The Week 5 NFL Dashboard
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Week 5: Wide Receivers
[Repeat here last week’s bit on The Force Awakens.]Where was I? . . . ah, yes! You should be sure to check out this week’s WR Model Preview by FantasyLabs co-founder Peter Jennings (CSURAM88). It’s much better than anything I’m about to tell you.
Let’s f*cking do this.
The DK and FD Valuations
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I want to start by highlighting some macro pricing divergences between DraftKings and FanDuel.
As was the case last week with WRs and is the case this week with running backs (and also tight ends, but who cares about TEs?), non-quarterbacks on DK are inordinately expensive from a historical perspective, per our Bargain Rating metric. On FD, non-QBs are cheap.
To give some texture to this: On DK, the average Bargain Rating of the four WRs with the highest salaries is one percent. Moving down the salary scale, not till we reach Golden Tate at $4,900 (and a 58 percent Bargain Rating) do we see a DK WR with a Bargain Rating above even 40 percent.
On FD, only one of the 12 WRs with the highest salaries has a Bargain Rating lower than 92 percent.
If you look at the pricing for all DK players, you’ll notice that nine of the 12 highest salaries in the slate belong to WRs. And that makes some sense: DK is really catering its pricing to the players who benefit most from its point-per-reception scoring. At the same time, there are only four WRs with top-12 FD salaries.
As I summarized last week: “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 Five
For one week at least, the WR hierarchy has taken shape, as the same guys have the top-five DK and FD WR salaries (in the same order).
• Antonio Brown: $9,800 DK, $9,600 FD
• Julio Jones: $9,600 DK, $8,900 FD
• A.J. Green: $8,900 DK, $8,700 FD
• Odell Beckham: $8,500 DK, $8,500 FD
• Jordy Nelson: $7,900 DK, $8,400 FD
To borrow from Prince: Let’s get through this thing called life.
This Blurb Doesn’t Need to Be Long — But It Still Might Be
Antonio has the highest WR projection in the slate and couldn’t be chalkier if his name were “Powder.” Our ownership projections have been very accurate this year, and he has FantasyLabs ownership projections of 26 to 30 percent on DK and FD (accessible in our Player Models).
The Steelers are currently 7.5-point home favorites with an implied Vegas total of 27.75 points. The Steelers have been an exceptional home team since at least the year that RB Le’Veon Bell entered the league (per the RotoViz Team Splits App) . . .
. . . and they have the added benefit of facing the Jets, whose defense (per Football Outsiders) is 31st in pass Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA).
Brown in particular looks poised to punish. Per our Matchups tool, Brown is slated to run many of his routes against cornerback Darrelle Revis, who is proving this season that indeed no man is an island. Per Pro Football Focus, Revis is the 100th-rated CB in coverage this season. Revis (hamstring) is questionable for Week 5, and we should all hope that he plays, as John Proctor highlights in this week’s WR/CB Matchups piece.
It Takes Only One Play
On this week’s Fantasy Flex pod, I asked the guests what they thought of Julio against Denver’s fantastic defense, to which CSURAM88 responded with something like, “Bro, you fade WRs against the Broncos, long may they reign.”
And I understand that Julio is in a tough spot. But I want to push back just a little bit.
In this week’s QB Breakdown, I make the case for fading Falcons QB Matt Ryan, but that doesn’t mean that you should fade Julio entirely. For Ryan to do well against the Broncos, he will need to have a good game, and that doesn’t seem especially likely, as the Falcons are 5.5-point road underdogs implied to score only 20.75 points.
But Julio can exceed value against the Broncos if he has just one big play. The Broncos have given up only one TD all year to WRs, but if Kelvin Benjamin can have six receptions for 91 yards and a score, certainly Julio can, too.
On FD he’s the WR1 in points per game (PPG) — despite his injury-impacted Week 3 Dud against the Saints — and he has a 100 percent Bargain Rating. He has a FantasyLabs ownership projection of five to eight percent on FD and is surrounded by WRs (like Antonio) expected to have much higher ownership.
If his ownership projection is correct, Julio warrants a strategic modicum of exposure in guaranteed prize pools. He’s too risky to invest in heavily. At the same time, not investing in him at all is an underappreciated risk.
Mean Green
On the one hand, Green is good (DK WR1 in PPG) and the Cowboys defense apparently sucks. It’s ranked 24th in pass DVOA.
On the other hand, the Cowboys defense actually hasn’t been that bad against WRs this year, allowing the fifth-fewest DK points to the position. I know that Green is going to be matched up with CBs Brandon Carr and Morris Claiborne in Week 5, and neither of them is a top-30 coverage CB per PFF — but the Cowboys are actually in the top-10 in pass DVOA against opposing No. 1 (and No. 2 WRs, for what it’s worth).
Against No. 1 WRs like Green they’ve been extremely stingy:
Call me a slave to contrarianism, but considering that Green’s DK and FD FantasyLabs ownership projections are 13 to 16 and 17 to 20 percent . . . I think that Julio at a lower percentage doesn’t seem so bad now.
What’s the Difference?
Sure, WR Victor Cruz is back for the Giants, and rookie Sterling Shepard is stealing targets, but what’s really the difference between this year and last year for OBJ?
Per Pro Football Reference:
His targets, receptions, and yards are incredibly similar. The difference is that he hasn’t scored a couple of TDs. That’s it. And we all know how random TDs can be.
This week, the Giants are 7.5-point road underdogs implied to score only 20.25 points against the Packers. All of that might seem horrible, but it’s actually fantastic. Beckham could benefit from pass-heavy game flow, and the Packers have a funnel defense perfectly suited for ‘ol Dirty: second in rush DVOA, 22nd in pass DVOA, and 31st in pass DVOA against No. 1 and No. 2 WRs.
Through four weeks, the Packers have allowed the second- and third-most DK and FD points to opposing WRs. With FantasyLabs ownership projections of nine to 12 percent on DK and FD, Beckham has a lot of GPP upside.
What Torn ACL?
What’s there really to say about Jordy? Even though I think that QB Aaron Rodgers carries underappreciated risk this week as a daily fantasy sports asset, Jordy is playing as if he never even tore his ACL:
On a PPG basis, he’s very much the same DK and FD WR now that he was in 2014.
The Packers are at home against a Giants team whose defense is 23rd in pass DVOA.
If you want to play Jordy, there’s not much stopping you.
The Super Models
We have four Pro Player Models constructed by four of the members of Team FantasyLabs. This week, those Models have collectively bestowed No. 1 ratings upon four different WRs. Two of them are guys on most people’s radars. Two of them aren’t.
• Julian Edelman: $6,700 DK, $7,000 FD
• Brandon Marshall: $7,100 DK, $7,600 FD
• Tavon Austin: $3,700 DK, $5,800 FD
• Sammie Coates: $3,600 DK, $5,300 FD
Let’s do what we do.
Chalktastic
Edelman’s a good player, but he hasn’t been the same this year without QB Tom Brady:
Other obvious statements to follow.
The Patriots are 10.5-point road favorites implied to score 28.5 points against the Browns, who have allowed an unreal Opponent Plus/Minus this season to No. 1 WRs who see a lot of snaps in the slot:
Edelman is a drug of choice for this slate’s chalkoholics, given his FantasyLabs ownership projections of 21 to 25 and 26 to 30 percent on DK and FD. He’s the No. 1 FD WR for three of the four Pro Player Models.
No Decker, No Cry
Jets WR Eric Decker is expected to miss this week’s game, which means that Marshall has a chance to enlarge his already-hefty 25.83 percent share of the Jets’ targets (per Bryan Mears’ Market Share Report for this week). The sample is small, but in the 20 games that Marshall has played with the Jets, he’s been significantly more productive in Decker’s absence:
The Jets are 7.5-point road underdogs against the Steelers and will likely need to throw for much of the game to keep up with the home team.
Marshall’s matchup isn’t great — the Steelers are 19th in pass DVOA vs. No. 1 WRs — but with the volume of targets he’s likely to get Marshall is certainly rosterable at his FantasyLabs ownership projections of five to eight percent on DK and FD.
Marshall is the No. 1 DK WR in the Levitan Model and the No. 1 FD WR in the CSURAM88 Model.
In the Mood for a ‘Skill Game Proposition’?
Austin is a tournament play, and that’s it. But what a tournament play. In his career, he has scored 20 all-purpose TDs, half of which have come on the ground and in the return game. His GPP upside lies in his peripherals.
In six of his 48 career games he has scored multiple TDs. That’s 12.5 percent, much higher than his FantasyLabs ownership projection of zero to one percent on DK and FD. One of the few DK WRs with a Bargain Rating of at least 95 percent, Tavon is the No. 1 DK WR in the Bales and CSURAM88 Models.
You never know when Tavon lightning will strike, but it strikes more than just zero to one percent each season.
Martavis Lite
I’m just going to paraphrase and update what I said last week, because it’s all still applicable.
Coates might seem relatively insignificant with only 20 targets and no touchdowns on the season. But he’s been mere yards away from scoring a few times and has managed to accumulate 282 yards receiving so far, with at least 50 yards per game. He’s even been given the ball a couple of times as a runner.
Currently pacing to go over 1,000 yards, Coates has actually been fairly Martavis Bryant-like to date. He doesn’t get targeted a lot in the Steelers offense, but when he does it’s down the field. He’s on the cusp. It’s hard to accumulate the yardage he’s getting in the way that he’s getting it and not get some TDs.
He has a FantasyLabs projected ownership of five to eight percent on DK, where he’s the No. 1 WR in the Sports Geek Model.
Air Yards Arbitrage
In last week’s piece, I performed fantasy arbitrage by ‘trading the spread’ between WR market share of targets (MS Tgt) and market share of Air Yards (MS Air), a metric developed by RotoViz’s Josh Hermsmeyer. Essentially, Air Yards as a metric helps us see how a receiver produces his receiving yards and how leveraged his targets are.
This exercise went incredibly well last week. Why not do it again this week? (Don’t answer that question.)
Let’s look at the guys who may not be targeted a lot but whose passing offenses rely on them in an outsized manner. (Thanks to Bryan for compiling the MS Tgt and MS Air data below.)
Fuller House
Texans WR Will Fuller right now looks like the No. 1 receiver in his offense. He (not DeAndre Hopkins) leads the team with 24.11 percent MS Tgt and a massive 43.48 percent MS Air. He’s currently DK WR11 and FD WR10 in PPG, which is incredible for a rookie, especially one who joined a team with an established No. 1 WR already in place.
Here’s something that might blow your mind: Through the first four games of their careers, Fuller and OBJ have been amazingly comparable.
• Will Fuller: 34 targets, 19 receptions, 323 yards, 2 ReTDs, 1 RetTD, 75.3 DK and 59.8 FD points
• Odell Beckham: 26 targets, 18 receptions, 262 yards, 3 TDs, 66.5 DK and 54.5 FD points
I’m not saying that Fuller’s rookie campaign will rival OBJ’s, but we should seriously entertain and seek to exploit the possibility that it might.
This week, the Texans are six-point road underdogs implied to score a slate-low 17.25 points against a Vikings team whose defense is fourth in both rush and pass DVOA. The Texans will likely need to throw the ball at some point to try to keep/catch up, and when that happens the ball seems unlikely to go to Nuk, who seems likely to be matched up with CB Xavier Rhodes for at least a large portion of the game. When/if Fuller isn’t matched up with Rhodes, the ball could come his way a lot.
Terrelle Sr.
Pryor on the season has +9.23 DK and +5.73 FD Plus/Minus values and is averaging 10 targets per game. Since Cody Kessler became the starter, Pryor has been a monster:
He has a robust 29.55 percent MS Tgt and unreal 52.98 percent MS Air. He is the playmaker of the Browns offense.
In Week 5, the Browns are 10.5-point home underdogs against the Patriots, whose defense is 26th in pass DVOA. The Browns will likely need to throw, and Pryor is the guy who’s been getting the ball.
In a World Without Moncrief
Paraphrasing what I said last week:
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 10.76 percent MS Tgt (fifth on the team), but on that small share he has 26.17 percent MS Air. The Colts are 4.5-point home favorites and implied to score 26 points against the Bears. Dorsett could do well in a GPP stack.
There’s More Than One Pats WR
With Jimmy Garoppolo starting, WR Chris Hogan looked intriguing for two games:
With Brady returning this week and the Patriots presumably shifting back to a pass-heavy offense, Hogan could see a bump in production. He has 13.16 percent MS Tgt but 27.95 percent MS Air.
A big-bodied freak athlete with a 99th percentile SPARQ-x score (per Player Profiler), Hogan could be an important piece in Brady’s offense.
Fly Patterns
Nine route, go.
• Mike Evans: He’s averaging 12.5 targets per game and now gets to go against a Panthers pass defense that rolled over for Julio last week.
• Kelvin Benjamin: K-Benjy’s averaging one TD per game and is facing a Buccaneers defense that leads the league with nine TDs allowed to WRs.
• Emmanuel Sanders: The No. 2 WR for the Broncos actually has more targets, receptions, and TDs than the No. 1 WR does — and he’s cheaper.
• Demaryius Thomas: The No. 1 WR for the Broncos is still cheap enough to roll out against the Falcons, whose defense is ranked 30th in pass DVOA.
• DeVante Parker: Two words . . . Cox, Perrish.
• Quincy Enunwa: He’s basically the new Decker with at least six receptions and 50 yards in three of his four games played.
• Brice Butler: In his five Cowboys games played without Dez Bryant, he has averaged almost seven targets with just over 10 PPR PPG.
Finally, John Brown has been the No. 1 WR on the Cardinals since returning to full health, with 27 targets, 16 receptions, and 214 yards over the last two games. In 2014 as a rookie he did almost as well with Drew Stanton at QB as he did with Carson Palmer. With low ownership in Week 5, he could surprise. [Saturday Update: Ignore everything I just said.]
Positional Breakdowns
Be sure to read the other Week 5 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:
