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Deep Threats - Waste of Fantasy Time? (1 Viewer)

S

Shane Ricketts

Footballguy
While omitting the legend that is Randy Moss, are NFL deep threats a waste of time in fantasy football? The first reason I ask is because obviously players with higher volume have a better potential to put up points. Players with less targets have a higher chance of putting up goose eggs. The next reason I suggest this is due to how fickle their production can be from year-to-year and how their inexplicably drop off. Torrey Smith was the man for a few years, then quickly overdrafted. Same with Mike Wallace. Thirdly, they are so dependent on Quarterbacks with big arms where if there is an injury or some type of shake-up their production is notably hindered.

So, what say you football guys? Are deep threats a waste of roster space in fantasy football? Unless you catch lightning in a bottle with a guy like TY Hilton, you're chasing maddening inconsistency, imo.

 
In ppr, they are severely devalued.

In standard though, they make solid boom/bust options as long as you are getting steady production from elsewhere in your lineup.

 
Unless they have a larger role than "run deep" every time then yes, I don't buy those types of guys.  It is a very small piece as well but their size usually doesn't help with those larger roles as well.  I'd say Brandin Cooks might be the only guy worthy of buying because he's shown multiple phases of his game and now he's with Brady, but like you said the Mike Wallace's / Torrey Smith's of the world are almost roster cloggers in PPR.  I don't play non-ppr or best ball in which I'd think they're more valuable though.  

 
It all depends on the league format.  Best ball or leagues that reward bonuses for long TD's (I once played in a league that gave 9 points for >75 yards!), I grab them as much as possible.  Typical PPR leagues not so much.

 
Mr. Irrelevant said:
The problem with Desean isn't the games he misses. It's the games you have him in your lineup where he goes 1-9, followed by the game you have him on your bench where he goes 9-147-2.

I've learned my lesson over the years drafting "fringy" WR3 types who are primarily deep threats. I'll take them every day in best-ball leagues, but in regular formats I'd rather have boom-or-bust guys who either offer higher upside (like Lockett) or those who are true WR5-type dart-throws (like Torrey Smith or Will Fuller) where I don't feel obligated to agonize over lineup decisions but can just start them during favorable matchups.
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My view on this hasn't changed since then.

 
While I agree generally with staying away from these types of guys, I think this is also the reason that DJax has been a great value for where he's been drafted the last few seasons.

 
Skoo said:
While I agree generally with staying away from these types of guys, I think this is also the reason that DJax has been a great value for where he's been drafted the last few seasons.
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Yep.  Fwiw, Wallace was the 25th best receiver last year.  You'll get inconsistent games for sure but there's value there.  He's an ideal WR4. 

 
-OZ- said:
Yep.  Fwiw, Wallace was the 25th best receiver last year.  You'll get inconsistent games for sure but there's value there.  He's an ideal WR4. 
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Definitely targeting Wallace in the later rounds this year. Steve Smith is gone and they've done pretty much nothing to replace him.

 
My issue with these guys is that they can actually finish the season ranked within the top 30 WRs, but at the end of the day they are getting all of their points in 2-3 games. So while on average they seem to be pretty awesome, it'll be two games where they scored 2 TDs and got 175 yards. I think of Chad Johnson when I think of these kinds of players... will be on your bench when they bust loose because you just can't stomach the 3/25 every other week. 

 
Being in a 14 team dynasty, it's hard to have 3 or 4 guys that are PPR studs so you tend to have at least one guy starting that has low targets. Because of that, I like to try and get a guy that can rack up big points on one play.

 
Ted Ginn  could be a good "deep threat" guy this year.  Brees is an improvement over Cam in quality and quantity of deep balls.  He is also very cheap.  Pryor is also on this list but the price is pretty steep currently.  

 
I find it useful when ranking players to look not only at their FP/G average. but also look at their "over-10" ratio:  how frequently do they score more than 10 FP?  (Use a lower threshold for deep leagues, non-PPR, or lower-scoring positions.)

Players with high variance who do most of their damage in a handful of games will have low ratios.  Reliable scorers will have high ratios.

I've even had some success at getting preliminary rankings just by multiplying FP/G by a suitable success ratio.  Obviously not the be all and end all, but a good starting look at who is streaky and who isn't, up and down the board.

 
bicycle_seat_sniffer said:
Besides desean i dont bother with this type of wr in redraft. John ross has me scared although i did take him in a recent rookie draft
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I don't see Ross as a "deep threat" in Cincinnati.  I mean obviously he has the speed, but with aj, eifert and a good running game,  he's going to have a cushion from his defender more often than not because they really can't give him deep safety help.   He's got the elusiveness to beat guys one on one and Dalton is obviously not a deep ball guy so I see them using him in a lot of way. Cincinnati didn't spend a top ten pick on him to have him just run 9 routes all day

 
It's a fair point, but the problem is separating deep threats from small fast WRs.  I'm pretty sure Antonio Brown and definitely TY Hilton were once thought of as "just deep threats".

72-1193-8, 16.6ypr
69-1108-2, 16.1ypr

Which of the above is Mike Wallace, and which is Antonio Brown?

48-843-9, 17.6ypr
50-861-7, 17.2ypr
50-841-7, 16.8ypr

Which of the above was the rookie year of TY Hilton, next to the rookie years of Torrey Smith and Lee Evans?

 
All guys have a value at some point.  The key is finding where that value point lies.  Just saying I will never draft a deep threat is a bad thing but there is definitely a time to take the plunge.  As other's have said, looking at the final ranking of a player is a false sense of value.  The majority of leagues are weekly leagues so the overall point total really is of little value if the consistency of points is too varied. 

In larger leagues I think the value of a boom/bust guy goes up quite a bit.  In 16+ team leagues you are going to be playing low end guys that likely score very little and if they do it's an off TD with few yards.  In these larger leagues having a Ginn type player that has the potential of 2 catches for 125 yds and 2 TD's is a difference maker.   

 
Week-to-week inconsistency is irrelevant. I'll win more games, on average, if I'm starting the guy who finishes as WR25 (but is super-inconsistent from week to week) rather than the guy who finishes as WR29 (and is super-consistent from week to week).

The one exception is that week-to-week inconsistency can make it harder to know a guy's "true" average, which could lead you to start a bad fantasy WR or leave a good fantasy WR on your bench. e.g. Is Torrey Smith bad now and therefore someone who I should bench, or is it just week-to-week variation from a high-end fantasy WR3? Has Mike Wallace bounced back to being a high-end fantasy WR3 or is he just a WR5 who happened to have a big game or two?

 
ZWK said:
Week-to-week inconsistency is irrelevant. I'll win more games, on average, if I'm starting the guy who finishes as WR25 (but is super-inconsistent from week to week) rather than the guy who finishes as WR29 (and is super-consistent from week to week).

The one exception is that week-to-week inconsistency can make it harder to know a guy's "true" average, which could lead you to start a bad fantasy WR or leave a good fantasy WR on your bench. e.g. Is Torrey Smith bad now and therefore someone who I should bench, or is it just week-to-week variation from a high-end fantasy WR3? Has Mike Wallace bounced back to being a high-end fantasy WR3 or is he just a WR5 who happened to have a big game or two?
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I don't agree that consistency vs. boom-bust has to be a zero-sum balance.  A guy who scores 10 pts. in each of 9 games with a zero in the 10th, or a guy who scores 6 points in each of 9 games and 36 in the tenth don't contribute equally to my victory totals.

It also makes a difference whether Imhave a strong or weak team relative to my competition.  With a stronger roster I'm more likely to win unless I get a fluke low score, and a fluke high score doesnt help much.  With a weaker roster, I likely lose without a fluke high score, so the boom/bust guy helps me.

 
ZWK said:
Week-to-week inconsistency is irrelevant. I'll win more games, on average, if I'm starting the guy who finishes as WR25 (but is super-inconsistent from week to week) rather than the guy who finishes as WR29 (and is super-consistent from week to week).

The one exception is that week-to-week inconsistency can make it harder to know a guy's "true" average, which could lead you to start a bad fantasy WR or leave a good fantasy WR on your bench. e.g. Is Torrey Smith bad now and therefore someone who I should bench, or is it just week-to-week variation from a high-end fantasy WR3? Has Mike Wallace bounced back to being a high-end fantasy WR3 or is he just a WR5 who happened to have a big game or two?
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I disagree completely with this statement.  This game is a weekly game....not a yearly game.  Consistency week to week puts you in a better spot to win.  Don't get me wrong, sometimes there is a case where you are up against a better team on paper and need the boom guy to hit.  This is the reason to have him on your team but all things being equal I would much rather have the guy that scores 8 pts every week than the guy that scores 0, 0, 24.  In the end they scored the same but I have more of a chance of losing two out of three games with the zero pt totals.

 
ZWK said:
Week-to-week inconsistency is irrelevant. I'll win more games, on average, if I'm starting the guy who finishes as WR25 (but is super-inconsistent from week to week) rather than the guy who finishes as WR29 (and is super-consistent from week to week).

The one exception is that week-to-week inconsistency can make it harder to know a guy's "true" average, which could lead you to start a bad fantasy WR or leave a good fantasy WR on your bench. e.g. Is Torrey Smith bad now and therefore someone who I should bench, or is it just week-to-week variation from a high-end fantasy WR3? Has Mike Wallace bounced back to being a high-end fantasy WR3 or is he just a WR5 who happened to have a big game or two?
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Arodin said:
I don't agree that consistency vs. boom-bust has to be a zero-sum balance.  A guy who scores 10 pts. in each of 9 games with a zero in the 10th, or a guy who scores 6 points in each of 9 games and 36 in the tenth don't contribute equally to my victory totals.

It also makes a difference whether Imhave a strong or weak team relative to my competition.  With a stronger roster I'm more likely to win unless I get a fluke low score, and a fluke high score doesnt help much.  With a weaker roster, I likely lose without a fluke high score, so the boom/bust guy helps me.
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Gally said:
I disagree completely with this statement.  This game is a weekly game....not a yearly game.  Consistency week to week puts you in a better spot to win.  Don't get me wrong, sometimes there is a case where you are up against a better team on paper and need the boom guy to hit.  This is the reason to have him on your team but all things being equal I would much rather have the guy that scores 8 pts every week than the guy that scores 0, 0, 24.  In the end they scored the same but I have more of a chance of losing two out of three games with the zero pt totals.
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I've run some numbers on this, and so has Adam Harstad. Consistency is basically worthless / inconsistency is basically costless.

The rough idea: If you add a player who scores 8 points every week to your team, and I add a player who scores 0,0,24 to my team, then 2 weeks out of 3 you get an 8-point advantage against me and 1 week out of 3 I get a 16-point advantage against you. Your advantage happens twice as often, but mine is twice as big. And games that are decided by 8-16 points are basically just as common as games that are decided by 0-8 points (you can look back at your league history to verify this), so my twice-as-big advantage is also basically twice as useful. (Since an 8-point advantage is useful when the game otherwise would have been lost by 0-8 points, while a 16-point advantage is useful when the game otherwise would have been lost by either 0-8 points or 8-16 points.) So they balance out almost exactly.

 
ZWK said:
I've run some numbers on this, and so has Adam Harstad. Consistency is basically worthless / inconsistency is basically costless.

The rough idea: If you add a player who scores 8 points every week to your team, and I add a player who scores 0,0,24 to my team, then 2 weeks out of 3 you get an 8-point advantage against me and 1 week out of 3 I get a 16-point advantage against you. Your advantage happens twice as often, but mine is twice as big. And games that are decided by 8-16 points are basically just as common as games that are decided by 0-8 points (you can look back at your league history to verify this), so my twice-as-big advantage is also basically twice as useful. (Since an 8-point advantage is useful when the game otherwise would have been lost by 0-8 points, while a 16-point advantage is useful when the game otherwise would have been lost by either 0-8 points or 8-16 points.) So they balance out almost exactly.
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Very interesting and it makes sense but I am not so sure it is that simple.  My reason is because there are other variables not accounted for.  For instance, a player that scores 0,0,24 has a frustration factor that leads to a lot of guessing on when to play that player.  So there is a better than average chance that you sit that player in the one game out of three where they put up the 24 pts so those don't become usable.  Many times have consistent players allows you to maximize the useable points (by useable I mean points when you actually start them).  The boom/bust guy has a much greater chance of being on your bench when the one game hits and you don't get those points. 

The biggest factor in consistent vs non-consistent to reach your conclusion is that you play those players every week regardless of  matchups and performance.  So you are crafting your lineups blindly. In reality this doesn't happen and managers guess when to play individual players based on many factors.  Although, I agree with some aspects of your study and the raw data used makes sense, I still think having a consistent player increases your usable points because you have more confidence in putting them in your lineup.

Good discussion.  Very interesting.  When I have time I will take a look at a couple of my leagues and see point differentials to see where my leagues fall.   

 
I still think expected margin is a critical factor here.  On average, games decided by 0-8 or 8-16 may be equally common, but not for a specific team.  Case in point...in one dynasty league my team is a powerhouse and usually wins handily.   A lot of high variance players actually increases my likelihood of losing if they hit their bad weeks in succession, whereas less total-scoring, more reliable floor options can minimize this prospect.

In a vacuum, with two theoretically equal teams with equal expected mean score, then sure, variance is irrelevant.  But how often does that happen in FF?

 
ZWK said:
I've run some numbers on this, and so has Adam Harstad. Consistency is basically worthless / inconsistency is basically costless.

The rough idea: If you add a player who scores 8 points every week to your team, and I add a player who scores 0,0,24 to my team, then 2 weeks out of 3 you get an 8-point advantage against me and 1 week out of 3 I get a 16-point advantage against you. Your advantage happens twice as often, but mine is twice as big. And games that are decided by 8-16 points are basically just as common as games that are decided by 0-8 points (you can look back at your league history to verify this), so my twice-as-big advantage is also basically twice as useful. (Since an 8-point advantage is useful when the game otherwise would have been lost by 0-8 points, while a 16-point advantage is useful when the game otherwise would have been lost by either 0-8 points or 8-16 points.) So they balance out almost exactly.
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Except the one big thing that kills this is something that you've already mentioned.  You don't know until afterwards that a guy was just week to week inconsistent, and not just a bust.  So when he has 0, 0, you often end up benching him before his 24.

I think we've all been through that headache many times.  Start 'em when the stink, bench 'em when they're great, start 'em when they stink again, etc.

 
Shane Ricketts said:
While omitting the legend that is Randy Moss, are NFL deep threats a waste of time in fantasy football? The first reason I ask is because obviously players with higher volume have a better potential to put up points. Players with less targets have a higher chance of putting up goose eggs. The next reason I suggest this is due to how fickle their production can be from year-to-year and how their inexplicably drop off. Torrey Smith was the man for a few years, then quickly overdrafted. Same with Mike Wallace. Thirdly, they are so dependent on Quarterbacks with big arms where if there is an injury or some type of shake-up their production is notably hindered.

So, what say you football guys? Are deep threats a waste of roster space in fantasy football? Unless you catch lightning in a bottle with a guy like TY Hilton, you're chasing maddening inconsistency, imo.
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As usual, it is all a matter of semantics.  When I hear "deep threat", I think one trick pony.  With only the deep route in the toolbox they become a boom or bust player.   You may get 3/90/TD or 2/14 (with no points for drawing PI on one of those bombs).  Great in best ball but I'll pass otherwise.  I don't see the point in labeling a more versatile player, who runs an occasional deep route, this way in the context of questioning value.  Randy Moss was NOT simply a deep threat.

 
DropKick said:
As usual, it is all a matter of semantics.  When I hear "deep threat", I think one trick pony.  With only the deep route in the toolbox they become a boom or bust player.   You may get 3/90/TD or 2/14 (with no points for drawing PI on one of those bombs).  Great in best ball but I'll pass otherwise.  I don't see the point in labeling a more versatile player, who runs an occasional deep route, this way in the context of questioning value.  Randy Moss was NOT simply a deep threat.
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The greatest deep threat in NFL history.

 
Here is a list of every receiver who had a season between 2007 and 2014 with both 1) at least 500 receiving yards on deep balls and 2) at least 40% of their receiving yards on deep balls:

Mike Evans, A.J. Green, DeSean Jackson, Jordy Nelson, Vincent Jackson, Mike Wallace, Brandon Marshall, Brandon Lloyd, Hakeem Nicks, Randy Moss, Steve Smith, Braylon Edwards, Dez Bryant, Calvin Johnson, Alshon Jeffery.

Seems like a pretty good group of receivers.

These are sorted based on percentage of receiving yards from deep balls (e.g., Mike Evans's 2014 was the most one-dimensional of these seasons, with over 54% of his yards coming on deep balls.)

 
I run a hybrid keeper/dynasty 1PPR league that awards bonus points for length of TD's. In my leagues case it is NOT a waste of time to consider drafting players who may be categorized as "deep threats." On occasion that one long TD play by that guy may make a difference in the outcome of a game. Well, not just may, it has in the past.

 
I think the big reason that I would want a consistent producing WR over a weekly boom/bust guy is for the playoffs. There are 3 weeks when you need more than 1 game of production. 

There's certain players that are beyond "deep threat guy" but may still be boom/bust. Somebody will correct me I'm sure but Julio started last season as a boom/bust guy but he's so elite that it doesn't matter. There's really only a handful of WRs that I would fall into the Desean Jackson category of startable yet not elite deep ball guys. Guys with good be replaceable season totals.

It might be worth it to extent this idea of "weekly boom/bust players" to include RBs. Goal line backs are mainly who I'm thinking of. 

 
ZWK said:
Here is a list of every receiver who had a season between 2007 and 2014 with both 1) at least 500 receiving yards on deep balls and 2) at least 40% of their receiving yards on deep balls:

Mike Evans, A.J. Green, DeSean Jackson, Jordy Nelson, Vincent Jackson, Mike Wallace, Brandon Marshall, Brandon Lloyd, Hakeem Nicks, Randy Moss, Steve Smith, Braylon Edwards, Dez Bryant, Calvin Johnson, Alshon Jeffery.

Seems like a pretty good group of receivers.

These are sorted based on percentage of receiving yards from deep balls (e.g., Mike Evans's 2014 was the most one-dimensional of these seasons, with over 54% of his yards coming on deep balls.)
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Jameis Winston has the 2nd-highest deep attempt rate (22.9%) of 51 QBs over the last 5 seasons.

Jameis Winston led the NFL in deep passes last year with 129. 59 of them were to Mike Evans, who led in deep targets

 
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