By Chet Gresham – @ChetGresham
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I’ve always been a fan of SOS despite its many shortcomings, but there are plenty of shortcomings. In the past, I’ve based SOS on multiple statistics from the previous season, but after working on that stat soup this season, I came to the realization I was building a camel instead of making soup. Too many statistics that could sway the numbers were built from outlier games. What I decided to do here is use Football Outsiders DVOA for defensive efficiency against the run and pass. Their ability to contextualize the statistics is superior to using raw stats. I did use DVOA in the past, but it was just one component. Simplifying SOS to just DVOA is the way to go in my opinion, but there are a few other statistics and methods I’m going to try and hopefully I can give you another angle on SOS in the near future.
But as you know, coaches, players, and schemes change over the offseason, so I’m not going to spit on your shoe and tell you my SOS is raining down infallible wisdom. Instead, I will look more at the outliers while reiterating that you don’t draft Eli Manning over Patrick Mahomes because he has an easier schedule. Strength of schedule should be used as a tiebreaker, a kind of background radiation that makes you a little keener than what radiation actually does to you.
What I have for you today is the DVOA for defenses against No. 1 receivers last season. You can take a look at a scaled-down definition of DVOA* at the bottom of this article.
This season, I’m going to tweak how I use the strength of schedule in fantasy a bit. In fantasy, like most things, a quick start is often integral to a good finish. It isn’t 100 percent necessary, but it sure gives you more options and the upper hand in trade negotiations. And when looking at SOS, we are likely to see teams play closer to their 2018 ways early in the season rather than late. That pushes me to put more emphasis on strong matchups in the early season schedule.
Carolina Panthers
Carolina’s No. 1 receiver is D.J. Moore. He’s not that far ahead of Curtis Samuel, but he’s ahead of him and if all things are equal, should lead the team in targets and have defenses go after him like the WR1. The Panthers already have one of the easiest pass-defense schedules in the league, but it’s even better when narrowing it down to the top receiver. In 13 of their 15 games, they’ll face a team that ranked 17th or worse against No. 1 receivers, which is just another reason to be high on Moore for 2019.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
My love for the Tampa Bay passing game continues to grow, with yet another metric that shows the Bucs should throw the ball a bunch this season. They come in with the second-best schedule for No. 1 receivers, giving Mike Evans a nice path. They’ll face nine teams that rank 20th or worse through their first 15 games and will continue to have a poor defense, which will set them back in games and push them to throw the ball.
Green Bay Packers
Playing in the NFC North isn’t the best place for No. 1 wide receivers, and it shows with Green Bay and Detroit having the two worst schedules for their top receivers this season. The good news for the Packers and Davante Adams is that he faced one of the toughest schedules against top cornerbacks in the league in 2018and still put up consistent numbers on his way to a top-five wide receiver finish. I don’t see any reason he won’t be able to continue his positive play with Aaron Rodgers throwing him the ball.
Dallas Cowboys
The Cowboys and Amari Cooper get a nice schedule for No. 1 receivers, as they face eight teams that rank 21st or worse. Cooper is the entrenched No. 1, and teams will always treat him that way, so it’s good to see that many of them had trouble containing the top receiver they faced each week in 2018. The front end of the schedule also looks better than the back end, which is worth a little extra in my fantasy book.
Arizona Cardinals
Deciding who Arizona’s No. 1 receiver is can be fraught with peril, but at this point, I believe teams will look to stop Christian Kirk on the outside with their top cornerback/scheme rather than Larry Fitzgerald out of the slot. That would give Kirk tougher matchups, but his schedule looks awfully good according to DVOA. The Cardinals get eight games against teams that rank 25th or worse or 10 that rank 19th or worse. Add that to an up-tempo offense that will throw the ball early and often, and I’m on board.
* DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average) calculates a team’s success based on the down-and-distance of each play during the season, then calculates how much more or less successful each team is compared to the league average. According to Football Outsiders, DVOA “breaks down every single play of the NFL season to see how much success offensive players achieved in each specific situation compared to the league average in that situation, adjusted for the strength of the opponent. … Football has one objective – to get to the end zone – and two ways to achieve that, by gaining yards and getting first downs. These two goals need to be balanced to determine a player’s value or a team’s performance.”
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