

**Fantasy Football for Smart People:** **Lessons from RotoAcademy (Volume 2.0)**

Jonathan Bales

Copyright Jonathan Bales 2014

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Jonathan Bales. First Printing: 2014. The editorial arrangement, analysis, and professional commentary are subject to this copyright notice. No portion of this book may be copied, retransmitted, reposted, duplicated, or otherwise used without the express written approval of the author, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.

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# Fantasy Football for Smart People: Lessons from RotoAcademy, Volume 2.0

## Table of Contents

_Fantasy Football for Smart People: Lessons from RotoAcademy (Volume 2.0)_ contains fantasy football lessons from the world's first fantasy football school. Enroll to be a student at RotoAcademy.com.

1 Understanding Science's Role in Fantasy Football

2 Why a Rookie Quarterback's College Matters. . .A Lot

3 Do different types of wide receivers age differently?

4 How to Draft with a Top Four Pick

5 "Off-the-Wall" Strategies and How to Draft with a Bottom Four Pick

6 Nearing the Goal Line: Why You Need to Care About Wide Receiver Red Zone Efficiency

7 The Chicken or the Egg: How do elite receivers and tight ends impact each other?

8 Another Reason to Love Mobile Quarterbacks?

9 Why Third-Best Isn't Good Enough: A Look at NFL Draft Saturation

10 What Wall Street Can Teach Us About Daily Fantasy Football

11 Identifying Red Flags and Being Wrong the Right Way

12 How do rookie quarterbacks impact a team's top receiver?

13 I can't stop writing about wide receiver size.

14 Does a great QB help or hurt his RB?

15 How much does a great QB help his WRs (and how much does a crappy one hurt them)?

16 How to Use Rookie Stats to Project Wide Receivers in Year 2

17 Why Focusing on the Little Things Helps You Understand the Big Thing

18 A Preliminary Look at How to Use Game Theory in Your Fantasy Draft

19 My Love Affair with Small-School Running Backs Isn't Weird

20 How does a rookie's age affect his fantasy production?

21 Which types of wide receivers are the most predictable?

22 Do teams score more points when they play in domes?

23 A Low-Variance Approach to Fantasy Football

24 Can quarterbacks from terrible teams provide above-average returns?

## Preface

In early 2014, I started a fantasy football training school called RotoAcademy. It's a newsletter-based service through which every month subscribers receive a book-length PDF with in-depth fantasy football analysis and advice. It's basically the same sort of content as what's in the other books in my  Fantasy Football for Smart People series, except 1) delivered to your e-mail each month and 2) cheaper. I've priced RotoAcademy such that it will always be the best value to enroll.

_Fantasy Football for Smart People: Lessons from RotoAcademy—The Fantasy Football School (Volume 2.0)_ is a collection of some of my favorite RotoAcademy lessons. My hope is that you'll enjoy the lessons you read here enough to enroll in the school. For just a few bucks a month, I think the value is undoubtedly there.

The ultimate goal behind the school is truly to build you into the best fantasy owner that you can be. That doesn't mean giving you every pick or explaining why I like Player X this year, but rather showing you how the best fantasy owners think.

To accomplish that goal, the content is timeless and presented in a "Nietzschean" manner; each topic represents a semi-independent thought. That means you can jump around as you'd like; you don't necessarily need to read the book in the traditional front-to-back manner. If you're not particularly interested in a specific section, feel free to skip it. I urge you to come back to each section at some point, however, as the answers to even the most "obvious" of questions aren't always so straightforward.

In addition to running RotoAcademy, I've also written multiple new books this year, which you can buy on  Amazon or at FantasyFootballDrafting.com. At the latter site, I'll be selling my draft guide—complete with projections, rankings, sleepers, and more. I'll also be selling an in-season guide with weekly projections and values for daily fantasy sites like DraftKings. When I started that in 2013, it became way more popular than I envisioned, so it will be back and better than ever this year.

Thanks for your support, and best of luck this season!

## Some Free Fantasy Football Stuff for You

I like giving things away, so here's some stuff for you. The first is 10 percent off anything you purchase on my site—all books, all rankings, all draft packages, and even past issues of RotoAcademy. Just go to FantasyFootballDrafting.com and use the code "Smart10" at checkout to get the savings.

The second freebie is an issue of RotoAcademy. I'm really excited about this product and I think if you start reading, you'll be hooked and become a full-time student. Some of the content in there is also in this book, but much of it is unique, too. By downloading the guide, you'll be able to see the format and the length of the PDFs you'll receive each month. Remember, this is a year-long training course that's absolutely guaranteed to turn you into a dominant fantasy owner.

Go to  FantasyFootballDrafting.com for your free issue (RotoAcademy Issue II), add the item to your cart, and enter "RA100" at checkout to get it free of charge.

Finally, I've partnered with DraftKings to give you a 100 percent deposit bonus when you sign up there. DraftKings is the main site where I play daily fantasy football. Deposit there through one of my links (or use <https://www.draftkings.com/r/Bales>) to get the bonus, use the "Smart10" code to buy my in-season package at FantasyFootballDrafting.com (complete with DraftKings values all year long), and start cashing in on your hobby.

A whole lot of readers profited last year, with one cashing $25,000 in _multiple_ leagues since purchasing my in-season package. There's an outstanding investment opportunity in daily fantasy sports right now, and there's really no reason for you _not_ to get involved. With my in-season package, you'll have all the ammunition you need to win right out of the gate.

#

Okay, let's get weird.

## 1 Understanding Science's Role in Fantasy Football

There's an orange rhinoceros named Rusty standing behind you right now, but every time you turn to look at him, he disappears. You can test for the rhino's existence and create very easy-to-fill criteria to confirm it, but you can't _falsify_ the rhino's existence. You really just have to _believe_ that he's there.

Sound like a good theory to you? Of course not. Science is about improving the way we understand the world and making accurate forecasts, but we cannot have science—we cannot have improvement—without falsifiability. If a theory isn't testable to the point that we can disconfirm it, then it's not science.

Here's the thing: if we aren't going to believe that Rusty the Rhino exists, why should we believe scouts when they tell us that a player has "heart," "determination," or "quick hips?" We could perhaps partially test for these attributes by looking at on-field stats or off-field measurables, but if we can't, then why should we believe? Even worse, why act on beliefs that have been formulated on shaky, unscientific, and unfalsifiable ground?

## A Scientific Approach to Fantasy Football Is About Improvement

There are two reasons that I advocate a scientific approach to fantasy football, each related to one another. First, science is about progress. I remember a tweet from Fantasy Douche arguing something to the effect of "bad stats are better than no stats, because bad stats can be made into good stats."

The idea is that science (and math/analytics) is self-correcting. Let's say I create a model to predict tight end performance. After a few years, I tally the results and I see that it sucks horribly and I'd be better off just guessing. Well, the process through which I created a model in the first place can be used to improve the model; I can test to see which measurables are the most predictive and figure out how to better incorporate them into my model. I can turn a really crappy thing into a little bit better thing and then a little bit better thing before it's an awesome thing.

This concept is related to the second reason I advocate a scientific approach to fantasy football: the process is just as valuable (perhaps more so) than the end result. One of the reasons I started RotoAcademy is because I noticed a humongous flaw in the way we're approaching the game; there are countless articles like "Week 2 Waiver Wire Adds" and "Top 5 Running Back Sleepers," but that sort of content is worthless within days or weeks. It might help you in the short-term (although probably not), but it certainly isn't helping you become a better fantasy football owner in the long run.

Think about what you learned in college or high school. How much of the trivial shit do you still know? Any idea when Napoleon stormed the Bastille? How about the length of the Mississippi River? Could you point to Belarus on a map? Did you even know Belarus is a country?

The reason that college is valuable (for some) isn't because of the insignificant shit you learn, but rather because you learn _how to learn_. The ability to problem-solve and rationalize is far more valuable than knowing a stupid fact.

## Building Up Intellectual Equity

In a sense, science if very much akin to buying a house, whereas traditional faith-based scouting (or any approach to fantasy football that bypasses analytics) is like renting. When you buy a house, you build up equity in it. Science is similar; you're building equity in the form of process-oriented knowledge that you can call upon at a later date.

A "Rookie Quarterbacks to Value" article is like paying rent in that you're trading in something of value to you (your time or your money) in exchange for something that has immediate use, but zero long-term value. When you stop paying your rent, you leave your apartment with nothing to show for it; when you read a waiver wire article, it might have use to you in the immediate future, but it's not going to help you with the timeless, big-picture concepts that create the foundation of true understanding.

The point isn't to forgo reading time-sensitive content or seeking out waiver wire advice, because both have a place in fantasy football, but rather to be aware that the path to dominance is through "building equity" in developing your process. Focus on understanding the _why_ over the _what_.

## Teach a Man to Fish

If we aren't going to use science/math/analytics in fantasy football, the alternative is to "turn on the tape," as they say. In other words, we have a choice between making decisions based on what we see (or what we think we see), what the numbers tell us, or a combination of both.

The problem with turning on the tape is that it's not an evolutionary process. How can we improve it? There's a pair of problems. First, to improve film study, you have to introduce some form of analytics. Even if it's as elementary as a +1 grading system, you need to quantify what you see in some manner so that you can test and falsify theories. So an unscientific approach to fantasy football—one built on a foundation of "the eye test"—isn't going to work by itself. It's not that it's worthless, but it's certainly not the entire picture.

Second, an unscientific approach to anything is very much an individual endeavor. You might be able to implement crude analytics in order to moderately improve my film study, but you can't utilize and build upon the work of others.

If we have a disagreement about fantasy football stats, we can either immediately see who is correct or create testable hypotheses to see whose stats/theories/models best support the evidence. But what happens when two scouts disagree on what they see on film? Nothing. Nothing happens. They just disagree.

Fantasy football isn't ice cream; there might not be one universal way to do things, but there sure are better methods than others. Because we can build upon others' work when utilizing a scientific approach to fantasy football, it's scalable and allows for intellectual equity. Traditional film study (or even just making decisions based solely on watching games live) can't scale because there's no means through which we can settle disagreements, and it creates no intellectual equity.

When it comes to fantasy football, you've spent your time getting fish handed to you. I'm here to turn you into the fisherman.

## 2 Why a Rookie Quarterback's College Matters. . .A Lot

_Data collected by_ Ian Hartitz

In 2004, then-rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger took the NFL by storm, completing 66 percent of his passes, throwing 18 touchdowns to only 11 picks, and winning an unreal 13 games. It was a truly remarkable campaign, but one of the only big-time rookie seasons to come from a small-school quarterback.

Roethlisberger, out of Miami of Ohio, joins Andy Dalton as the only non-BCS Division I quarterbacks since 2003 to find much rookie success (TCU wasn't part of the Big 12 when Dalton was there). A couple other passers—Colin Kaepernick and Alex Smith—eventually rose from the ashes despite lackluster (or non-existent) rookie seasons, but for the most part, it's been rough sledding for small-school quarterbacks.

You might think that small-school quarterbacks get selected much later than big-school quarterbacks, but that's not actually the case.

No conference has had quarterbacks selected higher, on average, than Conference USA. Part of that is due to a small sample, but in Byron Leftwich, Kevin Kolb, and J.P. Losman, the conference at least had three highly drafted (and largely unsuccessful) quarterbacks.

Overall, the average round for a BCS quarterback is 3.40, compared to 3.74 for non-BCS passers. That's 0.34 "rounds," or just under 11 picks in the draft. Eleven selections separate the typical BCS rookie quarterback from the small-school guys.

There have been more big-school quarterbacks in the first round, however.

Over one-third of all BCS quarterbacks drafted since 2003 have been in the first round, compared to just over one-in-five for small-school passers. Note that the non-BCS quarterbacks have been far more prevalent in the second round, however.

Plus, the non-BCS quarterbacks to get selected in the first round—Ben Roethlisberger, Alex Smith, Byron Leftwich, and J.P. Losman—have seen mixed results. As mentioned, only Roethlisberger produced as a rookie (although Leftwich was moderately effective with 16 touchdowns and 16 interceptions), and Roethlisberger has really been the only one to sustain long-term success.

The point is that there doesn't seem to be too much of a difference between small and big-school quarterbacks, even after accounting for draft round. That's something I showed in the past by looking at quarterback approximate value by draft round.

Big-school quarterbacks have simply been better over the course of their careers. As far as rookie seasons are concerned, it seems intuitive that non-BCS quarterbacks might need time to get acclimated to the NFL game—whether we're talking about the speed, the crowd size, or whatever.

Meanwhile, most big-school quarterbacks who get drafted were highly recruited out of high school and have been "groomed" to play in the big leagues for years. Further, since talented quarterbacks are so highly coveted, even out of high school, it's rare to see an elite one slip through the cracks and attend a non-BCS school.

## Rookie QB Efficiency

Measuring efficiency stats like YPA seems suitable to analyzing bulk stats since we'd naturally expect highly drafted quarterbacks (often BCS passers) to have more yards and touchdowns just from seeing more attempts.

As we look at first-year efficiency, we see that small-school quarterbacks have struggled.

Non-BCS quarterbacks have averaged 1.17 fewer yards per attempt than BCS quarterbacks during their rookie seasons. That represents a 22 percent decline in efficiency, which is pretty sizeable since there's not usually not a huge deviation in YPA.

Even though non-BCS quarterbacks are drafted a bit lower than BCS quarterbacks, the effect is probably small enough—remember, just 11 draft picks—to conclude that the dramatic drop in efficiency is real, not just noise.

It's perhaps even worse when it comes to decision-making. Since 2003, BCS quarterbacks have turned in a far superior touchdown-to-interception ratio than small-school quarterbacks.

Whereas BCS rookie quarterbacks have thrown 11 percent more touchdowns than interceptions, non-BCS rookies have thrown nearly 15 percent more picks than scores. That's a pretty big deal.

To give you an idea of how these numbers add up, let's assume we're projecting two rookie quarterbacks—one from a big school and one from a non-BCS conference. Assuming all other things are equal (same draft spot, same hand size, etc), a yearlong projection of 450 attempts for 2,957 yards (the mean YPA for a BCS rookie quarterback), 22 touchdowns, and 20 interceptions for a BCS quarterback would equate to just 450 attempts, 2,430 yards, 19 touchdowns, and 22 picks for the non-BCS quarterback. That's 186 to 151.2 fantasy points—a drop of almost 19 percent.

## Long-Term Quarterback Outlook

You might think that while small-school quarterbacks presumably take longer to develop than the big boys, they could potentially possess more long-term upside. There's certainly some perceived risk with small-school passers, so it's logical to think they're going to fall a little bit too far in the draft even when they're truly elite.

However, that doesn't seem to be the case. Looking at the five-year outlook of quarterbacks drafted since 2003, the BCSers have dominated.

Seasons with 10+ games started, seasons with 14+ games started, 3,000-yard seasons, 4,000-yard seasons, 20+ touchdown seasons, 8+ win seasons, 10+ win seasons—per passer, BCS quarterbacks have dominated every category. Since 2003, small-school passers have generated only five 20-touchdown years and just one—ONE—4,000-yard season during their initial five years in the NFL (Andy Dalton).

I'm generally very bullish on small-school prospects because I think the difference between those universities and the Alabamas of the world is closing, yet NFL teams aren't accounting for that shrinking gap. When it comes to quarterbacks, however, bigger is better—a bigger arm, bigger hands, and certainly a bigger school.

Again, I think at least part of the reason is that top-tier quarterbacks are identified early and almost always attend BCS schools. Further, whereas we can use measurables and market share college stats to predict breakouts at positions like running back and wide receiver, we can't really do that at quarterback; a 220-pound running back who runs a 4.40 is probably going to be good no matter where he went to school, but success at the quarterback position is a little more difficult to quantify, reducing the small-school quarterback hit rate.

Whatever the reasons, proceed with caution the next time a 6'2" quarterback with small hands can't start ahead of a mediocre quarterback at UCLA, transfers to Tulane and completes just 57.8 percent of his passes and averages only 6.8 YPA, then subsequently gets drafted IN THE FIRST ROUND by the Buffalo Bills. Yeah, watch out for that.

## 3 Do different types of wide receivers age differently?

Contributed by Jim Sannes

Every year, millions of NFL wide receivers fall victim to a deadly, unavoidable ailment. These tortured souls wither away—some more quickly than others—until they are merely a shell of their former, freakishly talented selves. This ailment is, as the ancient Romans penned centuries ago, "getting old as hell."

Now, when receivers experience getting old as hell, a certain, nasty "r" word is an assured side effect: regression. If you are reading this lesson with your kids, I warn you: please shield their eyes. The gore involved with regression has made men who survived a screening of _Troll 2_ churn with discomfort.

Because this getting old as hell syndrome is so abundant, I wanted to see the statistical effects of its ugly head on receivers. But, as with any disease, the effects of getting old as hell can vary with a player's size.

How great is that variation? We sent in our best crack researchers (decked out in full hazmat suits) to find out. The results. . .are shocking. Not really, but that wouldn't really fit the narrative, so let's roll with it.

I entered this experiment with the hypothesis that tall players would be able to maintain their production longer than the shorter ones because of a decreased reliance on physical traits such as speed that would diminish over time.

In order to see the differences, I looked at the 100 receivers with the most receiving yards from 1990 to 2013. For each of those receivers, I recorded the number of fantasy points they recorded at each age throughout their respective careers. I then split those receivers into two separate groups: players who stood at least 6'1" and those who were shorter than 6'1". In the end, there were 48 players who were 6'1" or taller and 52 who could have invested in a step ladder.

For the purpose of analysis, I looked only at the production of the players between their age-22 and age-35 seasons. The years on either side of those bookends didn't have enough relevant players to be statistically significant.

## The Numbers on Height and Aging

Well, my hypothesis was wrong.

I wish this were a rare occurrence, but nah. Not even close. Although the taller wide receivers were better overall, the players 6'1" and taller hit their peak during their age-26 season; the shorter players peaked during their age-29 season.

This is at least a little bit deceiving, however. Between their age-26 and age-29 seasons, the taller players only fell off an average of 6.5 percent. For that long of a time gap, that's really not a huge difference between the beginning of the decline and the end. In fact, if you expand that all the way out to their age-32 seasons, the average tall receiver only fell off an average of 18.6 percent.

Let's look at that same time frame for the players shorter than 6'1". Keep in mind that these players saw an increase in their fantasy numbers from their age-26 through their age-29 seasons, so this range will include a significant period where their totals are increasing. Despite that, the shorter players still saw an overall decline of 14.3 percent in fantasy output from their age-26 season to their age-32 season.

That means that once those small receivers start their decline, they fall off like crazy. If we narrow the range down to just being from the age-29 season to the age-32 season, the shorter players saw a 20.4 percent decrease. By contrast, the taller players' fantasy production decreased 12.9 percent over that timeframe.

What can we take from this? First, if you want fantasy points, you'd better have receivers that are 6'1" or taller. Those players outscored the shorter players at every age except for 34. Second, although the taller receivers peak relatively early at age-26, they are able to largely maintain their production all the way up to their age-32 season.

## The Numbers on Weight and Aging

This doesn't completely answer all of the questions about the crippling side effects of getting old as hell, though. Recently, witch doctors have been gallivanting throughout the countryside claiming to have found the cure to getting old as hell. They call their cure the Wale. They say that if "Shawty got a big ole butt," Shawty can temper this regression a bit. Their words, not mine.

In English, this means I wanted to see if a wide receiver's weight plays a role in the rate of their regression as they age. I could have said that the first time, but there's something so satisfying about typing "shawty." Shawty.

For this experiment, I used mostly the same rules as the original one. The cutoff point between the two groups was the 200-pound mark; if a player weighed 200 pounds or more, he was in the "thick" group. Players who checked in at less than 200 pounds fell into the skinny group. There were 47 players in the thick group with 53 in the skinny group.

Just as a note of clarification, "thick" and "skinny" do not refer to the relationship between a player's height and weight. I just like calling someone thick, even if their weight is exactly what it should be based on their height.

These results were a bit different than the first experiment. Through the age-30 season, the skinny players were able to keep up their performance better than the thick players. This was also the only age at which the skinny players had an average fantasy output higher than the thick players.

Things changed pretty drastically in the age-31 season. While the thick players spiked back up, the skinny players finally saw a significant drop off in their production.

Part of this was the fact that some rando named Jerry Rice weighed exactly 200 pounds and thus was a member of the thick clan. In his age-31 season, Rice casually led the league in both receiving yards and touchdowns, ending with a grand total of 253 fantasy points. That was the second-highest single-season total of any of the 100 receivers at whom I looked after their age-31 season. Who was first? Jerry Rice in his age-33 season with 292, which was 2.89 times higher than the average at that age. NOT. A. HUMAN. Seriously, man, you have an open invitation to come chill at my crib/mom's house any time you want. But bring your own refreshments. I don't get many visitors.

In order to account for Rice being an alien/sorcerer/deity, I took a look at the median for the age-31 seasons of both groups. The median for the thick group was 120 points while the median of the skinny group was 106. Considering there was a fairly consistent gap between the thick group and the skinny group from the age-31 season on, it seems safe to say that the drop-off point for the skinny group was at the age-31 season.

The takeaway we can snag from this is that wide receivers who weigh less than 200 pounds often maintain their production up through their age-30 season, but that is when the skills greatly diminish. Wide receivers 200 pounds or more are able to maintain their production through their age-31 season prior to experiencing a similarly sharp decline.

The random spike at the age-34 season is because, if you're still playing receiver at 34, you're probably pretty good. Within that time frame, Rice, Marvin Harrison, Joey Galloway, Irving Fryar, Cris Carter, and Terrell Owens all posted seasons with 180 points or more. However, Carter is the only receiver to post such a season after age 34.

It should be noted that such production this late in a career is extremely rare for receivers, especially for players who weigh less than 200 pounds. From 1990 to 2013, there were seven seasons of 150 fantasy points or more from a receiver in his age-35 or later season. None of those were from the guys who weighed less than 200 pounds.

If we switch back to height, the same is nearly true. However, because Fryar was exactly 6'0", he was the lone receiver less than 6'1" to post a season of 150 fantasy points after his age-34 season. The other six were all 6'1" or higher.

The effects of getting old as hell are real, people. If you haven't yet, check your wide receivers to make sure they aren't in the "risk zone" (after their age-31 season) or in the "how am I still walking zone" (after their age-34 season). If they are in either of these zones and less than 6'0", 200 pounds, run and don't look back. The outlook at that point is terminal. Shawty.

## 4 How to Draft with a Top Four Pick

When you have a top four pick, you absolutely must draft a running back, no matter what.

That would be kind of a ridiculous statement, right? Every season and every league is different, so your best course of action from a particular area of the draft is a fluid situation; a running back might not be the right choice in a league that requires you to start just one back but three wide receivers, for example.

Still, I think looking at long-term trends and trying to decipher positional value has some merit. It's true that your league type will dictate your strategy, but most leagues are relatively similar: one quarterback, two running backs, two or three receivers, a tight end, kicker, and defense.

In terms of changes in player value from year to year, there's no doubt that every year is different and the way different positions finish will have a profound impact on the "best" draft strategy. But there's a difference between looking back and examining position value and trying to predict it in the future; for the most part, I think we're not nearly as good as we think at determining when is the "right" time to select each position.

That's mainly because year-to-year results are really random. In 2011, for example, five quarterbacks scored at least 345 fantasy points.

It was a ridiculously productive year for passers—namely, the game's elite passers; despite only two 345-point performances combined over the prior six years (there were also none in 2005), five quarterbacks erupted for an absolutely ridiculous number of points in 2011. Yes, passing games are evolving, but the fact that we saw an increase of 1500% over the average of the prior six years should have suggested that, hey, maybe this is abnormal; that idea is supported by the fact that there were only three total 345-point performances in the following two years.

Nonetheless, fantasy owners went absolutely bananas on quarterbacks in 2012 drafts. I was even in on it in some leagues (although for different reasons related to position consistency). But had we looked at five-year trends at the position instead of the 2011 season alone, maybe we would have acted a little differently. It's just really difficult to predict how each position will end up relative to the others in a given year, but I think our best bet is to look at multiple seasons of data. When there's an outlier—such as the 2011 quarterbacks—there's a really good chance they'll get over-drafted the following year.

## The Numbers, Bruh

In some of my previous work, I looked at VBD—a player's value over a replacement player at his position—based on average draft position (ADP). The idea was so see which positions have historically offered the most value in specific areas of the draft.

I took those results and charted what I termed "VBD Over Next Area of Draft"—I'd be SHOCKED if that one doesn't spread like wildfire—which was basically a position's VBD in a certain range of picks minus their VBD in the next range. The "buckets" of picks I used were 1 through 12 (elite players, and the first round of 12-team leagues), 13 through 24 (second-tier talents), 25 through 48 (good-but-not-great), and 49 through 96 (the rest of the starters).

The major concept to understand is opportunity cost, or the opportunities you _lose_ by selecting a particular position in a specific area—namely the ability to select other positions. When you draft a particular position, you want it to be scarce, meaning what you're getting now you can't get later.

This graph basically displays the value of each position in each bucket from 2009 to 2013. Again, that value is calculated by figuring out how much worth each position has over what you can get later in the draft.

We can use the graph to inform us about the optimal draft path—or at least the path that's most likely to maximize your ROI. Yes, every draft is different, but it's the fact that owners treat every season much differently—see the 2012 quarterbacks—that inefficiencies emerge.

Put another way, assume that you're in a draft and there's a run on first-round running backs. You were targeting one in the second round, but because of the prior run and the fact that there are superior long-term options in the second round, you should probably bypass the position.

Now substitute 'wide receiver' in for running back. You might still overlook a second-round receiver, but because they've had so much more long-term value in the second round, you might want to be a little more willing to still nab one, despite the run on them in your draft.

## Drafting From Picks No. 1, 2, 3 & 4

Using the graph and data on specific areas of the draft, I'm going to propose the best long-term strategy from the first third of the draft in a 12-team league—picks 1 through 4. I'm hardly saying you should blindly select these positions in each round, but rather that this course of action has been at least near-optimal over the past half-decade and, all other things equal, it's perhaps the most likely to continue that trend in the future, i.e. if you're unsure which position to draft at a given time, go with the one that has returned the most long-term value in that range.

### Round 1: Running Back

There isn't any first-round tight end data, but it still seems like a stretch to think it will be smart to draft one in the top four picks in the near future. First-round quarterbacks have performed only barely better than second-rounders, so there's certainly no reason to reach there.

That means it comes down to running back and wide receiver. There are other areas of the first round where a wide receiver makes a lot of sense, but I'm not sure this is one of them. Because you 1) have access to an elite running back and 2) won't have access to one by the time your second picks rolls around in the back of the second round, you should almost always go that direction. A zero-RB draft strategy is far easier to pull off if you have a late pick.

### Round 2: Wide Receiver

The value of tight ends has been enormous in the second round, but that's mainly due to one player in Jimmy Graham. He—or another tight end of that caliber who might emerge—won't be available in the back of the second round.

Most fantasy owners will want to come out of the first three rounds with at least two running backs. That's certainly a possibility, depending on the value, but I'd argue you also need at least one wide receiver. Your league type could be big here—two running backs makes more sense in a standard league than point-per-reception.

### Round 3: Running Back/Wide Receiver

Picking near the edges of a round is interesting because we kind of have to mold the data a little bit. I categorized the data into distinct buckets based on draft round, but logically, we know there's not really a difference between the No. 24 pick and the No. 25 selection, for example.

For that reason, when picking near the edges, the "true" value of each position is probably a combination of what's shown. If you have the 24th overall pick, for example—the final selection in the second round of a 12-man league—it's not like wide receivers have a ton of value there, but negative value once you hit pick No. 25; that's lunacy. For that reason, wide receivers in the late-second and early-third likely have value that's less than what's shown for the second round, but more than that for the third and fourth rounds. The negative VBD for wide receivers picked from No. 25 to No. 48 is probably more damning for someone picking late in draft—pick No. 36 in the third round, for example.

So why not go with a quarterback here? Primarily game theory. As it stands right now, fantasy owners are down on quarterbacks in general, letting some really quality players slip to the fourth round. You shouldn't just follow the crowd, but knowing that quarterbacks are going to drop, it's likely that a top-tier talent will be available in the back of the fourth.

### Round 4: Quarterback

Again, unless quarterbacks' perceived value rises dramatically, you're getting an elite player at this point in the draft. Even if we average the VBD for the final two buckets of the graph, quarterbacks still come out on top.

Unless things change in the near future, I'm very much aboard the mid-round quarterback strategy. Going with one in the first two rounds seems problematic, but the fact that people have been programmed to implement a late-round quarterback strategy has artificially deflated the value of elite passers. It's not that late-round quarterback is even a poor strategy—it's not, in many cases—but just that when you're talking about top-tier production and consistency at the quarterback position, it's difficult to pass up in the fourth round.

### Round 5: Wide Receiver

For the sake of argument, we'll assume the third-round pick was a running back. That would give us a quarterback, wide receiver, and two backs coming into the fifth round. At this point, we're not really forced to go any direction other than not taking another quarterback, obviously.

If you like a running back here, go for it. I'm going wide receiver because 1) I think there are much greater inefficiencies in the wide receiver market than the running back market, so I can exploit those and 2) many owners are still pressing to grab the last of the starting tailbacks. For that reason, I don't think the value is necessarily going to be there.

### Round 6: Running Back

Just one round later, but probably in the neighborhood of 20 to 24 picks in a typical snake draft. At this time, owners typically focus on quarterbacks and pass-catchers, so running backs are beginning to offer value again. You'll have to bite the bullet on a high-upside player who perhaps isn't in the best situation. A pass-catching back with speed who is in a timeshare, for example, might be smart; it's a scary sort of pick because of the unknown workload, but that's the reason such a player would drop.

### Round 7 and Later: Best Player Available

At this point in the draft, we're getting to the point that "best player available" makes sense. I think BPA is a really overrated strategy early in the draft because we should be drafting based on scarcity—what we can acquire later in the draft.

Now, much of our starting lineup is filled, and it's also going to be pretty difficult to project where players go in later rounds. We know which players are first-round picks, for example, but the range of potential outcomes for each player increases dramatically as the draft unfolds.

Finally, don't force the issue on a tight end. I'm not at all anti-early-tight end, but I'm not a proponent of going with a second or third-tier player. When you get to this range, just wait to see if you can get awesome value on a guy. If not, you're officially a tight end streamer, playing matchups with late-round and undrafted tight ends.

## 5 "Off-the-Wall" Strategies and How to Draft with a Bottom Four Pick

"Should I take a quarterback in the first three rounds?"

You'd be shocked how many generic questions like that I receive on Twitter. The answer is always "I don't know," and I really don't; I don't know anything about your league, the starting requirements, the scoring, the owner loyalties, or your draft slot.

That latter aspect of drafting—your draft slot—is one I want to focus on today. I think people realize the importance of their draft slot when it comes to selecting specific players, but not necessarily in regards to position combinations. But as I study historic value trends more and more, I definitely think there are draft slots that allow for more "contrarian," off-the-wall strategies than others.

When I took you through my preferred strategy for drafting in the top four, I posited that you typically want to side with one of the elite running backs on the board. They have a ton of value at the top of the draft.

That could potentially change if you're in a PPR league with multiple flex positions, in which case the top overall wide receiver would be in play.

Nonetheless, the top of the draft lends itself to a more traditional draft approach. In the top-four draft strategy I put forth, I emphasized that the best long-term returns have come from selecting a running back or wide receiver in at least six of the first seven rounds.

The methodology I used to determine the "best" course of action was based on the same research from the last chapter. Here's another look at my "VBD Over Next Area of Draft" chart.

Basically, I believe long-term value is more important than people believe; they overreact to the prior season's stats and it creates inefficiencies.

Historically, first-round running backs have offered more value than any other position in the first 12 picks. However, most of that value has been generated by the initial few picks. Late-first-round running backs haven't been nearly as worthwhile, opening up other avenues for fantasy owners.

## Drafting with a Late Pick

Before diving into the best long-term draft strategy for owners with late-round picks, I want to emphasize that this is of course by no means meant to suggest that you should implement a rigid plan on draft day. You should never use a strategy so inflexible as to target or bypass certain positions no matter what.

Rather, this is meant to show which position combination has historically made the most sense with a late pick. That portion of the draft—picks No. 9 through No. 12—has typically been the easiest to pull off a contrarian approach that goes against the grain, thus resulting in a weak (or at least a perceived weak) running back construction. If you're going to go light at running back early in your fantasy draft, though, I think it's easiest to do with a late choice.

### Round 1: Wide Receiver/Tight End

If you really like a running back in the late part of the first and you think he has elite potential, take him. As fantasy owners start to transition to more and more early pass-catchers, there will be a greater chance for top-tier backs to slip.

In all likelihood, though, I think you're looking at wide receiver and tight end as offering the most value. Up to the point of this writing, no tight end has ever had a first-round ADP, although that's going to change very shortly with Jimmy Graham.

Whenever you draft, you clearly shouldn't blindly draft a tight end in the first round just because it's a contrarian move. We always want value on players relative to their ADP, regardless of the position. Remember, for the most part, ADP is becoming more accurate as fantasy owners improve. The main way we're going to acquire value isn't by out-projecting others, but by putting teams together with the right position combination and player types.

### Round 2: Wide Receiver/Tight End

If you drafted a tight end in the first round, you're almost certainly in a league that makes it difficult to go with another one here. If you drafted a wide receiver, though, another one is certainly up for grabs. I started all last year's fantasy drafts in which I had a late pick with WR-WR, and those were some of my best teams.

Either way, if you look at the previous value chart, you can see that wide receivers and tight ends have historically provided a far better return in the second round than running backs and quarterbacks.

In the coming years, I think it will be even more advantageous to hold a late pick. The reason is that you used to be able to secure an elite wide receiver in the late-second or early-third, but that's changing. Now, owners who draft early will get an elite back, but they won't be able to snag a top-tier receiver anymore to accompany him with their next selection.

With a late pick, you can land two potentially elite pass-catchers. Note that both wide receiver and tight end value plummets in rounds three and four—basically when other owners are loading up on pass-catchers—so taking wide receivers early from the back portion of the first round and early part of the second round makes a lot of sense.

### Round 3: Running Back

Due to the lack of a return on every position except quarterback in the third and fourth rounds, I advise those who can to trade up into the second or back into the fifth or sixth rounds, where I think there's more value for the cost.

But if you can't trade, you're looking at an area where quarterbacks have provided the best return. Of course, you aren't going to draft two of those in the first four rounds, so you'll need to go with another position in either the third or fourth. With two wide receivers (or a wide receiver and tight end) already on the roster, it's time to hit on a high-upside back. Potential options in this range are second-year backs who underachieved in their rookie seasons and players coming off of injury.

The only exception here is if one of the final elite quarterbacks is still on the board and there are at least a pair of runners you like (thus increasing the odds you can land one in the beginning of the fourth).

### Round 4: Quarterback

Sometimes I run some numbers and they don't show anything spectacular at all. Actually, that happens quite a bit. But sometimes they're amazing—like the value of third and fourth-round quarterbacks over every other position.

Classically, we've been trained to either covet the consistency of an elite passer by using an early-round pick, or implement a late-round quarterback strategy and play matchups. I think the latter is still a decent option if the value isn't there, but the early-middle rounds—three and four—are fertile ground for quarterback value.

If I could take back one mistake I made during 2013 fantasy drafts, it would be bypassing quarterbacks in this range. In some drafts, players like Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees were falling to the fourth round. At that point, once the first and second-tier players are off of the board at the other positions, you just have to take the consistency.

### Round 5: Running Back/Wide Receiver

At this point, we have two receivers, one quarterback, and one running back. Well, in rounds five through eight, running back value returns. That's not to say that your running back picks are magically going to be awesome once you cross into the fifth round, but just that, if possible, we want to target backs in this range because others are moving away from them. In a nutshell, think about what everyone else will do, and do the opposite. As a marketplace, fantasy football offers value to those willing to think outside of the box and go against public opinion.

### Round 6: Running Back/Wide Receiver

See Round 5. Tight end also becomes more of an option here, assuming we went WR/WR to start the draft.

### Round 7: Best Player Available

There are lots of ways to define 'best player available.' In this case, I simply mean not worrying all that much about the position. A balanced drafting approach can be overrated, but you certainly must worry more about your team needs early in the draft, when the opportunity cost of each pick is really high, than late in the draft. As your starting lineup falls into place, the downside of picking a player at a "non-need" position is minimal; just seek upside.

## 6 Nearing the Goal Line: Why You Need to Care About Wide Receiver Red Zone Efficiency

_*This lesson originally appeared on_ RotoWorld _._

In my view, Peyton Manning is the greatest quarterback in the history of the NFL, and it isn't even close. The reason I believe that to be the case is because Manning was able to dominate the NFL and win a Super Bowl with the Colts despite a mediocre (at best) supporting cast. Manning's ability to make those around him look much, much better than they are is unprecedented.

Prior to signing with the Broncos, Manning was particularly deprived of elite wide receiver talent.

"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY!?"

I just said that in Reggie Wayne and Marvin Harrison, Manning was deprived of elite wide receiver talent in Indy. He had two decent receivers, but not a true No. 1.

I used to live right next to his Harrison's uncle when I was located in Philly, and according to him, Harrison was one of the greatest wide receivers of all-time. You can't really get more biased than an uncle, but a lot of people seem to share that sentiment.

I disagree. Harrison's numbers were out of this world, but I dare you to find me another dominant 185-pound No. 1 wide receiver. What's more likely, that Harrison was somehow able to produce at a level no one even close to his size has ever reached mainly because of his own talent, or because he had Manning throw him passes?

I think Wayne might have actually been a better receiver than Harrison, but even he wasn't a truly elite player. The Fantasy Douche has a  nice article on Wayne that shows he's basically Stevie Johnson:

Johnson also out-produced Wayne between the ages of 23 and 25 in the NFL. Manning turned a lighter version of Johnson into a potential Hall-of-Famer.

One of the ways you can tell that Harrison and Wayne aren't nearly as good as their numbers indicate is by looking at their touchdowns. From 1999 to 2006, Harrison scored at least 10 touchdowns in every single season. That's outrageous. Surely some of that success is because Harrison was a good player, but there's never been anyone at his size that's been able to get into the end zone at a rate even close to that.

In believing that Manning is a world-class player—the best passer ever—we don't need to really buck any sort of historical trends. All of the tools are there. That's not the case with Harrison (or Wayne), who were clearly the beneficiaries of a quarterback who allowed them to hide obvious physical shortcomings.

Meanwhile, Wayne had the most red zone targets in the NFL from 2000 to 2013 with 201. To give you an idea of how many that is, consider that only three players (Wayne, Terrell Owens, and Larry Fitzgerald) had over 170 and only 21 had even half as many as Wayne. That's what will happen when you're the No. 1 receiving option on Peyton Manning's offense.

Wayne's numbers were drastically inflated because of Manning moving the ball. Even with Manning, though, Wayne recorded just a 22.9 percent red zone touchdown rate. That's actually slightly below average, which is about what you can expect from a receiver of his stature.

## Finding the End Zone: The Importance of Size

Without Manning, Wayne has had some serious trouble getting the ball into the end zone. From 2003 (Wayne's third season) until 2010 (Manning's final season with Indy), Wayne scored an average of 8.1 touchdowns per year. In the three seasons after Manning's final snap as a member of the Colts, Wayne scored 11 total times—3.7 per year.

The Colts should have done a better job of identifying a weakness in their roster that didn't actually appear to be a weakness because Manning was so damn good. In 2012 and 2013 as a member of the Broncos, Manning was finally equipped with some big, dominant receivers in Demaryius Thomas and Eric Decker. He proceeded to lead the NFL in completion rate and net-YPA in 2012, then break the NFL records for passing yards and passing touchdowns in 2013. He threw 55 touchdowns at age 37.

Quarterbacks are slow to age, but there's no way you can tell me that at age 37, after numerous serious neck surgeries, Manning was truly in his career prime. No, he was still playing at a high level, but he was finally given access to receivers with truly elite measurables and skill sets.

If all of that isn't evidence enough of Manning's greatness, consider that he made Dallas Clark look great. End of argument.

The idea that the best wide receivers are typically big isn't new, but I wanted to take some time to analyze wide receivers in regards to red zone play. While certain players are more likely than others to score from 50 yards out, the majority of touchdowns come in the red zone, and they're far, far more consistent.

Although any type of touchdowns are volatile from game to game, there's a very, very strong long-term correlation between wide receiver size and red zone production. It's very rare to find a short or light wide receiver who can consistently dominate in the red zone. You might see it over the course of a season or two, but over the long run, it basically ain't happening unless you have Manning throwing you passes.

Before I get into the numbers, I want to note that because we can use size to predict red zone efficiency so well, it can be really useful for fantasy purposes. As fantasy owners, we want players who are going to score a lot of touchdowns, whether we're deciding who to draft before the season or who to start in Week 4. We can use size (and college red zone efficiency) to predict that the 6'3", 220-pound wide receiver who has started his NFL career slowly in terms of touchdowns will probably pick it up, or that the 5'10", sub-200 second-year receiver who has scored on 35.0 percent of his red zone targets is highly unlikely to maintain that pace.

Or in the case of the St. Louis Rams, they can use wide receiver size data as they enter a time machine and go back to the 2013 NFL Draft to bypass taking a 5'9", 176-pound receiver in the top 10 and instead select a player who will help them do what's a foreign concept to a lot of NFL coaches—score points.

## The Numbers on Red Zone Efficiency

Again, I'm analyzing wide receiver red zone efficiency because we can typically predict red zone production with decent accuracy; offenses will reach the end zone a certain number of times and specific types of receivers will produce at consistent rates.

I took a look at every wide receiver drafted since 2000 to see at least 35 red zone targets. Here's the percentage of those red zone targets they converted into touchdowns, sorted by height.

Very obvious relationship between height and red zone efficiency. Overall, wide receivers who stand 6'3" or taller have converted over 27 percent of all red zone targets into scores, compared to 22 percent for receivers 6'0" or shorter—meaning on any given red zone target, a tall receiver is over 20 percent more likely to score than a short one. That's a significant difference.

The numbers are even more distorted if we sort by weight.

While wide receivers checking in below 196 pounds have converted fewer than 20.9 percent of their red zone targets into touchdowns, those weighing 217 pounds or more have recorded a 28.4 percent red zone touchdown rate. That means the heaviest receivers are 35.9 percent more likely than the lightest receivers to convert a red zone target into a touchdown.

That suggests that weight is a better predictor of wide receiver scoring than height, which is represented in the overall numbers. The strength of the correlation between wide receiver height and red zone efficiency is 0.29. That's strong, but not nearly as high as the correlation coefficient for weight and red zone efficiency—0.40. Height and weight themselves are of course strongly correlated (0.73), so there's really good evidence that while height certainly helps pass-catchers in the red zone, weight is more important.

I'm assuming the heaviest receivers are also the best in the red zone because they're also usually the strongest. Height and leaping ability probably help in certain situations, but wide receivers see far more "regular" targets than jump balls. Because of that—the fact that heavier receivers can shield off defenders and use their bodies to help them make plays on the football—I think we see the numbers come out the way they do.

## A Look at the NFL's Most Efficient Red Zone Wide Receivers

To hammer home this idea, I charted the height and weight of the top 15 most efficient red zone receivers since 2000. First, the height...

The white dotted line represents the average height for an NFL wide receiver. That means every single one of the 15 most dominant red zone receivers has been taller than average, and most significantly so. Anquan Boldin and Torrey Smith are the only receivers who are near the league average, and only Smith doesn't have a ton of bulk for his size (he's about average).

Most of the names on the list aren't surprising—Dez Bryant, Calvin Johnson, Terrell Owens, Larry Fitzgerald—but there are also some players who weren't necessarily dominant overall but could still score consistently, such as Chris Henry, Ernest Wilford, and Kenny Britt.

Let's look at weight.

Only one wide receiver—Chris Henry—weighed less than the league average of 203 pounds. Torrey Smith checks in just above that mark, but the rest of the pass-catchers are all significantly heavier. Of the top 15 red zone wide receivers since 2000, 12 have weighed over 215 pounds and seven over 220. We also see two players in Calvin Johnson and Vincent Jackson approaching tight end territory in terms of size.

## How have NFL teams used wide receivers in the red zone?

As usual, we see some inefficiencies in the way NFL teams utilize their players. Overall, they target short, light pass-catchers in the red zone way, way too much. That's represented in the top 15 wide receivers in red zone targets since 2000.

Remember, no wide receiver who ranked in the top 15 in red zone efficiency was below the league average height, and only two were within an inch of it. Meanwhile, of the top 15 wide receivers in red zone targets, four check in below the league average receiver height, and five more are just above it. That's nine of 15 wide receivers below or near the average height, compared to two in the red zone-dominant group. Quite a difference.

We see a similar effect in regards to weight.

Six of the 15 most-targeted receivers check in well below the league-average weight. When you see a player like Santana Moss ranked in the top 15 in red zone targets, you know there's a problem. I don't care how many seasons he's played; a player of Moss's stature really shouldn't even be on the field as his offense approaches the goal line.

## Fantasy Implications of WR Red Zone Efficiency

Wide receiver red zone efficiency is very consistent from year to year; for the most part, we see the same types of players atop the list each season. Thus, we can use red zone play to help us target wide receivers with elite upside.

Preferably, we'd like our receivers to be at least 6'2". If they're very frail for that height, it might change. If possible, it's suitable to have wide receivers in the 6'2" range also be bulky, such as Dez Bryant (222 pounds).

Height is good, but weight is even more important. As fantasy owners, we should be targeting wide receivers who can consistently get the ball into the end zone, and heavy receivers are far more likely to do that than light ones. Ideally, you want to target receivers who weigh more than 210 pounds, and preferably closer to 220 (or more).

The numbers should have profound implications on how you draft rookies and other young receivers. Because receivers drafted in the first round of the NFL draft typically cost so much more in dynasty and even redraft fantasy leagues than do second and third-rounders, it can make sense to let other owners overpay for Tavon Austin-type players while you snatch up the Keenan Allen-esque receivers—those with elite size and red zone ability who dropped too far in the NFL draft.

Red zone stats can also help you know when to buy low or sell high on certain receivers. When Percy Harvin had eight total touchdowns in his rookie season, we should have known that, due to his 5'11", 184-pound frame, that number was probably close to his peak. Harvin had nine total touchdown in 2011 (only six through the air), but he's never been able to consistently score. Even in PPR leagues, Harvin has a rather low ceiling because he doesn't have Dez Bryant/Calvin Johnson/Demaryius Thomas-esque red zone ability. He usually needs to score in unusual ways or do it from far out, both of which are volatile; we might see a 10-touchdown season from Harvin, but we might also see a three-touchdown year from him, even when healthy.

## 7 The Chicken or the Egg: How do elite receivers and tight ends impact each other?

Contributed by Jon Moore

The last decade has seen a dramatic shift at the tight end position. Not so long ago, tight ends were primarily blockers who would generate passing production as a secondary option. Now, thanks to 6'6'', 250-pound players with blazing speed, tight ends are often the focus of a passing game with receiving threats that are too big for safeties and too fast for linebackers.

However, as the position has evolved, I've often wondered how this philosophical shift has impacted other players on the field. In other words, does a successful tight end limit the upside of that team's best wide receiver? Or is it possible that a talented tight end might create more opportunities for his teammates?

To get a better feel for the situation, I conducted two tests. First, I looked at elite tight end seasons and cross-referenced the performance of the best receiver on that team. Then, I did the opposite and looked at how elite receiver seasons impacted the performance of the team's top tight end. I think the results paint a pretty dramatic picture that will inform your decision-making about premiere tight ends.

##

## Test 1: Elite tight end seasons and their effect on receivers

For the purposes of this test, I defined 'elite' as a tight end who posted a 130-point fantasy season between 2004 and 2013 (standard scoring). Thirty-three players met this threshold, or roughly three per year.

From there, I looked at their team's top receiver and how many fantasy points per game he posted that year. Finally, I graded that season as a WR1 season (top 12 rank), WR2 season (13-24 rank), WR3 season (25-36 rank), or "Other." Here is the distribution of receiver performances when paired with elite tight ends:

Remarkably, elite tight ends have a teammate who posts a WR1 season over half of the time; so much for the idea that a tight end will steal opportunities from his team's top receiver. If anything, it looks as if a receiver benefits from having a dangerous inside threat. Moreover, there is a 73 percent chance that the receiver paired with a great tight end will post at least a WR2 season.

##

## Test 2: Elite receiver seasons and their effect on tight ends

Whereas the first test explored the idea that a great tight end will boost the production of his teammate receiver, this second test will explore the idea that a great receiver will support strong production of his team's tight end.

In this case, I defined 'elite' to mean a receiver who posted a 200-point fantasy season between 2004 and 2013 (standard scoring). Thirty-three players met this threshold, or roughly three per year. From there, I looked at their team's top tight end and how many fantasy points per game he posted that year. Since most leagues only play one tight end, I had to tweak my scoring here. I graded tight end seasons as Tier 1 (top six rank), Tier 2 (7-12 rank), Tier 3 (13-18 rank), "Other." Here is the distribution of tight end performances when paired with elite receivers:

Whereas elite tight ends typically support strong receiver performances, the opposite does not appear to be true. Only 27 percent of the time do elite receivers have teammates who produce at a tier-one level. Less than 50 percent of the time will a premium receiver support the existence of a start-able tight end on his team.

## Conclusion

Premium tight ends create opportunities for their teammate wide receivers to become strong fantasy options. Conversely, an elite receiver does not necessarily help his teammate become a viable tight end option.

For fantasy purposes, I would consider pairing a premium tight end with his team's best receiver, as they will provide a solid floor for weekly production. If you would rather not have two receiving options from the same team, you might do well to acquire an unheralded receiver who plays with an elite tight end, as this player has a 73 percent chance of posting at least a top-24 season. The bottom line is that you should move forward with the knowledge that elite tight ends do not cut into the production of their wide receiver teammates; if anything, they help create more success for a team's passing offense.

8 Another Reason to Love Mobile Quarterbacks?

This lesson is going to be short and sweet. I was doing some research on quarterbacks to see if there's any correlation between a quarterback's production and the time it takes him to throw.  Pro Football Focus tracks the time each quarterback spends in the pocket before throwing the football, and my hypothesis was that there would be a negative correlation between time spent in the pocket and passing efficiency (meaning the guys who get the ball out the fastest would be the most successful).

Well, I was wrong. I couldn't find anything to support that idea. It actually got to the point where I was just testing the correlation between time in the pocket and any stat I could find—yards-per-attempt, passer rating, the average time my grandmother spends on the phone with me per call. Nothing.

So I just wanted to let you guys know about that. Take care.

Just kidding. So there was no correlation between time spent in the pocket and passing success, probably because certain quarterbacks thrive when releasing the football quickly and others need to buy time to allow receivers to get open. Different strokes for different folks.

But that got me to thinking: are certain types of quarterbacks naturally better or more consistent at what they do than others? Obviously a guy like Aaron Rodgers is better than Chad Henne, but are mobile quarterbacks as a whole better (or at least more consistent) at their particular style of play than pocket passers?

To test that idea, I calculated the correlation between the percentage of snaps on which a quarterback gets the ball out in 2.5 seconds or fewer and his passer rating on those plays, along with the percentage of snaps he hangs in the pocket for 2.6 seconds or more and his passer rating on those plays. The idea is that quarterbacks who get the ball out quickly (Peyton Manning, Andy Dalton, Tom Brady, Matt Ryan) should have a higher passer rating on those sorts of plays than passers who hang onto the ball for a while (Russell Wilson, Colin Kaepernick, Cam Newton, Robert Griffin III), and vice versa.

You can see trends within those groups—pocket passers versus running quarterbacks. For the most part, the quarterbacks who take the longest to throw are also the most mobile. Those quarterbacks typically get the ball out in 2.5 seconds or less on around 35 to 40 percent of dropbacks, while the pocket passers accomplish that task on 60 to 65 percent of dropbacks—a pretty sizeable difference.

When I tested the quick-release group, there was nothing there—an r-value of 0.05, which is geek speak for no effect. That means that in terms of projecting which quarterbacks will have high passer ratings when getting the ball out quickly, you can't assume those that do it a lot will be better. There are the quick-throwers like Manning and Brady, but then there are also guys like Henne and Carson Palmer who have been pretty shitty whether they release the ball quickly or not.

Put another way, assume that we have two young quarterbacks we want to analyze, one who releases the ball quickly and one who doesn't. What are the chances that the quick-thrower—most likely a pocket passer—will be better than the mobile quarterback when doing what he supposedly does best, i.e. throw it quickly? The answer is basically zero.

However, on the opposite end of the spectrum, there's at least a weak relationship between the percentage of snaps a quarterbacks hangs onto the ball for 2.6+ seconds and his passer rating on those plays—an r-value of 0.22. That's hardly an incredibly strong correlation, but it remains consistent, suggesting that as a group, mobile passers are probably slightly better at their games than pocket passers.

Intuitively, that makes sense. While there's nothing limiting mobile passers from having a quality arm and beating defenses via quick strikes through the air, pocket passers can rarely excel when they're forced to hold onto the ball. Players like Palmer are statues in the pocket. Even Brady has been historically poor when holding onto the ball, posting only a 69.2 passer rating on his 2013 throws that took longer than 2.6 seconds to be delivered.

With more and more college quarterback prospects capable of beating defenses with both their arm and legs, it's becoming increasingly difficult for pocket passers to excel. A few elite players are so good that it doesn't matter, but more and more, the great young quarterbacks are holding onto the football, giving them the option to scramble or buy time for receivers to get open.

And that's what it's all about—options. Pocket passers need everything to go according to plan on each play, and if something goes wrong, they're often fu**ed. That's a fragile system. A play shouldn't be dependent on receivers always immediately getting open and a quarterback always making the right read; players mess up and not every passer is Peyton Manning.

Meanwhile, mobile passers are what Nicholas Nassim Taleb has deemed 'antifragile'—benefiting from chaos. Not only do they have the option to run on certain plays, but they also have the option to throw quickly when it's there, or hang onto the ball and wait to throw. That's three options per play compared to one for pocket passers (not counting different receivers as different options for either group). With young mobile quarterbacks very much capable of quickly delivering the football with accuracy—doing everything traditional pocket passers can do—their additional optionality has and will continue to take them over the edge in fantasy leagues.

## 9 Why Third-Best Isn't Good Enough: A Look at NFL Draft Saturation

Contributed by Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

If there's a pro draft that's more historically interesting than the 2011 NFL Draft, I haven't seen it yet. As you may remember, Cam Newton went first overall, Jake Locker went eighth, and Blaine Gabbert went 10th. The Vikings, as rumor has it, panicked because they wanted a quarterback and they had planned on either Gabbert or Locker falling to the 12th overall pick. So instead of cutting their losses and taking the best player available, they decided that they were getting a quarterback no matter what and they took the _next_ quarterback on their big board, Christian Ponder, 12th overall.

Alas, that story might be bullshit. Only a few people really know how high the Vikings had Ponder on their board, and they aren't telling. But the concept it conveys raises an interesting question: do teams "reach" because they're determined to take a certain position in a certain draft spot? Will they go dumpster diving if all the pretty girls go home with someone else? I have to know the answer. I went back through 1993's first round draft data to see if the hit or bust rate increases based on how many quarterbacks, running backs, or wide receivers are taken in that round. The results will TERRIFY you.

A quick primer on what constitutes a bust: if a quarterback only has one top 10 season to his name and no additional top 20 seasons, he's a bust (looking at you, Mark Sanchez). If a quarterback only has only two top 20 seasons and no top 10s, he's a bust (looking at you, Byron Leftwich). How did we come by this criteria? The median expectation for quarterbacks in the sample is zero top 10s and two top 20s. We're drawing the bust line at just better than the median expectation partly because we're factoring in fantasy utility. Three top 20 seasons means being a QB2 or better at least three times, and that's useful enough. It's worth noting that David Carr is not considered a bust here (three top 20s) and Trent Dilfer is considered a bust (two top 20s). Perhaps that's not intuitive, but my fantasy team doesn't care about Super Bowl rings.

For running backs, you're a bust if you've only had one top 20 season and no top 10 seasons. You are not a bust if you've had a top 10. We have to factor in the shorter career effectiveness of running backs, and the fact that most leagues allow you to start two or three of them (as opposed to one quarterback), so this seems like a fair place to draw the line.

The bust criteria for wide receivers is a little bit different since the median expectations are so low: zero top 10s, one top 20, and one top 30. Being just better than the median in this case doesn't carry much fantasy value, so we're bumping our bust criteria to two top 20 seasons or more to avoid the bust label. That's two seasons as a WR2 or better, which is valuable to your fantasy team.

## First-Round Quarterbacks: 1993-2011

Total drafted: 46

Busts: 24

Bust rate: 52.2 percent

Now let's break this out by size of draft class. There are four years in the study where four or more quarterbacks were drafted in the first round (1999, 2003, 2004, 2011). The other 14 years had three or fewer quarterbacks drafted. Here are the hit rates:

4+ QBs Drafted

Total drafted: 17

Busts: 10

Bust rate: 59 percent

This sample includes the 2011 class. We're leaving Locker in here as a bust, although he probably has the best chance to turn into a useful quarterback. We're closing the book on Ponder and Gabbert. The three of them have combined for zero top 20 seasons and are running out of chances to prove themselves in the NFL. As you might have guessed, since the bust rate is higher than the average when four or more quarterbacks are taken, it's lower than the average when three or fewer quarterbacks are drafted:

3 or Fewer QBs Drafted

Total drafted: 29

Busts: 14

Bust rate: 48 percent

Note that this includes Sam Bradford as a bust since he only has two top 20s to his name. If you think he has another one (and I do, assuming normal recovery from his ACL tear), he'll be taken off this list and then the bust rate goes down even further.

So there might be something to our saturation hypothesis. Let's take a look at how this affects running backs and wide receivers.

##   
**First-Round Running Backs: 1993-2011**

Total drafted: 57

Busts: 24

Bust rate: 42.1 percent

4+ RBs Drafted

Total drafted: 23

Busts: 10

Bust rate: 43.5 percent

3 or Fewer RBs Drafted

Total drafted: 34

Busts: 14

Bust rate: 41.2 percent

There isn't really a difference here. However, when we look at the seven drafts where two or fewer running backs were selected, the bust rate decreases significantly:

2 or Fewer RBs Drafted

Drafted: 13

Busts: 4

Bust rate: 30.8 percent

That puts the bust rate at 46.6 percent for drafts where three or more running backs go in the first round. I don't necessarily think the third running back in the first round pushes the bust rate over a cliff, but the disparity is certainly worth noting.

## First round wide receivers: 1993-2011

Total drafted: 73

Busts: 33

Bust rate: 45.2 percent

The wide receiver hit/bust distribution is the flattest of the three groups when we adjust for total first-round picks. There were seven years in the sample where five or more wide receivers were taken in the first round. Of the 41 wide receivers drafted in those years, only eighteen busted:

5+ WRs Drafted

Total drafted: 41

Busts: 18

Bust rate: 43.9 percent

4 or Fewer WRs Drafted

Total drafted: 32

Busts: 15

Bust rate: 46.8 percent

There's no real separation in large draft classes. The numbers don't change if we move the criteria around, so wide receiver stays mostly flat.

## Draft Saturation Analysis

We found a pretty strong correlation for bust rates going up when four or more quarterbacks and three or more running backs were selected in the first round. I have a couple ideas about why this might be the case:

  * As postulated in the intro, teams might determine they're filling a particular position with that first-round pick come hell or high water. If that team's favorite guys go off the board, they will pick the next guy available, even if he's a lesser prospect, because he might not be there when they pick again. Remember that the draft happens after all of the free agency chips fall, so teams probably don't want to fill a position of need with the fourth or fifth-best prospect at that position.

  * The number of people on the planet capable of playing the quarterback position at the NFL level in a competent manner at any given time is probably less than 50. Couple that with the fact that we're still pretty bad at evaluating college quarterbacks and it's unlikely that four of them are going to be sitting there in the first round of the same draft. This, more than anything, explains the quarterback disparity. We haven't looked at bust rates by draft slot relative to others at the same position, but we might not need to given the sheer unlikelihood of that many NFL-caliber quarterbacks being available and assessed correctly.

  * There's a numbers game involved here too that we shouldn't ignore. How excited should you really be about getting the third-best running back prospect in one draft? The third or fourth-best quarterback? The fifth-best receiver? Of course prospect ranking is not that binary and draft quality changes from year to year, but a team that takes the third quarterback in a draft is either hoping the first two teams got their evaluations wrong or that the draft is just that deep.

  * My best effort to explain why wide receivers don't seem to show any disparity is that there are usually at least two of them, more often three of them, and sometimes four or more of them on the field at any one time. Compare that to the standard formation of one quarterback and one running back; wide receivers don't have to be the best wide receiver on their team in order to get on the field and see a lot of playing time.

Another fun note: in the classes with at least four quarterbacks drafted in the first round, the final passers selected were Christian Ponder, J.P. Losman, Rex Grossman, and Cade McNown.

Notice any similarities? They all sucked. Grossman somehow ended up starting in a Super Bowl, but put in historical perspective that seems kind of like Forrest Gump returning kicks for Alabama. This is a small sample so I don't believe we can draw a definitive conclusion, but the success rate for the third and fourth quarterbacks taken in the first round is really low; only Roethlisberger and Culpepper were useful in fantasy life and real life.

There's some mildly anecdotal evidence in here that suggests wide receivers might be immune to the saturation hypothesis. In 1996, five wide receivers were drafted in the first round and all five of them went on to have good fantasy careers. They were Keyshawn Johnson, Terry Glenn, Eddie Kennison, Marvin Harrison, and Eric Moulds.

"Good fantasy careers" might be understating things, but you get the picture. The following year, four wide receivers were drafted in the first round and _all four of them busted_ : Ike Hilliard, Yatil Green, Reidel Anthony, and Rae Carruth.

I don't know if this tells us anything beyond being an interesting historical factoid, but there's no such year-to-year contrast in the running back and quarterback ranks (and yes, Carruth was mostly a bust before he started ordering people to be killed).

First-round picks are precious assets. What we've found (particularly at the quarterback position) suggests that using your first-round pick on a guy who's probably third or fourth-best at his position might not be a good use of this asset. Use this information to calibrate your rookie draft expectations accordingly.

## 10 What Wall Street Can Teach Us About Daily Fantasy Football

Contributed by C.D. Carter

It's the market element, stupid.

That's what I told myself one night last September, after a rough day on the make-believe gridiron. My fantasy squads had summarily tanked that day, and I had no one to blame but myself. Injuries and dumb luck weren't the culprits this time.

And when I say it was a less-than-great day in my fantasy football playing career, I mean it was a lot less than great. My teams had combined into one apocalyptic, towering, raging, all-consuming, face-melting dumpster fire, devouring anything and everything in their stinking, white-hot path, including my psychological well-being.

I had published my first fantasy football book just six months earlier, so I looked to "How To Think Like a Fantasy Football Winner" for reminders of how to think about the game at its most vexing.

I flipped through the chapters and was reminded of some of the book's hallmark lessons: the inherent faults in becoming too rigid in my decision making, valuing objectivity over optimism or pessimism, and using losses as a learning opportunity, just as some of the world's most successful poker players have preached.

Reviewing these various elements from "How To Think" helped, but only in one way. My fantasy football life, like so many others over the past couple years, has slowly split into two spheres: traditional season-long fantasy football, and daily fantasy football. The latter lets us construct teams from the bottom up using any combination of players under a certain salary cap. Daily fantasy sports (DFS) lets us start over every week.

So much of the advice in "How To Think" didn't sooth my DFS frustration on that September night. But why? It was still fantasy football. The scoring wasn't all that different. Lineup composition was almost identical. I had made a team and rolled that team out against a bunch of others who poured untold hours optimizing their lineups, and I had lost, for the most part. This was nothing new, right?

I stewed over this for a while. The chapters on emotional decision making and the brain's mechanisms for dealing with said decisions clearly applied to daily fantasy, but so many parts of the book fell short in addressing my DFS-related psychological traumas.

It hit me, like a fist to the eye socket, the next morning. I was brushing my teeth, still simmering from a couple objectively terrible decisions that single-handedly lost me a half-dozen games the day before, when the thought finally emerged from all the self-loathing and misery that had piled up over the previous 24 hours.

It's the market element, stupid. The central difference between season-long leagues and daily fantasy football is, of course, the market of players available every week, priced to reflect their prospects and likely production. There is no player overlap in more traditional fantasy formats; you're pitting your best players against their best players, without an iota of consideration about the price of each player.

It seems so obvious, I know. Of course DFS throws a market element into the weekly mix. Of course DFS players are forced to decide which positions should see the lion's share of their daily fantasy salary cap every Sunday. Of course we're forced to decide who is overpriced, who is underpriced, and how those valuations open up opportunities to exploit an imperfect marketplace.

The impact of these essential DFS elements requires an (almost) entirely different approach to thinking about the game, and that's something that has escaped so many daily fantasy footballers, including me. Having to negotiate a marketplace of commodities—however dehumanizing that may sound—demands a new set of psychological lessons for those who willing to do anything and everything to improve their DFS prospects.

It doesn't matter if you're playing with $50 a week or $5,000 a week; learning to think about daily fantasy football differently than traditional fantasy formats, I think, is essential to long-term success. And long-term sanity, of course.

I looked to poker's foremost experts, as I did in researching "How To Think" for months before I put pen to paper, and their advice translated nicely to DFS, just as it had for yearly fantasy football leagues. Those poker nuggets of degenerate wisdom still didn't address the market aspect of daily fantasy football. Poker had little in the way of offering investment advice.

So I turned to those who have built empires of cash on knowing how, when, where, and why to invest their money: Wall Street magnates, titans of industry, captains of capitalism. I proceeded to devour books on financing, and more specifically, behavioral financing—a somewhat new field that examines how our big bleeding brains impact the way we approach the market.

It's the musings of the brightest in the field of behavioral investing that will serve as the bedrock of my upcoming book, "How To Think Like a Daily Fantasy Football Winner," due out in late May.

I was skeptical of how the lessons from behavioral investing would fit into DFS, but after three months of reading and note-taking, I'm convinced the study of investor behavior can serve a vital purpose for anyone hoping to improve their approach to daily fantasy sports. I've taken away quite a bit of valuable information—20,000 words, in fact—and I wanted to share a few of the more intriguing lessons with you, my fellow fake footballer.

Our decisions get worse with more information.

If that isn't disturbing enough—and really, that should terrify you—our confidence spikes as we're fed more information about anything from a horse race to the prospects of a certain stock. Research has shown that people tend to make _less_ accurate predictions as they are given more information. They're asked to measure confidence in their predictions as more and more data points are revealed, and the results show confidence goes through the proverbial roof as accuracy takes a nose dive. DFS players in any sport should take note.

**We are all lemmings**.

I know you like to think of yourself as a fantasy football maverick, running against the grain of consensus at every turn, making up your own mind about your own lineups and laughing maniacally atop your stack of cash at season's end. That would make you something of an anomaly. Taking contrarian stances in investment circles causes real physical pain, triggering parts of the brain that control those unpleasant feelings. Refusing to follow the crowd goes against our every instinct, which is why there is a crowd to follow. Knowing this could change the way you approach your weekly daily fantasy choices.

Bears, bulls, and you

Twitter, the unofficial trading floor for daily fantasy football, is teeming with what investors call perma-bears (those who preach caution no matter what) and perma-bulls (those who see the silver lining in every cloud, no matter how dark and foreboding). The most committed bears and bulls have one thing in common: they do not make money in the long run, as shown in several studies detailed in behavioral financing books and academic papers. Taking a ceaselessly cautious or stubbornly bullish approach to daily fantasy might serve you well now and then, but refusing to budge from those foolhardy positions will suck your bankroll dry over the long haul. It's up to DFS players to know when they're becoming a perma-bear or perma-bull and fix the behavior, posthaste.

And don't forget: It's the market element, stupid.

## 11 Identifying Red Flags and Being Wrong the Right Way

In 2013, I penned (typed) an article called "Everything You Need to Know Before Drafting Marshawn Lynch" in which I gave multiple reasons I wouldn't own Lynch that season—his age, dependence on Seattle's offense for production, his inability to catch passes. Lynch promptly went on to rush for 1,257 yards and 12 touchdowns, even adding 36 catches and two scores via the air, finishing fourth among running backs in standard fantasy leagues.

As much as I missed on Lynch's projection, the price I paid was basically nothing; I ranked Lynch low enough that he wasn't on any of my fantasy teams, so the cost to me wasn't nearly as great as if I had boosted someone way up my rankings and missed on him.

That highlights the idea that if we're going to be wrong—which we will, a lot—it's best to be wrong in the "right" way. Namely, ranking a player well ahead of his average draft position requires a much higher level of confidence that your projection is correct than dropping someone on your board. When you go a direction opposite the way I went with Lynch, raising a player well ahead of his ADP, you're going to end up drafting him in a whole lot of leagues. That's fine, but the downside to missing can be huge.

That's why I think the most appropriate way to begin your fantasy rankings isn't to identify players you like and shoot them up your board, but rather to find those guys with serious concerns, dropping them such that by the time you'd feel comfortable drafting them, they'll be off of the board. If you're wrong, the cost is hardly incapable of being overcome.

I still think I was correct in my assessment of Lynch; player fortunes are governed by probabilities, so if Lynch had a 30 percent chance of rushing for 1,000 yards and just so happened to do it, that doesn't change the quality of the decision I made on him. Or, maybe I was just wrong. Either way, the cost wasn't prohibitive. I could have drafted Jamaal Charles or LeSean McCoy or a host of other backs who excelled in 2013 and saw no negative ramifications from downgrading Lynch.

This strategy is specifically useful in the early rounds. There, we don't want to take excessive chances. Upside is always a good thing, but we should primarily be concerned with risk-minimization. Locate the early-round players who could cause your team to tank, downgrade them, and choose from what's left. A lot of owners often follow a "best player available" draft strategy, but this is more of a "least shitty guy left" sort of thing. We're trying to identify huge potential leaks in our fantasy roster construction and avoid them at all costs.

You can alter your strategy once you hit the middle and late rounds, shifting from risk-minimization to seeking high-ceiling players. If you rank a player far above his ADP in that range—as I did with Josh Gordon in 2013—the move isn't nearly as perilous; Gordon killed it that year, but even if he tanked, I would have been fine having spent no more than an eighth-rounder on him in any league.

The key idea I'm trying to get across is that early-round draft strategy isn't about out-projecting your peers to find the next big thing; all of the players are studs with massive upside, so we're basically just trying as hard as possible to not be totally wrong. The late rounds are the time to take your shots and allow your superior player knowledge to kick in.

Early on, it's plenty okay to be wrong, but just be wrong in the "right" direction.

## 12 How do rookie quarterbacks impact a team's top receiver?

Contributed by Jon Moore

Even without looking at the calendar, I know it must be spring because everywhere I look people are debating quarterbacks and the NFL draft. Look, I get it; these guys touch the ball on every snap, are the face of the franchise, and are the key to winning championships. However, for all of the fuss, isn't it amusing that every few years, the same teams are dipping back into the pool for another "savior"? But I digress...

Regardless of what happens in real football, what I really want to know is how that shiny new quarterback is going to impact the offensive weapons on his new team. More specifically, I want to know if the team's top receiver will score more or fewer fantasy points with the new passer. For years, I have operated under the belief that a new quarterback is a good thing, but the research has remained on the backburner until now. Curiosity finally got the best of me. Here's what I did.

Dating back to the 1998 draft when Peyton Manning entered the league, I looked at every quarterback who threw at least 160 passes in their rookie season. Of those passers, the vast majority were selected in the first two rounds, indicating that guys selected early were probably going to see considerable playing time. Let's stay focused on those players who have a reasonable chance to contribute. In total, 34 signal callers met the criteria.

From there, I looked at how the drafting team's best receiver performed in the year before the new quarterback and the year after the new quarterback to see how they were impacted.

Of the 34 quarterback seasons in question, 25 of them saw the leading receiver return for the rookie year of the new passer. Sixteen of the 25 receivers (64 percent) saw their fantasy points per game _decrease_ , with the he average decline in production being 9 percent. Granted, that's not a huge change, but I think it is significant enough to consider when creating rankings or drafting a team.

Upon further review, I have a few theories on why receivers experience the decline. The most obvious possibility would be because the team runs a safer version of the offense with the new signal-caller, providing fewer pass-catching opportunities for the receiver. Another idea would be that the quarterback and receiver have poor chemistry and it takes longer than a year for them to get on the same page. One might also consider the possibility that the team was really bad in the season before selecting an early-round quarterback. If that's the case, they probably trailed in many games and were forced to throw the ball to play catch-up, thus leading to more fantasy points.

There are nine other quarterback-receiver tandems I haven't discussed yet. Two of them were from expansion teams, so there was no previous season to compare. The other seven instances were such that the previous year's top target left or was injured before playing a game with the rookie quarterback. I suspected that this scenario (rookie passer and new receiver) might be a niche to exploit, but what I found tells a different story.

Of the seven new-quarterback, new-receiver situations, only _once_ did the top receiver produce a top 35 fantasy season. Put another way, even when a team completely cleans house and brings in all new offensive personnel, there is a very small chance that the new lead receiver will be anything more than a flex option for fantasy purposes.

There are probably a few ways to take advantage of this intel. For redraft leagues, be mindful of which mid-career receivers might take a hit from the addition of a rookie passer and nudge them down in your rankings. On the other hand, if you play in dynasty leagues, it might be worthwhile to target receivers who are in the middle of their first year with a rookie quarterback and whose value has taken a hit. However you apply this knowledge, it's important to remember that nuanced thinking like this is the difference between the typical fantasy player and the savvy league-winning GM.

## 13 I can't stop writing about wide receiver size.

This is going to be a quick-hitter lesson designed to continue my goal of transforming you into a fantasy football robot who cares about almost nothing except wide receiver size. Why do I talk so much about size in wide receivers? Because it matters and it's exploitable.

Before getting into the numbers, I want to address the idea that it might be "obvious" that size matters for wide receivers. If you tell someone that bigger wide receivers are better NFL players, they'd probably respond with something like, "Well that's obvious."

Luckily we have two marketpalces through which we can test whether or not things are truly "obvious"—the NFL draft and fantasy football drafts. If teams and fantasy owners truly value size, we shouldn't see them continually find value on big wide receivers; the size should be priced into the players' draft slots and they should be drafted appropriately.

But it's not, and they aren't. So while it might be "obvious" that size helps wide receiver, it's not obvious how much it helps and it's certainly not obvious enough that you can't acquire an advantage by seeking it. Basically, we have 99 percent of fantasy owners suffering from a hindsight bias when it comes to wide receiver size—the "I-knew-it-all-along effect"—and 98 percent of fantasy owners still not doing shit to correct it.

## Wide Receiver Weight and Aging

The idea that weight matters more than height for receivers originally came from the Fantasy Douche—or at least that's where I first saw the concept articulated. I've run a million and one correlations since then independently confirming that weight is indeed more predictive than height for NFL receiver success, so I won't be diving into that topic in greater depth here; I just wanted to explain why I analyze weight in wide receivers.

I recently asked Jim Sannes to write a RotoAcademy lesson on how size affects wide receiver aging. My hypothesis was that bigger receivers wouldn't show signs of aging as quickly as light receivers, since the former typically relies on speed—a trait we know diminishes quickly with age, while size remains.

I was totally wrong and small receivers actually have a later career peak than bigger ones. I don't really know why that's the case, so I'm just going to fill this sentence with fluff as I try to direct your attention elsewhere.

Okay, did you forget that I was wrong yet? In all seriousness, I wasn't totally wrong because big wide receivers are _much_ more likely than small ones to produce in their early-30s.

Anyway, the point of this lesson is to allow you to quickly visualize the difference in production between the biggest and smallest wide receivers. I charted fantasy production by age for two extremes—one group of receivers weighing in at 220 pounds or more, and the other at sub-190 pounds.

However, the results were collected from solely the top 100 fantasy wide receivers of the past decade. So we're not looking at all players at the position, but rather the best of the best.

The big group dominates the small group, even though we're looking only at the top receivers in the game, producing more average fantasy points at every single age from 22 to 35. The average difference per season is 45 points, while the average difference during the peak years—24 to 30—is 46 points. You can think of that as 220 extra yards and four extra touchdowns, which is pretty amazing.

Another way to think about the difference is to imagine that you've randomly drawn two wide receivers from a hat, both elite players ranked in the top 100, but one who 225 pounds and the other 185 pounds. Not knowing anything except their weight and that they're top 100 receivers from the past decade, your best guess for their average production would be 46 _more_ fantasy points for the bigger receiver.

It's amazing to me, at least, that if we're given the choice between a big and small receiver, we should choose the big one even if we know that both are capable of elite production.

## 14 Does a great QB help or hurt his RB?

Aaron Rodgers is a murderer of love. In his first five years as a starter for the Green Bay Packers, his running backs finished better than 25th in the league in total fantasy points just once. That year (2009), they were 14th. On teams so loaded with fake pigskin man-crushes, the running backs were left naked and afraid in the barren Wisconsin tundra.

The first year in the post-Brett-Favre era in which the Packers finished in the top 10 in running back points was 2013. That also happened to be the year that Rodgers missed seven games because of a broken collarbone. Coincidence? Heck naw. Dude's feelings toward running back production are similar to Jared Lorenzen's feelings toward a Stairmaster.

But is this true of all elite quarterbacks? Does running back production go down when a quarterback's effectiveness goes up?

There are two schools of thought here. The first is that, when you have a great quarterback, you're going to want to use him. This is what you can see in the case of those 2008-2012 Packers teams that relied so heavily on Rodgers.

The second is that, on most occasions, teams with elite quarterbacks are more likely to be leading because of the importance of the position. When you have a lead, it makes sense to run the ball to burn the clock. The opposite would then be true for poor quarterbacks; their teams are forced to abandon the run in order to make up a deficit later in games.

Another part of this is that an effective quarterback is going to lead your team to more touchdowns, both in the air and on the ground. Bad quarterbacks usually have bad offenses, and bad offenses score fewer points. I realize this is groundbreaking, earth-shattering new analysis, so try to stick with me.

Let's look at the numbers and decide if Aaron Rodgers' disdain for running back happiness is common or if the dude is just a cold-hearted outlier whom we should all shun.

## The Numbers on the QB-RB Relationship

To check this out, I looked at the top five quarterbacks each season from 2005 to 2013 in Pro Football Reference's Adjusted Net Yards Per Attempt stat. This stat essentially tracks a quarterback's overall effectiveness by including touchdowns, interceptions, and sacks in its calculation. It's the most predictive individual stat in football, and a great proxy for overall quarterback efficiency.

I paired those five quarterbacks with the total fantasy output of their running backs. The totals for the running backs were based on a standard-scoring, non-PPR league.

I did this same thing with the quarterbacks who finished 11th through 15th in the stat and 26th through 30th. That way, I figured I'd be able to see the difference between the top tier and the middle tier, but also between them and the bottom-of-the-barrel guys.

With those top five quarterbacks, the average fantasy running back output per season was 346.66 points. That's a total that will generally land you solidly in the top 10 in the league. This certainly makes it look like Rodgers and the Packers' inability to even feign competency in the ground game over his first five years _was not the norm_.

Tom Brady has generally been okay at throwing a football during his career. I hope I'm not going out on a limb by saying that. However, from 2006 through 2013, Patriots running backs only finished outside of the top 10 in fantasy points once. That doesn't mean that the distribution of those points was predictable (darn you, Bill Belichick), but the output was consistent and solid.

Before starting this research, I thought the second tier of passers would be where you would see teams that had great running backs. The passers who aren't bad enough to kill your team, but they aren't good enough to take the ground game out of the equation. This led me to believe that this group would have the highest average running back production of the three groups I intended to study. While this wasn't entirely wrong... it was mostly wrong.

The running backs who had quarterbacks who finished 11th through 15th in ANY/A averaged 313.35 points per season. The drop-off from the top tier to the middle tier isn't that large, and it certainly isn't as much as the drop-off in wide receiver production, but it's enough to be noticeable. This would seem to indicate that a good quarterback, rather than taking away points because of a lack of carries, can increase a running back's scoring chances and, thus, his point totals.

Over the course of a season, there is a differential of two points per game between the top and the middle group of quarterbacks. When you spread that throughout all of the running backs on a team, it's not a _huge_ difference. It equates to just under 10 percent less production.

Then you get to those baaaaaaaaaaad quarterbacks. If Rodgers is a murderer of love, these guys are 16th century conquistadores that go all Hernán Cortés on their running backs' fantasy numbers. The amount of blood left behind would make Abraham Lincoln blush (the vampire hunter, not the other one).

From 2005 to 2013, running backs whose quarterback finished 26th to 30th in ANY/A averaged a paltry 257.54 points per season. That is _25.7 percent lower_ than the top tier quarterbacks and 17.8 percent lower than the middle tier. In other words, they were all stanky.

Obviously, there are exceptions in each of these categories. I already mentioned the Rodgers-led Packers, but you can also add the 2008 Arizona Cardinals. When your top two backs are Tim Hightower (2.8 yards per carry) and 30-year-old Edgerrin James (3.9 yards per attempt), abandoning the run is more than acceptable.

It was also Kurt Warner's Cardinals that had the lowest running back fantasy total from the middle tier of quarterback production. In that season, Warner finished 13th in ANY/A, but missed six games due to injury. Who was the team's third-leading rusher? Josh McCown. Yeah, not a lot of running back fantasy points to be had.

The converse is true with the bottom-dwelling signal callers. Adrian Peterson's ign'ant 2012 season came despite Christian Ponder occasionally forgetting his job was to give Adrian the damn ball and spiking it into the ground. The Mark-Sanchez-era Jets often posted respectable running back fantasy numbers even though he may have been legally intoxicated a good majority of the time.

But these are the exceptions for a reason. If a running back goes to a team with a poor quarterback, you can't expect him to produce like a top fantasy option. In order to predict a team's running back fantasy production, you can use the line-of-best fit created by the data.

## The Bottom Line and Implementing the Data

The correlation coefficient between a quarterback's ANY/A and his team's running back fantasy output is .538, which is very strong, so it isn't illogical to use this line for purposes of projection. The equation for finding a team's total running back fantasy production is 146.12 + 26.016 * Quarterback's ANY/A. This means that, for every yard you add to a quarterback's ANY/A, the expected production from their running backs increases 26.016 fantasy points.

What can we draw from this? You can't ignore running backs who have good quarterbacks. This applies even if the team relies heavily on the pass, due to an increase in receiving yards out of the backfield and an increased touchdown rate.

It also means you may want to be wary of running backs stranded on the island of misfit quarterbacks. It's possible that Blaine Gabbert might have accidentally let his running backs be decent at one point, but the odds of that happening are about as low as his passer rating.

Yes, Rodgers is an outlier in his hatred of running back production over his first five years. Maybe he just wanted to be different—the 2 Chainz of NFL quarterbacks. But don't let that fool you. Good quarterbacks generally bring good fantasy value from their running backs with them.

## 15 How much does a great QB help his WRs (and how much does a crappy one hurt them)?

Contributed by Jim Sannes

One of my favorite things to do on a Friday night (fantasy sports writers don't get out much) is to watch the fake United Way commercial with Peyton Manning on Saturday Night Live. In case you haven't seen it, the commercial shows Manning teaching children the game of football and the game of life. It has violence, foul language, and tattoos of Peyton's face. What more could you ask for?

What I didn't realize when that video initially came out is that it's relevant to fantasy sports. You see, Peyton just wanted the most out of those children...his receivers. So what if Johnny got nailed in the back of the head with a frozen rope? You think that happened a second time? Not a chance, bromigo.

On the other hand, if Tim Couch had invaded their backyard broo-ha-ha, he would be the one sitting in a Port-A-Lav (do people actually call them that?). _**Editor's Note: Literally never heard of a Port-A-Lav in my life. It's a Porta Potty. Anyway, back to the article.**_ His receivers would produce nothing on the field because Couch never would have gotten the ball to their hands/base of skull.

The same is true with wide receivers in fantasy football. I don't think Randy Moss would have put up his stupid fantasy numbers if Tim Tebow were chucking him the rock instead of Daunte Culpepper and Tom Brady.

This seems like a pretty logical assertion: better quarterbacks will provide better fantasy production for their wide receivers. But _how much_ better? Well, compadres, you're in luck. I was curious about the same thing and decided to use this little doohickey called math to help me answer it.

CAUTION: Some of the numbers ahead are graphic. Do not let those who have a pacemaker, use antibiotics, or have previously owned Kyle Boller in a fantasy league continue reading.

## The Methodology on the QB-WR Bromance

In order to see just how valuable quality quarterbacks are to the fantasy production of wide receivers, I examined two groups of quarterbacks. The first group was the top five quarterbacks each season from 2005-2013 in Pro Football Reference's Adjusted Net Yards Per Attempt (ANY/A) statistic. This statistic takes touchdowns, interceptions, and sacks into account when analyzing passing efficiency, so it tracks a quarterback's total effectiveness. It's the most predictive individual stat in all of football. I included only quarterbacks who started at least nine games so as to avoid having the same team on a list twice.

The second group was the quarterbacks who finished 11th through 15th in the stat. So, these aren't terrible quarterbacks, but they're definitely not in your top tier.

I then matched each quarterback with the total number of fantasy points scored by his wide receivers that season (based on standard, non-PPR scoring). I used the entire season even if the quarterback did not start all 16 games (a la Jay Cutler basically every year with Chicago) so as to keep the numbers consistent across the board.

As a note, I realize that no matter what stat I use, quarterback and wide receiver stats will always be intertwined. A bad quarterback will make his receivers look bad, but bad receivers will also make their quarterbacks look bad, too. My aim is more to find the relationship between the two positions, not completely separate them.

## The Numbers

The quarterbacks in the top tier had an average ANY/A of 7.71. The quarterbacks in the 11th to 15th range had an average ANY/A of 6.15. That's a big enough gap to show that there was a significant difference in talent between the two groups.

Among those top five quarterbacks in ANY/A, the average total output from all wide receivers on their teams was 402.97 points per season. That's generally top 10 production from wide receivers, which shouldn't be too big of a shock.

The wide receivers who had quarterbacks in the 11th to 15th range didn't fare quite as well. They averaged 348.67 aggregate points per season, a 13.5 percent drop-off from the top quarterbacks. And those are your middle-of-the-pack quarterbacks; what about the bottom-of-the-barrel?

Mostly because I'm a glutton for awful numbers, I decided to take a peek at how the wide receivers of the worst quarterbacks fared in terms of fantasy production. This is the point where you'll want to stop reading if you're squeamish. I can't even watch the bunk-beds-collapsing scene from Step Brothers without a little nausea, so it's a miracle I made it through this.

For this group, I looked at the quarterbacks who ranked 26th to 30th in ANY/A who started at least nine games. Those quarterbacks averaged a 4.56 ANY/A. WOOF. This is where quarterbacks go to die, and, apparently, so does the fantasy production of their wide receivers.

The wide receivers of these JaMarcus-Russell-esque quarterbacks averaged 276.28 fantasy points per season. Remember, the receivers of the top quarterbacks averaged 402.97. That's a 31.44 percent drop in production. If the receivers with the top quarterbacks are Pulp Fiction, these receivers are Twilight.

The convenient part about all of this data is that it provides a fairly strong positive correlation coefficient. If you combine the results from all three groups, the correlation coefficient between a quarterbacks' ANY/A and his wide receivers' fantasy output is .638. In non-nerd terms, that's luscious, Papi.

This allows us to make an educated guess of how many fantasy points a team's wide receivers will score if we know the quarterback's ANY/A in advance. For example, let's say that a team—we'll call them the Omaha Water Puppies—have a quarterback who couldn't find an open Demaryius Thomas in a sea of pre-schoolers. We'll call this quarterback "Jim Jebow." Again, this is all hypothetical.

In the 2078 season, Jim Jebow had an ANY/A of 4.00 for the Water Puppies. Based off of that, we can assume that his wide receivers produced 255 total fantasy points that year.

The Water Puppies' general manager just couldn't handle Jim Jebow's ineptitudes anymore. So, he went out and bought himself an older but shinier model of quarterback named Pay-ton Tanning. In his first year with the Water Puppies, Pay-ton Tanning finished with an ANY/A of 9.00.

The slope of the trendline associated with the data tells us that _wide receivers will gain 41.156 fantasy points for every yard the quarterback adds to his ANY/A_. Thus, we can assume that the Water Puppies wide receivers will produce 460 fantasy points in the first year under Pay-ton Tanning, an 80.4 percent increase from the season under Jim Jebow.

Here's another way to look at the data.

So why use a fairly obscure stat like ANY/A to predict wide receiver production? Because it's incredibly consistent. A quarterback's ANY/A typically doesn't change much from year to year, and because there's a strong correlation between quarterback efficiency and wide receiver fantasy points, we can use past ANY/A to predict future wide receiver production even better than using past wide receiver production.

## Takeaways

There are a couple of big implications that you need to take into consideration moving forward. First, if a team brings in an upgrade at quarterback, you can expect the wide receivers on said team to reap the benefits. The opposite is also true. Both are obvious.

Second, if a wide receiver leaves a team through free agency and goes to a team with a worse quarterback, you can expect that his production to decrease. Even if his targets increase, the odds that his actual, raw fantasy output will increase are fairly low.

Third, the previous assertions are true even for quarterbacks who may not have a huge gap between them. The drop-off from the top five quarterbacks to anyone else was still enough to cause some hesitation if a team experiences a changeover.

All of this can easily be wrapped up in one sentence, going back to Peyton Manning (the real one, not the fake bro on the Water Puppies) and the United Way. In fantasy, spend time with your wide receivers...so Tim Couch doesn't.

## 16 How to Use Rookie Stats to Project Wide Receivers in Year 2

Submitted by Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Hello friends,

I'd like to talk a little bit more about wide receivers. My last lesson touched on what to expect out of first-round picks in their rookie seasons. This time, we're expanding the sample out to rookie wide receivers picked in the first, second, and third rounds, and we're going to chart their progression and look for patterns in who breaks out in year two. With any luck, we'll be able to identify some key characteristics that give us an idea of who's ready to break out in their second NFL season.

My first thought in doing this is to see if you can get reasonably priced bargains on WR1 production from a second-year guy who showed modest production in his rookie season. If correct, it could give us an arbitrage opportunity on the WR1s that cost a lot more in terms of assets.

More generally, I wanted to get a sense of whether or not rookie production is at all indicative of continued production. The idea that "Player X showed promise as a rookie, I'll see if he's available for cheap so I can get him before he blows up" sounds logical, but I haven't seen it quantified anywhere. Let's check that out.

## Second-Year Wide Receiver Numbers

From 2000 to 2012, there were 171 wide receivers drafted in the first three rounds (note that we're stopping at 2012 since we don't know the second year of production for the guys drafted in 2013 yet). That's a significant sample size. The distribution is 53 in the first round, 53 in the second round, and 65 in the third round.

When we mash all of the numbers up by round, we get modest point totals and modest increases from each group from year 1 to year 2. All point totals were measured in PPR scoring.

There's a ladder effect there that I find interesting. Rookie first-rounders are better, on the whole, than second-year second rounders, and rookie second-rounders are better than second-year third-rounders. I assumed it wouldn't be this neat and clean, but it holds true even when the data is pared down to include only those players who played at least one game in both years.

## How to Identify Cheap WR Talent

So now we need to figure out which second and third-rounders we should be targeting, on the assumption that they're cheaper than first-rounders in almost every case and can present excellent arbitrage opportunities if your rookie draft pick isn't high enough to land one of the studs.

Let's start with this list of wide receivers drafted in the second or third round to score more than 10.0 ppg (PPR scoring) in their second years.

A few things about this table jump out. First, there are only 18 names here despite 126 receivers having been drafted in rounds two and three during the period studied. This is a much lower rate (14 percent) than I thought it would be since 10 ppg in PPR scoring isn't very impressive. In 2013, it would have been tied for WR57 (hey Nate Burleson!). Burleson, ironically, is on that list. Or maybe it's not ironic. No idea really.

The second thing that jumps out is that only five of the 18 gentlemen had second NFL seasons with more than 15 ppg. I set my arbitrary cutoff at 10 because it's a nice round number, but 15 ppg is much closer to elite status. It almost always means a top 20 season. Alshon Jeffery's 2013 finish is the highest in terms of total points per game, while Desean Jackson and Greg Jennings both finished as WR9 (measured in ppg) in their second years. In fact, only seven of the 18 players on this table had a top 20 year in year two. While a second-year receiver might be able to give us a useful season, this suggests that we generally shouldn't look to them for elite production.

The third thing that jumps out is that only Mario Manningham had a truly terrible rookie season. The second-lowest rookie-year scorer on this list is Randall Cobb, and while 4.6 ppg isn't good, it's almost four entire points ahead of Manningham's first year. That indicates it's not a good idea to bet on guys from the second or third rounds who didn't do anything in their rookie seasons. There were 66 second and third-round picks in the sample who scored fewer points than Cobb did as a rookie. Only Manningham got to 10.0 points/game in his second year. There's just not much precedent for second and third-round receivers to go from zero to hero in between rookie year and sophomore year.

## More Numbers on Year-Two Wide Receivers

So we just look for guys who hit certain production markers in year one and target them in year two, right? Not exactly. The possibility for regression is significant.

Here's a table of all the rookie second and third-rounders who hit 6.0 PPR points per game in their rookie seasons, with second-year ppg included:

I'll save you the time in tabulating everything; 16 players scored more points in year two (as you might expect), but 18 of these guys actually scored _fewer_ points in their second season. Rookies who score more than 6.0 ppg are just as likely to regress as they are to improve. The distribution is about the same if we bump the threshold to 8.0 ppg; eight players scored more points in year two, but 10 players scored more in year one. It even holds if we limit the sample to players with 10.0 ppg or more in year one; four players got better, five got worse.

But what does it all mean? The assumption that guys who do well in their rookie years will continue to get better in year two isn't necessarily wrong, but it certainly doesn't apply to everyone. If you're thinking of targeting certain guys this year (or any year really) just because they put up some mild production in year one, the learning curve isn't particularly stable.

All of this combines to suggest that the notion that we can find a second-year wide receiver from the second or third round based on rookie year production is flawed. Not only are second and third-round second-year receivers unlikely to put up a top 20 season in year two (7 out of 126, or 5.5 percent), they're not very likely to even be useful. Only 13 of the 126 players in our sample (10.3 percent) put up more than 12.0 ppg in season two; that would have been WR34 in 2013, just ahead of Marvin Jones.

That the promising rookies are just as likely to regress as they are to improve is also troubling. As we've illustrated, it's almost a 50/50 proposition that a promising rookie suffers a decrease in fantasy production the following year.

The business of gauging who will improve and who will not looks like it is not quantifiable if we're simply looking at points scored in year one. It's likely dependent on a ton of other variables. Quarterback situation, offensive scheme, coaching, place on the depth chart, injuries, and dozens of other factors can propel guys forward or hold them back. When you're applying this to your fantasy league, know that it's still possible to find a breakout guy from the later rounds in year two, but the odds are against you.

## 17 Why Focusing on the Little Things Helps You Understand the Big Thing

It's 4:12 p.m. on Opening Day of MLB season and this is this sentence is the first "real" thing I've accomplished all day. I kind of feel bad about this, especially since it's a Monday, but I also kind of don't. Around noon, I spent about an hour or so looking up red zone touchdown rates for a bunch of different receivers.

I didn't have anything in mind when I started researching and I don't even know what I'll do with the data, but I have it. I'll probably import data on arm length to see if long-armed receivers catch a higher percentage of red zone targets than short-armed receivers, or something similar.

Some of you probably think that spending hours charting such insanely specific information is a waste of time. And if you figure out the amount of time I spend researching such topics, the potential value the numbers themselves can have to me (probably not much), and the probability that they lead to something of real value to me (small), you'd probably find that researching red zone efficiency based on arm length leads to approximately the shittiest ROI in the history of ROI.

But I think that it's extremely valuable to focus so much attention on the most intricate of details because the process itself provides indirect benefits far greater than the actual results. I've talked about this a little bit in the past in regards to creating projections, which is a good example of how something that has few immediate benefits can also paradoxically give you a big edge in fantasy football—how focusing on the minute details helps you grasp the big picture.

## The Value of Projections

Want to know how much I use my projections when I'm actually drafting? Basically never. I also create a big board, but I don't follow that very strictly, either.

If you really think about what projections offer, you realize that following them to a tee is very fragile. Whenever you create any kind of model, you need to ask yourself if small changes can potentially throw it off. In the case of fantasy football player projections, there are so many players that minor changes in someone's projection—say, 50 yards in either direction—can dramatically alter where you rank him. Does it really make sense to follow projections so vigorously if they're that susceptible to variance?

But I still create projections, and I still make a big board. And I think you should, too. I even sell my projections/rankings over at Fantasy Football Drafting, and I think there's value in you purchasing them. So why would I spend so much time making something that creates such little immediate value?

Projections—whether you create them yourself or grab mine as a base and then alter them—provide a ton of indirect benefits. When you create or edit projections, you need to consider a wide range of factors: past stats, scheme, player health, aging trends, measurables, and so on. That means that the process of creating projections necessitates you thinking critically, implementing analytics, making predictions, and a bunch of other things that directly benefit you as a fantasy owner.

## The Philosophy of Fantasy Football

I majored in philosophy (and fantasy football) in college because I wanted the challenge of no one taking me seriously once I graduated, while also maintaining the smallest possible probability of getting a job. I succeeded magnificently on both accounts. And now here I am writing this for you, illegally copying Google images into my work, and playing fantasy sports on a semi-pro level. Thanks philosophy.

To me, philosophy is the most beneficial of all majors—one that will make you more capable in just about every aspect of your life—and it accomplishes that by focusing on the most random of shit. While philosophy deals with a lot of "big picture" stuff, it also becomes quite specific at times. But pretty much all of philosophy—especially the metaphysics and epistemology in which I had the most interest—is considered impractical and of little importance.

Like the process of creating fantasy football projections, philosophy's benefits are indirect, but significant. In both areas, we're in effect worried more about _how_ to learn than what to learn. Both philosophy and fantasy football projections are kind of like practice—a deliberate attempt to sharpen your mind; the impractical—the "little" stuff—ironically becomes the most useful of all tools.

The take home point: worry less about acquiring the "right" information and more about perfecting the process of obtaining that information so you can ultimately make more accurate predictions. Don't concern yourself with what others tell you is "practical" and instead focus on what's going to make you the best _long-term_ fantasy owner. The big picture is important, but the path to it is often indirect.

## 18 A Preliminary Look at How to Use Game Theory in Your Fantasy Draft

Contributed by Jim Sannes

You can feel the little bead of sweat as it grazes your left eyebrow. Your fists are clenched as you bite down on that pen your boss left at your desk yesterday. Your toes repeatedly tap the ground involuntarily.

This is the moment you have been waiting for since the final whistle of the Super Bowl. This is your time to show your co-workers and overly touchy brother-in-law that you aren't as lame as your Batman footie pajamas would otherwise indicate.

It's your fantasy football draft. And your pick is next.

Over the last few months, you've done your homework. You've read every RotoAcademy lesson and run your own regression analysis on the effects of a running back's booty size. You are prepared.

But now you are forced to make a decision. Through your research, you have figured out that the expected production from running back Matty Awesome is 20 points higher than that of fellow running back Sam Mediocre (Note: both of these guys are fake, in case you couldn't tell. This is a hypothetical - except for the Batman PJs. Those are most definitely real). This is despite the fact that all of the pundits (and, thus, the other people in your draft) think that Mediocre is going to have a better year than Awesome.

Common sense tells you that you would take Awesome with the 11th pick in the snake draft of your 12-team league. Points are good, right? Right! Math!

Suddenly, your insides get all tingly. It's similar to the feeling that you got the first time you saw Miss Frizzle on the Magic School Bus; it's love. Except this time, you're not in love with a red-headed bombshell, but rather an idea: the idea of having both Awesome and Mediocre on your team.

This is where game theory catapults into your life for the first time since NUMB3RS was cancelled (R.I.P. to my homie, Charlie). You have to decide mathematically whether you should take Awesome or Mediocre in the first round based on which decision maximizes your expected total points.

In this situation, you have two options. You can either draft Awesome (the player you think will score more points) and hope that Mediocre falls to you in the second round, or you can draft Mediocre and hope that Awesome falls to you in the second round.

For purposes of evaluation, let's assume that you know that Awesome has an expected point total of 230, Mediocre is at 210, and Ray Blech (the guy you would end up taking if you aren't able to get both Awesome and Mediocre) is expected to get 190 points.

## Possible Outcomes

In this situation, there are four possible outcomes:

**Outcome 1** : You draft Mediocre in the first round, and Awesome falls to you in the second. Party! Your expected points for those two picks is 440. This is the best possible outcome.

**Outcome 2** : You draft Mediocre in the first round, but somebody (clearly a commie who hates freedom and bald eagles) takes Awesome before your pick in the second round. You end up with Blech, leaving your expected points at 400. This is the worst possible outcome.

**Outcome 3** : You draft Awesome in the first round, and Mediocre falls to you in the second. Poppin' bottles in the ice. Time to get slizzered. Your expected points here is, once again, 440 points.

**Outcome 4** : You draft Awesome in the first round, but somebody (who most likely bites the heads off of gummy bears before eating them) drafted Mediocre before your second-round pick. Your expected points total is 420, which is not the worst outcome, but it could definitely be better.

As you can see here, the decision that is the riskiest is drafting Mediocre in the first round. Your two possible outcomes are on the opposite ends of the expected points spectrum.

If you draft Awesome in the first round, the possible range is much smaller, but the odds that you finish with the best outcome (getting both Awesome and Mediocre) are much lower. I'll explain that next.

## The Probability Factor

This next section is very math-heavy. If math is to you what Rick Ross is to me (it induces vomit and makes you question everything you hold dear), feel free to skip down to the section titled "Decision-Making." There, I'll summarize this in a way that is less nauseating for those in the non-nerd crowd. For those of you who still snuggle with your graphing calculators at night, getcha popcorn ready and keep reading.

Using the previous numbers, we can determine the right choice for you to make based upon the probability that the person you don't take in the first round falls to you in the second round.

The basic formula is V1 + (P*V2) + ((1-P)*V3). V1 is the value of the player you take in round one. Because this person is going to be available there (or else we wouldn't be having this discussion), the probability that you get them is 100 percent. Therefore, for them, it's just the value. If you take Awesome, that number is 230. If you take Mediocre, that number is 210.

V2 is the value of the player you take in round two. So, if you take Mediocre in round one, then you would hope to take Awesome in round two, giving V2 a value of 230. However, it is not certain that you will get this player in round two, so we have to multiply that player's value by the probability that he falls there. V3 is the value of the player you would take in round two if you are unable to pick both Awesome and Mediocre. In this instance, V3 is 190, the expected value of Blech.

Let's say, for instance, there is a 70 percent chance that Awesome falls to you in round two. Then, you would multiply 230 times 0.7, giving you a total of 161.

Where does the other 30 percent come in to play? Well, that goes to Blech. We multiply his value by one minus the probability that we assigned to the other possibility in round two. In this instance, that is 190 * (1 – 0.7) = 57. Then we add up those three numbers (210, 161 and 57) to get a total of 428. So, if the odds that Awesome is available for you in the second round are 70 percent, then your expected points when taking Mediocre in the first are 428.

## Decision-Making

Welcome back, non-mathies. We missed you. The summary of the last section was that the higher the probability of getting either Awesome or Mediocre in the second round, the higher your expected points. If the probability that either Awesome or Mediocre is available in the second round were lower, that would mean the probability that you get stuck with Blech and his blech production would be higher.

The higher the probability that Awesome is available for you in the second round, the more you should consider taking Mediocre in the first round. Let me explain this thinking a little bit more.

Remember, in the beginning I said that you have information that other people in the draft don't. You know that Awesome has a higher expected point total than Mediocre, even though Mediocre is widely considered to be a better option. This is why you would want to snag Mediocre in the first round; the odds that he is available in the second round are lower than the odds that Awesome is there in the second. Thus, the odds that you get the maximum expected points are higher if you take Mediocre in the first than if you take Awesome.

What the ultimate decision comes down to is the probability that Awesome is available in the second round. Let's look at this by using an example.

Let's say that not a lot of people are very high on Awesome. The odds that he is available for you in the second round are at 90 percent. However, people know enough about him that there is zero chance you could get him in the third round.

On the flipside, people love Mediocre. There is only a 20 percent chance that he is available in the second round if you take Awesome.

In this situation, it is best for you to take Mediocre in the first round. If you do, your expected points are 436. If you had taken Awesome in the first round, there was an 80 percent chance that you would be stuck with Blech instead of Mediocre. Your expected points in that situation would be 424. So, by taking Mediocre in the first round, even though you know he is not as good as Awesome, you increased your expected points by 12. That's a bingo!

As you can see, your expected number of points changes based on the probability that either Awesome or Mediocre will be available in the second round. Let's change the script a bit. What if they were equally likely to be available in the second round, both at 50 percent? In this instance, you should take Awesome in the first. By doing so, your expected points total is 430 as opposed to 420 if you take Mediocre.

That illustrates that it's only worth it to take the bigger risk and draft Mediocre in the first round if you are fairly certain that Awesome will be there in the second round. Otherwise, you risk losing his productivity, which is expected to be higher than that of Mediocre. In short, the higher the probability of the higher-ranked player being available later, the more you can afford to bypass him.

## Difficulties

Obviously, the hardest part of all of this is assigning probabilities to whether or not each player will be available in the second round (or whatever round you're considering). It requires you to know a little bit about the people picking after you and what they might or might not know. If the person after you has read the same material as you, the probability that Awesome will be on the board in the second round is lower.

This doesn't mean that you can't use this method when deciding what to do with your pick. In most cases, you can assign a ballpark probability that a certain player will be available at your next selection. That's especially true with the first example probabilities I discussed. If Mediocre is widely considered to be the best player on the board, the odds that he'll be there in the second round will be low (roughly 10-20 percent). If Awesome is viewed as the 16th-20th best player, then the odds that he will be there for you in the second round are pretty high (70-80 percent).

None of this is going to be exact. It requires you to make estimations, but those estimations will only help you to make better decisions with each of your picks. Before the draft, try to assign values for each player you might consider in the first two or three rounds. Then use the formula I discussed earlier (V1 + (P*V2) + {(1-P)*V3}) to determine what your expected point value would be in each situation.

## Conclusions

All of this is just a way of maximizing your value per pick. Sure, Awesome's raw value is higher than Mediocre's, but Awesome's value in the second round (allowing you to get Mediocre, also) is significantly higher than it would be in the first.

This is a general policy, also, that you can apply to all guys that you consider "sleepers." Yes, you want to have them on your team. But you also don't want to take them so early that it depletes their value. Try to evaluate the player based on the probability that he will be available in the next round. Once it appears that the probability of him being available to you at your next pick is too low, then you can snatch that player up and maximize his value. It's not just about his projection, but also about how others view his projection. We want great players, always, but we want them at the lowest possible cost.

So unclench those fists, stop biting that pen (you don't know where that thing has been), and wipe the sweat from your brow. By using a little game theory, you'll show the bro-y coworker in the cubicle next to you who's the champ...footie pajamas and all.

## 19 My Love Affair with Small-School Running Backs Isn't Weird

_Data collected by_ Ian Hartitz

If you don't develop small (large) man-crushes on multiple NFL rookies every season, you just aren't living life. Is it creepy that I stay up late to watch highlight videos of 20-year olds playing a game, obsess over their arms lengths, get seriously disappointed if they don't jump as high in the air as I'd like, then tweet at them to let them know we're still friends? I don't know, but I won 50 percent of my fantasy football leagues last year, so you tell me.*

The type of player who is very quickly moving up my list of man-crushes—it's a physical list I keep under my pillow—is the late-round, small-school running back. I've already published some data on why I like both late-round and small-school running backs, with the reasoning being the same. Basically, because running backs are so dependent on their teammates for production, they're really difficult to project.

NFL teams are horrific at identifying running back talent, as evidenced by the fact that mid and late-round rookies have had greater efficiency than first and second-rounders since 2000. That's sad.

There are certain traits that I like in running backs—straight-line speed is a big one, as is the ability to catch passes—but I also want to pay as little as possible at a position with basically random results, hence buying into mid/late-round players. Many times, those guys are from non-BCS schools since scouts don't trust their ability and would prefer to draft Trent Richardson and Mark Ingram in the first round over and over.

We know that non-BCS running backs are better than big-school running backs in their rookie seasons, but what about after that? I charted their production during the first five years of their NFL careers.

We're looking at the percentage of all running back seasons in both buckets—BCS and non-BCS—to end with at least eight touchdowns or 1,000 yards. Overall, non-BCS backs have been slightly more likely to rush for eight touchdowns in a season. Again, any time a small-school player can stay even with their big-school counterparts, that's a great thing since they also cost less. We can replace expensive production at a cheaper price, which is 90 percent of what fantasy football is about.

The ability of non-BCS running backs to generate 1,000-yard seasons is even more impressive. They've been nearly 50 percent more likely than big-school running backs to rush for 1,000 yards in a year during their first five NFL seasons.

For more evidence of non-BCS running back dominance, check out the percentage of 200-carry seasons to end with at least 4.5 yards-per-carry.

This is really the final nail in the coffin for BCS running backs. Relative to their cost, they get outplayed by non-BCS backs in every way. The results are so dramatic that this is one of the times when a very broad rule of thumb—draft small-school running backs whenever possible—has a lot of value. Simply put, they're undervalued and the ones who get drafted are better than the BCS backs.

We don't want to blindly draft any small-school running back, obviously. I'm not drafting a back who runs 4.65 no matter where he went to school, for example. But there are plenty of non-BCS rookie options late in the draft, and the majority of them usually have elite measurables; in all likelihood, that's why they're even being considered by NFL teams.

*Yes, it's more than a little creepy.

## 20 How does a rookie's age affect his fantasy production?

I've done a lot of research on NFL rookies because, with so many unknowns coming into the league, I think they typically represent a good opportunity to exploit a marketplace inefficiency. That doesn't mean always being bullish on first-year players; in general, I think rookie runners and mobile quarterbacks are undervalued, while pass-catchers typically get over-drafted.

There are lots of factors other than position that go into projecting each rookie; his draft slot is incredibly important, as is size, speed, offensive system, anticipated workload, and so on. But what about age? I've completed a lot of work on fantasy production by age, but that analysis hasn't separated rookies from the rest of the pack. How does a 24-year old _rookie_ quarterback compare to a 21-year old?

Basically, what I'm doing here is trying to isolate age from NFL experience. We know 23-year old wide receivers perform better than 21-year olds, for example, but is it because of the actual age difference or just because they're typically in the league longer? We should be able to determine that by analyzing _only rookies_ at different ages.

I researched the production of every rookie since 1995 to start at least 10 games. I included only true rookies, not players like Aaron Rodgers who sat on the bench for a few years before taking over as the starter. Here's what I found.

## Quarterbacks

If there's a position where you'd think NFL experience would matter most, it's quarterback. But age and maturity also seem to matter, regardless of experience in the league. First, take a look at how rookie quarterbacks have fared in terms of passing yards at ages 21 through 24.

Rookies ages 22 through 24 have produced at right around the same level in terms of bulk yards, while the youngest first-year quarterbacks—including Matthew Stafford and Josh Freeman—struggled more in their first seasons.

Age's effect on touchdown-to-interception ratio is even more pronounced.

That's pretty good evidence that older rookies outperform younger ones at the quarterback position. Presumably, their college experience and maturity helps them produce at a higher level right out of the gate in the NFL.

That doesn't necessarily mean that NFL teams (or keeper/dynasty fantasy football owners) should emphasize age for rookie quarterbacks because the long-term numbers could be much different. But if you're a typical season-long fantasy owner in a redraft league, age should be a huge factor in your rookie quarterback rankings.

The average 24-year old rookie to start 10 games has thrown nearly 14 touchdowns to 11 picks; that ratio is closer to 11 touchdowns to 19 interceptions for 21-year olds. In terms of passing yards, touchdowns, and interceptions alone, the typical 24-year old rookie passer can be expected to score 46 more fantasy points than a 21-year old.

## Running Backs

Since I've shown that running backs record their highest fantasy points per touch basically from the moment they enter the league, it's not surprising that rookies who start 10-plus games—and thus receive a heavy workload—produce best as at young ages.

Unlike quarterbacks, NFL experience probably doesn't matter all that much for running backs in terms of fantasy production. You'd probably find that 32 out of 32 NFL head coaches disagree about the importance of experience for running backs because they need them to do things like learn pass protection schemes. That's important for all of you who are in fantasy leagues that award points for effective blitz pickup. For the rest of us, we can go ahead and just worry about catches, yards, and touchdowns.

To display just how much superior young rookie running backs are to older rookies, I collected a shitload of data on a couple hundred of them. Take a look. First, rushing yards...

Yards-per-carry...

Rushing touchdowns...

Receiving yards...

Yards-per-catch...

Receiving touchdowns...

Um, think there's something there? Twenty-one year-old rookie running backs have posted the best numbers in every meaningful statistical category, sometimes by a wide margin. The average 21-year old rookie back has rushed for nearly 4.5 YPC, while no other age group has checked in above 4.25 YPC.

There are probably some other factors working here that I'll discuss in a bit, but you'd think that at least part of the explanation for these numbers is that running backs are an anti-wine, getting worse with age.

## Wide Receivers

We know that wide receivers take time to develop in the NFL; we typically see a huge jump in fantasy production for wide receivers in their second and third years in the league. But how much of that improvement is due to experience in the league and how much is just because the players are getting older and maturing? Again, to solve that puzzle, we can look at rookie production by age.

Very interestingly, young rookie wide receivers have outplayed older ones. The typical 21-year old rookie receiver—a group that includes Randy Moss and Larry Fitzgerald—has posted over 23 percent more receiving yards than the average 24-year old rookie.

We see the same effect with touchdowns...

...and receptions...

For all three stats, the difference between the 21-year old group and the 24-year olds is an improvement of between 17 and 29 percent. Thus, the typical 21-year old rookie wide receiver is probably going to give you somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 percent more fantasy points than rookies who are three years older.

Before I interpret this data further, let's take a look at the tight ends.

## Tight Ends

Tight ends frequently produce efficiency metrics that resemble those of big wide receivers—a relatively low yards-per-reception and a very high red zone touchdown rate. Thus, we often see tight end fantasy numbers resemble those for wide receivers. That's true for rookies.

There's a jump in production for 24-year old rookie tight ends—a group that includes John Carlson and Dustin Keller—but we still see 21-year old rookie pass-catchers putting up the most yards.

The same goes for touchdowns, but not receptions.

I'm not entirely sure why there's a deviation between the numbers for 24-year old rookie wide receivers and first-year tight ends of the same age, but there's still a general downward trend at the tight end position. Twenty-one year-old rookie tight ends post more yards and touchdowns than rookies of any other age, and the second-best number of receptions.

## Why Young Rookies Excel

The youngest rookies thrive at every position other than quarterback, probably since maturity and experience—in college or the NFL—matter a lot for passers. But why the steep drops for older rookies at the other positions?

When combined with the data on fantasy production by age (for all players, not just rookies), the numbers in this study seem to suggest that experience doesn't matter much for running backs, but it does for pass-catchers. Running backs record their best efficiency from a young age, and they seem to maintain that success regardless of their NFL experience. Thus, age really does seem to matter for backs.

I thought the same was true of pass-catchers—I believed 24-year olds were naturally better than 21-year olds because of physical maturity—but now I'm not sure that's the case. It seems like 24-year old receivers (of any NFL experience level) normally have better numbers than 21-year olds, for example, because they're in the NFL for a longer time, _not_ because of the age itself.

If young wide receivers improved _because_ of age, we'd expect that older rookies would outperform younger ones. We don't see that, though, suggesting pass-catchers, like running backs, are naturally near their peak (in terms of physical ability) at a young age. The pass-catchers become more efficient in the NFL with experience, though, while running backs don't.

When you think about the nature of the positions, too, this idea makes sense. Quarterbacks obviously need time to learn the playbook and figure out how to decipher defenses far more complex than those in college. Pass-catchers need time to learn little nuances of route-running and to develop chemistry with their quarterback. Wide receiver and tight end play is less about pure athleticism—especially in today's NFL with size trumping speed at those positions—and more about playing intelligently, sitting down in zones, figuring out how to get a clean release off of the line, and so on.

Meanwhile, I've shown that running back production is dependent on offensive line play and pure explosiveness. Pass protection might improve with more NFL experience, but the same doesn't appear to be true for a running back's stats.

Finally, I want to mention that I think part of the effect is due to younger rookies perhaps being superior players in general. When a young college player declares himself eligible for the NFL draft, there's a good chance that he believes his draft stock is at or near its peak. Thus, we might expect 20 and 21-year old rookies to just be better players than older rookies who enter the draft only because they don't have any more seasons of college eligibility.

## Rookies Better Prepared Than Ever

NFL rookies at all positions are better prepared than ever. It wasn't long ago that rookie quarterbacks almost never provided worthwhile fantasy stats, which is no longer the case.

However, we need to differentiate between rookie production and long-term fantasy output. Namely, we really don't need to worry about long-term trends in standard redraft fantasy leagues; it's suitable to take a 24-year old rookie quarterback over a 21-year old, all other things equal.

In dynasty and keeper leagues, however, we obviously need to care more about a player's career outlook. Just because 21-year old quarterbacks don't produce quality numbers early in their NFL careers doesn't mean they're worse options than older passers.

Actually, NFL teams and fantasy owners alike both underrate the importance of age coming out of college. Both organizations and fantasy owners often treat all rookies the same when we know that age matters a whole heck of a lot. When a 20-year old receiver dominates in the college ranks, for example, it's far more indicative of future NFL success than when a 23-year old does the same.

Ultimately, the bottom line is that we should generally be seeking youth in rookies whenever possible, forgoing it only for first-year quarterbacks in redraft leagues.

## 21 Which types of wide receivers are the most predictable?

Contributed by Jim Sannes

Generally, when I divulge to others my adoration of the Twilight movies, they just don't understand. All y'all haters try to stop me from crushing on my girl, Bella, just because you don't see what I see. What I see is a love story for the ages surrounded by mind-numbingly awful line delivery and horrendous special effects. What more could you ask for?

When my three male roommates and I watch those movies together (that's not weird, I promise), we know what we're going to get. This is what I look for in fantasy football, too. I am largely averse to surprises because, more often than not, those surprises are not of the positive variety in the world of fake sports.

Wide receivers seem to be more analogous to rom-coms than Twilight. With these flicks, you never really know what you're going to get. One time, you may luck out and end up with Jerry Maguire (yes, I'm counting this as a rom-com. Shush). But, the next time, you could easily end up suffering through hour five of The Notebook without a way to get out. Outside of a few players, there's a high degree of unpredictability that's hard to account for.

But what if there's a way to reduce that unpredictability? What if we can know going in if a player is more likely to replicate his production from the previous year? Well, amigos, let's give this a shot. Let's see if a player's height can help illustrate his year-to-year production predictability.

## WR Height and Predictability

In order to check this out, we'll look at the top 100 players in receiving yards from 1990 to 2013. Then, we'll separate those receivers into three separate groups: players 6'2" and taller, players who are either 6'0" or 6'1", and those players shorter than 6'0". To make things simpler, I'll be referring to these guys as "tall," "medium," and "short."

In order to see which height group has had the highest variability, I calculated the percent change in their fantasy points scored from one year to another for every year of each player's career, starting at age 23 and ending at age 33 (all applicable seasons). So, if a player had 100 fantasy points in their age-24 season and 120 points in their age-25 season, for the range of 24-25, they would receive a value of 20 percent.

In order to measure strictly the amount of variability, I converted all values to positive numbers. Otherwise, negative numbers would bring down the average percent change, granting an advantage to the group in which players had more negative seasons.

Finally, I just took the straight average of those values. This is a large enough sample to be statistically significant because you are getting somewhere north of 25 data points for each year range. After 10 separate year ranges, you have yourself a bunch of separate data points. Ready to bust this puppy out? LEGGO!

We'll start off with the medium players because I thought they'd provide some sort of middle ground between the two extremes. Not up in dis bidness, brudduh. In fact, they were the _least_ predictable of the three groups.

The players who were either 6'0" or 6'1" had an average year-to-year fantasy output change of 79.4 percent. Obviously, this number is going to be inflated due to the nature of the metric. If a player goes from 50 fantasy points to 150 the next year, that's a 200-percent increase. Either way, for some reason, the players in this middle group had a higher degree of unpredictability and variability than the other two based on the average.

For the short players, the average percentage change from year to year was 72.3. This isn't as high as the middle group, but it's still pretty freaking close. So basically, wide receivers 6'1" or shorter are probably going to provide around the same level of consistency (or lack of it).

Meanwhile, the tall players provided the most consistency by this metric with an average percentage change of just 58.9 percent. Here's a look at the results.

## A Different Approach

It seems pretty obvious from looking at these numbers that some of the super high totals are making these averages inflate pretty drastically. So, let's change it up and look at the median instead of the mean. Median is basically porn for stats nerds.

After doing this, it's actually the medium-height guys who have the lowest percent change. The median of each season for the players 6'0" and 6'1" was 28.1 percent, which is much, much more reasonable. Praise the pornographic statistical deities. Using this, we can see that while the middle players may have seasons with more drastic changes than the others, they are, in actuality, more consistent than the other two groups.

As you'd probably expect, the tall group has the second-smallest median. This group finished not too far behind the medium players with a median of 31.8 percent. Because they have the smallest average, it seems fair to say that the tall players are also incredibly consistent. They don't have the super large spikes of the other two groups, and they showed consistency in keeping their median low. Not too shabby.

Then we come to the short players. Not only do these guys have a super high average, but their median is also the highest of the three groups at 36.6. I got yo rom coms right here, home slice. One year, the players shorter than 6'0" will be The Lake House (that movie gets me every time), next year they're Fever Pitch. No idiot would consider selling tickets to Game 4 of the ALCS, no matter what girl he's trying to impress. This is why the Red Sox went 86 years between championships, you hack job.

## Breaking Down the Results

A big part of this year-to-year consistency for the medium and tall players is that they are legitimate threats in the red zone. If you are reliant upon a player who made his living off of 60-yard touchdowns the year before, you are flirting with a poop storm of sadness. The correlation between the number of touchdown receptions from one year to the next for guys who feast off the long ball is far weaker than guys that make bank in the red zone. Don't fall victim to their temptress ways. Even though touchdowns are relatively low-frequency events, the same types of wide receivers continually find themselves in the end zone.

Of course, there will always be exceptions to the big-receiver approach. Guys like Wes Welker who have a stupid number of receptions every year will have lower variance than the other shorter players. Over an 11-year period, Derrick Mason only had fewer than 120 fantasy points once. But such players are the exceptions, and their consistency isn't something you should expect out of players shorter than 6'0".

Actually, if you start to look at individual consistency rates, you see that the shorter players who have been predictable from year to year have also had short average targets—mostly slot guys. There's a major difference between a player like Welker and one like DeSean Jackson who relies on the big play.

If we're translating this into actionable fantasy advice, it's to seek one of two traits if you're looking for stability at wide receiver: short, safe targets (in volume) or touchdown-scoring ability. A small wide receiver is more tolerable if he's going to give you some consistency with both the number and safety of his targets. When a small receiver is big-play-dependent and doesn't regularly score touchdowns, that's a big no-no if you're looking for a high-floor player.

So, if you're like me, and you want to know what to expect, don't go small with your wide receivers in your next draft, except in rare instances. For the most part, stick to the Twilights – the dependable, amusing, CGI-baby-using performers – so you don't end up 27 Dresses creek without a paddle.

## 22 Do teams score more points when they play in domes?

Contributed by Jon Moore

Growing up in Ohio, I have always associated football with autumn, cool weather, and inclement conditions. To that point, I have always assumed that playing in tough conditions tends to favor a defense and makes it harder to score points. Conversely, I have always assumed that playing in more favorable conditions—say, a dome—would make it easier for the offensive unit, leading to more points.

Obviously this idea has fantasy football implications because if there is some correlation between indoor games and scoring, then we can use that insight to make better lineup-setting decisions. That said, I have no idea if there is any truth to the dome-games-have-more-scoring theory, which is why I am putting it to the test today.

In developing this experiment, I started out by asking the question "When teams that don't play in domes play away games in domes, do they score more points?" So, for the purposes of this exercise, we're eliminating all games for all teams who play their home games in domes. Teams that play their home games in retractable-roof stadiums were included in this study. I gathered data from games played between 2009 and 2013 and calculated scoring averages for the visiting teams in "dome games" and "all other games". Remember, my hypothesis is that teams score more points than usual when they visit domes.

## The Results on Domes

Between 2009 and 2013, non-dome teams played 178 away games in domes. Over that span, the league average for points scored by the visiting team was 23.1. By contrast, those same teams played 1,486 games in non-domed stadiums and scored 22.1 points per game. The average increase in scoring was 4.3 percent. Those overall results support the notion that teams visiting domed arenas benefit from the pristine conditions.

### By Division

Drilling a little deeper, we can see that some divisions enjoy the climate-controlled environment more than others.

First and foremost, it's important to note that the NFC played a lot more road games in domes. That is because the NFC has seven dome teams (Dallas, Minnesota, Detroit, New Orleans, Atlanta, Arizona, St. Louis) and the AFC has zero. That might explain the fact that the NFC doesn't really have any divisions with a huge fluctuation between non-dome scoring and dome scoring.

By comparison, the AFC has two divisions that experience massive changes as a result of going from outdoors to the dome. Astonishingly, the AFC North scores 6.5 more points per game when they play away games in domes. Intuitively, it makes sense that the division with some of the nastiest and coldest weather would benefit from playing in perfect conditions.

I can think of three reasons why this might be the case. On one hand, there's probably something to be said for having an improved ability to complete passes and run crisp routes. On the other hand, maybe when offensive coordinators feel more confident about the conditions, they put more trust in their quarterbacks to throw it downfield and create big plays. The last possibility is that the AFC North is known for playing a tough brand of defense, so simply getting away from their division helps them see a natural boost in scoring.

As for the AFC South's big jump, I'm more confused by that. Maybe the situation is similar to the AFC North with the dicey weather, but in my experience living in Tennessee, I'm reluctant to say that's the case. Maybe it's just random variance that led to the 3.5 points-per-game boost. I'm not sure if I have a good answer.

### By Team

Things get much more interesting when we break it down by team. We can see that all but five teams see an increase in scoring when they visit domes, which is really the money stat here—really solid evidence that traveling to a dome helps an offense.

For teams that played more than 10 away games in domes, the range of fluctuation is clustered between a nine-percent decrease and a nine-percent increase, indicating that as the sample increases, teams stay close to their average.

In summary, I think that paying attention to the dome transition can be significant for making roster decisions in daily or redraft leagues. The overall trend is that teams visiting domes are likely to see an increase in scoring, assuming they don't already play in a dome. It might not be a huge difference, but there seems to be a clear trend. By applying this knowledge, you can make better choices when setting your rosters, even if only as a tiebreaker.

## 23 A Low-Variance Approach to Fantasy Football

Growing up as a wee little lass on the barren fields of Minnesota, I didn't have much more to do than watch NASCAR. Yes, it's a sport, you bullies.

Even though he wasn't my favorite driver, I always found myself rooting for Matt Kenseth. There was something about Kenseth that made him an alluring option. First of all, he was from Wisconsin, which meant boatloads of cheese, and I had a strange affinity for life-crippling constipation. Second, Kenseth was stupidly consistent (the antithesis of my bowel movements).

In 2003, Kenseth won the Winston Cup Championship by 90 points despite winning only one of the season's 36 races. The series had to change the format of the championship because Kenseth was perceived as "boring." If Kenseth is boring, then I'm a fifth-grade math class because I slurp that strategy up in fantasy football.

The reason Kenseth was able to win was he consistently finished in the top 10, even if he didn't win a lot of races. He was rarely the best that week, but he was always near the top. That's exactly the type of player you should look for in your fantasy drafts.

One of the most frustrating things about football is that we're dealing with such small sample sizes. A player that has a few good games can look like an absolute stud because there aren't enough results for his performance to normalize. This can lead to an overvaluation of dudes that had some flashy games and an undervaluation of the Matt Kenseth's of the NFL world.

Let's look at 2013 for an example of this. In that season, based on standard scoring, Andy Dalton finished the year fifth in total quarterback fantasy points with 277. Philip Rivers checked in right behind him with 276. So, logically, Dalton would be the more solid pick heading into the following season, right?

In his 16 games, Dalton had four games where he failed to reach the 10-point plateau and three where he scored at least 30 points. That gave him a standard deviation of 8.8 fantasy points. Rivers, on the other hand, had only one game with fewer than 10 fantasy points. He scored either 18 or 19 points four times on the year. That's some consistency, homie. Rivers had a standard deviation of 6.2.

Why does this matter? Points are points, right? Well, not really in this case. In most fantasy football leagues, the majority of the cash is dispersed based on who wins the championship. That means your entire life savings (which for some of us is about $50) may be on the line based on how your quarterback performs in just one week. I'd be shaking in my skivvies if I had Dalton instead of Rivers.

If we assume that the scores these guys put up each week are normally distributed around the mean, we can get an estimated range of their score in a given week. Based on Dalton's 17.3 point-per-game average and 8.8 standard deviation, there is greater than a 20 percent chance that he will give you the middle finger, take a dump at midfield, and score 10 points or fewer in that week. That's a lot of risk.

Rivers, on the other hand, with his 17.3 mean and 6.2 standard deviation, would have only a 12 percent chance of scoring 10 points or less. That may not seem like a big difference, but it really is, especially in a championship weekend.

Of course, it works both ways. Even though the odds that Dalton has an awful game are much higher, so are the odds that he murks the defense and posts 30 points. It's very possible that you enjoy this possibility that a guy will go bonkers for you. This would be the Kyle Busch model of fantasy football; it's either checkers or wreckers, three touchdowns or three interceptions. I'll take my Kenseth, thank you very much.

This strategy applies to more than just quarterbacks. Let's go back to that same 2013 season and look to Brandon Marshall and Antonio Brown. Their point totals of 198 and 197, respectively, would make you think that they'd both be of relatively equal value heading into the next season. And Brown even had 204 more receiving yards than Marshall, so he should have more value the next year, right? Not necessarily.

If we look at the standard deviations of their week-to-week scores, Brown finished at 7.7 compared to Marshall at 6.1. A big reason for this variability for Brown was that he feasted off of long touchdowns. The average distance on his eight touchdown receptions was 32.3 yards. For Marshall, the average length on his 12 touchdown receptions was 12.8 yards. In addition, seven of Marshall's touchdowns were of 10 yards or less, compared to _zero_ for Brown. Which one do you think is the more dependable fantasy option?

Another big advantage of using a player's week-to-week standard deviation is that it can show you which guys were potentially the beneficiaries of a little luck and which ones were true rock stars. If a guy has a jacked up standard deviation, it's possible that he just had a few good games (a.k.a. outliers). Some people may call this "flashes of brilliance," but it's actually closer to "flashes of deception."

You can really apply this strategy to all positions, but you also have to be cautious with it. An investigation of Fred Jackson and Reggie Bush (who scored 175 and 174 points, respectively, in 2013) will show that Jackson had a 5.7 standard deviation to Bush's 7.3. However, Bush played in only 14 games, while Jackson appeared in all 16. This means that Bush's standard deviation could be inflated because he had a smaller sample and a higher average. Always be sure to ask yourself why there may be a discrepancy in the numbers before blindly accepting what this tells you.

The big problem with this method is that you really can't apply it to all players. What I mean by that is that you can't compare the standard deviation of a guy who scores 220 points with that of a guy who scores 150. As your point total increases, so will your standard deviation. This is a strategy that you should use to compare players with similar overall outputs the previous year. It doesn't need to be as close as the Dalton and Rivers comparison, but at least within the same ballpark.

I also want to note that although you should generally be seeking consistency on a week-to-week basis, there are times to seek volatility, too. Specifically, any time you consider yourself an underdog—particularly a big underdog—you should take a high-variance approach to roster construction.

If you head into the championship game with multiple injuries, for example, there's a good chance that your median projection will be worse than that for your opponent—necessarily another good team. Instead of guaranteeing a certain floor that's going to lose anyway, it makes sense to take chances, siding with the high-variance options who could tank, but who could also go off to give you the upside you need.

This strategy does require a bit of extra work before the season (or from week to week), but it can be worth it. You don't want to be the person that ends up dominating the regular season only to bomb in the playoffs because Dalton went all vengeful-ex-girlfriend on your behind. Would Matt Kenseth do such a thing to you? Not a chance, brudduh. That man is the truth when you're looking for a model for fantasy football supremacy.

## 24 Can quarterbacks from terrible teams provide above-average returns?

Contributed by Jon Moore

One of the hardest mental adjustments to make when playing fantasy football is to realize that, sometimes, real football doesn't matter; all you're trying to do is maximize your team's point total. This can be observed in a number of instances, like when a mediocre quarterback pads his fantasy stats with rushing yards, or when a lumbering tight end gets playing time in the red zone and steals touchdowns away from the every-down receivers. To this question of fantasy versus reality, I often wonder if players on really bad teams represent a value when it comes to fantasy football. After all, many people assume that the team is bad because the players are bad, but being "bad" might not matter if the player scores points. Let's investigate.

## Establishing the Criteria

Despite the NFL's best efforts to promote parity in the league, sometimes we know going into a season that a team will have a rough year. To assign a numerical value to this expected futility, I have called upon Vegas's historical preseason odds to win the Super Bowl. In terms of judging the strength of a team before the season, there's not going to be any better proxy for talent than the Vegas lines...not even the opinions of ESPN experts, not matter how loud they yell them.

The theory we're testing here is that quarterbacks on bad teams might actually represent good value because they will play many games from behind, which means more passes and hopefully more passing yards and touchdowns, yet they'll get drafted too low because their teams suck.

From 2007 to 2013, 38 teams had preseason Super Bowl odds of worse than 100-to-1, meaning that Vegas expected them to trail in a lot of games. In most instances, these are teams that selected very early in the previous year's draft and/or play in tough divisions. From these 38 situations, we want to see how quarterback average draft position (ADP) compares to fantasy points per game (PPG).

## Evaluating the Price

The price to acquire the quarterback of one of these terrible teams was very low: about the 167th pick in the draft, or the 14th round of a traditional 12-team league. Put another way, the quarterbacks were typically around the 26th quarterback drafted in their leagues, on average (if drafted at all). It costs almost nothing to get one of these guys on your team.

How did the 38 bad-team quarterbacks perform?

  * 11% posted a QB1 season, ranking in the top 12 in PPG

  * 40% posted at least a QB2 season, ranking in the top 24 in PPG

  * 60% didn't finish in the top 24 in PPG

## Where can you make a profit?

Of the 15 passers who posted a QB1 or QB2 season, 11 of them were top-40 selections in the NFL Draft who were age 25 or younger in the season in question. In other words, these were players who were drafted with high expectations of contributing, but for one reason or another the sentiment about the player changed.

Of those 11 quarterbacks, about half were rookies with guaranteed starting jobs and the rest were second or third-year passers getting their first extended chance to start, perhaps on the heels of early-career struggles. It's understandable that many fantasy football players have a preference for established signal-callers, but it also seems like maybe that preference is maintained to a fault.

One possible reason why some prefer veteran quarterbacks is because the range of outcomes is clearer, whereas young players can often go boom or bust. Of the 15 passers who finished 30th or worse, six were top-40 picks playing in their age-25 or younger season. So, while the upside of young signal-callers can sometimes lead you to a low-cost QB1 or QB2, there's also a high chance that the young, upside player turns out to be worthless.

## Go Big or Go Home

We have established that quarterbacks on really bad teams can be had for cheap. Furthermore, we know that there's a 40 percent chance that one of these cheap quarterbacks posts QB1 or QB2 numbers on a per-game basis. Finally, we can see that the quarterbacks who outperform their draft value are guys who are early selections (in the real NFL draft) who are also 25 years old or younger.

Granted, there's a chance that this young, unproven commodity fails, but I think that's okay and here's why. One of the core tenants of fantasy football success is acquiring high-floor guys early and high-upside guys late. If you're going to wait on your QB2, why shy away from a player who might be a QB1 (or might also be cut from your roster in a month)? Because of the significantly low price tag, you could make a big profit if the passer succeeds while suffering a minimal loss if he fails. I think it pays big dividends to target high-variance players late in drafts.

## A Note from Bales

One of the reasons that I'm one of the few analysts back on the early-QB bandwagon is because of stats like these. Jon showed that late-round quarterbacks on poor teams tend to finish in the top 24, or outperform their ADP, around 40 percent of the time.

That's not a high rate. Here's a look at how often players drafted in the top 75 have outperformed their ADP over the past five seasons.

We're already above 40 percent by picks 46 through 60—around the fifth and sixth rounds. I looked up historic success of all late-round quarterbacks—not just those on poor teams—and it's barely a coin flip.

That suggests that investing in a late-round quarterback as an upside play just isn't that smart. There's so much consistency at the quarterback position that it's rare to see an unheralded player come out of nowhere and perform up there with the Drew Brees, Tony Romo, and Cam Newton-esque players.

The fact that only 11 percent of late-round, shitty-team quarterbacks have turned into QB1s is pretty surprising. I think Jon is 100 percent right that if you're going to take a chance on a late-round quarterback, he should be a young gun—either a rookie or a second/third-rounder who has underachieved. But burning a shot at upside on a quarterback just isn't a winning proposition overall.

Along with a bunch of other reasons—including the fact that I'm concerned less with value (how it's currently defined in terms of projected points, anyway) and more with pure safety/upside—this is one of the factors in me leading the resurgence of the early-quarterback draft strategy.

## Postface

So that's it. If you enjoyed _Lessons from RotoAcademy (Volume 2.0)_ , enroll in RotoAcademy for new content each month, and check out the rest of the  Fantasy Football for Smart People book series on  Amazon or FantasyFootballDrafting.com. At the latter site, I also have draft packages and an in-season guide.

As for RotoAcademy, the best value is to enroll now. You'll get book-length PDFs with written and video content every month, delivered right to your email. Whatever rate you get will be locked in forever (so you'll keep paying the same amount even after the "tuition" increases for new students in the future).

Don't forget that I'm giving away some freebies, too. The first is 10 percent off anything you purchase on my site—all books, all rankings, all draft packages, and even past issues of RotoAcademy. Just go to FantasyFootballDrafting.com and use the code "Smart10" at checkout to get the savings.

The second freebie is an entire issue of RotoAcademy. Go to  FantasyFootballDrafting.com for your free issue (RotoAcademy Issue II), add the item to your cart, and enter "RA100" at checkout to get it free of charge.

And lastly, I've partnered with DraftKings to give you a 100 percent deposit bonus when you sign up there to play daily fantasy football. Deposit through one of my links (or use <https://www.draftkings.com/r/Bales>) to get the bonus, use the "Smart10" code to buy my in-season package at FantasyFootballDrafting.com (complete with DraftKings values all year long), and start cashing in on your hobby.

A whole lot of readers profited last year, with one who purchased my in-season package cashing $25,000 in _multiple_ leagues. This is such an awesome investment opportunity right now, and there's no reason you can't be making money from all the time you put into playing fantasy football.

Thanks so much for your continued interest in the  Fantasy Football for Smart People series. It's been a joy to write this stuff, especially if it helps you win a league or two this year.

$ FBGM $

## **Samples from Newest** _Fantasy Football for Smart People_ **Books**

Got ya...this thing ain't really finished just yet. As I mentioned, I published a number of new books in the  Fantasy Football for Smart People series this year. The following two passages are from _Fantasy Football for Smart People: How Fantasy Football Pros Game Plan to Win_ and _Fantasy Football for Smart People: 25 Mysteries Solved to Help You Draft a Better Team_ , respectively.

And then that's it (for real).

## 13 The Most Important FF Analysis You'll Read All Year: Value-Based Drafting, Fragility, Scarcity, and Beautiful Women

HA, I got ya with the title! Come for the beautiful women, stay for the philosophical discussion of fragility as an essential weakness of value-based drafting. So, as promised...

That's Minka Kelly—perhaps the most underrated gal in the game. She's an actress, although I've never actually seen proof of that. Everyone pretty much knows her as Derek Jeter's ex-girlfriend.

Quick aside: ESPN recently created Jeter's "Dating Diamond."

Minka is listed as THE CATCHER. Insane. Imagine dating so many gorgeous women that Minka Kelly is your catcher. Catchers are legit the ugliest people in sports. No offense to any catchers out there. Obvious exception is  Dutch.

At this point, you're probably saying to yourself "But Jon, what about your Dating Diamond?" I got it covered.

Jeter has Minka behind the plate. I have wide receiver red zone efficiency. You tell me who wins.

I put Thai deliver food at short because, when you order it three times a week, your veins basically begin to bleed curry. Netflix in center, covering a lot of ground for me in night games, especially, and Guitar Hero in left. In all honesty, I got Guitar Hero as a gift and I've played it once, but I had trouble filling out a lineup since I wanted to start some sort of fantasy football stat in each spot. All of them combined are manning second base for me. And then of course my actual girlfriend on the mound because she clearly has to be on the team, but do we really want her around more than once every five games? (Kidding Jess).

Finally, I have to admit that I made a big mistake putting Easy-Mac in right field. Absolute noodle arm, which is a huge problem. But I'm not gonna go back and change it now since 1) this is ridiculously stupid and 2) pieces of macaroni can't play baseball anyway.

## Actual Fantasy Football Analysis

Okay, now let's get away from all those icky girls and dive into the always-entertaining value-based drafting (VBD). A quick refresher: value-based drafting is a pretty simple concept that aims to assign a value to each player in accordance with how many points he will (or has) scored over a replacement player.

There are all different ways to define 'replacement player,' of course, and admittedly they are necessarily at least semi-arbitrary. However, I've found that it's mathematically practical to make the replacement player for each position equal to the number of teams in your league multiplied by the number of starters. In a 12-team league with two starting running backs, for example, the replacement player would be the No. 24-ranked running back.

An example: assume you have LeSean McCoy projected at 350 points. To determine his VBD, you'd subtract the points scored from the No. 24-ranked running back. If that's, say, 200 points, McCoy's VBD would be 150.

## Pros and Cons of VBD

VBD is designed to account for position scarcity. The scarcer a player is in relation to others at his position, the more value he has. In that way, VBD does a good job of accounting for a player's value over a replacement.

In addition to being somewhat arbitrary, though, VBD is also a fragile system if we're using it to project players in the future. If I change the projection for a player by just a few points, his VBD—and thus his spot on my board—could shift dramatically.

Further, changing the value of the replacement player can really affect value as well. If I make the seemingly innocuous decision to use the No. 18-ranked quarterback as my replacement instead of No. 12, that will have a profound impact on how I value quarterbacks relative to other positions.

For that reason, I think VBD has less value as a predictive tool and more value as an explanatory one. By that, I mean that I don't necessarily think we should be using VBD to project players, but rather to study how they've performed in the past. How does position scarcity, represented by VBD, fluctuate from year to year, for example?

## Historical VBD

With the help of Mark Berenbaum of numerFire, I charted VBD and average draft position (ADP) over a five-year period (2009 to 2013).

Why a five-season timeframe? Well, I think that for the most part, fantasy owners draft players and positions based on how they performed in the prior year. After the 2011 quarterback explosion, owners went a little crazy on passers in 2012 fantasy drafts.

That probably wouldn't have happened had they looked at five-year trends. It's not that the previous season doesn't matter, but just that multi-season data in a sport with a season as short as that in the NFL is going to be more useful and accurate than that from a single year, even if it's the most recent one.

So with that in mind, I broke up historic VBD based on draft slot.

I categorized players into five different categories, which translate to the first round, second round, third and fourth rounds, fifth through eighth rounds, and the ninth round and onward. I did this because those are natural "buckets" where you'll find different sorts of players—the elite in round one, the second-tier in round two, the good-but-not-great in rounds three and four, the mediocre starters in the middle rounds, and bench players late.

What you should be looking at here isn't just the VBD, but also the respective drops in VBD for each position. If you take a look at the quarterback line, for example, you see that there's been almost no drop in production from the first to the second round; if you drafted a first-round quarterback over the past five seasons, you could have found the same production, on average, 12 picks later.

## Opportunity Cost

I think understanding opportunity cost is really vital for all fantasy owners. It's normal to think of draft picks in terms of what they can give you. The best players, however, view selections in terms of what they have to give up—which is the opportunity to draft another player at another position. You might be able to maximize short-term value by focusing on what you get, but by emphasizing "losing" as little as possible with each pick, you'll maximize long-term value over the course of an entire draft.

This idea is evidence of why a "best player available" draft strategy—whether it's in the NFL draft or your fantasy draft—is shortsighted. A BPA draft strategy necessarily overlooks future selections; it fails to account for opportunity cost, maximizing immediate returns while sacrificing later value.

Assume that the wide receiver position is absolutely loaded in the NFL draft, with five players projected with borderline first-round grades. Meanwhile, offensive tackle is extremely weak, possessing just one borderline first-round grade.

Team X is picking in the first round and they have a slightly higher grade on an elite wide receiver than they do on their second-best option—an offensive tackle. A true BPA strategy propels them to take the wide receiver—a shortsighted move that ultimately results in lower long-term value. Yes, they might get the top player on their board, but there's also a really good chance that they'll miss out on the lone borderline first-round offensive tackle in the second round. In that range, they would have almost assuredly been able to grab one of the wide receivers, however.

We can actually quantify this effect by assigning hypothetical grades to the players.

With just one offensive tackle in the "borderline" group, there's a really strong possibility that the team would need to select one from the "third tier" group if they draft the position in the second round. If they draft a wide receiver early, their likely two-round value would be 170—nine points less than if they go with an offensive tackle in the first round, despite him not being the best player on their board.

You'll need to make countless decisions like this in your fantasy drafts, too. The only way to maximize long-term value is to view each pick in terms of opportunity cost; in addition to what you get, what must you _relinquish_?

## Quantifying Opportunity Cost

To help cement this concept, I created a graph that displays the VBD of each position over what you can get if you wait until the next "bucket" of picks. I used the same pick groupings—round one, round two, rounds three and four, and rounds five through eight. The length of each bar is basically the value of each position in each area of the draft over the past five seasons.

In my view, this is going to be one of the more useful visualizations you'll find in my work because it represents a lot of data on _what has actually worked_ in fantasy football. I'm going to break things down by both round and position.

### Round 1

In the first round, owners have generated almost zero surplus VBD with quarterbacks. Another way to look at that is that second-round quarterbacks have been just as good as those in the first round. Remember the miniscule drop in first and second-round quarterback VBD from the previous line graph? The near non-existence of the QB bar graph for the first 12 picks represents that; first-round quarterbacks haven't worked out relative to those taken 12 picks later.

Meanwhile, both running backs and wide receivers taken in the first round have averaged over 20 more fantasy points than those in the second round. They've been of near-equal value. There's no tight end representation in the first round because none has had an ADP in the first 12 picks, although that will change in the near future.

### Round 2

Things shift in the second round. Tight end dominates the round with 40 points of surplus VBD. Put another way, tight ends drafted in the second round have averaged 40 more fantasy points than those drafted in rounds three and four. That's pretty sizeable, but it's also at least partially the result of a small sample; there were just three tight ends with a second-round ADP from 2009 to 2013.

Still, I definitely think there's value there when you're talking about the game's elite tight ends—currently Jimmy Graham above all others. The tight end position has undergone a huge shift in recent years, but there are still plenty of teams that utilize tight ends in traditional roles instead of as more of a big wide receiver, inflating the value of players like Graham. For that reason, I'm not opposed to an early-tight end draft strategy, despite how easy it can be to find production on the waiver wire.

While the value of wide receivers remains steady in the second round, notice how running backs plummet; below quarterbacks, second-round running backs have offered the least value out of any position. I think that's a perfect display of over-drafting; we've been conditioned to believe that we need running backs early in the draft, and while I still think you should strongly consider elite players at the position when you can grab them, no one in the second round is really considered elite. Those backs are generally of third or fourth-round quality, get artificially pushed up boards due to demand, and provide a crappy return. Don't fall for the trap.

### Round 3-4

In my opinion, the area of the draft around the third/fourth round is probably the most interesting. It's a range in which the players are no longer elite, owners have vastly different strategies, and there's a whole lot of room to beat out the competition. Because the middle rounds are so important, I think they should inform your decision in the first round. If you think you have a huge advantage in this area—or a specific player who will make your draft—you can go with a complementary piece in the first round. Most people don't think about their first-round pick as "complementary," but everyone knows those players are elite; there won't be too many surprises and much of the return you see from that pick will just be due to getting lucky. When the pond is stocked with fish, everyone is a good fisherman. As the fish population dwindles, the best fishermen rise to the top.

In this range, the value of quarterbacks has been absolutely incredible. Running backs have been the second-most valuable position; even so, those drafted in rounds three and four in the past five years have recorded VBD that's barely better than those in rounds five through eight.

What's interesting is that pass-catchers have been even worse; both wide receivers and tight ends drafted in the third and fourth round have been _worse_ than those in the next four rounds. While many owners like to start their draft RB-RB and then focus on wide receivers, the numbers suggest that might not be all that smart of a draft strategy.

Overall, these results are a little surprising because we've been taught to either draft a quarterback high or wait on one. Maybe the best idea is to do neither, taking one in the middle of the draft—a potentially elite passer without the high price tag of a true top-tier talent.

Further, these numbers suggest that perhaps the best time to draft any position is before there's a run on it. If you can get an elite running back, do it. Otherwise, don't reach after there's a run in the late-first/early-second. If you want a second-tier (or even elite) quarterback, go for it in the third or fourth. Don't wait until everyone is grabbing them to round out their starting lineups in the sixth/seventh/eighth.

In short, be a contrarian. In the fantasy football market, there's value in just doing the opposite of what others are doing.

### Rounds 5-8

In the true "middle" of fantasy drafts, running back value returns. That's probably because it's the range when almost all starters are gone and owners are scared to draft backups. But the value of a low-end starter or high-upside backup is much greater than a rookie who won't get playing time or a similar sort of player who will get drafted much later, so there's perhaps value in coming back to the running back well. Again, this is a contrarian strategy since most owners are looking at the three other main positions in rounds five through eight.

It's really important to note that quarterback value in this range is again reduced. Once you wait until the middle rounds to draft a quarterback, the numbers suggest you might as well go with a true late-round quarterback strategy. The value of a seventh-rounder over a pair of quarterbacks in the 11th and 12th, for example, is probably minimal. In my opinion, you should generally be looking for value in rounds three or four, otherwise waiting it out and stacking up on a few high-upside passers.

Now, let's take a look at the data by position.

### Quarterback

As mentioned, first-round quarterbacks have statistically performed no better than second-rounders as a whole. There were 19 total quarterbacks drafted in those two rounds since 2009, so while the sample isn't enormous, it's not just a few players in each.

Quarterback value jumps in the second round because that's typically the area where you're finding truly elite options, yet you could still get an elite running back to complement him. A second-round quarterback is particularly strong when you have an early first-round pick in a snake draft. If you have the top overall pick, for example, you can land the draft's top back, potentially the top quarterback in the second round, and then another high-end player to start the third. If you select at the opposite end of the draft, I think a second-round quarterback is less feasible because you're not getting a truly elite running back and you also won't get a choice in the early portion of the third round.

No matter where you draft, rounds three and four have historically been the best time to go with a quarterback. The value over a replacement in rounds five through eight is really large; you can acquire a truly consistent top-tier passer after already grabbing a high-end running back and receiver. Because of the value of quarterbacks in the third and fourth rounds and the drop-off after that area, I highly recommend either snagging a passer there or waiting to implement a late-round quarterback strategy; those passers in the middle rounds—five through eight—have historically been overvalued.

### Running Back

No position has been a better option in the first round than running back. However, looking at the data, it seems like it really comes down to your draft slot. There are typically five or so elite options each year, so if you can grab one of those, you almost need to do it.

Otherwise, it depends who falls to you. First-round wide receiver value is nearly as great as that for running backs—perhaps the Calvin Johnson effect—but owners are starting to realize that there's no reason to reach on a mediocre running back talent late in the first when you can have a top two or three receiver. You can still consider running back late in the first, of course, but you should feel no obligation to take one anymore.

Second-round backs have less scarcity than any other position in the round; by that, I mean the difference between a second-round running back and one you can get in the third or fourth round is pretty small—certainly less than the difference at the other positions. Owners stock up on really average talent in the second round. Don't fall for it; draft a running back in the second only if you feel he has top five potential. Because there are still elite wide receivers on the board across the round, it just doesn't make sense to reach at running back.

One of the problems that people have with bypassing a running back early is that they know they aren't going to get much after the third or fourth round. Even in that area, though, running backs have been overvalued. It might seem irresponsible to come out of the first four rounds with just one running back, but you have to trust that there's more value elsewhere due to irrational runs on mediocre backs.

You can see that idea manifested in the fifth through eighth rounds; there, owners focus on wide receivers, tight ends, and quarterbacks. Running back value "catches up" at that point, so it's a decent time to stockpile high-upside players—a rookie with a cloudy role in his offense, for example.

### Wide Receiver

It's been quite a few words since I added the "VBD Over Next Area" graph, so here's another look so you don't need to keep flipping back.

If we were to combine the first and second round (picks one through 24), no position would have more value than wide receiver. If you look back over the past half-decade, I think that makes sense; top-tier receivers like Calvin Johnson and Brandon Marshall have generally lived up to the hype. With the way the NFL is changing, I think that trend will continue.

Again, I wouldn't bypass an elite running back in the top of the first round, but I'd certainly look long and hard at wide receiver in the back half. Either way, it's going to be really difficult to come out of the first two rounds without a running back. Some owners are a proponent of a true zero-RB strategy—forgoing a running back throughout the entire first portion of the draft—but I think you need to grab at least one back you think you can count on. Leaving things up to chance with a bunch of high-upside picks later is a smart move if you need to hit on one; it's not as easy to hit on two of those players. Unless you start just one running back, one back in the first two rounds is nearly a necessity.

But, you could argue the same is true of wide receiver. Looking at their negative "VBD over replacement" from picks 25 to 48—meaning third and fourth-round receivers have returned less value than those in rounds five through eight—you really shouldn't count on drafting a receiver in the third or fourth round. Because of that, I'd argue starting your draft either RB-WR or WR-RB is probably optimal.

### Tight End

Again, we might have to take the tight ends numbers with a grain of salt because of "the Jimmy Graham effect." But I think the take-home point here is that, as it currently stands, you should either bite the bullet and take Graham (or another potentially elite tight end, if there is one) early in the draft (first or second round), or else wait for a while. It's kind of like quarterback in that way.

The tight ends drafted in the third and fourth rounds have historically been horrible—the worst value of any position. I think that's because of streaming tight ends off of waivers; you can effectively replace the production of mid-round tight ends by playing matchups with late-round players or waiver wire additions. No matter what, you can't replace the production of a player like Graham, however, which inflates his value.

## So what have we learned?

I think VBD has more value as an explanatory stat than a predictive one. If we analyze five-year VBD, it should have more value than using it from solely the prior year to project the upcoming season.

When graphing VBD, it's pretty clear which positions have historically had the most value in certain areas of the draft. Is the upcoming season guaranteed to resemble the average of the past five? No, of course not. But it's probably more likely to look like that than it is to mirror the past season alone.

There's so much information in this analysis that I could never recap it here without basically copying and pasting, so I'm going to give you one really long sentence as a template for VBD-based drafting:

You should probably take a running back in the first round, especially if you pick in the top half of it, but certainly consider a wide receiver in the back half of the round, but not a quarterback, for sure, because you can just get a similar player in the second or, better yet, just wait until rounds three and four when they're really undervalued, but if not, I'd seriously wait a long time for a quarterback, because taking one in the early rounds has a high opportunity cost—namely, the inability to draft one wide receiver and one running back, which is probably smart if you can pull it off—but you could also consider an elite tight end, like Jimmy Graham, but that might work best if you really like a specific running back in the third or fourth round who, despite the numbers, figures to offer value, but don't forget that when owners lay off of backs in rounds five through eight, that's also a great time to pounce on upside—no position offers more value than running back in that range—but no matter what, just don't force the issue with these numbers; they're just a general rule-of-thumb and every draft is different, good luck.

Words to live by.

## How can I dramatically improve my team without a second of research?

Fantasy football is changing. With position rankings becoming more and more efficient, there's less opportunity to beat out opponents based on superior football knowledge alone. Even in casual fantasy leagues, the typical owner knows pretty much about football—far more than the average fan of any other sport—and I'd bet that the median fantasy football owner is of a true intermediate skill level rather than a beginner.

Much of this is due to people like me. Not that there aren't better fantasy owners out there than me—there are—but there's a wealth of really good content available to anyone willing to pay a few bucks (the free stuff ain't all that hot).

While understanding the specifics of each player each year is important, the best fantasy owners no longer beat others by outsmarting them in regards to player projections. The majority of player projections are more or less the same. I typically take a contrarian approach to projections and rankings, so mine can differ from the norm a bit more than most, but I'm probably an outlier.

Even my projections, which I'm biased toward since, you know, I make them, don't differ from the consensus like they used to. Only a few years ago, I used to have a pretty sizeable number of players ranked wildly above or below their ADP every single season. Now, not so much. The general public has caught up some.

That means that elite fantasy owners win by emphasizing certain position combinations and player types. I care less about the exact players I take and more about which types of players—big wide receivers, fast running backs who catch passes, and so on—as well as the position order. Is it best to draft three running backs in a row? Should we emphasize consistency in the early rounds? When is the best time to draft a quarterback? Such questions have now become more important than "How many touchdowns will Matt Ryan throw this year?"

## Knowing What We Don't Know

Winning fantasy football leagues used to be like shooting fish in a barrel (and by that I mean it was easy, although that idiom seems like it might be quite difficult in practice). You used to be able to inflict damage on opponents solely with superior player knowledge.

The biggest change in fantasy football that I've seen in the past few years is that, whereas it used to be about what you know, now it's about understanding what you _don't_ know and acting accordingly. I truly believe that the biggest step you can take in fantasy football is realizing that you probably aren't as good as you think you are.

It's not just you, though. By and large, we aren't very good at making season-long or weekly fantasy football projections. It's just really difficult.

But you can acquire an advantage by _knowing_ that you don't know. Accounting for your own fallibility as an owner is vital. Two examples.

First, I'm a big believer in a "wisdom of the crowd" approach to drafting. While I don't think you should blindly copy expert rankings, you should at least consider other points of view. If you have a player ranked No. 20 but his average draft position is No. 3, you better be damn sure you know something others don't.

If you think about it, it's pretty obvious that the crowd matters. Who do you think is ranked more accurately: a player ranked No. 20 overall with an ADP of No. 3, or one ranked No. 20 overall with the same No. 20 overall ADP? When experts have a consensus opinion that matches your opinion, it strengthens that belief.

Second example. I play daily fantasy football on sites like  DraftKings, where players are given a fake salary and you need to create a team within the confines of a salary cap. The league ends after just one week's worth of games, and there's a whole lot of variance involved with that. There's skill, too, but for the most part, I believe those playing fantasy football are way worse at projecting players from week to week than what they think.

Even if you assume week-to-week fantasy production is completely random (which it's not), you can actually still win fantasy football. The reason is that you're competing with other humans, most of whom aren't accounting for said randomness.

Much of my daily fantasy football strategy revolves around targeting certain player types (similar to what I do in season-long leagues), preferably those coming off of a poor performance or two. Typically, those players drop in salary. People overreact to a small sample of events, mistaking noise for a signal, and bypass those "struggling" players. In effect, they're buying high on players who are "hot" with the thinking that they can accurately predict events that, while not totally random, are filled with uncertainty.

The point: you can be very successful in random or mostly random environments by going against the grain.

## Maximizing Your Bullets

In my daily fantasy football example, my strategy is more or less to locate production at its cheapest possible point. So if I like wide receiver X at $8,000, I'll see how easily I can replace that production with a cheaper player, normally by targeting those who have underachieved lately, thus offering long-term production at a price that represents faux short-term struggles. In almost every case, cheaper equals better because it allows for flexibility elsewhere.

Well, the same is true in season-long fantasy football. When possible, you want to identify the cheapest possible price you can pay for certain levels of production. You could argue that Zac Stacy circa his 2013 rookie year was a very close approximation of Doug Martin, for example. Martin was a top three pick in every draft, however, while Stacy was drafted after the 10th round. Much of that had to do with projected workload, but take a look at their measurables and college stats:

**Zac Stacy** : 5-9, 216 pounds, 3,143 yards, 5.4 YPC, 4.55 40-yard dash, 6.70 three-cone drill, 4.17 short shuttle, 27 reps

**Doug Martin** : 5-9, 215 pounds, 3,431 yards, 5.6 YPC, 4.55 40-yard dash, 6.79 three-cone drill, 4.16 short shuttle, 28 reps

Stacy is Finkle! Finkle is Martin! Martin is Einhorn! Wait, what?

Stacy is basically the exact same player as Martin, which isn't a positive for the Tampa Bay Bucs. They could have saved the first-round pick they spent on Martin and acquired the same player four rounds later. But YAY SCOUTING!

For fantasy purposes, Stacy was a very close Martin approximation who could be had for almost nothing.

But cheaper isn't better in fantasy football if you aren't _rewarded_ for spending less. In daily fantasy, you acquire more cap space when you pick cheaper players. In season-long, the benefit of willingly cashing in a draft pick for a lower one is. . .more draft picks!

Now I know that some of you play online in leagues that don't allow pre-draft or in-draft trades. SUX2BU. But with dynasty and keeper leagues growing and online fantasy draft software improving, the majority of fantasy owners can do one simple thing to increase their chances of taking home the crown: trade back and get more picks.

Before diving into the value of trading back in fantasy drafts, I want to look at how it's worked out for NFL teams. There's a really good article on the topic over at  rotoViz, with this image showing the number of draft picks for teams over the past 15 years.

The Patriots, Packers, and Steelers have had the most picks over the timeframe, and you could argue they've also seen the most long-term success of any franchises. The Eagles also rank near the top, and they've surely been the most successful team to not win a championship.

Meanwhile, the Redskins, Lions, and Raiders rank at the bottom of the list in terms of total draft picks. No surprise that they've been among the least successful teams on the field.

The best NFL teams are usually those that draft the best. But drafting "best" might be less about hitting on a higher-than-average percentage of picks and more about maximizing the total picks. In a highly random environment, we'd expect the best long-term performers to be those that maximize opportunities.

We see this in a variety of fields; you can't improve the degree of your luck per se—it will always regress toward the mean over the long run—but you can certainly improve the _probability_ that you experience good luck by maximizing opportunities.

If the NFL draft were primarily about picking more efficiently than other teams, we wouldn't see such a strong correlation between drafting success and pick volume. The best teams seem to understand that they probably aren't _that_ much better than others at identifying talent, so the biggest advantage they can acquire is to bring in more players to maximize the odds of hitting on one.

Similarly, since fantasy football drafts have become more efficient—and thus more random—your biggest advantage probably doesn't lie in out-projecting your opponents. It comes in understanding your own fallibility and racking up opportunities (in the form of draft picks) to overcome it.

## Quick and Easy

As fantasy owners, we should be looking for quick and easy ways to increase our win probability. When it comes to trading back in drafts, the return on your time is unimaginably larger than it is in regards to projecting players and creating a big board. The latter task isn't useless, but it requires a lot of time to create a rather small advantage.

We should be looking for just the opposite: actions that require little time but can allow for massive advantages. Normally, those actions are "big picture" concepts like accruing draft picks, drafting certain player types, and so on, as opposed to very detailed information like "Why do I have Josh Gordon projected three points ahead of Dez Bryant?"

Also notice that when we focus on specifics, the result is (usually) more fragile. I'll have a lot more to say about fragility, but we want to avoid draft strategies that are highly susceptible to destruction from variance. If I alter a player's projection by 100 yards, it can drastically change his place in my rankings. That's fragile. It's best to avoid processes that are influenced heavily by randomness, often requiring a whole lot of work for minimal reward and the potential for big-time chaos, in favor of processes and actions that won't be affected by chaos, or could even benefit from it.

In many ways, loading up on draft picks is an action that indeed benefits from randomness. In effect, you're saying, "Well I don't really know as much as I think we know about these players, so I want to get as many of them as I can, as cheaply as possible, to maximize the probability of hitting." When there's a whole lot of randomness in a season, top picks tend to have less production than expected and the value of trading down soars.

## A (Simple) Fantasy Football Trade Value Chart

NFL teams have a trade value chart (which is  completely off, by the way), so they all more or less have a set level of compensation required for each pick. Fantasy owners have no such chart, so it's basically like the Wild West on draft day. If my Uncle Bruce asks me if I want to trade Josh Gordon for a 14th-round pick one more time, I swear I'm shutting down the league.

Because of that, every trade really needs to be taken on a case-by-case basis based on a number of factors. Nonetheless, I've done some research on historic fantasy draft pick value to establish some sort of baseline trade value chart.

That's a really difficult task, though, because how do we define a player's value? We can look at consistency, or the probability of hitting on a specific pick, but that ignores the degree to which a pick could surpass a particular projection. Both the first and second overall selections might have, say, an 80 percent chance of hitting, but that would be rather trivial if the top overall pick has a much higher probability of outscoring every player by a wide margin.

We can use VBD—the points each pick typically scores over a replacement player at his position—but that ignores consistency. Thus, I've combined the two, charting the historic fantasy value of the top 24 picks based on their chances of hitting (consistency) and their scarcity (VBD). Why only the top 24? Because it's a lot of research and I only have ALL DAY LONG to work on this.

I started the process of making the chart using historic VBD calculations (the points each player scored over a baseline talent at his position). That was simple enough, but the problem is that you can't just plug in that data to create a value chart because, well, it doesn't work like that. It's much more valuable to have one player projected to score 400 points than it is to have two projected to score 200 points.

To translate VBD into a workable chart, I decided to look back at my past work on consistency in relation to draft slots. I think it's important to know historic success rates for each draft pick because it should have significant implications on the draft chart. If you could expect to hit a home run with the No. 1 overall pick 95 percent of the time, for example, that would drastically alter the value of the selection. So I charted the value of the top 24 picks in terms of VBD and a combination of total points and consistency.

For the record, by 'consistency' I mean the regularity with which owners have been able to hit on players. I constituted a 'hit' as a player who scored at least 70 percent of the total points of the No. 1 player at his position.

So what does this tell us? Well, it means that the drop in draft pick value isn't quite as dramatic as VBD makes it out to be. In reality, a late-first round pick hits just about as often as a mid-first, so there shouldn't be a huge drop in value on our chart after the first few selections.

Using that data, I was able to create an initial fantasy football trade value chart for the first two rounds in a 12-man league.

When analyzing both consistency and scarcity, late-second-round picks have historically been worth right around half of the No. 1 overall selection. This chart accounts for that.

Also note the steep drop in the first five or six picks. That represents the fact that there have typically been about that many truly elite "can't-miss" prospects in fantasy drafts. Sometimes it's a little more, sometimes a little less, but there's definitely extra value in being able to nab one of those players. To give you an idea of how much value there is at the top of the draft, consider that the drop from the first overall pick to the second is the same as that from No. 16 to No. 24.

So what does this tell us about how we should act in fantasy drafts? I think the most obvious conclusion is that there's not a dramatic difference between picks between the late-first round and late-second round. If you're picking in the top five, you'd need a handsome return—maybe two second-round picks—in order to move back. But if you're picking in the late-first and an elite player doesn't fall to you, strongly consider moving back and picking up extra selections. The value of "maximizing your bullets" probably exceeds any additional consistency/scarcity that pick can offer you over a second-rounder.

## A Robust Approach to Position Uncertainty

Whether or not you load up on draft picks, you can use the same theory that suggests you should stockpile selections—that the most effective way to enhance results in a mostly random environment is to increase opportunities—to determine the best course of action in terms of _which_ positions to select.

In effect, there's an inverse relationship between uncertainty and the value of more opportunities. If you were a perfect dart thrower, you wouldn't need more than one dart in order to hit a bullseye. The extra opportunities have no value in an environment of perfect skill.

As we introduce variance into the equation, though, the value of extra chances increases. The worse you are at darts, the more value each extra dart throw would have to you.

In the same way, the more uncertainty and scarcity inherent to a certain position, the more "darts" you should throw at it. I've done a lot of position consistency research in the past that suggests quarterback is by far the easiest position to predict, both on the season-long and weekly levels. They have the largest sample size of relevant plays and the elite players at the position tend to remain elite.

Meanwhile, think about the randomness involved with a position like running back. First, they get hurt. A lot. If you drafted Doug Martin or Arian Foster in 2013, you probably had a hell of a time fighting your way into the playoffs.

Second, they're highly dependent on usage for production. That makes certain guys predictable—namely, the ones who see a high number of touches. But once you get past the ninth or tenth round of fantasy drafts, you're typically taking players who aren't starters and/or see few touches, so you're basically banking on a starter getting hurt for your pick to be worthwhile. Good luck predicting injuries.

Since mid and late-round running back production is basically a crapshoot, the goal should be to "throw shit at the wall and see what sticks." You can and should still select the right types of running backs—blazing fast, heavy if possible, pass-catchers, etc—but in a highly uncertain environment, it's just a numbers game.

Also note that you always need position scarcity for a position to be of value. Kicker performance is very random, too, but they have little value since there's not much scarcity at the position, meaning the top performer won't be that much better than a replacement player.

It's not really groundbreaking to suggest you should draft more running backs than quarterbacks, but you should also draft a higher number relative to your starting requirements. If you start one quarterback, for example, you might draft two of them—double the starting requirements. Even if you start three running backs, though, you should draft far more than double that number (assuming roster space allows for it), loading up particularly in the middle and late rounds as the draft becomes more random. In most leagues, I'd prefer two quarterbacks (at most, and sometimes just one), one tight end, kicker, and defense, and the rest running backs and wide receivers.

If you made it to the end of this 3,000-word rant on stockpiling fantasy football draft picks, you're probably an absolutely maniacal fantasy football psychopath. Never change.
