How do we make sense of what happened last night? Let's start with outliers, or at least what I see as outliers.
I didn't trust A.J. Brown going off in his first game back from injured reserve. Didn't expect him to get nearly 30 fantasy points more than Julio Jones. Brown hadn't exceeded 48 receiving yards in any of his previous three games. He'd had more than nine targets only twice. I appreciated his blow-up potential, but wasn't willing to bet on it. So a huge miss, and I'm still trying to make sense of it in light of dismal games against teams like the Texans and Jaguars.
I also thought Jimmy G. would be better. That interception in the end zone turned the tide, though I can always blame one play here or there. The point is, this wasn't one of his better games.
On the flip side, while Jeff Wilson did better than expected, it was only barely. I've shared research several times showing RBs who earn 20+ touches on Sunday sharply regress when they play four days later. Wilson and D'Onta Foreman both had 20+ touches Sunday. In yesterday's column I suggested that both were more TD-dependent than usual. While both scored, Wilson scored almost all of his 14.7 points in the first half. Meanwhile, Foreman scored only 7.7 on nine touches.
And Brandon Aiyuk came through as expected, so hopefully he helped some of you.
I focus on risks and probabilities. Brown was a risk returning from a serious injury during a boom-bust season in an underperforming passing attack. Wilson and Foreman were TD-dependent risks based on data showing high-volume Sunday RBs underperform on Thursday. One missed big. One was moderately incorrect in production, but moderately correct in theory. The other one was pretty on target. Thought I'd be right on all three of these big calls. The probabilities made sense. But it's not an exact science, and big misses always disappoint me more than big wins make me happy, if that makes sense.
Anyway, the winner of the closest-score contest is John Morris, who predicted 23-17 Titans. This is John's second victory of the season. Incredible performance. Well deserved. And hats off to Tony Silveria (honorable mention) for guessing 23-18.
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I didn't trust A.J. Brown going off in his first game back from injured reserve. Didn't expect him to get nearly 30 fantasy points more than Julio Jones. Brown hadn't exceeded 48 receiving yards in any of his previous three games. He'd had more than nine targets only twice. I appreciated his blow-up potential, but wasn't willing to bet on it. So a huge miss, and I'm still trying to make sense of it in light of dismal games against teams like the Texans and Jaguars.
I also thought Jimmy G. would be better. That interception in the end zone turned the tide, though I can always blame one play here or there. The point is, this wasn't one of his better games.
On the flip side, while Jeff Wilson did better than expected, it was only barely. I've shared research several times showing RBs who earn 20+ touches on Sunday sharply regress when they play four days later. Wilson and D'Onta Foreman both had 20+ touches Sunday. In yesterday's column I suggested that both were more TD-dependent than usual. While both scored, Wilson scored almost all of his 14.7 points in the first half. Meanwhile, Foreman scored only 7.7 on nine touches.
And Brandon Aiyuk came through as expected, so hopefully he helped some of you.
I focus on risks and probabilities. Brown was a risk returning from a serious injury during a boom-bust season in an underperforming passing attack. Wilson and Foreman were TD-dependent risks based on data showing high-volume Sunday RBs underperform on Thursday. One missed big. One was moderately incorrect in production, but moderately correct in theory. The other one was pretty on target. Thought I'd be right on all three of these big calls. The probabilities made sense. But it's not an exact science, and big misses always disappoint me more than big wins make me happy, if that makes sense.
Anyway, the winner of the closest-score contest is John Morris, who predicted 23-17 Titans. This is John's second victory of the season. Incredible performance. Well deserved. And hats off to Tony Silveria (honorable mention) for guessing 23-18.
---
- PFN fantasy site -- www.profootballnetwork.com/fantasy-football/
- PFN fantasy podcast -- podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-the-mood-for-fantasy-football/id1580114372
- Free fantasy advice newsletter -- www.getrevue.co/profile/pfnfantasy