The Week 4 NFL Dashboard
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Week 4: Wide Receivers
At some point every daily fantasy sports writer has to look in the mirror and ask the question:
Would I rather get some sleep? — Or watch just the first half hour of The Force Awakens before getting started on this piece that’s due in about seven hours?
For me, that point was about two hours and 17 minutes ago. It’s such a gripping movie — even after the 27th viewing.
Let’s f*cking do this.
The Pricing Divergence
In the QB Breakdown and RB Breakdown for this week I point out this week’s macro pricing divergences between DraftKings and FanDuel QBs and RBs. I want to do the same here with WRs, because these differences are important — but I’ll try to do it quickly and I promise not to do it in the next piece for tight ends — because who really cares about TEs?
In short: If one looks at Bargain Rating and some other data, one will notice that DK QBs are relatively cheap and DK RBs are expensive and vice versa for FD QBs and RBs.
For WRs, it’s easy to see immediately that on DK they are as expensive as Jason Alexander’s hair transplant. Why did I pick him? I don’t know. If I were editing this piece, I’d maybe go with Wes Welker, but that’s not really up to me.
To give some texture to this: On DK, Antonio Brown, Julio Jones, and A.J. Green all have zero percent Bargain Ratings. Moving down the salary scale, the first DK receiver to have a Bargain Rating greater than 50 percent is Mike Evans, who’s priced all the way down to WR19 — and he’s WR9 on FD.
All of which means that FD WRs are cheaper than George Costanza. Moving down the salary scale, the first FD receiver to drop below a 50 percent Bargain Rating is Terrelle Pryor, who’s priced all the way up to WR23 — and is WR45 on DK.
As you get past the 40 or so WRs with the highest salaries on each platform, the pricing dynamic changes and you start to see more variety — but if you’re paying up for a DK WR just be aware that you’re really paying up, at least from a historical perspective.
The Big Thr . . . Never Mind
Since before some people were born (technically that’s true) the WRs with the three highest salaries on both DraftKings and FanDuel have been Antonio, Julio, and Odell Beckham, Jr. That’s now no longer the case.
The Triumvirate of Target Terror is intact on DK, but on FD the salary scale has been thrown into (mild) disorder. Just one week after dropping all the way to $7,900 and a five-way tie for WR8 (or WR12, depending on how you think of it), DeAndre Hopkins has jumped all the way up to $8,600 and is now priced as the slate’s WR3.
Let’s look at this in more detail.
The Dethroned
Julio is now the FD WR4 at $8,500, dropping $800 in one week. Per our Trends tool, Julio hasn’t been priced this low since . . . November 11, 2014, when he was $8,300 on the road against the Cardinals. He just happened to score 29.9 points in that game.
How has Julio historically done when he’s been comparably priced?
And how does that compare to Julio since 2014?
And boom goes the dynamite. Historically, Julio has been more productive when FD has priced him in his current salary range. He’s also had a higher Plus/Minus, more Consistency, and lower ownership.
Julio currently is the highest-rated FD WR in the Bales Player Model. He has the second-highest point projection, the fourth-highest Projected Plus/Minus, and slate highs with nine Pro Trends and a 100 percent Bargain Rating — which is impressive even with the widespread FD price deflation.
Julio ostensibly has a tough matchup against the Panthers defense. In his WR/CB Matchups piece for the week, John Proctor suggests that Julio should be downgraded. Via our Matchups tool, he’s projected to be matched up with Bené Benwikere for most of the game. Benwikere is currently Pro Football Focus’ No. 12 cornerback in coverage. Also, PFF is expecting Julio to be shadowed some by rookie cornerback James Bradberry, who’s the No. 28 CB in coverage. At a minimum, it’s not an easy matchup for Julio, especially since he’s still dealing with a calf injury.
Nevertheless, I’m not trusting the Panthers pass defense, which has faced some good WRs who’ve been hamstrung by bad QB situations.
• Week 1: Trevor Siemian in his first NFL start
• Week 2: Blaine Gabbert in his second start in Chip Kelly’s offense
• Week 3: Sam Bradford in his second start with his new team
Against the Panthers, the quartet of legit WRs Demaryius Thomas, Emmanuel Sanders, Torrey Smith, and Stefon Diggs has not acquitted itself especially well:
But here’s the thing: That 2016 Opponent Plus/Minus allowed to WRs isn’t horrible, and more importantly the most expensive of those WRs was priced at $7,200, so FD didn’t expect via its pricing out of those WRs what it expects from Julio.
He’s an elite WR with a discounted salary and a FantasyLabs projected ownership of only five to eight percent on FD. If you are playing in any guaranteed prize pools, you should probably have at least a little exposure to Julio, just in case the Benwikere-Bradberry combo turns out — big surprise! — not to be as good as departed lockdown CB Josh Norman.
And, after all, per the RotoViz Game Splits app . . .
Julio didn’t really mind playing against the Panthers last year.
The King
Antonio is the king of everything. He leads both sites with the highest WR projection. He’s playing at home, which . . .
. . . we know is a good thing. Football Outsiders currently has the Chiefs defense ranked as No. 1 in pass Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) — and maybe the Chiefs actually are that good against the pass — but PFF has cornerback Phillip Gaines ranked 90th in coverage out of 105 players, and Antonio is expected to run most of his routes against Gaines, not left cornerback Marcus Peters.
Right now, Antonio leads the NFL with 40 targets and 24 receptions, and he’s fourth with 305 yards receiving. He has 13 touchdowns in his last 19 games. He’s almost always underpriced even when he’s the most expensive player on the entire slate. He has FantasyLabs ownership projections of 31 to 40 percent on DK and FD.
When actual pieces of chalk get together to play DFS, they describe chalky players by saying things like, “That guy’s so Antonio Week 4.”
Have We Dropped the “Junior” Yet?
First it was “ODB,” and then it was “OBJ,” and now people have seemingly dropped the “Jr.” I’m a Cowboys fan. Can I just go back to calling him “ODB”? That nickname just feels right for him.
Playing on Monday night, OBJ has a tough matchup. He’s on the road, the Vikings are fourth in DVOA against both the pass and the run, just last week they held Kelvin Benjamin catchless, and against No. 1-esque WRs K-Benjy, Jordy Nelson, Randall Cobb, and Tajae Sharpe, the Vikings have allowed a 2016 Opponent Plus/Minus of -2.94.
On the season, OBJ has a -3.76 Plus/Minus, and although his 30 targets and 280 yards receiving are both top-10 marks OBJ has been a disappointment to date, given his high average salary and ownership. At some point he will break out with a huge game, but there’s nothing indicating that the game must be this coming Monday night.
The Interloper
This week Hopkins is facing a Titans pass defense that has been victimized hard by No. 1 WRs in 2016:
In other words:
His FantasyLabs ownership projections of nine to 12 and 13 to 16 percent on DK and FD are enticing for a guy who does have No. 1 overall upside this week.
Thursday Night Football
It’s traditional for sharp DFS players to auto-fade all guys in Thursday night games, as they tend to have inflated ownership. You might not want to do that, though, this week. On both sides of the Dolphins-Bengals matchup are some really intriguing plays.
The Dolphins
DeVante Parker and Jarvis Landry are definitely in play.
Parker finished his rookie campaign strong . . .
. . . and in his two weeks of 2016 action he’s done even better:
As left cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick (hamstring) is doubtful to play in Week 4, human turnstile Darqueze Dennard — with his 37.3 PFF coverage grade — is likely to spend most of the game matched up against Parker.
I’m not saying anything extraordinary here — but the Dolphins will likely look to exploit the matchup between the 6’3,” 212 lb. stud and 5’11,” 197 lb. injury fill-in. Parker’s only $5,200 on DK and $6,300 on FD.
As for Landry: He’s third in the NFL with 35 targets and 314 yards and tied for first with 24 receptions. In points per game (PPG), he’s DK WR5 and FD WR9 — but this week he’s priced as DK WR16 and FD WR21. To borrow from the Beastie Boys, “Listen all of y’all, it’s an arbitrage.” #TradeTheSpread
With Dennard moving to the outside, Joshua Shaw is likely to spend most of the game in the slot attempting to cover Landry. Shaw actually has PFF’s 15th-best coverage grade among cornerbacks, so maybe he won’t be pushover. At the same time, he’s a f*cking backup slot cornerback who usually warms the bench behind a guy who sucks. Landry, with his +9.11 and +6.65 DK and FD Plus/Minus values, should be able to take that dog for a walk all day long.
The Bengals
Oh my . . .
This year opposing No. 1 WRs have treated the Dolphins the way that college freshmen treat dormitory bed mattresses.
And that doesn’t even take into account Danny Amendola‘s two-touchdown performance in Week 2.
At $8,500, Green is the WR4 on DK but is only the FD WR8 at $8,100. If you want to use A.J. in the Thursday slate, FD is probably the preferred site for it in terms of value, but if you prefer DK then Green is still plenty viable there.
Air Yards Arbitrage
As Bryan Mears explained in this week’s Market Share Report, Air Yards is a metric that has been developed by RotoViz’s Josh Hermsmeyer. Per the Report: “Air Yards help us see how a receiver produces his receiving yards and how leveraged his targets are. Air Yards is an incredibly predictive metric.”
When perusing the market shares of Air Yards (MSAY), I and several others noticed that for some WRs a gigantic spread exists between their market share of targets (MSTgt) and MSAY. This spread seems imminently exploitable in that a majority of DFS players might see a middling MSTgt and think, “Meh, that guy isn’t all that important to his passing offense,” whereas we can see MSAY and know that, even if a guy isn’t heavily targeted, his offense relies on him an outsized manner.
Let’s run through the guys who really caught my eye. (Thanks to Bryan for compiling the MSAY and MSTgt data below.)
Fuller House
This might seem strange since one is a full-fledged stud and the other is a rookie still in his first month of professional football, but Nuk and Will Fuller have the exact same MSTgt: 23.81 percent. But Fuller leads the team with a 47.92 percent MSAY. That spread of 24.11 percentage points leads the league. Fuller has +7.62 and +3.82 DK and FD Plus/Minus values and is still only $5,300 and $6,700 on DK and FD. As Proctor noted in his WR/CB Matchup piece, Fuller is in an especially good spot this week.
Terrelle Sr.
Pryor has the third-highest rating of any DK WR in the Bales Model. At $7,000 on FD, he’s probably too expensive, but at $4,300 on DK, where he has a 99 percent Bargain Rating, he’s someone perhaps to consider even in cash games. His FantasyLabs projected ownership is 21 to 25 percent on DK. He’s tied for eighth in the league with 31 receptions, and with Cody Kessler at QB the current No. 1 WR is now finding opportunities as a part-time passer and runner out of specialty packages. Upside lies on the periphery. Pryor has 54.55 percent MSAY for Cleveland despite having ‘only’ 31.91 percent MSTgt.
Sammie Coates
$3,600 on DK and $5,400 on FD, Coates might seem relatively insignificant with only 12 targets and no touchdowns on the season. But he’s been mere yards away from scoring a couple of times and has managed to accumulate 203 yards receiving so far, with at least 50 yards per game. Currently pacing to go over 1,000 yards, Coates has actually been fairly Martavis Bryant-like to date. His 28.95 percent MSAY on only 9.57 percent MSTgt highlights his big-play function in the Steelers offense. He looks like a guy who’s on the precipice.
Marvin Jr.
That stuff I said about him back in Week 1 . . . I guess I was wrong. Marvin Jones leads the league in yards receiving by a country mile, primarily on account of 42.24 percent MSAY, which he’s gotten on only 25.00 percent MSTgt. Right now, Jones trails only Willie Snead in DK and FD PPG.
Not Wallace Stevens
You can ignore Mike Wallace if you want to — he’s just third on this own team with a 15.65 percent MSTgt — but it would be foolish to overlook his 2016 DK and FD Plus/Minus values of +5.67 and +5.73. He leads the team with 29.01 percent MSAY and is $5,200 on DK and $6,700 on FD. In Week 4, he’s going against an Oakland defense that is allowing the most fantasy points to WRs this year.
What’s Good for the Goose . . .
I guess that Breshad Perriman is the gander . . . although I don’t really know what a “gander” is. Anyway, Perriman is fifth on the Ravens with an 8.70 percent MSTgt, but he’s second with 20.25 percent MSAY. Perriman has a non-zero chance of breaking off a couple of long TDs against a defense that is allowing the third-most yards and TDs to opposing WRs.
In a World Without Moncrief
Phillip Dorsett is the No. 2 WR for one of the best QBs in the league, and he can fly down the field. He has only 11.86 percent MSTgt, but on that he has 22.67 percent MSAY. Playing on a Colts team that’s favored at Wembley, Dorsett could be a London game superstar at just $4,700 on DK and $6,400 on FD.
“You’re My Boy, Brown”
John Brown was almost nonexistent for the first two games of the season. Even so, J-Bro is still second on the team with 25.34 percent MSAY on just 14.75 percent MSTgt. His big-play potential hasn’t gone anywhere. He’s just $4,300 on DK and $6,200 on FD.
Streaking Down the Field
Nine pattern, go!
• Larry Fitzgerald: DK WR10 and FD WR6 in PPG, but only DK WR12 and FD WR17 in Week 4 pricing
• Travis Benjamin: Going (long) against the Saints and their 2015 dead-last DVOA
• Tyrell Williams: Ditto
• Dontrelle Inman: Ditto the ditto
• Tavon Austin: At least 10 opportunities per game
• Terrance Williams: Potentially the No. 1 WR in Dallas if Dez Bryant (knee) misses the game
• Willie Snead: Currently the WR1 overall with 25.80 DK and 20.8 FD PPG
Positional Breakdowns
Be sure to read the other Week 4 positional breakdowns:
• Quarterbacks
• Running Backs
• Tight Ends
Good luck this week!
News Updates
After this piece is published, FantasyLabs is likely to provide news updates on a number of players herein mentioned. Be sure to stay ahead of your competition with our industry-leading DFS-focused news blurbs:
