But what kind of actual proof do we have that more opportunity actually leads to more fantasy success? After all, three receivers with less than 100 targets (Jordy Nelson, Laurent Robinson and Julio Jones) finished among the top 21 scorers at their position in PPR leagues last season. Similarly, the top quarterback in fantasy (Aaron Rodgers) was right in the middle of the pack in pass attempts. Last but not least, Darren Sproles required just 10.8 touches per game last season to become a top-five fantasy RB while fantasy darling TE Rob Gronkowski had two fewer targets on the season than Brandon Pettigrew, who averaged almost nine fantasy points per game less than the best tight end in the game in 2011. Many will find it surprising that not a single player that led the league in “opportunities” (attempts, touches or targets) last year went on to lead his position in fantasy.

Simply put, the most opportunity does not necessarily lead to the most success; there are simply too many other factors at work in the game of football. However, the astute reader likely concluded already that I was simply citing exceptions to “the rule” above. (Writers do that sometimes to make a point…) In just about any competitive league, it is virtually impossible to land the top player at each position. As a result, fantasy owners are generally happy with two players who are in the top five at their position with a solid supporting cast to complement them. It’s almost always a sound strategy to grab the most talented players with the most opportunity first and roll the dice that you will find the “exception” later in the draft or on the waiver wire.

In short, the goal of the Red Zone Report last week was to serve as a delicious main dish to what should be a rather appetizing dessert this week. More than anything, I wanted to take a deep look at how true of a statement “opportunity breeds success” really is in the fantasy football world, at least based on one season. (I intend on charting this information in the coming years in an effort to reach more solid conclusions.) If red zone play-calling, production and efficiency give us some idea as to what teams and players will do in scoring territory, then it only makes sense that analyzing the number of opportunities that players receive – and the consistency at which they get them – anywhere on the field should help us uncover the most “stable” fantasy properties and potential “boom-or-bust” candidates. While there will always been sudden stars and unexpected occurrences during the course of the season no matter how much we crunch the numbers, fantasy owners that are the least surprised often find themselves in the best position to make a fantasy championship run.

Once again, the purpose of the information I provide this week is to give you one more tool in your quest to dominate your draft. Along with the Red Zone Report, my hope is that you simply observe the data I have collected over the last two weeks and reach some solid conclusions about the risers and fallers on your draft boards. Even though September 5 (the Wednesday night season opener) is not far away, we still have plenty of time to discuss the overvalued and undervalued fantasy players over the next month as I begin releasing my team projections next week. For now, my advice is to just focus on the information. The goal, as always, is to make sure you are easily the most knowledgeable and informed owner in the room on draft day.

One last note before we begin: after each position, I decided to summarize my comments with a “fantasy impact” statement. While these statements may seem obvious after I conclude the analysis, I felt it was important to drive home the point.

Key to the table below:

Fant – Player’s rank in a PPR fantasy league where all touchdowns are worth six points. (This will apply to each of the four tables below.)

0-20% - This column represents the percentage of games in which a quarterback attempted 20 throws or less. (By extension, 21-30% represents the percentage of games a quarterback attempted between 21-30 passes, and so on.)

0-20 - This column represents the actual number of games in which a quarterback attempted 20 throws or less. (Just like the sentence above, 21-30 represents the number of games a quarterback attempted between 21-30 passes, and so on.)

Note: You may sort the table by clicking on the column headers.

In order to qualify, a quarterback had to appear in at least eight games and attempt a significant number of passes.

Avid NFL fans should not be the least bit surprised that Matthew Stafford and Drew Brees lead the list of quarterbacks who attempted more than 40 passes in a game last season, although I must admit that it caught my attention that both quarterbacks hit that mark in half of their games or more. After that, some of the names may surprise you a bit. Matt Ryan finished third with six 40+ attempt games while Matt Hasselbeck joined Tom Brady and Philip Rivers in a three-way tie for fourth with five games 40+ games. Perhaps the most incredible number in the 40+ club was Aaron Rodgers, who directed an offense so efficient that he only needed to attempt that many throws just once in his 15 starts. In fact, among the regular quarterback starters (those who missed one game or less) only Alex Smith – who was “managed” for most of last season – had fewer 40+ attempt games (0). Those facts should raise an eyebrow because Rodgers finished atop the fantasy quarterback leaderboard despite attempting fewer passes than 15 quarterbacks last season! (Granted, Rodgers’ scrambling ability helps him in that regard, but Ryan Fitzpatrick ran the ball nearly as much as Rodgers and Josh Freeman was one of a few quarterbacks who scored more fantasy points with their legs than Rodgers. In other words, while a quarterback capable of scoring fantasy points on the ground is a plus, it is rarely enough to make him an elite play if he isn’t also efficient as a passer.)

Certainly, the argument can be made that quarterbacks can suffer from the law of diminishing returns at some point when he is asked to repeatedly attempt 40+ passes. In a lot of cases, a quarterback asked to throw that often is doing so out of necessity because his offense is making a last-ditch effort to rally in the closing minutes. Thus, it would make sense that most fantasy owners would like to see their quarterback in the 31-40 attempt area most often as that range should give him enough opportunities to pile up the yardage, but not at the expense of forcing the ball into heavy coverage during desperation time. Once again, this analysis turns up some unexpected results since Jay Cutler (70%) and Josh Freeman (66.7%) fell into the 31-40 attempt range more often than any other quarterback. While the Mike Martz effect and a smaller sample size (10 games) can explain Cutler’s presence on the list, I find it shocking that Freeman attempted 31 or more passes in all but one of his 15 contests last year. While most people will remember the Bucs’ dismal finish, Tampa Bay once sported a 4-2 record and prided itself on its ability to run the football. Just like Rodgers proved that a quarterback doesn’t need to be a high-volume passer to be an effective one last year, Freeman confirmed that a quarterback will not automatically be a stud in fantasy just because he has plenty of opportunities.

So why would I point out two cases which basically discredit the notion that opportunity breeds success? In short, there will almost be exceptions to just about every rule. Strictly in terms of most fantasy points scored at their position last year, eight of the quarterbacks who posted the highest percentage of 31-40 attempt games finished in the top 13 in scoring, including each of the top three. (The only reason fourth-place Matthew Stafford didn’t increase the number was because so many of his games saw him attempt 40+ throws.)

The evidence is even more compelling when you consider the quarterbacks who had the highest percentage of games with 31+ attempts. Four top-ten fantasy quarterbacks finished among the top five (and six top-ten fantasy quarterbacks ranked among the top 11) when the percentage search criteria was expanded to include the combined 31 and over group. Who were the top-ten outliers? Mark Sanchez (tenth), Matt Ryan (eighth), Cam Newton (fifth) and Rodgers (first)…and it isn’t difficult to figure out why. Ryan played in an offense that finished right in the middle of the pack last year in run-pass ratio (16th) that leaned heavily on the running game in the red zone while Sanchez, Newton and Rodgers managed to score a lot of fantasy points with their legs. When you sort by highest percentage in the 30 and under crowd, the results are predictable: Smith is the only quarterback who attempted less than 30 throws in more than half his games and finished in the top 15.

Fantasy impact: While a large number of pass attempts don’t necessarily directly correlate to elite fantasy quarterback status, the lack of attempts pretty much takes a quarterback out of the conversation as a regular fantasy starter. Assuming you round up, there hasn’t been a quarterback that finished in the top 10 at his position in fantasy that averaged fewer than 30 attempts per game since 2007 (Ben Roethlisberger). The ones that came the closest were Rivers and Chad Pennington in 2008 (29.9 and 29.75 attempts/game, respectively) and Freeman in 2010 (29.6).

Running Backs

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