Quick Slant: SNF - Two Teams Meet in Hopes That This is the Right World
Bengals @ Chargers, Sunday @ 8:20 PM
The Bengals are one week removed from a loss that could stand as a microcosm for their entire season (and be the reason they miss the playoffs in hindsight) – a one-point soul-crusher against division rival Baltimore where a narrowly-missed two-point try featured multiple glaring missed penalties which could have changed their fortune. This is their 2024 experience: start slow, dig a hole, surge back, demonstrate to the world how great you can truly be, mix in a dash of bad luck, and remain on the outside looking in.
For the Chargers, 2024 has been a lesson in leadership and control. A languid organization, at times lauded for sharpness in drafting, has never jelled. They’ve been riddled with excuses: horrible injury luck, landing on the low end of variance after optimal decisions, and the hiring of a coach who professed analytics but who, it turned out, thought the word meant “go for it all the time.” And now, under the leadership of Jim Harbaugh, the man with the best win percentage among active head coaches, it is like they have magically shed extra weight, bore away downwind, and found their best-case scenario.
And so Sunday night becomes a battle of concurrent energies—hissing fuses, cresting waves, forming storms—where potential is evident and powerful but also not realized. There is a Many-Worlds outcome where either of these teams falls flat and misses the playoffs entirely; there may be one where they hoist the Lombardi. This game will go a long way toward determining which this-world reality is for whom.
Bengals’ Implied Team Total: 23
The home-field advantage on a point spread is worth about two to three points. Either way you slice it, despite a losing record, the betting markets presume the Bengals are the better team. It is somewhat understandable why.
Notorious slow starters, Cincinnati dropped their first three: the first against a woeful Brissett-led Patriots; it was known even then that this was likely the Bungles bungling and starting at their lowest point. This was followed by permissible losses to the undefeated Chiefs and the surprising Commanders (insert cheesy military-themed pun about chiefs and commanders, Commanders-in-Chief, etc.). Since then, they have gone 4-3, with their only losses at the hands of the Eagles and Ravens, who beat them twice by the narrowest of margins (and now, a bird pun).
The Pythagorean Wins model (Expected Wins = (Points Scored^2) / (Points Scored^2 + Points Allowed^2)), developed by baseball statistician Bill James in the early 1980s, uses Points-For and Points-Against to calculate an expected wins model that reliably identifies teams with poor win percentage luck and potential regression in baseball. It is reasonably applicable to NFL football. Based on this model, the Bengals are the fifth-unluckiest team in terms of wins and losses over expected.
The Bengals rank fifth in EPA per play and 11th in offensive success rate. They rank fourth in EPA per dropback and second in offensive success rate on dropbacks.
The Bengals lead the NFL in pass rate over expected at 6.3%, towering over second-place Seattle at 2.9%. Cincinnati also leads in neutral pass rate and is sixth in total pass rate. However, they do not push the pace as they are tied for 20th in the NFL in neutral script seconds to snap.
Cincinnati is, of course, led by Joe Burrow, who ranks at or near the top in many passing-based statistics. He ranks first or tied for first in several: dropbacks, passing attempts, completions, passing yards, passing TDs, passing first downs, and EP/G. He is second in EPA + CPOE composite and in QB rating behind MVP favorite Lamar Jackson, who far outpaces the field.
Burrow’s TD production is buoyed by two five-TD games in the past six weeks and nine passing TDs in the past two; he is now tied with Baker Mayfield and Jackson for the most passing TDs at 24. The three lead the league by a large margin, and unsurprisingly, they are all negative regression candidates based on TDs/Yards. Based on the league base rate, Burrow has scored almost 8.5 more TDs than he should have.
Burrow’s top receiver is Ja’Marr Chase, currently positioned third in the Offensive Player of the Year odds. Burrow is fantasy’s top WR, leading the NFL in several receiving categories: routes, receptions, receiving yards, receiving TDs, YAC, receiving first downs, and FPOE/G.
Like Burrow, Chase exceeds expectations for TD production based on his yardage totals. He ranks second behind Mike Evans as a negative regression candidate based on TDs/Yards.
A quick note on regression: Regression can be used to spot players performing near the high or low end of variance. It can help us gain an edge in the marketplace by recognizing that, from now on, the player should score closer to the base rate than the outlying rate.
A few factors can make it more dependable and actionable information. One such factor is sample size; the larger the sample, the better. QBs have far more passing attempts than RBs have rushing attempts, and RBs often have more rushing attempts than WRs have targets, so the information is more reliable for QBs than with RBs, which is, in turn, more dependable than with WRs.
We expect Chase to score above the base rates because he always does. The average TD rate for a WR is about 4-6%. Chase averages over 8% for his career, and each season’s TD rate ranges from 5 to 12% over all four years. So far, Chase is outpacing his rookie season's 10.6% TD rate for the best rate of his career. Chase’s rate, more than Burrow’s, seems a bit more sustainable. But that’s if things remain as they have been; we know the variables around him are changing quickly.
This week poses a stiff test for Burrow and Chase. The Chargers have one of the best defenses in the NFL, ranking second in EPA per play allowed and fourth in defensive success rate. They rank second in EPA per dropback allowed and defensive success rate on dropbacks. They have allowed the second-fewest fantasy points to QBs and the fifth-fewest to WRs.
The Chargers run the second-most zone defense in the NFL at 81.2%, allowing 0.35 fantasy points per dropback from zone. Their most common alignments are Cover 3 and Cover 4, which they run nearly equally. Their rate of Cover 4 is second only to the Titans.
Burrow ranks fourth in the NFL in fantasy points per dropback against Cover 3 and seventh against Cover 4. Chase scores the seventh-most fantasy points per route against Cover 4 and leads the league against Cover 3. Tee Higgins is not nearly as good against either type of coverage, and Mike Gesicki is even worse.
Either Bengals wideout draws a favorable matchup when they line up against Cam Hart, but Tarheeb Still is a more challenging obstacle on the left side. Mike Gesicki gets a good matchup along the inside, where he is often expected to see Denzel Perryman. That said, the amount of zone the Chargers run deemphasizes individual matchups.
Higgins is set to return from an extended absence due to a hamstring injury. Chase has scored more fantasy points per game with Higgins in the lineup than without, but Higgins has a larger target share for the season at 29% to Chase’s 28.
The player Higgins may affect most is Gesicki, who has scored over ten more fantasy points a game while Higgins has been away, securing nearly five times as many receptions and scoring both of his TDs.
The Bengals rank a surprising 26th in EPA per rush and 30th in success rate on rushes. The Chargers rank third in EPA per rush allowed and 13th in defensive success rate on rushes.
The Bengals have been mired in a backfield committee with Chase Brown and Zack Moss for most of the season, but a season-ending neck injury has forced Moss out of the equation after Week 8. Though Brown has put up big numbers without Moss in the past two weeks, the Bengals have only risen to 20th in EPA per rush and 16th in offensive success rate on rushes since Week 9.
Frankly, Brown’s EP has been incredibly high the past two weeks, so his elevated fantasy outputs are a product of volume mixed with TD production. His efficiency has left something to be desired; his Week 10 was saved by the season's best and most voluminous receiving output by far.
Last week was Khalil Herbert’s first game with the Bengals, who traded a seventh-round pick for him at the deadline. It is conceivable he is working up to speed and will soon cut into Brown’s volume. The opportunity Brown has had has converged with unusual game circumstances; considering the Bengals’ propensity for the pass, a meaningful split with Herbert could become detrimental to Brown. In fairness, that remains to be seen. We wait; if we have Brown on rosters, we cross our fingers that he can remain a bell cow. Facing LA is not an ideal spot for an RB, but we wouldn’t ever run from the workload he’s been getting. We would undoubtedly gut it out if we only knew he would maintain it.
