I think the biggest surprise to me coming out of Week 1 for the running backs had to be the Redskins having not one but two players scoring 25 points each! That’s pretty darn impressive. Adrian Peterson had 96 yards rushing with 1 rushing TD as well as 70 yards receiving while his counterpart Chris Thompson had 65 yards rushing and 63 yards receiving with 1 receiving TD. The question becomes, “Can they repeat?” Well, my model as shown below predicts Peterson to have 19 points this week, and unfortunately Thompson does not show up on the Top 20 list. His predicted fantasy points is only 10. Sorry, guys!
There really wasn’t all that much surprise that James Conner (Pittsburgh) basically subbing for Le’Veon Bell, still holding out for a better contract, had a monster week. With Bell out again for Week 2, Conner should probably have another good week. My model predicts that Conner will end Week 2 with -1 points which basically means his poor output for all of 2017 (just 14 PPR Fantasy Points) is really weighing him down in my model. Add that to the list of things to look into for future models…bench players getting a starting position and how that affects their total output. Intuitively I feel like he will have another good week, but, but, but…the data…
I was glad to see Saquon Barkley (New York Giants) have a good NFL debut. I originally mentioned him in my 2018 forecast post, and in my auto-draft league, he ended up on my team. Unfortunately, right now, he’s the only good RB I currently have. Hopefully my model is right, and he ends up with 30 points in Week 2! I’m going to need it.
In any case, here’s the latest predictions:
Top 20 Running Back Week 2 Fantasy Predictions
| Player | Team | Week 1 Fantasy Points | Week 2 Fantasy Predictions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alvin Kamara | NO | 41 | 30 |
| Saquon Barkley | NYG | 21 | 30 |
| Ezekiel Elliott | DAL | 18 | 30 |
| David Johnson | ARI | 18 | 28 |
| Todd Gurley II | LAR | 24 | 25 |
| Phillip Lindsay | DEN | 18 | 25 |
| Kareem Hunt | KC | 5 | 23 |
| Leonard Fournette | JAC | 8 | 22 |
| LeSean McCoy | BUF | 3 | 21 |
| Dalvin Cook | MIN | 16 | 20 |
| Adrian Peterson | WAS | 25 | 19 |
| Melvin Gordon | LAC | 26 | 19 |
| Devonta Freeman | ATL | 8 | 17 |
| Frank Gore | MIA | 6 | 17 |
| Marshawn Lynch | OAK | 13 | 17 |
| Jordan Howard | CHI | 16 | 16 |
| Christian McCaffrey | CAR | 16 | 16 |
| Doug Martin | OAK | 4 | 14 |
| Giovani Bernard | CIN | 2 | 13 |
| Spencer Ware | KC | 5 | 13 |
The predictions for this model comes from statistics tables scraped from The Huddle from 2006-2018. As usual I used the Fantasy Points-Per-Reception (PPR) scores for my predictions which comes from the following:
- 1 point per 25 yards passing
- 4 points per passing touchdown
- -2 points per interception thrown
- 1 point per reception
- 1 point per 10 yards rushing/receiving
- 6 points per TD
- 2 points per two-point conversion
- -2 points per fumbles lost