Your site ranking stink. Davante Adams is way too low!
Your site rankings make no sense. Denard Robinson is at least a fantasy RB2!
Your site rankings are worthless. Jordan Cameron is a stud!
Nothing gets the buzzards fired up quite like a contrarian ranking fading their player. Every week, XNSports.com and PlayerProfiler.com publish player rankings. Like a Vegas sharp’s top-3 plays against the spread, a fantasy “expert’s” weekly player ranking is a gambling exercise dressed in a skill costume. While some utilize an analytical process to generate the results, so much randomness occurs every week on an NFL field that no one can exactly predict the top-12 players at any given position on any given Sunday, much less the top-75. Yet, the public thirsts for gambling tips, and the fantasy analyst community is tasked with delivering a precisely ranked list of predicted weekly performances.
While any player can disappoint on any given week even while enjoying a juicy match-up, the exercise is not pure guesswork. An analytical process focusing on the most predictive data points does generate better results than a more “feel-based” process. FantasyPros.com has built an entire web platform based on this truism. Indeed, a more accurate and delicious player rankings special sauce can be concocted by weighting certain advanced metrics more than others.
Herein lies the critical difference between redraft leagues and dynasty leagues. Redraft league success boils down to the one’s ability to run a situation-weighted formula to set an optimal lineup streaming the right players at the right time. In deep dynasty leagues, fantasy gamers don’t have this luxury. They must build a team primarily based on a player’s long-term productivity, not short-term opportunity.
Today, we focus on the single most important component of a successful redraft league player rankings methodology: Opportunity. Opportunity trumps player efficiency. Opportunity trumps match-up. Opportunity trumps past production.
Kenny Stills
Kenny Stills is fast. Very fast. Per PlayerProfiler.com, his athletic profile is also one-dimensional:
40-time: 4.38 (94th percentile)
Burst Score: 119.0 (37th percentile)
Agility Score: 11.26 (38th percentile)
Athleticism Score: 98.1 (38th percentile)
Kenny Stills is above average in only one category, but that one category is game breaking, fantasy match-up winning speed. Even more importantly, Stills is receiving significant snaps and targets from one Andrew Christopher Brees, better known as Drew. With Brandin Cooks now out for the year with a broken thumb, Stills has stepped into the starting split end/X wide receiver position for a Saints team averaging 26.3 points and 42.3 pass plays per game, second in the NFL behind only the Indianapolis Colts. Over the past four weeks, according to Pro Football Focus, Stills has averaged 34 routes run per game and a 15.6-percent target share as the primary deep threat for the most accurate NFL quarterback — Drew Brees‘ 70.2-percent completion percentage leads the league.
Kenny Stills is the prototypical situational fantasy asset. While his athletic profile is not particularly exciting, few players can match Stills’ volume and opportunity to score a touchdown on any given play. In fact, the opportunity component of the player rankings special sauce alone boosts Stills into my top-20 fantasy wide receivers this week.
Dan Herron
Like Kenny Stills, Dan Herron‘s PlayerProfiler.com workout metrics are uninspiring:
40-time: 4.66 (22nd percentile)
Burst Score: 118.0 (41st percentile)
Agility Score: 11.01 (82nd percentile)
Athleticism Score: 101.1 (64th percentile)
Like Kenny Stills, Dan Herron has one above average physical attribute, but that one attribute — agility — is critical. As the NFL continues to emphasize spread-based offensive systems, pure quickness is increasingly important for running backs, particularly on passing downs. Shawn Siegele’s research discovered that both receptions per touch and receptions per snap were correlated with Agility Score.
Like Kenny Stills, Dan Herron’s overall situation is ideal. Since Ahmad Bradshaw went down with a fractured fibula, Herron’s 27 total touches have not been ideal. More encouragingly, he has received 55.1-percent of all running back carries and targets. Herron has not only assumed Bradshaw’s touches, his role on offense has expanded beyond Bradshaw’s previous RB opportunity share. The Colts may not be near the top of the league in running plays, but they do run more total plays than any other team in the league. Whether Dan Herron is getting carries or receptions, he will benefit from being the defacto No. 1 running back for a Colts team that leads the league with 31.8 points scored per game. Herron, like Bradshaw before him, is well-positioned to receive significant red zone touches down the stretch.
Like Kenny Stills, Dan Herron is the prototypical situational fantasy asset. As a featured running back on prolific offense, regardless of athleticism or past performance, Herron is one of the few NFL running backs with a fantasy RB1 ceiling.
Richard Rodgers
Richard Rodgers is unlike Kenny Stills and Dan Herron. Rodgers’ PlayerProfiler.com athletic profile has no redeeming qualities:
40-time: 4.87 (20th percentile)
Burst Score: 113.1 (27th percentile)
Agility Score: 11.70 (28th)
Athleticism Score: 97.7 (25th percentile)
Richard Rodgers‘ workout metrics are all well below average. Yet, Ted Thompson, who has one of the better reputations for NFL talent evaluation, graded Rodgers high enough to draft him in the third round of the 2014 draft.
As I mentioned on a recent RotoUnderworld Radio episode, the tight end position has smelled like a combination of sewage and garbage water this season. Over the past two weeks, only three tight ends surpassed 10 fantasy points in standard scoring formats each week. Yuck. Given the pathetic state of the tight end position, chasing touchdowns makes some sense.
Though his target share has been relatively small, Richard Rodgers has been one of the league’s most efficient tight ends. Over the past four weeks, Richard Rodgers has averaged a greater than 50-percent snap share and scored in two straight games. He is clearly building trust both with the coaching staff and Aaron Rodgers in the red zone. Based on opportunity and situation alone, Rodgers is a better deep league speculative dart-throw than Mychal Rivera and Anthony Fasano, who play on bottom tier, low volume offenses.
Opportunity is the key ingredient in redraft league player rankings, and for Stills, Herron, and Rodgers, opportunity is everything.
Matt Kelley (@fantasy_mansion) is an XN Sports contributor and founder of RotoUnderworld (@rotounderworld) and PlayerProfiler.com, which distills a wide range of advanced metrics into a single player snapshot.
