Real Points and Pointless Points

Points scored by fantasy starters while they are benched by their fantasy team do not help their fantasy team. This truism, while obvious, does not  play much of a role in fantasy analysis. This article introduces a new stat, Real Points. A player’s real points are simply the  total of fantasy points scored in games in which the player was a projected starter.

It is obvious that some players’ total point production is identical to, or at least not far off from, their point production when starting – because those players are never benched when active. Other players may have wasted a significant portion of their production because they were widely benched in their most productive weeks. Think Keelan Cole, who scored 132.8 fantasy points in 2017 without earning many starts, or, as discussed on this website, Alex Smith in 2017, whose lack of fantasy value in 2017 was largely attributable to ranking below the top 12 QBs in his most productive weeks.

Wide Receivers Ranked

Which players mostly score real points, and which score many pointless points (as we can call points scored while riding the bench)? In this article, I rank the 2017 wide receivers by their real point production, and compare this to their overall fantasy point production. To do so, I assume that a wide receiver is started in a given week if he is projected in the top 24 WRs or in the top 12 flex options, meaning the WRs and RBs outside of the top 24 RBs and WRs. As always, I look only at weeks 1 through 16. And as always, I use fantasydata.com as my source and use PPR scoring.

For the high-drafted players who stayed high-performing, the difference between their real points and pointless points was their Week 17 totals (or 0, if they did not play week 17). So the top two real points scorers, Antonio Brown at 310.3 and DeAndre Hopkins at 309.8, had the same number of real points and fantasy points because they did not play Week 17. The third highest real points scorer, Keenan Allen, had 249.9 real  points compared to 284.2 fantasy points, because his 34.3 points in week 17 did not count towards his real points total. Players like Tyreek Hill and Davante Adams,  who were considered starters every week and didn’t play Week 17,  also ended up with no difference between fantasy points and real  points, as did some players whose seasons were shortened by injury, such as Pierre Garcon and Odell Beckham, Jr.

Some players had huge discrepancies between their real points and fantasy points, because much of their production came in games in which they were not projected starters. The aforementioned Keelan Cole was never projected as a fantasy starter on fantasydata.com, and therefore ended the season with 0 real points, despite scoring 132.8 fantasy points on the season and leading all receivers with 31.6 points in Week 15.

Players With Large Discrepancies

Nelson Agholor: Despite finishing as the WR22 with 193.5 points, Agholor rated as a starting WR only once – Week 8, when he was projected as the WR26. He only scored 5.6 points that week, giving him a season total of 5.6 real points, almost 190 short of his fantasy point production.

Jermaine Kearse: Kearse had a great season with 176 fantasy points, good enough for WR26, just behind Cooper Kupp and just ahead of TY Hilton. But fantasydata had him as a projected starter only twice: Week 5, when he scored 13.8 points, and Week  14, when he scored just 1.4 points. As a result, his season total of 15.2 real points was about 160 points below his fantasy point production.

Mike Wallace: Wallace was the WR38, with 151.2 points, a little ahead of Paul Richardson,  Sammy Watkins, and Sterling Shepard. But he was only rated a starter in weeks 1, 2, and 16, and only had a decent week in Week 16. His real points total  for the season was 13.5.

Tyrell Williams: Tyrell’s 137.8 fantasy points was enough for WR45, putting him in the neighborhood of Danny Amendola, Desean Jackson, and Jordy Nelson. But he was rated a starter only in Weeks 5 and 6, giving him a real points total of just 6.9.

Marquise Goodwin: Goodwin came on strong to end the season. He was not rated a starter until Week 14, but once he was on the list, he stayed on through Week 16. His big weeks in Week 14 and 15 led to a real point total of 45.8. His total fantasy production was 168.6.

Paul Richardson: Richardson rated as a starter only for Weeks 9, 12 and 13, scoring a total of 20.9 real points.  His fantasy total was 150.3, an almost 130 point difference.

Kenny Stills: Stills rated as a starting option on Weeks 8, 9, 12 and 14, scoring only 28.8 real points in total. In contrast, his fantasy production was 174.7,  a difference of over 145 points.

Juju Smith-Schuster: Juju started slow but was good enough to be a projected starter 5 times (which is, remember, 1/3 of the fantasy-relevant season): Weeks 10, 11, 13,  15 and 16. He had some big games and totaled 72 real points. His total fantasy production was 191.7, a difference of nearly 120.

Danny Amendola: Amendola was a projected starter in Weeks 5-7, scoring a total of 27.4 real points. His fantasy points total of 138.9 was more than 110 points more.

Martavis Bryant: Bryant was rated a starter just for Weeks 1, 3 and 16. He totaled 18.2 real points, compared to 132.5 fantasy points.

Will Fuller: Finally, Will Fuller was unaccountably projected as a starter only once, in Week 9. He had a bad week and only scored 5.2 real points, making that his season total. His total fantasy production for the season was 113.2.

2017 Wide Receiver Rankings

All  66 wide receivers with a real points total higher than 0 in 2017 are listed below,  ranked by total.

Player                             Real  Points              Fantasy Points        Difference

Antonio Brown	310.3	310.3	0
DeAndre Hopkins	309.8	309.8	0
Keenan Allen	249.9	284.2	34.3
Larry Fitzgerald	245.84	261.44	15.6
Tyreek Hill	239.2	239.2	0
Julio Jones	238.9	251.9	13
Michael Thomas	238.1	258.5	20.4
AJ Green	223.1	226.8	3.7
Davante Adams	222.5	222.5	0
Adam Thielen	215.75	239.7	23.95
Jarvis Landry	215.7	260	44.3
Golden Tate	199.1	224.5	25.4
Doug Baldwin	196.7	223.3	26.6
Brandin Cooks	194.5	221.2	26.7
Alshon Jeffery	194.1	195.2	1.1
Mike Evans	190.6	203.1	12.5
Demaryius Thomas	188.2	205.9	17.7
Dez Bryant	181	186.4	5.4
Stefon Diggs	180.5	198.2	17.7
Michael Crabtree	168.1	171.8	3.7
Marvin Jones	162.6	225.1	62.5
T.Y. Hilton	148	175.6	27.6
Devin Funchess	131.6	195	63.4
Amari Cooper	122.3	158.4	36.1
Mohamed Sanu	121.84	174.34	52.5
Jordy Nelson	110.6	137.2	26.6
Robert Woods	110.3	163.3	53
Robby Anderson	110.1	200	89.9
Rishard Matthews	108.7	156.2	47.5
Jamison Crowder	104.7	160.3	55.6
Cooper Kupp	104.3	176.9	72.6
Sterling Shepard	95.8	144.5	48.7
Emmanuel Sanders	95.5	114.5	19
Kelvin Benjamin	94.5	135.2	40.7
Desean Jackson	92.5	138.6	46.1
Pierre Garcon	90	90	0
Chris Hogan	86.8	109.7	22.9
Jeremy Maclin	82.45	102	19.55
Randall Cobb	81	159.4	78.4
Marqise Lee	75.1	147.9	72.8
Odell Beckham	74	74	0
Juju Smith-Schuster	72	191.7	119.7
Devante Parker	69.4	130	60.6
Ted Ginn	67.6	159.6	92
Sammy Watkins	47.1	146.3	99.2
Terrelle Pryor	46.1	50	3.9
Marquise Goodwin	45.8	168.6	122.8
Josh Gordon	29.5	57.5	28
Kenny Stills	28.8	174.7	145.9
Danny Amendola	27.4	138.9	111.5
JJ Nelson	23	93.5	70.5
Josh Doctson	22.4	119.8	97.4
Paul Richardson	20.9	150.3	129.4
Martavis Bryant	18.2	132.5	114.3
Dede Westbrook	15.5	66.9	51.4
Jermaine Kearse	15.2	176	160.8
Allen Hurns	15.1	99.4	84.3
Corey Davis	13.6	69.5	55.9
Mike Wallace	13.5	151.2	137.7
Tyrell Williams	6.9	137.8	130.9
Tyler Lockett	5.6	118.3	112.7
Nelson Agholor	5.6	193.5	187.9
Will Fuller	5.2	113.2	108
Allen Robinson	2.7	2.7	0
Willie Snead	2.1	15.2	13.1
Brandon Marshall	2	33.4	31.4

Advertisement