5 Market Shares to Monitor in Week 1 for Fantasy Football
Baltimore Ravens' Overall Market Share
There might not be a situation murkier right now than that of the Baltimore Ravens. Not only is their backfield a mess, but we also have absolutely idea who will be the team's leading receiver. This makes them the perfect team for our purposes.
We'll start with the running backs, a situation that completely blew up this past week when the team cut and later re-signed former lead back Justin Forsett. Forsett was the presumed starter heading into training camp, but with the emergence of Terrance West, it appears we've had a changing of the guard.
The reason this is critical for Week 1 is that the Buffalo Bills ranked dead last in numberFire's Adjusted Defensive Rushing Net Expected Points (NEP) per play, the schedule-adjusted metric we use to track a team's efficiency. The Ravens are also currently three-point favorites, meaning they should have opportunities to run the football late in the game. That's huge, given the ambiguity here.
Not only will this situation be one of magnitude the first week, but the Ravens have some run-conducive matchups beyond that early in the year. They face the Cleveland Browns and Jacksonville Jaguars the next two weeks -- both games in which they could be favored -- before heading home for potential high-scoring affairs with the Oakland Raiders and Washington. If a running back in this offense can snag a good chunk of the carries and avoid the dreaded running-back-by-committee approach, then we should be aggressive with them in the form of trades for season-long and ownership DFS.
This same line of thinking is true with the wide receivers. We don't really know what to expect there, especially now that Steve Smith and Breshad Perriman are both practicing. They also benefit from a soft schedule, so we want to attack those two plus Kamar Aiken and Mike Wallace hard in hopes that one will break free from the pack.
The one asset here who does have at least a bit of safety is Aiken. Even before Smith was out for the season last year, Aiken had a 13.7% target market share in the offense. He performed well with Smith out, and he isn't coming off of a serious injury like Smith and Perriman or a down year like Wallace. Aiken's getting the ambiguity discount, but he probably shouldn't.
If you want the certainty, invest in Aiken now. But if you want to bank on the upside, each of the other assets are also worthy of a look. Regardless, this is the team to monitor -- both in rushing and receiving market share -- as the Week 1 games unfold.
