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Drinen's Notebook: September 19, 2002
Here's a question that gets asked a lot, both before and during the season: Is it a bad idea to have two starting WRs on your fantasy team come from the same NFL team? I did a very brief and inconclusive study on this a couple of years ago, and have been meaning to revisit the topic ever since. I finally got around to doing that study right, and I'm here to report the results. I'll let the cat out of the bag and state my conclusion first, because it's such an interesting one. To the extent that it matters (which is not much), starting two WRs from the same NFL team is the safe play, not the risky one. Same-team WR duos have historically been more consistent, as a pair, than different-team WR duos of similar quality. That conclusion, as usual, comes with a caveat or two, and raises a few other questions, which I'll detail at the end of the article. To give you a feel for how I set up the study, I'll open with an example that's near and dear to my heart: the Torry Holt/Isaac Bruce combo, a combo that formed the starting WR unit on my keeper league team for 2000 and 2001 (not anymore though, I dealt Bruce in the offseason). In 2001, the Holt/Bruce pair's week-by-week fantasy point totals looked like this:
T Holt (178) 9 2 17 13 8 4 13 8 15 14 13 7 6 9 32 10 I Bruce (149) 9 20 4 8 5 4 24 10 13 8 5 5 27 1 8 1 TOTAL 17 22 21 21 13 8 37 18 28 21 17 12 32 9 40 10 That's their scores by week, along with the weekly total in the bottom row. The number in parentheses is the player's yearly fantasy point total. And the question is: Was the Holt/Bruce duo, as a duo, consistent? The answer is: they were more consistent than some duos and less consistent than others. For the purposes of this discussion, it only makes sense to compare them to duos like this one:
J Horn (181) 5 5 4 8 7 24 22 15 10 21 20 9 18 1 4 I Bruce (149) 9 4 8 5 4 24 10 13 8 5 5 27 1 8 1 TOTAL 13 9 12 13 11 48 32 28 17 26 25 36 18 9 5 Here I've thrown out both Horn's and Bruce's bye weeks, which is why you only see 15 scores there. But the point is, Horn and Holt had nearly identical fantasy point totals for the season, so Horn/Bruce vs. Holt/Bruce is a fair comparison. So which line of totals is more consistent: the Horn/Bruce line or the Holt/Bruce line? Using standard deviation as my measure of consistency, the answer is: the Holt/Bruce pair (standard deviation: 9.3) was more consistent than the Horn/Bruce pair (standard deviation: 11.6). On the other hand..... Qadry Ismail and Isaac Bruce had about the same total production last year, so we could also compare Holt/Bruce to Holt/Ismail. In this case, the Holt/Bruce team comes out looking less consistent:
T Holt (178) 9 2 17 13 8 4 13 8 15 14 13 6 9 32 10 Q Ismail (148) 9 6 10 15 8 15 15 19 7 4 14 11 3 4 3 TOTAL 17 8 28 29 16 19 28 27 22 18 26 17 12 36 13 Standard Deviation: 7.4 So I looked at all pairings of Holt or Bruce with a receiver whose fantasy point total was within 10 points of the other (also, I'm only including WRs who played 16 games). There turned out to be 10 such pairs, including the two you've already seen. Here they are:
T Holt (178) 9 2 17 13 8 4 13 8 15 14 13 7 6 9 32 10 I Bruce (149) 9 20 4 8 5 4 24 10 13 8 5 5 27 1 8 1 TOTAL 17 22 21 21 13 8 37 18 28 21 17 12 32 9 40 10 Standard Deviation: 9.3 COMPARABLE DUOS: T Brown (174) 20 2 5 11 15 4 15 12 24 20 4 5 3 8 6 I Bruce (149) 9 20 4 8 5 24 10 13 8 5 5 27 1 8 1 TOTAL 29 22 8 19 19 28 25 25 31 25 9 31 4 15 6 Standard Deviation: 9.0 T Holt (178) 9 2 13 8 4 13 8 15 14 13 7 6 9 32 10 J Morton (140) 11 16 4 13 17 7 6 15 7 1 6 7 3 10 15 TOTAL 20 18 17 21 22 21 14 30 21 14 12 13 11 42 25 Standard Deviation: 7.7 T Holt (178) 9 2 17 13 4 13 8 15 14 13 7 6 9 32 10 P Price (141) 6 14 0 16 1 21 12 20 2 2 11 7 7 14 5 TOTAL 15 16 17 30 5 34 20 35 16 14 17 12 16 47 15 Standard Deviation: 10.5 T Holt (178) 9 2 17 13 8 13 8 15 14 13 7 6 9 32 10 D Jackson (157) 2 1 13 5 4 18 16 5 6 8 16 9 3 23 19 TOTAL 10 2 30 18 12 31 24 20 20 20 23 14 11 56 29 Standard Deviation: 12.0 T Holt (178) 9 2 17 13 4 13 8 15 14 13 7 6 9 32 10 K McCardell (147) 1 5 8 10 3 12 12 9 8 8 15 6 10 19 15 TOTAL 9 6 25 23 8 25 20 24 22 21 22 12 18 52 25 Standard Deviation: 10.4 R Moss (188) 3 8 10 11 8 7 11 16 37 3 20 22 26 3 2 2 I Bruce (149) 9 20 4 8 5 4 24 10 13 8 5 5 27 1 8 1 TOTAL 12 29 13 18 13 11 35 25 50 10 25 27 53 4 10 3 Standard Deviation: 14.5 J Horn (181) 5 5 4 8 7 24 22 15 10 21 20 9 18 1 4 I Bruce (149) 9 4 8 5 4 24 10 13 8 5 5 27 1 8 1 TOTAL 13 9 12 13 11 48 32 28 17 26 25 36 18 9 5 Standard Deviation: 11.6 T Holt (178) 9 2 17 13 8 4 13 8 15 13 7 6 9 32 10 L Coles (140) 11 2 6 9 20 2 10 4 10 12 2 4 6 12 17 TOTAL 20 4 23 23 28 6 23 12 25 25 9 10 15 44 27 Standard Deviation: 10.1 J Smith (185) 25 9 9 7 5 18 12 7 12 12 18 11 12 5 12 I Bruce (149) 9 20 4 8 4 24 10 13 8 5 5 27 1 8 1 TOTAL 34 29 12 15 9 42 22 20 20 16 23 38 13 13 13 Standard Deviation: 9.8 T Holt (178) 9 2 17 13 8 4 13 8 15 14 13 6 9 32 10 Q Ismail (148) 9 6 10 15 8 15 15 19 7 4 14 11 3 4 3 TOTAL 17 8 28 29 16 19 28 27 22 18 26 17 12 36 13 Standard Deviation: 7.4 In seven of the 10 cases, Holt/Bruce was more consistent than the comparable pair, which indicates that, at least in this instance, the same-team pair is a more conservative, more consistent, less risky tandem. But one case does not a study make. Oh no. I searched the database for all same-team pairs of WRs since 1995 such that both WRs played 16 games and both WRs finished among the top 20 receivers in terms of total fantasy points. I found, including Holt/Bruce 2001, 20 such pairs, from Conway/Graham of the 1995 Bears to Johnson/Chrebet of the 1998 Jets to Brown/Rice of the 2001 Raiders. Here is the full list:
TM Year WR #1 Rank WR #2 Rank ---------------------------------------------------------- min 1998: Randy Moss 1 Cris Carter 7 det 1996: Herman Moore 6 Brett Perriman 20 jax 1997: Jimmy Smith 11 Keenan McCardell 17 den 2000: Rod Smith 4 Ed McCaffrey 8 oak 1997: Tim Brown 8 James Jett 14 min 1999: Randy Moss 2 Cris Carter 3 det 1997: Herman Moore 7 Johnnie Morton 18 atl 1998: Terance Mathis 6 Tony Martin 16 min 2000: Randy Moss 1 Cris Carter 10 chi 1995: Curtis Conway 12 Jeff Graham 19 jax 2001: Jimmy Smith 6 Keenan McCardell 19 det 1995: Herman Moore 3 Brett Perriman 8 oak 2001: Tim Brown 9 Jerry Rice 10 ram 2000: Isaac Bruce 6 Torry Holt 7 ram 2001: Torry Holt 8 Isaac Bruce 17 nyj 1998: Keyshawn Johnson 5 Wayne Chrebet 13 min 1995: Cris Carter 4 Jake Reed 13 sfo 1998: Terrell Owens 3 Jerry Rice 8 min 1996: Cris Carter 7 Jake Reed 9 min 1997: Cris Carter 4 Jake Reed 16 Then I took each of those 20 pairs and looked for comparable pairs just like we did with Holt and Bruce. Some of the duos had numerous comps, while others had few. Some of these duos turned out to be very consistent (Carter/Reed 96, for example) and some of were not (Brown/Jett 97). The following table summarizes the results. In it, the "More" column indicates the number of instances in which the same-team tandem was more consistent than the comparable pair and "Less" indicates the number of cases where the same-team tandem was less consistent. If you're interested in viewing the week-by-week scores for each and every set of comps, they're right here.
Comparable
Team Pairs More Less
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min 1996 9 9 0
jax 2001 8 8 0
min 1995 3 3 0
det 1995 1 1 0
det 1996 11 10 1
min 1998 5 4 1
min 2000 4 3 1
oak 2001 9 7 2
sfo 1998 5 4 1
det 1997 11 7 4
ram 2001 10 7 3
nyj 1998 8 5 3
jax 1997 10 6 4
min 1999 2 1 1
ram 2000 2 1 1
min 1997 10 4 6
atl 1998 7 3 4
den 2000 4 1 3
oak 1997 10 2 8
chi 1995 4 0 4
On 13 occasions, the same-team pair was more consistent than the majority of its comparables, and only 5 times was the same-team pair less consistent than the majority of its comps (and two "ties" makes 20). You're free to examine the above data and methodology and conclude what you may. But here, inside a neat little box, is what I'm taking from all this:
Finally, a few things to ponder:
Unless otherwise noted, all stats come from football-reference.com and the disclaimer applies
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