Boost Watch: September is paid

The first Future Stars update has landed. Twelve of the fourteen are now 85, Mendoza and Tyson are 83, and a set that launched with one rating for everybody has two. Three scored months left, and the spread only widens from here.

The update has processed, and the fourteen cards that launched identical are not identical any more. Twelve of them played all three September games and took the full boost — +3 on the rating and +3 on each of the three stats underneath it. Two played none and took +1. Every one of the fourteen is in the Player Database on its new number, so a challenge built here is costed against what the cards are worth today rather than what they were worth last week.

The +1 that was not obvious

The thing worth knowing out of this update is what happened to the two who played nothing, because it is better than it looks. The ladder pays +3 for a clean month, +2 for one missed and +1 for missing two or three. September ran three games. Miss all three and you have missed three, which is the top of the +1 band rather than the bottom of nothing — so a card that spent the entire month inactive still moved.

That will not hold in a month with four games in it. Four missed is past the end of the published ladder, and that is the first month where a card can genuinely be paid nothing. October, November and December all run four or five weeks. September was the short one, and the two players who got least out of it got the most generous reading of the rule they will see all season.

The scouting report held up, and then some

Before a snap was played, the Future Stars #1 scouting report sorted the set into five tiers by how hard each player would be to keep off the field, and put exactly two names in the bottom one: a backup quarterback and a receiver with a hamstring history, the only two positions in the set offering no second route onto the field. Those two are Mendoza and Tyson. They are the only two who missed September.

What it got wrong, it got wrong in the safe direction. Tier 3 was a rotation lineman and a tight end coming off surgery; Tier 4 was an edge rusher with an undisclosed issue and a reserve tackle behind a man who had the job. All four played every week and took the full +3. Woods ended the month out-snapping the starter ahead of him, and Iheanachor ended it as the named right tackle. The caution those two tiers were written with turned out to be unnecessary, which is a better way to be wrong than the other one.

So the set has not graded out across five tiers. It has split in two: twelve cards that maxed out and two that nearly did not move. If you were pricing these off the tiers rather than off availability, September rewarded the twelve equally and told you nothing about which of them is better.

The two who sat out

FERNANDO MENDOZA — QB, Las Vegas Raiders. Not a snap all season, and the reasons are all still in place: Las Vegas is winning, Kirk Cousins is playing well, and a coach in the Coach of the Year conversation has no reason to change quarterbacks. He is an 83 now, which is the floor of what a Future Star can be after a short month, and the three months left all have four games in them. A backup quarterback on a winning team is the hardest card in the set to get a boost out of, and that has not changed.

JORDYN TYSON — WR, New Orleans Saints. An 83 as well, off a month spent entirely on injured reserve, and he is eligible to return in Week 5 — which falls inside October, so the month he comes back in is the next one that pays. He will not get a clean +3 out of it, because the games before his return are already missed, but one appearance holds the +1 floor however many he misses. His card is the one in this set where the next update is still genuinely open.

What it means for your database

All fourteen are on their new ratings, so nothing needs typing in. If you raised one by hand already, that edit stands — your own number is kept rather than overwritten, on the reasoning that you are looking at your card and nobody here is.

The practical change is that an 85 no longer spends like an 82. Twelve of these cards have moved up a band: 85 is where Rare Gold starts, and a challenge asking an 82 average now gets three points of headroom from each one placed rather than none. The flip side is the same arithmetic. These are not filler any more, and submitting one destroys a card with three scored months and a 94 ceiling still ahead of it.

Mendoza and Tyson are the two that are closest to ordinary filler, which is the opposite of what their talent says and exactly what the boost mechanic says. An 83 that moved one point in the first month is the cheapest Future Star to spend, and the only two in the set where spending it is not obviously a mistake.

Going into October

Four games rather than three, which raises the stakes in both directions: a clean month is still +3, but a month missed is now a month that can pay nothing at all. Five of the twelve are in roles that would have to break to miss a game. Three are worth watching for usage rather than availability — none of them is close to a healthy scratch yet, but a snap count going one way for three weeks is the thing that turns into one.

• ▲RiserMax Iheanachor — Started the month as the card most likely to miss a game and finished it as a named starter. The biggest single move in the set.
• ▲RiserPeter Woods — Out-snapping the man listed ahead of him by the end of September, with the count rising every week.
• ▲RiserKenyon Sadiq — A 105-yard game off a package role, though three receivers were out for it. Watch the snaps rather than the yards.
• ▲RiserVega Ioane — Now covers center as well as right guard, with both men ahead of him hurt. Two ways onto the field beats one.
• ▼FallerAvieon Terrell — Played every week and lost ground anyway: the outside job went to C.J. Henderson and the nickel snaps went elsewhere.
• ▼FallerDerrick Moore — Nine snaps, down from 17. Two weeks of that is a trend, and a healthy scratch is a month that now pays nothing.
• ▼FallerFernando Mendoza — A 3–0 start and a veteran playing well makes this look less like a delayed debut and more like a redshirt season.
• ●WatchJordyn Tyson — Eligible in Week 5. He cannot reach +3 in October, but one appearance holds the +1 and the card is the most open in the set.
• ●WatchMakai Lemon — Not his doing: a quarterback evaluated for a concussion and a 47-play night is a volume problem that could run into October.