What actually predicts fantasy points?

A deep dive analysis using data from the last 5 seasons.

October 07, 2026

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Yooo!

In case you missed these announcements last night…

ANNOUNCEMENT #1: The weekly matchup cheat sheet is now 100% free for all 4 positions! Check it throughout the week as more discussions and analysis come in.

ANNOUNCEMENT #2: We launched a start/sit tool! Sync your leagues, pick a team, and then our panel of 250+ podcasts and websites will recommend your ideal lineup + give you analysis on every close call and why each player gets the start or sit label. First one is free. Premium users get unlimited runs (it costs us money to run each analysis).

Alright, now let’s get to some news you might’ve missed.

Giddy up.

Silver Is Up 402% Since 2020. Gold, 186%

Silver has more than doubled gold's return since March 2020, even after a 53% correction from its January peak.

Our research team sees a familiar pattern. Silver's returns more than doubled gold's from 1974 to 1987. After the financial crisis, silver beat gold five-fold in three years.

The reason is size. In 2025, investors put about $15.6 billion into physical silver and silver ETFs, against $111.2 billion for gold. Small inflows move silver hard.

Silver is also in its sixth straight annual supply deficit. The Ultimate Silver Playbook explains what the team expects next. It's free.

All article and podcast links go to a summarized Dynasty Pulse page where you can see quick insights and also get the link to the original article/podcast if you want the full content:

Fantasy Football Today Beyond the Box Score (Podcast): RB Rest of Season Rankings I Week 5 Fantasy Football Trade Targets

What actually predicts fantasy points?

We’re 4 weeks into the season, which means we need to start figuring out which early-season numbers are real.

So we tested it.

Across five seasons (2021-2025), we compared every major stat from weeks 1-4 with how players scored the rest of the season (weeks 5-18).

How to read the scores:

Each stat gets a predictive score from 0 to 1. A 1.00 means players' early rankings in that stat matched their rest-of-season PPR rankings exactly. A 0 means no relationship at all.

  • 0.70 and up: Strong

  • 0.50 to 0.69: Useful

  • 0.30 to 0.49: Weak

  • Below 0.30: Little to none

What we found:

For RBs, WRs and TEs, the best early predictors were volume stats: carries, targets and target share. They matched or beat early fantasy points themselves. Efficiency stats like yards per carry and yards per target scored near zero.

Bottom line: For skill position players, the old saying still holds true… volume is king. It’s fun to look at advanced stats like rushing yards over expected, separation score, etc. but at the end of the day, it all comes back to volume.

All the top predictive scores by position are below:

Quarterbacks are the exception. Look at the offense, not the touchdowns. 

QB fantasy scoring depends heavily on touchdowns, but the best early predictors of rest-of-season QB scoring were about the offense around the quarterback: team EPA per play (0.55) and team points per game (0.52). Both scored higher than the QB's own early fantasy points (0.51).

Touchdown rate was the opposite. Early TD % scored just 0.29, and it moved back toward the league average of about 4.7% as the season went on.

How to use it: a QB with a low early TD rate on a strong offense is a good bet to improve. A QB with a very high early TD rate, without a strong offense or rushing work behind it, is more likely to cool off.

In future newsletters, I’ll start to share more charts around these key predictors to help you spot buy and sell opportunities.

Hope this was helpful!

Don’t forget to check out today’s National Pulse for more trending topics, including:

  • Story: Atlanta's Penix-led offense faces a tougher test

  • Story: Philadelphia’s Shipley opportunity hinges on injuries

  • Story: Malik Nabers' WR1 upside meets shoulder risk

  • Red flags: Malik Nabers, Will Shipley, Dalton Kincaid

  • Usage & Role: Tre Harris, Sean Tucker, Emanuel Wilson

  • Injury Watch: Lamar Jackson, Jadarian Price, Tyquan Thornton

  • Season Outlook: Michael Penix, Parker Washington, Keon Coleman

Tired of seeing players in the National Pulse that are irrelevant to your rosters? Get your first personalized Daily Pulse for free today!

50/50 on a start/sit call this week? Consult 250+ analysts as your tiebreaker

I just ran a start/sit analysis for one of my leagues where I’m already debating who to play in my 3rd flex spot.

Here’s my recommended lineup below. Wicks is the guy I’m least confident in starting.

And here’s our new start/sit tool breaking down the close-call decision of starting Wicks or Quentin Johnston. 👇️ 

They have the exact same projection, so the decision comes down to what the analysts have said so far this week.

The text is probably too small to read everything in this email, but it’s more so just to show you the depth of the analysis that is going into the final recommendation to start Wicks.

I’ll definitely be re-running this later in the week as more info comes in. But I already feel more confident that I have a strong lean on Tuesday night.

Give it a try for yourself and let us know what you think!

As a reminder, Dynasty Pulse Premium gives you:

  • A personalized Daily Pulse every morning

  • Unlimited start/sit analyses

  • MCP database access

  • Plus all new features yet to be released!

That’s all for tonight!

See ya pizza,

Joe

P.S. In case you missed it, catch up on our most recent newsletters below: