Browns 27, Steelers 24: We Got Two of Three Wrong, and the Total Was the Reason

Andre Szmyt hit a 56 yard field goal with ten seconds left and Cleveland beat Pittsburgh 27 to 24. The two teams scored 51 points in a game the market priced at 38.5, the lowest total on the Week 4 board.

We leaned on that total in Thursday's start/sit column. It was the wrong thing to lean on, and it cost two of the three calls we made in this game.

The scorecard

DK Metcalf: we were wrong. The write up said a good matchup does not fix a shrinking role, pointing at his target counts of 10, 9 and 5 and his 40, 27 and 31 yard games. He went 5 catches for 115 yards on 9 targets, which is roughly 16.5 PPR points and his best game of the season.

The matchup argument we described and then talked ourselves out of was the right one. Cleveland had allowed 36.7 PPR per game to wide receivers, seventh most in the league, and that is exactly what happened. The shrinking role reversed the moment the defense in front of it was soft enough.

Quinshon Judkins: right player, wrong ceiling. We called him the better volume bet and then capped him, on the grounds that a 38 point game limits what a running back can do. He finished with 17 carries for 53 yards and a touchdown plus 6 catches for 43 yards, which is about 21.6 PPR. The receiving work is what we failed to account for: 7 targets is a pass game role, not a game script accident.

Harold Fannin Jr.: roughly right. We said hold rather than start, because Pittsburgh had allowed 9.3 PPR per game to tight ends, 25th of 32. He caught 3 of 5 targets for 27 yards and a touchdown, about 9.7 points. The touchdown saved it from being a bad night, but a start would have been a disappointment in most lineups. This one holds up.

What we actually got wrong

Not the defensive matchup data. That part worked: Cleveland was soft against receivers and Metcalf hurt them, Pittsburgh was stingy against tight ends and Fannin stayed quiet.

The mistake was adding a second filter on top of it. We used the posted total as a reason to fade players whose matchups we had already described as favorable. A 38.5 total is a market opinion about a game, and the market was off by 12 and a half points. Treating it as a constraint on individual usage, on top of a defense versus position read that was already pointing the other way, is one layer of reasoning too many.

Aaron Rodgers threw 40 times for 299 yards and three scores while being sacked five times. Jaylen Warren ran 17 times for 93. Neither of those is a low scoring grind.

The rule we will hold to going forward: let usage and the positional matchup make the call, and do not overrule them with a game total. The total is priced for the scoreboard, not for one player's role.

Today

Indianapolis at Washington kicked off early and is the game our Thursday column spent the most words on, because Washington is the most generous defense in football against wide receivers at 46.5 PPR per game and the second stingiest against running backs at 11.9. Josh Downs and Tyler Warren were the starts off that split, with Jonathan Taylor the uncomfortable temper. We will grade those honestly next week the same way we graded these.

Three more extremes worth watching on the rest of the slate:

Green Bay at Tampa Bay. The Packers have allowed more to running backs than anyone at 30.7 per game. Bucky Irving has carried 8, 17 and 15 times, so the workload is real.

Dallas at Houston. Houston has allowed 11.8 PPR per game to backs, fewest in the league, and 40.0 to receivers, second most. The same game says fade Javonte Williams and trust CeeDee Lamb, who has 20 catches for 309 yards and 3 scores through three weeks.

Kansas City at Las Vegas. The Raiders are second most generous to tight ends at 21.7. Travis Kelce has scored in each of the last two weeks.

Full Week 4 results and box scores are at ESPN. If you are setting a lineup for the late games, the positional matchup board is on our matchup ratings page, and this week's adds are in the Week 4 waiver wire.