The key to success in daily fantasy sports is research. With our Trends tool, research is easy.
Description
(Written the Friday before kickoff)
One of our newer trend filters, which I have found to be useful over the past several weeks in NFL, is ‘Prior Plus/Minus.’ You can sometimes find some nice under-owned plays by simply looking for players who burned their owners the previous week. So this week I’m looking for players who performed poorly in Week 7. Additionally, I’m going to screen for players whom we expect to do well in Week 8 by applying a ‘Projected Plus/Minus’ filter.
The Matches
(Link to this week’s WR trend)
Firstly, I’m screening out all of the players who don’t see enough playing time with a salary filter.
Secondly, I’m looking for any player who had a negative Plus/Minus the prior week. You could make this filter a little more extreme — maybe look for players who underperformed by several points — but in order to maintain a workable sample I’m leaving it at a Plus/Minus of zero or below.
Finally, we want only receivers who are forecast to do well in Week 8. With the Projected Plus/Minus filter, I’m looking for players expected to exceed salary-based expectations by at least two points on FanDuel.
Jordan Matthews has strung together a series of disappointing performances following his 14-target, 100-yard performance against Cleveland in Week 1. Of the highest concern is his target total, which has trickled down to four, seven, and four in his three most recent games. There is reason for hope though: At the time of this writing, Matthews ranks inside the top 10 at his position in the Bales Model.
Speaking of the Bales Model: Brandon Marshall is currently ranked tops among all receivers this week in the model. Marshall benefits from the best rating when looking at Opponent Plus/Minus and once again is likely to have Ryan Fitzpatrick blindly forcing him the ball.
Doug Baldwin is a No. 1 WR who is involved in the red zone and visiting New Orleans this week. Despite a top-three rankings in the Bales Model, he is forecast to be owned at a reasonable 13-16 percent.
Amari Cooper had two nice games before a dud last week at Jacksonville. Aside from a befuddling touchdown conversion rate, there’s not much of a reason to be down on Cooper after one poor game. With a projected ownership near 20 percent, we aren’t expecting many to hold last week against Cooper.
(Link to this week’s TE trend)
The criteria for the tight end trend are the same as those for the WR trend. The TE trend performs well, but the sample is relatively small.
Travis Kelce is my ultimate FantasyLabs troll — I swear he matches for every NFL trend I create. Kelce burned me personally in this series last week, so I’m a little hesitant to roster him again. Of course, this is the exact thinking that this week’s trend was set up to exploit in the first place. This week, Kelce ranks among the elite at his position in terms of Pro Trends, Opponent Plus/Minus, and Vegas Score.
Jimmy Graham reached his high mark in targets last week with 10, but converted those targets into only 53 yards and did not score a touchdown. I’m not sure he will go under the radar in a prime #RevengeGame spot, but he certainly seems like a good play.
There may be some concern for Zach Miller due to Chicago’s quarterback change, but Miller remained involved in the passing game during Cutler’s starts earlier in the season. He had a poor game last week, but so did the Bears offense as a whole. The matchup could be better, but we are still predicting a positive Plus/Minus this week for Miller.
Results
Russell Wilson failed to throw a touchdown pass on Sunday, which means that when he steps onto a football field next he will have gone more than a month between TD passes, with his last one coming in Week 4. Not even a matchup in the Coors Field of NFL was enough to jump-start the Seahawks offense, and Baldwin was collateral damage. This isn’t a case in which a player is struggling to produce within a functional offense. The Seahawks offense as a whole has underwhelmed.
The nine targets Marshall saw was on the low end of what I expected with Fitzpatrick back at the helm. And judging by his 19 percent ownership, this line of thinking was shared by many DFSers in a non-threatening matchup against the Browns.
Saving the best for last: Cooper did play an extra quarter, to be fair, but he was among the best plays, if not the overall best play, at his position. Cooper has now exceeded 120 receiving yards in three of four games, with the one exception being Week 7’s contest against the Jaguars. Had Cooper not had his Week 7 dud, I think it’s reasonable to assume that his 13.4 percent ownership would have been higher.
Graham failed to exact revenge on his former team, registering only 34 yards against the Saints. Like Baldwin, Graham will need Wilson to benefit from some positive TD regression if he is to ascend to the top tier of tight ends over the second half of the season. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him match this trend again in Week 9. Since so many were burned by his Week 8 performance, there may be a nice ownership discount.
And in a week in which seemingly everything went sideways I finally got Kelce right.
Review
Again, I think the distinction between a player who is coming off a bad week on a functional offense versus a player who is on a dysfunctional offense is an important one, with the former being the better target. With so many duds in Week 8, the matches within this trend in Week 9 should be plentiful.
