“Better than average” is an annual measurement of how players did the previous season. Not just their total yardage or fantasy points. What this considers is which player posted the most fantasy points against a particular defense. Who had a Top-4 or a Top-8 performance? With 16 games for each defense, anyone that scored in the best eight against them for that position was “better than average.”
This considered a standard fantasy performance scoring with a reception point for running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends. The “BTA” score adds up the instances of whether a score was the highest, in the best four or eight allowed to the position by a defense. In that way, a No. 1 showing gets counted three times (as the No.1, in the Top-4 and the Top-8).
This is actually more accurate than considering total fantasy points. This indicates how well a player did versus all others that faced the same defense. Each defense only gives up one instance of a No. 1.
With so few players of any consequence, there are no big surprises here. Tight ends like Hunter Henry, Mike Gesicki, and Jared Cook didn’t have many great games, but they were solid in turning in “better than average” scores almost every week.
Here are just the No. 1 performances allowed by a defense (a total of 32). Interesting that Ertz led in this statistic while Travis Kelce was limited to just two instances of scoring the most tight-end points on a defense.