Fantasy Football Metrics that Matter (Week 9)

Welcome back to another edition of fantasy football metrics that matter. This column dives into all of the stats and data generated for fantasy football. More importantly, it gets rid of all of the noise and misleading numbers to highlight the fantasy football metrics that matter for success. On a weekly basis, I’m going to highlight a few players who might surprise you with how well, or how alarming they are performing in these metrics. Using this, you can get ahead of your competition for Week 9 and beyond. These are the fantasy football metrics that matter as we head into Week 9.

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Demario Douglas is a Priority Waiver Wire Add

Targets per Route Run

Over the past few weeks, Demario Douglas has been a player that a lot of fantasy managers have probably flirted with picking up off the waiver wire. Currently, he’s still available in 94% of leagues on Sleeper and 97% of Yahoo! leagues. We all know it’s hard to trust the passing game in New England. However, it appears now is finally the time.

The Patriots’ passing attack is 26th in Yards per Attempt at 6.2, 18th in total passing yards, tied for 18th in passing touchdowns (9) while being tied for 5th most in interceptions (8), 26th in plays over 20 yards. So it’s understandable why the trust isn’t there.

However, with Kendrick Bourne now out for the foreseeable future, and JuJu Smith-Schuster clearly not a solution for New England, Douglas gets elevated to the primary receiving target for that offense and through sheer volume will have fantasy football value.

The pieces have been put into place before Bourne’s unfortunate injury already. Aside from exiting early and missing the subsequent week Douglas has been seeing an increase in playing time each week since his third NFL Game.

He is also ranking 18th among all eligible receivers in Targets Per Route Run (TPRR) with a season-long average of 26.36%.

It’s not often you can find a team’s number one target available off waivers in Week 9 of the season, even if it’s not a great offense. But that’s exactly the type of opportunity Douglas presents to the savvy fantasy manager in 2023.

It’s Time to Sell High on Gabe Davis

Gabe Davis just had a season-high in targets (12), receptions (9), and fantasy points (19.2). And if you started him, you are probably feeling pretty great about it. Congrats. But how many fantasy football managers actually started him in Week 9 after posting a line of just one catch for six yards the week before? Probably not a lot.

Davis’ 2.56 consistency score ranks 27th among receivers and is only that high due to a few big ceiling performances. Which absolutely is valuable. But his floor is somewhere near the Titanic shipwreck, down near the floor of the unrelenting ocean.

Even after racking up a TPRR of 32% on Thursday Night Football, his season average is still well below the 21% threshold shown to correlate with future success. On the season he has a TPRR of only 18.25% and ranks 61st among receivers.

Capitalize on this performance and send him off to be someone else’s headache to boomerang from bench to starter to bench back to starter… and so on.

Trade for Zack Moss

Colts’ Backfield Usage

Never thought I’d utter those words, let alone make them a headline in an article of mine. But since Week 5, when Jonathan Taylor got back to the field, Zack Moss has had 59 rush attempts, ranking 6th among all running backs over that time, and 12 targets ranking 19th. The Indianapolis Colts want to run the ball. They’re 11th in the league in rush attempts with 230, and with rookie Anthony Richardson out for the season, that means a two-headed hammer of Taylor and Moss.

Gardner Minshew taking over under center has been a blessing in disguise for Moss fantasy managers. In Weeks where Richardson was calling plays Moss had only seven targets in those four games, which ranks 41st over that span. In the games with Minshew, he has 13 targets and ranks 15th. And regardless of what scoring format your league is, a target is more valuable for fantasy football than a rush attempt.

Despite Taylor getting back to work, Moss has continued to provide at least RB2 worthy value averaging 17 fantasy points per game since week five and still ranking sixth among running backs in Consistency Score (3.9).

Use the threat of Taylor to get a relative value from the manager still rostering Moss, who is rostered in 82% of leagues in Sleeper, 83% in Fleaflicker, and 84% on Yahoo! It’s not often a running back providing this much value is attainable at this point in the season. But thanks to the roster that he’s on in real life, many managers will part with him for much less than someone producing at a similar level, but without a talent like Taylor sharing a roster spot.

Did you like this piece? Disagree? Drop me a line and let me know @DumpsterDiveFF and go ahead and follow for more fantasy football nuggets & all things Consistency Score related! If you’re a fantasy football content creator, please take advantage of the Consistency Score and use it in your content!

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