Consistency Corner: Week 3
The big headline from Week 2 of the fantasy football season was injuries. Jarvis Landry, Diontae Johnson, Dalvin Cook, Carson Wentz, Tua Tagovailoa, and the entire running back room for the San Fransisco 49ers. Chances are good fantasy managers everywhere are trying to fill holes suddenly in their rosters. So let’s stick with the “process” and look at Consistency Score and D-PAC to build the most consistently high-performing lineup we can in this week’s Consistency Corner: Week 3.
*Disclaimer – I like to have a minimum of four full weeks for Consistency Score data. So to start a new season I use data from last year and add in the data for this year. After the Week 4 games, it will be purely from the 2021-2022 season. That is why you will not see any rookies here. Yet. It’s also why there will be a few holdovers from players who played last season but haven’t yet in 2021.
What is the Consistency Score?
Consistency Score: Running Backs
Consistency Score: Wide Receivers
Consistency Score: Tight Ends
Consistency Score: DST
Risers
Tony Pollard – 26 to 25
Sliding up from 26 to 25 doesn’t seem like much to write home about. What is more impressive is to go back and notice that Tony Pollard finished the 2020 season ranked 40th in CS. Now he is legitimately flirting with the RB2 range in terms of Consistency Score. He’s even ranked higher than his running mate Ezekiel Elliott currently, despite losing the snap battle 28.3% to Elliott’s 78.6%.
From Week 11 of 2020 through this past weekend Pollard has posted two top-10 fantasy finishes, an average fantasy points per game of 12.21 and a ceiling of 28.2. He still represents a floor that is basement level quite frankly, 2.5. But Pollard has seen 40% of the teams’ opportunities out of the backfield this season and if that trend continues he should be considered more than just a “handcuff”. Pollard has demonstrated explosiveness and is on a high-powered offense. In Week 2 with just 16 total touches, he posted 140 yards from scrimmage and a touchdown. With the right weekly matchup, you could realistically start Elliott and Pollard in an RB/Flex combination.
Marquise Brown – 39 to 26
Marquise “Hollywood” Brown is another player whose CS Ranking post Week 2 when compared to his finish in 2020, is even more impressive than the 13 spots he climbed between Week 1 and Week 2. He finished 2020 at 55 in the rankings. 29 spots lower than where we now find Brown after two straight weeks of 16+ fantasy performances (16.4 and 20.3).
Week 1 Brown was hyper-efficient, collecting all six of his targets for 69 yards and a touchdown. However, Week 2 was far more encouraging. Despite finishing the week with the same amount of receptions, Brown was targeted 10 times in their contest with the Kansas City Chiefs. Brown finished the night with 113 yards, a touchdown and an impressive 54.78% of the team’s air yards. That kind of performance versus the AFC Champion favorite showed the Fantasy Football community that Brown is going to be the trusted “go-to” receiver in Baltimore. Especially in high-scoring affairs.
Fallers
Robby Anderson – 27 to 36
There were a plethora of narratives as to why Robby Anderson could have a career year. Reunited with Sam Darnold, without Adam Gase. The leader in targets on this team last season. No more Curtis Samuel and his vacated 97 targets. And his 5.03 CS came in impressively at 13th among all receivers.
Two games into 2021 and Anderson has four receptions on a meager nine total targets. He’s tied with Rookie Terrace Marshall Jr. for third on the Panthers with only 12% of the teams’ targets. It’s just too hard to consistently perform for fantasy rosters with so few weekly targets. Anderson is apt to still pop here and there with the big play. He’s currently the leader in Carolina in terms of the percent share of the team’s air yards, 37.89%. But knowing when he is going to make that big play is going to be like picking the right PowerBall numbers.
A.J. Brown – 7 to 17
A.J. Brown has had a bit of a dropped passes issue in his NFL career and we saw that in a big way in Week 2 as he had three drops in this game alone. On nine targets against the Seattle Seahawks, he only corralled three receptions for 43 yards. The Titans’ offense, as a whole, seemed snake-bitten through three-quarters of this game. And then it was essentially the Derrick Henry show to get them the win.
This wasn’t a horrible offensive showing from the Titans, but they seemed to be on the losing end of some bad luck calls. Still, fantasy managers everywhere hoped to see a better showing from Brown. But the true ceiling to Brown’s fantasy value isn’t any systemic issues with the Titans. Rather stiff competition for targets from a rejuvenated Julio Jones. Jones garnered eight targets in Week 2 and has 14 on the season compared to Brown.
Brown still has a strong command over the teams’ air yards with a 38.99% share of the team’s air yards. Jones is second with 27.5%. So the big plays are still going to be there to provide those high ceiling weeks. It is just the safe and consistent floor we had hoped for the third-year receiver is apt to be a lot lower than we initially hoped ahead of the move to bring Jones into the organization.
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Stream of the Week
Justin Fields
We all wanted to see Justin Fields on the field (Okay…I couldn’t help myself) sooner rather than later. But I don’t know if anyone expected Week 3 to be the week. For some, the hype is already palpable and I’m preaching to the choir. However, for enough folks out there, there is a good bit of hesitation. For good reason too. We’ve seen other rookie quarterbacks not quite ready for the limelight as recently as Week 2. Zach Wilson, Mac Jones, and Trevor. Freakin. Lawrence. Just to name a few. Plus Fields is getting forced into the situation on a short week. I get it, I understand the caution.
Fields has two things going for him. First off, his legs. We all know that a quarterback with rushing ability is a fantasy football konami cheat code. His own playmaking ability is going to give him a safe floor, just as a starting point. Number two happens to be the Cleveland Browns. Since Week 12 of last year through to this past week, the Browns have allowed an average of 23.29 fantasy points to the quarterback position which ranks the 3rd most over that time. In just the first two weeks of this year, they are averaging 27.88, which also happens to rank 3rd most. Their D-PAC score vs QBs of 8.75 ranks 11th highest.
This is a plus matchup for a quarterback and his rushing ability alone aught to start his fantasy career off right. Fire up Fields with confidence in Week 3.
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