Hello and welcome to the Week 2 edition of Hoppen to Conclusions! This is where I, Sam Hoppen, will share some of my favorite charts, which are designed to give you an overview of the NFL landscape. These charts, along with the commentary that I provide, aim to help you make start or sit, DFS lineup construction, betting picks, or any other fantasy football decisions. There can be a lot of noise in fantasy football analysis, but these charts have been carefully selected to give you some of the most relevant and useful decision points.
- Waiver Wire Advice
- Weekly Fantasy Football Expert Rankings
- Fantasy Football Start/Sit Advice
- Fantasy Football Trade Tools
Each of the charts has been designed in a way that you want to target players and teams that are in the top-right quadrant of the chart as denoted by the dotted black lines, which signify the median value for the stat on either the x-axis or y-axis. Before getting to each of the charts and analyses, here are some brief descriptions of what you will find on each chart and how to interpret them.
- Team Pace and Plays: Compares a team’s average plays per game to its pace over expected, using seconds per play as a measure of pace. On the chart, the y-axis flipped to show faster-paced teams (running plays faster than expected) on top. Simply put, teams (and overall matchups) with more plays and faster pace will offer more opportunities for fantasy point-scoring.
- Team Pass Rates: Compares a team’s pass rate over expectation (PROE) to its red-zone pass rate. Here we can identify which teams are passing the most when game script isn’t a deciding factor and when they get close to the goal line.
- Running Back Usage: Compares rushing expected fantasy points per game to his receiving expected fantasy points per game, with the size of the player’s point as his snap percentage. I use expected fantasy points as a measure of one’s workload in that specific area of the game, so it can help us discern which players are getting strong rushing or receiving workloads.
- Wide Receiver & Tight End Usage: Compares player weighted opportunity rating (WOPR) to his yards per route run (YPRR), with the size of the player’s point as his routes run rate (as a percent of the team’s dropbacks). WOPR weights both air yards share and target share to evaluate a player’s opportunity, while yards per route run is a measure of one’s efficiency with the routes (and targets) he’s given. The charts show the same information for both the wide receiver and tight end position.
Fantasy Football Trends & Takeaways
Wide Receiver Usage
- I won’t normally talk about the same team in two different sections, but the Colts warrant it because of how many question marks they had entering the season. Early on in the Colts game, the Anthony Richardson to Josh Downs connection was strong as Richardson targeted Downs on three of his seven attempts (of which Downs caught all three). By the end of the game Downs had four more targets, but teammate Michael Pittman finished with a team-leading 11 targets. The lone man out, Alec Pierce, ran a route on 87% of dropbacks (the only Colts player outside of Pittman to be above 80%), but only earned three targets. Pittman (as expected) seems to be the top guy, but Downs is clearly the primary slot receiver, running a route out of the slot on 92% of the snaps while Pierce was split out wide for 93% of his routes. The clear distinction in usage helps us identify when and how they’ll be used, but it also may limit their chance of hitting a weekly ceiling unless Anthony Richardson starts to show some target tendencies. In any case, Downs (one of my favorite pre-draft prospects) deserves a spot on your fantasy roster and the stock is generally rising for Colts pass catchers.
- Action: add Josh Downs, buy Michael Pittman, and hold Alec Pierce
- In his first game with the New Orleans Saints, Derek Carr produced one of the most concentrated passing attacks. Similar to the Colts, Chris Olave, Rashid Shaheed, and Michael Thomas operated at relatively different levels of the field. Olave and his team-leading 10 targets recorded an outstanding 3.5 yards per route run on an 84% routes run rate. Shaheed continued to be the team’s downfield threat with a 16.3-yard average depth of target. Finally, Thomas looked like vintage Michael Thomas, earning targets on four of Carr’s first six attempts. There was no easing Thomas back into action as he ran a route on a team-high 92% of dropbacks. While having three strong players in the rotation may keep their weekly floors lower, the concentration of targets among these three makes the floor higher than others.
- Action: add Rashid Shaheed, get excited about having Chris Olave and Michael Thomas on your fantasy team
- I’ve been sitting here trying to come up with a witty opening line, but I just can’t so I’ll say this: the situation in Denver is still…bad. Or, at least, it’s still far from ideal. Even though Russell Wilson completed 79% of his passes, he only averaged 5.2 yards per attempt, and that lack of efficiency trickled down to his receivers. Courtland Sutton’s day was saved by a touchdown, but otherwise had just four catches for 32 yards on five targets. He still ran a route on 89% of dropbacks (team high), but a 16% target share isn’t going to cut it. Marvin Mims, who many (myself included) expected to take advantage of a wounded wide receiver room, ran just 10 total routes on Sunday. With the running backs combining for nearly a 30% target share and the continued lackluster look of the offense, it’s going to be difficult to trust any Broncos wide receiver in a lineup until Jerry Jeudy returns.
- Action: sell Courtland Sutton, hold Jerry Jeudy, drop Marvin Mims
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