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Strength of Schedule Risers/Fallers (Fantasy Football)

Strength of Schedule Risers/Fallers (Fantasy Football)

If you missed last week’s article on point elasticity, certain player’s scores in the league were more responsive to strength of schedule/points against average. That is, we were able to identify players whose point total was more strongly correlated to the opposing teams they played.

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Fantasy Football Point Elasticity is the correlation between a particular player’s point total to their ease/difficulty in schedule. In other words, how much (little) did the ease (difficulty) in schedule coincide with a player’s output. When deciding a lineup, fantasy owners typically use a player’s average, and how strong the opposing defense facing that player is to determine start/sit. Since that’s the case with most decisions, wouldn’t the next questions be: how much does the opposing team’s strength impact this player? This new FantasyPros exclusive metric answers that question.

Using this information we can mathematically hone in on certain players more susceptible to upcoming easy/hard schedules. With that being said, we have found a few key players likely to fluctuate up/down using this data.

You can find the previous posts here.

Players Trending Up

QB Joe Flacco (.56 Elas., 6th easiest schedule)
QB Jameis Winston (.53 Elas., 5th easiest schedule)
RB Jeremy Hill (.60 Elas., 11th easiest schedule)
RB Ezekiel Elliott (.56 Elas., 9th easiest schedule)
WR Marvin Jones (.60 Elas., 15th easiest schedule)
WR Michael Thomas (.55 Elas., 7th easiest schedule)
WR Taylor Gabriel (.54 Elas., 9th easiest schedule)
TE Rob Gronkowski (.57 Elas., 13th easiest schedule)
TE Coby Fleener (.53 Elas., 4th easiest schedule)

To simplify, the players above have proven that their production fluctuates highly with the strength/ease of their opponents. Hence, it’s fair to assume they are most likely to see an uptick in production given their projected 2017 Strength of Schedule.

Players Trending Down

QB Andrew Luck (.53 Elas., 24th easiest schedule)
QB Dak Prescott (.55 Elas., 27th easiest schedule)
RB Doug Martin (.78 Elas., 23rd easiest schedule)
RB Mark Ingram (.62 Elas., 9th easiest schedule)
RB Todd Gurley (.51 Elas., 28th easiest schedule)
WR A.J. Green (.77 Elas., 29th easiest schedule)
WR Donte Moncrief (.65 Elas., 25th easiest schedule)
TE Jordan Reed (.62 Elas., 30th easiest schedule)
TE Vance McDonald (.50 Elas., 31st easiest schedule)

The players listed above are also likely to have their production fluctuate based on opponent, yet unfortunately, are facing a tougher schedule for the upcoming season. Therefore, it’s highly likely they will see a fall in their productivity.

Between the two tables there are some interesting names to keep an eye on for 2017, and after the season we will run a regression analysis to determine, tangibly, how accurate this series of data helps predict the upcoming year.

In addition to point elasticity, I ran a piece earlier on Fantasy Football Consistency Rankings and True Fantasy Football Output Rankings. These first two pieces were a means to provide empirical clarity regarding who can you really count on, week-in and week-out. When measuring consistency, we take the standard deviation of player’s averages (on average, how far does a player’s weekly output fluctuate from their mean). From there, to give the owner one number that represents both average and consistency, you will find CV or coefficient of variation (a player’s point-per-game average divided by their standard deviation). For season-long owners, CV is basically your deserted island statistic. If you only had one number to use, use CV to determine true productivity.

Bringing it all together to find which players were most consistently productive, keeping schedule strength constant (CV/PAA) we wanted to give you one more piece of information. In other words, the standings below empirically tell us whose week-in and week-out production you could truly count on, teasing out schedule strengths:

Player FP Avg Consistency CV PAA CV/PAA
Kirk Cousins, Was 21.44 7.71 2.78 14.1875 0.196
Andrew Luck, Ind 24.27 8.31 2.92 15.06667 0.194
Aaron Rodgers, GB 28.06 9.81 2.86 15.9375 0.180
Matt Ryan, Atl 25.75 8.55 3.01 16.875 0.178
Philip Rivers, SD 20.06 6.40 3.13 17.8125 0.176
Carson Wentz, Phi 14.81 5.56 2.66 15.5625 0.171
Dak Prescott, Dal 20.06 8.54 2.35 14.625 0.161
Blake Bortles, Jax 19.44 7.52 2.59 16.375 0.158
Ezekiel Elliott, Dal 18.73 7.42 2.61 17.06667 0.153
Tom Brady, NE 25.58 10.27 2.49 16.33333 0.152
Joe Flacco, Bal 17.73 7.58 2.34 15.73333 0.149
Matthew Stafford, Det 19.81 8.34 2.37 16.3125 0.146
A.J. Green, Cin 12.89 8.13 1.59 11 0.144
DeMarco Murray, Ten 14.50 6.40 2.34 16.4375 0.142
Carson Palmer, Ari 19.33 7.61 2.54 18.13333 0.140
Mike Wallace, Bal 7.75 5.03 1.54 11.1875 0.138
Tyrod Taylor, Buf 19.33 8.29 2.33 17.06667 0.137
Sam Bradford, Min 17.00 7.33 2.32 17.33333 0.134
Jordan Howard, Chi 12.67 7.59 1.73 12.93333 0.133
Jay Cutler, Chi 9.00 6.45 1.40 10.66667 0.131
Derek Carr, Oak 21.07 10.61 1.99 15.2 0.131
Alex Smith, KC 16.40 7.52 2.18 16.86667 0.129
David Johnson, Ari 19.75 8.28 2.46 19.19 0.128
Rishard Matthews, Ten 8.88 5.06 1.75 13.6875 0.128
Cam Newton, Car 18.73 8.16 2.29 18 0.127
Carlos Hyde, SF 12.08 10.02 1.64 12.84615 0.127
LeGarrette Blount, NE 13.69 5.87 2.41 18.9375 0.127
Steve Smith, Bal 7.64 5.33 1.43 11.28571 0.127

 
I hope this information will help you come draft day. Throughout the 2017 season, we will continue to update these data-sets to allow you to make the most informed decisions with your lineup card.


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Ryan Newman is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Ryan, check out his archive and follow him @Ryannewman20.

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