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Countless hours of research. Long, sleepless nights. Tossing and turning in bed… start or sit? Start or sit? Moments of believing we are actual NFL general managers. All that over-exaggerated drama brings us here: The fantasy football final four. The margin of error has now decreased from slim to none. One wrong push of a […]

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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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Air Yards are the Gordon Ramsey of fantasy receiving stats. They tell us exactly what was right and clearly what was wrong with how a receiver performed in a given week. Often, it’s not easy to hear. But you as a fantasy manager need to pay attention to the under-the-hood numbers from your receivers instead of just blindly trusting the box score results, you donkey. 

Each week, this column will dissect air yards for actionable info in the weeks to come. For Week 9, we will do a quick analysis of the list of the 72 wide receivers who finished last week with at least 30 air yards.

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I dunno about you, but Halloween is more like a season for me. When we think about those people who leave their winter holiday ornaments up until April, I try to do them one better by leaving out my Halloween decorations until May. It’s kind of like my fantasy football approach: when everybody wants immediate results, I’m out here thinking long term. And by long term, I’m finally celebrating any faith I had in Kevin White finally coming to fruition. Or is it Mike White that I’m celebrating? I get confused at my old age. Quickly, to the recap!

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I was working in the lab, late one night. When my eyes beheld an eerie sight. For my monster on his slab began to rise and suddenly to my surprise… He did the Mash. The Monster Mash

Just take these wise words in for a moment. Breathe them in. The monster… he did the mash. And don’t we all do the mash sometimes, much to the chagrin and sometimes excitement to our contemporaries? Yes, even sometimes it will truly be a “graveyard smash”. 

What was this section about? Oh uh Halloween injury report. Right. There was a thread here but I got carried away in the poetry of Bobby “Boris” Pickett & The Crypt Kickers (Side note: Here’s a great TV performance of Bobby Pickett doing the Monster Mash, a real masterclass in making really weird faces and being a weirdo).

The teams who will have some extra trick-or-treating time on bye this week are the Ravens and the Raiders. See ya next week! 

Let’s get into this week’s horror show!

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How did the Bye-mageddon go for everybody? Or was it more of a Bye-pocalypse? Did you support the Bye-din Administration? Or did you get a bit Bye-curious and start changing up your roster? Maybe you finally addressed that Bye-polar condition you have. ENYWHEY (I ran out of Bye-related jokes). The average fantasy footballer (Hi Grey’s mom!) is nearing the playoff stretch already. How weird is that? Didn’t we just start the season? Some of those big leagues have playoffs starting in week 12. And as we all know, the most important league in the world — the RazzBowl — has that week 9 cutline. Lemme check if I’m going to pass go and collect $200…hmmm, gonna be close. My risky strategy to draft the 49ers stack (Kittle, Samuel, Aiyuk, and Lance) did not pay off. So my RazzBowl effort may be closing here soon, but I’ve got a bit of good news after the jump! Join me to celebrate! 

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All right, we’ve made it through 4/18ths of the season and my pocket calculator is absolutely losing its mind. Now that Anthony Miller has been dropped by the Houston Texans and his impending team change will absolutely shake the NFL to its core and bring in a legion of lawyers to inquire about the fairness of having such a talent just walking to another team, it’s time to assess the quality of your fantasy football team. That’s where we come into play. Come and check your head and see if we can get some good players on your team! 

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No movie references or sarcasm this week. The fantasy football community lost someone truly beloved in Mike “Tags” Tagliere this week. As I sat on my bed and scrolled through my timeline on Saturday, I saw so many people thanking him for assisting them with their fantasy teams and how much he’ll be missed on podcasts. I also saw the messages from people in the fantasy sports industry who Tags helped get their start or was there to be a sounding board when needed. I never had the chance to meet him in person but I’ve heard from many people who knew and loved him well. The same people remembering and mourning are the ones who have encouraged, guided, and helped me. Tags never got to hear how much he was appreciated to the degree of what people are saying now. So let me encourage you, whatever you do in life, whether it be a stay-at-home dad, high school principal, or fantasy analyst: tell the people who have helped and encouraged you how much you love them and how much their help has meant to you. None of us know how long we have on this earth, but what we do know is how to say thank you. So while it might be too late, thank you Mike Tagliere for being a beacon in this industry and helping so many people. Thank you for your positivity which has rubbed off on so many of your listeners, colleagues, and fellow analysts. Your legacy is an everlasting ripple in this industry and you will be missed.

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Week 3, how about thee? I spent all day on the phone with Donkey Teeth as he narrated the Red Zone games to me, describing every play in detail. “Kyler Murray passes to Bryan Edwards! It’s 34-10 going into the half! No, now it’s 24-21 and the third quarter is halfway over. Chris Carson runs down the middle and gets Roman male enhancement pills!” Maybe it’s not the most effective way to cover the NFL. Does anybody know a better way than getting your colleague to narrate the games over the phone to you? If you do, list it down in the comments! Here’s the story that I got straight from the Donkey’s mouth: 

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Welcome to the very first Wright On Waivers. I will be taking over this column for the season and look forward to helping you navigate your way around the waiver wire with player suggestions to help both long and short-term needs. Your previous guide was indeed a great sherpa and wanted me to send along his best. If you have read any of my previous articles, you are aware I typically launch into these drawn-out movie tirades full of terrible analogies. I can assure you I will be focusing solely on your fantasy team this year and avoiding the proverbial opening twenty-one minutes and fifteen seconds of my favorite childhood film, Jurassic Park. Are those first twenty-one minutes important to the story? Yes. Yes, they are, but we really just want to see some dinosaurs. So, let us get to the dinosaurs.

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What is up everybody? It’s EverywhereBlair, coming to you from the UP region — no not the Pixar movie, that area near the talon of Michigan — where I’m currently surrounded by a thousand acres of forest and eagles. I’m taking advantage of a rainy morning to bring you — yes you! — a recap of my DataForce Charity League best ball draft, which will help illustrate draft tactics that will be useful for all of you as we enter the main fantasy football draft season. 

Meet me after the jump and I’ll show you Konami Code I used to help my draft strategy against a draft room filled with touts and, well, me.

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When Is It Time To Officially Fade A Wide Receiver In Fantasy?

Whether it is dynasty or redraft understanding when the cliff typically comes for a fantasy asset is key to staying ahead of the game. What we did was review the last 10 seasons of wide receiver production by age to see when the drop off comes for wide receivers. A couple key nuggets that you need to know before we get started.

  1. The years sampled were 2011-2020 for the wide receiver position only.
  2. The analysis benchmark we will be discussing today is 100 targets. Every wide receiver ages 21-37 had to have at least 100 targets to qualify
  3. When conducting the analysis it was important to have a baseline for targets as many wide receivers who don’t make it typically only play 3-4 years in their early 20s. That means if you don’t have a target baseline in the analysis then you’re including a lot of young wide receivers who don’t pan out. This would prevent us from getting a better idea of how age becomes a factor since we want to identify the wide receivers who were able to sustain some level of relevance throughout the years

Like we always promise we will give you the high-level data first and you can take it for what it is worth. The first chart will include the wide receivers (WR) age, the average total fantasy points those wide receivers had at that age and the average points per game those wide receivers (PPG) had at that age.  If you want a deeper dive, we have included more information later in the article.

Reviewing Points and Points Per Game (PPG)

WR AgePointsPPG
21177.711.3
22182.912
23183.512
24174.511.3
25191.312.2
26205.513.3
27185.312
2819112.6
29194.112.6
30177.611.5
31182.511.6
32171.411.6
33179.411.5
34183.211.6
35154.410.1
36131.98.5
37144.910.4

 

As you can see for the wide receiver position there is no major drop off. What we end up seeing is a lot of stability over the years. Wide receivers age 25-29 peak at age 26 but they remain stable up until their age 30 campaign. Meanwhile once they hit 30 instead of a steep decline, we find a slight drop in fantasy production, but it quickly stabilizes similarly to wide receivers in their late 20s. When you breakdown the production 25-29 vs. 30-34 wide receivers age 30-34 still produce at just over 92% in points and PPG vs. their late 20 counterparts.

Overall, only a few wide receivers make it to age 35 let alone reach 100 targets at that age. However, when they do, we can still see some level of production as they produce at roughly 75% vs. age 25-29.

Finally, the drop off isn’t as steep as we might have thought. This slight dip in production followed by a stability period does show that wide receivers in their early 30s who are still producing at a high level probably have a few more years left in the tank. 

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