Thread by @DFBeanCounter

If y'all want me to say, "Voldemort has peripheral metrics that suggest that he might be better than the 10% target share and 8 fantasy ppg player that he's been" then Ill admit it.

I am in fact expecting him to have greater than 10% targets and 8 fantasy ppg this season.

There are two things at play here.

#1 - The binary notion of is he "good or evil" at football.

#2 - Regardless of #1, is he a good pick in any format?

So let's take a look at #2.

According to @fantasypros his ADP is 73.

I have skewed this image to show more players below him than above him.

So given he is being drafted at WR31 we should ask ourselves what that translates to in terms of production.

So lets take a look at WR31ish production the past few years...

The WR31 has scored the following in ppg the past 3 years:

2019 - 13.6
2020 - 13.8
2021 - 12.6

Average - 13.3
Median - 13.6

So the expectation when drafting the WR31 should be ~13.5 ppg.

But if you draft the WR31 and he scores exactly what he is supposed to score... he doesnt help you win your league.

There is probably real math out there somewhere regarding this but at this point, I would like to be drafting a WR with a WR31 floor, that COULD smash and become a WR1 in fantasy.

I think of that cut-off as somewhere around ~16 ppg.

So when I am looking at taking voldemort or someone else I am drafting with that in mind.

I want a ~13 ppg floor and a 16+ ppg ceiling in projectable upside.

At this point I would just like to remind you the players being drafted around Gabriel Davis right now.

So lets talk about Voldemort projections:

The past two years Buffalo has passed for 38.1 and 37.2 attempts per game.

Three years ago they only had 32.1 attempts per game, but that was when Josh Allen was still atrocious. He is no longer atrocious so I think we can disregardit

That gives us a pretty tight window of projections

~37.6 attempts per game.

That is juicy.

Gabriel Davis has averaged 9.7 and 8.7 yards per target while being guarded by a who's who of cornerbacks that youve literally never heard of.

This is the run that the Voldemort stans choose to focus in on so lets check out who was covering him as the 'unquestioned' WR2 in the offense.

Sean Murphy-Bunting was tasked with stopping this unstoppable force of nature in that first game as the 'unquestioned' #2 in the passing attack.

Becuase I know nothing of defensive players I will go to the professionals... PFF gave SMB a scintilating 61.0 coverage grade in 2021

Rashaan Melvin was the next victim of Voldemort's greatness...

Melvin, as you know, received a coverage grade from PFF for the 2021 season of 57.0

Darren Hall was the next stop on 'git rekt' by Voldemort avenue and through sheer force of will he received a 2021 grade of 47.1 from PFF.

In week 17 it was Christmas time and obviously Voldemort was in the holiday spirit as he was decking the Hall's in back to back weeks and this time it was Bryce Hall's turn...

And the question of the unstoppable force and the immovable object was answered this week as Voldemort mustered 3 receptions for 39 yards on FOURTEEN targets against a CB that received a 64.5 2021 coverage grade...

and then it was Voldemort's turn to face off against Joejuan Williams and face off they did.

The New England cornerback with the season long coverage grade of 61.6 was able to hold him to 3 targets 2 receptions and 41 yards with a TD.

And than last but certianly not least... we had Voldemort lining up against literally "unnamed player" on that January afternoon that started this entire delusion against the Chiefs.

So all that being said, I have no idea if Coverage grades matter or not, but it should be noted that guys like Jalen Ramsey and Darius Slay are near the top of the list.

Now, one could argue that Gabe will be facing those very same CBs again this year!

And I think that is fair.

But as long as we are cutting up the sample to show what Gabe can do when given the opportunity I think we should take that all the way...

So I only ever use regular season stats which is what I cited above when listing his Y/T at 9.7 and 8.7

So in comparing his end of season unquestioned #2 run to his career norms we get...

8+7+3+14 = 32 targets...

And 43+85+40+39 = 207 yards..

207/32 = 6.47 y/t

So then I simply must question the voldemort stans if he was in fact beating up on those shitty cb's he was facing and is likely to face yet again?

Sorry out of tweets. BRB.

So then how can we expand our sample of him destroying CB2s as the unquestioned WR2 on the team?

Well we could unfairly look at his rookie season...

That year he played a number of games with 80%+ of the snaps and ended up with 286 receiving yards on 43 targets..

286/43 = 6.6 yards per target.

So is his early career efficiency simply a result of hitting big plays as an after thought in the offense?

Why isnt he efficient when he is a focal point of the offense?

I think I might know.

OR.. maybe we shouldn't be chopping up small samples into tiny pieces.. that could also be a smart thing to do.

So lets include the playoffs.

That brings us to 735 receiving yards on 88 targets.

8.35 yards per target. So like I said, he's a total stud.

And by that what I mean is that if you are betting on Voldemort, you are simply betting on one magical January afternoon.

Its amazing how if you have a game where you record 200 receiving yards on 10 targets for a mark of 20 y/t it will increase your overall efficiency by a substantial mark when you are only dealing with 735 receiving yards in the first place.

That is 27% of his receiving production from that sample from ~7% of the games with > 80% snap share.

If you think Voldemort is efficient you are literally basing it on one game in two years in which playerprofiler didnt even list the person covering him. 😂🤣

Now tbf, I consider all of this bad process. I NEVER cut up samples like this or remove good games... Because when you remove all of a players good games of course they arent good.

The problem for Voldemort, is that if you remove literally one game out of 34, all of the reasons to draft him come crashing down.

It doesnt really matter which player we are talking about, I am certainly not going to be the one citing small sample efficiency on a player that had a 200 yard receiving game within that small sample

Thats like saying, "stop the count" after week 2 on the Sammy Watkins gamelogs

So at this point, I would just like to remind you of the players that he is being drafted around.

So then back to the task at hand, how do we project a Voldemort?

We basically don't.

I mean we can contort all of these different figures into whatever narrative we want to... but no matter how you slice it, you are going to have to divvy up a bunch of vacation targets

and when you are doing that you are going to have to give a whole bunch to players that we don't really have any idea what they are.

This is basically the "well somebody has to catch the ball" argument or you just simply have to believe in your heart of hearts that Voldemort is a great football player...

But we really don't have any evidence of that either.

A few months ago I had done a thread 'to end them all' on Voldemort and highlight a few things about 'is he individually good at fooball.

Here is that thread should you choose to read it.

https://twitter.com/DFBeanCounter/status/1539777118455754752?s=20&t=p6SJFhOsJuAMlgzALdmVIg

And here is a tweet regarding HIS pff grade.

https://twitter.com/DFBeanCounter/status/1539777149783027712?s=20&t=p6SJFhOsJuAMlgzALdmVIg

And here are some tweets regarding his Reception Perception performance per Matt Harmon.

https://twitter.com/DFBeanCounter/status/1539777154967166977?s=20&t=p6SJFhOsJuAMlgzALdmVIg

So again, lets try to divvy up these targets in some way shape or form.

Now at this point we all know that target share is among the more sticky metrics we have access to.

*most players stick within a few percentage points of their baseline.

So first up is Stefon Diggz.

Diggz has a high of 29.1% and a low of 26.4% the past two years.

If we are going to make excuses that the offense was just too stacked for a true Voldemort breakout last year than we should probably apply that stacked offense theory to everyone.

I am totally being facetious... I dont think the offense too stacked last year, but the Voldemort stans do and I am certainly not above friendly jab among friends.

Nevertheless in situations like this where I think I am not too sure what to make of the other pieces I really lean into the bonafide superstars.

So my presumption here is that we have a Davante Adams on the packers type of situation...

One man eats like a king and the peasants get the scraps.

Thus, I think we should be buying the hell out of Stefon Diggz right now as I think he will be closer to his ceiling than his floor.

So then where do we go from here?

Welp we have Jamison Crowder and Isaiah McKenzei.

Most presume that one of them will be the cole beasley slot receiver type and will primarily cannibalize each other and I think that is probably a fair assumption.

Crowder has averaged 20.8% target share the past two years and that is in line with Beasley's 2021 target share of 19.7%

Sorry, ran out of tweets again. @twitter you seriuosly need to look into this.

So then we still have to figure out what to do with Voldemort.

I had done this thread a few months back regarding does target rate lead to target share? feel free to take a quick look.

https://twitter.com/DFBeanCounter/status/1538892779127877633?s=20&t=p6SJFhOsJuAMlgzALdmVIg

The answer is, no.

Unless of course the player in question had missed substantial chunks of games which had an impact on his per game target share.

Otherwise, not really.

I had also done a thread at one point looking at what is possible when it comes to year over year target share changes and it is extremely rare to see a 10 percentage points increase.

This would be considered the 100th percentile outcome.

If you recall, Voldemort had a 10.9% target share last season.

So lets just presume we give him a 10 percentage poitns increase to 20.9%.

Does that fit within the context of this offense? No not at all, it would require the slot role and a very good target earner in Jamison Crowder to underperform his norm.

Which is possible. I don't think of Jamison Crowder as some immovable object.

Though I never thought of 34 year old Emmanuel Sanders nor 32 year old Cole Beasley as such either...

And tbf neither did the Voldemort stans when they were shouting from the roomtops that Sanders signing didnt matter last year.

So, I guess time will tell.

Nevertheless if you recall way back in the beginning of this monstrosity I had mentioned that the Bills are probably going to pass it somewhere around 37.6 attempts per game.

If we allocated 20.9% of those targets Gabe's way, then he is staring in the face of 7.85 targets/game

7.85*17 = 133.45 targets!!!

So then do we use the 6.6 yards per target of his non-200 yard game when accounting for 80%+ snaps?

133.45 * 6.6 = 880.77 yards.

Eek.

Lets include an the extra 200 yard playoff game.

133.45 * 8.35 = 1114.30

So what you are telling me then, is tht you like Voldemort becuase of that special January afternoon?

Again, I would not be the one out on the streets banging the drum for a player based on a singular game.

But maybe I'm old fashioned.

So Voldemort has averaged 16.4 yards per reception throught his career.

If we back that out of the 1114.30 receiving yards it gives us 67.9 receptions.

Then lets give him TD rate north of 10% becuase his career td rate is an absurd 18.6% that is completely unsustainable.

Lets say 7 TDs.

111.4 receiving points.
67.9 reception points.
42 TD points.

221.3 fantasy points.

and then when you take 221.3/ 17 games you get 13.0 fantasy points per game.

Keep in mind this is with a 100th percentile target share growth and including the 200 yard outlier playoff game in the 'efficiency' calc.

Like, I am not really sure how you concoct anything higher as a ceiling and consider it "a projection".

And as a floor... Well, just remember how awful he has been at converting targets to yardage against CB2's in his entire life and how unstable TD efficiency is and it is pretty damn easy to envision a massive bust at his ADP.

And if you recall, earlier we were talking about what we are looking for when drafting the WR31.

How on earth does Voldemort win you your league at that price?

What is the path to 16+ ppg?

And furthermore, what if he is simply just not very good as every single data point in his profile alludes to.

He was a day 3 pick despite flashing early in college.

He was an after thought as a rookie even when he was playing a huge number of snaps.

He was an afterthought for most of his second year.

Without that special January afternoon where an outlier performance had an outsized impact on his small samples, there just isn't much to get excited about.

And then I would like to remind you exactly where Voldemort is being drafted...

There are sooooo many players being drafted in and around him that do not required 100th percentile outcomes in order to meet expectation.

There are players being drafted around him where their 100th percentile outcome includes winning you your league.

This, without a doubt, makes Voldemort the WORST draft pick in fantasy football.