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If you have spent any time reading this column, you know that it has been a tough year for the NFL’s Thursday Night Football. Luckily, that all changed this week thanks in part to the uber-talented rosters of the Atlanta Falcons and Carolina Panthers going head-to-head. There’s not much that gets a football fan’s blood boiling more than a querterback showdown of Marcus Mariota and PJ Walker, and running back rooms fronted by Cordarrelle Patterson and D’Onta Foreman. Add in five field goals in four quarters and you’ve got yourself an instant classic on primetime TV. Now, this wasn’t the worst game of the season, not by any stretch of the imaginiation. But top fantasy options like Patterson (2.5 half-PPR points), Kyle Pitts (3.8 points) and DJ Moore (4.9 points) all crapped the bed, while Foreman (19.0 points), Laviska Shenault (13.4 points) and Drake London (12.3 points) shined to varying degrees. Safe to say, this was not a joyous day for most fantasy owners. Memes portraying Mariota as a trash can in a squad car have surfaced, which is honestly an insult to garbage disposal devices everywhere. This game was really between the Splatlanta Fartcons and the Terdalina Pantnerds. And yes, that is really the best I could come up with. It’s clearly time for some deep introspection. 

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Taking inventory of target share (TS) and snap share (SS) data is a critical tool to help with start-sit decisions, and provide a framework for buy-low/sell-high trade candidates. Every Wednesday the Target Report will highlight key TS/SS data and takeaways from the weekend. Keep in mind this is one data point to reference when making weekly lineup decisions. Utilizing all of Razzball’s tools will help complete the decisions making process each week. 

Success in fantasy football is built around opportunity, especially consistent opportunity. Don’t get caught up only chasing fantasy points. Peyton Manning focused more on what happened between endzones versus what transpired on the scoreboard. It is important not to overreact to a poor fantasy outing when the usage is still there. Or overreact to a fantasy explosion for a player that barely found the field or was barely targeted in the game. Trust the data and trust the process…

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The goal of this article is to find WRs to fade and buy based on how many fantasy points their opponent allows in the slot vs. out wide. In today’s article we will review the key out wide matchups for week 9. To keep up with the latest defensive trends we updated the analysis to only include the last 5 weeks.

The below chart breaks down where each team allows their fantasy points to WRs and is listed from the most to the least amount of fantasy points allowed out wide over the past 5 weeks.

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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.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

The goal of this article is to find wide receivers to fade and buy based on how many fantasy points their opponent allows in the slot vs. out wide. In today’s article we will review the key slot matchups for week 8. To stay hip and keep up with the latest trends we updated the analysis to only include the last 5 weeks.

The below chart breaks down where each team allows their fantasy points to wide receivers and is listed from the most to the least amount of fantasy points allowed to the slot this season.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

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If you haven’t read the intro to defense slot vs. wide analysis then dive in now. That article provides the overview of what we are doing for this article. The goal of this article is to find wide receivers to fade and buy based on how many fantasy points their opponent allows in the slot vs. out wide.

The below chart outlines all the teams that are featured in the AFC home games in week 3 and listed by how many total fantasy points they allowed to the wide receiver position this season.

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Week 4 brought us our first bye week due to the Covid cancellation of the Titans and Steelers game and fantasy managers scrambled to adjust. Thankfully, everybody is ok and the NFL had a simple fix issuing a bye to the teams and having an easy way to reschedule the game. With the recent news that there are still positive tests coming out of Tennessee, and unsanctioned practices being held as well (Morons!), I believe their week 5 game against the Bills is in serious jeopardy. Now we have planned and unplanned bye weeks and Covid uncertainty added to the flurry of injuries we’ve already dealt with, making it is even more important to find productive players to put in your flex spots. We have to be prepared!

As you know, every Thursday here on Razzball, I will be posting the weeks “Sexy Flexies” to give you a couple of players to consider starting in your flex spot. The objective isn’t to point out the obvious guys you’re starting in your RB or WR slots, but to take a look at a couple of players who are a bit more under the radar. These will likely be guys that you won’t start every week but will be good rotational pieces in the flex spot of your lineup based on matchup and opportunity.

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Good news, the NFL and NFLPA have agreed on COVID-19 amendments to the current CBA! I haven’t sifted thru all of the amendments yet, but I can only assume the NFL’s billion dollar attorney’s have convinced the NFLPA’s million dollar attorney’s that the players should play this season in exchange for oat milk coupons rather than money. On the plus side, this paves the way for a timely start to the NFL season. But what else does it mean for us fantasy fiends? Well, here’s a breakdown of what the new powder puff training camp will look like:

You’ll hear talking heads declaring that this scaled back training camp will drastically reduce preseason injuries. Then you’ll hear others state that poor conditioning will lead to more in season injuries and an overall poor on field product. Both might be right, both might wrong, both might be crazy. Only 8-pound, 6-ounce, newborn infant Jesus knows the answer. The one thing I’m sure of is the incoming tidal wave of NFL corona absences headed our way. Which should make each and every bench spot as valuable as a roll of March 2020 two-ply. I’ll be running for the hills at the first sign of preseason injuries, which is why Deebo Samuel was omitted from my top 40 and top 60 wide receiver rankings. But he did land a spot in my top 80 wide receivers for 2020 PPR fantasy football:

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With so many fantasy relevant wide receivers heading into the NFL draft, I had no choice but to list 30 incoming rookies that could be important at the next level and for our fantasy teams. I have previously discovered that receptions per game in college makes for a nice filter when identifying fantasy WR2s or better in the NFL. That, along with breakout age and projected draft capital, were the three-pronged criteria I used to rank this class. 

This article will feature the front of the class, WRs 1-15 by my ranking. Even the consensus studs have some warts (Jeudy/Lamb a low BMI, Reagor’s final season was meh, etc) but it is certainly very deep. There’s something for everyone, so take a peek and see who to flag as we proceed to the summer. 

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