Hello and welcome to the Week 7 edition of Hoppen to Conclusions! This is where I, Sam Hoppen, will share some of my favorite charts, which are designed to give you an overview of the NFL landscape. These charts, along with the commentary that I provide, aim to help you make start or sit, DFS lineup construction, betting picks, or any other fantasy football decisions. There can be a lot of noise in fantasy football analysis, but these charts have been carefully selected to give you some of the most relevant and useful decision points.
- Waiver Wire Advice
- Weekly Fantasy Football Expert Rankings
- Fantasy Football Start/Sit Advice
- Fantasy Football Trade Tools
Fantasy Football Trends & Takeaways
Team Pass Rates
- The Seattle Seahawks continue to be a team leaning slightly more on the pass. Despite a poor outing fantasy-wise with two interceptions and no touchdown passes, Geno Smith threw for over 300 yards for the second time this year. In fact, it’s been a bit feast-or-famine for him with three games of at least 275 passing yards and two games below 125 passing yards (one of which he exited due to injury for a little bit). This boom-or-bust nature has trickled down specifically to Tyler Lockett, who has two games with at least 12 Half-PPR points but three games with fewer than 8 points. Surprisingly, DK Metcalf is the more consistent of the two, as he’s averaging 11.3 Half PPR points and has double-digit points in all but one game. Both are running a route on more than 80% of the team’s dropbacks, but are in an offense that is not as concentrated as we’d prefer to see. Still, I expect the production to stabilize a bit more as the season rolls on and would continue to start both Metcalf in Lockett where I have them.
- Action: hold DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett
- The New England Patriots have quickly lost all trust that they have in Mac Jones as they sit with a league-low -8% PROE over the last four weeks. In fact, their neutral-script pass rate hasn’t eclipsed 55% since their Week 1 matchup when they were at 66.7%. This has come with a slight increase in usage for the Patriots running backs, but not necessarily of the valuable type. This season, New England’s 12.0 average expected rushing fantasy points per game ranks 22nd in the league. While it’s still just a two-man backfield for the Patriots between Rhamondre Stevenson and Ezekiel Elliott, the touch distribution is a lot closer than fantasy managers would prefer. Stevenson has just a 61% running back touch share this season, putting Elliott at 39%. Stevenson has still been running a route on 57% of the team’s dropbacks (9th-most among running backs), but as the Patriots continue to be run-heavy that becomes much less relevant. As a team, New England’s HVT usage is also middling, but the split nature of this backfield remains the biggest issue. I’m not sure you should drop either of the Patriots’ running backs, but I certainly have no confidence plugging them into my lineup.
- Action: hold Rhamondre Stevenson and Ezekiel Elliott
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