Welcome to my NFL Passing Revolution series, where I examine how the NFL’s shift towards efficient pass-heavy offenses has affected the landscape of fantasy football. In Parts 2 and 3, I examined modern archetypes for fantasy RB1s, RB2s and RB3s. That analysis revealed that fantasy RB1s and RB3s share similar rushing vs. receiving splits but obvious differences in overall opportunity and production. RB2s, on the…...

Melvin Gordon has been a fantasy football godsend for the past several seasons. Having reinforced his ceiling with some of the best receiving production among NFL RBs since 2017, assuming health and availability he’s a no-brainer elite investment in fantasy drafts for 2019. But Gordon recently shared that he won’t be showing up for training camp without a new deal. Threatening to miss training camp…...

The Rams hired Sean McVay in 2017, and Los Angeles more than doubled their point output from 224 to 478, a worst-to-first turnaround that set the stage for 2018’s league-wide offensive revival. Meanwhile, Doug Pederson, Andy Reid disciple and second-year head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, led his team to a 41-33 Super Bowl victory over the Patriots. They were the third-highest scoring team in…...

Welcome to my NFL Passing Revolution series, where I examine how the NFL’s shift towards efficient pass-heavy offenses has affected the landscape of fantasy football. In Part 2 of this series, I investigated how fantasy RB1s have changed over the last 17 years — most notably over the last two. Beginning in 2017, we observed an unprecedented improvement in receiving production that has re-defined the…...

In Part 1 of this series, I investigated the NFL’s passing revolution through the prism of global statistical trends. I noted that last season marked a pivotal uptick in overall efficiency (rather than pass/run ratio), which also substantially lifted running backs’ yards per carry average across the league. I also highlighted how fantasy RB1s have recently made a resurgence in receiving production. In this installment,…...

When using the Zero RB strategy, owners target wide receivers and tight ends in the early rounds. Even if an early running back is drafted, teams using this strategy generally are weaker at the running back position. If a Zero RB team can hit on running backs who have value later on in the draft, they are set up very well to succeed. This year…...

Last Season Was Historic The 2018-19 NFL season may be best-remembered as the dawn of the so-called “passing revolution.” Sure, we’ve witnessed the NFL’s gradual shift towards efficient passing offenses over the last two decades, but last season was on another level. Patrick Mahomes took the league by storm en route to NFL MVP honors. He posted a ludicrous 5,097-50-12 passing line, which ranks eighth…...

From 2001 to 2013, fantasy owners watched as 19 third-year wide receivers hit 200 points for the first time. Over the following four years, only Davante Adams managed the feat, and buzz over the third-year WR breakout disappeared. Even during the earlier era, second-year receivers still held a sizable edge. They’ve now widened that lead considerably as NFL offenses scheme to unleash their highly-drafted stars…...

Shawn Siegele looks at the eight most explosive NFL “breather” backs and explains how to exploit their sometimes silly, occasionally ridiculous, and always crazy 2019 ADPs. I have an admission to make. I love the small backs, and I love the freakish athletes. I love run to daylight and have little interest in three yards and a cloud of dust. But, even more than how…...

We are less than a week from the kickoff of the 2019 Scott Fish Bowl (#SFB9). The scoring format is largely unchanged from last year and it still includes a points-per-first-down scoring component and a points-per-reception component. Given the video games theme for #SFB9, Scott Fish has incorporated a bonus scoring component. The added five points for every 50 yards threshold a player crosses will…...

Scott Fish Bowl 9 drafts are just days away. Unless you already play in another “half-PPR, half-point per first down, TE-premium, three flex, one superflex, achievement bonus league,” chances are you might be underprepared. Luckily, you can get a quick handle on how to approach your draft using our new (and free!) SFB9 Game Log Explorer app. One of the first questions worth answering is…...

In Best Ball Workshop No. 11, we discovered a key insight for constructing our BestBall10s lineups. As Shawn Siegele began to put together his list of 5 Players the Roster Construction Explorer Wants You to Target, he realized that one of these receivers deserved a slightly deeper dive. Last year at this time I was writing about JuJu Smith-Schuster and Cooper Kupp, pointing out how…...

In part 1 of this series, we concluded that rookies drafted outside of Round 3 of the NFL draft have very low odds of being “usable” in redraft leagues. In the overwhelming majority of cases, they should be avoided on draft day. As a reminder, a usable player is one who scored 160 or more PPR points over the course of their rookie season. Even…...

Earlier this week, I took a look at three little known players from the AFC generating some column inches this offseason. With that in mind, it seems only fair that we offer a similar spotlight to three men from the NFC. These players are not superstars by any stretch. But they have caught the eye of their coaches and/or beat writers in the last few…...

In part 1 of this series, we concluded that rookies drafted outside of Round 3 of the NFL draft have very low odds of being “usable” in redraft leagues. In the overwhelming majority of cases, they should be avoided on draft day. As a reminder, a usable player is one who scored 160 or more PPR points over the course of their rookie season. Even…...

It seems that only novices place significant importance on OTAs or minicamps. Novices, or people with undying affection for the performance of players playing sans pads against their teammates — I mean, if you’ve read one tweet about how great DeVante Parker looks in June you’ve pretty much read them all. But sometimes a team, or normally a coach, will give us a nugget about…...

SHOULD REDRAFT PLAYERS TARGET ROOKIES? IN THIS SERIES, DAVE CABAN REVIEWS ROOKIE DATA FROM THE PAST TEN YEARS TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION.   In part 1 of this series, we concluded that rookies drafted outside of Round 3 of the NFL draft have very low odds of being “usable” in redraft leagues. As a reminder, a usable player is one who scored 160 or more…...

Should redraft players target rookies? In this series, Dave Caban reviews rookie data from the past ten years to answer this question.   We’ve spent the last four months poring over prospect profiles, evaluating measurables, and analyzing landing spots. While the majority of this research was done through a dynasty focused lens, the excitement it generated will undoubtedly find its way into our redraft processes…....

It has been said in the past that NFL stands for Not For Long, as well as No Fun League and of course the lesser used National Football League. All three may be true, but the first pretty much sums up the fleeting nature of the game, and the careers of the men who ply their trade in it. But it seems that after missing…...