How To Max Out At Every Fantasy Football Position (Ft. Matthew Berry)

There is absolutely a strategy

to draft your fantasy football team specifically

with each of the positions.

If you listen to me and you pay attention

throughout the year, you'll have a shot at the title,

by the end.

[Host] Roughly 40 million people play fantasy football

and Matthew Barry is the absolute expert.

So my name is Matthew Barry

and my official title is Senior Fantasy

and Sports Betting Analyst for NBC Sports and Peacock.

I'm often referred to the Godfather of Fantasy Football.

[Host] Matthew Berry is gonna

take us position by position,

highlighting what stats make a successful fantasy option.

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When it comes to quarterbacks in general,

what you want is dual threat quarterbacks.

Quarterbacks that not only get you fantasy points

with their arm, but with their legs.

Last season of the top six quarterbacks

in fantasy points per game, four of them

had 700 or more rushing yards and in fact,

eight of the top 10 fantasy quarterbacks

in points per game last year had at least 350 yards.

You really want a dual threat quarterback because

if they don't get you fantasy points with their legs

you need them to have 40 passing touchdown upside

and there just aren't a lot of quarterbacks

like that in the NFL right now.

I also think it's important to understand tiers,

Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, and Jalen Hurts

are kind of the elite top three,

but there's a clear top eight quarterbacks.

What you really want is quarterbacks that run

and throw that have talents around them.

You can be the best quarterback in the world,

but if you've got the worst offensive line,

it's hard to throw from your back.

Josh Allen's a great example.

Josh Allen had a bad completion percentage.

They said he was more of a runner than a thrower.

Year three, Josh Allen gets Stefon Diggs,

one of the best wide receivers in the NFL.

What happens, he becomes the number one quarterback

in fantasy, everyone talks about his accuracy

and elite passing.

Did Josh suddenly become a better quarterback?

Yes he did.

Having Stefon Diggs to throw to,

makes you a better quarterback.

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For the running back position,

volume is key, the top five running backs

in fantasy points per game last season

all had at least 310 touches,

16 of the top 20 had at least 250 touches, all finished

as top 20 running backs in fantasy points per game.

The next thing is what kind of touches are they getting?

Specifically, we want to look for high value touches,

receptions and red zone touches.

Are they getting the ball when the team gets

inside their opponent's 20 yard line, that's the red zone.

Are they getting it in goal to go situations

which is inside and opponent's 10 yards?

So ideally you want running backs that touch the ball a lot

and that they touch the ball a lot when they get close

to the goal line and they touch the ball a lot

from their quarterback, not just on first and second down

but also on third down as part of the pass attack.

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In terms of wide receiver,

that's somebody that is earning a high percentage

of targets, target share and targets for routes run.

Wide receivers need to have the ability to earn targets

by getting open.

The actual best wide receivers in the NFL

tend to be the ones who score the most fantasy points.

Justin Jefferson, Jamar Chase, Cooper Kupp,

Tyreek kill, Stefon Diggs,

those guys are the best wide receivers

in the NFL and they also are the ones who score

the most fantasy points.

If you want some efficiency metrics,

if you want to get a little bit dirty, target share,

targets per route run, yards per route run are all good

efficiency metrics for wide receivers,

wide receivers tend to be safer early round picks

due to consistency and lower injury risk.

When you think about it,

running backs are being tackled hard.

They're going in between the pile,

wide receivers they bounce out of bounds, they're being hit

by a defensive back, not a defensive lineman.

Wide receivers tend to have a lower injury risk.

I also like rookies by the way,

look at the second half rookie wide receivers,

there's a number of talented wide receivers,

they might starts slow as rookies, but over the second half

of the year will have a huge impact.

You think about last year with guys

like Garrett Wilson, Chris Olave, Jahan Dotson at times

that's another place to look

for as you get further into the season.

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And then at the tight end position,

what you want is you want see how many snaps.

are they out on a passing flight?

Are they used primarily as a blocker?

Are they used as a passer?

Sometimes they're really just glorified wide receivers.

What's their opportunity?

We can look at talent, if they have a good quarterback.

Is the tight end used more as a blocker in this offense

or is the tight end used as a passing weapon in the offense?

Generally speaking, I either want to be one

of the first people in my league to get a tight end

or one of the last,

because having an elite tight end can be a huge advantage.

Travis Kelce, Mark Andrews TJ Hockenson,

for me are those top three.

I think they stand up above the rest.

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We've spent a lot of time looking at trying to predict

kickers scoring and kicker scoring year over year over year

and generally speaking

the best kicker in fantasy football

and like the 12th kicker in fantasy football,

the difference is like one and a half points a game.

There's just not much difference.

There's a lot of variance.

You like kickers on good offenses, you like kickers

that play indoors in warm weather cities

so they're not often kicking in bad weather.

You can look at defenses that give up the most field goals

that have good red zone defense

but bad defense in the middle of the field,

kind of the bend don't break defenses,

their teams will come down

and they often will kick potentially speaking,

it doesn't make sense to draft a kicker

before the last round.

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With defenses, you can predict something.

You can predict, hey, this is a team that likes

to blitz a lot.

So probably they'll generate some sacks

maybe a few more turnovers.

But honestly it's generally fairly flukey.

If you look at defensive scoring year after year

it rarely carries forward from season to season.

So streaming is always a a much better option than saying

I'm gonna go out to target this.

There are defenses that we think are gonna be pretty good,

the Eagles and the Niners,

but you're often better off of just picking

the defense that's playing inept offense week after week.

[Host] Now that You have your team built,

let's get to the most important part.

A fantasy team name is very important,

this is not a decision to take lightly.

The team name should reflect your personality

and ideally insult somebody else in your league.

Fantasy football, there is no one right way to play.

There is no one right way to draft.

Ultimately, you have to figure out what works

for you and do what you want to do.

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