The Judge's Verdict:
football 2020 Week 7
October 28, 2020
CASE SUMMARY:
Back in Week 3, the Judge's Verdict focused on Seattle WR Tyler Lockett and Jacksonville rookie RB James Robinson, who scored 32 and 28 points, respectively, that week (as always, 1/2-pt PPR). Both players outdid those performances this week, with Lockett catching 15 balls for 200 yards and 3 TDs in Sunday night's overtime loss to Arizona, for a massive 45.5 points, the best fantasy performance by any WR this year, a full 6 points ahead of Chase Claypool's 110 yds + 3 TDs in Week 5. Robinson ran for 119 yards and a TD, plus 18 yards receiving on 4 catches, including another TD, for a total of 27.7 points, in a losing effort against the Chargers. Despite his huge day, Robinson was only the #2 RB of the week, as San Francisco's Jeff Wilson Jr scored 31.
This presents a bit of a dilemma for the Judge. Generally, he doesn't like to repeat a player, especially less than a month between verdicts. Then there's Wilson, who was listed as questionable after missing Week 6 with a calf injury. It was assumed, even if he did suit up, that he'd be 3rd of the Niners' depth chart, and had a season yards-per-carry average of just 2.4. Add up all these factors, and most analysts didn't have him in their top 50. There is a large gap between Wilson and Robinson and the #3 RB, Todd Gurley, with 21 points, on 82 total yards with 2 TDs. Ironically, Gurley was supposed to avoid scoring that 2nd TD and kneel instead, and the mistake was nice for fantasy owners but allowed Detroit to mount a comeback and ultimately beat the Falcons.
A similar situation exists with TEs, where the top TE of the week was unheralded Harrison Bryant of the Browns, who scored 20 points via 4 catches for 56 yards and 2 TDs. Bryant replaced Austin Hooper who had an emergency appendectomy on Friday, and was a late decision to start over David Njoku, thus, he also was low on almost every analysts' rankings, generally between 19 and 25. The next best TE, Rob Gronkowski, had a 15-point game which was nice but isn't particularly noteworthy.
So this week's verdict will focus on Lockett, who did have an epic week and whose past few weeks provided differing opinions from our analysts, and this week's top three quarterbacks, all of whom had their best fantasy performance of the season. Tops was Chargers QB Justin Herbert, who threw for 347 yards and 3 TDs, plus another 66 yards and a TD on the ground. Herbert's week was the 3rd best QB fantasy day of the season, just 1.5 points behind season leader Pat Mahomes. The Judge will also take a look at Kyler Murray (who he expects will have elite rankings by nearly everyone), who scored 37 points (vs 38.5 for Herbert) on 360 yards and 3 TDs + 67 rushing and a score. Just a quarter-point behind Murray was Tom Brady, responsible for 5 TDs (4 passing, one QB sneak) and 369 yards passing. This was Brady's second 5-TD game of the season.
DEFENDANT TESTIMONY:
4for4
Herbert - 9, Murray - 2, Brady - 12, Lockett - 14. There wasn't too much differentiation between sites this week, which isn't too surprising when we focus on QBs. Almost all analysts ranked Herbert as a must-start betwen 7 and 10, everybody ranked Murray as a highly-elite QB in their top 4, and almost everyone had Brady between 9 and 13. 4for4's ranking of Lockett was a spot below the average but also generally within the most common range.
Huddle
Herbert - 15, Murray - 2, Brady - 13, Lockett - 11. TheHuddle had Lockett near the top of the range, and Murray at #2. The only slip-up was Herbert, as only TheHuddle and Fulltime ranked him lower than 12th.
PFF
Herbert - 10, Murray - 4, Brady - 11, Lockett - 11.
Sharks
Herbert - 8, Murray - 3, Brady - 9, Lockett - 10. DraaftSharks had a strong week, they were one of 3 sites to rank Lockett 10th, the highest among all analysts, and they also were above-average on Herbert and Brady as well.
CBS
Herbert - 7, Murray - 4, Brady - 13, Lockett - 11. CBS ranked Herbert 7th, tied with Roto St Journal for the highest ranking. Lockett at 11 was tied for the 2nd-highest rank.
ESPN
Herbert - 12, Murray - 3, Brady - 8, Lockett - 10. ESPN was the only site to rank Brady 8th, and they also ranked Lockett 10th, both highest.
HarrisFootball
Herbert - 10, Murray - 3, Brady - 9, Lockett - 15.
Sharks
Herbert - 9, Murray - 3, Brady - 13, Lockett - 13.
Sixpack
Herbert - 8, Murray - 3, Brady - 12, Lockett - 20. Sixpack was mostly inline but they ranked Lockett 20th, lower than anyone else.
FFToday
Herbert - 9, Murray - 1, Brady - 16, Lockett - 14. FFToday was one of 3 sites to place Murray at the very top of this week's QB rankings. Unfortunately they countered than by ranking Tom Brady 16th, the lowest position by 3 spots.
RotoStreetJournal
Herbert - 7, Murray - 1, Brady - 12, Lockett - 10. RSJ was the best site this week, which is nice because they had been having trouble distinguishing themselves. But they were one of 3 sites to rank Murray at #1, and they also had the highest ranking for Herbert (#7, tied with CBS) and the highest raning for Lockett (WR-10, tied with ESPN and DraftSharks).
Fantasy
Herbert - 17, Murray - 1, Brady - 9, Lockett - 18. Fulltime ranked Murray #1, just like Roto St and FFToday, and ranked Brady 9th which was the highest ranking other than ESPN. But Fulltime, like The Huddle, had little faith in Herbert this week, and ranked him 17th, was was the lowest of all the analysts, and 7 spots below his average. They also ranked Lockett at WR-18, which was the lowest other than Fantasy Sixpack.
FantasyAlarm
Herbert - 8, Murray - 2, Brady - 11, Lockett - 13. Fantasy Alarm had a good week, their rankings for Herbert and Murray were just one spot below the top position.
(read more about the fantasy football experts here)
VERDICT ANALYSIS:
Coming into this week, Lockett's previous two games were for 39 and 44 yards with no TDs, which led most analysts to elevate teammate D.K. Metcalf above him. Still, 2 WRs in the top 10 or 12 or 15 is still a testament to the explosive offensive abilities of these receivers and QB Russell Wilson. In Week 7, Metcalf did make the most memorable play of the week, perhaps the season, by chasing down Budda Baker 80 yards post-interception and saving a touchdown, but this doesn't translate to fantasy points. Meanwhile Lockett had his 2nd 3-TD game of the season. His volatility this season led to some differing opinions about his placement this week, although most sites still ranked him in a relatively small window.
Ranking Kyler Murray in the Top 3 wasn't very difficult, as Murray came into the week as the top fantasy QB, ahead of Mahomes, ahead of Wilson. He simply extended his lead by having his best game of the season. Herbert wasn't exactly on Murray's level for the season, but in his previous 2 games he threw for 7 TDs against just 1 TD, which was good enoough for most analysts to place him in their Top 10. Finally, Tom Brady has started to look very very dangerous recently, although he didn't need to put up huge numbers to beat Green Bay the week prior. As usual, the rankings for quarterbacks did not have a whole lot of variability, most sites ranked each QB within a pretty tight window.