Drafting is an art.
It is not something you can have perfected after your first try.
Drafting is something that needs time and experience to master.
In fact, I like to compare a fantasy football draft to an actual
football game. As a coach of a football team, you would have to
design a strategy. You have to study tendencies of your opponents.
You must plan one move to set up another move later in the game.
This is equivalent to creating a draft strategy. The best quality
of a football coach is to adjust in the middle of the game. This
is the ability to adapt to your opponent's unexpected strategies.
In a fantasy football draft, you need to be able to overcome an
unexpected selection. You cannot panic because Torry Holt went earlier
than expected. You must always have a plan B (or even Plan C).
The hardest part about preparing for a draft is determining what
draft strategy to use. Do you use the Stud Wide Receiver Theory?
Do you take a top Quarterback early? Do you stack up on running
backs early?
To answer these questions, it is more important to determine the
most important fantasy position on a fantasy team. There have been
many schools of thought on this topic and as you have guessed, you
now get to hear mine.
Point for Point
When trying to determine the MVP (Most Valuable Position) for a
fantasy owner, the first thing to look at is how many fantasy points
a position will score. The total fantasy points scored by a player
is not the final factor, but it is a good start.
Below I have provided the average statistics for the top ten players
at the Quarterback position, Runningback position and Wide Receiver
position:
Scoring System:
- 1 Fantasy Point for 10 Rushing/Receiving Yards
- 1 Fantasy Point for 20 Passing Yards
- 6 Fantasy Points for each Rushing/Receiving Touchdown
- 4 Fantasy Points for each Passing Touchdown
| Q U A R T E R B A C K
S |
| PASS YDS |
PASS TDS |
RUSH YDS |
RUSH TDS |
FANTASY POINTS |
| 3742 |
25 |
304 |
3 |
290 |
|
| R U
N N I N G B A C K S |
| RUSH YDS |
RUSH TDS |
REC YDS |
REC TDS |
FANTASY POINTS |
| 1376 |
11 |
496 |
3 |
259 |
|
| W I
D E R E C E I V E R S |
| PASS YDS |
PASS TDS |
RUSH YDS |
RUSH TDS |
FANTASY POINTS |
| 1433 |
10 |
18 |
0 |
198 |
|
From a point's perspective, it appears Quarterbacks are the most
valuable position. However, (as we have seen with the real MVP in
the NFL), the MVP is not always determined by the best numbers.
This is only the first step to determining the best position for
a fantasy football team.
Into the Depths
When drafting in the first few rounds, one thing to consider is
if you can acquire a good player at a certain position in the middle
rounds. If the position you are considering will have quality players
a couple of rounds later, you can hold off of drafting that position
in the early rounds. This is where the depth of a position becomes
important.
I will be basing my next statistical analysis on a twelve-team league
that starts the following players:
- 1 Quarterback
- 2 Running Backs
- 2 Wide Receivers
The rest of the starting lineup is unimportant since we are only
analyzing the above positions.
When determining which position is most valuable to your fantasy
team, you cannot just compare the top ten players at each position.
The reason for this is no fantasy league starts the same amount
of Quarterbacks, Running backs and Wide receivers.
From a fantasy standpoint the first thing you should determine is
how many starters there are at each position in your league:
- 1 QB x 12 Teams = 12 Quarterbacks
- 2 RB x 12 Teams = 24 Runningbacks
- 2 WR x 12 Teams = 24 Wide Receivers
You must look at the worst-case scenario if you wait to draft a
position. A fantasy player's value is not totally tied into how
many fantasy points he will score. The big question is how many
more fantasy points does a player score than the worst
fantasy starter at that same position.
The best way to determine this would be to take the top ten (top
five for quarterbacks) average fantasy points scored by each position
and subtract the fantasy points scored by the worst fantasy starter
at each position.
| QBs |
331 (Top Five average) - 230 (12th
Quarterback) = 101 Point Difference |
| RBs |
259 (Top Five average) - 146 (24th
Runningback) = 113 Point Difference |
| WRs |
198 (Top Five average) - 116 (24th
Wide Receiver) = 82 Point Difference |
|
The reason I use the top five average for the quarterbacks is only
one quarterback (as opposed to 2 starters at Running back and Wide
Receiver) is starting in this league. The first number in the formula
is used to simulate the fantasy points of a player you would draft
in the first two rounds. The result of the whole formula determines
the difference between one of the best at a position to one of the
worst fantasy starters at the same position.
These results point towards drafting running backs early. The reason
for this is most leagues start 24 running backs overall. Since there
are only 31 NFL teams, this thins out the position for fantasy owners.
Quarterbacks also only have one starter per NFL team, but most fantasy
leagues only use 12 of them.
If you use the following statistics as barometers to qualify a player
as a NFL starter:
- 400 Pass Attempts (25 Attempts per game) for a Quarterback
- 240 rush Attempts (15 Carries per game) for a Runningback
- 60 Receptions (3.75 Receptions a game) for a Wide Receiver
The following will be the number of players that qualified as a
starter last season:
- 16 Quarterbacks
- 21 Runningbacks
- 29 Wide Receivers
The Ratio of NFL Starters to Fantasy Starters:
- 16 NFL Starting QBs / 12 Fantasy Starting QBs = 1.333
- 21 NFL Starting RBs / 24 Fantasy Starting RBs = 0.875
- 29 NFL Starting WRs / 24 Fantasy Starting WRs = 1.208
If you notice there is not even a one to one ratio of decent NFL
starting running backs to fantasy starting running backs. All of
this only emphasizes the point that the running back's demand outweighs
its supply.
Conclusion
What does all of this mean? All of these formulas are only designed
to point out the fact that Running back is the best position to
grab early in a draft. Even if you are looking at the 9th RB as
opposed to the 2nd QB in your rankings, you are better off to grab
a RB. The main reason is because the position of running back thins
out a lot quicker than quarterback in a fantasy draft. Savvy fantasy
owners realize that good running backs are harder to come by than
good quarterbacks and wide receivers.
The Stud Running back theory is usually the best way to go. Even
if you think you can get a good running back in the middle rounds,
remember you can always trade your running back depth for so much
more later on in the season.
:: comments to tim
ludwig
|
