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Projecting Fantasy Football Statistics

During the decade that we've been forecasting fantasy statistics, fantasy football is, by far the toughest sport to forecast of the 4 major U.S. sports. Possible explanations abound, but logic dictates the most likely explanations for this phenomena are: 

  1. The limited size of the sample in any given year (only 16 games!) , 

  2. The rather high occurrence rate of injuries, and 

  3. The dependence on other position players & the coaches playbook.

The Limited sample size: To produce any meaningful forecasting data, professional statisticians consider 100 observations to be the minimum acceptable size of a sample. As you can imagine, 16 regular season games falls well beneath that threshold. However the cumulative number of observations within a game can constitute meaningful data. An example of this is the average running back who attains 300+ carries in a season. Although the results of these numbers are meaningful, they are skewed by the only 16 (or less) different opponents that a particular running back faces during the season.

High Occurrence of Injuries: For anyone who has not played or watched football....football is a brutal full contact sport....with lots of injuries! And more importantly no one can predict injuries. Thus relying on a drafting model (cheat sheet) which is purely based on individual performances is missing the bigger picture.

Dependence on other Position Players & Playbook: In baseball a batter comes up to the plate and takes a full hack 95% of the time, conversely the opposing pitcher is looking to record an out almost 100% of the time. In football however, almost every offensive position relies on other factors outside of their immediate control. Examples include: a running back who relies on his line to find an opening, relies on his coach to call the play....a quarterback who relies on his offensive line to give him time, his wide receiver to find an opening, his coach to call the pass play....a receiver relies on the quarterback to find the time, his quarterback to find his hands, and finally the coach to call the play (not in this order). As you can see there are a lot of variables that need to work in sync for our fantasy players to perform adequately. Thus, because of this dependence factor, predicting individual performances in fantasy football is much less predictable as many will have you believe.

The key to being competitive, is not knowing who to draft, but rather how to draft. Our VAM drafting model puts you in a position to be competitive without the improbable accuracy of the projected player stats. Sure we spend months working on our individual player projections, and our projections model is ~ 30% more effective than using the prior year stats, but it's the drafting order we predicate which will make you competitive. Bottom Line: We do the tedious work, so you don't have to. Whether you are a new or experienced fantasy football player, Fantistics utilizes the probability assumptions contained within the laws of mathematics to give you an edge.

Below is a quick look at some of the forecasting research we've done based on prior year statistics on the typical offensive fantasy football positions. It's just part of the what we use in our projections model:

Quarterback predictability has risen over recent seasons. 2007 was the last year since 2002 when less than 50% of the top 20 QBs scored within 30% of their previous season totals.  Of the top 20 QBs from the 2010 season, 15 came within 30% of their previous season totals in 2009. However, since position scarcity among the QB position is not an issue in most leagues, selecting a QB early is only a consideration for 5 QBs in the first 3 rounds of the 2011 season.

Back to the numbers: At the finale of 2010, among the top 20 RBs, only Fifty Percent came within 30% of attaining their previous season fantasy totals. Thirty-Five Percent within 20%, and only Twenty Five percent came within 10% of their previous year totals!

Wide Receivers DO NOT offer significant stability. Since 2002 less than 50% of Wide Receivers have come within a 20% tolerance of their previous season's fantasy points. Last year only 8 of the top 20 WR failed to come within 20% of their previous season totals! Although wide receivers do offer more predictability because of their health factor, receivers are highly reliant on someone else (the QB), and are ranked accordingly in our projections software.

Tight End predictability is on the decline. Last year was the first year since 2004, when less than 50% of the top 10 Tight Ends came within 30% of their previous year's total.

 

Place Kickers are very predictable! Although their 60-80% reoccurrence rate (within a 30% variance) are among the best relational numbers in fantasy football.... these numbers are also very deceiving. The reason that most kickers fall within acceptable ranges on a year to year basis is primarily due to the fact that kickers are among the lowest scoring positions in fantasy football, thus frequently there is not much point variance between the 6th best kicker in the league and the 15th.

   

You may be asking yourself, so what do the above graphical charts really represent? Well most importantly, they allow us to assign a probability to each NFL position for draft day purposes, making the VAM drafting model more predictable than a simple position scarcity model (Value Based Drafting). This "probability factor" determines the sensible risk level that we should assume for each position, thus allowing our player rankings to have the best mathematical chance to succeed.

Anthony A. Perri - Fantistics Publisher and Sports Statistician

 

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I wanted to thank you for helping me win back to back league championships. This is my second year using your service and I have won my league championship each time. This is a league made up of family and friends and these guys are very competitive and know a lot about the fantasy game so these victories are very sweet. Excellent draft day analysis and weekly projections from you.  I will definitely be a subscriber of your service again next year. Thank you so much!   Bob M. (Bob Millner)

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Anthony A. Perri is the founder and the resident "Stats Nerd" at Fantistics.  Anthony has a graduate level Math education. His experience includes working as a  Quantitative Analyst for several Wall Street firms developing statistical models before venturing out into Fantasy Sports in the late 1990s. His decade long involvement in Fantasy Sports includes accolades from some of the top publications in the country as well as  continual guest appearances on Sports Radio (most recently ESPN and Sirius Radio.) Anthony is the designer of the Fantistics Projections Model & the VAM drafting strategy models.  

 

 
 

 

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