Photo Courtesy of Bruce Kluckhohn/AP
As triumphant as my win was in the final game of Week 2, I knew by mid-afternoon on Week 3 that my Fantasy Football week was going to be a bad one. Like the picture above, my Fantasy Football team fell flat. Not only that, but I picked the Vikings to win in my Survivor league which is single elimination. So, yeah, 2-1 now in my fantasy football league and completely out of my Survivor league. So sad!
During this last weekend while in Houston, I was asked if I’ve had a chance to compare my predictions with the actual points, so I put together the following charts by position to do just that.
Quarterbacks
In some cases, my model’s predictions aren’t too far off although there do seem to be a handful of exceptions: Drew Brees (New Orleans), Ben Roethlisberger (Pittsburgh), and Matt Ryan (Atlanta) had much better games than predicted. On the flip side, Tom Brady (New England) and Andrew Luck (Indianapolis) had much worse games than predicted. Then there’s Deshaun Watson (Houston)…nailed it!!!
I’ll admit to blaming Kirk Cousins (Minnesota) for my losses in both of my leagues, but my model shows that I was only off by three points. Those points still would not have saved me!
Running Backs
Another case of oh, so close, and not even close. Frank Gore (Miamia), for example. Very disappointed in Ezekiel Elliot‘s (Dallas) performance, but I’m also very pleased with how Saquon Barkley (New York Giants) measured up against my predictions since he’s on my team. By the way, isn’t it amazing how much Adrian Peterson (Washington) completely rocks. Dude is 33 years old, and is currently ranked 5th in the league in rushing with 236 yards and three touchdowns. Simply amazing! Unfortunately, Washington has a bye this upcoming weekend, so FF owners of AP won’t be able to use him this upcoming week.
Wide Receivers
Ouch! When I saw this chart, I wanted to throw out this entire post. Nope, nope, nope! Talk about getting it wrong! So many bad predictions here except a middle group including Michael Thomas (New Orleans), JuJu Smith-Schuster (Pittsburgh), and Mike Evans (Tampa Bay). So many misses, though.
Tight Ends
Well, even though my model picked amazing numbers for Will Dissly (Seattle), I ended up not starting him this week in favor of Zach Ertz (Philadelphia). Good move on my part for sure. One common theme this week is how badly New England did offensively across the board. Rob Gronkowski definitely didn’t have as great a game as expected.
Kickers
Kicker predictions weren’t too bad I think. Some definite misses with Harrison Butker (Kansas City) and Stephen Gostkowski (New England), but when every point counts, any miss is not good…especially for Field Goal kickers.
Defense
I definitely need some better features/predictors for Defenses. I’m looking more into what Football Outsiders has, but that would require a premium subscription. I’m weighing that option right now. Carolina had exact numbers and the New York Giants and Buffalo Bills were very close, but the rest of the predictions were way off especially on the teams that had high expectations going into the week.
*The predictions for these model comes from statistics tables scraped from The Huddle from 2006-2018. I use 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
All predictive elements for Fantasy Football Models are for entertainment purposes only. Do your own research before making any decisions on your Fantasy Football team especially in money leagues!!