What if Blake Bortles Wins Fantasy Football For Me?

4 weeks is a good indicator of performance and I’m fairly satisfied with my fantasy football team despite my 1-2 record (at the time of writing).  RG III’s poor performance plus injury in weeks 1 and 2 respectively cost me 2 very close victories.

As I previously wrote, QB performance trended evenly outside of the top 3 so drafting value QBs in late rounds was critical.

Critical QB Observations

• Russell Wilson is consistently and reliably scoring above projections.
• Robert Griffin III is offensively inept and now injured.

I’ve had to replace Josh McCown AND RG III with Kirk Cousins and Blake Bortles.  This would have been a non-issue except Cousins threw 4 interceptions against the Giants.

Elway versus Marino.  Manning versus Brady.  Cousins versus RG III Bortles.  Who will carry me to fantasy football victory?

Matchup, Upside, Strength of Schedule

Let’s make a player comparison using the Fantasy Player Comparison Tool.

It’s a small sample size of games between Cousins and Bortles, so I focused on matchup and upside.  The comparison tool recommends Cousins in every scenario.  I’m naturally skeptical, so let’s see what scheduling data and SAP Lumira tells us.

Blake Bortles is in a lot of trouble. Jacksonville has a relatively weak schedule, yet its upcoming opponents are (on average) playing 10 percentage points than the expected winning percentage.  At just 2 percentage points Washington’s schedule appears easier.

Key Learnings

• Despite a poor week 4 Kirk Cousins is still a better QB pick (for now).
• Expect poor performance from Jacksonville players, better performance from Jacksonville opponents.
• Jacksonville can expect a lot of losing, avoid choosing them as your DEF pick for ANY week.
• An uncanny correlation between strength of schedule and opponent winning percentage.  It’s a trustworthy measure for cross-analysis.

Conclusion

If your goal (like me) is to get sustained, predictable QB performance, game managers as Alex Smith is a better bet. I’m hoping Kirk Cousins to be this year’s Nick Foles, so hopefully Thursday’s performance is just an abbreviation.