"Life's this game of inches, so is football."
Those were Coach Tony D'Amato's wise words in "Any Given Sunday." Actually I've never seen that movie, but my editor thought it fit and I'm no idiot: I know who cuts my paychecks. And I did watch a 4-minute YouTube clip of the scene now, so I've basically seen it.
But my editor's point: Fantasy football is also a game of inches. And on that part we certainly agree.
One extra running lane can turn into a breakaway score. One extra target can be the difference between winning and losing. The key is finding them. That's what we're trying to do in this space each week by combining two key elements: data and football. Player vs. player, player vs. team, scheme vs. scheme.
The matchups we need exist all around the field, on a macro and a micro level, on any given Sunday. Each week, we'll dive deep into the NFL Next Gen Stats player tracking numbers to try to identify where they can be exploited.
To start off in Week 1, we're going to focus in on three areas.
• Schematic advantages for players based on the routes they run and the coverages their opponent runs.
• The strength of an opposing defense's run-stopping unit based on the players in its front.
• Weak points along offensive lines (and QB sack rate tendencies) that ought to yield a high sack chance for particular pass-rushers.
In other words, we're looking for specific advantages or disadvantages for receivers, rushers and pass-rushers based on whom they play this week. Those are the inches. Small edges -- one more open route for a receiver, an extra foot of space before contact for a running back and an easier path to the QB for a sack artist -- that can make the difference for a player you choose to start or sit.
Routes vs. coverage matchups
We hear it all the time on broadcasts: "That's the perfect route against that coverage." But what are those route and coverage combinations -- and do we know when they're coming? For the former, we can look at yards per route run data for every route and coverage combination. And the result is this awfully intriguing grid.
There's a lot in here, but let's break this down with an example: our first upgrade of the week.
Upgrade: Patriots WR Nelson Agholor vs. Dolphins' Cover 3
The most straightforward mismatch is easily identifiable on the chart: go routes and deep fades vs. single-high coverages (Man 1 or Cover 3). It's logical: An outside receiver streaking down the field against either of those coverages will end up in single coverage with minimal help over the top from the safety manning the middle of the field.
Last season, Agholor ran 13% go routes and 13% deep fades, the second- and sixth-highest rates among wide receivers, respectively. The Dolphins, meanwhile, ran Cover 3 32% of the time last season, the second-highest rate in the league (and although Miami changed head coaches last season, defensive coordinator Josh Boyer remains).
Thus: Agholor has a nice matchup. That's the good news.
Here's the bad news: Our initial read is that the effect is very small. To create this analysis, I essentially multiplied every receiver's route rates by their opponent's coverages' rates -- essentially the chance of every specific route vs. coverage combination possible. Then I multiplied every combination by the average yards per route run by the specific YPRR number in the chart above associated with that combination. That produces a yards per route run figure for every route-coverage combination for that receiver in that game, which I then sum. That's a mouthful.
But the result was: If we assume Agholor is an average receiver who will run routes at the same rate he did in the past and the Dolphins run the same coverages they ran in the past, Agholor would be expected to earn 1.6 more receiving yards in a 30-route game than if he ran those same routes against a defense that ran every coverage at league-average rates.
A little disappointing, right? I thought so too. But there are three reasons I think this still has value.
Agholor might not be special, but a lot of receivers we discuss in fantasy are very much not average. An extra 1.5 yards for an average receiver might be an extra 4 yards per game for Cooper Kupp, which means you're very quickly talking about a potential 8-yard swing from good matchup to bad. In a game of inches, that's hardly trivial.
Every factor in fantasy analysis is, to some degree, small. Like I said in the beginning: We're looking for tiny edges. And the bottom line is I think it's fair to have a more positive outlook for Agholor knowing this than not!
It certainly feels like something is here, and I'll keep digging. It might be that on average the effect is small but the chance for a breakout performance is increased.
Upgrade: Texans WR Nico Collins vs. Colts' Cover 3
This is more or less the same story, so we don't need to linger here, but Colts defensive coordinator Gus Bradley uses by far the most Cover 3 in the league (48% last year with the Raiders).
Collins (6% go routes, 9% deep fades) didn't run verts at quite the extreme rate that Agholor did last season, but if the Colts are running Cover 3 almost half the time, Collins ought to get some one-on-one routes deep.
Upgrade: Dolphins WR Tyreek Hill vs. Patriots' Cover 1
When I ran this idea past ESPN analyst and X's and O's wielder extraordinaire Matt Bowen, he posited that Hill against the Patriots' single-high man-heavy coverage would be a possible matchup to exploit before even seeing the list, and Hill was indeed high on it. But Bowen suggested something that made me think this was an even better matchup than the numbers would indicate: He thought that, in Mike McDaniel's scheme, Hill would run more crossers. And if you consult the chart above, you'll note that deep crossers against single-high coverages are the best route-coverage combination around.
Downgrade: Buccaneers RB Leonard Fournette vs. Cowboys' Cover 1
Running back checkdowns are less lucrative against man coverages and particularly single-high man (just 1.0 yard per route run on average as opposed to 2.0 against zone Cover 2). A running back can sit down between defenders in a zone, but against a man the quarterback is more likely to look elsewhere -- like to a receiver running in a vacated flat -- as an underneath option, Bowen relayed to me.
While Fournette runs plenty of flat routes too, his 26% checkdown routes last season is extreme relative to his peers: the second highest among qualifiers. That's un-ideal against Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, who ran more man -- and particularly Cover 1 -- than anyone else last season.
Downgrade: Falcons TE Kyle Pitts vs. Saints' 2 Man
Relative to other receivers. Pitts runs a lot of crossers, slices and digs. That's an un-ideal combination against the Saints, who ran two-high man coverage at a higher rate than anyone else in the league last year by a mile (21% of the time, with the Chargers next highest at 13%).
It will be tougher for the Saints to play 2 Man against the Falcons this year, however, because Marcus Mariota is more mobile than Matt Ryan and 2 Man leaves defenses vulnerable to the QB run.
Run-stopping matchups
Here we're using ESPN's run stop win rate -- a metric powered by NFL Next Gen Stats player tracking data -- to determine which running backs are headed into easy or difficult opponents in terms of rushing efficiency.
Of course, there's been plenty of movement since last season, so we can't just look at last year's run stop win rate for every team. To handle this, we have a predicted run stop win rate model for each team based on the players on their defensive front, those players' past run stop win rates and how much each player is expected to play according to ESPN's Mike Clay. And we use the best and worst predicted win rates to determine the favorable and unfavorable matchups.
Upgrade: Cardinals RB James Conner vs. Chiefs
The Chiefs aren't the weakest against the run at any given position group in terms of predicted stop win rate. But they do rank bottom seven at defensive tackle, edge and linebacker. And that's enough to have the worst overall predicted run stop win rate, of which Conner is the first back to get the chance to take advantage.
Defensive tackle Tershawn Wharton didn't quite qualify last season, but if he had, he would have ranked second worst in run stop win rate at the position at 24%.
Upgrade: 49ers RB Elijah Mitchell vs. Bears
Robert Quinn is a standout pass-rusher -- it still feels like his 18.5 sacks last season didn't get enough attention -- but he's a weak point on a unit that is expected to be poor overall against the run. That weakness is Mitchell's gain.
Downgrade: Patriots RB Damien Harris vs. Dolphins
Miami tops out as the No. 1 team in predicted run stop win rate. That's thanks to two defensive tackles who are strong against the run: Christian Wilkins and Zach Sieler. Wilkins' 44% RSWR along the interior of the line ranked second in the category, and Sieler would have ranked third had he qualified, and he is in line for more playing time, per Clay's projections. That should make for a difficult running environment for Harris against the Dolphins.
Pass-rusher matchups
We're looking for sacks. Or more specifically: an increased chance of sacks compared with what a pass-rusher would usually be expected to produce. There are two primary factors we're considering: Which offensive lineman is the pass-rusher most likely to face? And how often does the opposing quarterback take sacks? Don't sleep on the second part of that equation: QBs have a lot of control over their own sack rates.
Upgrade: 49ers DE Nick Bosa vs. Bears
Nick Bosa ... vs. a rookie left tackle ... chasing down Justin Fields? This is basically as good as it gets. For starters: Fields took sacks at over a 10% rate last season, the highest in the league and a generally wild number. Now Bosa gets his shot at him and, when on the defense's right side against the left tackle, will be squaring off against fifth-rounder Braxton Jones.
Upgrade: Bengals DE Trey Hendrickson vs. Steelers
Hendrickson has a pretty great spot in Week 1: He's facing off against Steelers LT Dan Moore Jr., who ranked last among all tackles in pass block win rate last season. And it's a game the Bengals are favored in, so that should result in more sack opportunities. The only thing keeping this from being a perfect sack situation is that Mitchell Trubisky has been average-ish over his career in terms of sack rate.
Seth Walder is in his sixth NFL season as a sports analytics writer at ESPN and previously covered the Jets and Giants for the New York Daily News.
NFL player tracking, also known as Next Gen Stats, is the capture of real-time location data, speed and acceleration for every player, every play, on every inch of the field. Sensors throughout the stadium track tags placed on players' shoulder pads, charting individual movements, within inches.