Week 13 had a good number of stud performances that helped fantasy teams far and wide. Familiar faces were there, like Tyreek and Ceedee. We also had some unfamiliar faces that aren’t as easily ID’d by first name, like Michael (Pittman) and Evan (Engram).
Week 13 would have been an excellent week for fantasy if not for one pesky reality of Fantasy Football – injuries. Most prominently injured may be the first name that, while new, we all recognize already – Tank.
Wait, what is FGW? Here’s where I explain that in writing and on YouTube.
TL;DR: FGW is the likely change in win percentage of Head-to-Head fantasy football matchups a player has won his team. dFGW is FGW adjusted for ADP. Going from 50% to 95% is FGW of 0.45. % Started also matters.
The more players get hurt, the more value is gained by keeping your nose clean. On top of that, 2023 has had a handful of players with truly great seasons. The better the high end of player performance looks, the worse it feels when your players get hurt.
It’s one thing to have Tank Dell go down. It’s another when Tank goes down in your lineup, while Tyreek continues to go nuts on your buddy’s team.
Week 13 – Director’s Cut
If you want deeper analysis on Week 13, check out my post on FantasyPros!
- High threshold for the top list this week – 0.19 is a very good score. Some weeks #15 has been as low scoring as 0.08 FGW.
- Almost every week it’s a mix of Kelce/Hockenson/Kittle for top Tight End. Nice variety here, for once.
- I feel bad highlighting Tank Dell’s week so much because he was injured and that’s 100% not his fault. Honestly, the fact that injured players are so harmful/irreplaceable is one of the faults of Fantasy Football, IMO.
- I’m curious if Jake Browning would have gotten a 3% start in a season with more normal quarterback play. All these comments (Brady/Rodgers) about today’s NFL are somewhat resonating with the quality of offensive players available each week in fantasy.
MVP + Leaderboard Updates
- There is a non-zero chance we’re in the middle of the best season for a fantasy WR of all time. Every week, it’s another bomb TD for Tyreek.
- In a normal season, McCaffrey would be the clear #1 and playing exactly as you hope a good 1st overall pick would play.
- Not many fantasy players, much lest Team Defenses, could stay in the top 10 after a -0.18 FGW week. Dallas did.
- Well, it’s official – we have a new RB2! The only thing standing in the way for Kamara was Travis Etienne, and that chain gang guy.
- Ja’Marr Chase finally passes Justin Jefferson, meaning perhaps Chase was not the worst pick for 1st overall. Haroldface.jpg.
- Housekeeping update – made a slight tweak to the dFGW metric for the expectation by draft slot. Incorporated the rate at which each draft slot plays/misses games into the calculation, where before I was just adding an eyeballed factor to do the same thing. Not a huge swing, but it’s better now.
- I haven’t talked much about Mike Evans this year. I’ve usually found him to be a bit frustrating to own in fantasy for how inconsistent he us, but anyone that grabbed him in round 6-8 this year is loving it. It wasn’t too long ago that it looked like Godwin was the new #1 in Tampa, and now it looks like he’s aged past his running mate.
- Crazy to think that just about anyone could have ended up with Dallas defense, Sam LaPorta, Raheem Mostert, and Kylo “Ky” Ren Williams.
- James Cook is still getting healthy weekly projections on apps like Sleeper. Eventually the backlog of old RBs behind him (Murray, Fournette) will have to eat into that. Right?
- Crazy that Kyle Pitts is still getting started each week. He’s the only Tight End on the list, probably because the average expected points for Tight Ends is lower than other positions, so it’s harder to be very far behind your positional competitors. I took Pitts in one league again this year. Never again.
- Najee was at it again – back up to 82% started after his 15.9 points in Week 12. While his weekly fake-outs for fantasy managers haven’t been as dramatic as Gabe Davis, his started rate is much higher. Hence we have a new leader for Least Valuable Player!
- With the updated dFGW equation, looks like Burrow will edge out Chubb for the lower score. Najee might be within striking distance, but I think it’ll come down to Burrow and Cooper Kupp for DOI (Disappearance of Investment) for the year.
- In case you’re wondering, Tee Higgins had a raw percent started number of 33%, but expert rankings pushed him off the board as he was unranked by the source I use. Might need to leverage my FantasyPros connection to get better expert ranks here.
- This is just hilarious – Mark Andrews hasn’t played in a few weeks. He still went up two slots in the all-time ranks thanks to Mahomes and Dallas having heavily negative weeks. Nice job, Mandrews!
You’re Either in the Tank or Tyreeking Havoc
As of Week 13, the best team you could have realistically drafted looks something like: Tyreek Hill, CeeDee Lamb, Mark Andrews, Keenan Allen, DJ Moore, Dak Prescott, Alvin Kamara, literally anyone in Round 8, Raheem Mostert, and CJ Stroud. Zero RB and searching for a Tight End, sounds about right.
Hopefully your Week 14 doesn’t get rolled up on by Alvin Kamara. But if it does, just know that we’re all going down in this Fantasy Football ship together. It’s been a privilege and an honor, good luck in Week 14.
Byron Cobalt's Lazy Analysis 