Brandin Cooks is a great example of why fantasy football owners should look beyond the final numbers

Eight months is a long time. You will forget a lot over eight months. What’s the significance of eight months you ask? That’s about how much time will pass from the end of the season to when you start looking at stats again. No matter where you go to look at stats, one of the first things you see is season totals – players’ final numbers from the previous season. This is the next season’s so-called “first impression” on your brain, and you can’t help but be influenced by it.

I’m here to remind you to take a step back. You’ve surely heard this before, but I will say it again – fantasy football is a weekly game. In a basic PPR league in 2016, David Johnson was the top scorer. But was he really the best fantasy player? Answer: Yes. But why? The reason is not as simple as you think. Let’s delve a bit deeper into the “why.”

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Using FantasyPros’ leaders reports, we can review the final point totals. David Johnson wasn’t the best fantasy player because he finished No. 1 in total fantasy points. He was the best fantasy player because he finished No. 1 in total fantasy points AND never finished lower than an RB2 on any given week. Additionally, he had 12 RB1 finishes. The key to winning in this game of randomness and unpredictability that we love is to find consistency and predictability. No player personified that more in 2016 than David Johnson. You knew that each week he was not going to let you down. That is something that can be said about very, very few players.

Let’s take a look at a WR I was very high on entering 2016 – Brandin Cooks. He finished as the PPR WR7. So I was correct? Not exactly. You could enter the 2017 draft prep process by arguing in favor of Cooks and his final numbers. Or, you could go beyond the final numbers. While Cooks finished as a WR1 this past season, he only finished as a WR1 on three individual weeks. He was a weekly WR2 four times and a WR3 or lower eight times. Even if we accept the WR2 weeks (which we most certainly should not), that means Cooks, a guy you may have drafted as your No. 1 WR, completely failed half the time. His final numbers look so good because on those three WR1 weeks where he put up monster numbers. While Cooks may have won you three weeks by himself, there’s a good chance he cost you eight of them. His final numbers did you no good on a week-to-week basis.

One of the 2016 waiver wire darlings, Tyrell Williams, also appears to have been wildly inconsistent. Now I know no one is complaining about a guy going from a pickup to the WR17, but I’d argue Williams was even better than the final numbers indicate. The former undrafted free agent was thrust into the starting lineup after Keenan Allen tore his ACL in Week 1. He immediately jumped to a WR3 for Week 2 and 3. He had a dud Week 4, but then he spent five of his next eight games as a WR1 with one game as a WR2. The reason his final numbers may look worse than they actually were: Denver. Scattered across his strong performances from Week 5 to Week 12 were two matchups against Denver’s top-rated pass defense. In those two games against Denver, Williams had a total of just four catches for 32 yards. For the majority of the season, it was advisable to try and bench any receiver (within reason) against Denver. They shut down just about everyone. Then, to add injury to insult, Williams tore his labrum in his right shoulder in Week 12 and played the final five weeks with the injury clearly hindering his ability. Many a fantasy owner may head into 2017 viewing Williams as a fringe fantasy starter based on his final numbers and the fear that Allen’s injury was the primary catalyst behind Williams’ production. Armed with a deeper understanding of how the final numbers came to be, you can use this to your advantage to score an underrated player below value.

Tight end is always a position of uncertainty. Do you take one early? Do you grab one of the middle-of-the-road guys and hope he breaks out? Or do you just wait to be one of the last teams to draft one? When you start prepping for 2017 drafts, you will see that Greg Olsen finished as the TE2 for the 2016 season. Olsen’s 202.1 PPR finish has him a full 20 points ahead of the TE3, Kyle Rudolph (okay, you caught me, it was really 19.8). Even if we consider Jordan Reed as the TE2 because although he only played 11 games, he averaged more points per week than Olsen (14.1-13.5), Olsen will still be highly touted as an upper echelon and, more importantly, a reliable option at the TE position. Either way you look at it, that’s elite level performance, right? Right! Wrong! For the first six weeks of the season, Olsen finished every week as a TE1 with double-digit points in each week. He totaled 114 fantasy points over those six weeks. Allow me to math you for a moment. That’s 56% of his total season output in just the first six weeks. Over the final nine weeks, Olsen topped double-digits a mere four times and only found the end zone once after his Week 7 bye. So including Week 7 (because he is not startable on his bye), Olsen was startable exactly four times after Week 6. Olsen did not have a single multi-touchdown game, and he topped sixty yards receiving just twice over the final 10 weeks. To sum it up, Olsen’s TE2 finish was predicated almost entirely on his monster first six weeks. That’s not to say you should cross Olsen off your list as a player on the decline. Just be aware that he’s a player that might be overvalued based on a hot start to the 2016 season.

Let’s finish this up by taking a brief look at quarterbacks. The general consensus for quite some time now has been to wait on a QB. This year did nothing to change that philosophy. While Aaron Rodgers, a consensus top-3 QB this year, was remarkably consistent, finishing as a QB1 13 times, eight of the top 12 QBs were likely drafted outside the top 12 or picked up during the season. Take Russell Wilson, for example. I will openly admit that I was huge on Wilson entering 2016. I thought he’d finish as the No. 1 scoring QB. As it turns out, he barely finished as a QB1, occupying the final spot. But even that doesn’t truly illustrate how poorly Wilson played this past season. Despite finishing as the QB12, Wilson only spent five individual weeks as a QB1. For those other 10 weeks, he absolutely killed you (and me). Meanwhile, Dak Prescott went mostly undrafted, yet spent 10 individual weeks as a QB1. One of the most interesting QBs of 2016 was actually Philip Rivers. He finished as the QB17, which is really impressive considering he spent a remarkable 10 weeks as a QB1. A guy like Rivers never won a week for you by himself. He also rarely lost you a week. He was kind of just there. You put him in your lineup and he got to double-digits. Rivers had between 10 and 21 points in all but two weeks. His year is quite the outlier in this type of analysis where his weekly QB1 consistency is actually not indicative of how he performed. Rivers did not have a good year at all. In his case, if you just looked at the final numbers, you’d probably reach the correct conclusion even without fully understanding why.

Rivers is a cautionary tale for how that guy who shows up to the draft with nothing but a pen and paper manages to win your league. Sometimes, the final numbers are enough, but you are always best served knowing how those final numbers came about. Fantasy football is a four-month game, but a year-round process. You can never learn too much. Remember to always look beyond the final numbers as you begin your 2017 draft prep.

Jason Katz is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Jason, check out his archive or follow him @jasonkatz13.