Quick Slant: TNF Returns to Its Roots by Administering the Ludovico Technique and Forcing Us to Watch Bad Football
Broncos @ Saints, Thursday @8:15 PM
Thursday Night Football is up to its old tricks again. A nationally featured island game with the lowest over-under of the week sounds vaguely familiar, but usually not with the Bezos edition.
There was a time in the NFL when a 36.5 over-under was a somewhat regular occurrence; today, it's a tragedy. Sadly, this is an understandable estimation for this game. A rookie QB – the sixth one taken in the April draft – leads Denver and the team is spending over $90 million on nothing (technically, it was utilized to send Russell Wilson into exile). The Broncos are in a bad way, but they aren't an entirely bad team. In fact, they have been quite effective on defense, ranking fourth in EPA per play allowed. This should only further mitigate the efforts of the inconsistent New Orleans offensive attack.
After a shellacking of the Cowboys in Week 2, it appeared the Saints had been offensively reanimated by another acolyte of the Shanahan family tree (OC Klint Kubiak is the son of Gary Kubiak, who helped pioneer the system in Denver with Mike Shanahan and Alex Gibbs). They scored the most points in the first two games of a season in nearly 60 years, easily winning both games; then, everything immediately hit the wall, body-slamming New Orleans into four straight losses, costing them Derek Carr at the hands of an injury along the way. Under rookie swashbuckler Spencer Rattler a week ago, the Saints did produce 27 points, but six were credited to a Rashid Shaheed punt return. Let's be honest: The Saints scored two offensive TDs.
And so Thursday will pit two rookies – one shielded by a great defense, the other joined by what is usually a better skill core, currently diminished by injuries—to see if 40 combined points are possible. The Broncos—those Broncos—are favored to win on the road, and neither team is expected to find its way to three TDs. That sounds about right; it's like Thursday night, old-school style. We lack only Color Rush unis and Shad Khan in a luxury box.
Broncos' Implied Team Total: 19.5
The Broncos enter Week 7 ranked 26th in EPA per play and 28th in offensive success rate. They are 27th in EPA per dropback and 28th in offensive success rate on dropbacks.
The Broncos will start rookie Bo Nix. Nix has been inconsistent this year, ranking second-to-last among qualified starters in EPA + CPOE Composite. His games have been up and down on the stat sheet, but he's logged two straight 20-point fantasy games and had positive FPOE in each.
Much of his fantasy production comes from his ability as a runner. Nix ranks sixth in rushing by a QB, ahead of Daniel Jones, Caleb Williams, Deshaun Watson, and Josh Allen. He is fifth in yards after contact and tied for eighth in forced missed tackles. He is tied for the third most attempts from scrambles and second in yards off scrambles.
As a passer, things are not as great for Nix. He is 41st in PFF passer grade, 29th in adjusted completion percentage, and 32nd in QB rating. He also ranks 22nd in passing yards and 25th in passing TDs, and he is tied for the seventh-most interceptions this season. While Nix is good at avoiding pressure, ranking 33rd of 36 eligible QBs in pressure-to-sack rate, he unfortunately doesn't improve as a passer out of structure.
The Broncos rank 13th in pass rate over expected. They rank 17th in total play volume, ninth in neutral script seconds to snap, and 11th in neutral script pass rate. They throw the ball to the RB second-most of any team in the league.
New Orleans does play the third-most two-high-man defense, but the percentages are so low that it's not worth planning around (4.7%). They primarily play Cover 3 and quarters. Nix has played against Cover 3 at the third-highest rate in the league at a shade over 40%, but he has produced only 0.31 fantasy points per dropback, 17th in the league. Against quarters, he has produced 0.34 fantasy points per dropback, good for 16th. The Saints are tied for sixth in yardage allowed to RBs.
The Saints, who also initially appeared to have a good defense, are now dead-smack in the middle at 15th in EPA per play. However, they have been far better against the pass; they rank fifth in EPA per dropback allowed.
The thing is, the Saints began the year much better than they have been lately – something we've discussed – and this extends to both sides of the football. As a defense, they surrendered 14.67 points per game in Weeks 1-3 and 34.33 points per game since.
In pass coverage specifically, New Orleans' seemed four-deep at CB with stars or budding stars like Marshon Lattimore, Paulson Adebo, Alontae Taylor, and Kool-Aid McKinstry. By now, Adebo and (especially) Taylor seem like liabilities. Injuries to Taylor, Tyrann Mathieu, and J.T. Gray have weakened the secondary further.
The Broncos don't have the narrowest distribution of targets. Courtland Sutton leads the way with a 25% market share. The only other receiving option in the neighborhood of 20% is Devaughn Vele. Almost no one is efficient with that opportunity, as only Vele and Josh Reynolds have positive FPOE on at least ten targets.
Javonte Williams has been given all the opportunities in the world, but he hasn't paid off, scoring just 9.27 PPR points per game despite drawing 40% of team rush attempts and a 14% market share. The Broncos have tepidly dipped their toe into shifting responsibility elsewhere; they did this with Tyler Badie to moderate success before he sustained a scary back injury weeks ago. With rookie Audric Estime entering the chat after starting the year with an ankle injury that kept him sidelined for five weeks, we must wait to learn whether Sean Payton and company see him as an out from Williams's inefficiency.
The Saints are susceptible to the run, ranking just 28th in EPA per rush allowed. We should likely play Williams if we believe he is still in the catbird's seat. And for now, we probably should believe that is so.
Saints' Implied Team Total: 17
Offensively, the Saints have gone from an unbelievable start to an unbelievable fall from grace. After pacing far ahead of everyone after two weeks, they are now only 19th in EPA per play and 15th in offensive success rate. They rank 21st in EPA per dropback and 24th on offensive success rate on dropbacks.
