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The biggest lottery in fantasy football is the output of rookies. To help us make some accurate predictions of what to expect from this year’s class, we’re going to look through previous rookies over the last 10 years who have been drafted into similar situations. Today we’ll be starting off with the quarterbacks. Should you […]

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NFL. AFC. NFC. PAT. RPO. ADP. ECR. Fantasy football is filled with acronyms. And never forget RGS, Roger Goodell Smells. Two of the most common in the fantasy realm are ADP and ECR, which have become compnents of the everyday vocabulary for even the most casual players: Average Draft Position and Expert Consensus Ranking. Now, the ‘perts in this field do phenominal work. They’re never been better, but they’re still human (or donkeys). They get things wrong, just like I do. Sometimes when you look at the ECR hodgepodge, the end product is lacking common sense like a multimillionaire NFL player accepting a dare to soil a fire hydrant in public for five bucks. But today, we’ll stick to coins instead of bills, as I’ll provide my two “cents” on 15 players whose current ECR I disagree with. Sticking to the surface, I’ll make my case using relatively basic arguments and pointing out some common sense disagreements I have with the ECR breakdown.

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We’ve told you this before, and we’ll tell it to you again here: the best projection systems are accurate on the best players about 35-45% of the time, depending on various factors like slate size, injuries, weather, and proximity to unsanitary gas station food sources. When people say that “fantasy football is just luck,” well, they’re wrong. Fantasy football is about educated guesses, really. Just like there was no real reason that GameStop and Doge Coin should have been making people millionaires earlier this year, they nonetheless did make people rich. People are able to make educated guesses about the trends of chaos and say, “The risk of this commodity meets my expectation for value, so I’ll take the risk.” That’s basically what fantasy sports are all about: what player will you draft at what position, and how much value will they bring your team? And as much as we analysts like to say that we are certain about stuff, the truth is that the more uncertain and skeptical the analyst is, the more likely they are to be reliable over the long term. Analysts tell themselves all sorts of narratives in all sorts of ways to prepare for each week of fantasy sports: Rudy Gamble uses snap count data, I tend to consider how likely a player is to end up in a favorable game script, and Donkey Teeth considers how a player looks without their shirt on. And in a week like this — Week 15 of 2021 fantasy football for the SEO record — we find ourselves in a world of massive underdog narratives that make no analytical sense to predict at the beginning of the season. Craig Reynolds — a guy who went undrafted and for three years was unable to crack even the practice squad of teams that didn’t have running backs — put up 112 yards rushing as the Lions triumphed over the Cardinals and gained their second win of the year (not season…year). Aight, this paragraph is getting long. You get the point: the impossible was possible tonight. Tonight. (Now you’re singing it in your head, I bet) Let’s check out the rest of the players that you probably didn’t start unless you were in a 50,000 person DFS contest. 

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The Fantasy Football playoffs are fast-approaching. These next few waiver weeks are critical. Some managers have likely lost interest, but that doesn’t mean throw out $1 bids. It’s a good idea to investigate the fab of the other contending teams and adjust accordingly. Guessing another manager’s bids can be a fool’s errand, but you never know what you might learn along the way. If you want a player, pay up to get them. There is no use hoarding a huge fab budget; December is buying time.

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Ah, do you smell that in the air? No, it’s not the sweet hoppy smell of the IPAs flowing at Urban Meyer’s Pint House. No, that’s the smell of Football Sunday… and the smell of torn tendons and pulled hammys. That’s gotta hurt! Still probably can’t hurt as bad as I’m sure many of you out there in the ether are with depleted rosters. God bless the poor souls playing Davis Mills this week. You will be in my prayers. 

Anyway, let’s dive into this week’s injury headlines hot off the presses!

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With the 17 game season this year, we’ll hit the quarter mark of games around the first quarter of the games this week. Seems like as good of a time as any to take a look at what has happened so far this season and where we went wrong or right. One in particular is our pre-season and current Ezekiel Elliott ranking. Among other surprises this season, Cordarrelle Patterson and Sam Darnold stand near the top of biggest over performers based on draft ranking. 

We look at some of the injuries from week 4 and how they may play out ROS. From the Chicago and Cincinnati RB situations to the Jacksonville WR room, the week 4 injuries could have meaningful impacts on several players. We also discuss the rookie QBs and where we’re at on them for week 5 and beyond. As always, we wrap up with our A$$hole of the Week. 

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Ah, yes. We’re almost there folks.

Homestretch! 

In these final days before the beginning of regular season football, let’s take inventory and hear those glorious hot takes that we thrive on in these waning days of the offseason. And who better to direct your vitriol at than the ragamuffins here at Razzball while we walk through their boldest, most hot-blooded predictions for the coming season.  

Let’s hear from 13 of your favorite very handsome fantasy writers, shall we? 

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One of the greatest cinematic moments of my life occurred in a virtually empty movie theater on a Saturday morning, September 23, 2000. We all have these moments in our lives where we sort of wish we could look back and maybe watch ourselves for just a moment. I would give a nice sum of money to be able to go back and watch The Joey Wright see Almost Famous for the first time. Almost twenty-one years later to the date it, unapologetically, remains my favorite film. The one thing standing out upon my first viewing was our introduction to one Miss Penny Lane. A young magazine reporter is standing at the artist entrance to an arena, hoping to land an interview with Black Sabbath. He gets into a conversation with a rather fun looking young lady when he starts to insinuate, she may just be a groupie and then it happens. Floating onto the screen almost like a ghost, we first lay our eyes upon Penny Lane, portrayed by Kate Hudson.

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Before you go any further if you haven’t read the original article on the Points Per Rush Attempt Analysis (PPRA), we recommend you read that first. You can find that article here. In Part 1 of the running back edition, we break down Fantasy Points Per Reception or FPPR outliers from 2020 to help you identify players to potentially buy in 2021.

Yes, we will be diving into the receiving portion of our analysis, but the concept is the same as the original PPRA article. The biggest difference is the numbers are a bit higher. For example, the league average FPPR over the past 10 seasons is 1.49. For a running back to see a half-point more per game they need to catch 40 passes and see an uptick in FPPR of .2.

The running backs who saw an outlier season of -10% in FPPR on average saw an increase of .47 or 40% increase in FPPR the next season. That means for every 40 receptions these running backs saw an increase of just over one fantasy point per game in .5 PPR the year after they had an outlier season.

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Drafting a rookie receiver is often a crapshoot that can (and usually will) end in disappointment. Unless you end up with a complete outlier like Justin Jefferson, you’re probably going to end up overpaying if there’s any type of hype around them.

This was a mistake I made last year With Henry Ruggs (and not just because I’m a Raiders homer although that didn’t help). Ruggs was drafted 12th overall in 2020 NFL draft before Jerry Jeudy, CeeDee Lamb, Justin Jefferson, Brandon Aiyuk, and every other wide receiver in a stacked class.

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In the last article we highlighted which NFC players have the most to gain if their current teams don’t draft a player at a similar position. In this article we will discuss which current AFC players have the most to gain in the upcoming NFL draft. What this means is if a team passes on a skill position player or quarterback in the first few round which players currently on those rosters today will have the most to gain.

Each section we will highlight the team, how many picks each team has overall, how many picks they have rounds 1-3 and the players who have the most to gain. This article isn’t a mock or predicting any picks. Most likely at least half of these players we talk about today will be impacted by draft picks, but just in case they aren’t here is why we think they can improve in 2021.

Baltimore Ravens
Total picks: 7
Round 1: No. 27 overall
Round 2: No. 58
Round 3: No. 104

Impacted Player: Marquise Brown

Marquise Brown turned it on in the second half of 2020 increasing his production in nearly every metric. This spike in production coincides with Mark Andrews missing time due to COVID. However, even after Andrews returned Brown was still producing at a high level. Below are his stats side by side before Andrews went out with Covid and after he returned. The 13.2 points per game (PPG) in those final 6 weeks (including playoffs) would have made Brown the wide receiver 15 in 2020. Brown’s current Best ball average draft position (ADP) is wide receiver 36.

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So with MB’s Zoom retirement party happening tonight, DT asked me to step in and do the write-up for Saturday Night Football. I said to DT, “But, Zoom allows like 50 people to join in on a call!” And DT replied, “Yeah, it’s me, MB, and all 48 members of the Japanese pop idol group AKB48. Sorry, we’re full up!” So, sayonara my dear MB. I hope you have fun playing Apples to Apples with your new crowd. 

In the mean time, I’ve got your fantasy roundup for Saturday games: Buffalo vs. Denver, and Carolina vs. Green Bay. 

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