Fantasy Football: Why “Garbage Time” is a Garbage Theory

There is a lot of fantasy football information out there. You could spend every waking hour on fantasy and still not get through all the content (I may or may not know this from experience). I always try to prioritize what is the most worth my time. Since I love statistics, for example, I look for which data points matter vs. which can be iffy at best and totally false at worst. And one idea that is presented all too often, but has very little actual validity or usefulness, is the theory of Garbage Time.

Let me first define Garbage Time so it’s understood what I’m writing against. Garbage Time is the idea that a quarterback or wide receiver playing for a team that is losing substantially will lead to sneaky fantasy value. Garbage Time could identify players who are generally useless/low-end starters, but the amount of production gained in the end of a blowout can create worthy starters for cheap. This theory has been around for a while, or at least as long as Cecil Shorts has been on the Jaguars, but it has been propagated more often since the rise of DFS led to an even stronger desire for finding those diamonds in the rough.

Garbage Time is a very logical idea; when teams are losing, they pass more, and when they pass more, they give more value to their receivers and quarterbacks. The first part is true. ProFootballFocus crunched the numbers and found that teams do indeed increase their percentage of called passing plays when they are behind. The real question is whether or not you want your fantasy players in that position.

Garbage Time is also something that any fantasy player will suffer or benefit from. You think you’ve won your game on Monday night when your opponent only has Kelvin Benjamin left, whose team is getting destroyed by the Eagles. But, lo and behold, Benjamin scores two late touchdowns that flips the score in your opponents favor, and you throw the remote across the room in disgust.

It’s important to not let surface logic and emotions cloud your fantasy judgement. Garbage time is not a theory supported by empirical evidence. In this article I’ll approach Garbage Time from two perspectives: it’s ability to help predictions, and its resulting validity.

To look at whether or not projecting Garbage Time can help you find some fantasy potential, I compared the Las Vegas lines with resultant fantasy production of quarterbacks. If Garbage Time has any predictive value, then it’d be expected that quarterbacks who are on the wrong side of the line (i.e. the Broncos opponent on a given week) would score a higher amount of fantasy points than when they are expected to have a less lopsided game.

Hopefully when I write it out like that, you already can feel the logic of Garbage Time falling away. Why would anyone start a QB or WR who you expect to suck for three quarters in order to hopefully get some return in the 4th? (Shut it, Tebow)

Anyway, through all the statistical tests I did, which included comparing cross-quarterback and within-quarterback 2014 weekly fantasy points against the game line and also the total point line each week. In the end, there was no definitive effect or correlation found. Interestingly, some quarterbacks even did better when the total points was lower (like Russell Wilson). Simply put, using Garbage Time as a reason to start a quarterback you’re considering streaming or putting in your DFS lineup is not sound strategy, even if it works from time to time.

To drive the point home, let’s look at whether or not Garbage Time actually does end up having an effect. Since obviously the last tests were based on Las Vegas predictions, and not the actual resulting score of the game, there’s a chance that Vegas might be too conservative with their lines for stats to find an effect. Let me put it out there though that you are no better than Vegas at guessing which games will be a blowout, so the point about lack of predictive value remains. But if you are better than Vegas at making picks, please DM me your weekly picks @thatloudkid25. I’m a grad student and could use some extra cash.

To analyze the results of Garbage Time, I used the RotoViz Game Splits App. This neat tool lets you analyze fantasy points a player scored in various different scenarios, with the pertinent one for this study being score margin. I used this app to split the players past three seasons between games when they ended up losing by 10+ and games where they lost by 9 or less or won. Obviously this isn’t a perfect comp because the exact point where it became Garbage Time is unknown and the true definition of Garbage Time is debatable, but again, the pure inability to really pinpoint these things proves precisely why it’s such a sketchy theory in fantasy discussions in the first place. But if the team lost by more than 10, there’s a good chance that they were increasing their percentage of passing plays.

Here are some of the findings from ten random quarterbacks of different skills/success, some perennial starters and other potential streamers:

Blake Bortles, the only QB who had a negligible rise in production during big losses, basically only managed to do so because he actually threw one passing touchdown (he averaged close to 0 in games outside of the split). Why you would want to roster him ever is beyond me. Some great quarterbacks didn’t lose many points in big losses, but no quarterback saw any gain in points when the game was blowout against their team. For the record, players in a close loss generally had noticeably lower scores than when they won, but very little difference was noted between when players lost by 10+ and lost by 1-9 points. While quarterbacks tend to pass more as the score grows, they don’t seem to become any more efficient (and probably become less so).

For the wide receivers, whom some fantasy owners like to believe get a fantasy boost from the increased passing during Garbage Time, here are some results from the past three seasons:

It’s clear that wide receivers don’t suffer anywhere near as much as quarterbacks do when their team is getting blown out. This makes logical sense since receivers have much less of a direct impact on a team winning or losing. Nevertheless, it’s yet again made clear that wide receivers don’t somehow gain an advantage when their team is getting blown out. There is no benefit in choosing a wide receiver on a team that you think is going to lose big versus a wide receiver that you think will have a close game.

Overall, a quarterback is likely to score a touchdown less when they are getting blown out, and wide receivers don’t have more success in blow outs either. It’s almost too obvious for stats and fantasy geeks to completely accept: players who are on winning teams are more likely to succeed. Don’t over think it. It might seem clever to get Bortles against the Broncos or Carr against the Colts on FanDuel or DraftKings where the salary is low and points will be scored against the QB’s defenses. But don’t go into a week betting on Garbage Time.

Instead, when looking for cheap/streaming fantasy options, look for teams you think will put up a good fight, teams against flailing defenses, and so on. Simply put, Garbage Time may seem to exist in the real NFL, but you aren’t going to find it on your fantasy team with any consistency. It’s time for the fantasy community to throw this theory out.

Next: The Fantasy CPR Ten Team Mock Draft?

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