Fantasy Football

Of all of the Day 2 running backs drafted by teams that traded up since 2011, Javonte Williams was the highest-drafted running back (Pick No. 35). And he’s in excellent company. The sweet spot for NFL Draft trade-up running backs is the top half of the second round. If you had doubts about Williams because he’s currently in a timeshare with Melvin Gordon, remember that Alvin Kamara had to split time with Mark Ingram and Adrian Peterson in his electric rookie season.

The 49ers trading up for Trey Sermon should mean they plan to utilize him at least in a part-time role. Three of the five running backs (60-percent) drafted in the bottom half of the third round by teams that traded up saw at least 115 touches. For comparison, only four of the other 10 running backs (40-percent) drafted in the bottom half of the third round exceeded that mark. Sermon joins an elusive club of third-round running backs that teams traded back INTO the third round to acquire.

The Lions decided to let all of their wide receivers walk in free agency this year and look to let Jared Goff suffer for his sins. T.J. Hockenson is set to explode in his third NFL season. Best Comparable to superstar Travis Kelce due to his impressive workout metrics, Hockenson is in prime position to capitalize on the lack of competition around him and become the player he was drafted to be at No. 8 overall in 2019.

Ja’Marr Chase has come to Cincinnati and will immediately demand the most targets on this team in the post-A.J. Green era. The biggest question for the Bengals is whether they will be able to sustain fantasy production for their three notable wide receivers: Chase, Tee Higgins, and Tyler Boyd. It’s no secret that Joe Burrow likes to sling it, and with an offense full of pass catchers, it doesn’t seem like sustaining Chase, Higgins, and Boyd (in that order) would be a tall task.

The goal in an auction draft is to to get the most player value out of the auction budget. Drafters should be comfortable spending near equal value on any player in any given tier. Additionally, they can track player values within tiers to spot trends and exploit pricing inefficiencies. Abiding by the tiers is crucial for accomplishing this goal because it allows gamers clearly identify undervalued and overvalued players alike.

As expected, higher ADP equates to higher auction values. Using the ADP data against your rankings is the key to finding values in the draft. For example, your RB6 is a top-12 player, but ADP has him as a top-24 player. Therefore, it should be relatively easy to draft him because the market perceives him worthy of 16-percent of your total budget, whereas a top 12 player is worthy of 23.3-percent of the budget.

Season-long correlation benefits gamers in both best ball and traditional leagues. Whether you’re setting your lineup or not is entirely irrelevant to wanting your top players’ probabilities of outperforming their expectations to be correlated. You want your team to score the most points in both formats, and by drafting a set of players whose individual outcomes are dependent on as few variables as possible, you are increasing your probability that all of them hit.  

We posit that the strength of stacking in best ball formats stem almost entirely from season-long correlation rather than week-to-week correlation. On the other hand, by stacking in traditional leagues, you benefit from both season-long correlation and week-to-week correlation. By implication, we expect stacking in traditional leagues to have a larger increase in your win probability than in best ball leagues. 

Brandon Aiyuk flashed high-end upside when he was on the field. He was elite on a per game basis, and his opportunity metrics legitimize that production. His athleticism, versatility, and belonging to a Kyle Shanahan offense all raise his floor and ceiling. However, there are unknowns surrounding him. Trey Lance’s immaturity as a passer, and how Aiyuk performs alongside a healthy George Kittle and Deebo Samuel, will be what decides his value for the next five years.

Tee Higgins is a supremely talented, young, traditional wide receiver who is attached to a great quarterback. With a crowded receiver room, Higgins’ value will be defined by how many targets he receives relative to Tyler Boyd and Ja’Marr Chase. Regardless, at worst, he will be the second option on a fantastic offense and be productive in that role. But he also has perennial top-12 upside.

The clearest difference between best ball and DFS tournaments is the length of the play period. This affects how you analyze variance. In DFS, maximize volatility within a single game to increase your ceiling. Between two players with similar weekly medians you will always opt for a Mecole Hardman over a Hunter Renfrow. This has been accepted as a perfect translation to best ball and I don’t understand why.

Have you ever heard the term “play whoever you want” in DFS? It’s often misinterpreted. Nobody recommends filling out lineups with $1,000 salary left over in the milli-maker because you wanted to ‘get your guys;’ yet this attitude has been adopted by many in best ball. ‘Play whoever you want’ actually means ‘any set of correlated pieces can be viable in a given slate as part of a constructed lineup.’

College Dominator Rating represents a player’s “market share” or his percentage of his team’s offensive production. When comparing College Dominator Rating, the 2021 class takes a step back. The 2014 class holds an edge with 15 players posting greater than a 35.0-percent mark. The 2021 class trails with 12 WRs over 35.0-percent and an average Dominator Rating of 31.6-percent.

Speed Score places a premium on 40-time, but also factors in body weight and length. The 2021 struggles in this department with only 10 players (29-percent) with a Speed Score of 100.0 or higher. In comparison, 14 players (41-percent) met this cutoff for the 2014 group. This is not a surprise as many WRs weighed lighter and measured shorter than anticipated during the 2021 pro day circuit.

Football is a grueling sport to predict, and this is where stacking enters the fold. Stacking allows us to limit how many different variables we have to get correct each week. In a sport where so many variables are outside our control, it’s nice to only need to root for one team’s offense to succeed to ensure that two or more players enter our best ball lineup with spike weeks.

Stacking is not the only way to succeed in fantasy football, you can of course just pick the right players. However, player-centric analysis is difficult, comes with large error bars, and is extremely time-consuming. The beauty of stacking is that you don’t even need to do much player research. You can just focus on stacking players from teams you expect to pass a lot.

What can those of us who spent early draft capital on Cam Akers, or that have him on their dynasty teams, do at the moment? Today we look to recent history for guidance to see how teams have fared when losing star RB talent either before or very early in a season and try to apply that to the Rams’ and our fantasy teams’ situations.

If you are considering dealing for Darrell Henderson in trade or haven’t drafted yet, his price will reflect production levels that history suggests he is not likely to reach. And looking beyond the current Rams roster for potential trade candidates is a lottery ticket. Placing one or more of those on our roster means filling our bench with long shots unlikely to put up numbers anywhere close to what we were expecting from a healthy 2021 Akers.

Following a full reconstructive surgery, Michael Thomas should be good as new following a full rehabilitation. In dynasty, he is a clear hold and a possible buy on the other end. If you’re a shareholder, keep calm and keep those diamond hands steady. His stock will rebound when he’s back in the lineup mid-season gathering targets like a squirrel preparing for winter. Then, you can decide whether it’s in your best interest to sell.

It’s tough for anyone to break through significantly on any sort of consistent basis when Michael Thomas and Alvin Kamara are gobbling up 250-plus targets every season and the rest of the depth chart is muddled. Tre’Quan Smith’s disappearance last season should be a concern, but there’s solace in knowing he’s shown the capability of breaking through in a major way. This alone is why fantasy gamers need to be prioritizing him this season.