iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

We're quickly approaching "Mom would be sad" territory.

Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

You *really* want Josh Downs this week. WR17 in expected HPPR FP/game. He’s underperforming that by 3 FP/game because he's 0/6 on his 20+ air yard targets. Route and target shares are great, no Keenan, and a WAS pass defense that is bottom-4 in passing efficiency, success rate, and CPOE allowed.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I've got KC Concepcion as WR33 in expected HPPR fantasy points/game. But he's underperforming that expectation by 3.5 points/game as he's 1/3 on his deeper targets and hasn't been able to get a YAC TD on those few targets near the opponent's endzone.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

My nuanced thoughts on the Dolphins’ backfield.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Hoping Ladd plays this week because I have him leading the league in expected points per target among WRs with at least 5 targets.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I’ve doing the breakout WR article for 4for4 which starts next week, but JaMo is a clear one from Week 1.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

About 7,000 words and 40 graphs on the upcoming Week 2 slate for @4for4football.bsky.social . It's good to be back. www.4for4.com/2026/w2/fant...

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Besides the Saints crushing everyone in play volume, it kind of looks like I just put all of these teams randomly on the graph. Good to be back lol.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Just based on last year's stats, but yeah, 2nd toughest rushing matchup this week. And 2nd just because the Raiders were so god awful at rushing efficiency last year.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

SEA's matchups are pretty neutral across the board. With Kubiak and Walker gone, and Charbonnet sidelined, do we see SEA pass the ball more than their 30th ranked pass rate over expectation (PROE) last year? And if they don't, does Price get the majority of the workload?

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Starting off with Wednesday night, I'm especially interested to see this NE run game against SEA's defense that ranked 1st in every key run stat last year. Can an improved OL help Rhamondre generate explosives with TreVeyon sidelined?

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

I'll be adding matchup values to my weekly Hoopes There It Is column this year. They take into account the strength of both the offense and their opponent's defense. And compares that to every game from 2021-2025 to get a percentile. Here are the Week 1 matchups this year based solely on 2025 stats.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

I've been working on capturing the thoughts of The Official App of Sports. Really cooking with gas on the Aaron Rodgers one.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Come for the graphs, stay for the digs at the Giants. "Matt Nagy was handed the best QB on the planet and returned a league-average offensive finish. Now he gets the chance to work with Jaxson Dart instead. What could go wrong?"

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Sportsbook-implied points per game for the full season (x-axis) and specifically during the fantasy playoffs (y-axis). I periodically need a reminder to not load up on teams in the bottom-left corner.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Having some fun with this Underdog game. Now just 17 coin flips away from $1M.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

I’m not a card collector. I’m an AJ Brown card collector (and one Brandon Lloyd card for my 2010 home league championship. Shoutout Brandon Lloyd).

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Thanks to everyone that has checked out my best ball Chrome extension! Sim-based player recommendations right on your Underdog draft. Takes into account team and playoff week stacking, with settings adjustable by tournament. Coolest thing I've ever made. chromewebstore.google.com/detail/hoope...

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Here's what it looks like. The box in the top-right is the extension.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Been a weird year for me so far. 42 drafts in and no 12s.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

We’re off and running at the Dallas live draft! #SFB16

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

If you're looking for a Bhayshul Tuten article that's mostly about Chris Rodriguez, boy do I have good news for you! www.4for4.com/2026/preseas...

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Had some fun with this one. I think the odds Downs hits his ceiling boils down to one question. How far can he move in the top-right direction of the graph below?

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

This won't surprise anyone, but a RB's TD rate is highly correlated with where on the field they get the ball. Among 65 qualifying RBs, Sean Tucker led the league in TD rate last year. His average attempt was the 12th closest to the opponent's endzone. Bucky Irving was 63rd and 55th in those stats.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Colston Loveland is currently my most-drafted player on Underdog. Among 26 qualifying TEs, Loveland was 5th in targets per route run during the regular season. The biggest issue was that he was 22nd in routes per game. Fortunately, we saw those routes spike in the last few weeks of the season.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

What do we actually care about for our fantasy RBs? Well, their ADP and FP per game last year are crucial. Beyond that, though, we generally want them scoring TDs, catching the ball, and generating explosive runs. Let's use Rhamondre Stevenson and TreVeyon Henderson as examples.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Our top values but round and why Josh Allen is the worst pick on the board (not really; did the clickbait work?)

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Can't seem to get worse than 3 wins.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Some context for me on the other side of this.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

Only 3/16 elite WRs had both above-average playoff and finals rates last year. That hit rate was about half the mark of RBs drafted in the same range. But Puka was on an insane 3 out of every 5 rosters in the finals last year thanks to a 12/225/2 line in the semis. www.4for4.com/2026/preseas...

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

If you're sticking zero-RB anyway, focus on RB routes. The graph below shows the average routes per game in 2024 for the RBs drafted on a BBMVI entry. And it's filtered only for teams that did not take an RB in Round 1 or 2. The more routes your RBs ran in the prior season, the better off you were.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

That's why 4 RB builds were optimal last year. Notice as you go down the list of the constructions that it is literally sorted by the number of drafted RBs. The best options all had 4 RBs, then 5, then 6 and finally 7. And the reason is the teams that drafted RBs early tended to take fewer of them.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

And it’s not just that top RBs are scoring more. It’s crucial to take into account where in the drafts you got those players. Every one of these guys was drafted in the first three rounds last year. The difference-making RBs that are separating from RB2s are both identifiable and costly in drafts.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

RB1s have stayed healthier than ever, especially those we’ve drafted early. They’ve seen their share of carries increase relative to expectation. And the NFL’s run rate within an opponent’s 5-yard line has increased from 48.8% in 2021 to 51.5% in 2025. That’s great news for elite RBs.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

It was another rough year for zero-RB. Below is a heatmap where red shows higher advance rates and blue shows lower advance rates. The y-axis shows what round you drafted your first RB in, while the x-axis shows the round of your second RB. You’re only going to see red with an RB1 in Round 1 or 2.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Continuing my deep dive on Underdog's BBMVI data, this time with RBs. You doubled your odds of advancing to the playoffs if you took an RB in Round 1. You tripled your odds of advancing if you started your draft with two straight RBs compared to teams that passed on RB in the first two rounds.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

And then game stacking Week 17 had a similar pattern as previous years. The number of active, healthy players you have is going to dictate a lot in a one-week sample. But just like in past years, you generally want more game stacks than fewer. Link to the full article! www.4for4.com/2026/preseas...

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

The graph below looks at team stacking. The x-axis is the number of team stacks an entry had, while the y-axis is the rate those teams made the finals. You were twice as likely to make the finals last year if you had 3 team stacks compared to zero.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

1 more graph to finish off the discussion of what worked last year. The graph below has draft round on the x-axis and advance rate on the y-axis. And each line represents how many QBs you had on your team at the end of that round. It was optimal to have 0 QBs drafted through round 13 last year.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

So, it was a rough year for elite QB. The table below shows the 4 QBs who had ADPs in the first 4 rounds last year. That’s my definition of an “elite” QB. Taken together, they had a 14.3% playoff advance rate, or 2.4% below average. And their average finals roster rate of 3.0% is bad bad.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Alright, so we want 3 QBs in most cases. Perhaps the more interesting question is when should we target these QBs? The answer last year was as late as possible. 2025 was the lowest a QB1 scored over the last five seasons (minimum of 8 games played). And that’s true for QB2, QB3, and QB4.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Just got access to Underdog's full data from BBMVI. Starting with QB, let's see what worked last year, what’s driving QB ADPs this year, and how to attack the current landscape. To start, it's a 3-QB world. 4/5 of the best constructions had 3 QBs last year, with 3 QBs optimal in 4/6 years of BBM.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Playoffs schedule for the best ball sickos! Includes projected points for each game from DraftKings. Darker green means more projected points.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

The main pushback I've gotten is something like "if Hurts increases his MOF passing, his efficiency will *definitely* drop". Maybe! But historically for other QBs, it's been mostly flat with a few big increases by either elite players or players entering better offensive schemes.

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Stephen Hoopes @stephenhoopes.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

The Jalen Hurts discourse made me mad enough to actually look at it. Here are all QBs with at least 100 attempts from 2022-2025. I'm using SIS' left-middle, middle, and right-middle as the definition of a pass to the middle of the field. That share is on the x-axis and EPA/Att on the y-axis.

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