Aaron VanSledright

Tag: fantasy football

  • Fantasy Football and AI – Week 14

    Happy Wednesday. Victory Wednesday that is! Our AI selected correctly this week and we snuck in a tough win that was finalized on Sunday night.

    Unfortunately, we lost Zach Ertz on the way. A really nasty low hit took him out for the year. Here is the final scores for our lineup:

    Josh Allen came up huge for us. Breece Hall was useless and the Commanders defense might as well have never stepped out on the field. But, a win is a win! We are now in a 3 way tie for first place but will likely take the third seed into the playoffs given our total fantasy points.

    Here is the lineup for week 15: We’ve had to make some changes from waivers and I’m hoping the AI selected correctly. We are heading into the part of the season where teams are going to be fighting for playoff spots. I hope that it is taking that into account as it made the waiver picks.

    We have some highly projected players this week. What do you think? Will we be able to pull off another win this week?

  • Fantasy Football and AI – Week 13

    Sigh… another week another loss. It was a close one. It turns out people just didn’t really show up to play.

    Its hard to win a game when your high scorer is a defense. There was some light at the end of the Patriots game when Henderson was running down the field. Unfortunately they took him out and then the drive stalled. Had he been able to get a touch down we could have won. We left some points on the bench as well:

    Zach Ertz had a monster game and many of the other players would have been better than Saquon.

    On to week 14. This is the last week before our playoff run. Here is the current proposed roster:

    Its hard to not start Saquon Barkley. But he’s trending down and I think I agree with the AI here in not selecting him. Marvin Harrison Jr. is questionable again due to his surgery but is expected to play. We grabbed Christian Watson, Marcus Mariota and the Commanders defense for week 14. We dropped J.J. McCarthy due to poor performance and injury. Henderson is on bye this week. Our current bench looks like this:

    What do you think? Do you agree with the AI’s selections for the week?

  • Fantasy Football and AI – Week 12

    Well, unfortunately we took a big loss and are now in a three way tie for first place. Here are the actual results:

    I think the biggest hit was how poorly Josh Allen played. What is interesting is that I was reviewing his passed performance against Houston and he has had his worst outings of his career there. This week was no different… The other interesting thing is that Saquon Barkley just isn’t the same back as he was last year. He is trending down.

    In response to Josh Allen’s poor outing I added a deviation and historical performance analysis against and opponent to the data set so now we have a value like:

    "HOU": {
   "avg_actual": 11.6,
   "avg_deviation": -2.67,
   "avg_deviation_percentage": -18.69,
   "avg_projected": 14.27,
   "by_season": {
    "2024": {
     "avg_actual": 14.6,
     "avg_deviation": 0,
     "avg_deviation_percentage": 0,
     "avg_projected": 0,
     "games_played": 1,
     "games_with_projections": 0
    },
    "2025": {
     "avg_actual": 5.05,
     "avg_deviation": -5.65,
     "avg_deviation_percentage": -52.8,
     "avg_projected": 10.7,
     "games_played": 2,
     "total_actual": 10.1,
     "total_projected": 21.4
    }
   },

    I then coded a new tool inside of the AI to reference this data set to assist with its final calculations.

    So, when we ask the tool about Josh Allen’s performance against a team we get something like:

    Found exactly what you're looking for in Josh Allen's performance data.

Josh Allen vs Kansas City (Week 9, 2025):
- 28.8 fantasy points - That's a STRONG performance!
- He was projected for 22.0 points but exceeded by 6.8 points (+30.9%)
- This was one of his better games this season

Historical Context (2024 vs KC):
- Week 11, 2024: 24.0 fantasy points vs Kansas City

Bottom Line: Josh Allen has performed WELL against Kansas City in recent matchups. In their two most recent meetings:
- 2025 (Week 9): 28.8 points
- 2024 (Week 11): 24.0 points

That's an average of 26.4 fantasy points against KC - well above his season average. Allen seems to rise to the occasion against elite competition like Kansas City. The Chiefs' defense can be vulnerable to mobile QBs who can extend plays, and Allen's dual-threat ability has historically given them problems.

The takeaway: When Allen faces KC, he typically delivers QB1 numbers. That 28.8-point performance this season shows he can still light up even the defending champs!

    I need to backload some more historical data yet but that is a problem for a different day. Looking forward, I hope to build my own model based on this data and setup an automated workflow that will include data ingestion and automated model building so that I can consistently build predictions.

    So, on to week 13. We have a bunch of injuries this week to contend with so this lineup will likely be changing once people are reporting. Here is the current lineup:

    In other news I built and launched https://gridirondata.com which is an API to reference all of the data I have collected so far.

    Unfortunately, its not free. But if you message me about it I’ll probably hook you up!

  • AI and Fantasy Football – Week 11

    Wow. Week 11 was filled with injuries. Josh Jacobs went down early with a knee injury. Aaron Rogers went out with a wrist injury but it all started off with an epic performance by TreVeyon Henderson putting up 32.3 points. The end result of week 11? ANOTHER VICTORY FOR AI! The team is now in 1st place. With all those injuries you might be wondering how we pulled off another victory. Well, here is the final scores for the week:

    Josh Allen came through massively with a 51 point game. Riley Patterson put up a few good kicks over in Madrid and George Kittle had a great game as well.

    Looking forward to week 12, we will have to battle some injuries but I think the depth chart should be able to sustain the blows. Here is the current proposed lineup:

    So, tech and data stuff. I added deviations into the data set. So now we can see the difference between what a player’s projection was and their actual. This will help the AI determine how a player is preforming. This is being structured on a per season per week basis as well as historically against an opponent. Next year this data will be valuable when looking at future matchups and draft choices.

    Next, I’m also working on launching an API for this entire project so that you can access the data and utilize it for your own applications. I hope to have a working beta of this by the end of the week! If you are interested in utilizing it feel free to message me. I’m sure a few of you can receive some free keys once its ready! I’ll have a separate post about the API once its ready.

  • Fantasy Football and AI – Week 10

    Well, week 10 has completed. And, WE WON AGAIN! It was a close one that came down to Monday Night Football. I had to buy a day pass to SlingTV so that I could watch the game due to the Youtube TV and Disney dispute. But, Josh Jacobs squared off against Saquon Barkley in the most BORING of football games. At any point in time, if AJ Brown had scored a touchdown I think we would have lost the matchup. Here are the final results.

    For week 11 we dropped the Panther’s defense. Honestly, im not sure why the AI recommend them. I know the Saint’s are bad, but I think the Panther’s defense is worse. Anyway, we picked up the Bear’s for week 11. Badgley and the Colts have a bye this week so anyone playing against Jonathan Taylor can breathe a sigh of relief. The AI also suggested grabbing Riley Patterson and Zach Ertz. Here is our current lineup for week 11:

    Marvin Harrison Jr. Is out with appendicitis which is a big bummer for his divisional matchup.

    From a technical standpoint, I added in a data source and tool for the AI to check depth charts in order to assist in picking up players. This way it won’t suggest lower players. We can also research picks based on injury. In Marvin Harrison Jr.’s case we can see this:

    Cardinals WR Depth Chart:
1. Marvin Harrison Jr. - OUT (your guy who's hurting)
2. Zay Jones - This cat becomes the clear WR1 with Harrison out. He's got experience and should see a big target bump
3. Simi Fehoko - Depth piece, might see some snaps but not a fantasy factor
4. Michael Wilson - Could be interesting as a deeper option, might get more looks
5. Greg Dortch - Slot guy who could see increased usage in 3-WR sets
6. Xavier Weaver - Rookie, probably not fantasy relevant yet

    One thing to note is that it doesn’t know about other injury statuses yet. So I will be looking to add that in shortly.

    Tied for 1st. Playoffs start soon. Here comes the big push to finish out this season!

  • Fantasy Football and AI – Week 9

    A BIG win in week 9! Our team is now tied for 1st place with 6 wins and 3 losses. We currently have 1318.66 total fantasy points on the season. It was looking pretty grim going into the afternoon games on Sunday. The receivers AI selected were not preforming and other players were barely hitting their projects. Josh Allen sparked some life into the team with his 30 points and then Sam Darnold showed everyone how to play quarter back with a 37.2 point performance! Check out the full results below.

    So, now we’re off to week 10. Currently, as I write this, Saquon Barkley is questionable to play. I would expect that he does play but the AI will not put him in the starting lineup. We picked up the Panther’s defense upon request from the AI. I would expect this is because they are playing the Saints who just traded away Rasheed Shaheed. The addition of DJ Moore into the OP slot is going to be a rough choice over playing a quarterback in that position. I’ll be monitoring the roster throughout the week to see if there are any other suggestions we can make. Here is what we are currently fielding into week 10:

    Tune in next week for the results! Hopefully AI can get to 7-3!

  • Fantasy Football and AI – Week 8

    BIG WIN this week. All but two of the players that the AI picked this week were at or exceeded their projections. We scored 190 points for week 8. Here are the results:

    Unfortunately I haven’t had any time to put into building out an MCP server but the data cleanup has definitely improved the overall application and I think I am in a good place to have this setup for future use (next year!). Currently the team is in 3rd place of 8. All the teams in the league make it to the playoffs so we still have a long way to go!

    For week 9 we have some big players on BYE this week so the AI will have to handle that. Here is the current tentative lineup:

    I definitely think it will need step up some waiver finds for running back! Tune in next week for results!

  • Fantasy Football and AI – Week 6

    We’re back with the week 6 AI managed fantasy football team and we got another win! The team’s record is now 4-2-0 and sits 3rd in the league.

    Here is the final lineup that was fielded for week 6 and the points

    There were a couple players on the bench that did better. Keenan Allen and Breece Hall could have been swapped for pretty much anyone on the bench and we would have had a few more points. A win is a win. One thing to note is that we had a game time injury of Dalton Kincaid and I had to pull Zach Ertz in at the last minute to avoid getting a zero.

    For week 7 we are starting to see both injury and bye weeks happening. The AI will have to make some pretty deep roster moves in order to fill the gaps. Here is the initial starting lineup:

    Because of the BYE weeks we are picking up Aaron Rodgers who put up a good game against Cincinnati last night. DK did not have a great night last night. We picked up the Patriots defense as well as Eddy Pineiro to fill in some slots. I think the Patriots against Tennessee will be an interesting matchup given that the Titans fired their head coach. Mike Vrabel has the Patriots firing again and hopefully he can shut them out and we can put up some big points!

    From a tech perspective, I’m slowly putting together an MCP server to help create some efficiencies when working with the DynamoDB tables. Hopefully, if we can handle that, the overall application response time will be faster. If I wasn’t traveling AGAIN this weekend I would have made it a hackathon. Hopefully for week 8!

    Subscribe for updates.

  • Fantasy Football & AI – Week 3

    Week 3 is here. I started late yesterday by getting a full analysis of the team and any targets for free agency and waivers.

    Most important was to get a better Tight End as the predictions for last weekend were incredibly wrong. This is my fault and reinforces the idea that giving bad data to AI will just result in bad output.

    Here is the updated selection to get Juwan Johnson. This makes a lot more sense than picking Hunter Henry last week.

    The second thing I looked into was getting a good defensive matchup. Currently I have the Rams on the roster but they play the Eagles this week and that matchup is not going to favor the Rams.

    Here is some output from our friendly AI Dan Campbell:

    Alright, coach! Here's what I'm seeing for Week 3 defenses that can help you bite some kneecaps and put up points:

TOP WEEK 3 DEFENSIVE MATCHUPS:

1. Green Bay Packers DST (7.6 projected points)
- Only 45% owned, so there's a good chance they're available
- This is their highest projected week of the season!
- They're facing a matchup that should generate turnovers and sacks

2. Buffalo Bills DST (7.5 projected points)
- 65% owned but worth checking
- Solid Week 3 projection and they're consistent all season

3. Kansas City Chiefs DST (7.5 projected points)
- Only 12% owned - this is a STEAL if available!
- Same 7.5 projection as Buffalo but way less owned
- Championship defense with a great matchup

Now, looking at your current situation - you've got the LA Rams DST starting right now. Let me tell you something, coach - any of these top 3 options would be a significant upgrade for Week 3!

MY RECOMMENDATION:
If the Kansas City Chiefs DST is available, that's your move right there! Only 12% owned with a 7.5 projection - that's championship-level value sitting on waivers. If not them, grab the Packers at 7.6 points projected.

The Atlanta Falcons (7.1 projected, only 1.3% owned) are also a sneaky good play if you want to get really aggressive on the waiver wire.

These defenses are gonna feast in Week 3, and you need every advantage you can get to dominate your league! Go get 'em, coach!

    I made a claim for the Packers. I would prefer not to pick them because of my love for the Detroit Lions…

    One other waiver selection that I made was at the kicker position. Here is AI Dan Campbell’s suggestions:

    Alright, let me tell you what - you've got Chase McLaughlin right now, and he's been solid, but let me break down the kicker landscape for Week 3 like we're game planning for the playoffs!

Top Week 3 Kicker Options:

Brandon McManus (GB) - 8.2 projected points
- Only 14% owned, so he's sitting there waiting for you!
- Green Bay's offense has been moving the ball well
- This guy's got ice in his veins and a leg like a cannon

Tyler Loop (BAL) - 8.0 projected points
- Baltimore's offense creates plenty of scoring opportunities
- 65% owned though, so he might be taken in your league

Parker Romo (ATL) - 7.8 projected points
- Only 1.4% owned - this is a diamond in the rough!
- Atlanta's been getting into the red zone consistently

Jason Myers (SEA) - 7.9 projected points
- Seattle's offense with Sam Darnold (who you've got as your OP!) creates opportunities
- Only 10% owned

Now here's the deal - Chase McLaughlin has been putting up decent numbers for Tampa Bay, but if you want to maximize your Week 3 scoring, I'd be looking hard at Brandon McManus. The Packers offense is humming, and McManus has that veteran reliability. Plus at only 14% ownership, there's a good chance he's available.

Parker Romo is my sleeper pick - less than 2% owned but projected for nearly 8 points. Atlanta's been moving the ball, and sometimes you gotta take a swing on the unknown soldier!

You comfortable rolling with McLaughlin, or you want to make a move? In this league, every point matters, and kickers can be the difference between victory and going home empty-handed!

    I picked up Parker Romo for the team. I thought it would be fun to test out the “sleeper” pick.

    And finally, our starting lineup, barring any injuries or set backs during the practice week:

    I think we’ve got a good matchup this week. Most of our opponent ranks are pretty low. Barring injuries we should maybe, hopefully, get our first win of the year.

    Tune in next week for our results!

  • Week 2 – AI Plays Fantasy Football

    We lost again. AI is 0-2.

    For the most part I agreed with the picks that AI made last week. Except for one. The tight end. It felt a little weird picking Hunter Henry up off waiver wire and boy did I found out why. More on that later. Here are the results from the week:

    There are definitely some misses on wide receiver but that is always such a hit or miss position. What shocked me the most was Josh Allen only get 11 points. Also, J.J. McCarthy was injured in his game. Not a single player hit their projection except for the Rams’ defense. If we take a look at the bench there are definitely some better picks we could have made strictly from looking at points for the game. However, even if we had selected all the better preforming players the team would have still lost as our opponent had 164 points this week.

    Anyway, that’s enough football for this post. Let’s talk about some tech. I mentioned earlier that I was questioning the waiver acquisition of Hunter Henry and I wish I had done some more debugging as to why that pick was selected.

    I added a chat feature to the overall application so that we can identify waiver picks and other things faster rather than having to get a full weekly analysis every time. In that code there is a function that generates a recommendation score. I’ll admit, I vibe coded some of this with some prompting of how this should be determined.

    # Penalty for high ownership
        #ownership_penalty = float(waiver_player['percent_owned']) / 10  # Convert to float
        #score -= ownership_penalty

    You can see here that we lowing our recommendation score because of “high ownership” this is because the reverse engineered ESPN Fantasy API doesn’t identify if a player is on a teams roster or not when I pull the players. So a player with a 100% ownership would likely never be recommended. So a player like Zach Ertz, who had 18 points this week was not suggested as he had approximately 80% ownership across ALL of ESPN’s fantasy platform. Well… this problem has been fixed.

    Anyway, I also added chat. And I programmed it to respond only as Dan Campbell. Here is some output when I asked “What do you think of my team?”

    pounds table

Well I'll be damned, you got yourself a HELL of a roster there, chief! This team's got some serious bite to it - let me break it down for ya.

Your Strengths - These are STUDS:
- Josh Allen - That's your franchise quarterback right there. Guy's a warrior and puts up points like it's going out of style
- Saquon Barkley & Josh Jacobs - Holy smokes, that's a one-two punch at RB that'll knock people's teeth out! Both these guys are workhorses
- Breece Hall in the FLEX - Are you kidding me?! Most teams would KILL to have Hall as their RB1, and you got him as a flex play. That's championship-level depth
- DK Metcalf - Big body receiver who can take the top off any defense
- Your bench depth - Terry McLaurin, DJ Moore, Cooper Kupp, Keenan Allen?! That's four WR1/WR2 caliber guys just sitting there!

Areas that need some attention:
- George Kittle on IR - That hurts, but Hunter Henry's a solid fill-in for now
- J.J. McCarthy at OP - Kid's got potential but he's still unproven. Might want to consider streaming that spot based on matchups
- Marvin Harrison Jr. - Rookie receivers can be boom-or-bust, but the talent's there

The Bottom Line:
This roster is LOADED, especially at RB and WR. You've got championship potential written all over it. The depth is ridiculous - you could probably trade some of that bench talent for upgrades at TE or find a more consistent OP play.

You're sitting pretty, but don't get comfortable! Keep grinding, keep looking for those edges. That's how you win championships!

What specific position are you thinking about upgrading, or you want me to take a look at some waiver wire options?

    And here is an architecture diagram update to include the chat elements:

    So, I’ll be back tomorrow with a new lineup. Hopefully week three treats us better!