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Developing Fantasy Football Strategy For The Numerically Challenged
Published: July 30, 2009
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As a fourteen year player in an extremely competitive fantasy football league, I feel like I know a little something about the addiction…ahem, game.
As a two-time champion of this extremely competitive league (in 2001 and 2004, no-one has achieved back-to-back glory…yet), I believe there are plenty of fantasy football nuts who might benefit from my guru wisdom.
And I have plenty of it.
Unfortunately for myself, I’ve failed to listen to my own good advice from those days when I was a winner. Now I’ve fallen into poor drafting habits like taking Romo in the third round last year, or not waiting until the last two rounds to get my defense and kicker.
But maybe there is an old strategy I once used back in 2004 that deserves a little dusting off, a revival of sorts.
My problem is that I like to change things, keep them fresh and different. But that pursuit doesn’t always pay in the end. So I’m going to share a little “English-major-made-up” math for you. By all means I welcome the engineers and math teachers among the Bleacher Report ranks to skewer at will.
But it did work the only year I used it.
Before I start crunching numbers, let me confess that this method took me a lot of time. Still, if one wants to win a competitive fantasy football league, then time investment (plus a little luck) is a necessity.
I believe in playing the law of averages. Even though the NFL surprises us week in and week out, consistency is what wins. Consistency becomes predictable effectiveness in the law of averages. No plan is flawless, but playing the averages can generate consistency.
When making line-up decisions week in and week out, most of us follow a mixture of sticking with our studs and playing the match-ups, but I say follow the math.
Here’s how:
Let’s say you have to start 2 RB, 2 WR and a FLEX RB/WR…
First evaluate all of your RB’s based on recent performance versus next match-up. Then you will do the same with all of your WR’s.
Example: Let’s say that you have Ronnie Brown, Brian Westbrook, Jonathan Stewart, and Jamal Lewis as RB’s and Terrell Owens, Roy Williams, Wes Welker, and Mark Clayton as WR’s.
1. Start with Ronnie Brown and average his fantasy points from the previous three weeks, let’s say he got you 14pts in week 1, 27pts week 2, and 20 pts week 3—that is an average of 20.3 points over a three week span.
2. Next look at his opponent, and let’s say it is the Buffalo Bills. You look back and see that the Bills played St. Louis, New Orleans, and the NY Jets over the past three weeks.
3. Look up the RB’s of the Rams, the Saints, and the Jets and find out the fantasy points that were given up to them by the Bills rush defense. A little finagling might be necessary because it will be simple to just take Steven Jackson’s points as enough since he is the lone guy, but for the Saints you might have to average Reggie Bush and Pierre Thomas together to give you an idea of the average RB points given up that week, etc.
4. Now we’ll imagine that you ended up with the Bills giving up 33 pts to Steven Jackson, 24.7 avg to Bush/Thomas, and 16.4 to Thomas Jones/Shonn Greene. Average the three and you get 24.7 average RB points given up by the Bills over the past three weeks.
5. Now add Ronnie Brown’s average to the average of points given up by the Bills and divide by 2 to get: 22.5 average likely RB fantasy points for this match-up.
6. Repeat the process for the rest of your RB’s and WR’s.
7. Now let’s imagine you get the following results for your players/match-ups:
RB’s
Ronnie Brown—22.5
Brian Westbrook—25.2
Jonathan Stewart—15.7
Jamal Lewis—21
WR’s
Terrell Owens—13.3
Roy Williams—27.1
Wes Welker—23.4
Mark Clayton—18.8
Okay, the results are clear that the law of averages suggest you start Ronnie Brown and Brian Westbrook at RB and Roy Williams and Wes Welker at WR, and Jamal Lewis has the highest rating as your flex option.
It takes a little time to crunch the numbers, but you do get a clear picture of the averages at play when finished.
The method is not without drawbacks, the main one being that in fantasy games we know that our gut can have an overpowering influence on any statistical analysis. But there are some other things to consider…
1. This strategy has amazing time-suck capabilities.
2. This strategy works only in the here and now. It’s not to be used to look back to previous seasons. Therefore, it really only becomes viable beginning with week 4 of the NFL season.
3. The better the statistical tracking of the site you have your league set up on, the easier the strategy is to use. Not all sites are so deep.
4. You have to remember to skip BYE weeks when looking back.
5. Offensive schemes and teams that “spread the ball around” can skew numbers.
6. Sometimes the law of averages just doesn’t mean squat.
At any rate, I vow to go back to some old tried and tested tactics during our upcoming draft (Wait for a QB Markus! Even though no one is keeping Tom Brady and he’ll likely be there at your fourth pick, Wait! Wait! Wait!).
And on to the season, if my team stumbles out of the gate like it has of late, I will break out Winestone’s Law of Fantasy Averages and hopefully get that third title.
***I’m sure there is a spreadsheet formula for this. I’ve just been too lazy to go there***
