The Judge's Verdict:
football 2019 Week 11
November 19, 2019
CASE SUMMARY:
Anytime the Buffalo Bills are the biggest story in football it's a bit melancholy, as it's nearly impossible to think about the Bills without thinking about heartbreak, about Scott Norwood, about the great Tim Russert, about "nobody circling the wagons," and about one of the Judge's first bosses, a die-hard native of Buffalo on whose desk another colleague cruelly left 9 apple turnovers the day after Super Bowl XXVII (9 turnovers, you know?).
Regardless, there's no denying that Buffalo is in the fantasy spotlight this week, with QB Josh Allen leading all QBs in points along with John Brown, the top fantasy receiver, after the Bills 37-20 win over Miami. Yes, Miami gave up a lot of fantasy points, big surprise. Allen had his best game of the season and 2nd best of his career (#1 game was also against the Dolphins, in Week 17 last year), with 256 yards and 3 TDs plus 56 rushing yards and a TD. Allen's recent stats reflect a dramatic upswing since the first few games of the season: after throwing 7 INTs in his first 5 games, Allen has none in his last 5. He has yet to throw for 300 yards in any game this year, but this week was his first 3-TD game. His fantasy scoring has also increased due to Allen's ground threat: after 3 rushing TDs in his first 7 games, he has run it in 4 times in the past 3 games.
Of course when Allen throws 3 TD passes, some receivers must benefit, and in this case, that was almost exclusively John Brown. Brown has firmly been established as Allen's top target, and is on pace to have a career year in every statistical category. Brown exceeded 100 targets in his first 2 seasons (103 and 101) and just crossed 1000 yards in 2015 (1003). He already has 85 targets and 817 yards, a pace to finish at 136 and 1307. This week was Brown's first 100-yard day since Week 1, and his first 2-TD game of the season (actually, his first since his rookie season in 2014).
Outside of Buffalo, Jets' tight end Ryan Griffin led all TEs in fantasy scoring for the 2nd time this season, with 109 yards on 5 catches, plus a touchdown. When Griffin scored 2 TDs in Week 8, no analysts had him anywhere near their top 10, as Griffin had just 1 game exceeding 10 receiving yards, and he only had 28 in that one game. This week's performance can't be considered a total surprise, especially against Washington, although he had just 1 catch last week.
The 2nd and 3rd highest-scoring WRs were Jacksonville's D.J. Chark and Atlanta's Calvin Ridley. Coming into the week, Chark, who put up 104 yards on 8 catches, including 2 TDs, was ranked very similarly as Brown by many analysts, listed next to each other on a handful of experts' boards. It was his 3rd 20+ point day of the season. Ridley was more of a surprise, generally rated outside the Top 20 in most expert ranking and well into the 30's on some. He delivered the best fantasy day of his career, catching all 8 targets sent his way (tying a career high for receptions) for 143 yards and a TD.
DEFENDANT TESTIMONY:
In lieu of the expert-by-expert breakdown, the Judge has compiled all the player rankings and will post them all in this single graphic. The reason for this is, to the Judge's surprise, there was very little variation among the experts on where they ranked Allen and Griffin, as well as Brown, save for a few exceptions. Because of that, the individual breakdowns would be quite a dry read with so few outliers.
We'll make a few notes however:
Huddle
TheHuddle, as it often is, was an outlier on 2 players this week. While nearly every expert ranked Brown in the low teens, TheHuddle had him all the way down at 28th. However, they were the only site to elevate Ridley to WR2 status, all the way up to 12th, 8 spots above any other expert. They had promoted him to 11th a week earlier, when he recorded only 6 points against New Orleans, but this week's performance proved their insticts were correct.
CBS
CBS's experts were hugely mixed on D.J. Chark. Two analysts ranked him at #12 or #13 but Dave Richard pushed him all the way down to 36th. The Judge can't remember that large of a difference among the CBS experts on any individual player. They were also very mixed on Griffin, with Jamey Eisenberg ranking him 15th among TEs, which would have been the highest ranking, but Heath Cummings didn't have him on his board at all (CBS experts publish their top 24 TEs), so along with Richard's #20, we estimated an average ranking around 22.
(read more about the fantasy football experts here)
VERDICT ANALYSIS:
The Judge admits to being surprised that Allen was unanimously ranked in the Top 10, he expected to see more volatility, given the number of elite QBs (although Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson were on byes). He was also surprised at how tight the range was for John Brown, especially given that WR is the most volatile position and Brown is good, but not at the very top like michael Thomas or Mike Evans. Ryan Griffin was treated by almost every expert as a one-hit wonder, although now he is the 3rd-highest scoring TE over the past 4 weeks (behind only Travis Kelce and Austin Hooper), he could be a critical component of a fantasy playoff roster.
Even Chark and Ridley had less divergence of opinion than is normal for players at their level. Even with 10 experts ranking Chark between 11 and 14, none took a chance in ranking him (or Brown) in their Top 10, although a few demoted him to between 19 and 22. Ridley was mostly a non-factor, with half the experts rankinng him outside the Top 30.