Josh Gordon caught 3 balls for 99 yards and a score Sunday against the Bengals.
Analysis: Josh Gordon now has 3 touchdowns and 181 receiving yards over his last two games. While these are impressive numbers, he will not sustain anything close to that level of production. Those 181 yards came on just 5 receptions and 12 targets. Very, very few wide outs can score on just 25% of their targets. We must also consider that Brandon Weeden is not the quarterback you want to rely on for helping your fantasy wide outs put up monster numbers.
Josh Gordon may be available in just about every league out there but he isn’t even worth your time. He has yet to record a 4 reception game in his six games this year, he has yet to have a 10 target afternoon and he’s the second most targeted wide out on his team next to Greg Little. Picking up Josh Gordon is a recipe for disaster when there are far better options out there for you. Nate Burleson has 19 receptions in his last three games and even Kenny Britt is still available in a few leagues out there.
The New England Patriots have been playing solid defense this year while their offense gets all of the attention.
Analysis: The Patriot D isn’t a great unit but they are significantly more athletic this season. Expect New England to get an early lead on Seattle in week six and expect a solid performance from their defense in the process. Seattle won’t be able to keep up with the Patriots. The Seahawk offense ranks 27th in yards per game, 28th in points per game and 31st in passing yards per game. Simply put… Seattle will make offensive mistakes as Russell Wilson will try to keep up with the high powered Patriot offense which leads the NFL in points per game.
The Patriots don’t have crazy good numbers in the sack department or in interceptions but they do lead the NFL in fumbles forced and fumbles recovered. The unit may not be special but they have only had one down fantasy game this year to Baltimore. The defense is available in well over half of fantasy leagues and they are the choice to stream in week six.
In most years adding a Brandon Bolden to your fantasy roster would be a no-brainer but it isn’t that simple.
Analysis: Brandon Bolden has carried the rock 30 times for 191 rushing yards over the past two weeks. That is 15 carries per game but there are plenty of reasons why his touches may drop off in the coming weeks. Aaron Hernandez is close to game action and his involvement in the New England offense cannot be underestimated. Hernandez is a near elite weapon and add him to Welker, Lloyd and Gronkowski and there are only so many touches Bolden will receive. We must also consider that feature back Stevan Ridley is the Patriot workhorse and it doesn’t appear that his carries will be the first to go.
Bolden is available in seventy percent of leagues but his role in the Patriot offense is extremely uncertain. It makes the most sense to sell high and try to trade Bolden while his value is still high. His fantasy stock isn’t going to increase much more than it is at the moment yet in a week it could all be gone.
Kendall Wright was one of the most heavily targeted wide outs Sunday which led to yet another solid game from the rookie.
Analysis: Kendall Wright was targeted 11 times for 9 receptions and 66 yards Sunday against the Vikings. Wright now has a total of 20 receptions over his past three games on 30 targets between multiple quarterbacks. He may not be ready to produce consistently in standard leagues but he just may have a place in PPR leagues considering his reception total and his two touchdowns in his last four games.
Kenny Britt is struggling with an ankle injury and he has yet to post a solid game this year. Add that to the fact that the Titan ground game is garbage and you have yourself a rookie wide out getting ready to post some productive numbers. Wright is available in over eighty-five percent of leagues but his stock will be rising in the coming weeks. He leads all rookies in receptions with 27 this year and is justifying his 20th overall draft selection. Keep in mind that he has a week six matchup with the Steelers on Thursday.
One of the cool things about running FantasySP is the unique fantasy sports data that gets collected. As you know, our users can sync their fantasy leagues into FantasySP to gain access to tools such as the Fantasy Assistant. We support the big names: Yahoo!, ESPN, CBSSports, NFL.com, and MLB.com along with a few of the smaller websites. So let’s find out which websites are the most popular among fantasy football players!
Before we answer that, let’s take a step back and look at the latest available numbers of fantasy players. It is widely known that the fantasy sports industry is still growing. The latest estimate is 32 million players from Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA) on June of 2011.
For the sake of keeping things simple, we are going to use 32 million as our base point for the total amount of fantasy football players. The actual number could be slightly lower (because that 32 million accounts for more than just football) or higher today.
Calculating the Website Breakdowns
To make these calculations I am going to use FantasySP sync data of over 2,000 fantasy football leagues since August 1st 2012 up until now. I will then figure out a percentage of the pie each fantasy site gets of that 2,000. Those percentages will then be plugged into the bigger picture of 32 million total players. As an added bonus I will compare the same time period to 2011 to figure out how the landscape has changed, if at all.
If my data is accurate then we should see very similar numbers from year to year. First, let’s start with 2011.
Fantasy Websites
2011 Fantasy Football Breakdown
Website
FantasySP %
EST In Millions
ESPN
44%
14.0
Yahoo!
38%
12.16
NFL.com
9%
2.9
CBSSports
8%
2.56
Other
1%
.32
According to the data above: ESPN and Yahoo! dominate the fantasy football game and own 82% of the market. Again, keep in mind that these numbers are just for fantasy football. Personally, I am not shocked to see these numbers. I have been seeing ESPN and Yahoo! league syncing consistently ahead of the other websites for several years now. Perhaps the most surprising number is how close CBSSports and NFL.com are in terms of total football users. After all, NFL.com just recently came onto the scene 3 years ago.
Perhaps things will change slightly for 2012?
2012 Fantasy Football Breakdown
Website
FantasySP %
EST In Millions
ESPN
45%
14.4
Yahoo!
32%
10.24
NFL.com
13%
4.16
CBSSports
8%
2.56
Other
2%
.64
In 2012, ESPN continues to dominate and slightly added to their lead. Yahoo! lost 6% of the market, meanwhile NFL.com gained 4%. CBSSports remained consistent at 8%.
Two things worth mentioning. 1) Yahoo! offers an API to sync fantasy leagues and authenticate users. Despite that advantage, they still end up in second place. 2) CBSSport’s opened their own app store, which could have impacted their market share. Especially considering the fact that FantasySP has three apps in the store.
Making Sense of the Numbers
The numbers in this post are my best estimates as to the number of fantasy football players across the major fantasy hosting websites. I strongly believe that independent analysis of the fantasy sports industry is extremely useful to both insiders and outsiders. I believe other sites that offer fantasy syncing will show similar numbers to back up my estimates. (Feel free to contact me and I will update this post to reflect your findings.)
It is safe to assume that ALL websites actually gained fantasy football players year over year because the industry is still growing. NFL.com is on pace to own a larger portion of the market as each season passes. This is due to the fact the NFL owns it and because they are putting out a solid product that gets improvements each season. If you haven’t tried the NFL.com product, then you are truly missing out on something special.
One thing is clear though, the industry is changing and these numbers provide some insights as to what is happening. Three to five years ago daily fantasy games were not a big part of the industry and NFL.com fantasy games did not even exist.
I wonder where the next three to five years will take us?
