Haibo Does Data: Week 11 – One Team to Rule Them All

Hello everyone – welcome to Week 11 of the column! For more insights, be sure to check out our weekly Haibo Does Data podcast on Youtube.

In addition to our regular summary metrics overview, this week – inspired by the absolute dominance by the Lions, we ask ourselves: is it possible to draft just one team and have them carry you through an entire fantasy season?

One Team to Rule Them All

One team to rule them all, one team to find them.
One team to bring them all, and on the field, outshine them.

This past week, one team outshined all the others and led absolute domination of the SmashUp Standings. Of course, we are talking about the Detroit Lions and their drubbing of the Jaguars. The Lions were also playing at home which led to the combo of Home Field Advantage + Ride or Die + 6 or 7 Lions players and you basically won this past week. 32 of the top 50 scoring lineups played 5+ Lions players including all of the top 7 and 8 of the top 10 overall. It was just a dominating performance.

This led us to ask, while you can certainly see this happening week to week when there is an incredible matchup – in a traditional, season-long fantasy league, could you draft only players from one team and win your league? And what team would that be? The team would need to be incredible offensively since that’s 8 of your 9 positions – tons of yards and touchdowns through the air and on the ground. Ideally, they would have a spread of fantasy-relevant players – a productive RB by committee, multiple top-tier receivers, etc. You also don’t want them to be too spread out though because you want all possible points to be concentrated into those players. An offense where 4 or 5 WRs could pop off is riskier since you can only draft 3 of them. When your entire fantasy team is one real team, you MUST get all of the stats for the team to stay competitive. So where does that leave us?

The 2013 Denver Broncos. A record-breaking offensive machine. Peyton Manning averaged 350 yards and 3 TDs each game. RB committee Knowshon Moreno and Montee Ball combined for 1600 yards and 17 TDs. You had a clear top 3 WRs with Demaryius Thomas (1430yds/14 TDs), Eric Decker (1288yds/11 TDs), and Wes Welker (778yds, 10 TDs). Julius Thomas was an elite TE at 788yds/12 TDs. If there ever was a year that a single team could carry you to the ship, that was it.

Until Week 15 – smack dab in the middle of the fantasy playoffs – when they laid an egg and lost to the Chargers. Manning threw for only 2 TDs that game and they both went to……Andre Caldwell? Yup, Caldwell got both TDs and you would have gotten destroyed in your fantasy playoffs. So there you go – unless you’re playing SmashUp – picking one real-life team is not the way to go no matter how good you think they’ll be.

Summary Metrics

This past week, we had over 3,000 different lineups across our Fantasy Frenzy weekly tournament, league play, and single-player campaign modes. When we aggregate all of the data across those lineups, these were the most selected players.

Players by Position

QB	RB	WR	TE	K	DEF
Brock Purdy	Christian McCaffrey	George Pickens	T.J. Hockenson	Jake Bates	HOU D/ST
Jalen Hurts	Joe Mixon	Ja’Marr Chase	Travis Kelce	Ka’imi Fairbairn	DET D/ST
Justin Herbert	De’Von Achane	Cedric Tillman	Dawson Knox	Chris Boswell	MIN D/ST
Russell Wilson	David Montgomery	Jauan Jennings	Brock Bowers	Justin Tucker	NYJ D/ST
Jared Goff	Saquon Barkley	Amon-Ra St. Brown	Mark Andrews	Cameron Dicker	MIA D/ST

I mentioned earlier the absolute dominance of the “Pick as Many Lions Players as You Can” strategy paired with Home Field Advantage + Ride or Die. That accounted for over 60% (32 out of 50) of the top lineups for the week. And that’s no secret as we see a Lion make the top 5 list in every position other than TE. Goff, Montgomery, St. Brown, Bates, and the Defense all appear in the most popular picks for the week. And they all delivered!

Top 10 SmashCards

SmashCard
Run CMC
The Human Vulture
Starting RB
Hellacious Halfbacks
Roll of the Dice
Ride or Die
Speed Demon
Starting WR
Not So Wide Receiver
Takeaway Car

I feel like a broken record week after week as we continue to see the usual suspects at the top. Run CMC has a dominating lead for the #1 spot this week. 3 players hit on Run CMC – unfortunately, not CMC himself. Through 10 weeks this season, the player that has been the most popular play for Run CMC has been Saquon Barkley and he has hit exactly 0 times. Well, in Week 11, he FINALLY hit Run CMC with 146 rushing yds and 52 receiving yds. Joe Mixon and Chase Brown are the other 2 players that hit Run CMC this week. The influx of Detroit lineups pushed Ride or Die into the top 10 at the #6 spot as Ride or Die paired with Home Field Advantage powered many of the top teams this week.

Top Played Combos

Player	Card
Christian McCaffrey	Run CMC
David Montgomery	Roll of the Dice
JAX Defense/ST	Burnt Ends
Christian McCaffrey	Starting RB
Joe Mixon	Bruising Bellcow
De’Von Achane	Run CMC
Joe Mixon	Starting RB
Christian McCaffrey	The Human Vulture
DET Defense/ST	Defense Wins Championships
DET Defense/ST	Takeaway Car

It’s good to see Christian McCaffrey back in the lineups. Fantasy is always more fun with the stars and it’s great to have McCaffrey back. He immediately vaults to the top paired with his signature Run CMC card. We see some love for Joe Mixon as well with 2 of the top 10 combos – he rewarded users with an incredible 109yd/3TD game. And then we have the Lions/Jags game. Almost everyone got this spot on – the Lions were going to destroy Jacksonville. JAX DST + Burnt Ends is a fantastic play and paid off for everyone with 30pts on just $3,000 cost. A pair of DET DST picks round out the top 10.

Now it’s on to Week 12! Is there another team that can dominate at home and pull off the Home Field Advantage/Ride or Die combo? Or will we see a new strategy dominate Week 12. Come play SmashUp and find out! Set your lineups today!

Good luck everyone!