I have been playing Fantasy Football for quite a few years now and
seeing as I became a professional handicapper long before my first
fantasy draft, I have always taken a "numbers" approach
when it came to the game of fantasy football. My years of professional
handicapping prepared me for the work required to build a winning
fantasy football team and over the last few years I have managed
to win more then my fair share of weekly prizes and league championships
by following one simple rule. Never let emotion cloud logic.
This has long been a rule of successful professional handicapper
and gamblers. Far too many people let their emotions for their
home teams cloud their logic when placing their bets. A perfect
example of this was the 2002 Super Bowl.
Being a San Francisco bay area native, I got to witness first
hand the Raider Nation mania spread, listen to the maniac fans
calling into every sports radio station talking about how the
Raiders offense was to strong for Tampa Bay and that the Raiders
where going to win this game with relative ease, and watch hundreds
of bay area residents dump hard earned cash blindly as they bet
on the Raiders to cover the spread. Emotion clouded logic and
in this case cost a lot of people a lot of money. This same rule
applies to fantasy football.
So with this rule in mind, my handicapping skills, and my years
of fantasy football experience I have been keeping track of off-season
movement, watching injury reports, and keeping a close eye on
contract negotiations as I tackle the 2003 season and what I have
learned I will share with you over the next few weeks. So get
out your pencil and paper, take your seat, shut up and pay attention
cause football season is close at hand. Are your ready? Let's
jump right in.
Everyone is a prognosticator especially when it comes to football.
Everyone comes out with predictions that they swear will lead
you to fantasy football greatness. Brett Favre will throw this
many touchdowns, Vick will run for this many yards, Owens will
make this many receptions. There is so much information out there
that it is easy to find one or two that you "trust"
and depend on those sources come draft day. Remember, don't let
emotion cloud logic, and don't give in to the feeling of "trust"
and the relative ease of someone else's rankings and predictions.
Someone can easily tell you the Vick is the number one racked
QB but is that in a scoring or performance league? Are they using
a scoring system with bonuses for long touchdowns? You have to
come up with your own. But how you ask. Simple, use all of them.
That's right, use all the predictions you can find to come up
with your own then by applying your leagues own scoring system
you will come up with personalized rankings. But remember none
and I mean NONE of these predictions will mean anything to you
unless you apply your OWN leagues scoring system.
I have taken the liberty of collecting predictions from 8 different
locations, combining them, then applying the heart of the ESPN
performance league offensive scoring system, which is listed below,
to come up with my own rankings.
1 point for every 25 yards passing
1 point for every 10 yards rushing
4 points per touchdown pass
6 points per touchdown rushing or receiving
-2 points per interception
Today we are going to start off with Quarterbacks. By compiling all the 2003 projected
stats per category (Passing Yards, Passing TD's, Rushing Yards,
Rushing TD's, and Interceptions), adding those projections together
per category and dividing that total by the total number of predictions
used (8) I came up with both a total points prediction and points
per game prediction. Then by applying that overall prediction to
my leagues scoring system I came up with a league personalized ranking
for Quarterbacks.
Here is an example, Here are the 2 different projected stats for
Culpepper.
Pass
Pass
Pass
Rush
Rush
Bye
GP
Att
Cmp
Yds
TDs
Ints
Car
Yds
TDs
2.
Daunte Culpepper
MIN
QB
6
16
515
317
3797
23.3
18.5
95
534
7
Rank
Name
Team
Bye
Passing
Rushing
Yds
TDs
Ints
Yds
TDs
3.
Daunte Culpepper
MIN
6
3800
22
18
500
8
So if we take the projected passing yards from both (3,797 and 3,800)
and added them together (7,597), then divided by the number of projections
used (2) we would be a overall projection (3,798.5).
Now we know that Culpepper's overall projected passing yards for
2003 are 3,799 yards. Ok...now what? Well we also know that we get
1 point for every 25 yards Culpepper throws right? So divide 3,799
by 25 and you will see Culpepper's projected points for passing
yards, 152.
Isn't it easy to see how much better off you will be on draft day
if you take the time to make your own league personalized ranking
instead of depending on fantasy football magazines, websites, or
books? By applying this system to all your key positions (QB, RB,
WR, and TE), you can walk in on draft day confident and prepared.
Now before showing you the outcome of all my labor let me take this
moment to tell you two things. First, fantasy football magazines,
websites, and book are great sources of information just be aware
of the differences in the scoring system used make their rankings
when compared to the scoring system in your league. Second, there
is one other thing that you have to be aware of to make smart and
profitable decision come draft day, the proper draft day strategy.
We will cover that next week, now onto my top 20 QB's ranking and
predictions. Enjoy.
