Welcome to Stealing Signals, your look at snaps, touches, game flow, efficiency and everything in between. Stealing Signals is a game-by-game breakdown of everything you saw in your Fantasy box score, identifying what is signal and what is noise to help you make decisions for future weeks.   

Week 2
Buccaneers 20 - Panthers 14

Snap Notes: Peyton Barber - 65% (+29% vs. Week 1), Dare Ogunbowale - 25% (-13%), Ronald Jones - 12% (-20%), O.J. Howard - 92% (+12%), Cameron Brate - 28% (-15%), Christian McCaffrey 100% (+0%), Curtis Samuel - 97% (+4%), D.J. Moore - 95% (+1%), Greg Olsen - 82% (-12%, was questionable)

Key Stat: Mike Evans - 0.38 RACR

Thursday Night Football had a couple of stars, but far more duds. While the over/under fell in advance of kickoff Thursday, it still closed at 48 points. Six field goals kept it two touchdowns shy of that number.

Let's start with the Buccaneers passing game, where Mike Evans and O.J. Howard were moderate and major disappointments, but Chris Godwin again looked like a star in the Bruce Arians slot role. There's not much to say on Godwin, who is converting a strong opportunity share into plenty of Fantasy scoring through two weeks.

Evans is not, but he also entered the season with a sickness that it's hard to imagine he was fully over on a short week. More notably, Evans has seen good volume and just been inefficient. Weighted Opportunity Rating (WOPR) will be cited in Stealing Signals a lot this season, and it's a good idea to get familiar with it. It's a player's share of the team's targets and air yards, weighted to be most predictive of PPR Fantasy scoring. Targets are given about twice as much weight, but adding air yards context creates a more predictive measure of future scoring than looking at targets alone. 

Through two weeks, Evans and Godwin have nearly identical WOPRs, with Godwin having the higher target share but Evans seeing far more air yards. This is essentially what we expected; the difference in production is simply efficiency. 

RACR (Receiver Air Conversion Ratio) is an efficiency stat that measures how many air yards are converted into receiving yards. Evans' RACR through two weeks is 0.38, meaning he's converted 38% of his air yards. His career RACR is 0.57, and he's never had fewer than half as many receiving yards as air yards in a given season. So through two weeks, the volume is there, but he's been at least 30 or 40 receiving yards shy of his typical efficiency. He's also failed to find the end zone, despite a near miss when targeted there in Week 2. He'll be fine as he gets healthier.

O.J. Howard is a bigger concern. Howard saw zero targets in Week 2, though he had a catch negated by a questionable offensive pass interference. Interestingly, Howard's role expanded in Week 2. In Week 1, Howard ran a route on just 55% of Jameis Winston's dropbacks, but he was up to a nice 69% in Week 2. Meanwhile, Cameron Brate was at 48% in Week 1 but fell to 31% in Week 2. 

Howard's not someone to drop, as in 10 games last year he had both a zero-catch and one-game game and still finished in the top six in both PPR and non-PPR points per game. Even with Brate involved, Howard should still have some splash efficiency games. Howard simply hasn't seen many downfield targets yet, as his aDOT in both 2017 and 2018 were well into the double-digits, but his early-season aDOT in 2019 sits at 5.8. A short completion to Cameron Brate on the first play after the two-minute warning of the first half is a great example of the targets that haven't been there yet. 

The defense had a single high safety and he appeared nowhere near Howard's seam route, which could have meant a 25-yard touchdown. Winston chose to fire the ball to Brate underneath to convert the first down. The key there is Howard is still running the downfield routes that helped make him so efficient on limited volume thus far in his career.

Peyton Barber certainly looked spry on a few plays, rushing for between 12 and 16 yards on three of his carries, including his touchdown run. He had just one high-value touch on 24 total touches, and even with those splash plays he still averaged 3.6 yards per carry. Ronald Jones again appears buried; he saw just four rush attempts and barely played. Dare Ogunbowale again played on third downs. Barber won't rack up 20-plus carries most weeks and doesn't have a passing game role or much explosion as a player, so he's not a recommended play going forward. After an exciting Week 1 and reports Jones would see more work in Week 2, he's back to a long-term stash until we see him on the field.

On the Panthers' side, there's more reason to worry about Cam Newton. First of all, Newton isn't rushing, something that significantly hinders his Fantasy ceiling. Secondly, while Newton certainly had the velocity on several throws, his accuracy does not appear to be there. Whether that's related to his offseason shoulder surgery is unclear, but Newton has certainly had bad accuracy games in the past and been able to bounce back; his 48% completion rate is well below any season of his career and especially his 68% mark last season. 

One positive was Newton was willing to push the ball downfield far more often in Week 2 (which is also likely why his accuracy issues stood out, as those are more difficult throws). The depth of throws was helpful for Curtis Samuel, who saw 13 targets and a massive 234 air yards (18.0 aDOT), more air yards than any player in Week 1. D.J. Moore also saw big volume, catching nine of 14 targets for 89 yards. His targets are more of the possession variety, at an aDOT of 8.5. 

Both could have frankly been quite a bit more productive than they were if Newton were a bit more accurate. Both receivers appear locked into big roles, as does Greg Olsen, who actually led the team in receiving with a 9-6-110 line despite a questionable tag coming in. 

Christian McCaffrey still played his typically huge role, but the Panthers simply seemed to game plan away from him some, which perhaps makes sense given it's only Week 2 and he had 29 touches on Sunday. Chalk it up to a short week and a desire to win this game other ways; I expect this to be perhaps the lowest Fantasy output of McCaffrey's season.

Signal: Cam Newton — lack of rushing; Mike Evans — plenty of air yards; D.J. Moore/Curtis Samuel — big roles

Noise: Cam Newton — 51 pass attempts; Christian McCaffrey — 2 receptions; O.J. Howard — 0 receptions; Peyton Barber — 24 touches (script-related)

Friday news and notes

  • Le'Veon Bell's MRI revealed no major damage or tears. After playing 100% of the Week 1 snaps, it will be interesting to see how Adam Gase and the Jets use Bell in Week 2, but he appears likely to play on Monday night.
  • Dolphins defensive back Minkah Fitzpatrick was granted permission by the team to seek a trade. Fitzpatrick was the team's first-round pick in 2018 out of Alabama and would be a big addition if another team is able to acquire him. The Dolphins are in full-blown tank mode.
  • Mike Williams was unable to practice Thursday with a knee issue and looks on the doubtful side of questionable for Sunday. The Chargers will already be without Hunter Henry after his tibial plateau fracture. Should Williams miss, the Chargers will rely heavily on Keenan Allen and the running backs in the passing game, while both Dontrelle Inman and Travis Benjamin will step into bigger roles. 
  • Joe Mixon is reportedly practicing Friday, which could put him in line to play Sunday. He'll be questionable and someone to monitor as inactives are announced. 
  • Dan Patrick reported on his show that Antonio Brown will not be placed on the commissioner's exempt list. Brown has practiced with the team this week, and it's possible he'll be active Week 2, though what his role might be is unclear. Brown will reportedly meet with the NFL next week.
  • Tyler Lockett returned to practice Thursday and practiced on a limited basis as he recovers from a back issue. Lockett was surprisingly targeted just twice in Week 1, but is a key player for a thin Seahawks receiving corps.
  • JuJu Smith-Schuster was upgraded to a full participant in Thursday's practice and looks fine for Sunday. He's a must-start against Seattle's secondary.
  • Sterling Shepard (concussion) and Cody Latimer (calf) both didn't practice on Thursday. Keep an eye on their status as they were the Giants' top two wide receivers in Week 1. We could be looking at an extremely thin receiving corps for Sunday, meaning more Saquon Barkley and Evan Engram.
  • Free agent wide receiver Torrey Smith announced his retirement.