Welcome · Nov 11, 2026
Welcome to Route Tree Report
Most fantasy sites hand you a list. I think lists are the problem.
A list tells you Chase is WR1 and Jefferson is WR2 and leaves it there. But if you’re deciding who to start on Sunday, the ranking is the least useful part. What you actually need to know is how wide the range is. Chase can win you the week or sink you. Jefferson’s range is narrower. Same neighborhood in the rankings, opposite decisions depending on whether you’re favored or chasing.
That’s what this is. Route Tree Report gives you the range, not the ranking.
Every player gets a distribution, not a number. A median, a floor, a ceiling, and the odds of each. Boom probability. Bust probability. Head-to-head win probability when you’re choosing between two guys. If I can’t tell you what would have to be true for the boom case, I don’t have a case. I have a hope.
What you get here
One free email a week through the end of the season, plus free tools on the site:
- Tuesday — waivers. Who actually got a bigger role, not who had one big game. Snap share, target share, rush share. Two weeks of it or it doesn’t count.
- Wednesday — start/sit. Two players, head to head, with odds. And one rule: favored means play the floor, underdog means play the ceiling.
- Thursday — trades. Points above replacement, rest of season, schedule-adjusted. Not “who’s ranked higher.” Who’s worth more from here.
- Friday — playoffs. Weeks 15–17 planning, matchup by matchup.
The tools are free while we prove the concept. The weekly email stays free.
A taste, from Week 10
A real coin flip, not a must-start: Justin Jefferson vs. Keenan Allen, this week. Jefferson: 13.6 points a game through 7 games, median 8.8, range 5.2 to 29.2. His targets are climbing, 7, then 9, then 11, and he’s on the field for 93 to 98 percent of snaps — but last week he caught 3 of 11 for 58 yards, because his quarterback went 8-of-25. Allen: 10.1 a game, median 9.4, range 1.5 to 18.3. Forty catches, 351 yards, 1 touchdown in 8 games for Indianapolis — and then Indianapolis traded him to San Francisco on Tuesday, where the receiver room is missing Evans, Deebo Samuel, and Christian Kirk.
On the season numbers, Jefferson is the favorite: better floor, better ceiling, better last three weeks. The only case for Allen is this week specifically — new team, empty receiver room, a first game where the role could be bigger than his season line says. If you’re favored, Jefferson. If you’re the underdog, Allen is the swing.
One trade thought to show you how Thursday works: Jahmyr Gibbs vs. Derrick Henry, rest of season. Gibbs is at 26.2 a game, median 24.1, and his floor is 13.4 — every game this year in double digits. Henry is at 15.8 a game, median 15.9, and his last three games are 14.0, 5.9, and 5.4, on about half the snaps, with his quarterback on injured reserve. That’s not a 1.4-point gap. That’s a ten-point gap, and it’s widening. If you’re buying, buy the narrower range. If you’re selling Henry, sell the name, not the median.
That’s the whole method, in two paragraphs.
What this is not
No hot takes. No player propaganda. No “must-start” lists written on Tuesday and forgotten by Sunday. And no pretending a ranking is a prediction. A ranking is a guess with the uncertainty filed off. I’d rather show you the uncertainty.
Everything here is built from the underlying numbers — points per game actually played, snap rates late in the year, targets, carries, receptions, yards. Not other people’s rankings. If the numbers say something uncomfortable about a player you like, I’ll print it anyway.
Here’s one to start with: A.J. Brown is a name you know and a line you should not trust. Three games played all season, 19.1 points total, no touchdowns, missed the last two weeks with ankle and knee problems, and his status for Sunday in Munich is genuinely unresolved. The name says WR1. The numbers say don’t start him.
Next year: the Draft Kit
The 2027 Draft Kit is coming. Same method, applied to the draft: tiers built from previous years’ analytics, sleepers on usage jumps, mid-year pickups, rookies with their first-half numbers tempered. $29 when it launches. Free subscribers here will hear about it first.
For now, subscribe free. One email a week. Bring your toughest start/sit call — I’ll take the other side of it in the numbers.
— Route Tree Report
All numbers in this post are real, through Week 9 (Nov 8–9), from Pro Football Reference. Not betting advice.
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One probability-first email a week. No hot takes, no player propaganda — just the range of outcomes, and what would have to be true for the boom case.
The weekly email lives on Substack now — subscribing there puts you on the real list. A copy is also saved in this browser as a backup. The publication is at routetreereport.substack.com.