Quick Slant: MNF - Thank You for Reading, Here's to 2026!
Mat Irby’s Quick Slant
In this place, where I would usually drop some descriptive prose—some wannabe, I don’t know, Cormac McCarthy or whatever it is, which is neither particularly good nor in any way appropriate for a fantasy football article (thanks, Pat, for putting up with my quirks), I’d instead like to use this space one last time for something else.
To pull back the curtain a bit, my brother died on September 7, the opening Sunday of the 2025 NFL season, and it marred my entire fall. Robert was very special to me. We shared many interests, including football, and he was the winner of the first fantasy football league I ever played in, back in 1991. We were close. Robert was a deep thinker, endlessly attentive, a model listener, a constructive helper, and just a lovely, lovely man. I owe my big brother so much, and I’m thankful for the many years we had together.
The other day, I was talking with my sister-in-law, who has recently had to endure her first Thanksgiving and Christmas without him. She asked me how I was doing, a reasonable question for a grieving brother only months removed from a gaping wound.
As I answered, shooting from the hip, with no real idea where my river of thoughts would emerge, it occurred to me how much I’ve been held together this fall by… well… this.
This website. This job. This hobby. Pat. Writing self-indulgent intros. Spending too long making my graphs look like illustrations from young adult fiction. Watching football and pouring so much of myself into this stupid accessory of it.
I’ve long been jealous of my brother for having the discipline to pursue stable, gainful employment, even as the dreamer in him fought to break loose. I’ve never really grown up, I guess you could say. I just kept making movies until it became my career. There was a lot of hardship along the way, but I’ve made a life of it now.
In the same way that I respected him for his choices, I know he respected me for mine. There was always some part of him that admired the fact that, rather than turning toward something obviously viable, I chased what I loved until it became viable enough. When I started writing for RotoViz, then later for the Fantasy Footballers and Legendary Upside, I knew he was proud of me for going for that, too.
But more than anything else, this has been my therapy. As I’ve moved through a season of life that should have been filled with darkness, the blows have landed shallowly. Nothing vital was pierced. I’ve endured, about as well as could be expected. And it’s because I have a purpose here on these digital pages. I have a distraction, yes, but also a mission: to help you accomplish your goals and do so with as much energy and passion as I can muster.
It’s true for me, as I’m sure it is for many analysts: I’d rather you win your league on my advice than me win my own. I genuinely mean that. Giving you bad advice haunts me. Knowing my advice helped you win fills me with pure joy.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for giving me a place to purge my fixations. Thank you for giving me a platform to be helpful and a special family in the process. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all that you are for me. I hope I’ve been able to give even a fraction of it back.
Here’s to 2026!
Rams
Implied Team Total: 28.5
The Rams won’t win the NFC West, but they have one of the best records in the NFL; Pythagorean expected wins validate them, revealing them as the second-best team behind only Seattle.
Based on offensive and defensive EPA, the Rams look more like the best team. They are way above average in both offensive and defensive efficiency.
Offensively, they are well above average in dropback EPA and rush EPA. They are possibly the most well-rounded quality team in the league.
The Rams rank first in offensive EPA per play and offensive success rate.
They rank third in offensive EPA per dropback and first in offensive success rate on dropbacks.
The Rams average 26.7 seconds per snap (13th). I’ve detailed this before, but this is a departure from HC Sean McVay’s long-time norm, as it's considerably faster.
Their pass rate is 57% (T-14th). Their pass rate over expected (PROE) is +5.83% (4th), indicating they are inclined to pass. They spend 48 offensive plays per 60 minutes with a lead of seven or more points, and their pass rate drops to 48% when they do. It is their extended time at this lower rate that explains why their gross pass rate differs so greatly from their PROE.
The Rams get off 65 offensive snaps per 60 minutes (T-12th)—37 passes, and 28 runs.
Stafford has dropped back 544 times (11th) for 519 attempts (4th). This is a very high rate of attempts per dropback, which is attributed to Stafford’s low number of sacks and rushing attempts.
Outside of rushing, Stafford ranks very high in almost any meaningful passing stat. Stafford and second-year QB Drake Maye are in a two-man dogfight for the MVP award.
Stafford has been a QB1 in nine of 15 games, and he has spiked at or around 30-35 points six times. He is coming off his best fantasy game of the year.
Stafford ranks very high in dropback EPA but is just above average in CPOE.
So, how can it be that Stafford is so efficient and mid with his accuracy? He’s scored a ton of TDs.
I have a simple touchdowns-over-expected (TDOE) model that helps me identify regression candidates. I take TDs and divide by yards, find the average TDs/Yds leaguewide, then multiply that average by each player’s yards to find expected TDs. Then, I subtract real TDs from expected TDs. The players along the extremes are generally TD regression candidates.
Stafford’s 10.94 TDOE is the highest in the league. He is a regression candidate based on TDOE. Stafford’s 7.4% TD rate is the highest of his 17-year career, roughly twice as high as his rate last year, and way ahead of the 4.5% career rate he brought into the 2025 season.
QBs facing the Falcons rank 16th in fantasy scoring over their last five games. The wide disparity between their expected points (EP) rank and fantasy points over expected (FPOE) rank indicates that teams have been seeking meaningful attempts against them but are not converting those into abundant points.
The Rams usually have a narrow target allocation, and this has been true of late. Only WRs Puka Nacua (30.6%) and Davante Adams (21.3%) have a target share per game rate north of 15%. This is the third-highest target share in the NFL during that span of time.
The Rams will be without Adams for the second game in a row. I mentioned before last week’s game that, without Adams, WR Konata Mumpfield—not WR Jordan Whittington—would serve as the direct replacement at “X” receiver, but that the Rams would use far more 13-personnel, meaning just one WR.
The Rams did indeed use 13 personnel on 61.4% of their offensive plays, switching to 11 personnel on 35.2%, meaning they used two formations for 96.6% of their snaps. At this point, the Rams have used 13 on 28.02% of their snaps all year, nearly 12% more than the next-closest team. From that formation, the Rams lead the NFL in EPA by leaps and bounds.
Last week, Nacua earned a 78% snap share; no other WR had more than 48% (Mumpfield). Along with him and RB Kyren Williams (71%), TEs Colby Parkinson (86%), Terrance Ferguson (76%), and Davis Allen (65%) led the teams in snap share. All three had at least four targets.
After a massive week against Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s Seahawks last week, Nacua dethroned JSN as fantasy’s WR1 overall.
He ranks in the top 10 in most meaningful WR stats, including Smith-Njigba’s seemingly historic, unrivaled YPRR.
Nacua has been a WR1 nine times in 14 games, including one game that he left early with an injury. He has spiked for 35 or more points three times, including twice in his last three games.
Adams won’t play, but he’s been far and away beyond the field in TDs/Yds TDPOE. Clearly, he can’t negatively regress if he doesn’t play. I only raise this because Nacua profiles as a pretty significant positive regression case.
Adams’ 27 end zone targets dwarf the field, even second-placed George Pickens, who has 17. As a counterweight to this drastic overuse, Nacua has just four. If he could inherit some of that vacated end zone work, it could accelerate Nacua’s positive regression track.
The Falcons have allowed the seventh-most PPR points to WRs over their last five games. This includes Smith-Njigba, Mike Evans, and Chris Olave, as well as the Jets and Cardinals, who don’t have superstar WRs.
As I also mentioned in last week’s TNF Quick Slant, Parkinson did not have enough sustainable usage to justify his unbelievable fantasy production since Week 10. From Week 10 to Week 15, Parkinson was a TE1 five out of six times, despite not performing well in the most stable, predictive metrics for TEs.
The same is still true. Much of Parkinson’s fantasy production has been driven by a very high TDOE. Even with last week’s dud, Parkinson has the look of a negative TD regression candidate.
Parkinson’s TD rate is 14.3%, which is about as high as it goes. This is more than twice his previous best rate. This reinforces that Parkinson is running hot and bound to snap back to reality.
Even with this outstanding TD rate, Parkinson ranks as the TE24 overall. He is 31st in EP this season; that is who he really is. That’s how we should view him on Monday night.
The TE who earned the second-highest target share was rookie Terrance Ferguson. In this 13-personnel world without Adams, I’ve got to say that I’m slightly intrigued. But you should know that, if you’re making this bet, you’re making it a little bit blind. It’s hard to believe, in a single-QB managed league, that this is the best bet available.
Allen wasn’t on the field as much as Ferguson, but he did draw one more target last week. If the Rams keep doing the 13-personnel thing—and I don’t know why they wouldn’t—his simple presence on the field makes him a threat to potentially score. A bet on Allen is really not all that different than a bet on Ferguson.
TEs facing the Falcons rank 20th in PPR scoring in their last five games. Other than Trey McBride, whom they played last week, this isn’t the strongest sample.
The Falcons’ defense is slightly above average in dropback EPA allowed and slightly below average in rush EPA allowed.
The Falcons rank 19th in EPA per play allowed and 23rd in defensive success rate. They rank 14th in EPA per dropback allowed and 19th in defensive success rate on dropbacks.
The Falcons use zone at a rate of 74.2% (14th). They use single-high safety at a rate of 61.1% (2nd). Their most common alignments are Cover 3 zone (39.8%) and Cover 4 zone (24.5%). They blitz at a rate of 35.4% (2nd).
Fantasy Points’ coverage matchup tool assigns a zero-based matchup grade to each pass-catcher based on their opponent’s use of specific types and rates of coverage and how that pass-catcher performs against them. Positive numbers indicate a favorable matchup and negative numbers indicate an unfavorable one.
Based on this model, Nacua’s matchup is slightly favorable (+1.7%), while Mumpfield’s (-4.7%), Parkinson’s (-1.9%), Ferguson’s (-0.5%), and Allen’s (-3.4%) matchups are slightly unfavorable.
PFF’s matchup tool is player-based, pitting the PFF ratings of individual players against each other for an expected number of plays based on historical tendencies and rating on a scale from great to poor.
Based on this model, Nacua’s matchup grades out as great, Mumpfield’s grades out as good, Parkinson’s grades out as fair, and Allen’s grades out as poor. Ferguson is not included in the model. And, for whatever it’s worth, WR Xavier Smith’s matchup grades out as great, although with a 4% target share, that’s a non-story.
The Rams’ offense allows -1.74% pressure-rate over expected (PrROE, 2nd). The Falcons’ defense generates 9.61% PrROE (8th). The Rams are so good at pass blocking that it sucks the Falcons’ formidable pass rush into a net negative. As such, the Rams still enjoy a significant advantage in pass-pro.
The Rams’ offense generates 2.64 adjusted yards before contact per attempt (adj. YBC/Att). The Falcons’ defense allows 2.14 (15th). The composite gives the Rams another decided advantage, this time in run blocking.
The Rams rank third in offensive EPA per rush and first in offensive success rate on rushes.
They run a little bit of a committee, but Williams leads in snap rate, target share, and percentage of team rush attempts.
Williams has been an RB1 seven times in 15 games. He has scored single-digit PPR points twice. He is consistent, and, though we don’t see it often, he is capable of upside, as we saw in a Week 5 spike.
Williams, who profiled as a decent pass-catcher coming out of college, has never been that in the Rams’ offense. He has historically gotten a lot of carries in the green zone. This usually keeps him stocked on plenty of high-value touches (HVTs). Though he’ll never be elite in this area, he’s dependably in the top-20. He has ranked 12th this year.
Conversely, his running mate, RB Blake Corum, has been an innings-eater, getting to chow down on the veggies between the twenties. He has a high percentage of opportunities that result in low-value touches.
Corum has put up decent fantasy numbers lately, though, and after a month of it, people are starting to think of him as a flex. Ultimately, I think this is okay, but approach with caution. The Rams have a super-efficient running game, so the run-off Corum gets from that is enough. But you’re not likely to get any ceiling from him without a sudden absence from Williams.
The Falcons rank 26th in EPA per rush allowed and 27th in defensive success rate on rushes. They have been incredibly stingy against RBs lately, holding opposing backs to 32nd in PPR scoring in their last five games, dominating in both EP and FPOE. To be fair, they haven’t played the hardest RB schedule during that time. Between the spread, which favors the Rams by 7.5, and the dependable efficiency of the Rams’ rushing attack, I’m inclined to fade the Falcons here and assume Williams will impose himself on them rather than the other way around.
