Ultimate Fantasy Football Info: Kurt Turner

Throughout the years I've heard things like "always start your studs" and "don't get cute". These phrases usually come about when a person is trying to determine who to start and who to sit. The purpose of this article is to explain the criteria most likely to produce a winning fantasy football lineup. I will use historical data to back my theories. You will learn how to use data to build a criteria for each position. This will help you identify the best possible starters. You'll be able to reference this criteria for both DFS and full season leagues. When you're done reading you'll know my criteria for creating winning fantasy football lineups for NFL DFS and my full season fantasy football leagues.

But First, The Misconceived Criteria

Before we go into specific criterion for each position we will hash out some basic misconceptions when creating fantasy football lineups. Common misconceptions that pollute our minds when creating lineups and rankings. The reason I want to talk about the misconceptions first is because the misconceptions are used as the baseline criteria for most fantasy team managers. We are going to change that today.

Misconception #1: Always Start Your Studs

Nothing could be further from the truth, sometimes. Not starting your studs is going to be hard. But you have to buy-in to this before moving forward with this article. You'll soon see that predicting upside is fairly easy to do and on any given Sunday rolling the dice with your RB3 over your RB1 isn't such a roll of the dice. So I submit to you today that you indeed do not need to always start your studs. When following the position by position criteria I outline later in this article this will start to become a much more palatable idea.

Misconception #2: Ride The Hot Hand

Some people firmly believe in riding the hot hand. But more often than not NFL football players rarely out perform the previous weeks strong performance. DFS players in-particular fall victim to recency bias. Just look at the ownership percentages on FanDuel and DraftKings. The table below shows us the percentage of players that outperformed their previous weeks performance when the previous weeks performance was 5 points over projection. 5 points over projection means: if the player was projected for 20 fantasy points but scored 25 fantasy points.

Position	Percentage Outperform
Quarterbacks	37.90%
Running Backs	43.60%
Wide Receivers	40.66%
Tight Ends	26.20%
Defenses	49.27%
Kickers	38.02%

As you can see, less than 50% of the time a player out performed the previous weeks "hot hand" performance. The only time I ride the hot hand is when I'd start the guy anyway. We will go into this more in-depth position by position next, but here's the basics for those of you without access to the member only content.

The player is consistently the focal point of the offense.
The player is not impacted by game flow. Meaning they produce regardless of the score, down and distance.
The weather is "good football weather", read more on this topic here.
The defense isn't known to take away a player. Researching how the defense attacks teams with similar weapons pays huge dividends. As an aside, FPA (fantasy points allowed) usually doesn't paint a clear picture when you drill down into how teams game plan. Pass performance of not only the player in question but players of similar talent really can help you make the right call. As the season begins to unfold, say by week 5, you can really start to narrow things down. This plays a large role in our criteria so let's jump into that now.

The Baseline Criteria

Since we can't predict the future, we have to lean on historical data and forward looking information to create our criteria. Basic information such as weather, home/road, Vegas over/under and implied team totals help get the party started. Then we look at defensive performance, particularly the weakness of a defense and if they tend to funnel production toward a particular area of offense. This has nothing to do with hot hands or who you drafted with your 1st, 2nd or 10th round. It's all about identifying opportunity and capitalizing on it. Injuries, particularly to the offensive line, play a major role in everyone's production. Therefore, how offensive line injuries impact each position needs to be reviewed. Let's break down the criteria for each position so you can create winning fantasy football lineups going forward.

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Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Week 9 Pass Defense Versus Receiver Type Heat Map

Which wide receivers, tight ends and running backs have the best receiving match-up in week 9? The goal of this article is to highlight where an offensive may choose to attack a defense based on the past results of their opponents defense. In this copy cat league, once a team exploits a certain area of your defense other teams will follow suit. Using this heat map we can pin point the most favorable areas to target in in week 9. We look at the pass targets and yardage for RB, WR1, WR2, WR3 and TE. We then creating heat maps to showcase where each team has been getting exposed via the pass. You'll also see I've added the team defense fantasy points allowed by position to help you figure out the favorable matchups.

Last Weeks Results

Here's the week 8 heat map. Missed the mark on a couple and hit on most others. For example: Julio Jones didn't go off, but he got hurt (knee bruise) so Sanu when off instead. That's the volatility we're all too aware of in fantasy football.
I had to add DvP (fantasy points allowed per position) to the heat map. This is because the heat map looks at production on the field more so than fantasy points. Fantasy points is what we're after and combining the visual heat map with DvP and the Vegas odds we can get pretty close to figuring out where the best opportunities exist.

Week 9 Pass Defense Versus Position Heat Map

So here's who I like this week per the heat map.

Jordy Nelson hasn't gone off in awhile now so he's due for a big one. Based on our DL vs OL chart, Rodgers should have that extra second needed for Jordy to get deep. If Vontae Davis is out for the Colts, their top DB, I'm playing Jordy for darn sure. Otherwise I may pivot to Adams.
Carolina showed up last week but JJ Nelson still found his way into the FanDuel perfect lineup. Britt or Tavon Austin has a serious chance to feast on a burnable Carolina defense. My bet is Britt if he's healthy.
Corey Coleman or Terrelle Pryor is primed to have a huge day as the Cowboys just lost top CB Morris Claiborne to a multi-week groin injury. This makes the Browns an interesting plays in DFS. Both Coleman and Pryor have tags though so watch their injury report updates with our player tracker.
TY Hilton isn't a player you needed me to highlight.
Brandon Cooks is the WR to own in New Orleans vs SF.
ATL and TEN running backs represent the best PPR matchups.
Pitta, Ebron and Brate all have solid matchups at tight end.

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