Fantasy Football Beneath the Surface: Week 7
Fantasy Football Beneath the Surface
Another week of NFL football, another pile of data to sift through looking for clues. Clues as to what leads to certain results and clues for speculating what might be coming next. They say, “looks can be deceiving.” The same can be said for surface-level statistics in fantasy football. In this weekly article series, I will be looking beneath the statistical surface, beyond the standard box score, using the premium statistics provided by FantasyData, including advanced and efficiency metrics across the fantasy skill positions, to search for puzzle pieces that fit together.
Hold the Line
Week 7 of the 2022 NFL Season is upon us. As we rapidly approach the season’s half-way point, some of the tumultuous early season results have been stabilizing. The first few weeks of a fantasy season will always see surprising names jumping to the top of leaderboards, while some “studs” leave us questioning our draft choices. It is inevitable because of the way fantasy success is measured. Touchdowns and big games from “out of nowhere” players can skew the perception of what is likely to happen as the sample size grows. As the offseason comes to an end and we tell ourselves to not overreact to the first few games, it becomes easier said than done once the action starts. After months of speculating and forming visions of how things will play out, it is difficult to remain patient and hold the line once we go from zero NLF games in six months to 16 NFL games in four days.
RB Opportunity Share (OS)
But now we are to Week 7. Certain players we spent high draft capital on, who got off to slow starts, are now finding their groove. In this article, I will be discussing RBs, by first looking at one of the most important metrics for RBs: Opportunity Share (OS).
OS measures an RB’s share of the team’s RB Rush attempts and targets. OS is one of the more predictive metrics for RBs when it comes to fantasy output. I showed this in a preseason article discussing David Montgomery’s ADP, but it helps show the correlation. The following shows RBs who have finished with a 75%+ OS since 2012.
There have been 46 occurrences in that time frame. Thirty-six of 46 (78.3%) finished as a Top 12 RB in PPR points per game (PPG). Now, 75% is an excellent number to attain, and it makes sense that it has correlated to higher fantasy points output. Currently, there are nine RBs above the 75% mark. The following chart shows the Top 36 RBs in OS (minimum of three games played, Javonte Williams and Rashaad Penny are not included due to being out for the season).
Seeing a healthy Christian McCaffrey and Saquon Barkley atop this list is not surprising. According to FantasyData’s advanced RB metrics, during the last two seasons in which McCaffrey and Barkley were both healthy, they put up the following numbers:
Six of the nine RBs above 75% are currently in the Top 12 (66.7%), which is slightly under the historical average but right in line with what we’ve seen. The most surprising name near the top of this list is Josh Jacobs, who before 2022 had not hit a 70% OS in the previous three seasons. I’ve been monitoring Jacobs as this uptick in opportunities began to stand out early in the season. I was curious if this career-high number would continue or was just a product of an early-season small sample size. But it seems Josh McDaniels coming to Las Vegas (along with Kenyan Drake being gone) has led to Jacobs being unleashed as a true bell cow RB, something Jacobs fans have been hoping for since he entered the league in 2019.
Now, season-long market share stats and fantasy PPG overall rank can only tell us so much. Yes, most of the players at the top of this list are also at the top of the fantasy PPG list. But we can’t all have a team full of season-long 75%+ OS RBs. There are multiple names lower in these season-long ranks who merit recognition based on which direction they are trending.
RB Opportunity Share Trends
In addition to overall target share, the following group of charts includes:
- Difference between Week 1 OS (or first game played) and overall OS.
- Difference between Week 1 OS (or first game played) and Week 6 OS (or most recent game played)
- OS over the last three games (Last 3)
- Difference between the Last 3 and overall OS
Positive Trends
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Scott Rinear
My name is Scott Rinear and I live in Seattle, Washington with my wife, two daughters and golden retriever (Jasper). Our biggest passion as a family is camping. We camp at least 10 times a year. My biggest passion personally is fantasy football. I have been playing fantasy football since 2006 and started producing content in 2020. I am a lifelong Seahawks and Mariners fan and will continue my fandom for the SuperSonics once they return to Seattle. I love everything about football, especially analytics and data analysis, and I’m a sucker for a good spreadsheet. I am a proud member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association (FSWA).