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Your WR1’s season average is lying to you a little

Our top receiver’s number sat 6.38 points under his average before Week 7, and the gap was different for every receiver.

If someone in your league chat says Jaxon Smith-Njigba averages 27.48 a game, as if that were this week’s score, here is our Week 7 number for him: 21.10. That is not a dig at your WR1. Every receiver in our top ten came in under his own average, but the gaps were nowhere near the same size. One sat 6.38 points under. Another sat just 1.12 under. One week can land well above or below any of these numbers. We wrote all ten down before kickoff, so you can check us once the games are scored. Scroll down to see which receiver sat furthest under, which one sat closest, and why the gap is not a verdict on any of them.

Every top receiver in the table sits under his season average

But one player could be a fluke, so look at the whole group. In this Week 7 table, all ten receivers have our number below his season average.

That’s why the size of each gap matters more than its direction. After Smith-Njigba’s 6.38, the widest gaps belong to Puka Nacua (3.62) and Christian Watson (3.51). The narrowest belongs to Matthew Golden: our 15.66 for him sits just 1.12 under his 16.78 average.

Smith-Njigba leads this group on season average by 4.53 points (27.48 minus 22.95). Our number keeps him first, and it also sits furthest from his average of anyone in the table.

Season averages are noisy

Grabbing one number and holding on is a mistake. Psychologists call it anchoring: you seize one number and adjust away from it too little. “He’s at 27.48, he’s a lock for that again” anchors on the average, and the average is the tempting one because it sits on every app. But an average can be pulled by a few big games, so it is a noisy summary of what to expect next week.

But a number below a season average is a price, not a sit call. It tells you how far our projection sits from his average. A projection is also a central estimate for one week, so a real score can land well above or below it. Whether to start someone depends on your matchup and your chance to win it. Our own start/sit tool, for the record, maximises the chance of winning the matchup, not raw points.

What we can’t say yet

But all of this is the frozen Week 7 table, written before kickoff, not a Week 8 look. There are no Week 7 results here, and nothing in this post says how close any number turned out. That judgement belongs to the scored record once games are in. Each number is also a single point estimate; weekly player scores vary widely around any projection, and this post shows no interval.

Send this to the league-chat friend who quotes a season average as if it were a forecast.

Source: ProDraftStats desk.