WR3 By Committee: PPR

Over the past few years, there have been two very popular articles written by our very own Chase Stuart that look at an interesting approach to building a fantasy team with late value picks. Based upon the theory of using both Strength of Schedule ("SOS") and taking two players as a combination to build one very good player, he has discussed both Team Defense by Committee ("TDBC") and Quarterback by Committee ("QBBC") as a general fantasy league strategy. In general I think that this is a wise move because very early on in fantasy drafts there are a ton of RB and WR prospects to go after to build a great team. While there are a few studs at QB and also a few choice defenses, I do not see a huge need in leagues to pursue either too hard in the beginning stages of a fantasy draft.

So with this in mind, I started to think about what else can be done with the committee approach. Tight end? Perhaps. Running back? Maybe. Wide receiver? Hmmm, that's really intriguing, but we should probably look at say the third starting option - "Fantasy WR3". What if you could grab two wide receivers later in the draft that could combine to perform on a WR3 - or even WR2 - level, based solely on their current projections and their schedule? Now we're talking. This really got my attention, so I went after this. Let's take a look at how I went about this and then we can digest and discuss the results.

ELIGIBLE RECEIVERS

So how to begin? Defenses and quarterbacks are relatively easy to "committee" together. There's usually only one QB and certainly only one team defense per NFL club, so the approach is pretty simple as far as picking out which players / teams to try and pair up. When it comes to wide receivers, the line is not quite so easy to draw, but I needed some basis to pick which players it made sense to try and combine for a decent committee. I decided that I would use the following criteria to decide which players to start with for evaluating:

CRITERIA #1 - WR37 AND BEYOND

This seems pretty simple. If we want to have a duo that puts up WR3 numbers, that means we want WR36 or better production - else we would just draft WR36 or higher and forget the whole idea. So here is the list of players with which I started, based on their Average Draft Position (ADP):

Table 1: Wide Receivers WR37-WR60+ Based on ADP

Notice that I went past WR60, as two wide receivers (WR62 Doug Baldwin, WR67 Malcom Floyd) are projected to outperform many wide receivers on this list, so they deserved to be included (and highlighted for your drafting benefit).  Now we have 26 guys to pair up and see how they do. That makes 325 potential committees, so there had better be a decent one (or several, we hope) out of all of those couplets. Now, before I go over the method of how to pair them up and the results, we need one more rule:

CRITERIA #2 - NO MORE THAN ONE WR FROM ROUND 7 AND ONE FROM ROUND 8.

This could get tricky here, but understand the overall goal. The point of WR3BC is to "free up" the first 6 rounds of your fantasy draft to pursue 2-3 receivers after grabbing a stud RB in Round 1. After six rounds you can have 2-3RBs, 2-3 WRs and possibly even a stud QB or TE, depending on your personal preference, or even to get your WR3 have the "WR3BC" be your WR4. Flexibility is the name of the game here. We all want value in our drafts, and having the ability to grab two WRs in Rounds 7 and 8 to act as our WR3BC gives us that ability.

There is some good news – all of the WR3BC candidates have ADPs that are after Round 7.  There are some wide receivers that might go in Round 8, so planning on taking two of them could leave you scrambling for your ninth pick if you wait too long for your WR3BC choice.  I will have to keep all those details in mind when we look at the WR3BC result because it would not make sense to expect two of these receivers to make it into a committee combination based on their ADP.

So what do we do now to figure out some WR pairs?

CRITERIA #3 - USE FOOTBALLGUYS' WR STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE

This sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? Just take the WR Strength of Schedule to figure out when certain players are more likely to score well. What I did is similar to what the Projections Dominator and Draft Dominator do for you - take the projected fantasy points and slice them up over 16 weeks based on the strength of schedule. I call this result the "distributed fantasy points" for each receiver.

After I had all 26 wide receivers with distributed fantasy points on a weekly basis, I just compared all of the possible WR pairs to find the best duos for WR3BC. So here we are - time for some results:

Table 2: Wide Receiver #3 Committee Pairs

As we can see from Table 2, we have some very good pairs to select from for WR3BC. Like last year, we have a ton of options that meet or exceed the best wide receiver in this group, WR45 Anquan Boldin, by himself.  With 74 different duos to select from, there will be lots of options to try and find a very strong pair for 2015.  Let's take a look at how often some of these guys show up on Table 2:

Table 3: Wide Receiver #3 Committee Pair Appearances by Player

s we can see from Table 3, Anquan Boldin, Brandon LaFell and Larry Fitzgerald dominate the list, all appearing at least 20 times each.  All three receivers are projected to outscore several players in the WR30-36 range, so this trio will represent the key parts of the proposed committee.  I could just say pick two of these three guys and call it a day, but I need to be thorough and see what the results tell us.  

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Now that we have 72 possible pairs to construct a WR3BC, what exactly does that mean? Should WR36, Charles Johnson, be the basis of our comparison? Of course not. Remember our goal - find a pair of wide receivers that can combine for WR3 (or better) fantasy production. To figure that out we need a better metric, so here are the projections for WR13 through WR36 (and beyond), sorted by projected fantasy points:

Table 4: Projected Fantasy Points for WRs 10-36+

Based on Table 4, we see that WRs beyond the Top 12-17 are really jumbled all over the place. Some are going too early in drafts (Brandon Marshall) based on current projections, while others are available at what appears to be a discount. Filtering through all of this "noise", we see some players that catch our eye.  Vincent Jackson (ADP of WR30, 189.7 fantasy points projected) and Roddy White (WR33, 189 points) are right in the neighborhood of both Bradon LaFell (WR37, 189.1 points) and Anquan Boldin (WR41, 187.9 points).  Taking the 187 point target and adding 7-10 points for a bye week filler, we next look at our possible pairs to see how many exceed 195 projected points for 2015, and the answer is an impressive 54 pairs.  Raising the bar even further to another player in the lower-end WR2 range, Amari Cooper (WR22, 195.8 points) pushes the requirement up around 205 points - and there are still 10 pairs of receivers available after the Top 36 receivers should be drafted.  That is a remarkable result, and strongly suggests that 2015 is a great year to go after a WR3BC option.  Choosing the correct pair can give us the result we wanted – high end WR3 production (and borderline WR2) on the cheap. 

Considering all of the results, the recipe is pretty simple - lock up Anquan Boldin.  The top option would be to take Brandon LaFell (ADP of 89, WR37) and then immediately take Anquan Boldin (ADP of 102, WR41).  That pair gives you the best result of all, over 217 projected fantasy points, which is equivalent to most of the receivers going in the range of WR17-21 in most drafts plus 10 points for a bye week replacement.  It would be dangerous to wait too long to secure this pair with relatively high ADPS, so take LaFell in Round 8 and Boldin in Round 9 for a solid WR3BC with WR2 upside this year. 

For thoroughness Table 5 should be your guide on Fantasy Draft Day if you attempt to use WR3BC, with the Top 26 pairs shown that all project for 200 or more fantasy points: 

Table 5: Top 26 WR3BC Options for 2015

Here is a final summary of the combined schedules for Brandon LaFell and Anquan Boldin, and whe the committee approach suggests starting each one:

 Table 6: Suggested WR3BC Schedule Plan

The committee approach is not a perfect one, but having this knowledge prior to your fantasy draft can prove to be invaluable if you decide to adopt this approach.  If all the players on your starter list are gone, goiong with a committee can save your team and help you deal with the loss of bigger names.  The method is also a big help in "Best Ball" leagues, where lineup decisions are not necessary every week.  That's exactly where a committee can do the best, as either player can count for you each week.

Questions, suggestions and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com.

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