NFL DFS WR/TE Usage: Reviewing Week 7
NFL passing attacks evolve, and stats like targets, air yards, and snap counts rarely stay consistent for an entire season. NFL wide receivers and tight end usage is therefore critical knowledge for our lineup decisions on DraftKings, FanDuel, and Yahoo!. Let’s use the RotoGrinders Usage App from JoshADHD to remind ourselves of a few key usage trends from the week that was. We’ll want to understand how it could help us with our projections and projected ownership in the coming weeks.
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Week 7 NFL DFS Wide Receiver and Tight End Targets and Air Yards Report
Harrison Bryant
NFL Team: Cleveland Browns
Position: TE
Snap Percentage: 77% in Week 7
Team Share of Targets: 17.9% in Week 7
Team Share of Air Yards: 11.2% in Week 7
While we certainly shouldn’t go expecting another two touchdowns, Bryant could be another nice source of salary relief at the tight end position in Week 8.
For one, the Browns are going to be down several of their main skill position players this week. Nick Chubb remains on the IR with a knee injury. Odell Beckham was lost for the year to an ACL injury. And perhaps most importantly, the Browns TE1 (Austin Hooper) appears doubtful for Sunday’s game as he recovers from an appendectomy.
All three of those guys missed the Week 7 game against the Bengals (well almost, that is…Beckham went down on the Browns second play of the game), and Bryant went on to be a rather integral part of the Browns passing game. He had the third most targets on the team and was pretty clearly a favorite of Baker Mayfield as they got close to the goal line (Bryant’s touchdown catches were three and six yards, respectively).
On tap for Week 8 is a matchup against the Raiders, who just so happen to be ranked 31st in Overall Defense DVOA (and 26th against the pass) heading into the Week 7 games (and then they got torched by Brady). Bryant’s price tags barely budged, as he is just $5,000 on FanDuel and $3,200 on DraftKings.
A.J. Green
NFL Team: Cincinnati Bengals
Position: WR
Snap Percentage: 79% in Week 6; 87% in Week 7
Team Share of Targets: 28.2% in Week 6; 27.7% in Week 7
Team Share of Air Yards: 40.1% in Week 6; 37.4% in Week 7
I’m not going to lie; I had to triple-check to make sure I had the above numbers correct for Green. If you hadn’t been rostering him, then it’s easy to overlook what he has been doing because he didn’t find the end zone in either week. Let’s look at the difference in opportunity for Green between Weeks 3-5 and then Weeks 6-7.
Weeks 3-5: 63% snap percentage, 12 targets, 10.7% market share of targets, 53.3 air yards per game, 15.4% market share of air yards
Weeks 6-7: 83% snap percentage, 24 targets, 27.9% market share of targets, 134.5 air yards per game, 38.8% market share of air yards
Is A.J. Green back!?
At the very least, he is worth taking some shots on in tournaments. If he comes close to sniffing this type of volume going forward—AND is able to actually find the end zone—then he is going to absolutely demolish these price tags across the industry.
Green is just $5,800 on FanDuel and $4,500 on DraftKings heading into the Week 8 matchup against Tennessee. The Titans are almost a touchdown favorite and also ranked just 24th in Pass Defense DVOA heading into the Week 7 games. The game-script and matchup is certainly set up favorably for the Bengals passing game.
Keenan Allen
NFL Team: Los Angeles Chargers
Position: WR
Snap Percentage: 85% in Week 7
Team Share of Targets: 31% in Week 7
Team Share of Air Yards: 30.5% in Week 7
Despite some silly-high volume this season, Allen could very well fly a bit under the radar in Week 8.
For one, this game has a very low total, as I am seeing an o/u of 44 at the time I am writing this. Surely that has something to do with how good Denver’s defense has been, as they were sixth in Overall Defense DVOA prior to getting railroaded by the Chiefs (albeit a lot of their scoring actually wasn’t the Chiefs offense). And who knows what the weather will look like in Denver by the time Sunday rolls around.
But back to Allen. And more importantly, back to all of this volume. If we filter out the Week 5 game in the Premium Usage App (he left that game in the second quarter with back spasms), here is the what we are looking at for Allen this season in those five games:
94% snap percentage, 12.4 targets per game, 35.3% market share of targets, 105.4 air yards per game, 37.2% market share of air yards
That is an absurd amount of targets, by the way. To put that in perspective, Davante Adams leads the entire league in market share of his team’s targets at ‘just’ 32.7%.
I think it is safe to say that Justin Herbert has found his guy!
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