Challenge Contests — by Justin Eleff

Several weeks ago I wrote that I do not consider a new season’s statistics to be particularly meaningful until Week 6 or so. Welcome to Week 7; time to give this a look.

This week’s column is light on words but not at all light on the work that went into it. Below are lists of the best and worst matchups I believe players at each position can face -- at least, that would be true if all of the stats produced in 2010 were equally meaningful. In looking over the lists, you’ll have to remember things like Darrelle Revis having suffered a nagging hamstring injury, which may have corrupted the Jets’ defensive rankings to some extent. Etc.

For each position, I’ve identified exactly which stats I considered, and exactly how much weight I gave each of them. If a given position’s lists are based on “4 parts X; 3 parts Y; 2 parts Z,” that means that I consider X to be twice as important for these purposes as Z, but I consider Y to be only one and a half times as important as Z. I know this is all highly subjective, and I know no two of us would have done this in quite the same way. Nothing I can do about that.

Note that all of the lists are based not on any enduring standard of what makes for a good or bad performance, but rather on what has actually happened so far in 2010. For instance, when I consider rushing yards allowed per game, the only standards against which defenses are measured are (a) how many yards this season’s best-in-the-category defense has allowed, and (b) how many yards this season’s worst-in-the-category defense has allowed. The best defense gets 0 points for its performance -- I don’t want to face that defense at all -- and the worst gets 100 points (which will become 400 when I base the relevant lists on 4 parts rushing yards allowed per game).

The teams falling between two statistical extremes -- e.g., all of the teams allowing more rushing yards per game than the best defense in that category, but fewer than the worst defense -- are scored according to exactly where they fall between the extremes. If the season’s best defense is allowing 50 rushing yards per game, and the season’s worst defense is allowing 200, a third defense allowing 125 will get 50 points for its performance; 125 is the exact midpoint between the extremes of 50 and 200. Once I scored each team in each statistic I was considering when making a given list, and then adjusted the scores according to the weight I was giving each statistic, I added each team’s adjusted scores and divided by the total number of “parts” to arrive at the final score that appears on the list.

If any team had the worst performance in every statistic I was considering when making a given list, the final score appearing for that team on that list would have been 100. If any team had the best performance in every statistic I was considering, the final score appearing for that team would have been 0. The closest any teams came were that Carolina is a really, really good team to match your defense against (its final score is 90), and Pittsburgh is a really, really bad team to match your running back against (its final score is 6). Only final scores above 50 and below 25 appear here; all other matchups are, in my view, neither good nor bad.

Hope you find this useful. I've taken great care to ensure that my math is correct in every case.

QUARTERBACK

4 parts passing yards* allowed per game; 3 parts passing yards allowed per pass attempt; 2 parts passing touchdowns allowed per pass attempt.

* Every reference in this column to “passing yards” is to gross yards, not net yards. To my knowledge, no fantasy challenge concerns itself with yards lost on sacks.

1. HOU 86
2. JAX 84
3. NE 67
4. SEA 64
5. WAS 62
6. CLE 58
7. ATL 54
8. BUF 51

Avoid NO (22), CIN (21), NYG (18), CHI (17), CAR (15), MIN (13), BAL (8), SD (7).

RUNNING BACK

4 parts rushing yards allowed per game; 3 parts rushing yards allowed per rush attempt; 2 parts rushing touchdowns allowed per rush attempt.

1. BUF 88
2. OAK 76
3. TB 76
4. DET 75
5. IND 73
6. DEN 64
7. ARZ 62
8. JAX 59
9. WAS 55
10. HOU 52

Avoid NYJ (24), SEA (15), PIT (6).

WIDE RECEIVER and TIGHT END

4 parts passing yards allowed per game; 3 parts passing yards allowed per pass completion; 2 parts passing touchdowns allowed per pass attempt.

1. HOU 79
2. JAX 79
3. SEA 75
4. NYJ 64
5. WAS 61
6. NE 59
7. CLE 59
8. OAK 54
9. ARZ 51

Avoid CAR (23), CHI (20), SD (17), BAL (16), MIN (13).

KICKER

1 part points allowed per game by defense; 1 part net yards allowed per game by defense.

1. BUF 89
2. HOU 86
3. ARZ 77
4. JAX 75
5. WAS 69
6. NE 66
7. DET 61
8. OAK 60
9. TB 59
10. DEN 53

Avoid SD (22), NYG (22), BAL (17), PIT (13).

TEAM DEFENSE

3 parts points scored per game by offense; 2 parts net yards gained per game by offense; 1 part ratio of pass attempts to rush attempts by offense.*

* In case this does not go without saying, we want to face offenses that score FEWER points and gain FEWER yards. To a lesser extent, we also want to face offenses that throw more often; they tend to allow more return touchdowns.

1. CAR 90
2. ARZ 77
3. BUF 71
4. SF 70
5. CLE 69
6. TB 67
7. CHI 62
8. STL 62
9. SEA 61
10. MIN 60
11. WAS 57
12. JAX 56
13. MIA 53
14. OAK 52
15. BAL 51

Avoid SD (20), NE (20).

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