Category: Fantasy football player trends

Parity has been running rampant in the NFL the last couple of weeks, and it has had an impact on fantasy rosters.

In Week 6, only three of the 30 teams playing scored more than 24 points in one of the lowest-scoring weeks in the modern era of the NFL. The week also saw the last two unbeaten teams (Philadelphia and San Francisco) lose.

In Week 7, strange things continued. In the 10 games played Sunday afternoon, six of them were won by the team with the worse record in the matchup. This included three 1-5 teams (New England, Chicago and the New York Giants) getting their second win of the season – all against teams that came in with a record of .500 or better. The trend continued Monday with Minnesota beating the 5-1 San Francisco 49ers.

Just when you think you have the 2023 season figured out, the NFL proves that you should expect the unexpected.

Back in the old days of fantasy football, the touchdown was king. Yardage wasn’t measured in the tenth of a point. PPR wasn’t a thing. You accrued yardage juice (if any) in increments of 25 or 50 yards.

Touchdowns are no longer the primary measuring stick, which was a good thing in Week 6. Of the 15 games played, if you bet the Under on every game, you went 13-2.

Ten teams won while scoring 21 or fewer points, and only three teams scored more than 24 points (and one had 26). The point totals from top to bottom were 63, 57, 40, 40, 38, 37, 36, 35, 34, 33, 32, 30, 27, 26 and 23.

In the modern era of the NFL, we have never seen this – nor will we again. Here’s to hoping your fantasy team won with a season-low point total.

Injuries are always part of the game – ask anyone who used a first-round pick on Nick Chubb – but there are times when your best players won’t be available to you by design.

Starting in Week 5, the NFL will do its annual attrition of available teams with bye weeks. While most savvy fantasy managers make sure they don’t box themselves in on draft day with too many players on bye at the same time, once roster moves start taking place, all that draft prep goes out the window.

Between Week 5 and Week 14, eight weeks will have byes, including four with four teams sitting and two weeks with six teams down. The best advice for your new-look roster is to plan ahead for the weeks that you’re going to be potentially crippled at a position and look in advance for a player who may be available to pick up and stash for a week or two to keep yourself from making a desperation waiver wire pick when everyone else panics. Sometimes forward thinking before the rest can pay dividends.