• Dak Prescott is thriving in various situations: Whether there’s play action or not, Prescott is completing passes and producing, making him a “set and forget” fantasy quarterback.

• Jaxon Smith-Njigba is WR1 for a reason: He leads the league in play-action receiving yards and is averaging a whopping 25.5 yards per catch on those plays.

• Unlock your edge with PFF+: Access Premium Stats, dominate fantasy with in-season tools and projections and make smarter bets with the new PFF Player Prop Tool. Get 25% off your PFF+ annual subscription with code PFFFANTASYPODCAST25.

Estimated Reading Time: 13 minutes

A fantasy point is a fantasy point — a pass-catcher may generate all of their production off screens, or maybe they’re a deep threat. All we ask, as fantasy football managers, is that the points come in bunches, regardless of the avenue.

On the other end of this exchange is the quarterback. One quarterback may pile up numbers on screens and play-action passes. Another earns their fantasy keep on third-and-long, with pressure in their face. Understanding the difference, and knowing which pass-catchers are riding the same wave, is how you find sustainable value, not just weekly box-score sugar highs.

Explore Fantasy Rankings

When the Scheme Works

Let’s start with the guys leaning heavily on help. This is probably the best time to insert the disclaimer that they aren’t necessarily system quarterbacks, but that they are being given some answers to the test to make life easy.

Play-action and screen passes can be symptoms of synthetic stability. The defense is off-balance, the quarterback has an easier read, and the ball usually comes out fast. It’s how play-callers hide a struggling offensive line: buy time for a late-developing route or help a struggling or limited signal-caller by creating very defined reads and easy completions.

Right now, that’s powering a lot of the current fantasy production for Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young and Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix. Young gets a massive bump in completion percentage — 15.31% percentage points — when he’s throwing off play action. But when asked just to drop back and deal? His total passing yards collapse to 849 for the year, the fewest in the NFL among passers with at least 200 dropbacks.

Nix, meanwhile, leads all qualifying quarterbacks in screen yardage (249) and is near the top in first downs created from them. It’s an impressive feat, until you realize it says more about head coach Sean Payton’s design than Nix’s down-to-down dominance.

html

Swipe →

These guys are fine in fantasy. But they’re matchup-sensitive. If you’re starting them, you better be doing it against a defense that can’t defend the flat or keeps biting on run fakes. Because if you’re expecting them to manufacture points on their own, you’re probably going to be disappointed.

For other quarterbacks, play action and the screen game only add to their arsenal of ways to pick apart a defense. Dak Prescott is currently operating the Dallas Cowboys‘ offense at the peak of his powers. On non-play-action throws, his 65.9% completion percentage is good enough for 13th in the NFL, with his 77.9% adjusted completion percentage bumping him up to eighth.

And yet, Prescott’s completion percentage swings massively upward, by 19.2 percentage points, on play action, which is the biggest gap in the league. He’s also thrown eight touchdowns off play action, which is tied for the NFL lead. He’s becoming basically unstoppable off play fakes and is matchup-agnostic for fantasy. You can set him and forget him (unless on a bye week) — and more often than not rest easy that he’s going to produce QB1 fantasy numbers.

Baker Mayfield is threading that same needle. Mayfield is now a top quarterback asset in all fantasy formats, thanks to a combination of screen-game success (11 first downs, two touchdowns and 219 yards) and actual big-time throws on traditional dropbacks (13, most in the NFL). He’s not just surviving on easy stuff; he’s delivering over the middle and downfield. Mayfield has attempted the most passes of 20-plus yards (38) and has converted that into 511 yards and eight touchdowns without a single interception.

But even Mayfield isn’t immune to matchup volatility. The Buccaneers’ offensive line isn’t doing him any favors. They have given up 102 pressures, the second most in the NFL, behind the Cleveland Browns. That goes a long way toward explaining why he has logged 11 turnover-worthy plays when forced off script.

The Ones Who Don’t Blink

Then there are the quarterbacks who don’t need play action or screens to do damage — guys like Matthew Stafford and Patrick Mahomes. Stafford is thriving in both the dropback passing game and when Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay is dialing up screens and play action. Stafford ranks second in the NFL in big-time throws on traditional dropbacks (11) and has racked up 699 yards off play action. He’s also tossed eight touchdowns off those looks, but unlike Bryce Young, there’s no massive drop-off when the script changes, making him a more stable fantasy quarterback.

html

Swipe →

Mahomes is, well, Mahomes. Kansas City’s screen game is elite — thanks, Andy Reid — and he ranks in the top five in screen yardage (194, third) and screen touchdowns (two, tied for second). However, Mahomes doesn’t rely on screens. He can move the chains, find the second read and throw across his body while dancing on one foot. You’re starting him regardless of the opposing defense.

And then there are the players somewhere in the middle: Geno Smith, Trevor Lawrence and even Jordan Love. They all flash with scheme help, but the cracks show under pressure. Smith has the fourth-lowest PFF passing grade on pressured dropbacks (35.1) among quarterbacks with at least 50 pressured dropbacks, and Love is not much better (44.0).

Coupled with that is that Smith owns the second-highest pressure-to-sack rate on play-action plays (26.3%), behind only Michael Penix Jr. When the timing gets disrupted, the play is dead. And in fantasy, that’s a drive killer. Smith has underperformed so much so that he has become a droppable asset in redraft leagues, ranking as the QB27 in standard scoring PPR leagues. In dynasty formats, he’s a player you’re either forced into starting because of a poor quarterback situation or looking at on your bench watching his value plummet with each passing week.

Receivers Riding the Scheme

Of course, pass-catchers benefit from structure, too. Sometimes massively.

Take rookie tight end Tyler Warren. Indianapolis Colts head coach Shane Steichen has made him the go-to option off play action for quarterback Daniel Jones. Twelve of Warren’s catches have moved the chains off play action alone, which is elite usage for a tight end who had a preseason ADP of 76.4 — fifth at the position — and a player who was almost certainly taken with a top-eight pick in dynasty rookie drafts.

Or look at tight ends Tucker Kraft and Jake Ferguson. Both are tied for the league lead in play-action touchdowns among pass-catchers, with three apiece. That’s the kind of schemed red-zone production you want in a flex option, especially in TE-premium leagues.

And wideouts? Jaxon Smith-Njigba leads all receivers in overall receiving yards, but he also paces the position in play-action yards (332), with a whopping 25.5 yards per catch off play action. The only player ahead of him is New Orleans Saints pass-catcher Rashid Shaheed at an insane 32.0 yards per catch.

Smith-Njigba averages 2.5 play-action targets per game and just under two catches per game on those plays. At 25.5 yards per clip off those looks, it’s basically six PPR points per game. No wonder he currently sits as the overall WR1 in standard-scoring PPR leagues.

But it’s never that simple. The Chicago Bears run play action at the ninth-highest rate in the NFL, with 74 play-action plays, and yet, among players with at least 10 play-action targets, Rome Odunze ranks fourth worst in the NFL in receiving yards (63). (His two touchdowns are encouraging for a player with an ADP ahead of Devonta Smith, Chris Olave and fellow Bears wideout DJ Moore, though.)

Odunze is still currently the WR20 in standard-scoring PPR leagues, but fantasy managers will be forgiven for expecting more from him — especially off play-action looks — with Ben Johnson now drawing up the plays in the Windy City.

Ultimately, skill matters, but structure amplifies skill. When structure fails, not every fantasy quarterback, wide receiver or tight end is built to adapt.