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Preview
(Written the Friday before kickoff)
The results from last week’s trend didn’t pan out as I might have hoped, so I’m looking for a bounceback this week. What better way to bounce back than by targeting players who are riding a hot streak? Actually, since sites will likely jack up the price on players who have been playing well, and ownership is likely to increase as well, maybe it won’t be the best idea. We can all agree on at least this much: It’s an idea. And ideas can be tested using our Trends tool.
To quantify ‘good games,’ I’ll be using the Prior Plus/Minus filter. We don’t want players who scored just X points in their previous games. We want players who scored X points more than was expected based on their salaries. I’ll be combining that with our Projected Plus/Minus filter to identify players who are in good spots.
The filters used at each position are fairly constant. I wanted the cohorts to be fairly comparable, which was the main reason I chose the thresholds listed. If you are copying these FanDuel trends to your own library, feel free to tweak them.
Quarterback
Running Back
Wide Receiver
The results are largely positive in both Plus/Minus and Consistency. Let’s start looking at some of this week’s matches.
Week 3 Matches
Quarterback
Ryan Fitzpatrick is fresh off a Week 2 #RevengeGame demolition of the Buffalo Bills in which he threw for 374 yards with no interceptions. Despite the negative matchup — Kansas City allows a -1.4 Opponent Plus/Minus to FD QBs — we still expect him to generate a positive return as just the 18th-most expensive quarterback.
Ryan Tannehill in cash games is a thing this week and he has a +3.67 Projected Plus/Minus for this weekend’s matchup against what’s left of the Browns.
Obviously, the samples in this next image are extremely small, but when these two quarterbacks have matched for this trend in the past, the results could not be more different.
Tannehill’s Plus/Minus in the category is among the worst, because . . . he’s Tannehill. Additionally, following games in which he has posted at least a +1.0 Plus/Minus, Fitzpatrick has exceeded value 73.7 percent of the time:
Running Back
At the running back position, the +6.15 Plus/Minus with a 75.9 percent Consistency is just absurd. Of course, the average ownership is also very high at 15.1 percent in large-field guaranteed prize pools. Many of this week’s matches also should be heavily rostered, namely DeAngelo Williams and Melvin Gordon. This might not be a great place to look for that GPP gem, but you may want to think twice about fading anyone who appears as a match for this trend.
Wide Receiver
Here, we find players who had big games last week and whose salaries have increased. But if our Plus/Minus projections are any indication, the prices may still be too low. I’m talking about DeVante Parker ($6,200), Marvin Jones ($6,900), and Travis Benjamin ($6,900).
By the way, if you were wondering how much value is added by the Projected Plus/Minus filter, take a look at the below image. If we were to remove that filter, nearly 1.5 fantasy points per game are lost.
Results
(Written Sunday night)
Quarterback
Tannehill started out the game with an early pick and then almost cost his team the win late in the fourth quarter with another turnover. It was by no means a stress-free day, but Tannehill exceeded his implied point total by over five fantasy points while coming at somewhat reduced ownership.
Fitzpatrick was another story. He threw six interceptions against zero touchdowns and failed to exceed 200 yards passing. While I earlier showed that Fitzpatrick tends to stay hot when he is rolling, remember that trend doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
Fitzpatrick had a bottom-five matchup in terms of Opponent Plus/Minus and he was also playing on the road, where he has struggled over the past two seasons:
Running Back
Negative game script really hurt Williams on Sunday. He received eight of nine running back carries in the game, but any time a team rushes 10 times total, running backs are going to have a hard time returning value. He was chalky, as expected, and sunk a ton of lineups.
Melvin Gordon’s ownership was higher than even his lofty 21-25 percent FantasyLabs projection. The touchdown was the difference between missing or exceeding value, and Gordon delivered a positive return against a 10.11-point salary-based expectation. The ninth-most expensive FD running back in Week 3, Gordon might be a chalky player from here on out if he continues to score touchdowns regularly. Keep a close eye on his Projected Plus/Minus in our Player Models as we get into Week 4.
Wide Receivers
Even if every other match busted, this would have still probably been a positive showing for the trend based on Marvin Jones: 205 yards and two touchdowns on five percent ownership. Enough said.
Travis Benjamin missed his salary-based implied total by around two fantasy points. By no means should 82 yards receiving be considered a bust, but more was expected by the 22 percent of the field that rostered Benjamin. One of the reasons so many DFS players were on Benjamin (aside from the Chargers’ depleted receiving corps) was his matchup against a weak Colts secondary. Some of the shine was taken off of that when cornerback Vontae Davis was declared active. If Davis had been declared ready earlier in the week, I’m not so sure that Benjamin would have been owned as highly.
Review
This week’s results more or less were consistent with the overall Plus/Minus within the trend. Some of the chalkiest plays this week matched, and that was reflected in the ownership totals. But there were also a few lower-owned gems that were uncovered in Tannehill and especially Jones.
