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.
It was a very strong run-out for the Buy section of this column last week. Chris Godwin benefitted from Antonio Brown’s ankle injury and posted his best fantasy performance since week 1. From a process review perspective, there was certainly an element of luck. I obviously had no prior knowledge of the injury. On the other hand, Godwin’s 11 targets against the Bears have been met or exceeded twice this season with Brown in the lineup. Marquise Brown continued to make exceptional plays down the field.
In the sell section, Leonard Fournette had another solid day on relatively strong opportunity. I don’t necessarily think that he is going to drop off a cliff immediately. However, I do think that all of his value comes from the thing we are least able to project across the length of a season. The consensus seems to be that barring injury he is pretty much a lock to maintain his role for the rest of the season. This is not a thing we can predict with that kind of certainty, particularly not for running backs not playing efficiently.
My focus this week is on players who have underperformed strong volume in small sample sizes. This is generally the focus, but I believe the opportunity to capitalize is stronger at this point of the season. After seven weeks, managers are impatient and looking for results and less likely to think critically about the sample sizes.
