Another week with our honorary stat boy, Zach Fein of Fein Sports. A contributor with as much stat muscle as anyone in the business. You may not understand what he's says and use it for you fantasy leagues, but if you're in the mood to be baffled and confused, then boy does he have you covered. Because life is one big spreadsheet.
This week he gets the dirt on the legitimacy of week 1 numbers.
...Shut up
Look, you shouldn’t be trading away Peyton Manning for Jay Cutler or Donovan McNabb, LaDanian Tomlinson for Michael Turner, or Torry Holt for Eddie Royal after Week One. And I’m sure you know that, too.
There is always a week one surprise (See: Holcomb, Kelly, 2002; Ismail, Qadry, 2002; and Jordan, LaMont, 2007) that doesn’t always pan out. And then there’s also the week one bust, the first-round pick who puts up less than five points.
The question is, How do those players perform for the rest of the year?
The following tables show the comparison of the Week One points-per-game and Season PPG of various groups of the end-of-season top 30 or 50, depending on the position, since 2002. (Tight Ends and Quarterbacks are split up into groups of five based on the top 30, while running back and wide receivers are split into groups of ten based on the top 50.) The average percent error column is the absolute difference of that group’s Season The following tables show the comparison of the Week One points-per-game and Season PPGPPG and week one PPG, then divided by the season PPG and finally multiplied by 100 to get the percent out of 100. (Ed. Note: Players who were in the top-30 or top-50 in the end-of-season ranks but not in that same range for week one points were marked with having a zero for week one.]
Top-30 Quarterbacks| Rank | SeasonPPG | Week1PPG | Avg.Difference | Avg. % Error |
| 1-5 | 17.4 | 16.8 | 5.7 | 3.5 |
| 6-10 | 14.7 | 12.1 | 5.4 | 18.1 |
| 11-15 | 12.9 | 12.3 | 6.0 | 4.3 |
| 16-20 | 10.8 | 10.5 | 5.6 | 2.3 |
| 21-25 | 8.9 | 9.8 | 7.1 | 9.8 |
| 26-30 | 6.8 | 5.6 | 5.7 | 17.5 |
Top-50 Running Backs| Rank | SeasonPPG | Week1PPG | Avg.Diff | Avg. % Error |
| 1-10 | 16.7 | 16.9 | 6.4 | 1.4 |
| 11-20 | 11.4 | 10.7 | 6.8 | 5.8 |
| 21-30 | 8.9 | 6.7 | 5.2 | 24.1 |
| 31-40 | 6.6 | 5.9 | 4.7 | 10.9 |
| 41-50 | 4.7 | 2.9 | 3.7 | 39.2 |
Top-50 Wide Receivers| Rank | SeasonPPG | Week1PPG | Avg.Diff | Avg. % Error |
| 1-10 | 12.2 | 10.3 | 6.5 | 15.5 |
| 11-20 | 9.4 | 9.1 | 5.5 | 2.7 |
| 21-30 | 7.8 | 6.9 | 4.3 | 12.3 |
| 31-40 | 6.5 | 5.0 | 4.8 | 23.1 |
| 41-50 | 5.6 | 5.0 | 5.2 | 12.1 |
Top-30 Tight Ends | Rank | SeasonPPG | Week1PPG | Avg.Diff | Avg. % Error |
| 1-5 | 7.7 | 6.5 | 4.9 | 15.6 |
| 6-10 | 5.5 | 5.6 | 4.0 | 2.8 |
| 11-15 | 4.3 | 9.6 | 8.2 | 123.6 |
| 16-20 | 3.4 | 3.6 | 2.9 | 7.1 |
| 21-25 | 2.8 | 2.5 | 2.4 | 10.6 |
| 26-30 | 2.4 | 1.7 | 2.4 | 30.3 |
- Quarterbacks have little variance in their week one and season PPG, with the exception of the sixth- to tenth-ranked quarterbacks.
- Various under-performers such as Carson Palmer and Matt Hasselbeck, and over-performers such as Donovan McNabb and Jay Cutler, were among those ranked in the preseason to be in that range.
- You see the Top-20 running backs have a low Average Percent Error, but after that, it's unpredictable.
- Matt Forte, I'm looking at you.
- Each wide receiver group did worse in week one than their season PPG.
- Braylon Edwards, I'm looking at you.
- Look at those tight ends! The 11th- through 15th-ranked TEs more than doubled their season PPG in week one, while the top five TEs did much worse than their season PPG.
- Dante Rosario and Tony Gonzalez, I'm looking at y'all.
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