Week 6 Over/Under Valued Players

Are the Giants the new slump busters?

Housekeeping

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Week 6 PPR Rankings

I am going to try to add other sites to this analysis soon, feel free to suggest sites you find better than ESPN in the comments or in slack!

I am going add analysis as best I can. I won’t always have time to get to both STD and PPR.

What is this post about?

In this post, I want to review the top and bottom 5 difference in points between ESPN and Gridiron AI at each position. There are two main reasons I find this valuable :

The players that have a high variance represent either upside or downside risk depending on who’s ranking you think is more accurate. Looking at multiple different rankings put together by different companies could lead to better decisions. In theory, ESPN’s model is not built the same way our model is built (this is probably true but we don’t have insight into their methods). It’s DIY ensemble learning.

Key PPR findings this week:

QB:

Tom Brady is lower than I would have liked given how KC is throwing points up like mad. There is definitely upside based on our rankings. We have Mahomes throwing for 3 TD and almost 400 yards. If he does that, no way Brady doesn’t outperform our ranking.

Outside of Tom Brady, ESPN doesn’t really have anyone higher than us. We have a lot of QBs way higher than ESPN.

Eli Manning did not perform well last night. I don’t think anyone is starting him and I am OK with where the AI ranked him because of how bad the Eagles D has been. Mariota looked like a God a few weeks ago. Eli might be done, he can probably join his brother and do some commercials.

Mahomes is amazing, he didn’t do so great last week but NE is not as good as Jacksonville. You are probably starting him every week regardless of where he is ranked on any site.

BAKER MAYFIELD. He’s been throwing the ball 40 times a game. Last week he had 350 yards and 1 touchdown. In every game since 2009, when a QB has thrown for 350 yards, they have had 3 or more TDs 237 times, 2 TDs 133 times, and 1 TD 77 times. If he gets that yardage again, I like his odds of getting more TDS.

RB

Last week we got burned by James Conner, this week we have a reasonable projection. Last week his usage increased 25%, PIT said they were going to use him more and they did.

Royce Freeman is going to be running the ball in snowy conditions, I don’t really have any analysis on the performance of RBs in games where there is snow. This says usage is generally higher but I didn’t verify their data. Our AI is NOT taking into account game conditions right now.

taking into account game conditions right now. We have Jamaal Williams with .15 receiving TDs and .25 rushing TDs, that is driving this difference between us and ESPN.

Hunt is really good. We have him with 87 Yards and .7 TDs. ESPN has him at 65 yards and .5 TDS.

I don’t really know what to with the MIA RB situation. I own Drake and have to start him but who knows if last week will hold or MIA will go back to Gore.

WR

Brady has a lot of guys to throw to so Edelman might be risky this week. He didn’t do much last week. Our AI is low on Brady. If Brady outperforms our projections, Edelman should as well

Outside of Edelman, ESPN doesn’t really have anyone higher than us. We have a lot of WRs way higher than ESPN.

Jordy Nelson is still getting a ton of targets. He had 4 last week but has been averaging around 8. He was out for 88% of snaps too. He has been averaging ~80% of snaps per game. A good way to get targets is to be on the field.

Crabtree is a good candidate for positive regression. PFR agrees. Crabtree might not be good but the upside is there.

Jackson is playing the Falcons, the Falcons pass D is terrible. I don’t need much other analysis

I’ll reuse my analysis from last week about John Brown

John Brown might actually be good? He was a 1000 yd receiver in 2015

TE

For the TE’s that matter, ESPN doesn’t have anyone that is projected for a ton more points than us

Vance McDonald. It’s hard to recommend him after last game.

I’ll reuse this from last week on Kittle too (he’s projected for more points this week). Kittle ended up with 13 points last week.

Kittle is on the field for a ton of plays and is really good. I don’t think PPR 15 Points is a reach.

Jimmy Graham is on the field ~86% of all snaps, he’s also been getting 6+ targets a game, those are odd’s I like to play.

Notes about the Graphs below:

The bar is the difference between ESPN’s Projected Points and Gridiron AI’s projected points. A positive value means ESPN is more bullish on the player. A negative value means Gridiron AI is more bullish.

PPR