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Smith-Njigba’s 27.48 average: read this before the trade chat

Our Week 7 number sat well under his season average, and one player’s number on the list was still higher than every other player’s season average in the table.

If someone in your league chat prices a trade off a season average, you may be the one who has to answer. Before Week 7 kickoff we wrote this down: Jaxon Smith-Njigba came in averaging 27.48 points a game. Our number for his week was 21.10. That doesn’t make him a bad player, and it isn’t a call on any offer. It does mean the person quoting 27.48 is leaning on a season-to-date average from a handful of games. A single week can land well above or below 21.10. But one name on the list of ten widest gaps, Jahmyr Gibbs, still carries a number higher than every other player’s season average in the table. Below his average and low are two different things.

Ten startable players with the widest distance below their average

Smith-Njigba’s 21.10 was 6.38 below his own season average, the widest distance of any startable player on the sheet we wrote down Tuesday, Oct 20. Brock Bowers (−5.61), Isaiah Likely (−4.22) and Puka Nacua (−3.62) followed.

But a number under his average is not a low number. Read our column before the distance column: Gibbs 27.66, Walker 24.63, Smith-Njigba 21.10, Nacua 19.33, Lamb 18.80. Gibbs’s 27.66 is higher than the season average of every other player in the table. The distance compares each man only to his own history. It doesn’t compare him to ESPN, to a market, or to the rest of your roster.

Why our number can sit under a season average

That raises the obvious question: why would our number sit under a season average at all? A season average built from a handful of games is a record of what already happened, and a noisy one. Our number is a read of one week and one matchup. They don’t have to agree, and we have not measured why they differ for these ten players.

But nothing here is a collapse forecast. A projection is a central estimate for one week, and the actual score can land well above or below it.

Using the distance in trade talks

Which means the number earns its keep in the trade chat. The rule of psychology at work is the law of small numbers: treating a short sample as if it were the long run. A trade priced at 27.48 is priced off the short sample. Keep three numbers straight:

• His season average is what he has done so far.
• Our Week 7 number is one week, one matchup, written down before kickoff.
• The distance is how far our number sits from his season average. It is not a market price, and it doesn’t value any trade.

If you want to talk expectations, the fair read is that for that week we expected closer to 21 than to 27, though a single week can land well above or below that. Whether that changes your answer is your call. A price you agree to is a decision about your whole roster, and one week’s number is only part of it.

What we can’t say yet

Week 7 is the most recent sealed table we are citing. We have no Week 7 results to report, so nothing here says a number was right or wrong. One week settles nothing anyway. Each claim is scored against what we wrote down before kickoff, and hits and misses both stay on the Receipts card. The ten names are the widest gaps among startable players, not a list of everyone below his average. The distance also measures a player against his own history, not against ESPN, ownership or a trade market.

Send this to the person in your league chat who just priced a trade off a season average.

Source: ProDraftStats desk.