Fantasy: Big Is Beautiful

With the Bye Week period completed in the NFL, we’re well into the home stretch for fantasy regular seasons. Trade deadlines are likely forthcoming, but for the most part, you have a good idea of what your team will look like heading into the postseason, assuming you’re still in the running by drafting and maneuvering well enough over the past two months. At this point, we’ve seen enough football to have a legitimate sample size to go off of, and gain a better understanding of where we can expect our teams to end up.

Football, as has been repeated in this space almost every week, is the ultimate team game. It’s difficult to isolate individual players and understand their relative worth to their teams. This creates the fundamental problem at the base of fantasy football- how much do the other players on the field affect our individual fantasy stars? In light of this concern, it’s worth taking a longer look at the supporting casts that make our fantasy teams look so good. I’m speaking, specifically, about offensive lines.

In my initial article prior to Week 1, I looked at the best individual offensive linemen from 2009, and what their PFF ratings might mean with respect to potential fantasy performance in 2010. Now, since offensive lines have been largely established for the rest of the season (certainly more so than they were in the preseason, when I wrote that article), I’ll look at them as a whole based on the first nine weeks in 2010, rather than as a collection of five individuals. By doing so, I hope to find which individual QB and RBs are playing well in spite of their offensive lines, and which ones may be struggling despite yeomen’s work up front.

Passing

Let’s first look at pass protection, and what it has meant and will mean, if anything, for our fantasy QBs going forward. The “QB Pts” column is the sum of all the points scored by the QBs for the team listed, and their cumulative rank compared to other teams.

What we’ve found is there is actually very little correlation between an offensive line’s PFF pass block rating and the quarterback that O-Line protects – in fact, a simple significance test shows just a 6.96% correlation between the two.

It behooves us to inspect why the correlation is so low. If we look at the discrepancy between QB play and his team’s offensive line rating, we might be able to decipher something meaningful about how well our QBs are playing, and perhaps how well we can expect them to play the rest of the way.  Try to stick with me here…

Phew. By looking at the “QB Discrepancy Rating”, we see which fantasy QBs are playing above, and below, the ability of their respective offensive lines. For example, despite having the 28^th rated pass blocking unit protecting him, Phillip Rivers has managed to put up the 3^rd most fantasy points of any QB group in the NFL. That makes him the most valuable QB in fantasy. With Marcus McNeill getting increasingly comfortable with the players around him, and with more familiar receivers once again getting back on the field, one can safely assume that Rivers has exceeded expectations more than any other fantasy QB, and can, in fact, expect to improve in the remaining weeks. Additionally, Kyle Orton has far surpassed his protection in terms of fantasy production, and with Ryan Harris and Zane Beadles setting up as starters over Denver’s Bye two weeks ago, perhaps Orton too is poised for more consistency in the second half.

On the flip side, several QBs have underperformed despite the quality efforts of their offensive linemen. The first relevant one to jump out must be Mark Sanchez and the New York Jets, a team that possesses the top-rated pass-blocking performance, yet has yielded one of the worst fantasy QBs of the season. While Sanchez has undeniably developed into a more disciplined, efficient, and capable passer and leader, that has not translated in the realm of fantasy (18^th overall). Barring a massive improvement in the season’s second half, avoid starting the Sanchize in all but the deepest of leagues. Another team to keep an eye on is Pittsburgh. The 31^st rated pass blocking corps, which has now lost Max Starks for the season, also only gained Ben Roethlisberger at QB after 5 weeks, which likely skews the data to actually look as though the OL has been better than it actually has been. Given the injuries, and Roethlisberger’s return, it appears that, for a second consecutive season, Big Ben will likely have to overcome very subpar protection the rest of the way to be effective- this time without Santonio Holmes. I’m wary of him as a starter, to say the least. Finally, no QB analysis can be complete without a look at the demise of one Brett Favre. Though the protection has not been great by any means (16^th rated Pass Blocking unit), Favre’s fantasy numbers are actually, relatively, much worse (30^th ranked fantasy QB group of 32).

The middle of the list indicate fantasy QBs who are playing commensurate with their line’s level, and can still show some very interesting results. In one instance, Detroit’s Shaun Hill and Matthew Stafford have been superb in terms of fantasy production, but, despite popular opinion, did you know that their offensive line has actually been just as good at protecting them (ranked 6^th)? On the other side of the coin, Jay Cutler has gotten the worst protection in the league from the Bears’ turnstile-esque offensive line, which could very well serve to explain his 27^th ranked fantasy production amongst the 32 teams.

Rushing

We find, for running backs, that run blocking is a better indicator of fantasy RB play- 33.61%, using the same correlation test as earlier. Still, that’s not a significantly telling relationship, so we must dig deeper to find out which cases explain the story behind why offensive line play does not necessarily determine RB performance. Keep in mind that fantasy points incorporate all RB points- both receiving, as well as rushing, while the rush-blocking rating pertains only to plays where the ball is run.

Similar to the quarterbacking analysis seen earlier, we can interpret some very meaningful conclusions from this data. Starting at the top, you must expect that the run-blocking on Tennessee, which currently ranks last in the NFL, will get better (their 5.4 rating in 2009 ranked 12^th in the NFL). No individual player has done more than less, according to this data, than Chris Johnson. Assuming the offensive line does come around, with the addition of Randy Moss creating fewer situations in which opposing defenses load the box and cause havoc for the Titan linemen, Johnson should have bigger fantasy days ahead. The next two worst offensive lines, Tampa (31) and Pittsburgh (30), have also had impressive running back performances in spite of them, with Rashard Mendenhall and the Cadillac Williams/LaGarrette Blount RB-du-jour doing well enough to merit the belief that with better performance up front, their solid seasons thus far could be even better. The availability (Roethlsiberger) and growth (Freeman) of their respective QBs should only contribute to that cause, hopefully springing them for more fantasy points and better run blocking in the upcoming weeks. The Oakland Raiders have provided an excellent blueprint of how the running situations in Tampa and Pittsburgh could be much rosier- Darren McFadden, Michael Bush and Marcel Reece have excelled when given the opportunity, but the surprising effectiveness of the inexperienced offensive line (rated 12^th) has buoyed their fantastic start.

If running backs get all the glory when they hit paydirt, they also deserve blame when they don’t make the most of their offensive line’s excellent performance. Surprisingly, the much-criticized Dallas Cowboys offensive line rated 3^rd in run blocking, (and 7^th in pass blocking) yet the vaunted trio of Felix Jones, Marion Barber and Tashard Choice have done absolutely nothing with what they’ve been handed, ranked 31^st in fantasy output. Similarly, Miami’s ballyhooed Ricky Williams/Ronnie Brown combo platter has fallen flat on its face this year, scoring just 23^rd amongst fantasy running back teams, despite having the 4^th rated run-blocking unit paving the way. Jake Long’s shoulder dislocation will not help matters, as was seen in last night’s debacle against the Bears, with Julius Peppers manhandling him on multiple occasions. Meanwhile, the Green Bay Packers, after losing starter Ryan Grant in the first game of the season, have struggled with new starter Brandon Jackson, who simply has not lived up to the sterling performance on the line, led by rookie tackle Bryan Bulaga and All-Pro worthy guard Josh Sitton.

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The bottom line is that when you make fantasy lineup, trade, or add/drop decisions, don’t forget the multitude of variables that allow our individualfantasy players to reap the rewards. Recognizing how much of an individual’s success can be attributed to his teammates can be a very useful tool in making the decisions that define fantasy champions.

Best of luck this week.

(You can reach Anshu on Twitter: @PFF_AK)