0:00Welcome into the Lineup Fantasy Football Show. I'm Mitch Anderson.
0:03I'm Justin Melo. And Mello, we're doing something fun today.
0:05We are going over six stats that nobody's talking about that could win you your fantasy football league.
0:10A few of these are more general about the positions in fantasy football with some actionable advice on players to buy now based on what we find.
0:18But we also have a few player specific stats on guys that aren't getting the attention they deserve and could have a huge impact on fantasy championship teams.
0:25But as always, the lineup is presented by Dabble Fantasy.
0:28Download and sign up for Dabble, then use the promo code LINEUP and get $20 in bonus cash when you play your first 10.
0:35But let's get into this with our six stats, Mello.
0:37I'm gonna let you go first. Let's start with a historical stat here.
0:41Let's look backwards before we look forward. Okay, Matthew McConaughey.
0:44Yeah, I just felt like really introspective and philosophical there.
0:46But my first stat here is over the last four years, 95% of wide receivers to finish top five in targets have
0:52finished top 10 in fantasy points, and 85% of them have finished top six.
0:56Now on one hand, that might just sound like it's common sense, like yeah, Dabble, like the guys who get targeted score a lot of fantasy points.
1:03But when you take a step back and really think about it, it really illustrates how sticky of a stat targets are
1:09and how directly it translates to fantasy points, despite being something you don't actually score fantasy points for.
1:14So how do we utilize this stat? Well, let's look at guys who realistically could finish top five in targets this year.
1:20Malik Nabors, who we actually talked about earlier this week and how favorable his schedule is down the stretch.
1:25He's fourth in targets right now among wide receivers, but is ranked as the wide receiver nine on fantasy pros rest of season.
1:32Matthew Golden is fifth in targets, but is fantasy pros wide receiver 15 rest of season.
1:36Michael Wilson is seventh in targets, but is the wide receiver 24 on their rest of season rankings.
1:41Now, obviously fantasy pros rest of season rankings. That's not the golden source.
1:44Clearly they don't have Matthew Golden all that high.
1:47But fantasy pros rankings are a indicator of market sentiment and these gaps in market sentiment between the targets and the volume
1:53we're seeing versus people's projections going forward. Those are gaps that I'm trying to exploit in the trade market because high volume
1:59guys like Malik Nabors, Matthew Golden, Michael Wilson, they have league winning potential just off volume alone and people don't always necessarily
2:05bake that in or factor that in heavily enough.
2:07A hundred percent. And you said it's a great market indicator about like how people feel about players, not just that.
2:13It's probably the number one source that a lot of your league mates are checking and they're just going to say, oh, this guy's who did you say?
2:21Michael Wilson is 24th in the rest of season rankings.
2:23For me, you started reading this stat about how much of a correlation there is between targets and fantasy finish.
2:29And I was like, this is a Michael Wilson stat right now, because obviously I cannot stop talking about this guy.
2:35But this is great. I agree with you. It seems obvious on the surface.
2:38But when you dig in, we're not actually valuing the guys who are leading the league in targets as much as we should be.
2:45Melo, I'm going to get a little nerdy here.
2:47Please do stick with me. I promise I'm going to make this simple at the end.
2:52I want to start this up by discussing something that a lot of people may be familiar with, but many people might not be.
2:58And even if you are, I have some great numbers and actionable advice that we can talk about to help you in your championships.
3:05But fantasy points per game above replacement. This is a metric that we can determine using expected fantasy points, which focuses solely
3:11on a player's workload and opportunity rather than their individual skill.
3:14So when we subtract a player's expected points from their actual points, we get a player's fantasy points over replacement.
3:19That was a lot of words, but basically we're measuring how much a player is better than the average guy at his
3:25position when he's given a specific workload or opportunity.
3:28So how can we be actionable with this? We look at the guys who have ranked highly in fantasy points over replacement,
3:34and we see who we can project to be in line for more volume and get more work going forward.
3:39Because if these guys are doing the most with the opportunities they get, they should be scoring a lot more points if
3:45they have the opportunity to get the ball more.
3:47Here are a few guys that stood out to me.
3:50First one, he's been a lot of talk right now in the fantasy space, so he's not a complete sleeper.
3:56But Blake Corum and Melo, you were so high on him this offseason.
3:59And don't look now, but in weeks five through seven, Kyron Williams, 47.4 PPR points.
4:03Blake Corum, 47.3 PPR points. Right now, he ranks sixth among all running backs with 13 fantasy points over replacement.
4:09We're seeing him get more and more volume as he's closing the gap in this split with Kyron Williams.
4:14And the data is telling us what we already knew.
4:17This guy's good. And on the opposite side, Melo, I'm going to have you jump in here.
4:21Can you name a running back that's been in a great situation for years, gotten a lot of opportunities, and both of us think is really bad?
4:29Sounds like Chase Brown to me. Yeah, Chase Brown has the second worst fantasy points per game above replacement behind only Ashton Gentty right now.
4:35I'm not going to worry about Gentty. I think there's other concerns there about the ankle injury and ramping up, and he's
4:41just not as efficient as we might have expected.
4:44But you look at Chase Brown and we're starting to see the work move a little bit towards Samaj PPR.
4:49Not too much, but enough that you're starting to get concerned.
4:52And I think that move is real. And so I'm starting to sell Chase Brown everywhere that I had him, which is
4:58not many places, but move over to the wide receiver position.
5:01We have JSN at an insane 58. Zay Flowers at an insane 37.
5:05I would rather talk about guys that you can actually go out and acquire.
5:09So let's talk about Trey Tucker, 16 fantasy points above replacement right now.
5:12I bring him up because I think a lot of people want to think this is a fluke.
5:17But I believe that between what we saw last year and how Clint Kubiak is utilizing this guy in the offense, I think it's the real deal.
5:24And I don't have a reason to believe statistically that he hasn't earned the right to get more targets.
5:30And then I'm going to wrap this up because I know this has been a long diatribe, but a negative guy, Mello,
5:36just to go right back at your first stat.
5:38I have concerns about Matthew Golden, who has a negative 24 fantasy points over a placement.
5:42And then when you talk about threats to workload, you look at the reintroduction of Josh Jacobs into this offense.
5:48You look at the reemergence of Tucker craft. And I wonder if he's already not doing as much as he should be with the opportunities he's had.
5:55Are we in line for a downtick in raw fantasy production as he loses some of this work?
6:00Yeah, that's an interesting one, too, because I can just envision a few plays that tell the story of why his points are below expected.
6:07Those drop touchdowns. I was going to say, you mean like my favorite Halloween candy, Butterfingers?
6:11Yeah, has struggled with the drops. Now, this is just at a very macro level, a very useful stat to know who's
6:17actually good, like who is actually playing well versus who is just a beneficiary of volume.
6:21And it's kind of the two different sides of the two first tasks we brought up trying to marry those together.
6:27I think it'd be really valuable to see who fits both criteria that you're looking for.
6:32Totally. And before you jump into your next stat, Mello, we always mention this, but if you have not yet subscribed, it
6:38would mean so much to us if you could hit that subscribe button, hit the bell to be notified.
6:43Every time we drop a brand new episode, you can leave a like a comment and also check us out on Spotify
6:49and Apple if you enjoy this content on your way to work.
6:52But Mello, give us your second stat. Yeah, we've been real zoomed out.
6:56So I want to zoom in and give a very narrow player specific stat here.
7:00It's a stat around Jalen Warren. Now there's all sorts of stats around Jalen Warren and how awesome he's been.
7:05Every single statistic you look at, every single metric, advanced metric you look at, Jalen Warren has been absolutely incredible.
7:10But those aren't the stats I'm going with. Here's the one I want to bring up.
7:15It's much simpler. Jalen Warren has averaged 13 carries on 62% of offensive snaps with Rico Dattel active on the field healthy
7:21while averaging 16 carries on 91% of offensive snaps without Dattel.
7:24Now this isn't meant to be a pro Rico Dattel stat, although there are reasons to have some optimism around Rico Dattel.
7:30That's not what I want to focus on either.
7:32To me, it's about Jalen Warren, who, like I mentioned, we know how incredible he's been.
7:37Every stat says if you have vision, you've seen how good he has looked.
7:40But he's coming off this phenomenal game against the putrid bottom of the barrel run defense of the Saints, where he was super efficient, super productive.
7:47The Steelers were able to run the ball so frequently because they were doing it so effectively.
7:52And it's a game where Rico Dattel also was heavily evolved.
7:55He was effective. It was his best game of the year.
7:58This might be a time to sell high on Warren because of the volume.
8:02And I don't know that it's fair that he's losing work to Rico Dattel.
8:06A lot of people would argue he shouldn't be.
8:08He should be a true workhorse. I probably would agree with that.
8:11But the reality is he's not the workhorse when Dattel plays.
8:14He is actually losing significant work in the passing game as well.
8:18Rico Dattel had six catches last week. If you have Jalen Warren, this might be a sell high window for people who
8:24are still treating him like an elite workhorse. Like I think a lot of people still are.
8:28Yeah, stick with us till the end of the episode.
8:31I actually have a Rico Dattel stat as well.
8:33But Mello, we spent so much time tooting our own horns about some of our best picks.
8:38One of our worst was saying that Rico Dattel was going to be the guy to own in this backfield.
8:44The one thing I will say about that is nobody talks about weeks one through seven in fantasy football.
8:49You talk about how it finished. And I think that this stat is here to demonstrate that weeks one through seven might
8:55not tell the full story of the Pittsburgh backfield by the time the season is said and done.
9:00Let's jump in though here and let's get to our next stat.
9:03I want to talk about yards per route run.
9:05Again, one of the more common well-known stats, but it's one of the stickiest stats for wide receivers compared to almost any
9:11other production staff or fantasy football has greater than a 0.6 correlation since 2021, according to Sumer Sports.
9:16But there's a catch. No pun intended. The catch being that the stat's only actually a good predictive indicator of future success
9:22if you have enough targets, which makes sense. Like, the larger the sample size, the more conclusive the data.
9:27We all know that. Among the elite tier, the guys who sit at the top right now are JSN and Zay Flowers,
9:33who I just mentioned in Fancy Points Above Replacement, which should be no shock to anyone.
9:38And, of course, I can't give you any actionable advice besides if you can trade for these guys, do it.
9:43So I want to take a look at some of the guys that you actually can acquire that are attainable and might be a little bit undervalued.
9:50And, Mello, before we jumped into this episode, I was talking to you about your guy, Mike Evans.
9:55Mike Evans has looked incredible. T. Higgins has looked incredible right now in the yards per route run metric.
10:01But a name that jumped off the page to me as a massive outlier, not just this year, but last year.
10:06We were touting this guy as third in the entire NFL among qualified wide receivers with at least 100 routes run last season in yards per route run.
10:14That's Luther Burden, who now ranks eighth in the same exact metric.
10:17And I'm going to point to the Fantasy Pro's rest-of-season rankings that so many people consult.
10:21This guy's not even sitting in the top 20 receivers rest of season.
10:25You look at what's happened in the past two games with Caleb Williams coming back into the offense.
10:30Believe I said it, I might butcher this stat, but it's like, what, 17.5 and 27.3 in those two games alone?
10:36The last two names I want to bring up, two guys that haven't hit that 100 routes run metric yet, mainly because they've missed a lot of time.
10:43But DJ Moore would land here as the wide receiver 12 in yards per route run just ahead of Justin Jefferson.
10:49And I think that just needs to be talked about.
10:52I already talked about him in yesterday's episode. Like, I think this is going to be a huge blow-up spot coming up against Baltimore.
10:58And if you can buy him, I'd do it right now.
11:01The other guy I'm going to talk about, and I know I'm kind of talking out both sides of my mouth here,
11:07but really small sample size, just came back from injury.
11:10Omar Cooper Jr. would rank number one in the entire NFL.
11:13I'm all in on things coming back to the mean here.
11:16Garrett Wilson getting back more involved. I just mentioned on Monday's episode, he's one of my biggest buys.
11:21But I do want to point out, because I think people thought I was being negative about Omar Cooper.
11:26I just think they're both going to be great.
11:28And I think Omar Cooper is undervalued right now.
11:31Yeah, it makes sense his yards per hour runners so high when you look at some of those deep balls he's catching.
11:37And those are the guys that are really interesting to me in this stat, because it's really an efficiency metric, right?
11:43Per route. We're looking from an efficiency standpoint. So the guys that are interesting to me are the guys who haven't been
11:49running a lot of routes, but we project to going forward, right?
11:52Like, the opposite of that would be a guy like Dalton Kincaid in previous years, where he had such a high yards
11:58per route run, but he was only on the field like 40% of times.
12:02It's like, okay, well, still from fantasy, if he's not on the field, I don't really care.
12:06And that goes back to the, like, it only really matters if he's getting the targets.
12:11Exactly, if he's getting the targets. But if there are guys with a really high yards per route run that maybe they're
12:17injured, so they haven't run too many routes yet.
12:19Or maybe they're a rookie like Omar Cooper Jr., who was also injured, but also maybe just integrating himself into the offense.
12:25Now we project those routes to go up. Those are the guys I want, because if they can still be efficient with
12:31a higher volume of routes, those are the guys that are really going to explode down the stretch.
12:36All right, I think we haven't really talked about quarterbacks yet, so can I hit on a quarterback stat here?
12:41I would love that. This is a Josh Allen glaze stat, but that's not the takeaway I want from it.
12:47My favorite kind of stat. We glaze Josh. As Patriots fans, we glaze him too much on the show.
12:52He deserves it, truly. But I think there's a bigger takeaway.
12:55There is a bigger points-per-game gap between Josh Allen, the quarterback one, and Brock Purdy, the quarterback two, than there is between
13:01Purdy and Drew Locke, the quarterback 19, in points per game.
13:04I think the craziest part of that is that Drew Locke's still the quarterback 19.
13:08Points per game. Points per game. Oh, points per game.
13:11Okay, yeah. I was like, geez, Drew Locke was slinging it.
13:14He was really slinging it those two weeks. And again, I know the big takeaway here, Josh Allen cheat code.
13:19We know he's been a cheat code for years.
13:22If you want to pay a king's ransom for him, I think it's actually worth it because of the potential positional advantage you get every single week.
13:29He's just so much fun to have. He's such a safe bet.
13:32But the bigger takeaway to me is that if you do not have Josh Allen, you need to stop stressing quarterback.
13:38Love that. If you do not have one quarterback league and don't have Josh Allen, the difference is kind of marginal at
13:44best between all of the other different guys that are in starting lineups week in and week out.
13:49And on top of that, there's really been a lack of consistency between the rest of the pack, which means there's like
13:5520 or so quarterbacks every week that have a chance to finish as a top five, six guy.
14:00Like speaking of that inconsistency, you look at Drake May, what he did the first few weeks versus what he's done since
14:06Tyler Shuck, what he did the first few weeks versus what he did since people were starting Bryce Young every single week.
14:12We saw him drop a dud against the Buccaneers like there's so much inconsistency there in the aggregate.
14:17Everyone's really in that similar range where it doesn't really matter.
14:20So because of all of that, if you want to tear down at quarterback to tear up somewhere else, that is absolutely a winning strategy.
14:26The difference between Drake May and Patrick Mahomes, who are the quarterback three and 18 respectively, and total points scored is so
14:32much less than the difference between B. John Robinson and Quinchod Judkins, who are the RB three and RB 18 respectively.
14:38Similarly, the difference between Brock Purdy and Matt Stafford, who are the quarterback two and 11 respectively, so much less than the
14:44difference between CeeDee Lamb and Tee Higgins, who are the wide receiver three and 18 respectively.
14:48So with all that said, go tear down at quarterback, even if it's considered a substantial tear down at quarterback by most people.
14:55If it really gives you an impactful upgrade at running back or wide receiver where the deviation is so much greater, that's a move you should be making.
15:02You brought up Tyler Shuck. I think that that is the perfect name because we've been getting so many comments.
15:08If you haven't checked out our TikTok, we do a lot of really good short form quick hitting stuff on all of these stats and buys and sells.
15:15But people are asking me like, oh, is it too much to add Tyler Shuck into this trade?
15:20No, if that's going to be the piece that gets it done, you put it perfectly.
15:25You should not be sweating quarterbacks once you get past Josh Allen or if you want to say like Drake May and Brock Purdy.
15:31Yeah, and don't get me wrong, like Drake May, Brock Purdy, like you mentioned, I'm obviously taking over other quarterbacks.
15:37It's just I'm prioritizing other positions. And you're right.
15:39Like the perception of those names I said, like those aren't trades you can make, right?
15:43Like you can't go out and try to trade Brock Purdy and Quinshawn Judkins for B.
15:48John Robinson and Patrick Mahomes. But you don't have to.
15:50You can still do a much bigger downgrade at quarterback for a much smaller upgrade at running back that I think is worthwhile.
15:57Yeah, and I'm going to butcher this, but I saw this quote that like just puts that exact frame of mind into action.
16:03And it's like trade for points, not positions. Look for the guys that are going to score more points, not the guys
16:09that are going to get you the most points of the position.
16:12If you have to punt quarterback because you're loading up at running back and wide receiver where you can get higher outcomes, do that.
16:19Absolutely. Well, let's move on, Mello, and we are going to jump to our final stat here.
16:23Shout out to Scott Barrett from Fantasy Points for his weighted opportunity metric that I'm going to use here.
16:29And it tells us that targets are worth 2.55 times as much for fantasy production and PPR formats as the average carry
16:35for running backs and can be worth as much as three times outside of the red zone, obviously, because a carry in
16:41the red zone is going to be more likely to get you a touchdown.
16:44And that feels silly and obvious. But sometimes when we look at running backs and PPR scoring, I think we know that
16:50we should be heavily valuing the passing work and yet we don't value it enough.
16:54And so in terms of actionable advice, I'm looking to try to get guys who have been getting an uptick in target
17:00volume that we can confidently project will continue. Because if there's a safe floor in the passing game for these running backs,
17:06then everything else we're getting in the offense on the ground and in the red area is just icing on the cake.
17:12I'm going to hit you with a higher profile guy here, Mello, and then a lower profile guy.
17:17Let's start off with a guy that we both love.
17:20Let's talk about DeAndre Swift. And the reason I'm so excited with him is that we're seeing this uptick in targets timed up with Caleb Williams' return.
17:2714 targets turning into 12 catches over the past three games went from a streak of RB16, RB23, and RB37 finishes.
17:33Since that uptick, he now has three top 12 finishes in a row, including a top five against Atlanta in week six.
17:39The thing to watch with him, obviously, is Kyle Monungay because once he gets back, it'll be interesting to see if he cuts in.
17:46But with the lingering turf toe, his return doesn't seem imminent.
17:49And even when he was out there, he only saw five targets over four games.
17:53That's not the role he plays in this offense.
17:55And so I doubt we see him make too meaningful of an impact on DeAndre Swift's target share.
18:00And to me, DeAndre Swift right now is an elite fantasy football running back in sheep's clothing.
18:05I think that people know he's amazing, but the name's not exciting.
18:08It's like literally like if he had any other name, I feel like we'd all be going crazy about DeAndre Swift if he hadn't been on 100 teams.
18:15But let's talk about the lower profile guy. And I teased this earlier.
18:19I want to talk about Rico Dowdle. And this just goes hand in hand.
18:23I think it's funny that we each had a Pittsburgh backfield stat that kind of said the same thing.
18:28But we know how good Jalen Warren's been. And despite what we saw with old man Aaron Rodgers taking off and running
18:34for that first down in Paris, most of the time he's way more likely to dump it off to either one of
18:40his running backs that have a history of being able to handle plenty of volume through the air.
18:45Since returning from the injury, Rico Dowdle ranks fourth in the entire NFL among running backs and targets over the past two weeks.
18:51Two more than Jalen Warren, something you talked about over the offseason.
18:54And I think you can get him at an incredible discount versus Jalen Warren.
18:58In fact, I think most people probably could have gotten him off of waivers yesterday.
19:02Yeah, I know Mish got him off waivers over me.
19:05Yeah, I'm very upset about it. Yeah, he's most people.
19:08I'm very sad, very disappointed. That's actually interesting. I know we're talking about the Pittsburgh backfield a lot, but I think the
19:14narrative around why people liked Warren so much is because he'd be getting the receiving work.
19:18And he has been the better of the two because he's been so efficient on the ground.
19:23But it's actually Dowdle who's been more involved in the passing game, which is really interesting.
19:27And I think Dowdle has some flex appeal rest of season if you're in a pinch.
19:31But before we get out of here, Mello, we made it.
19:34It's Thursday. Let's talk about our Thursday Night Football slip presented by Dabble.
19:38Use promo code LINEUP and get $20 instantly when you play your first 10.
19:42You can copy this slip with one click at LINEUP Mitch in app.
19:45But let's talk about who you like in this Panthers-Packers matchup.
19:48I know you're going to like this one, Mitch.
19:51It's a Jalen Coker pick over 4.5 receptions. It's just a great bounce back spot for Coker, who had just a one catch game last week.
19:58We saw Aminra St. Brown rack up nine receptions against this Green Bay defense last week.
20:02And Bryce Young could be looking to get the ball out of his hands very quickly to Jalen Coker with no Taylor Moten playing.
20:09Totally love that. Let's go to Tucker Craft over 39 and a half yards.
20:12Look at us. I'm just getting your guy Craft.
20:15You're getting my guy Coker. Tucker Craft so back.
20:17We just saw it last week. Granted, it was against the Detroit Lions JV team, but he looked great.
20:23Four for 48 and a touchdown. This Panthers defense has actually been pretty stout locking up wide receivers, but leaves a little
20:29bit of room for Craft to operate where I think they've been a bit less imposing against tight ends.
20:34He's hit this line in four of his last five.
20:36The only one he didn't hit it, he had 37 yards.
20:39He fell three yards short. I love Craft here.
20:42Yeah, that seems like a really great line for him.
20:45Let's stay with the Packers and let's go Josh Jacobs over 58 and a half rushing yards.
20:49He got 11 carries last week. That should increase in week eight as the Packers.
20:53We continue to rev him up. The Panthers have pro football focuses second lowest graded run defense and have allowed the second
20:59most fantasy points to opposing running backs per game.
21:02Great spot for Josh Jacobs. Love that. Let's wrap it up with another running back.
21:06Mello, we never do this. I'm going with a touchdown here.
21:09Ooh. I have Chuba Hubbard getting into the end zone.
21:12Four touchdowns in four games before that brutal burn the tape game against the Buccaneers.
21:16This Packers defense has looked better, but they are tied for the most rushing touchdowns allowed in the NFL right now to running backs.
21:22Chuba's going to come home to the end zone tonight on Thursday Night Football.
21:26But those were our six stats to help you win your fantasy football league.
21:30If we can extrapolate, talk about anything that can help you win your league down below, let us know in the comments.
21:36We'll also answer any start-sit trade questions or anything else we can do to help you.
21:40But Mello, before we get out of here and we enjoy the Sunday football, we'll be live on Sunday morning talking through your start-sit decisions.
21:47Did we miss anything? I got nothing. All right.
21:49We'll catch you guys next episode.
