Target Share Report: Week Ten
Welcome back to the target share report where we look at the usage from the previous week to try and understand which players are doing well and who is struggling. I keep playing with that opening line but it never feels right. Essentially we look at opportunity, primarily for wide receivers, and try to find dynasty significant takeaways. We’re looking for information that may help us in dynasty leagues.
You can also join on live stream every week while I collect and discuss first impressions of each week’s stats live on stream on twitch, periscope and YouTube.
I know there’s always a lot going on in my tables. I’d love to roll it all up into one number and use graphs to pretend I’ve created a special, super-duper, stat to tell you everything. But, it’d be a lie. If you want to look at one number? Try Expected Points Per Game (EPG) but the others provide more context and information.
I include information about the stats I utilize at the end of the article again if you’d like to know more about any of them.
Enough preamble, let’s get nerdy up in here.
Target Share Leaders
Davante Adams, WR GB
Adams is outscoring the nearest wide receiver, on a points-per-game basis, by six. This needs some context.
There have been seven wide receivers to average over 24 points per game since the year 2000. The last one was Odell Beckham in 2014, playing 12 games.
Adams is currently scoring 27 points per game and more than any wide receiver I can find since 2000.
He is my dynasty WR1.
Terry McLaurin, WR WAS
This is not our first time noticing McLaurin this year. He currently has the highest Dominator rating in 2020. Essentially that’s how he’s doing a lot of what he has this season – he’s creating over half the receiving offense of the team. The only other player over 50% is Adam Thielen, if you’re wondering.
Tyler Lockett, WR SEA
I think I’ll take this as a win after defending his target share last week. He’s back in the top 12, you should expect more down weeks, but I personally don’t see a reason to sit him in any given week.
Carolina Targets
Robby Anderson has a, comparatively, low aDot to the rest of his career and seems allergic to touchdowns. So let’s see if it’s costing him opportunity already.
DJ Moore has been increasing his target share over the last four weeks. Outside of a week nine, when the passing game was shut down, essentially, by the Chiefs (and dissolved into check downs to Robby Anderson). This culminated in another “blow up” game in week ten.
However, this has not really come at Anderson’s expense. While he did lose a 9% of his target share in week ten, he has still maintained a 21% target share, and in the three weeks before that he never dropped below 30%.
Moore is playing the higher aDot, more valuable, role at increasingly higher levels of volume. But Anderson’s floor looks stable.
In dynasty? I hope you’ve been buying Moore.
Touchdown Regression
While we are talking about Robby Anderson, let’s take a quick look at the other players currently “due” some more touchdowns if their opportunity keeps up.
Remember players typically hover between 100 and 200 yards per touchdown. All these players are over 400 yards per touchdown, so they should have more touchdowns, essentially, and should core touchdowns at a higher rate in the following weeks.
Week 10’s Losers
… Because losers just sounds better than “underproductive”. Here are the players who underproduced their volume in a way that ranks top ten at their position so far this season, in week ten.
JD McKissic, RB WAS
Well, I guess the team has to use someone other than McLaurin. While I know his points have been great the last two weeks, and his usage has been quietly good in 2020, please know he’s still who you likely already thought he was. He has a decent floor, as a running gobbling up targets, but he’s not great with them.
Noah Fant, TE DEN
The loss of Albert Okwuegbunam has stabilized Fant’s role. This reminds us that Okwuegbunam was actually playing well in 2020, but also that Fant was one of the most likely players at the position to break into the top 12 in 2020, and so far that’s happening.
Nick Foles and Drew Lock kinda, sorta, just suck, for anyone who hadn’t noticed. Back away slowly, like the Bears already did.
A view of Rookie Wide Receivers
Here are rookie wide receivers with more than seven points per game sorted by Yards Per Team Attempt.
Yes, this is currently my favorite way of sorting one of the best rookie wide receiver class we’ve seen. Most, if not all, are passed the threshold of opportunity that indicates more likely fantasy relevance going forwards. From there it’s difficult to say any one, or series of stats, indicates how they will rank in the future.
However;
- Most wide receivers who go on to have multiple top-24 seasons have a YPTmAtt over 1.
- We should expect a higher YPTmAtt from players with higher aDots. (So don’t panic Chase Claypool, Denzel Mims, Jerry Jeudy etc, based on that one threshold.)
- It is harder to maintain a stat like YPTmAtt with more volume and in a greater sample. Having said that, Brandon Aiyuk has been more impressive, so far, than I had really recognized.
- Jalen Reagor is the only player in my top tier of 2020 ranks who hasn’t already ballooned up in dynasty value. His volume is good, however. I do what to see his YPTmAtt rise a little from here on out. It’s… worrying. As worrying as Darnel Mooney’s, but at least Reagor has draft capital to insulate his opportunity.
- Except Denzel Mims’ Dominator rating to rise to meet his targets share and YPTmAtt. In other words, I imagine he’ll be a much larger % of the team’s yards and touchdowns going forward.
- CeeDee Lamb and Justin Jefferson should, I think, be held over Tee Higgins in value. But, I’m not sure everyone has realized how close it should be. Higgins is having just as good of a year as anyone this year.
Okay, that’s about all I have time for this week. Feel free to ask or comment about anything below or on Twitter.
Thanks again.
Peter Howard.
@Pahowdy
Addendum: The Stats explained
Real quick, here are the stats I’m using this week and what they are good for.
YD/TM Att: Yards per team pass attempt
This takes the Pass and Rush attempts of the player’s team each week and divides the player’s total yards against it. It’s a simple, yet powerful combination of efficiency and volume. It has a high R squared value in stickiness (it stays relatively consistent week over week and year over year).
It’s a good statistic to sort players by within a position.
PPG: PPR points per game
Fairly common stat that’s often undervalued these days. Depending on the sample, PPG is actually the stickiest and most accurate stat for predicting production.
EPG: Expected Points per game
This is based on rotoviz.com’s expected points formula (which I don’t know) but essentially measures how “valuable” the touches a player has received. It can be seen as a more accurate volume metric removing the player’s “efficiency” from the equation and just looking at how much value they are “given” by the team for fantasy points.
FPOE/G: Fantasy points over expected per game
Also a rotoviz stat, it gives us an idea of if a player is underperforming (negative number) or overperforming (positive number) their “given” volume. In other words, how efficient they have been.
TD Rate: Yards per Touchdown
Players typically average between 100 and 200 yards per touchdown. To be more accurate, if you’re like that, in 2020 (with more than 20 targets) wide receivers are averaging around 175 yards per touchdown, RBs are averaging 130 yards per touchdown, and tight ends are averaging 160.
Essentially, outside of this range, it tells us who may “regress” in touchdowns in the coming weeks.
Percentage of games with seven targets or more:
This one is fairly self-explanatory. I use it as a context check for target share. A high target share in a low passing offense isn’t as “good” as a lower target share in a high passing offense in terms of expected targets.
UDFA's matter | British ex-pat | Writer of things
- Peter Howard: Dynasty Fantasy Football Superflex Rankings Explained - March 6, 2024
- Dynasty Target and Regression Trends: Week 15 - December 23, 2023
- Dynasty Target and Regression Trends: Week 14 - December 16, 2023
