NFL

5 NFL Red Zone Trends to Monitor for Week 1

What red zone stats and trends should you have your eye on heading into the start of the 2018 season?

There were 1,113 offensive touchdowns scored in 2017 regular season.

That's good for 6,678 fantasy points for rushers and receivers, with an additional 4,452 coming from passing touchdowns.

818 (73%) of those touchdowns came on snaps from the red zone -- the 20-yard line and in. Teams scored on 18.8% of the offensive snaps they ran from the red zone last year, compared to only 1.1% of their snaps outside of the red zone. It's hard to overstate the importance of these snaps, from both a real world and fantasy football standpoint.

When we look at red zone stats, we're dealing with small sample sizes. These can be full of noise and variance, meaning we have to dig in deep to get a feel for what trends are likely to hold up, and which we're better off ignoring.

With these situations being both high-value and tough to nail down, correctly identifying what's going on in the red zone can be a massive edge in fantasy football. So let's get right into it and look at five things worth noting as we kick off the 2018 season.