Fantasy Football RPV Breakdown: NFL Week 1 WR

We’ve hit the QB’s and RB’s earlier this week and now we turn our focus to the Wide Receivers using the The Fantasy Black Book’s  Relative Position Value per Dollar (RPVPD) tool. Relative Position Value compares a player’s value against his peers based on his production with a simple percentage. However, in the daily fantasy game we must take this method a step further because it’s simply not enough to know how much better one player is a position than another. We must quantify the rate of that production in accordance with the player’s salary.

Now, wide receivers may be the most abundant in terms of numbers, but you have to roster 3 on FanDuel and possibly a 4^th as a FELX on DraftKings. Touchdown upside is a big factor in selecting the right WR, as is volume. You need to have players in your lineup who are going to receiver the lions’ share of their team’s targets to have a fighting chance. The hardest part of selecting the right WR making sure you’re spending the right rate for the right ratio of production. THIS is why RPVD is so valuable.

Here’s the RPVPD for FanDuel WR Week 1 (top 32 priced WR’s):

Unfortunately, we must use last year’s Fantasy Points per Game average because the season hasn’t begun. This is far from ideal because we’re fielding a team for 2016 not 2015, but it’s enough to give us a jumping off point. For players like Dez Bryant who were hurt and played without Tony Romo, his average is negatively skewed. Although, yet again he’s playing with a QB who is as of yet unproven. As you can see his price/production ratio has him at the bottom of the pack and that might still be quite valid considering Dak Prescott’s inexperience. For players like Corey Coleman who have no 2015 stats, I’ve used moderate projected points as a starting point.

Brandon Marshall is the top RPVPD WR based on his #1 level productivity last year and his 1A price tag. His teammate Eric Decker isn’t far off either based on his steady 12-14 points he put up seemingly every singly week. Averages can lie if a player has 30 points one week and 3 the next. Decker was steady as the North Star. Despite his high price, Antonio Brown is the most cost efficient of the “Big 3”, with Julio Jones a close second and Odell Beckham a tad further down the list.

Keenan Allen and Julian Edelman are PPR darlings, but only Allen has his true QB under center this week giving him an edge over Edelman. Doug Baldwin’s insane second half TD rate is obviously not sustainable, but at $6.7K there’s plenty of appeal. DeAndre Hopkins was more than a few GPP winning lineups early on last year because he performed like a stud at a slight discount early in the season. Mike Evans has that same possibility this year. His 2015 average is really dragged down by the lack of TD’s (just 3 last year). Evans could very well be an immediate rocket ship to the top on the list in Week 1.

As you can see, there’s a lot of meat in the middle of this pack, which makes separating very difficult in tournaments. WR should be where you save your money to spend big because it’s more crucial to outperform your opponents here based on the fact most teams will be relatively strong from a points perspective at the position. However, spending wisely is what will have the real impact. RPVPD allows you to automatically thin the heard and focus on a select few. These targets can then be sorted and chosen based on matchup, conditions etc. making for a more efficient way of researching and constructing your lineup.

Who will be in your DFS receiving corps Week 1?

Joe Pisapia (@JoePisapia17) is the eight-time best-selling author of the Fantasy Black Book Series for baseball and football. He hosts Fantasy Sports Tonight on Sirius/XM Fantasy Sports Radio and The Fantasy Black Book/Sunday GameDay on FNTSY Network Radio.