Week 1 Targets and Touches

By John Bush
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Updated: September 18, 2020

Week 1 Targets and Touches

Week 1 Targets and Touches. My weekly routine is analyzing various fantasy football metrics including:

Snaps per Second of Offensive Possession. See Below
https://www.fakepigskin.com/2020/09/16/week-1-snaps-report-2/
Targets and Touches
Vegas Over Under Lines
Defense Against the Position
My Rankings with Uncertainty Analysis.

We must deal with decisions under uncertainty in fantasy football.

**A range of potential futures can be identified at level three uncertainty. A limited number of key variables (See Above) define that range, but the actual outcome may lie anywhere within it. There are no natural discrete scenarios.

** https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/strategy-under-uncertainty#

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Week 1 Team Target Averages and Scaled Targets vs League Average

Week 1 Targets and Touches. I always begin in a top down approach and in this case, I focus onto the top target generating teams. Clear value in PPR scoring! I then highlight the extremes from High (green) and Low (red) of all the NFL teams.

I also consider the amount of data and our floor is not solid with just one week of data but the more weeks then better these metrics will become.

The ATL team was at 6.5 Targets and was above the league. The reason why Gage the WR3 was viable. Watch this to determine if ATL is going to pass and pass! I might grab Gage in case ATL is all pass. Additionally, BUF NYJ ARI DAL PHI DET GB IND WAS CAR and LAC were also high in targeting.

The low targeting teams were JAX MIN LV DEN CHI TB PIT HOU LAR CLE BAL NO and SF. The limited data of one week 1 is an issue but consider the reasons and I am cautious of the receivers.

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Scaled Team Targets Week 1

Week 1 Targets and Touches. The visual view of the team targets is shown below. I like to graph data points in comparison of the league average. This allows me in a glance to see what teams were above or below average of Targets.

Additionally, I colorized the bars with green vs red. Consider the reasons why and is this week going to be different? Finally, use Vegas and Defense against the Positions (DAPS) to investigate that question!

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Team Position and Player Targets and Positional Targeting Efficiency

Week 1 Targets and Touches. I next drill down into these metrics within each Team. Fantasy Football is a weekly Team based game! Secondly, I added the Targeting Efficiency (targets by snaps – normalized on a scale of 100 to 0) for each player.

These tables contain:

Team
Position
Player
Targets
Positional Target Efficiency

I like to use as a reference in context of Vegas and DAPs. Is the pecking order real? Is the production real and will be replicated this week?

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Targets and Efficiency Within Positions.

Week 1 Targets and Touches. You must also consider the player’s ranking among their position. High in the team but Low in the league is different than High and High. That should give your concerns for league lower players in targets. Weak teams are know to have poor depth in PPR scoring.

I would move to the tops on the leagues for week 2 DFS and your line-ups!

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Running Backs

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Tight Ends

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Wide Receivers

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Player Targets Across Positions

Week 1 Targets and Touches. In the overall player Targeting Efficiency, you can see that the TE is a surprise in the top 25 players. The idea that TEs are a punt position is not true. It is clear that TEs can win your league! Apply your thinking to the TE, do not avoid or throw in a body in your Week 2 DFS and Weekly Line-ups. FYI I did take Goedert in the waivers cheaply in 10 of my 53 leagues. 🙂

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Running Back Touches with % Rushing vs Receiving

RBs are the most difficult position in fantasy football because they rush and catch. That fact then opens more possibilities within the game. Therefore, we must consider that extra dimension especially in PPR leagues.

The easy RB to figure is one that does both catch and rush (i.e. Gurley 78% Rush and 50% Receiving). The harder RBs are the pass-catcher only types as they are game script dependent. Thus if you have a pass catcher RB (ie Edmonds 71% catching), you must consider the way that game might go. See Vegas and DAPs as a foundation for your thinking.

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Bar Graph of Rushing and Attempts

This Bar Graph allows a scan across 4 teams for their RBs. I have plotted the Attempts (Red Bar) and Targets (Yellow Bars) for each player on that team.

Additionally, I have placed a red dashed line to mark the league average in week 1 rushing attempts and yellow dashed line to mark the target average for RBs in week 1. I use to determine the players that are in the extremes and consider if week 2 might continue or break this pattern.