Week 6 Fantasy Football Rankings Standouts: Xavier Worthy And More Players Higher/Lower Than Consensus

Welcome to the Week 6 fantasy football rankings edition of Cupps’ Cupboard!

Every Friday this season, I’m going through my rankings for the weekend to identify players I have the biggest deltas on compared to Fantasy Life’s expert consensus fantasy football rankingsalong with examining advanced metrics and utilization data.

As someone with a data-heavy background and overall approach to fantasy football, my rankings are created using a blend of several inputs:

Fantasy Life’s weekly fantasy football projectionsadjusted using fantasy football DvP rankings
Prediction market data (essentially taking the current prices on various yardages, touchdowns, receptions, etc., and creating implied fantasy point projections)
Vegas prop lines (rush/rec yards + receptions for pass catchers, pass/rush yards for quarterbacks). I will commonly refer to this as a player’s ‘Vegas Base’ projection: essentially, the floor a player offers without any touchdown odds

Using these sources as a baseline, I create my own hybrid projection system for each position and adjust from there.

Let’s get into it.

Quarterbacks I Rank Higher In My Week 6 Fantasy Rankings

Drake Maye

Fantasy Life: QB5
My Rank: QB2 (+3)

On paper, this isn’t the spot you’d circle for Drake Maye. The Jets come into Week 6 ranked 5th in Defense vs. Position against quarterbacks, allowing 3.33 fewer fantasy points per game than the average matchup. And yet, the only quarterback I have ranked ahead of him this week is Josh Allen.

The DvP adjustment does knock him down a few spots, but everything else has him right at the top of the position:

Fantasy Life projection: 20.4 (QB2)
Fantasy Life DvP-adjusted projection: 18.1 (QB6)
Prediction market implied projection: 21.5 (QB3)

When the market is pricing a guy as a top-3 option against one of the tougher pass defenses in the league, I’m listening. I’d be firing up Maye with confidence in this one.

QB I’m Lower On In My Fantasy Football Rankings For Week 6

Trevor Lawrence

Fantasy Life: QB10
My Rank: QB12 (-2)

This one comes with a bit of an asterisk. I’m only two spots lower than the Fantasy Life experts on Trevor Lawrenceand there honestly aren’t many quarterbacks I’m meaningfully below consensus on this week. T-Law just happens to be one of the biggest gaps.

Houston is about as middle-of-the-road of a matchup as you’ll find (16th in DvP, -1.12 points on average), so I’m not lower on him because of the defense. It’s more that none of the projections have him as a top-10 option:

Fantasy Life DvP-adjusted projection: 14.9 (QB14)
Prediction market implied projection: 17.6 (QB14)
Vegas floor: 10.4 (QB15)

I still have Lawrence inside my QB1 range, so I’m not telling you to bench him. I would just temper expectations in this Week 6 matchup against Houston.

Running Back I Am Higher Than Consensus On In My Week 6 Fantasy Football Rankings

Chuba Hubbard

Fantasy Life: RB13
My Rank: RB11 (+2)

The Eagles are in absolute shambles right now. Jalen Hurts has officially been ruled out, Tanner McKee is set to make the start at quarterback, and Philly is likely going to be without both Saquon Barkley and DeVonta Smith.

Philadelphia still ranks 8th in DvP against running backs (-1.99 points on average), so this isn’t a cakewalk on paper … but I like Carolina to take care of business pretty easily here, and a Panthers lead in the second half should mean a heavy dose of Chuba Hubbard. The projections back up this sentiment:

Fantasy Life DvP-adjusted projection: 13.6 (RB12)
Prediction market implied projection: 15.6 (RB10)
Vegas floor: 10.2 (RB7)

That Vegas base projection is the one that sticks out to me the most – an RB7 floor before factoring in touchdown odds tells me the market expects real volume. Hubbard is a rock-solid RB1 for me this week.

RB I’m Lower On In My Fantasy Rankings For Week 6

Omarion Hampton

Fantasy Life: RB30
My Rank: RB35(-5)

If you’ve read this column before, you already know where this is going. Last week I pointed to Hampton’s 55.1 average Utilization Score (28th among RBs through four weeks) as the main reason I couldn’t get on board, and after following that up with a Utilization Score of 36.4 in week 5, things are just going from bad to worse.

This week the Chargers draw Kansas City, who rank 15th in DvP against the position (-0.70 points on average). Not a crazy bad matchup by any means, but the projections somehow look even worse than they did a week ago:

Fantasy Life DvP-adjusted projection: 6.2 (RB32)
Prediction market implied projection: 5.0 (RB34)
Vegas floor: 4.3 (RB33)

For context, his prediction market number was 7.0, and his Vegas floor was 5.6 heading into week 5. Consensus has started to catch on, sliding him from RB25 to RB30, but I’m still quite a bit lower for another week with Hampton.