395: Early-Season Schedule Analysis

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Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with your host JJ zacherthas j shake Zacher reson What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyesen, the editor in chief at FanDuel and at Number five dot com in this episode three hundred and ninety five of the Late Round podcast on the many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. Some analysts think that looking at teams schedules for fantasy football purposes that it's a worthless exercise. Does it really matter if at the beginning of the year in August? Does it matter if a quarterback that you like has a tough schedule? Like I say all the time on this show, we're going to be wrong all the time, and predicting which teams will be tough matchups that can sometimes seem like a meaningless thing to do. There are reasons to examine schedules, though. First off, we should be looking at any sort of edge that we can get in order to build the best fantasy football roster possible. Even if schedule analysis doesn't dramatically move the needle, it's still something to keep in mind. But second, fantasy football is a game about value the players that you have on your roster. You want them to not only produce fantasy points, but you want them to increase in value, and that's done by looking at how the rest of your league perceives that player. That's a huge reason that I dig into early season schedule analysis every single year. Sure, you want a good start to your fantasy season, but you also want to draft players in August who are going to see an increase in value once the middle of September hits. And you don't want the opposite because let's say that you get a wide receiver in round three who you feel really good about, but to start the year, that wide receiver has objectively tough matchups on paper. If that player struggles, or if that player plays below expectation, then his value drops. That means you'll have a tougher time trading him, but you also might have a tougher time starting him. Doubt creeps into your mind, even though tough opponents could hypothetically explain away his bad start to the season. You, as a human, you're gonna think that other things are at play. To me, it's less about the entire schedule for players because things can change and injuries can happen. I'm more concerned about the start of the year in order to not only get your team going and have a winning record to kick things off, but to have confidence in the players that you draft. So today we're gonna look at some of those early season schedules, and I'll provide players that you may want to target or avoid based on those schedules. I don't think this type of analysis is everything, but it certainly has helped in the past. Last season, just as an example, this analysis pinpointed Dak Prescott because of his opponents in Week one through Week three. Now, Dak was an awesome fantasy has said, but he was the QB two, the QB three, and the QB seven. Over his first three games, he averaged almost twenty eight points per game. It also pinpointed Mark Ingram, who kicked off the season with a twenty three point outing, and then on the flip side, the analysis said to avoid Aaron Rodgers and Devonte Freeman and Darius Geist too, but that doesn't really count. But Rogers kicked off the year with three straight sub fifteen point performances and Devonte Freeman's first three games were well below his average too. Last year didn't really have obvious misses, but there will be misses. I'm just saying that analysis like this is about finding a small edge and increasing your probability of getting appreciating assets. Now, before get into the analysis, I want to let you guys know that with Major League Baseball back, Fandel is celebrating by giving away ten dollars in site credit to all new and existing users. That's right, Fandel is crediting all of its users with ten dollars to use on either Daily Fantasy or on the Fandel Sportsbook, no strings attached, and if baseball isn't your thing, you'll have another opportunity to put the funds to use when the NBA returns on July thirtieth. Log into your account or sign up on Fandel today to claim your free cash. For more details, was it fandel dot Com or download the Fandel app today. Eligibility restrictions apply. So I'm gonna look at the favorable side first, and then we'll get into players that you may want to think twice about drafting. In the second part of this show, the Chargers are one team that you have to like to start the year. The problem is we don't know what the quarterback situation is really going to look like and because of that, we've got far less confidence with that offense in general. But the Chargers get Cincinnati to start the year, and then they'll face Kansas City and Carolina. I've said this before on the show, but the Panthers could end up having the worst defensive unit in the NFL this year, and LA is a three and a half point favorite with a forty four and a half point over under in Week one against Cincinnati according to Fandels Sportsbook, they should be able to score some points. Even though I'm a little bit lower versus the consensus on Austin Eckler this year, it does make me feel a little bit more bullish on him. As a second rounder last season against Kansas City and two games, Eckler combined for twenty three targets. I doubt we see that type of volume with a new quarterback and likely a more conservative offense, but he should outplay his fourteen attempts. So you've got the negative game script possibility against the Chiefs, which can help him in PPR formats, and that sandwich between average to ad advantageous matchups against the Bengals and the Panthers. I also think this plays into Tyrod Taylor being a potential deep streamer to start the year, and I stress the word deep, but I don't think that he's the go to streamer to kick off the season. Instead, depending on where his EIGHTYP lands, I think that's Cam Newton. You can just draft Cam Newton as your starter too. He doesn't have to be a streamer. You don't have to enter the season thinking streaming with Cam Newton. But New England has the benefit of kicking off their season against Miami as a seven point favorite. The Dolphins enter the year with one of the worst projected wind totals and they don't have a defensive front that scares me at all against Cam Newton. It's risky, of course, because we haven't seen Cam play in a while. But if Cam is the starter and if he's ready to go, I'd be fine playing him in Week one, and if things go well there, he's still got average enough matchups against Seattle, Vegas and Kansas City from weeks two through week four. I don't think this means that you should target Sony Michelle, though Miami should be fine for Michelle in deeper leagues. In Week one, but with everyone healthy, you probably don't need to start Sony Michelle. Even though the matchups on paper after that game aren't terrible, you have to fear a negative game script against Seattle in Kansas City that could limit Sony Michelle's scoring. Cam is the one that I would want to target from New England. And then there's the Bills. The Bills don't have a super scary matchup on their schedule until about New England in Week eight. They'll face the Jets, Dolphins, Rams, Raiders, Titans, Chiefs, and Jets all up until that point. Like I said, there's nothing really that scary about that. The other point to make here, too, is that three of their first four games are against teams with projected win totals that are under eight, so they're below average teams. That means the potential for positive game scripts, which should help their running backs. So I wouldn't be shocked if Devin Singletary got off to a hot start this season. Despite the fact that I think that Singletary is a little bit overvalued in fantasy drafts, I still like targeting Zach Moss as well, and this type of start of the season schedule wise, should help out Zach Moss to do. Keep in mind with Buffalo, though, that they get Pittsburgh, Denver, and New England in the Fantasy playoffs this year. Those aren't ideal matchups, especially with the anchors of Pittsburgh and New England, but the start to their season is pretty nice, and I especially like it for running backs. Arizona is another team that I'm a little bit intrigued by for a lot of reasons, but the schedule is one of those reasons. They have a tough Week one opponent in the forty nine ers, but the Cardinals played them pretty well last season, and their two matchups against San Francisco they scored twenty five and twenty six points. The good news is that after San Francisco is Washington, Detroit, Carolina, and then the Jets. Those are four teams with projected win totals under seven according to Fandels Sportsbook, and they're all matchups where Arizona's going to be projected to score a decent chunk of points. Now will that change your draft strategy? I guess not really. Since Kyler Murray is one of the top quarterbacks, DeAndre Hopkins is one of the top receivers, and Kenyan Drake is a top running back. But I do love the potential for Drake to start the season off hot and give managers who drafted him a little bit more confidence. I would expect Cardinals players to be looking pretty good through Week five this year. Now, speaking of the forty nine ers, you have to really like their start two like a lot. Week one, like I said, they get Arizona, a good matchup there. They scored thirty six and twenty eight on them last year. Week two they get the Jets, and then the Giants, and then the Eagles, and then the Dolphins and then the Rams. Not only are all of those beatable defenses, but four of those six games are against teams projected to have losing records, and those first three or four matchups are really juicy. Jimmy Garoppolo is a very viable option for quarterback streamers, but I'm also interested in that backfield and the pass catchers there, since the non George Kittle players can be had for pretty cheap. I'm against Raheem mostered at his cost from like a month ago, but things have changed a little bit given his trade demand. I still like targeting Tevin Coleman, but Raheem Mostert maybe a lot cheaper once you go to draft, and it's not a bad idea to throw a dart at Brandon Ayuk with Deebo Samuel sidelined. Now, since I'm talking favorably about players and teams right now, I should probably throw out some streaming options that you can consider in week one while you're drafting. I already mentioned Cam and Garoppolo and Tyrod, but Ben Roethlisberger gets the Giants in Week one where the Steelers are four point favorites and the over under is forty seven. He'd be another quarterback that you could go after if you're looking to stream. And then on defense, Philadelphia gets Washington as a pretty big favorite. The Chiefs, they get the Texans's big favorites, Cleveland gets a rookie led Cincinnati offense, and then there's the Colts. Indianapolis is a fairly soft schedule to start the year against the Jags, Vikings, Jets, Bears, Browns, and Bengals before their bye week. When you tally up their opponents win totals using Fandels Sportsbooks numbers, the Colts have the easiest schedule in all of football this year. Now, you probably won't be plugging and playing them in a regular season long format, but they're a good pick in bestball leagues. So that's a lot of random information thrown at you regarding favorable schedules. Hopefully you're able to take something away. But let's look at the negative side of things. The most obvious place to start is with the New York Giants. Let me read you their first three opponents, Pittsburgh, Chicago, San Francisco. That's one big, giant fart noise. If you're in a normal redraft league and you're looking for a late round quarterback, this would be a reason to shy away from Daniel Jones, or at least you may want to think about getting someone like Jimmy Garoppolo to play matchups to start the year, because, let's face it, Daniel Jones is not a lock. As intriguing as his ceiling is. And remember, I'm someone who's touted Jones is a decent late round quarterback, but as intriguing as his ceiling is, let's not pretend that he's a lock to perform, let alone against a defense like Pittsburgh's or San Francisco's. It's a weird year, and maybe we see something like we saw in twenty eleven with the lockout, where offense has performed really, really well. But I think it's logical to be a little bit hesitant with Daniel Jones in that offense to start the year. It also sucks that they'll get Baltimore in Week sixteen, Fantasy Football Championship Week. There's also Miami. Miami starts their season against New England and Buffalo. Those are teams with a nine and a half and an eight and a half win total. They're already listed as underdogs and both of those games on Fanduels Sportsbook. Miami is That gives me some fear. With someone like Jordan Howard, who's likely not going to be the team's primary receiving back. We've seen him be somewhat game script dependent in the past. He's only averaged two point four targets per game and losses throughout his career because he's not a proven pass catcher. If those scripts hit for him during those first two weeks, he could get off to a slower start. We might see fantasy columns talking about the Howard breed as split after Week two and questioning who the true number one back in that offense is. But of course they could just end up using Howard more than we expect, but I would expect him to get off to a slower start. Houston is kind of in a bad spot too. Week one, they should be okay from a fantasy perspective because they face Kansas City, but then they get Pittsburgh and Baltimore and back to back weeks. Even Minnesota in Week four might not be that ideal. The positive is that we could still see higher scoring games given the Texans offense, So I wouldn't just completely fade that offense, but I'd worry about the big play potential of Will Fulder in those games against Baltimore and Pittsburgh. Last year, Pittsburgh was third best and allowing fifteen plus ariyard throws to be completed, in Baltimore ranked tenth best. And then the last team in group of players to call out here is the New York Jets. New York doesn't have a very high win total this year because they're not expected to be very good, and they kick off their season against three teams with win totals north of eight and over their first nine games. Nine games they won't face a single team with a win total under seven. Meanwhile, seven of those nine games are against teams with a win total of eight or better. They have a tough schedule to start the year. This may not benefit Le'Veon Bell very much. He's used enough in the passing game where the floor might be there, But I do worry about the ceiling considering if there's a negative game script, we'll see more passing, which could hypothetically lead to more passing touchdowns versus rushing touchdowns. We've seen some correlation between overall pass to rush ratio and pass to rush touchdown ratio over the last decade. You're not investing a ton to get Jets players in the first place. I get it, so this one's less of a big deal, but it's still something to note now. Like I said at the top, I don't think schedule analysis is everything, but I do think it can give you an advantage over your competition, and in a tiebreaker situation, it's not a bad idea to go with the dude with a decent early season schedule versus the one with a tough one, because you want your players to gain value and you want to feel confident when you plug someone into your lineup each week. Now, that's going to do it for today's show. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've yet subscribed to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, I'll talk to you later in the week. Mister