- Dak Prescott thrives in different situations: Whether there is play action or not, Prescott completes passes and produces, making him a fantasy quarterback you can set and forget.
- Jaxon Smith-Njigba is WR1 for a reason: He leads the league in receiving yards and is averaging a whopping 25.5 yards per catch on those plays.
Estimated reading time: 13 minutes
A fantasy point is a fantasy point; a pass catcher can generate all their production off screens, or maybe they are a major threat. All we, as fantasy football managers, ask is that the points come in bunches, regardless of the path.
On the other end of this exchange is the quarterback. One quarterback can stack numbers on screens and use play-action passes. Another earns their fantasy in third place, with pressure in their face. Understanding the difference and which pass catchers are riding the same wave can help you find lasting value, not just weekly sugar highs in the box score.
When the plan works
Let’s start with the guys who rely heavily on help. This is probably the best time to throw in the disclaimer that they aren’t necessarily system quarterbacks, but they are given some answers to the test to make life easy.
Play action and screen passes can be symptoms of synthetic stability. The defense is off balance, the quarterback can read more easily and the ball usually comes out quickly. It’s the way play callers hide a struggling offensive line: buy time for a late developing route or help a struggling or limited signal caller by creating highly defined reads and easy completions.
Right now, that’s driving much of the current fantasy production for Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young and Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix. Young gets a huge bump in completion percentage – 15.31% percentage points – when he leaves the play action. But when he was asked to just come back and negotiate? His total passing yards drops to 849 for the year, fewest in the NFL among passers with at least 200 dropbacks.
Nix, meanwhile, leads all qualifying quarterbacks in screen yardage (249) and is near the top in first downs made from them. It’s an impressive feat until you realize it says more about head coach Sean Payton’s design than Nix’s down-to-earth dominance.
These guys are fine in fantasy. But they are matchup sensitive. If you start with it, you can do better against a defense that can’t defend the flat or keeps biting on run fakes. Because if you expect them to produce points themselves, you will probably be disappointed.
For other quarterbacks, play-action and the screen game only add to their arsenal of ways to pick apart a defense. Dak Prescott is currently running the Dallas Cowboys offense at the height of his powers. On throws not in play, his 65.9% completion rate is good enough for 13th in the NFL, while his 77.9% adjusted completion rate puts him at eighth.
And yet Prescott’s completion percentage is skyrocketing, at 19.2 percentage points, on play-action, which is the biggest gap in the league. He has also thrown for eight touchdowns, which is tied for the NFL lead. He becomes basically unstoppable with fake plays and is matchup agnostic for fantasy. You can set it and forget it (unless on a bye week) – and more often than not rest assured that he’ll produce fantasy QB1 numbers.
Baker Mayfield threads that same needle. Mayfield is now a top quarterback in all fantasy formats, thanks to a combination of screen success (11 first downs, two touchdowns and 219 yards) and real big throws on traditional dropbacks (13, most in the NFL). He doesn’t just live on easy things; he performs across the midfield and downfield. Mayfield has attempted the most passes of more than 20 yards (38) and has turned that into 511 yards and eight touchdowns without a single interception.
But even Mayfield isn’t immune to matchup volatility. The Buccaneers’ offensive line isn’t doing him any favors. They have given up 102 pressures, the second most in the NFL behind the Cleveland Browns. That goes a long way toward explaining why he logged 11 turnover-worthy plays when he had to go off script.
The ones who don’t blink
Then there are the quarterbacks who don’t need play action or screens to do damage — guys like Matthew Stafford and Patrick Mahomes. Stafford thrives both in the dropback passing game and in the time where Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay dials in screens and plays action. Stafford ranks second in the NFL in big throws on traditional dropbacks (11) And has collected 699 meters of offside action. He’s also thrown eight touchdowns off those looks, but unlike Bryce Young, there isn’t a huge drop-off if the script changes, making him a more stable fantasy quarterback.
Mahomes is, well, Mahomes. Kansas City’s screen game is elite – thanks, Andy Reid – and he ranks in the top five in screen yardage (194, third) and screen touchdowns (two, tied for second). However, Mahomes doesn’t rely on screens. He can move the chains, read the second one and throw it across his body while dancing on one foot. You start it regardless of the opponent’s defense.
And then there are the players somewhere in the middle: Geno Smith, Trevor Lawrence and even Jordan Love. They all flash with the help of the plan, but the cracks show under pressure. Smith has the fourth-lowest PFF dropback grade under pressure (35.1) among quarterbacks with at least 50 dropbacks under pressure, and Love isn’t much better (44.0).
Coupled with that, Smith has the second-highest pressure-to-sack percentage on play-action plays (26.3%), behind only Michael Penix Jr. When the timing is disrupted, the game is dead. And in fantasy that is a drive killer. Smith has performed so poorly that he has become a valuable asset in redraft leagues, being the QB27 in the standard scoring PPR leagues. In dynasty formats, he’s a player you’re either forced to start due to a bad quarterback situation or left on the bench as his value plummets each week.
Recipients following the schedule
Of course, pass catchers also benefit from structure. Sometimes en masse.
Take rookie tight end Tyler Warren. Indianapolis Colts head coach Shane Steichen has made him the preferred off-play option for quarterback Daniel Jones. Twelve of Warren’s catches have cleared the chains from play action alone, which is elite usage for a tight end with a 76.4 preseason ADP — fifth at the position — and a player who was almost certainly taken with a top-eight pick in the Dynasty rookie drafts.
Or look at tight ends Tucker Kraft and Jake Ferguson. Both are tied for the league lead in play-action touchdowns among pass catchers, with three apiece. That’s the kind of planned red zone production you want in a flex option, especially in TE premium leagues.
And wideouts? Jaxon Smith-Njigba leads all receivers in total receiving yards, but he also leads the way in play-action yards (332), with a whopping 25.5 yards per catch-off play-action. The only player ahead of him is New Orleans Saints pass-catcher Rashid Shaheed with an insane 32.0 yards per catch.
Smith-Njigba is averaging 2.5 play-action targets per game and just under two catches per game on those plays. At 25.5 yards per clip on those looks, it’s essentially six PPR points per play. No wonder he is currently the overall WR1 in standard scoring PPR leagues.
But it’s never that simple. The Chicago Bears commit play-action at the ninth-highest rate in the NFL, with 74 play-action plays, and yet, among players with at least 10 play-action targets, Rome Odunze ranks fourth in the NFL in receiving yards (63). (His two touchdowns, however, are encouraging for a player with an ADP ahead of Devonta Smith, Chris Olave and fellow Bears wideout DJ Moore.)
Odunze is still currently the WR20 in standard-scoring PPR leagues, but fantasy managers will be forgiven for expecting more from him – especially outside of action looks – with Ben Johnson now drawing up the plays in the Windy City.
Ultimately, skills are important, but structure strengthens skills. When the structure fails, not every fantasy quarterback, wide receiver or tight end is built to adapt.
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