Fundamental Point: The worth of a player is NOT identified by the amount of points he scores, but by how much he outscores his peers at his particular position.
The main mission of fantasy football IS NOT to score a ton of points. You can score a ton of points and still find yourself on the losing end. The primary plan is to outscore your opponent by opting for players who outperform THEIR PEERS at that position (i. e. WR vs. WR). Do not forget, we are limited by the starting positions required to fill to our starting lineup, and that will shape our best possible approach. Otherwise, we would most likely draft all quarterbacks given that they typically score the most points. Our team of specific positions will contend in opposition to another team of the same specific positions. Therefore our optimal strategy will be to build a starting roster with the strongest scoring players at each individual position. That seems self evident, however there are several significant errors that a lot of people make.
This is best thought of as a series of individual matchups, position by position. This idea is best articulated using a hypothetical situation. Let’s suggest the game is 1-on-1 (head-to-head) with a starting roster of 1 QB, 1 RB, 1 WR and 1 PK. In a one game matchup, your QB outscores his QB 22 to 20 (+2 points). You're up 2. Your RB is outscored by his RB 5 to 10 (-5 points). Now you're down by 3. Your WR outscores his WR 20 to 5 (+15 points). Now you're back up by 12. Your kicker outscores his kicker 21 to 20 (+1 points) This puts you up 13. You win the matchup 68 to 55.
Here is the point of this illustration - If you and your opponent previously mentioned were to put all 8 players back into the draft and, knowing what you know at this time about what they will each score, who might you draft first? The QB who scored the most points? No, because the other QB scores 20, so 2 points fewer is not really big deal. The kicker who scores 21? Obviously not, since the alternate kicker is only 1 point behind him with 20 points of his own! The WR is the no-brainer pick in this spot seeing that he WIDELY outperforms his opposition WR. In fact, after this first choice, the game is essentially finished. It does not matter who you pick the entire remainder of the draft, you are going to win. This is just an example but is INCREDIBLY practical for your league. Remember, the objective is not to pick up the highest scoring players irrespective of position. The objective is to secure the players who are going to outscore the alternative players at their position by the largest amount of points.
Let’s look at another more practical illustration. For arguments sake, let’s suppose that we have near perfect foresight and learn the likely range of what all players are going to score for the season (This is best accomplished with a good set of player projections at the beginning of the season). Your opponent drafts a QB early that you think will score about 215 points. You feel that you can draft a QB later in the draft that will score about 200 points, so you elect to draft a TE that will score about 80 points instead. When you challenger gets around to it, he drafts a TE that will score about 40 points in the same round as you are drafting your QB. Let’s study what occured here. When all is said and done, he has a QB that out produces yours by 15 points, but you have a TE that beats his by 40 points! Many people find this challenging to believe: How could a TE that scores 80 points be more vital than a QB that scores 200?! Just like in the NFL, fantasy football is a team game. The QB owner will have to draft a TE to go with his high scoring QB, but we will also get to draft a solid QB to go along with our game breaker TE. The benefit arrives due to the fact we are more likely to locate a prosperous QB than he is to find an equally advantageous TE. This case is just for two starting positions. The aim is to develop this type of edge all over the board of starting roster positions. As you can see, this is the technique to put together a very strong team that no opponent will wish to experience!
This also points out why it is almost always best to put it off until the later rounds to draft a kicker. Regardless of the reality that kickers generally lead the NFL in points scored, they have very little worth in fantasy football simply because all the other kickers will also produce similar big numbers. This even holds correct a large number of situations for the quarterback position in fantasy football (Hint: A lot of players do not fully grasp this and you now have a massive advantage). In the past, no one understood if a QB throwing for 20 TDs / 3, 000 yards was more worthwhile than a RB scoring 10 TDs / 1, 000 yards or a WR posting 7 TDs / 1, 100 yards. Now you will be equipped to figure it out. This will be the basis of our draft strategy so make certain you fully understand this approach prior to moving on.
So the question becomes: Which positions become the most valuable and have the major discrepancies from top to bottom? Now we are getting somewhere!
If you are interested in additional fantasy football strategy, please check out Fantasy Football Riches at http://www.fantasyfootballriches.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment