Source: Joe Sargent/Getty Images
For this blog post, I elected to go with some simple but interactive visualizations. Using data from The Huddle and Tableau for the visualizations this will allow you to take a look at the total PPR fantasy football points scored by every player from the 2018 season. On the right you can choose to look at players by position (or teams for Defenses) or look a them by your favorite team.
This first graph shows the total number of PPR Fantasy Points scored by individual players for 2018:
Quarterbacks, of course, score the most FF points in a season with Patrick Mahomes of Kansas City leading them all. His 50 TD’s and nearly 319 yards passing per game were phenomenal. Ben Roethisberger had more yards and more yards per game, but it’s the scoring TD’s that matter, and Mahomes reigned supreme there.
With running backs, it was Saquon Barkley who came out on top, a rookie for the New York Giants. At the beginning of the season, when I first wrote about my FF projections for the year, I mentioned that Saquon would be one to watch. As it turned out, he ended up on my team in my auto-draft league, and I was certainly grateful!
Another player on my team that did extremely well was WR Julio Jones of Atlanta. He had the most receiving yards for the year and was seven FF points short of having the most points. He was also a great help for my team throughout the year.
I was pretty lucky with TE’s as well. I had Philadelphia’s Zach Ertz on my FF team, and he finished out the season with the second most fantasy points!
You’d think I would have finished the season a whole lot higher than 7th place with the top RB, the second highest WR, and the second highest TE on the year. Unfortunately a FF team is a whole lot more than three players, and I had a ride or die approach with QB Kirk Cousins from Minnesota who finished ninth on the year among QB’s. Also, as is the usual case, I had a nice carousel of various kickers and defenses throughout the year so there wasn’t much consistency there.
The next graph breaks out the FF points by average per game played:
This graphic shows some interesting stories that are not inherent in the Totals graph. I mean, once again you can see the impact that Mahomes had on the season scoring nearly 31 FF points per game. However, the RB’s change a little bit with Rams’ Todd Gurley having a higher FF points per game played average than Barkley.
However, the interesting part of this graph is the breakout of averages for players that changed teams in the middle of the season. For instance, if you choose RB as the position and scroll down you’ll find C.J. Anderson. With Carolina he was averaging 2.86 FF points per game and was released in early November. After Gurley was hurt on the Rams, however, he was picked up and average 23.5 FF points in the last two games of the season. Talk about being a bit of a dark horse, but also is a testament to how good the Rams are that probably just about any decent RB would do well there.
That was one success, though. On the flip side was RB Carlos Hyde. With Cleveland, he was averaging 12.83 FF points per game, and then was traded to Jacksonville where he only averaged 2.88 FF points per game. Ouch!
If you check the Wide Receivers above, you’ll also see some interesting stats for players that changed teams. Most notably, for me anyway as a Cowboys fan, was Amari Cooper. With Oakland he was averaging 9.67 FF points per game (and I remember thinking that really sucks), but then shined with Dallas averaging 18.22 FF points per game. I was upset that I didn’t pick him up when he was available in my league right after the trade happened!
Then there was Golden Tate. With Detroit, he was averaging 16.86 FF points per game but that dramatically came down to just 7.88 FF points per game with Philadelphia.
In any case, have fun with the graphics, looking at different positions or your favorite teams. It was certainly a fun year for me although a little disappointing with how my FF team fared. While I know that Fantasy Football will continue throughout the playoffs, I’m going to focus more on win percentages from here on out with my posts.
This weekend I’ll have a post detailing my predictions for the NFL Wildcard games, and on Monday I’ll wrap-up my College Bowl predictions before the National Championship game that night.