That’s right folks, as we prepare for our Country’s 250th birthday, we’ll give a quick nod to the midnight rider whose contribution on that dark night in April of 1775 made sure the Colonists were ready for the battles to come.
Fast forward a couple Centuries plus, and Paul Revere is here again, alerting all you faithful Razzball readers that “The Razzball-ers Are Coming!” This time though, the force marching in are the good guys, preparing you for the fantasy football battles to come, with the same result in sight – VICTORY!
Once again this season, Razzball will offer a number of unique and useful tools to help you make the most important decisions each week to win your leagues. In fact, we may even debut a new tool or two this season to take it to a new level. You’ll just have to keep following us to find out what we have in store. In the meantime, let’s review the free tools we’ve become known for:
Defensive Slot vs. Wide Tool
(https://football.razzball.com/defensive-slot-vs-wide-ppg-allowed/)
One of our most popular tools is a must-visit each week. Our good friend, Bobby LaMarco put this tool together a few years back to break down how many fantasy points a defense allows to WRs from the slot and out wide, as well as the percentages of the overall production that goes to the middle of the field vs. the perimeter. The tool sorts on any column to help you quickly find the plus (or minus) team matchups right away.
The data in this tool will help you figure out which players to start (or consider benching) each week based on where the production is expected to come from. Which is a great segway to…
Wide Receiver Fantasy Points Scored Slot vs. Wide Tool
(https://football.razzball.com/wide-receiver-fantasy-points-scored-slot-vs-wide/)
Data wise, this one is straight forward. The tool consolidates where a WR’s fantasy points derive from in the formation, in the slot or out wide.
I could write more to explain how it all comes together but why should I when my man Jeff (@Jefferson__21) does a great job of that each week. Here’s an example, from Week 11 last season, that sums up these two tools perfectly:
Player: Tee Higgins
Opponent: at Pittsburgh
“The Bengals’ offense has been revitalized under our favorite senior citizen, QB Joe Flacco. In three games with Flacco, Higgins is the WR3 with four TDs, behind his teammate Jamar Chase, who is the WR1 in that same span. Mr Tee is producing 91% of his points lined up out wide, which is the highest mark of the Bengals WR duo, and where the Steelers allow the most points to WRs, on the perimeter, at 34.1 fantasy points per game. I forgot to mention that in the last matchup against Pittsburgh, he caught six passes for 96 yards, securing one TD on 10 targets”
So, what did Higgins do that week, you ask? 8 TGTs, 3 REC, 63 YDS and 1 TD.
I mean, who doesn’t want 8 targets, a 21.0-yd average, and 15+ fantasy points from their WR2?
Team Defense Rush Zone/Gap Tool
(https://football.razzball.com/defensezonevsgap/)
I rolled this one out last season and found it very useful as the season progressed. To sum up this tool, it’s the Slot vs. Wide tool, but for RBs. The tool looks at designed rushing attempts for zone blocking and gap blocking schemes, which make up the vast majority of (or in some cases, ALL) RB carries. This tool quantifies how well (or poorly) defenses stop designed rushing attempts.
From its early season debut of just the defensive data, the tool evolved to include the next opponents team offense rushing breakdown. I found this important to quickly identify the game matchups to dig deeper on. Once I had that in my pocket, I moved to this next tool to identify the plays to hammer or fade.
RB Zone vs. Gap Rushing Tool
(https://football.razzball.com/zonevsgap/)
You guessed it, this one breaks down the individual RBs and their offense’s propensity to run behind zone or gap blocking. Pairing the player data with the team data from the previous tool really highlights good and bad situations to consider for fantasy start/sit decisions or even in the betting world. Best of all, it’s free (but you know that already).
Defensive NFL Targets Allowed by Team
(https://football.razzball.com/defensive-nfl-targets-allowed-by-team/)
This one is especially good for those in PPR leagues (my favorite format). It breaks down how many targets on average each defense allows by position and the target share that those positions have against that defense. The tool is design to give us a better understanding of which defenses might be more vulnerable in certain positions and/or help us decide which players to start and sit each week.
Home/Road Player Splits Tool
(https://football.razzball.com/homeroadsplits/)
As the name implies, this tool charts how many fantasy points a player scores at home vs. on the road. Is this an important analytic? Well, the “12th Man” (and reigning Super Bowl Champs) fans surely think so. I tend to look at the Home/Road +/- column in the far right. The tool isn’t necessarily going to be a “decision point tool” rather more like a “compass tool” once you put it all together. Here’s what it looks like:
Win/Loss Player Splits Tool
(https://football.razzball.com/winlosssplits/)
This one looks a bit intimidating at first glance, but it’s really not that bad once you dive in. The splits are based on regular season games from the current and previous year.
The tool tracks how each player scores in games won and lost, as well as what type of result (close games vs not close games). That’s thinking outside the box!
The Win/Los PPR Index in the middle is a neat wrinkle to the data. It displays a value calculated from PPR PPG (Wins) divided by PPR PPG (Losses) x 100. For example, Jonathan Taylor’s Index of 254 means the Wins PPR PPG was 154% higher than his Losses PPR PPG at the end of last season.
Our guy, Dave Crews (@crewser128) spent a lot of time analyzing and writing about these two tools and I urge you to check out his work. In fact, take a gander at his Week 18 article (https://football.razzball.com/week-18-starts-and-sits-home-road-and-win-loss-players-splits/) where he really breaks down this data…and I mean REALLY BREAKS IT DOWN!
He’s also our RazzBowl guru so follow him closely!
TD Rushing/Receiving Share Tool
(https://football.razzball.com/tdshare/)
This tool helps identify players who had anomalously high or low rushing and receiving TD rates over a rolling 18-week period of regular season games.
Rudy runs this tool for us, but you probably already figured that out when I included his word “anomalously” from the page. It has a lot of great data on it that identifies who’s getting the all-important RZ and TD touches.
So, does Razzball take care of you? I think this short introduction to our free tools provides the answer to that question. If we’re giving all this to you for FREE, just imagine what you can do with our premium subscription. We’ll have more on that once we get closer to the season.
As always, I HIGHLY ENCOURAGE you to dive into the data each week of the season so you can better understand the trends your players are performing. This will help you immensely as you prepare to win your leagues.
Remember, our #1 priority is the CHAMPIONSHIP! Nothing else matters.
So please go check it out for yourself at https://football.razzball.com.
Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind you of our award-winning (well, not yet but it’s coming…) weekly LIVE Start-Sit show.
As always, the show airs LIVE (yes, LIVE) on the Razzball YouTube channel each Sunday from 11:00 am EDT (8:00 PDT) right up right up to gametime. Sky – @SkyGuasco, Matt – @Stiles08, Dave – @Crewser128, Jeff – @Jefferson__21 and I will be there to answer all your fantasy football questions. Don’t miss it.
As always, look for my articles right here each week and be sure to follow me on Twitter/X @Derek_Favret. I’m also on BlueSky as well (@dfavret.bsky.social).
Until next time, my friends.
