Fantasy
12/20/23
7 min read
2023 Fantasy Football: Analyzing Week 15 Chalk
Looking at how you handled the chalk is essential to analyzing your previous play. That said, it can arguably be more important to look at how the field dealt with the chalk, because that information can be part of your decision-making process going forward.
Imagine the field is making considerable mistakes in processing ownership percentages and in how the chalk interacts with other pieces on a slate. In that case, I can confidently alter course and leverage those inefficiencies in my favor.
I will break down rosters each week, examining processes along the way. This piece will examine the state of chalk from the previous week to see if any meaningful takeaways develop.
Week 15 Chalk
Kyren Williams, RB, Los Angeles Rams
Kyren Williams sports the NFL’s second-most valuable workload, behind only Christian McCaffery, and Williams was playing a Washington Commanders defense that had allowed five straight top-five running back performances. I was not fighting this chalk. Williams put up a 4x salary multiplier.
Ezekiel Elliot, RB, New England patriots
The field seemed to magically forget that Ezekiel Elliott was an older running back at the tail end of his career. Furthermore, the 29 touches he got in Week 14 came in a game the New England Patriots controlled throughout. This was unlikely to be the case against the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 15. Elliott understandably failed to return a 4x salary multiplier.
Christian McCaffrey, RB, San Francisco 49ers
The Arizona Cardinals continue to allow running backs to do whatever they please against them. That meant another matchup with Christian McCaffery was unlikely to end well for Arizona. It did not. McCaffrey erupted for 187 combined yards and three touchdowns, returning a 5x salary multiplier on the highest salary on the slate.
Jayden Reed, WR, Green Bay Packers
Jayden Reed was on his way to a legitimate ceiling game before leaving the contest with a toe injury. His eight targets before departing resulted in a solid six catches for 54 yards and one touchdown — without playing a single snap in the fourth quarter. The injury kept Reed from a 4x salary multiplier, though he nearly got there anyway.
Antonio Gibson, RB, Washington Commanders
The field seemed to think Antonio Gibson was primed to step into a featured role without Brian Robinson. But the likeliest scenario was that Chris Rodriguez would slide into Robinson’s vacated role while Gibson’s remained unchanged. That happened Sunday, and Gibson failed to reach a 4x salary multiplier.
Chigoziem Okonkwo, TE, Tennessee Titans
Chigoziem Okonkwo’s inflated ownership expectations resulted from the slate, where participants wanted to fit in multiple high-end options while grabbing for any semblance of value they could. In other words, nothing in the matchup or in Okonkwo’s current role made him a solid on-paper play leading into the weekend. Okonkwo's three catches for 36 yards understandably fell short of a 4x salary multiplier.
Wan'Dale Robinson, WR, New York Giants
Here is another example of a player who garnered ownership due to the slate. Wan’Dale Robinson has one of the league's shallowest average depths of target (aDOT), playing for one of the offenses with the lowest Las Vegas implied team totals and a sub-10 percent red zone market share. Nothing here screamed upside this week. Robinson’s four catches for 25 yards fell short of returning a 4x salary multiplier.
Trey McBride, TE, Arizona Cardinals
Trey McBride handily led the Cardinals in targets. He out-targeted every other player by seven or more targets and needed every one to reach 100 yards through the air playing against one of the NFL’s top defenses against tight ends. Leading into the weekend, I was down on the electric second-year tight end due to the matchup, but he returned a 4x salary multiplier on DraftKings by reaching the bonus.
Rashee Rice, WR, Kansas City Chiefs
Rashee Rice came into Week 15 having seen target counts of 10, nine and 10 over the previous three games, highlighting a change in usage and emphasis for the Kansas City Chiefs' offense of late. His nine catches for 91 yards and a touchdown returned a 4x salary multiplier this week.
Matthew Stafford, QB, Los Angeles Rams
Matthew Stafford is playing some of the best football of his career, but the box scores have largely failed to reflect that due to one of his lowest-ever touchdown rates. He came into Week 15 having tossed 10 touchdowns in his previous three games, but he failed to eclipse a 4x salary multiplier due to an extremely positive game script. That was always the risk with Stafford. Sean McVay has proven to side with the run in games the Los Angeles Rams control in the second half. Stafford failed to return a 4x salary multiplier.
Chalk Hit Rate
The four players who returned a 4x salary multiplier this week bring our running count to 13 of 47, or 27.7 percent. The chalk hit rate has ballooned slightly over expectation via consecutive strong weeks, but we’re still in the territory of negligible sample sizes and negligible hit rate over expectation.Â
Theoretically, we could begin to generate hypotheses based on these findings, but it is far too early to jump to meaningful conclusions. We’ll continue to track this data to see if our previous hypotheses can be confirmed without introducing biases along the way.
In other words, we’re still in the data collection and examination stage.
Roster Examination
This is the first roster in a long time that I can’t poke any theoretical holes in. Even last week’s near-perfect roster had a small mistake.
From a theoretical perspective, there were three main situations that we had to account for on this slate: the San Francisco 49ers, the Rams and the Dallas Cowboys–Buffalo Bills game. Those were, by far, the situations with the top combination of upside and certainty on the Week 15 main slate. As you can see, DraftKings user haffeyjr5 accounted for all those situations on the Milly-winning roster. They also built some solid theoretical principles throughout the rest of the roster.
Three theoretical principles stick out as solid techniques on this roster.
First, rostering three value wide receivers is a technique the field uses at a minuscule rate, effectively reducing the field size haffeyjr5 was competing with on their way to first place.Â
Second, the quarterback–running back team stack is a technique that carries immense upside and is used by the field at a rate lower than the rate at which it hits.Â
Finally, the field is using three-back builds at a lower rate due to the state of the position. Running backs still carry upside comparable with wide receivers priced in the same range, but how running backs put together GPP-worthy scores has changed. The field has still not fully grasped that assertion, something I have been harping on for the previous two seasons.
The path to GPP-worthy ceiling from the running back position in today’s NFL is 100 yards on the ground and two scores. That’s our baseline. Some backs see enough passing game usage to offset the requirement for one of those scores, typically coming on three (or more) receptions with 30 (or more) receiving yards, offsetting the need for multiple scores.
You’ll notice that both massive running back scores on the winning roster (McCaffrey and James Cook) followed this formula to the top two overall raw point scores on the slate. You’ll also notice that an additional 11 yards on the ground for Rachaad White would have bumped his score to a GPP-worthy 26.0 points.
