Conor O’Driscoll uses the RotoViz suite of tools to identify opportunities to buy low on players likely to post strong fantasy performances, and to help you see red flags before your opponents notice. The Strength of Schedule (SOS) Streaming App is particularly useful for this as it allows us to see which players have the easiest or most difficult upcoming schedules, a potentially league-winning edge.
After a stellar runout in Week 5, the results in Week 6 were more disappointing. Darren Waller’s 5-5-59-0 line was particularly disappointing given Derek Carr threw 35 times and the Raiders scored 34 points. I like tracking the results as they can offer a good opportunity to assess the process. It could be argued that Waller’s monster Week 1 usage props up his seasonal average and that excluding Week 1 gives a more useful indication of underlying usage. Waller’s 2021 average target share stands at 25% but is just 21% excluding if you exclude Week 1. But there isn’t really a good reason to exclude it. Throwing out week 1 only because it is so different to the other weeks is ignoring the inherent volatility of football.
A few weeks ago, I talked about the idea that the inherent volatility of receiving efficiency is becoming much better understood. However, I believe that there remains lots of volatility within the NFL that is not nearly as well internalized. One example of this is role volatility. In 2020, Waller had seven games out of 16 (43%) with a target share below 25%. In my opinion, concluding that this (sub-25% target share) will be the new average going forward because we’ve had a stretch of games like this is a classic case of finding patterns that aren’t there in small sample data. Buy low on Waller.
I am still leaving a candle on for Rondale Moore. However, the trade for Zach Ertz likely means the Cardinals’ usage of 4-wide-receiver sets will revert back to their previous average.
