference column is the main thing. When it’s a green positive number, I’m higher on that player than ADP at that site. Way to the right, there are tags that say “Your Target” or “Your Fade” for the players I’ve denoted as Targets and Fades, but then also the largest differences in listed ADP are highlighted as targets or fades for those particular sites.

Shout-out to 4for4 for a great public ADP tool, which I’ve pulled my ADP from. Let’s get right into this.

Positions

Quarterback

• Justin Herbert comes in as a target relative to ADP at all sites, but is particularly appealing at ESPN where he’s QB14, and to a lesser degree CBS at QB10.

• Caleb Williams is also an ESPN target at QB11, though I’m behind price on Williams at Yahoo! and Sleeper.

• I’ve mentioned Tier 3 being a group I mostly just wanted to follow ADP, so don’t feel compelled to chase guys like Trevor Lawrence just because they go a bit lower on some sites. For guys like Matthew Stafford and Bo Nix, I have them placed in a range where they are targets on some sites and fades on others.

• I moved Jordan Love over Malik Willis while doing this, in part because the Josh Jacobs stuff probably increases the pass rate expectation there in a way I wasn’t accounting for well (and also because I was ahead of ADP on Willis by at least four slots at three of the four sites).

Early running back tiers

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We still want to be building teams that can improve throughout a season, but in home leagues with active trade markets, targeting early-season scoring from players we’re not usually on — and then dangling those players as trade bait after we get some early wins — is a legitimately viable upside swing for how to approach roster construction for your whole season. I often caution against the certainty of depending on trade partners to give you what you want, when you need it, but we’re always making bets, and there are players I feel better about betting on in this regard than others.

Still, I think there’s a lot of risk associated with this strategy. I’d much rather just secure the picks I actually want to make, and build the team I’m trying to build. One major reason is true breakouts frequently start showing that in Week 1; when Shawn and I did our “projecting 2027 first and second round” podcast recently, and I reviewed our past results, I found that our annual in-season check-in, which we did after just Week 4 — so with not that much of the season finalized — dramatically improved our accuracy.

That gets at two key things: 1) We don’t know nearly as much as we think we do here in August, and 2) When guys break out in a full-season way, it tends to start in the first month, so playing for early-season points and then “buying low” on later breakouts is really only a made-up strategy for hindsight players who like to do things like look back at when bitcoin was $100 and wish they bought a ton.

This is the main reason I’ve never done huge amounts of content around this idea. Still, it’s interesting, and I do think it’s worth knowing in 2026 as you break ties in some key spots.

Underdog recently released a new best ball contest format that will be cumulative scoring just through the first four weeks. That’s going to be slightly different, but the great Nez from Badge Bros. pulled implied team totals for those weeks and made a cool visual.

Building off that, I have the weekly implied points from June in my projections sheet, so I just quickly pulled those for the first three weeks, since I often have felt like after Week 3 is the most fertile ground for trades. Week 1 feels like an overreaction, Week 2 starts to feel real, and then if something happens through three weeks, people start to react pretty hard.

You need a little confirmation bias of that first thought, but you also can’t wait too long because regression kicks in and things start to smooth. You still need a small enough sample for real overreactions (so Week 2 might be the other great way to look at this).

Anyway, the first three weeks had the same top four, but with San Francisco second ahead of Detroit. The rest of the top 10:

• Cowboys

• Chargers

• Bills

• Seahawks

• Chiefs

• Packers

These are mostly all good teams, so one of the ways I think this is interesting is to consider the biggest difference in implied points over the first three weeks versus the rest of the fantasy season, to try to circle who gets a boost over full-season expectations from early matchups. That’s the thing that might not be fully captured in ADP.

That looked like this:

• 49ers (+2.15 points)

• Chargers (+2.05)

• Chiefs (+1.13)

• Ravens (+0.93)

• Texans (+0.66)

• Panthers (+0.65)

• Seahawks (+0.55)

• Lions (+0.46)

• Buccaneers (+0.38)

• Cowboys (+0.35)

So we see that the 49ers and Chargers are getting a substantial boost from the first three weeks, and are intriguing early bets. The Chiefs and Ravens also make a next tier, and then the Texans and Panthers are our first less exciting offenses that do get a bit of an early-season boost.

The opposite side of that is also instructive. Here are some of the teams whose first three weeks include implied point totals that are worse than their rest-of-season expectations, starting with the very worst.

• Bengals (-1.88)

• Patriots (-1.76)

• Commanders (-1.74)

• Colts (-1.71)

• Cardinals (-1.54)

• Vikings (-1.40)

• Browns (-1.32)

• Broncos (-1.17)

• Falcons (-0.90)

• Bears (-0.88)

The teams with slightly worse early-season schedules are much flatter, and the Jaguars, Rams, Jets, and Saints also all come in at least -0.75 points below their rest-of-season averages.

As we work through some thoughts from the best early-season schedules, note that these are also some of the better DST matchups to start the season with, because you’re typically targeting weak opposing offenses and then churning your DST for the next great matchup. I will note my favorite Week 1 DST option is the Jaguars, who get the Browns and Deshaun Watson at home, but you’ll have to cut them after a week, and if you don’t like churning that quick, there are some better multi-week options below.

Let’s fire off some thoughts.

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Back in 2023, I used the line I’m using as the title of this piece to tie together my draft strategy for that year. The saying is obviously that you can’t have your cake and eat it, too, meaning you can’t cut into a cake and enjoy the taste of it without ruining the way it looks.

It felt wrong that year that because of the young profiles available in the Dead Zone — specifically second-year Breece Hall coming off injury, rookie Jahmyr Gibbs, and third-year player Travis Etienne (who was already coming off a 1,400-yard second season, but people were never really as into him as Najee Harris, from the same draft class, and Etienne had missed his entire rookie year in 2021, so he was still getting docked for that by 2023 despite Harris’s useless volume profile going in the late first round) — you could access real RB upside without having to give up what I’ve come to deem “Quarter 1” draft capital.

My take was that just shouldn’t have been possible, and it was a fundamental error in the market for 2023 drafts that you could achieve such RB upside in that historically “dead” range, which allowed you to then solve the riddle of what to do in the first couple rounds, because it was always great to get elite WRs early, and they could be massive for your build and also to that point tended to be more stable than early RBs in terms of high-capital investment (that changed meaningfully in 2024 and 2025).

But the trade-off was always that if you did grab elite WRs early, you were not going to want to take Dead Zone RBs, and so you’re pushed toward a Zero RB structure, or something like Anchor RB or any of the adjacent ideas that ultimately mean very limited early draft capital at a position we all agree is very important, RB.

But 2023 allowed us to invest in RB, and take on some of that risk, except — crucially — in Rounds 4 and 5 where the opportunity cost had already declined substantially. In “Quarter 2,” as we now discuss it around here. It felt like it shouldn’t have been possible, but it tied together so many things about risk and upside, and allowed for a specific structure of build that didn’t feel like it has as many trade-offs as draft strategies should have.

What it meant, and what it led to, was me writing very clearly “WR-WR is your PPR blueprint” as a section header in that same strategy piece. I laid out the first five rounds as having a little flex between how to play Rounds 3 and 5, but it followed this general idea. (One thing to remember about 2023 is how QBs were going earlier, and how in home leagues fitting one in was really helpful in that era. But you can see how the Round 4 pick was RB, and RB was also an option in both Round 3 and Round 5, and the specific RBs were highlighted.)

Now, fundamentally, just because that felt like a specific great path did not guarantee its success. There have been other paths I’ve liked, in other years, that didn’t hit as cleanly, including being willing to take on some risk in home leagues with elite onesies at both positions last year. If you did Brock Bowers in Round 2 and Lamar Jackson in Round 3 like I did in a lot of leagues last year, you’re like, “Ben, just because you’re telling me that there’s a structural inefficiency, doesn’t mean you can predict an NFL season which you always say is chaos.” And you’re really following along well, because that’s a great point. Pat yourself on the back for saying that.

But the point is when we try to lay out draft structures, we’re thinking in terms of what we can accomplish, and what we have to sacrifice. And the goal of that is to do as much as possible to tilt the odds in our favor. I’ve often talked about taking that default 8.3% chance to win that comes with being one person of 12 in a league, and trying to use structural draft concepts to get that up to 20% or 25% or something, in a home league. That still means you’re only a 1-in-5 or 1-in-4 bet to win, but there will undoubtedly be some people in your league that are more or less drawing dead — no one is, really, because seasons are crazy, but they may take their 8.3% down below 3% or so — and I do think the top teams who leave drafts with the best answers and accumulation of talent, and accomplish the most things across positions, are likely to push up around or above 20%. If you “win” your draft, that’s sort of your goal.

And I think in 2023 — and frankly even last year, if you give me truth serum — we were building structures that were accomplishing this. Last year, the 1-in-5 bet still lost, because 1-in-5 bets lose four out of five times. I get these comments all the time about how people are excited to sign up because they really want to win their leagues and it’s like, “OK, but I can’t guarantee that, because fundamentally you’re starting with a sub-10% win probability, and if you do well and increase your odds every year, and even if you get it to 20% every year, you still might not win over the course of five years, because that’s how odds work.”

I’ve long told the story about how in my longest-running home league, I didn’t win for the first like 15 years, which started in our first year in 1999 when I was literally 12 years old, so the first several years I didn’t have any strategy to speak of. But I was in the final in I think 2004, and lost, and by then I was in high school and obsessed with this stuff, and I’d argue I was increasing my odds to win each year. But it didn’t work out until Jamaal Charles was my first pick in 2013, and then the point of this story is I also won in 2014 with Odell Beckham. It could be said that I started increasing my odds to win to about 20% roughly in 2004, still lost for roughly eight straight years, then won two years in a row, and wound up with victories in 20% of that decade, but guess what? I had to deal with losing a bunch first, because that’s the way odds work.

Anyway, I can’t guarantee you anything, but I do enjoy talking about strategies that improve our odds. And when there are things that just shouldn’t be possible, they need to be highlighted.

In that 2023 season, using the same strategy I emphasized for home leagues, I had my best ever high-stakes season with three teams finishing in the top 30 of the massive overall contests. All three teams had some combination of Hall, Gibbs, and Etienne as Dead Zone picks, because they were just so clearly the right picks in those ranges, and allowed you to accomplish multiple things you just shouldn’t have been able to accomplish. When they hit as Quarter 2 picks that produced like Quarter 1 RBs — Breece was the RB2, Etienne was the RB3, and Gibbs was the RB9, but exploded late in his rookie season, including huge games in Weeks 15 and 16 — and with a little good fortune that the Quarter 1 WRs were better than the Quarter 1 RBs, the structure was a rocket ship for those win probability odds.

Last night, I did the Signals Gold Q&A I usually do each draft season, and the members in that tier asked a lot of questions over two-and-a-half hours. I really like the Signals Gold stuff because I can be a bit looser and think through things without feeling like it’s a huge deal, and I went on a pretty impassioned rant at one point about something in drafts you just shouldn’t be able to do in 2026. I referenced all of the above, and talked about how it was the “have your cake, and eat it, too” element of 2026.

After the stream, two of these especially engaged subscribers messaged to say I should really write it up.

So this is that piece, where I break down the comparison to the 2023 thing that worked so well, but that I’ve referenced every year and not been able to replicate in 2024 or 2025 with the same success. (To be fair, the last two years I’ve referred back to it and said it doesn’t feel the same. This year, I’m hesitant to say it feels the same, but it does feel a lot more clearly like a “have your cake and eat it, too” thing in drafts.)

You just shouldn’t be able to do that

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If you’re new to Signals Gold this year, welcome! The main benefit of this tier is some Q&As on Tuesday nights. The timing on those usually changes weekly, but I try to get the room up relatively early in the day so if the timing doesn’t work, you can go in and leave questions in the YouTube comments and watch it back later.

You can do the same for tonight’s video. The link will be at the bottom of this page. Click through and leave your question in the comments, and when I go live later, I’ll work through the questions there. The stream will be a live YouTube video, but it’s “unlisted,” meaning no one can search for it or view it without the link. I only share the link here, to active Signals Gold members.

There’s also a Discord channel that Signals Gold members hang in; if you’ve signed up recently but are not in that channel, you can join the main Discord here, and then send me your Discord name and email where you have an active Signals Gold subscription in a private message either on Substack or via email, and I’ll get you added.

That channel is mostly for irregular communication or discussion among what is obviously a group of some of my most active readers, but it’s more amongst yourselves than expecting me to be in there chatting regularly. I just can’t keep up with chats like that and also get the work done and do the family stuff and all that. But I pop in from time to time.

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Also, a lot of this is taken from rough writing done as much as a year ago. Usually I try to delete any writing I publish from that scratch document, but I have a weird feeling I might have published some version of some of this before. If so, my apologies for being so disorganized as to self-plagiarize. (To be clear, I do think the probability that’s true is low, or I wouldn’t be publishing it here, but I still felt it was material enough to note.)

It’s correct, actually, to be biased

For most of my decade-plus as a fantasy football analyst, I’ve tried very hard to check my biases. I’ve always kind of been obsessed with fairness — hazard of being a middle child — and I take issue with being told I’m too soft on the guys I like, and don’t see stuff in the ones I don’t. We all do this — I definitely do this — but part of the bias is my initial reaction is to often want to believe I’m not that way.

The thing I’ve come to understand as I’ve worked through all this is if you want to win at fantasy football, that’s actually right. We’re searching for conviction. At best, our odds are 10% or 8.3% as we try to win a 10- or 12-team league, but in any larger contests, this point only gets more dramatic. We’re looking for extreme upside outcomes, and trying to find edges.

For me, it’s often about profiles. When you feel confident in your ability to parse what matters with collegiate profiles, and you know what it is we’re actually looking for in a “long view” sense, and how the elites can take their time to get there but they always seem to be the ones who have something in their background that was already pretty elite, usually in terms of actual statistical production, and being actual football players, not theoretical ones, the big takeaway becomes that the correct way to process everything is to be biased toward the profiles that matter. When people ask you to be honest about how good one struggling supposed stud looks relative to a less-heralded player that’s flashing a bit, you shouldn’t see that as apples to apples.

It doesn’t matter if the less-heralded player really does look a bit better. Start admitting that and you’re lost. It doesn’t mean less-heralded players can’t hit, so there’s a gray area here, like always. But in a vacuum, it’s this desire to always analyze with a level playing field when it’s not a level playing field. With the great prospects, we are looking for even a small note that suggests they can translate it. When that happens, you get Jaxon Smith-Njigba.

With the non-prospects, you need to see a lot. Like, a ton. Sometimes that could come quick. You can tell me Puka Nacua was a non-prospect, and I’d suggest that 35 targets in your first two career games is the kind of “a lot” you need to see. That’s a ton, and even in just a short span, it says something. And then you go back and look at the collegiate per-route stuff and you start wondering, with Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford and the whole thing, whether this could be pretty unique.

But beyond the obvious, it’s guys that are interesting later-round guys who you want to watch with this bias. What made me start writing all this was watching Brashard Smith catch a Week 17 TD from Chris Olodukon last year, working through contact in a way a guy who runs a 4.3 probably shouldn’t be able to do at the goal line to get in. I contend the Chiefs should’ve gotten a lot more out of him last year. It flashed various times, and the final collegiate year was really pretty impressive.

But while writing Stealing Signals, whenever I started to think that, the other side of me wanted to say, “Well, they are seeing him in practice, and they didn’t think he was good enough,” or whatever. I wanted to start checking my bias, because I was a fan of Brashard Smith’s profile. And it’s possible he’s never a thing, and I’m reading into small samples.

But I do think in terms of a process that gets at the right answers, this is exactly the spot to recognize that it’s wrong to start trying to pretend I need to check my enthusiasm when the profile is good. I should be OK feeling biased. I need to be willing to be enthusiastic about the profiles I am looking for, so I can be early when the flashes come, because the longer-term profile stuff is the suggestion that if it hits, it can hit big.

When unpredictable things happen, people look around and give credit to the people who were on those things. But beforehand, now, in August? It’s tough to be on an island. I keep getting asked why I’m so into the Jets, and trusting Frank Reich. I am terrified of Frank Reich. But I also know we don’t get prime-aged long view profiles as good as Breece Hall and Garrett Wilson at the prices we’re getting right now very often. Some young guys get held back a little bit, or have some injuries, but after a few years, they have a season where they finally get turned loose. These guys are in “shit or get off the pot” territory with their careers — the type of urgency that led to Jonathan Taylor averaging like 25 PPR points per game when Daniel Jones went down last year — and it’s like the market doesn’t even care.

As for younger players, Jonathon Brooks and Marshawn Lloyd and Keaton Mitchell are all going to get hurt, obviously. That’s just how this works. But, genuinely, what if they don’t?

Everyone is just trying to confirm their priors

If you’re on social, you’ll follow what I’m talking about. You share enough opinions, and you’ll eventually be hit with the response that says nothing other than confidently stating an opinion opposite the one you shared.

There’s no evidence, or even an allusion to evidence. Just simply, “Player A is better than Player B,” or something. I feel like Tommy Boy on his sailboat yelling back to the kids, “I guess that’s your theory.”

Over time, I’ve worked through enough of those that I’ve come to believe the confidence to state something so definitively usually comes from some form of prior validation. You get someone doing it, and you engage a little bit and push back mildly just to understand the take, and when they are a nice enough person and were just saying something innocuous, they sort of let you know that somewhere along the line, someone sharp shared that kind of take, and it confirmed a prior, and they just sort of assumed everyone believed the same thing. It feels good to be confident in something. Working in the uncertainty of all this, every week, every offseason, is challenging.

But the point of “Bayesian” thinking is not to confirm priors, it’s to update them. You take in new information, and then new information beyond that. You’re not looking for some unknowable truth; you’re seeing knowledge and information acquisition on a spectrum where there’s always more to know.

Crucially, as you take in new information, the prior is refined. You’re not looking only for evidence that your hypothesis is correct — confirmation bias — but rather you’re testing your theory and accepting what new information says.

But to the point above, about how it’s actually correct to be biased — the prior should still be strong. No new piece of information should trigger a significant overreaction, because there’s a base rate, an initial expectation. The uncertainty associated with that base rate is lessened over time, as you get a clearer view and more confidence in your assumption, but central to the concept is this idea of small iterations.

What I see more and more in the fantasy space is a failure of this concept of small iterations. It’s jumping to firm conclusions, over and over. It’s not having a base rate, so being pulled by the tide one direction, and then just riding it back the other way when the tide shifts. There’s no anchor.

So you get in these discussions, with social media maybe being the best example, and the point is you get people talking like things are just clearly known fact. It gets really bad in-season, where we get like a month’s worth of offseason information — or more — every week, and people just react so aggressively.

What’s important to understand is we’re working with small samples and so much uncertainty. Even as I write about holding a player I like for four, five, six weeks — the concept of six weeks of struggles is nothing in the span of a career.

TreVeyon Henderson disappointed massively in the first eight weeks of last year, scoring fewer than 8 PPR points six times, then he had a season-high 12.7 in Week 9, and then he hit 28 or more PPR points three times in the team’s next five games.

And we still talk about him like a clear and obvious bust, because people’s minds were made up by Week 9. It was over for him. I did the whole discussion recently where I was fascinated by the cognitive dissonance of saying he was still a “bad” pick even after knowing he’d done all that.

It’s being too quick to confirm things, and then too engrained to adjust to new information.

I’ve done this for 11 years now, and one of the things I’ve learned is good, meaningful fantasy football discussions are far rarer than they should be. It’s not dissimilar from politics, where people tend to have strong priors. Every human has their own paradigm in life, their own worldview based on their own specific lived experience. Some are willing to update those priors over time; others are firm in what they believe, and it’s difficult to find them.

Part of what’s so difficult with political discussion is the priors; you can speak with someone about one topic, and maybe even agree about it, but still the discussion can go awry if it becomes clear the way in which each of you is processing that topic is very different, because of different priors. “What does this mean in the broader scope of things?”

I strongly doubt it’s novel to be drawing this comparison, but the point of the analogy is it’s an area where, like sports, people are likely to have a decently strong base rate. And that’s what happens with sports — people think individual players are good or bad, and they come to those positions quickly and think them strongly. Maybe they think similar about coaches or teams or analytics or announcers.

Of course, I started this post saying it’s good to be biased. We’re delving into the realm of contradiction. The nuance is in the concept of Bayesian thinking.

With fantasy football, we think it about strategies. One of the ways I tried to talk about this in the past, three years ago now, is to say that “everyone is biased toward what’s worked for them in the past.”

I claimed if you’ve found success with early RBs, you’re going to believe early RBs are a foundational path to fantasy success. If you’ve found success with Zero RB, you’re going to be more open to that uncomfortable strategy. We all come to public forums and discuss players and teams, but we all go and play in our own leagues, and there is lived experience from our own results. Priors get formed.

But to the point about the discussions on social, when I hear things stated as clearly known fact about players that I don’t disagree with — and this gets back to stuff I wrote at the end of last season — it’s tough because I’m literally watching and writing about every game, and I’m inherently of the belief we’re working with small samples and uncertainty, but when I try to tell people something the in the data isn’t as reflective of reality as it feels, I get the response that I’m the biased one, because I’ve actually, truly, “done my own research,” and my opinion doesn’t conform to the generally accepted groupthink.

There’s a strong implication you either accept the confirmed priors — that had no business being confirmed on such small-sample data — or you’re not just wrong on that point, but your whole process is flawed, biased, untrustworthy.

Part of the point here for me, personally, is this gets more difficult to do over time, because of these phenomena. But more practically, the point is a warning that — as I write about constantly — people inherently don’t understand football data well at all.

It’s kind of all bullshit

Part of what gets back to it being good, actually, to be biased, is football data is so frequently misused as to be almost difficult to trust any stat you see shared. In my experience, “advanced stats” that tell you something unique or interesting are more likely to be misleading than helpful.

This is a crucial point. There’s a breakeven. If you see a group of stats, and 75% of the time you learn something actionable that’s not in the market, you’re in good shape. You’ll take a step back 25% of the time, but that’s offset by three steps forward.

The breakeven is if there is something that is helping you 50% of the time but moving you backward the other 50%, it’s information that is just noise. But your confidence increases, because you think you’re getting closer to the truth.

When I wrote the italicized claim in the first paragraph of this section — that the advanced stats that circulate in the fantasy football world are more likely to be misleading to be helpful — I started with the softer claim that they are as likely to be misleading, i.e. that 50/50 point. But I enhanced that claim, because I do believe saying these things are as likely actually understates the issue.

(The reason for this, I’d argue, is we remember the hits far more strongly than the misses, which we mostly forget, because every process has holes and we all sort of inherently accept that there’s a miss percentage associated with all this stuff, and no one is really tracking the analysts, which many know and understand, so they make claims their hit rates are infallible, like all their past picks hit in some obviously embellished and inaccurate way — my favorite is when it’s from analysts I’ve played in leagues with, and they tell the world they have the greatest hit rate in fantasy football history, and it’s not just that they don’t win their own leagues, because anyone can draft a doomed fantasy team, but that they don’t even have a coherent strategy that I could see eventually winning a league if things went well. They don’t even understand the game they are playing. Actually, scratch that. They are playing a different game than me, and that’s building a fantasy football brand, and they do understand that game, far better than me.)

But this is what people believe to be “evidence-based analysis.” My guy Jeremy, the mod who does so much for the r/fantasyfootball subreddit, posted this recently:

I wrote a couple of responses that are a bit beside the point, but I do want to share them:

This is really fascinating to me, because I am absolutely enthralled by the state of fantasy football. Grinding content lately. I'm captivated right now.

The sport itself is evolving so much. I feel like it's never been more fun to analyze.

I mean I get it — stuff's def changing.

My draft strategy content looked a lot different this year — more fluid, less structured.

But if you're not fired up for seasonal fantasy football right now bc of the content you're consuming, I think you're looking in the wrong places.

But more to the point is there’s a big discussion in a huge fantasy football community on Reddit that assumes everyone has the same information. And I’m telling you right now that I think more of that information is unhelpful than helpful.

That’s crazy, right? A mass of people think the game is so solved that it’s just luck whether you’re in position to draft the “right” guys, and their assumptions are not just wrong, they are provably wrong. That’s a massive market inefficiency.

I do think the market is getting sharper. I understand the point that information is getting better. But the provable part of that being so wrong is literally every NFL season ever. None of this is certain.

I strongly believe this stuff. The point I was driving home about how groupthink takes hold and everyone confirms their priors rather than updating through iterations — that’s what this subreddit discussion is. It’s the logical conclusion of people getting to confirmation of priors too quickly, and looking around and everyone believing they’ve figured out some “fact” that is inherently not knowable.

The uncertainty has always been the point! NFL seasons are chaos, remember? And what’s so baffling to me is I’m looking at this sport as if we’re at the most uncertain crossroads ever — and I’ve been doing this for nearly three decades — and now is the time when there is a massive discussion about how everyone knows the same information? How is this the current groupthink? Who are you listening to that is saying those things? Who are you reading?

I’ve been saying for a long time to look out for snake oil salesmen in the fantasy football space, but man, what have you been sold?

I don’t like that this reads like I’m coming at my peers, and this isn’t me trying to market myself, because I’ve been writing this same stuff for so many years. It’s all over The Best of Stealing Signals.

This isn’t even going to be a paid post, but clearly I don’t have the reach at this newsletter to stop this trend. I’m writing about this as a person talking about trends I’m seeing. I just don’t understand how the content that’s out there is leading to these interpretations, right now, in this moment.

But I want to circle back to the specifics of how football data is so frequently misused. I’m referring to arbitrary cutoffs, unrepresentative splits, anchoring, misunderstanding the effects of secondary variables like coaching and teammates, and all sorts of other biases. I’ve talked about it a few times this offseason, but for me personally, and my process, the frustration of the social media interactions last year — and where they’ve been going over time — is this contingent of wannabe ball-knowers who pray at the altar of aggregated data misapplied to the wrong specifics will constantly claim that literally watching and studying how the data from every game was compiled to come to a conclusion is a vibes-based and not evidence-based way to do this.

And that’s obviously, fundamentally, hilariously dumb, and I don’t need to tell my own readers that. But it’s rampant. It’s constant. I basically don’t promote my work on social anymore, because the effect of those interactions is just not healthy.

And there are so many interrelated things here, about the breakdown of social generally, and we can get back to billionaires buying up all the ways we interact with information and then making it all worse, but let’s try to stay somewhat on topic.

But where we are right now is people believe aggregated numbers have to have some secret sauce that you can’t question (or you’re biased), and it’s the same sort of intellectual unaccountability that leads to believing glaring factual inaccuracies in from AI (the sycophancy is a nice bonus thrown in).

I’ve literally had a conversation with a friend using an AI model I could prove was using faulty information — I was asking it to ask the model whether it was considering specific data it acknowledged it was not, which was the most recent and most important data, because it was so clear the assumptions being made were flawed — but the response I got from the friend was essentially, “If I don’t trust the results, I’m biasing it, and not getting anything out of the process.”

One of the tricky things here was the model was extremely good at discussing the theory on the front end, and describing why the predictions it was making would be helpful in ways that I agreed were dead right. The problem was the precision of the predictions. And for my friend, it was an impossible question, because he felt if he corrected 100 things, that he was then just dictating what the AI model was looking at, and he was thumbing the scale. Ultimately, though, the AI itself acknowledged the probabilities it spit out were based on substantial factual errors, like actual, verifiable data and sports results.

And yet, because there’s such a desire now to pass the buck — to remove the inherently human process of taking accountability for your own beliefs — that even when faced with inarguable evidence there’s a flaw in the process of a specific AI model, one might shrug and say, “I just want results to believe, I don’t really care what they are based on.”

The relation back to football data, and the comment people pray at the altar of aggregated stats, is that they are praying to something they don’t even understand.

I can articulate to you some major issues with EPA as a stat, and how influenced it is by play sequencing, and how it’s probably too results-based to properly control for the natural variance in a small-sample sport, but there are still a lot of people who think they need to find a stat like EPA (which I do understand is probably the best we have) almost because they don’t understand it. They can assume it’s the best option.

But EPA is fine, honestly. It’s more imperfect than how it’s used, but it’s fine. The real issue is fantasy research that is presented as fact where the whole thing is the assumptions made at the beginning of the research.

I’m not going to call anyone out here, but there’s a specific type of classification I used to argue against for years, and get asked about why I wasn’t considering that known thing by people on social, and people in these comments, and, like, my own brother, and I maybe just wasn’t good enough at articulating the point, but that thing has completely flipped now.

I’m going to go on a complete tangent, but on this unnamed thing, the stated conclusion everyone gives about that type of research is now the exact opposite of what was known then, and what the false confidence was then, and it’s what I tried to argue then, and I basically got no traction, and now it’s just accepted the other way, because the (very sharp) analyst looked at it a different way and now frames their conclusions differently.

And that’s good! That’s a process of iterating and improvement. That’s why I’m not calling it out, and won’t. I love to see that.

But the tangent is about my personal reaction — not my professional one — as an individual writing some silly newsletter that doesn’t gather his thoughts well enough to make definitive claims, is I felt like everyone was too confident in the last conclusion, and I was fighting that same battle over and over again in the weekly Stealing Signals column a few years ago — I can remember the specific team positional group it most applied to — and being told by everyone that, no, actually, I’m missing this key thing that everybody knows, and I should know. And this offseason I’ve been told the thing I was arguing is the thing everyone thinks now like a half dozen times, like it’s some new, exciting research.

I mean, it’s fine, it’s my own fault for not communicating well enough or whatever, but the shape of this type of thing happens to me somewhat regularly, because I don’t make as many definitive statements, or try to apply universal rules to the whole league, and I instead operate within the uncertainty of more of the individual situations. And again, I’m bringing it up because of my personal — not professional — reaction, which is that every time I get told the thing I was arguing a few years ago like I need to be told it now — when I was constantly told a few years ago that the thing I was arguing then didn’t understand the thing everyone else knew, except the thing everyone else knew was false confidence, and now everyone universally agrees I was actually the one that was right, but literally zero people remember that — I respond a little bit like that .gif where the guy is laughing but play-acting like he’s gonna drink bleach or jump off his apartment balcony.

(I just really want to be clear I’m not arguing I’m secretly the smartest man in the industry and all the answers are hidden in the tens of thousands of words I write here, because there’s so, so much I get wrong. I truly don’t believe that; I have a ton of holes in my game, even after all these years.)

Anyway, I was talking about EPA, and then mentioned fantasy models, and how the assumptions that are made dictate the results, but people present the results as if they are definitively fact. There becomes an overconfidence.

This is true at all levels. Another thing I’m not going to reference is I saw two of literally the very best analysts at doing aggregate research get into a discussion this offseason where one shared results, and the other had tested a very similar thing and gotten the exact opposite results, and they got into a very polite and interesting discussion about the parameters they’d set up and how they got to their conclusions. And for me, I was really interested in it, but a big part of my interest was also tied back to everything I’m writing here, and it gets back to my theory that maybe more than half of the aggregated stuff is not actually correct. Even the very best can come to strong and complete opposite, differing conclusions, while looking at nearly exactly the same thing.

That’s not to say that’s all that happens, again, just to be clear. I’m saying that, whatever, 49% of the time there’s good information out there. And I do think if you stick to specific stuff, you can identify the 51% and use data “correctly” — like I loved JJ Zachariason’s Dead Zone research last year because of how specific it was that the guys that really struggled as pass-catchers tended to not pay off Dead Zone ADPs, because I also have my own priors that receiving is so crucial to RB upside, and the theory fits and the research was very specific and not some model that tried to bring in everything that’s relevant to fantasy to whittle it all down to one point but rather sought to build off a known and provable reality that RBs are frequently busts in that range of drafts, and often it’s because we over-project their volume, and JJ found an actionable way that was likely true.

Conclusion

You know I have devolved and don’t really know my point anymore when I title a section “conclusion” or “final thoughts,” but the idea wrapping the last part up would be much like the AI example, it’s not that hard to decorate output up with all sorts of fancy theory and descriptions of the “why,” and it can make sense — hell, I just did that with JJ’s work, though I do pretty strongly trust it’s right in that case — and then what happens is you believe that because of the front-end explanation you came up with, and how that makes sense, the back-end assumptions and data must be right.

But data is data. Numbers are what they are, and people misunderstand and misuse them all the damn time. It’s really easy with the data in the sport of football, which is small samples all the way down, and the more you know, the more you understand that point. That’s something I believe strongly.

I started talking in this post about why it’s right to be biased, and that’s where I’m going to circle back. Just because numbers are objective, people believe they need to be respected more than something subjective, like the observations I just shared in my Preseason Stealing Signals column yesterday. But the conclusion of this piece, as it were, is that I just strongly disagree.

And as I write Stealing Signals this year, I’m going to do my very best to ignore the voices that are telling me I promoted holding Bhayshul Tuten too long last year, and want me to tell them to draft and hold even more boring players than I already have been willing to admit I’m drafting a bit of. And honestly, if you’re that person, I beg you to just go find another fantasy analyst who will give you the confirmation and validation you seek.

The further my interpretation of what’s happening right now gets from the “knowns” in the industry, the more I want to lean into it. You can think me biased; you can fade that bias. But if I want to be right in impactful ways for myself and my subs, I have to embrace where I see edges, and those quite often come from the false confidence in the market.

Now I’m taking the rest of the day off to spend with my kids, as a last fun summer day before they go back to school next week. Don’t expect major rankings updates until tomorrow, and I’m not sure if I’ll have a post tomorrow, either.

Until next time!

The Preseason Week 1 post got long, and took me until late Monday night to get out, and that was not my plan, so I’d meant to be shorter this week. And yet, with only three preseason weeks, and starters likely to mostly rest in Preseason Week 3, Week 2 is a big one where we get a lot more information.

As I work through, I’ll always make updates to the rankings. And I’m reacting a ton right now, as my post Saturday indicated. I’ve talked all offseason about how 2026 would be an uncertain season, and I’ve talked more recently about how we need to play the waiver wire and react to new information in-season this year, so naturally I’m feeling the same way about information we’re gathering in August.

That said, the preseason is a fickle beast. Some teams look great because they are facing backup defenders or vanilla schemes (though sharp analysts have pointed out more defenses are doing more complex stuff in preseason these days, because they need to practice that stuff, too). I’ve written about how scheme is more important than ever, but while teams do need to test run this stuff, they are also hiding as much as they can, and people reacting drastically to expectations of learning major stuff about scheme and offensive structure in August are probably chasing a false trail in a lot of cases. It’s easy to point to the ones that work, but I promise many don’t.

I’ll try to parse all of that here. The biggest things I’m trying to get a feel for are how guys actually look, and whether I think there’s a fit there where production could follow when things get tougher in the regular season. This applies to guys on new teams and of course rookies and other young players.

There’s also a ton of information in who sits when first teamers get pulled or don’t play, and how the teams are viewing depth charts. All of that type of information can be very useful, but expected Week 1 lineups aren’t the only thing in a sport where we know chaos is the rule and these trends will change over time. I talked more about all of this in the introduction last week.

As always, I’m getting some help from my guy Dwain McFarland at Fantasy Life, whose preseason writeups include all the best data and information you can find.

I’m pumped to be doing these team-by-team writeups. We’re almost all the way back. I can’t wait for the regular season. But for now, let’s get into Preseason Stealing Signals, Week 2.

Raiders 22, Texans 20

• Fernando Mendoza got the start, and threw late over the middle off his back foot for a pick-six early on. Rookie mistake, but he still shows the arm strength and ability to attack various areas of the field in his time in the game. I probably think the preseason as a whole has decreased my confidence slightly in Mendoza playing especially early; Kirk Cousins didn’t look terrible, and Mendoza looked like a rookie on the pick-six, plus he missed his next key throw on a third down on the next drive, and just seemed a little rattled for a minute there. He settled down after that, though, and made some nice throws, leading one field goal drive and then another that was on its way into field goal range if not for a Malik Benson flat drop on a third down throw Mendoza put right on him at the sticks, with room to run. So all I’m saying is I think there’s a bit more of a leash for Cousins to hold the job a bit longer, but I do still think we see Mendoza this year before too long. He’s been good enough, and they’ll want to get him work. There’s a real chance Cousins struggles, as well.

• Tre Tucker sat while Jalen Nailor played, which many took as evidence Tucker is the WR1. Why that matters is mostly tied to Klint Kubiak’s scheme and the idea that the No. 1 WR could get some usage like Jaxon Smith-Njigba last year, although obviously given the Raiders’ personnel everyone kind of agrees that’s more likely to come from Brock Bowers. Still, Tucker’s vaguely interesting very late in drafts.

• I wrote a ton on Mike Washington yesterday, including this deep dive and this final word when we found out it was just a sprained ankle for Ashton Jeanty. I’d actually written a blurb for this piece before all that, which said; “Washington got loose for another long run of 33 yards in this game, showing the extreme athleticism that has made him so intriguing since the combine. Similar story to last week, when I wrote the Signal was he’s a ‘great athlete with breakaway ability, and looked good running the ball,’ but that he’s ‘also limited as a pass-downs player so not a huge threat to Ashton Jeanty.’ We are getting more evidence Washington is an intriguing change-of-pace and handcuff play, though.” Obviously, I applied more scrutiny in my deep dive after news of the Jeanty injury Sunday, and I went on to note that outside the two long runs, he has 13 carries for a 2.5 YPC this preseason. That’s absolutely relevant data, and if you want to tell me not to take long runs out, please go outside and yell at a tree instead. I’ll likely still bounce Washington around as more information arises. We might have a Week 1 start here, but in managed, it’s kind of hard to imagine you’d actually need to start him in the first couple weeks over your earlier RBs. But if you’re going pretty extreme Anchor RB or Zero RB, he’s a pretty intriguing guy to push up for the early-season usability.

• C.J. Stroud played one series for the Texans, but David Montgomery did not play. Woody Marks got the start, and I give him a lot of grief but he ran well enough on his 4 carries that I wondered for a minute about calling him such a clear Fade. But I do still have an issue with how the ceiling would manifest, and you ultimately have to make your bets in the later rounds. I looked at the rankings and there aren’t a lot of guys I have above him I do clearly want to take him over. Something I think has happened the past few years with RB health is we haven’t seen decent samples on a lot of the backups, and so a lot of the other guys in Marks’s draft range are unknowns, but I probably think the market is overvaluing the simple fact that Marks got work last year, and undervaluing the potential for the other unknown handcuff types to just be better. What Marks does have working for him is the stuff I’ve said as pro-Montgomery takes, like a good defense and a coaching staff committed to the run, even if the RBs are inefficient. But I moved Kaelon Black over Marks, and that feels right; the 49ers don’t have a worse team situation for a No. 2 RB, and while it’s not as clear Black would be the guy in a contingent scenario, his upside if he was feels much more impactful. Black’s rushing peripherals in college left a lot to be desired, too, but they were meaningfully better than Marks’s, and Marks has a year at the NFL level where that stuff was quite poor, too. The touchdown run Marks had in this game looked really cool, as he bounced off a couple defenders, but it came against a backup defense and arguably Marks looked like a beast because of poor tackling. It did cause me to re-evaluate! But I land in the same spot. The certainty of the No. 2 role is a thing, especially since Jawhar Jordan tweaked his groin/hamstring and has been missing time, but there’s little else to value with Marks to make him a later-round priority relative to other options. He’ll play more than guys like Black in a given early-season week, and he’ll score some points, so don’t take this as me saying to expect Marks to never see the field. But unless you’re in a position where you need a 5-point RB floor early in the season, it’s not something to chase. Anyway, this is way more than I meant to write about Woody Marks, but I hadn’t thought about him in a bit and sometimes you need to check your biases.

• Xavier Hutchinson got first-team work, and was the early-season favorite for the Jayden Higgins role until the team traded for Kayshon Boutte today. I moved Boutte up into the Tre Tucker range actually, and a bit lower than Adonai Mitchell, who I’ll talk about more two games from now as I get to the Jets. He could definitely be good in this offense, and I’ll reassess more after shipping this piece, because this is more about preseason.

• Jaylin Noel didn’t play with hamstring tightness, but he wasn’t a great bet for the Higgins snaps as more of a slot receiver, and the paths where the Texans just have to find a lot more time for him because he’s the clear next best upside option in the passing game just got thinner. He drops a tier. That the Texans signed both Zay Jones and Sterling Shepard, then traded for Boutte, is part of my pessimism they have a real plan for Noel, and I also take it as further negative information about Tank Dell. I’ve heard the discussion of Dell’s rehab as positive, but I see the team actions all offseason as suggesting they don’t think they can count on him for 100 routes, let alone 400. I did move him up the ranks a bit, but I’d had him buried. He’s now at WR83 for me as a guy I can understand taking very late just to see, but I don’t think there’s much there.

• I also dropped Dalton Schultz three spots to TE20 because I’d moved him up somewhat aggressively on the thought there was no meaningful No. 2 receiving weapon to stop him from accumulating a ton of volume. He’s still a solid play on a similar thought.

Signal: Tre Tucker — rested with starters, appears to be clear No. 1

Noise: Mike Washington — two long runs, one each week (I hate to do the Noise thing here, but it’s relevant his other 13 carries have gone for a 2.5 YPC, and his breakaway run rate didn’t always match his athleticism in college, so I do have to note it despite this obviously being the profile, and he’s still a solid later RB option as a guy who might start Week 1); Woody Marks — looked great, long TD run through contact (we have a big sample he’s not a special runner, and it came against backups)

49ers 41, Chargers 17

• Both offenes played one drive, with the 49ers putting together a few first downs and running several plays, and the Chargers going three-and-out. Brock Purdy looked good, and Kaelon Black played a ton, but Jordan James and obviously Christian McCaffrey were out. Black nonetheless moves up my rankings quite a bit, as his health and performance seem to have him in the driver’s seat for the RB2 role right now. He ran hard between the tackles, though sometimes right into blockers. The efficiency was mostly there, though.

• De’Zhaun Stribling had another strong preseason game, but we got a minor negative note that he only ran 57% routes on the Purdy drive. Stribling still caught three passes from Purdy, and four for the game, though he dropped a deep ball that would’ve blown the top off his already speeding hype train. I’m into Stribling at a reasonable cost, but there’s a bit of the Ricky Pearsall thing from last year here where the fact that CMC, George Kittle, and Mike Evans are all out is substantial, and all three of his receptions from Purdy were first reads that I can’t imagine are going to Stribling anywhere near the same rate early in the regular season. They might as time passes, though, especially with how frankly old and fragile the skill position group is for the 49ers, if injuries open up work. Again, I’m in, but while I’ve called his profile underrated basically since the draft, there are nonetheless issues with it, and they cap where he makes sense in an offense that might still get pretty concentrated on guys who are not yet playing. You still have to like what you’ve seen from Stribling, though I didn’t move him in the ranks as ADP hasn’t quite caught up to where I have him, and for you guys in home leagues, I do want you to get a good price.

• Deebo Samuel played, and didn’t do a lot, but he did see a couple targets. It’s notable that Stribling earned more volume when both were out there together. I’m not super into the Samuel play, but he complicates the available opportunity as he will get some work via creative usage, as always.

• Justin Herbert only played the three snaps, giving to Omarion Hampton on first down, completing a pass to Charlie Kolar on second down, and then missing Ladd McConkey downfield on third.

• Alongside McConkey was Brenen Thompson in what were I think all two-WR sets, and it’s notable that Thompson is likely already the WR4 over KeAndre Lambert-Smith. Quentin Johnston and Tre Harris were both out.

• Kolar starting and catching an early pass is obviously notable, and continues to back up this idea that he’s going to be out there quite a lot, but we do have to keep in mind he’s going to be more of an ancillary piece as a receiver given the depth of options and his blocking prowess. Oronde Gadsden was the TE3 again, and I have him ranked quite low, but he’s not undraftable, especially now that Terrance Ferguson has gotten so expensive. Gadsden as the new Ferguson last-round TE to see what you have is a fine play. He caught a pass early in the second quarter, on the third drive, and I think the market thinks he’s a lot more buried than he is, probably. I do think Kolar is going to lead in Week 1 snaps in a pretty major way, and Gadsden will be very playable off the waiver wire if things break his way at all, so he’s not necessary to draft by any means. I now have these two guys in the same tier.

• Keaton Mitchell played the whole second and third drives, and then Kimani Vidal was the RB3. I’m getting more confident in my claim the Chargers will be interested in getting Vidal work but ultimately won’t find enough space for it to meaningfully impact the main two guys. Mitchell getting every-down treatment was quite fun, and while he didn’t pop anything on the ground, he caught a wheel route for a big gain that was called back by an illegal formation penalty that had no bearing on the play (WR on the line of scrimmage on the backside of the play, covering up the TE). Mitchell had another catch on a dumpoff over the middle on the drive prior. RB air yards! Mitchell’s a stud.

Signal: De’Zhaun Stribling — another big preseason performance and continues to stack positive moments that make the hype look more and more real; Kaelon Black — heavy work with first-team offense, though Jordan James was out (still a positive to see him in there with the starters); Keaton Mitchell — worked two drives, and was clearly ahead of Kimani Vidal, and got early-down rushing work plus caught two balls beyond the line of scrimmage for RB air yards (though one called back by penalty)

Jets 17, Steelers 0

• Geno Smith got the start and led a touchdown drive, looking good. We saw the first-read tendencies, and he was looking Adonai Mitchell’s way early for a couple of catches, then came back to Garrett Wilson later in the drive for a catch before hitting Jelani Woods for the TD. Mitchell can create separation, and he’s a good fit with Geno, but he’s not going to be on Wilson’s level. Still, I’ve been trying to creep him up the ranks. I do think Mitchell will be a decent late-round WR you can start at times, but the problem is those guys often wind up being kind of roster cloggers if they don’t have real ceilings, and I’m not sure how high Mitchell’s ceiling is. The rookies should come for his targets over time, and I don’t know why you’d need to start him early in the year, so it’s tricky to know what the point of the pick is in managed leagues.

• Omar Cooper played and exited with the first team, so the short nightmare that return specialist Isaiah Williams was ahead of him for slot duties appears over. Still, he looks like an ancillary option to start the season, and I’ve moved him below Mitchell.

• Braelon Allen got the start with Breece Hall and Isaiah Davis both out. He looked uninspiring, if I’m honest. I think this is the year for Hall to really separate if he’s healthy.

• The Steelers sat Aaron Rodgers, but both RBs played. Per Dwain, Jaylen Warren played the first drive with Rico Dowdle playing the second, and the two splitting the third drive 50/50. I’ll note that Warren also started the third drive and played a few snaps, then Dowdle took over for a series of snaps. There have been some reports Dowdle might play ahead of Warren, but it always seemed a bit odd to suggest the Steelers would forget about or deprioritize an incumbent like Warren too much, and now it seems like the Dowdle optimism just means we’re looking at a true 50/50 split. That could be a little annoying, but this should be an above average backfield for RB expected fantasy points, so I’m fine with it. But just to be clear, despite multiple reports Dowdle would play ahead, Warren was clearly the lead RB here.

• Germie Bernard is now competing with Roman Wilson for the starting slot role. I’ve been very low on him, as far as late-round rookies go, and he’s not a play.

• Pat Freiermuth again got limited usage, but I maintain I expect more in full games, as he’s the obvious option in all real passing situations, and will still play plenty with the heavier situations. We’ve mostly only seen the latter in limited preseason time. As I’ve noted throughout, he ran very few routes last year, but more in 2024, and the per-route profile has been solid in both. He was a back-end top-10 TE in 2024 with more routes, and I do still expect more 2026 routes than 2025. He’s not a smash, but there’s late-round viability here because he’s a good player with potentially adequate usage.

Signal: Adonai Mitchell — two early first-read targets from Geno Smith, who looked good (Mitchell feels like the clear early-season No. 2 target); Jaylen Warren, Rico Dowdle — we’re probably looking at a clean 50/50 split in a backfield with above average RB expected fantasy points rates and either back could consolidate if the other got hurt (solid floor plus ceiling plays), but Warren did play as the lead contrary to reporting

Noise: Pat Freiermuth — 44% routes (still think we see his routes rise over last year, and Darnell Washington’s usage is going to be heaviest in situations like we have seen in early-game preseason drives)

Panthers 34, Jaguars 17

• Bryce Young played two drives, and looked a bit better than last week. Tetairoa McMillan had two catches in the red zone, including one down to the 1-yard line that set up a short Jonathon Brooks TD. Much has been made of McMillan playing in the slot more, and it did seem to help here. The Panthers putting together a touchdown drive was nice, and it feels like a concentrated offense, but I wasn’t overly enthused by their pace or overall performance given the Jaguars basically didn’t play anybody. Brooks did look solid, and should be the clear lead back early in the year.

• Jalen Coker looks like the clear No. 2 and had a short catch. I expect him and McMillan to get the bulk of the targets.

• The Jaguars started Nick Mullens at QB and Ameer Abdullah at RB, as they rested key players as much as anyone in the league.

Packers 33, Broncos 13

• Jordan Love and the first team played one series, with Marshawn Lloyd as the lead back while Josh Jacobs is out. Lloyd didn’t have any big plays as a runner but caught a touchdown in the red zone, and remains one of my favorite late-round RBs. He did stay on for the second drive and ultimately logged 7 touches.

• Christian Watson was targeted early and often, and I definitely had a takeaway here, which was essentially that I’ve been saying he’s not as much of a lock to be the top-scoring Packers’ WR as ADP indicates, but that doesn’t mean he still couldn’t be. Notably, both Jayden Reed and Tucker Kraft were out, so it’s not exactly weird Watson got a lot of looks.

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Regardless of whether Jeanty is out for the year, it seems likely we’re going to be headed for a lot more Washington than expected. It just feels like quite a longshot right now that Jeanty would be back and good to go for Week 1, after the reports that he couldn’t put any weight on his leg, and the whole practice stopped, and they turned the music off, and the whole team gathered in prayer. Those are the details we have, and nothing else, and that’s pretty substantial.

I shared some initial concerns about Washington’s profile both in that earlier post and on social, and I’ve been getting some reactions that suggest I’m not reacting aggressively enough. I want to walk through that before the next steps occur, because I think it’s a classic example of that “long view” conversation we always have.

The short view on Washington is simple. Washington had almost no depth chart competition for the No. 2 role, has ripped off long runs in both Raiders’ preseason games so far, and now he might be the favorite for a lead running back role in a Klint Kubiak system. Oh, and he basically broke Bill Barnwell’s amazing Speed Score metric at the combine. His RAS was massive, and he’s an athletic freak for a guy weighing 223 pounds.

In a lot of ways, that’s all that matters at RB. But I’ve been fooled by this kind of profile before, and it immediately reminded me of Knile Davis, who I was far too in on for a few years with the Chiefs many moons ago. You still have to be able to translate that athleticism into production. And it’s notable that, despite destroying the combine in a way that usually gets guys pushed up, Washington fell to the Raiders in the middle of Round 4.

That ability to translate the athleticism to actual production is where the concern lies, from the perspective that we’re making probabilistic bets. I saw the two long preseason runs, so I know the production capability is there, and I’m definitely down to bet that the Kubiak system is capable of curing all ills. But we need a lot more production than that over 17 games. We need volume, and consistency. And it’s not as simple as just being enthusiastic. We have to price the probabilities of the different scoring ranges.

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I’ve been asked where I’d take him, and the truth is until we get information I don’t think there’s a price where I think it’s “worth it” to gamble with this kind of thing. Sure, if it winds up being a bone bruise or something, someone might get a good value. It did sound like there was contact on the play, so that could maybe be argued as a positive for the concern of it being season-ending, if your initial read is that this definitely feels season-ending.

But I just moved him way down the rankings for now. And then I moved Mike Washington way up.

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As a reminder, you can check the change log in the rankings tool (passcode at the bottom of the post here) for all the latest updates, by clicking the version number (a little “v” with a number and the date at the top of the document). I made a ton of changes yesterday, and among the big ones represented in the change log:

• Removed Target tags on Chris Rodriguez and Travis Hunter. Hunter is tough merely because there are just so many other intriguing later-round WRs now that I’d probably rather have. I’m still very willing to draft him, but that’s become fertile ground for upside WR plays, and the word from Jacksonville camp does make it seem like Hunter will play a lot of defense early, and maybe be a waiver wire option in some fantasy leagues in the first half of the season. The Rodriguez thing is similar, in that I’m not out on him at all, but I just don’t think he’s as appealing as the other RBs in his area, as I’m working through my own drafts.

• Removed a Target tag on Jayden Reed. I got a question about Reed vis-a-vis Josh Downs, and I’m much more into Downs because of usage in two-WR sets. I love Reed’s talent, but I do think routes volume is a significant part of mapping 2026 fantasy football, and preseason has broke such a way that I’m more confident Reed is not getting a major routes bump in two-WR sets. There are still paths for him, and I’m still open to taking him, but I just like Matthew Golden more as a play at this point, even though I think Reed’s floor is much higher. (People will call that crazy because they think in a floor sense, and Reed is just confirmed good at football while Golden frankly might be bad, but we’re talking about a range of drafts where you’re mostly thinking in upside terms for what are likely bench WRs, and I do think the Golden “hit” scenarios are going to be bigger hits. Reed isn’t a bad pick in the right builds, though.)

• Added a Target tag on Rico Dowdle. Buzz is building on Dowdle as a bigger part of the Steelers’ backfield than maybe anticipated, and I’ve been clear I want to be in on both guys, so they are now both Targets for me. I moved Jaylen Warren down a tier to account for this, as well, because I’d previously been pushing him up to the back of a tier where he was the last guy getting drafted in that tier and I was getting a lot of him. So now he’s the first guy in the next tier, and I didn’t move him down the ranks at all, and it’s a commentary to be a little more price-conscious on him, while Dowdle slots in right behind him and either guy is a nice part of builds in that late RB Dead Zone range.

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With a big draft weekend coming up, I like to get out all the important links to stuff I’ve written this year in one place. Below you’ll find the team-by-team breakdowns, the positional tiers discussions, and the draft strategy pieces that will help you build a gameplan for your draft.

At bottom, I’ll include links to the latest rankings, and I went through and did a big update this morning. That will include the access code for the Stealing Signals rankings tool. The access code for the rankings is always at the bottom of these posts, behind a paywall. I want to keep all the other links above the paywall, so that’s the reason for ordering it that way.

You can always get access to the full archive of posts at bengretch.substack.com. I have published 694 posts there since September, 2020, more than 100 per year, many of them several times longer and more in-depth than your typical boilerplate fantasy content.

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Here’s what you need to know for your draft. This one’s going to be long, with a lot of links. I’ll streamline next week’s version of this so it’s more just specific draft stuff, but I needed to get one piece out that has all of the still-relevant and important stuff from this offseason.

I’m not going to include every link of everything I’ve written, but there’s a lot of interesting stuff you might have missed.

Positional strategy, Targets and Fades

Each of these posts includes an introduction about how to play the position, and relevant considerations for draft strategy around that position. Then, I work through my tiered rankings and look at all the players in groups.

Some of the players and tiers have shifted as we’ve gotten more clarity on individual risk and upside profiles, so make sure to check the latest rankings list at the bottom of this post, but the discussion of the pockets of value and how to play the positional tiers remains very relevant.

• QB Targets and Fades — How to play the tiers

• RB Targets and Fades — How to play the tiers

• WR Targets and Fades — How to play the tiers

• TE Targets and Fades — How to play the tiers

Draft strategy

I haven’t gotten to draft strategy in as much depth as past years, including things like auction and Superflex specific guides, but I tried to talk through Superflex considerations in the introduction to the QB Targets and Fades piece above, and I explained in the strategy piece below why this year is pretty unique and is testing some of the core strategic beliefs around here while definitely not pushing us to ignore what’s most important.

• 2026 draft strategy guide

• Breaking down a recent Main Event draft — draft strategy in action, talking through one of my recent drafts

• Understanding the 2026 fantasy football meta — this piece confused some, and isn’t necessarily required reading, but was an attempt to explain the unique elements of 2026 I just alluded to, and set up the draft strategy guide, which I wrote a day later and contains more specific recommendations

• Don’t overcomplicate things — mostly me bragging about shooting a good round of golf, but a slightly different way to think about draft strategy this year

• Cut your fantasy football drafts into quarters — from July, 2025, so over a year old, but probably the best intersection of simplicity and actionability I’ve ever come up with for a draft strategy framework, and I continue to reference it

Offseason Stealing Signals series

These are team-by-team breakdowns of all the key trends for each offense, and why the different players have different ranges of outcomes in the different offenses. They were written earlier than the positional guides above, but include far more depth on each player and team.

In a season with as much uncertainty as 2026, it’s extremely important to understand the nuance on a team-by-team basis. I’ve talked about “the 60/40 rule,” and how maybe as much as 40% of what we’re trying to predict is unexplainable by past data; I’d argue the details in these team-level pieces are geared toward the 40%, and help explain why we can’t just apply stats across the league without context.

This year, I wrote them two teams at a time, so there are a lot of links. Most of this was written in June and July, so there are cases where you’ll have to consider important new information. Let’s start with the two summary posts, where I categorized all the Biggest Signals and Biggest Noise from these pieces, before all the team links:

• Biggest Signals summarizing the Offseason Stealing Signals posts

• Biggest Noise summarizing the Offseason Stealing Signals posts

Here’s the list of full writeups, from most recent to oldest:

• Giants and Patriots

• Dolphins and Eagles

• Ravens and Commanders

• Jets and Browns

• Chargers and Steelers

• Lions and 49ers

• Bears and Jaguars

• Raiders and Cardinals

• Rams and Seahawks

• Buccaneers and Titans

• Falcons and Colts

• Broncos and Bills

• Vikings and Bengals

• Cowboys and Saints

• Chiefs and Texans

• Packers and Panthers

Field Tippers

This series is even older, from February and March, and focuses on per-route receiving profiles for every player in the league who ran a decent number of routes last year. One of the advantages of it being written early in the offseason is added context of the season that gets muted over the long offseason. It’s linked to and referenced in every team writeup above, because so much of it is still very relevant discussion of player profiles after last season’s results.

• Field Tippers — 2026, AFC

• Field Tippers — 2026, NFC

Preseason Stealing Signals series

Game-by-game breakdowns of all the relevant snaps from each preseason week.

• Preseason Stealing Signals, Week 1

Rankings risers and fallers

As I noted in the introduction, current rankings will be linked at the bottom of this post, and I did a big update this morning. You can check the change log at top of the Stealing Signals tool to see all the latest rankings changes, as I likely won’t be able to detail them in a rankings changes post before this weekend, and then Preseason Stealing Signals.

I do try to write up the different changes discussing individual player movement, as sort of a change log, and these are the key ones where I’ve talked about risers and fallers in the rankings this month.

• August 8 — changes during the week of the release of the positional tiers

• August 9 — more early updates while announcing the new rankings tool

• August 15 — updates before I released the top 50 overall

• August 18 — mega-rankings update

Player-specific pieces

• July 15 — Don’t listen to the boomers about Keaton Mitchell

• June 17 — RJ Harvey is an enigma

• April 23 — A collection of pre-draft thoughts (blurbs, mostly about rookies)

• March 14 — Free agency round-up (blurbs, mostly about free agents)

Macro work

Both fantasy big picture stuff and league-level stuff included here.

• July 5 — Why you should care more about RB air yards

• June 30 — How much will heavy-TE sets influence fantasy football in 2026?

• June 17 — Best ball is probably making you worse at redraft

• June 5 — I wonder if the paths for rookies are trickier (plus, the 60/40 rule)

• May 21 — Analyzing football is about expansion, not reduction

• February 4 — 3 (more) ways 2025 was a transformative NFL season

• February 1 — Scheme is more important than ever (plus, young coach takeover)

• January 30 — Processing is the key to modern QB play

• January 29 — The 2025 themes post: An introduction

• January 14 — What even happened in 2025? Part 2: WR, TE, and... K?

• January 7 — What even happened in 2025? Part 1: QB and RB

• January 5 — Every process has holes

Projections

I release full projections in late July, but don’t update them, so these still include players like Ricky Pearsall, who is out for the year. It’s more about the process than the outputs for me. Still, people find uses for this stuff, so I do want to share it. Just use wisely.

• Full projections for all 32 teams

• Re-projecting the Commanders with Stefon Diggs

Rankings

Alright, that’s about it. Below is one recent overall rankings post, and then behind the paywall will be links to the rankings documents. The rankings are for PPR formats so I can keep the player takes up-to-date daily, without having to consider a bunch of different scoring system implications.

As I wrote the other day, one of the very best skills you can develop as a Stealing Signals reader is understanding your own league nuance and how to apply this stuff back to your league. That said, I’ve written a thousand different ways how to do that, and it’s all in The Best of Stealing Signals. Good luck in your drafts this weekend!

• Top 50 PPR, half-PPR, Superflex rankings — these were supposed to have spaces between the tiers and the post formatting removed those spaces, which was quite annoying (also, refer to the latest rankings for specific changes within positions, and use this more as a guide for how the different tiers fit together for different league types)

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I drafted my first two Main Events this week, one with my Stealing Bananas cohost Shawn Siegele, and then another with Shawn and our buddies Peter Overzet and Pat Kerrane on Ship Chasing last night. While I know most of you want content geared toward home leagues, and my plan is to do a Q&A with a lot more information tomorrow, talking through my approach and the decision points in my own drafts is a way I can articulate the concepts I discussed in the draft strategy piece last week.

This time of year, a lot of you are asking me to do content more tailored toward your own league settings. I’m getting the requests to change my rankings to better fit your needs. I get it. But the way I always explain it, time and again, is I don’t do that intentionally. The more different iterations of rankings and types of content I try to do, the weaker the content gets. If I had five different types of rankings, I would be slower to make changes to any of them. Or when I did do them, I wouldn’t be giving the decisions the nuanced thought it deserves. Or, that would take up all my time, and I would just be doing rankings as my main thing.

(And I know some of you would like that, but it’s not what I do best, and there are infinite other sources for that if you just want a ranked list to think about things. I do appreciate that many of you want Ben Gretch’s ranked list, in the way you want it, and I’m trying to articulate I’m one man, and I work constantly this time of year and there isn’t space to do all the extra things.)

Another way to talk about this is lot of people loved my overall top 50s that included a couple other scoring systems, but the reality is some of the nuances they got hung up on are things I don’t feel strongly about. I heard about the top-50 half-PPR rankings helping people think about where RBs move to in that format, and they wanted me to keep those updated, and my thought was, “I hope I gave that exact thing — how high to move the RBs up — adequate thought,” because I felt like I kind of just eyeballed it. Guess what? I didn’t even go back to check. This is just me being honest. I don’t want you guys putting too much weight on shit that isn’t value additive. That content felt way more like me doing content for people because they want it, rather than doing content that I think moves the needle.

And I’ve been clear, since Day 1 at this newsletter, my goal is to only give advice where I think I can move the needle. There’s so much noise in this space. There’s enough places you can get someone giving you a specified ranked list or “this player or that one” 50/50 answer. And again, when I talk about not all answers being equal, I get that you want my answers. That when I say a lot of other answers don’t all include the same depth of research, or some do include very extensive research but it’s unfortunately from an individual swimming up the wrong streams, that you want me to be doing more of the thing that would move the needle for you.

I get the push and pull. What I’m working toward in this introduction is the best thing is you developing an important skill, which is being able to adjust the advice to your own league type. You know some of the nuances of your league better than I do! I say that to people all the time. I’m doing what I can to give actionable advice that’s transferrable to a lot of different people; learning to take some ownership in how you can apply that stuff to your own leagues is the best way you’re going to get value here, and go win your league. I see that all the time, too, and I absolutely fucking love it, pardon my French. It’s my favorite thing when a reader shares something and I’m like, “That’s how you take the frameworks of what I said and you add your own to it and you apply it in a winning way.” It does work. It has for so many of your fellow subs.

[Side bar: I made that comment about analysts swimming up the wrong streams, and I pulled this because it was tangential to the real point, but what I meant by that was because of the ways ADP is a Wisdom of the Crowd that includes multiple different ways to play fantasy football, if your emphasis is on the wrong factors, you’ll often straight up flip the value against market and come to the exact wrong conclusions (put differently, you’ll miss that the market is pulling that player in a different direction than the factors you’re looking at for legitimate reasons that you’re not looking at).]

But anyway, again, I can do my best to give you tailored help, but the reality is I’m approaching fantasy football from directions that are can apply across different league types, and you can still take that advice and apply it in your own leagues. And to that end, let me tell you about the specifics of the FFPC Main Event so you understand things we might have been valuing in these drafts that won’t apply to your leagues, and how different values come together that might not be what you’ll see.

The Main Event is a roughly $2,000 buy-in tournament where you play in your individual 12-team league from Week 1 through Week 12, there’s a four-team league playoff in Weeks 13 and 14, and then the traditional fantasy playoffs of Weeks 15-17 are a major second phase of the contest where the top two (and sometimes three) teams from each of the 12-team tournaments all advance to a several hundred-team contest that is often referred to as “the sprint,” which is basically just total points for those weeks (you start the sprint with an average of your points from Week 1 through Week 12, but because that’s an average, it’s a small boost to the best regular-season teams but it’s not a massive one, as every team in the sprint has typically scored pretty well; by comparison, each individual week of the sprint includes a far bigger gap between the top-scoring and bottom-scoring teams that week, and in that way each of those individual weeks is more significant than the regular season average, though that average is technically a fourth element to your total score that determines the overall winner).

As far as lineup settings, this is a two RB, two WR, and two Flex league, and it also includes TE Premium scoring, which means TEs receive 1.5 points per reception, while everyone else gets a full 1 point per reception. Many of you play in home leagues where you only need to start two WRs, and these FFPC leagues can certainly push you toward builds where you play WRs pretty thin, from a similar perspective. That said, with two Flex picks, you can also plan to start four WRs. What makes this format so fun is there are several viable paths, up to and including taking multiple strong TEs to take advantage of the TE Premium scoring (which we did on Ship Chasing last night, which I’ll link again because you can watch on YouTube).

Because TEs get a little more expensive, the values at RB and WR can sometimes resemble home leagues a little bit more, because you’re working with the competing elements of home leagues being a bit softer in the player selection stuff, but TEs pushing RBs and WRs down. What you’ll need to adjust for significantly is TE cost.

Alright, let’s get into the Tuesday draft Shawn and I did from the 1.08. My draft strategy piece from last summer about “cutting your draft into quarters” was in some ways built off my approach to sharing these drafts, because I’ve always liked to go through them in chunks that are similar to the quarters I laid out in that piece. Essentially, you’re trying to accomplish different things in different areas of drafts.

Quarter 1

When I was younger and a bit more naive about ADP and how different things worked, I sometimes caught myself wondering if the high stakes platforms were softer, because you do see some aggressive decisions at times. Over time, I’ve come to understand that there’s more signal in stuff like Ashton Jeanty going 1.04 here than noise.

But you do get some erratic drafters in these leagues sometimes, where people paying big money are maybe more willing to go get their guys. This draft started off aggressively that way, with Jeanty at 1.04, James Cook at 1.06, and even Chase Brown on the back side of us at 1.09, all going before Christian McCaffrey and Jonathan Taylor.

Typically, Brock Bowers is off the board at the 1.08, where we selected, and Taylor or Jeanty would’ve been potential first-round targets. Instead, the discussion for us at 1.08 was between Bowers, CMC, and Taylor, and ultimately we decided to go Bowers. A big part of that was the understanding Trey McBride wouldn’t be there in Round 2, and the two young guys would likely be gone when we were on the clock in Round 3 (since this was before Tyler Warren practice injury yesterday, which ultimately sounds very minor, but if you did check out the Ship Chasing draft last night, you’ll see we got a much different price on Warren after that news).

Another big part of the Bowers decision was he’s Brock Bowers. But the idea of getting an elite TE to anchor your build is even more significant in TE Premium, and so that was a direction we went. For your home leagues, it’s probably helpful to think of it like an RB pick in this spot, and then maybe a TE in Round 2, 3, or 4, so maybe flipping the specific names of the RB and TE in question (instead of Bowers and Breece Hall, maybe you go Taylor and Colston Loveland, but you otherwise have a similar build).

I probably would’ve preferred we leave the first two rounds with a RB, but by the time we were on the clock in Round 2, the tier of RBs I really like was wiped out. CeeDee Lamb vs. Justin Jefferson was the decision point, and going WR there when it was these guys versus the other RBs was an easy decision.

In Round 3, we were a bit hesitant about Hall’s groin, but ultimately he was a very good value there, and structurally getting a RB there was pretty crucial. I do think if he’s healthy, he could be an absolute smash at this cost.

Quarter 2

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Gumroad is an alternate storefront source that’s frankly a little more popular, but they charge creators a bit more. As part of that, they seem able to verify creators quicker, and I’ve set up a storefront on Gumroad here. I’ve verified you can buy the product there.

So sorry for the confusion. You can read more about the product here.

Today, just days after the 11th anniversary of my first published piece of fantasy content, we launch a compilation of all the evergreen topics I’ve written about in the six years since I started this newsletter in 2020, cataloged and categorized by topic, with clickable links for ease of navigation around the 800-page document (each page has a link back to the Table of Contents).

Here’s the landing page where you can go buy this immediately for $29 if you’re so inclined.

Here’s what that TOC looks like:

Within the major sections are chapters and at times sub-chapters, and within each of those you’ll find an arrangement of my writing on the topic, with dates back to when the post was published in the archives.

This has been such a long time coming I guess I don’t even know what to say. The most important message I wanted to convey in the introduction I wrote for this was that this document couldn’t exist without you, both because of your financial support but most importantly your feedback, and the way our interactions have pushed me toward creating more content. I work off inspiration; you’ve granted that.

One thing I have to address is that I am selling this as a product separate from your subscription. I hope this is pretty straightforward, but I’ve always said everything at the newsletter is included in one subscription, so I could see it being frustrating for some. I want to explain that decision:

1. You have always had access to the full archive and all of the work contained within this. It’s not new work. The product is the organization of all the old work.

2. I got a lot of feedback that I should charge quite a lot for this, because it’s a lot of work, and it’s sort of tailor-made for the AI woodchipper, which could arguably hasten my own demise as a content creator. But we talk about evolution in the newsletter all the time. I’m aware of how this content can and will be used with respect to AI, and it should frankly be a selling point. (It’s not much more difficult for AI to access all my past writing and summarize it anyway.)

3. I chose what I think is a reasonable price of $29 for three reasons. First, so people already paying for a subscription aren’t being charged too much added on top. Second, because I want this to be accessible to current subscribers on the “free” tier, who have never wanted a recurring paid subscription at the newsletter, but would be willing to pay for a one-time product like this. And third, because I think of it like a marketing product I can push outside the newsletter, on social media, etc. as an onboarding tool for potential new subscribers.

I’m sure some of you paid subscribers would rather this was just available to you instead of an additional fee, and I mean I firmly understand that position, and sympathize with it. I hope you’ll consider that for something unique like this, an additional $29 is a worthwhile cost to own this piece of what is essentially Stealing Signals lore.

Having said that, I’m going to give you a 500-word Claude Opus summary of this document.

Here’s a high-level map of the concepts in The Best of Stealing Signals (824 pages, organized as a topic-indexed reference rather than a linear book).

Chaos is the rule. The foundational premise: NFL seasons are unpredictable, so the goal isn’t forecasting the future but positioning to benefit from uncertain outcomes. This flows into skepticism of full-season projections — they compress a wide range of outcomes into a false point estimate and systematically undervalue unprojectable upside.

Tacit knowledge and signal vs. noise. Expertise in a complex domain lives in caveats and conditionals, not rules. The stated goal is teaching process rather than handing out player names — showing the reasoning so readers can copy and eventually outgrow it. Corollary: most fantasy analysis is reaction to last week’s box scores, and ADP already prices in the obvious, so an edge requires saying something the market hasn’t absorbed.

Structural drafting. Rather than picking “the best players,” build roster structures that make league-winning outcomes more likely. Key components:

• The RB Dead Zone — RBs drafted Rounds 4–9 hit league-winning upside at roughly the same rate as RBs from Round 10 on, with more floor but fewer points than WRs at the same cost. Floor is nearly worthless.

• The 7 pillars — target youth; don’t pay for past production; bet on talent; secure elite TE; seek QB upside; get WR depth early; and be willing to play the ADP game (take “detours” when value falls, without abandoning the plan).

• Zero RB as a structure, not a dogma — win through WR/TE/QB dominance while filling RB with a revolving door of spot starters (”Frankenstein RB”).

The youth edge. The single most exploitable recurring market bias is devaluing what we haven’t yet seen. Misses on rookies feel like evaluation failures, so the market never fully corrects — making young players and second-year breakouts persistently underpriced.

Upside over floor. “Everything comes down to two things: you win when you hit ceiling outcomes, and everything comes down to the playoff weeks.” This justifies deliberately low-probability bets — sub-5% shots are rational when the payoff is a title.

In-season management as probability churn. Roster churning means every week, each bench slot holds a player whose upside probability is momentarily elevated. Cutting good players early is correct; the emotional pull to hold is the enemy. Related: don’t overreact to Week 1, never play for floor in start/sit, and treat trade value as constantly fluctuating.

Advanced stats, used carefully. TPRR (targets per route run) is the stable, meaningful component inside YPRR; HVT (high-value touches) is deliberately imprecise because over-precision invites misuse. The recurring warning: these are descriptive stats being applied predictively, and knowing when to ignore a number is more art than science.

Macro trends. A long thread tracks league-level evolution — shell coverage, declining passing rates, defensive counterpunches and offensive responses, target consolidation onto WR1s, the mobile QB rise and subsequent “bubble popping,” and run-heaviness — on the argument that scheme and league context shape fantasy value more than individual player takes do.

So I hope you’ll give it a chance. Here’s that link again. I’d really like to make it accessible to everyone, everywhere, because I think anyone interested in reading my writing is a pretty cool thing I want to support.

And if you want to subscribe to the newsletter, you can always do that here.

If you click that, you’ll players being moved up or down, and Target or Fade notes being added or removed. It also documents tier breaks. Sometimes the things I do aren’t the cleanest ways to change things, so you’ll get information in there that’s not necessarily the right point, but if you keep an eye out for the Target/Fade stuff, and big risers or fallers, that’s pretty useful.

Additionally, I’ve gotten some requests for team name and bye, and those can be found in the tool, whereas the Google doc is my old way of doing things, and I’m keeping it running, but it’s basically a “minimum viable product” right now and I’m not going to add a bunch to it. But if you’re looking for team and bye, use the tool.

I feel like I covered a bunch of rankings changes in Preseason Stealing Signals, but there’s a lot I haven’t discussed. I also wanted to go through and ground my rankings against changing ADP, so I’ve pulled recent Underdog ADP and then NFFC high-stakes ADP from the past week to look at things.

New signings and injuries

Here are some bigger changes I’ve made for the new signings and injuries:

• I probably think the market will overreact to the Keenan Allen signing. A lot is being made of Allen’s TPRRs the past couple years, and he’s been very good in situational usage, but it’s important to note he hasn’t had over 800 yards in either season for the Bears in 2024 or the Chargers in 2025. He has familiarity with the offense but not the roster, and will be productive but does need to pick up a lot, quickly. To me it feels like Josh Downs and Tyler Warren have a bit more competitive to earn a target on any given route he’s in, and that we should probably expect that to be about half the routes. I moved Downs down because I had an aggressive rank and I’d want a better price, but I didn’t remove the Target tag by any means.

• I’m not compelled to even rank Najee Harris right now, but I did move Tyrone Tracy down even more than I had after writing Preseason Stealing Signals. My thought on Harris is he’s coming off an Achilles and Devin Singletary is a good No. 3, so I’m not sure how he fits. The Giants have brought in a bunch of veterans they are likely to cut, and Harris might be a guy they’ll try to keep on the practice squad or on speed dial if an injury pops up in-season. I actually moved Cam Skattebo up one spot, because I see the Harris thing as concern about the depth RB spots and to me it increases paths to a big Skattebo workload, like last year.

• Kyle Monangai is set to miss some time, and I dropped him a tier, and behind a Big Tier Break. I moved D’Andre Swift up one spot, ahead of Travis Etienne. Monangai will still be involved, but a slow start to his season makes him less appealing.

• An even bigger injured faller is Jordyn Tyson, and I more or less think his rookie season is in jeopardy. He might still get out there, but the Target is off and I think you need a real discount to hold for as long as we’ll need here. I love the profile, but the missed August plus a bunch of missed regular season time is pretty substantial for a rookie profile where you’re already not expecting a ton. He’ll have to get healthy and then assimilate very fast, and he’s good enough to do that, but you’re also carrying a significant weight through the early part of the season with any player who is not active for a month-plus. If we get news he may only miss like five weeks, I’ll creep him back up, but he’s a tough pick right now. Chris Olave moves up a tier for me, and Juwan Johnson has become a clear later-round TE Target that is a great value anytime after about 12-15 TEs have gone.

• I slid both Breece Hall and Jeremiyah Love a few spots, because I’m hoping to get better prices on them, essentially. I’m not excessively concerned. I did move Tyler Allgeier up and remove the Fade tag, because of Love’s injury and his role in the offense in the first preseason game.

• I’m monitoring guys like Emeka Egbuka and Parker Washington, but no major movement for them. I’ve been back and forth with Egbuka in the end of one tier or the top of the next, and I did drop him down, because turf toes can linger.

Smaller moves today while checking ADP

Here are a couple moves while I cross-check my rankings with latest ADP:

• Moved Sam Darnold up a tier and Cam Ward down. Ward was unimpressive in his preseason debut. I probably should’ve had Darnold up a tier earlier, which my ADP research indicated (I’m still two QB spots behind ADP on him, which is more about slight optimism for Daniel Jones).

• I did move Malik Willis up a bit and am now ahead of ADP on him at both sites. I detailed in Preseason Stealing Signals that he looked good as a passer, and comfortable operating the offense.

• I didn’t move Ashton Jeanty, but I realized I should’ve had a Target tag on him probably. I’m a spot ahead of ADP on both sites.

• I have both Travis Etienne and Kyren Williams as Fades, but I was ahead of ADP at both sides on Etienne, in part because I’m behind ADP on another Fade, Javonte Williams. I did flip Etienne and Kyren, and drop Etienne behind Skattebo and Swift.

• I moved Tony Pollard ahead of J.K. Dobbins, and removed the Target tag on Dobbins, but I’m still behind ADP on Pollard and ahead on Dobbins. I moved Dobbins down mostly because Jonah Coleman looked great. As good as Dobbins looked last year, there’s a third back in the mix this year and it’s just not an easy play with his injury history. I did move Coleman up, but I’m still a bit behind ADP. But I’m adding a Target tag to him anyway. Just because he’s expensive doesn’t mean he’s not a worthwhile profile.

• I’m not real sure why I never had a Target tag on Kenneth Gainwell, but I added one. I’m behind ADP on him at NFFC, but ahead on Underdog, though the full-PPR to half-PPR gap might explain some of that. Part of why I’m behind ADP on Gainwell at NFFC is aggressive ranks on other guys that I want to keep, but I like having the Target there anyway so it’s clear I’m comfortable taking him in the builds where he makes more sense than less stable bets, especially if your plan is to get someone like Keaton Mitchell in the next round (I have Mitchell higher, but he goes a bit later).

• I did a pretty big shuffle to the final tier of RBs, including moving a couple guys up into the tier prior, to better reflect where I think things fall off to waiver wire level. I had a few guys like Kimani Vidal buried a bit too far, probably, given he’s in a really good offense for RB potential and could be one injury away from a big role. But nothing too major back there. The RB ranks were in good shape.

• I didn’t realize this, but my ranks were behind market on De’Zhaun Stribling, as he’s risen substantially. I decided to move him ahead of the Big Tier Break. I shuffled the names just before that range, with KC Concepcion going up a bit, despite the fact I was already six slots ahead of ADP on him at both sites, and I also moved up Stefon Diggs a slot. I moved Wan’Dale Robinson down one slot, because the Titans kind of didn’t look great, but I still have him ranked between his ADP at the two sites, so we’re talking right around cost. Jayden Higgins had a small thing a practice and I moved him down one spot, but he’s still a clear Target. All of these guys are reasonable picks, and it’s a bit dependent on what you need and what’s available to you in a given room.

• I was being weirdly stubborn on Ja’Kobi Lane, and he was now behind ADP at both sites despite me having him as a Target, so he moves way up.

• I moved my weird late-round Target tags on guys like Brenen Thompson and Zavion Thomas (as well as the RB ones on Trey Benson and Kendre Miller). Those were guys I wanted to really keep an eye on through camp, but we’re getting close to the season and they are mostly just waiver wire options. I was content with the rest of my receiver ranks.

• I removed the small tier break after Harold Fannin as TE5, though I kept him there and he’s still a Target. I did this for two reasons. First, Concepcion looked great in the first preseason game, and it does feel like a crowded pass game with bad QBs. Second, I’m getting more optimistic on Sam LaPorta and really Kyle Pitts and George Kittle are the other two. I went ahead and moved Tucker Kraft down further, behind Pitts and Kittle, despite already being two spots behind ADP on Kraft. I’m not calling him a Fade, as we’re still in the tier where he goes, but his ADP is odd. He said at practice the other day he would probably be managed until about midseason. People are going to be cutting him in shallow home leagues, and he’s TE5 on both sites?

• I’ve hilariously fallen behind ADP at NFFC on Terrance Ferguson. I’ve been keeping him down for your home leagues, but I have to raise him. I moved T.J. Hockenson down because I appear to be on an island there. Ferguson jumps to TE17, to try to stay ahead of the frothy hype. He’s probably going to bust. I also moved Dallas Goedert up a couple of spots because I’m just super low on him, but he’s still a Fade. Kenyon Sadiq was the biggest faller in this range but I remain ahead of ADP on him. The injury isn’t ideal, and his ADP has fallen. My tight end rankings in this range aren’t real close to ADP, and I’m good with that.

Alright, that’s it for today. Rankings links behind the paywall.

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The reality is there’s been a long history of good output from chasing up the hype guys. I’ve told the story before where Arian Foster was a huge August riser his second season, after a strong close to his rookie year, and I couldn’t get him anywhere because I wasn’t willing to get up into Round 6 and Round 5, and then in my last draft of the year, in my longest running home league, I resigned myself to taking him in Round 5 to make sure I got a share, and I still remember he became the 4.12 in that draft as my leaguemate at the turn snatched him in what was the first time I saw him go in Round 4. He had 2,220 yards and 18 TDs on 393 touches that year, in 2010, and he finished as the clear RB1 by an absolute mile.

The problem with the logic that guys who get chased up are good investments is the content landscape changes. It’s been known now, for a while, and everyone grew to understand that. Now with best ball and social media and YouTube and the competition for clicks and the competition to be first and loudest and most “on” a guy — it feels like every single dude who catches one pass has someone trying to shoot his ADP up now. They have an offseason of best ball bags and want to show off that screenshot so they are incentivized to hype up the little things. The landscape has clearly gotten more frothy for this type of “analysis,” which arguably threatens the signal we used to derive from the market hype.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t be reactionary, because we should. Guys like Emeka Egbuka and Ricky Pearsall were big risers last August, and I’ve written I think Pearsall would’ve paid that off if healthy, and Egbuka certainly got off to a great start that made him a solid investment. Tyler Warren was a major hype guy at TE who had a great rookie season. I responded to that one and had him at TE6 in my final rankings. Jacory Croskey-Merritt shot up among the RBs and wasn’t great, but did play a lot for a Round 7 rookie, and posted 800 and 8 on the ground.

But none of those guys were true league-winners, and there’s a bit of a trend there where guys like Egbuka, Warren, and JCM carried the August hype to big starts, before they all faded to some degree. And there were other risers, too. Ollie Gordon got steamed way up. My guy Keaton Mitchell was a drumbeat player. Braelon Allen. Nick Chubb. Isaac TeSlaa was a preseason hero. In previous years, I think about Trey Sermon and Darwin Thompson and so many other cautionary tales.

I do think there’s more value than not in tracking the drumbeat guys, but there are just so many analysts in the space treating things like this is the only thing right now. And it’s important, but there’s just so much more. We’re updating priors, but our priors do matter. If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for everything, and so on and so forth.

Anyway, I’ve been aggressively updating the ranks where I think it’s relevant. I’m just saying to be sharp when you see the hype out there, because it’s a type of analysis where the direct effect of the analysts on the analysis itself — we’re responding to hype, and it’s generating more hype players over time — could actually cause us to lose the signal here.

Today, we’re going to dig into the preseason games, and see which of the drumbeat guys started producing in game environments. When I wrote this for Week 1 last year, I wrote a long introduction about being careful not to overreact to every preseason trend. Most teams are simplifying things, and teams are going to handle preseason reps differently. It’s not apples to apples across different orgs, in terms of how they are managing reps. And that’s the point — reps are being managed in the preseason, so unnatural rotations are already to be expected, and then it’s a really small sample of snaps that gets micro-analyzed.

In last year’s intro, while talking through how NFL seasons are chaos and we’re not predicting Week 1, but a full season, I quoted a prior season’s Preseason Stealing Signals with this:

One thing that’s absolutely true is we shouldn’t just be talent-agnostic and trying to figure out role; so much of antifragile drafting is about thinking through various possibilities for how a season can evolve, not what to expect in September. Our responses to the preseason, then, should be relative to our priors — we should be updating past opinions with the new information, not acting like every player who looks like they might get some early-season run suddenly matters.

I just skimmed through last year’s Week 1 post, and there was a lot of good in there. I tried to stay fixated on younger players, and how I think guys look. The expectation isn’t perfect accuracy, but so much of this is evaluating small samples, and what’s perhaps most relevant within that is how guys fit on an NFL field.

Like I always do in the preseason, I’m going to rely on the writeup from the great Dwain McFarland over at Fantasy Life. His breakdown of preseason usage notes is extremely crucial context.

But I also watch at least the first drive for every team, and sometimes much more, for teams playing starters or relevant rookies longer. With only three preseason weeks, the leaguewide trends have leaned toward more playing time in this first week, before resting more in Weeks 2 and 3, but every team does it differently. Some guys won’t play the whole preseason.

Again, my writeups are more focused on how guys look, and if I can ascertain intent behind some of the stuff these teams are doing. My notes in the preseason are definitely more vibes-based than the in-season stuff. I’m simply offering my observations, but if we want to cut right down to it, this is what I do better than anything else, really.

My thoughts are not going to match everyone else’s you might see elsewhere. The idea that there’s only one interpretation from watching things or poring over usage information is a silly misconception. The value is in the interpreting and analyzing of what’s there. We’re about to embark on the 10th season of Stealing Signals as a column, and I can’t wait.

But this is just the preseason version. For now, this is just a list of stuff from Preseason Week 1 I think either did or did not materially change the bets we are making. I got a little carried away, because I do that. Without further ado.

Panthers 33, Cardinals 30 (Hall of Fame Game)

• Carson Beck played really well. Jalen Brooks created deep separation a couple times and was wide open, but Beck got the ball on him for a couple big gains. There was a ton of separation on both so kind of hard to judge, but Beck had some other, more precise throws, and was in control of the offense. He called at least one audible, and was quick to recognize when a motion man didn’t understand the motion and demonstrably got him moving with the play clock low. Was very in control, and ultimately completed 15-of-19 passes for 188 yards and a TD, while showing a willingness to push the ball. Depth QB Kedon Slovis was also 9-of-10 for 106 and a TD; we ultimately don’t know a ton about what Mike LaFleur will be as a coach, but getting guys ready and productive, even against backups, indicates an ability to organize and manage an offense on some level. Made me optimistic about the Cardinals having more floor offensively than I thought.

• The other huge note was just Arizona playing with some tempo even with backups. It was really interesting for the whole offensive environment to see a minor indication they might try to run a lot of plays, given the expectation they won’t win a lot of games. We also don’t know a ton about what LaFleur might want his offense to actually be, so tempo is fun.

• Bam Knight started and played alright, and it sounds like he might make Trey Benson expendable. Benson still has some lingering knee soreness, so he might not be anything, but I’m hoping he gets a chance to move on and lands somewhere fun.

• The Panthers didn’t play many guys. Ja’Tavion Sanders got the start and multiple looks early, with 3 catches in about a quarter, but Darren Waller has since signed.

Signal: Cardinals — offense looked interesting, and Carson Beck looked capablee in limited work

Bengals 16, Lions 14

• Joe Burrow and the first team played two drives, and it wasn’t very notable, but Ja’Marr Chase had a catch. Probably most notable was Samaje Perine playing as the clear No. 2, including decent first-team reps. He came in for a screen on third-and-long, which is normal for his type of usage, and got a few extra snaps with the first team. Chase Brown is still going to get a ton of work.

• I did watch enough of the second team to get a look at Tahj Brooks and thought he looked solid. Not clearly better than Perine, and I’m probably less confident in the take that Brooks might be the handcuff to Brown than I was around projection time, but it’s still relevant that Perine is 31 in September and his numbers cratered last year. Brooks came in as the lead back with the second team, with Joe Flacco at QB; it does at least appear he’s the next guy after Perine, which is itself a note worth keeping in mind.

• The Lions didn’t play anyone of real significance, but Isaac TeSlaa was out there, and let a slant go right through his hands in front of his facemask, and then deflect off him high into the air for an interception to end the first drive. He went catchless on 3 targets and was already not likely to be a factor.

Signal: Samaje Perine — looked like the clear No. 2; Tahj Brooks — looked like the clear No. 3 with the second team (which in some ways is a positive note that he’d be next man up to compete with Perine for handcuff value)

Steelers 28, Packers 9

• The Steelers didn’t play starters, with Mason Rudolph getting the start, but Germie Bernard had 4 catches and looked alright. He nearly had a TD but had a foot come down on the line as he elevated at the back of the end zone and got contacted in the air. He’s still a thin bet to run enough routes, but could be OK when he’s on the field, and should play in 11 personnel.

• Travis Homer got the start at RB, and Lew Nichols worked off that, while both Eli Heidenreich and last year’s Day 2 pick Kaleb Johnson were buried. Johnson only got 2 carries, and seems like he might not be long for the roster.

• Dwain notes Darnell Washington played ahead of Pat Freiermuth, which is a concern that explains why Freiermuth goes as late as he does. I still like him as a Target back there, because Washington is a 300-pounder who is a blocking specialist and it wouldn’t be shocking to me if he was playing more purely for those reasons, and it being preseason. It’s also baked into Freiermuth’s cost, where the bad outcome is fewer routes but still potential for solid per-route stats, which we’re dealing with for some TEs that go far higher. This usage was a small negative for Freiermuth, but I’m still pretty in, as far as cheap plays go. As I wrote in Offseason Stealing Signals, he was TE9 in 2024, then had a very similar per-route profile in 2025, but ran just 329 routes. Even with the presence of Washington, I expect that number to tick up.

• Drew Allar generated some social media buzz with a line of 10-of-13 for 153 and 2, plus a rushing TD, but he was the third QB into the game, well into the third quarter. Both Rudolph and Will Howard were efficient, as well. But I did watch the final quarter-plus to see some Allar, like a sicko, and he was fine. Defensive penalties helped set up both the drives with the pass TDs, and there was a lot of YAC on his passing yardage. It’s not like he was bad but I saw some “QB of the future” stuff and while I didn’t watch every snap for the other QBs, it seems like they all played well and Allar’s better numbers were a bit fortunate.

• MarShawn Lloyd got the start and the early work with the first team. He didn’t do anything that crazy but he’s the clear No. 2 right now in a good offense that runs the ball a lot, and there’s talent upside in the profile. Health is obviously a crucial aspect of the equation.

• Jordan Love and the starting WRs played one drive. The usage note is Matthew Golden played in two-WR sets, and was the X receiver, but Jayden Reed is the guy who got 2 targets, and skill is still obviously relevant here. I’m in on Golden, as I’ve been, but after seeing the usage note I wondered if I should move him above Reed, and then I watched the small sample and remembered Reed’s pretty good. Golden wasn’t targeted. Christian Watson got a target on a quick out on Love’s first throw, that went incomplete.

Signal: Matthew Golden — playing in two-WR sets, should play plenty; Marshawn Lloyd — started and played as lead back with Love and the starters (Josh Jacobs was out, but Lloyd is clear No. 2)

Patriots 13, Colts 13

• The Patriots didn’t play anyone too significant, though Mack Hollins and Kyle Williams were out there. Jam Miller got the start and the majority of the RB work, and looks like the No. 3.

• Eli Raridon got 4 targets, though he only caught 1 official pass. He had another reception negated by ineligible downfield.

• Anthony Richardson got the start for the Colts. His first throw missed a wide open TE in the flat, but he hit a few in rhythm over the middle that were legitimately nice throws, and he did wind up going 11-for-14 for 145 and a TD, plus 53 rushing yards and a TD on the ground. From what I saw, it was mostly shorter throws, but he’s obviously a potential fantasy force with that kind of rushing upside if he winds up playing at any point.

• Seth McGowan started at RB and got a little early work. We didn’t see much, and DJ Giddens didn’t play due to a hamstring injury, so there wasn’t much to learn there other than McGowan isn’t buried or anything. There wasn’t a lot of new information here.

Chargers 27, Texans 7

• Much was made of Keaton Mitchell resting with the starters, and Tre Harris also sat as a clear starter, while Oronde Gadsden played and both Charlie Kolar and David Njoku rested. I’ve been moving Gadsden down, and explained why in my last rankings update. Among WRs, Brenen Thompson and KeAndre Lambert-Smith both played, and both caught multiple passes. KLS was productive early.

• Kimani Vidal got 5 carries on the first drive and only totaled 8 yards, plus he dropped a designed screen. He’s solid, but it’s a reminder he’s not super dynamic. I continue to maintain what I wrote in Offseason Stealing Signals, that they’ll have a desire to use him but if the other two backs are anything close to what I expect, they ultimately won’t find much playing time for Vidal. It might be decent in Week 1 but dwindle in the first month or so to a clearer No. 3 role (I’ve noted I think he’s a perfect garbage time bruiser, and he’ll get work in those spots, and might also be a pass-block candidate for obvious pass downs, but the big thing would be goal-line work, and I guess I just don’t see it, as McDaniel has found creative ways to get smaller and speedier backs touchdowns before, and not every coach thinks a bowling ball body type is required for red zone work).

• The Texans sat most everyone of note, including all their Year 2 guys Woody Marks, Jayden Higgins, and Jaylin Noel. Tank Dell didn’t play but he hasn’t really practiced a ton. Xavier Hutchinson played, and hopefully that’s a sign that the Texans aren’t going to be overusing him again this year.

• Rookie TE Marlin Klein had a pretty nice catch up the seam early, for a big play. He’s thought to be more of a blocking TE but was a Round 2 pick that many thought was overdrafted. The Texans also went somewhat downfield to him on a fourth-and-short later on the first drive, on a play-action. My guess is they were just getting him some reps, and in-season he’ll have some shots at plays here and there off his primary blocking duties, but the rate of these wouldn’t likely keep up. These were examples of change-of-pace vertical throws to the blocking TE we might see now and again, but not in a fantasy-relevant way.

• Just throwing this out there, but Davis Mills was solid. Feel like that guy probably has a shot to start again someday in an NFL moving toward his skillset as a prototypical pocket passer with arm strength and I think decent smarts and ability to read the field (pretty stereotypical note for a Stanford guy, probably).

Cardinals 27, Raiders 14

• Here’s a game where both teams played some starters, though Brock Bowers and Trey McBride each only played one snap.

• Jeremiyah Love played a ton, and we’ve since learned he suffered a high-ankle sprain on his last touch. High-ankle sprains can linger through a season and cause decreased efficiency, but we’re still several weeks from Week 1, so Love has some time to heal. Part of the issue with the decreased efficiency is probably related to playing through the injury without letting it properly heal, so I’m pretty optimistic that Love shouldn’t have his whole season ruined over this, but it’s probably better if the Cardinals bring him along slowly in the season’s first month. As for how he played, it’s cliche to say he looked as advertised, but he was quick with the ball in his hands, racking up 58 rushing yards on just 11 carries despite some where the potential offensive line issues were apparent and he had dudes in the backfield, and he also caught all 3 targets he got for 14 yards, so he totaled 72 yards in a half. It was good stuff.

• Tyler Allgeier operated as the clear No. 2 RB, mixing in during the period where Love played, though James Conner was inactive. I’ve had Allgeier as a Fade, mostly because the offense is not a strong one and I’m not confident he’d be a workhorse in the event of an injury to the starter, but the injury to Love plus this usage did enough for me to remove the Fade tag and move him up a tier. I still think it’s a lower-upside handcuff situation than his name value and the fantasy community’s interest in it suggests, but he may get increased run early in the season and is clearly a draftable player.

• Jacoby Brissett played one series, and looked good, going 5-for-5 with a TD. While he hit Marvin Harrison for the touchdown off play-action deep in the red zone, he completed two throws earlier in the drive to Michael Wilson that frankly felt easy, and more sustainable. I’ve had a hard time with this situation all offseason, but the reports about Wilson as the move option in this offense were evident, and the comparison to the Puka Nacua role was evident when his first reception came on a sprint to the flat like we’ve seen so many times with Nacua and Cooper Kupp before him. Another key thing I want to note here is Jalen Brooks appeared to take over that role after the first drive, and he went on to catch all 6 targets he saw for 52 yards and a score (including a sprint to the flat freebie like I was describing Wilson had). I’m not 100% sure Brooks was in Wilson’s same role, and it may be an overreaction to such a small sample, but I did move Wilson ahead of Harrison after this game. Harrison will have his moments this year, as we saw with the red zone TD, but McBride appears to be the clear No. 1 — there’s a reason they kept him on ice — and I guess it’s just coming together for me that Wilson’s production is going to be easier behind McBride and Love.

• Just sort of an aside, but the No. 3 role here is wide open, and Kendrick Bourne had a catch on the first drive from Brissett and is good, but this is the second straight game where Jalen Brooks has looked really good. He’s not likely to be super fantasy relevant, but he’s been one of the most impressive preseason players so far this year, leaguewide. Once upon a time, he had an intriguing profile on Dallas’ roster.

• Kirk Cousins looked solid in limited work, managing a Klint Kubiak offense that probably could make him look better than he is at this point, to be frank. Word has been positive on Jalen Nailor out of camp, but Tre Tucker had two catches from Cousins, and both looked like first-read concepts, while Jack Bech also had a catch on a third down. He also hit Michael Mayer twice on the drive, including for a TD.

• Fernando Mendoza also looked comfortable in this offense, and led an impressive touchdown drive late in the first half. He stayed in for some second-half action, as well, and the arm talent was evident throughout. I guess he played more than I would’ve thought, and it made me less confident in my guess he’ll be the starter by like Week 5. Getting him a ton of preseason reps might be an indication they don’t expect him to play a ton in the first half of the year.

• I was impressed with Ashton Jeanty in his limited time, and am getting increasingly excited about playing him this year. He dominated early work. Mike Washington spelled him, and hit for a long run; I moved up Washington accordingly, but he still feels like a low-touch, change-of-pace guy, who is more of a handcuff play. Keep in mind Washington is very athletic and has breakaway run potential but pass-blocking is considered a liability and he’s not a massive threat to Jeanty’s three-down role.

Signal: Jeremiyah Love — looked the part, but also had a legitimate injury (high-ankle sprain) that could lead to a slow start; Tyler Allgeier — looked like he had a solid handle on the No. 2 role, and could get early-season run; Michael Wilson —two easy catches, and then Jalen Brooks had 6 catches in two drives in what looked like his role; Mike Washington — long run, great athlete with breakaway ability, and looked good running the ball, but also limited as a pass-downs player so not a huge threat to Ashton Jeanty

Noise: Marvin Harrison — TD on Jacoby Brissett’s only drive (feels like that means you should feel good about him having the higher ADP of the two WRs, but I have this game actually pushing me the other way, with Wilson now being more interesting to me)

Titans 19, 49ers 13

• The Titans played their starters for three drives, so we got an extended look, while the 49ers didn’t play many of their guys. Cam Ward was OK, completing just 5-of-12 passes. Wan’Dale Robinson caught two of them, for 19 yards, on four targets, and Calvin Ridley had a catch on his only drive, while Carnell Tate got three looks but didn’t come up with anything. This feels like the core of the passing game to me; Ridley’s not a good bet to stay healthy, but I think he’ll be surprisingly involved when he is, and Robinson should see plenty of volume alongside Tate, as well. I’ve been skeptical of how much production we can expect from Tate in his rookie year, but I’m reading into this too much. He’s definitely going to get his chances with the draft capital he received.

• Tony Pollard looked good in his limited work, although Tyjae Spears got loose from a play that appeared to be going nowhere for a big gain on his first touch, and it was a reminder that Spears has always had great evasion rates beyond his actual productivity, but also that he does have some real burst. Spears totaled 35 yards on 4 carries and had a third-down reception before a punt. I’ve had Spears as a later-round Target the past couple years, but maybe he’ll finally hit in a more meaningful way this year. Pollard did cap the drive with a touchdown, and while I don’t rank him high, I understand the appeal at a depressed ADP. If the offense were better, maybe I could get more excited for these guys.

• Gunnar Helm split with Daniel Bellinger more than Helm enthusiasts probably wanted to see. Maybe not a huge deal, but I haven’t been super into him and feel no reason shift that. I do think Helm is pretty good, but Bellinger is familiar with Brian Daboll’s offense from years together in New York.

• The only real note for the 49ers was rookie De’Zhaun Stribling catching 7-of-8 targets for 63 yards in a half. He looked fantastic, producing all over the field, in a variety of ways, and again I’m not trying to read into too much with Tate, but the rookie on the other side was a contrast. You’d obviously prefer production, and it seeming easy for the guy, and we did get that with Stribling.

Signal: De’Zhaun Stribling — wasn’t with the first-team offense, but playing time doesn’t project to be a major concern, and he looked very good in first game action in a way that moved him up the ranks as a later-round Target

Noise: Carnell Tate — 0 catches (3 targets, and should be a centerpiece, though the other WRs were involved, too)

Broncos 27, Falcons 7

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