This is a guest post from Graham Barfield.
First of all, I’m new to Fantasy Labs. So take it easy on me. I was getting my feet wet on the site yesterday and was absolutely blown away by the sheer amount of usable and actionable data on the site. It was overwhelming at first. All of the green, blue, and red colors on the Player Models page nearly gave me a seizure at first but I made it through. Barely.
The fact is, I am honored to even be a small contributor to the site and will be doing a weekly article that focuses on three “trends of the week” using our Trends tool. Instead of boring you with an introduction that you may or may not skip over anyway, let’s get to the data.
- Demaryius Thomas When His Salary Decreases
I don’t get excited about much. I’m a very even-keeled person, but I almost squealed when I saw Thomas’ plus/minus when his salary decreases. Of the seven times Demaryius Thomas’ DraftKings salary has decreased, he has either met or exceeded salary-based expectation six times. His salary dropped 1,100 this week. The Broncos are facing a Lions defense that has an Opposition plus/minus of -0.9 (they are performing below expectation) and Detroit has allowed the most red zone plays against them through two weeks (39).
Speaking of which, Demaryius Thomas saw 39 red zone targets (2.45 per-game) in 2014. He has not seen a single red zone target this year – meaning positive regression is coming sooner rather than later.
- Andrew Luck vs. the AFC South
Via RotoViz’s Game Splits app, Andrew Luck averages 2.0 passing touchdowns per-game, 0.5 interceptions, and 263.2 passing yards on 34.9 attempts against common AFC South opponents. In non-division games, Luck averages 1.91 passing touchdowns, 1.09 interceptions, and 269.3 passing yards on 38.7 pass attempts. The Colts’ offense is off to an incredibly slow start this year (21 points scored) but is in a great spot to bounce back against the Titans’ soft secondary on the road (IND -3.5 favorites).
- QBs Plus/Minus When Opposition Plus/Minus is +4 Or More
The reason for this trend is simply Nick Foles. St. Louis is facing an abysmal Pittsburgh secondary (opp. plus/minus of 4.4) on the road that gave up 288 passing yards to Tom Brady in Week 1 and 335 passing yards to Colin Kaepernick at home last week. The Rams’ have the highest underdog team total for the week (23) a week after scoring just 10 points on the road in Washington. I’m firing up Foles in GPPs this week; he’s $5200 on DraftKings – the same price as 64-year-old Brandon Weeden.
