A lot can be learned from sports data. Thus the proliferation of fantasy football metrics. A lot can also be misleading, however, and lead you down rabbit holes that don’t come close to anything that truly matters.

For example, after five weeks of the 2023 season, we have two quarterbacks. Quarterback A has 1,143 passing yards, 11 passing touchdowns with five interceptions, 191 yards rushing, and one rushing touchdown. Quarterback B has 1,287 passing yards, 10 passing touchdowns, 4 interceptions, 154 yards, and zero rushing touchdowns.

Statistically, those two quarterbacks look like the Spiderman GIF where the two web-slingers are pointing at one another in a mirror image. Would it surprise you to know that Quarterback A is Justin Fields and Quarterback B is Patrick Mahomes?

Yet these are the only kinds of stats or metrics that many fantasy football platforms offer when checking out various players. We have an incredible suite of tools available here at the Faceoff website, for free. We’ve done the testing to show that they are predictive of future success too. So without further blabbering from yours truly, let’s get into some of the metrics that matter.

Targets per Route Run

Rashee Rice

Going into Thursday Night Football Travis Kelce is a big question mark. If there is any receiver who could get a meaningful bump and be worth rostering and even starting, that would be rookie Rashee Rice. Among players with three or more games with three or more targets, Rice leads all receivers in targets per route run (Trgts/RR) with a whopping 40%.

To put that into context, anything above 20% has shown a strong correlation for future success. Additionally, the wide receiver in second place with a 37.2% Trgts/RR is Tyreek Hill.

So rather than grabbing Noah Gray and throwing up a prayer, I would invest in Rice as long as Kelce is banged up, and possibly beyond.

Terry McLaurin

It is time to smash the glass and pull the panic alarm when it comes to Terry McLaurin. Anywhere I have him, I am trying to package him with another player to trade for someone.

Not only do the Washington Commanders rank 20th in total yards per play (5), 25th in yards per pass completion. But despite ranking fifth in total passing attempts (191) McLaurin is only being targeted on 16.58% of his routes run. Be it this new Eric Bieniemy offense, quarterback Sam Howell, or some kind of combination platter of those two plus additional factors, it’s not a good recipe for McLaurin whose Consistency Score has dropped to 2.36 and ranks 31st among all receivers currently this season.

Backfield Usage

Chuba Hubbard

Chuba Hubbard is rostered in 37% of leagues. Considering the epidemic of running back injuries as of late, Hubbard needs to be rostered and is a viable flex start if you’re in a pinch.

Sure the Carolina Panthers offense leaves a lot to be desired. But if you’ve lost… J.K Dobbins, Nick Chubb, Devon Achane, Aaron Jones… (do I really need to keep going?) Hubbard is at least on the field and getting chances.

Fellow back, Miles Sanders, started the season dominating touches for the Panthers. But Hubbard has stolen much of that workload over the last few weeks. In Week 4 he had 44% of the running back snaps, and in Week 5 it was 49%.

In terms of Percent of Total Offense, Hubbard and Sanders matched in output with 22% of the total team offense in Week 4, and Hubbard bested Sanders in Week 5,  15.5% to 11.3%.

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