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How Much The Rams and Cowboys Will Pass in Week 1
After having the 23rd-ranked offense the season before, the Los Angeles Rams were able to rank eighth in offensive EPA/play last season by adding Matthew Stafford and improving their passing attack from an EPA/dropback of 0.03 (21st) to 0.17 (fifth). However, there was no team in the NFL last season that had a starker difference between the expected points added per play by their passing game vs. their rushing game.
Rams play-caller Sean McVay did adjust for this somewhat by having the sixth-highest early-down pass rate in neutral situations last season but was still behind the Bills, Chiefs, Buccaneers, Cardinals, and Chargers. The Bills will most likely keep their 65% early-down pass rate in their Week 1 matchup against the Rams, meaning that Los Angeles won’t be able to lean on the run game and will have to air it out to keep up with what could possibly be the best offense in the NFL in the season opener.
The Cowboys had the fifth-biggest difference between their EPA/dropback and EPA/rush last season and had a 56% neutral situation early-down pass rate, which was good for eighth in the league. When they played the Buccaneers in Week 1 of last season, they passed on 82% of early downs due to Tampa Bay’s ferocious run defense not making it worth it for Dallas to run against. This game plan worked out well, as the Cowboys scored 29 points and almost pulled off the upset on the road. The Cowboys’ best bet is to emulate this plan, despite what owner Jerry Jones says.
Jerry Jones on @FirstTake on Ezekiel Elliott: “It’s still a fact, we go as Zeke goes.” pic.twitter.com/PsuQV91cAF
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) August 25, 2022
Going into this year’s matchup against Tampa Bay, Dallas is starting three new offensive linemen, they traded away their WR1 in Amari Cooper, and they won’t get their WR3 or WR4 in Michael Gallup and James Washington back for the start of the season. It’ll be an uphill battle for the Cowboys to have a similar offensive performance to what they had in Week 1 of last year, but their best bet is on letting a fully healthy Dak pass early and often and for Kellen Moore to give him enough options to where he feels comfortable checking into runs when they have advantageous situations to do so.
Fantasy Takeaways
- Upgrade: Matthew Stafford, Cooper Kupp, Allen Robinson, Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb
- Downgrade: Tony Pollard, Cam Akers, Darrell Henderson Jr.
Which Coaches Usually Cover Week 1
Week 1 of the NFL season is different than every other week during the season because head coaches have the entire offseason to prepare for opening day. Because of that, there are certain coaches that will fare better than others, as they spend the offseason designing a new playbook or thinking of ways to exploit their first opponent specifically. We can see this play out by looking at how often every active coach with at least three seasons has fared at covering the spread in their Week 1 games.
Kliff Kingsbury, Sean McVay, and John Harbaugh are all examples of coaches that have historically done well in Week 1 of the season. Kingsbury has a small sample size and has to go up against the Chiefs, but his offenses have scored 27, 24, and 38 points in his three opening games. McVay’s offenses have averaged 32.6 points a game in Week 1, which also could impact the way a bettor approaches the total of 51.5 in that game as well. As for John Harbaugh, he dropped a rare Week 1 game last season against the Raiders but had won the previous four opening games by 32, 49, 44, and 20 points respectively, making the Ravens an opening-weekend juggernaut.
On the other side of things, Mike Vrabel, Kyle Shanahan, and Frank Reich have usually gotten off to slower starts in their first game of the season. Vrabel is 1-3 straight up and against the spread in Week 1, with his only win being over the Browns in 2019. Kyle Shanahan is 2-3 straight up and 1-4 against the spread and Frank Reich is 0-4 as a head coach in Week 1.
Fantasy Takeaways
- Upgrade: Kyler Murray, Rondale Moore, Lamar Jackson, J.K. Dobbins, Mark Andrews
- Downgrade: Derrick Henry, Brandon Aiyuk, Michael Pittman Jr.
How Quarterbacks Usually Fare Facing Their Former Team
Two of the biggest storylines of Week 1 are Baker Mayfield facing off against a team that publicly dumped him this offseason and Russell Wilson playing in Seattle against the team he spent 10 years of his career with. Since 2013, there have been 12 “revenge” games where a starting quarterback faces off against the team that they played for the season before — Ryan Fitzpatrick accounts for four of those.
On average, we have seen that quarterbacks will have a +0.04 increase in their revenge game’s EPA/play compared to the EPA/play of their career. While we are working with a smaller sample size and that difference isn’t large in any direction, it does squash the narrative that the opposing defense will feast on their former team’s quarterback. If any directional trend were to happen, it would most likely be on the quarterback performing somewhat better than how they usually perform.
Fantasy Takeaways
- Upgrade: Baker Mayfield, D.J. Moore, Russell Wilson
- Downgrade: Seahawks D/ST
If you want to dive deeper into fantasy football, check out our award-winning slate of Fantasy Football Tools as you navigate your season. From our Start/Sit Assistant – which provides your optimal lineup based on accurate consensus projections – to our Waiver Wire Assistant, which allows you to quickly see which available players will improve your team and how much – we’ve got you covered this fantasy football season.
