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Who has the best Projections on Footballguys? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter orpguy
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ourmanflint
Footballguy
None, since projections are a completely useless vanity exercise. The next projection anyone, anywhere in the universe gets correct will be the first, and even then it's going to accomplish doodly-squat in terms of helping that lucky soul win his fantasy football league.
Slap 'em in rough tiers based on history, or your knowledge, or guesswork, or the tea leaves, or the funny feeling you've got in your arthritic big toe. Or hell, just print off a cheatsheet. Do that, and you'll be at least as far ahead as the guy who spent the whole offseason running completely imaginary data through mission control, and you'll have enjoyed a whole lot more free time to boot. And the league will STILL be decided based on some combo of who does a better job in-season, and whose guy is hottest during the playoffs.
Slap 'em in rough tiers based on history, or your knowledge, or guesswork, or the tea leaves, or the funny feeling you've got in your arthritic big toe. Or hell, just print off a cheatsheet. Do that, and you'll be at least as far ahead as the guy who spent the whole offseason running completely imaginary data through mission control, and you'll have enjoyed a whole lot more free time to boot. And the league will STILL be decided based on some combo of who does a better job in-season, and whose guy is hottest during the playoffs.
Shutout
Footballguy
This should be printed on the cover of every FF 101 manual ever produced from this day forward.
BroncoFreak_2K3
sucker for Orange
Fantasysports1
Footballguy
There is use for projections when picking between close players. Picking the best position player is key especially in the early rounds.
BoltBacker
Footballguy
I strongly disagree, but maybe it's because of the way I use the projections. If a pro I trust has a player ranked wildly divergent from my tier I absolutely enjoy the fact they "show their work". Maybe it's because they just assume M.Bryant is going to triple his catches this season and that's why we disagree. Maybe they project Woodhead to have half as many catches as his last healthy season. The projections help me understand the how and why the tiers and rankings are the way they are. It helps to know if they disagree with me because of opportunity or efficiancy of the player. So I never look at every projection but I appreciate having the few I need available to look at.
Secondly, the projections promote a sense of continuity in tiers imo. You think White is a beast of a rookie, Jeffery may be a top 5 WR, Bennett a top 4 TE, and Forte "only" gets 2/3rd the catches he got last year... so nearly 70. But you also think Cutler is a joke so you have him ranked in the bottom 10 QB. How does this happen unless you think Clauson comes in and plays like a pro-bowler? When projections are done they force people to match up the entire picture as a whole.
This thread isn't about you and I making projections, it's about which staff member(s) make the most accurate projections. That is an interesting and valuable discussion to have. In particular it would be interesting who are the best at certain positions. When it comes to defensive projections(or even just rankings) I would love to know which staff member has the best track record for instance. Maybe some staff members pay closer attention to the movement of positional coaches than others or has a unique insight to defenses transitioning from one style of a defense to another and how many offseasons it takes to change personel to better fit the new defense.
Chaka
Footballguy
Pin it
However, while I don't do projections, I do love tweaking my draft board after reading articles, mags, reports etc. it's part of the fun of the game regardless of if you are right or wrong to choose player A over B. So just printing out a cheatsheet and running with it won't fly for people like me.
Shutout
Footballguy
Respect your opinion but think Freelove is exactly correct. It isn't about whether "genius X" somehow knows that a guy named Luke Jones will go from an unknown slot receiver and become the next Wes welker and why that will happen. Sure, it helps, but, in the end, it's exactly like Freelove said: Comes down to work in-season, LUCK, and who's healthy and hot versus who's injured and not at the end.
Accept that and you get hundreds of hours of your life back that you otherwise forfeit. If nothing else, if you simply feel compelled to have to have an expert opinion, why not put those hours into BECOMING that expert instead of relying on other people's work? You do the work yourself and you KNOW why one guy is ranked here and not there.
I may be an outlier and it may be coincidental but I went from a pretty good, active FF guy to a guy that does really good across the board consistently when I STOPPED trying to read between the lines on what 50 "experts" were saying. IMO, we live in an age of T.M.I. and paralysis by analysis. Sometimes having too much info to choose from is worse than just having some knowledge.
Again, all just my opinion.
Fantasysports1
Footballguy
I agree that listening to too many experts can throw one off. This year I took fantasypros ranking and made adjustments based on player profiles and data. I have and still look at Evan Silva's rankings to also consider.
The most someone can do is to use a solid ranking list like Fantasypros, read up on all the players through rotoworld, look at metrics like expanded role, last year stats and tiers. This is tough because it takes a lot of time to read up on all the key players.
These experts like Silva do this for their job, so unless you are a serious high stakes player, it doesn't make sense to try to become an expert. What is an expert? These are general statements. A expert could mean someone who has a positive ROI long term in high stake leagues like FFPC.
The most someone can do is to use a solid ranking list like Fantasypros, read up on all the players through rotoworld, look at metrics like expanded role, last year stats and tiers. This is tough because it takes a lot of time to read up on all the key players.
These experts like Silva do this for their job, so unless you are a serious high stakes player, it doesn't make sense to try to become an expert. What is an expert? These are general statements. A expert could mean someone who has a positive ROI long term in high stake leagues like FFPC.
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You can rightfully make fun of projections for either lack of accuracy, or lack of usefulness in conventional, 75%-luck-driven H2H leagues. What you would be ignoring then is the value of doing high-level / back-of-the-envelope projections and benchmarking to others as simple 'sanity checks'
So you think Alan Robinson will have a WR1-level season? Okay. Once you start going through some number exercises, you quickly realize what else needs to be true for this to happen (e.g., how many times should Bortles throw the ball, what % should Robinson get, at catch and ypc rate, etc.)
To be useful, your projections don't need to be accurate or predict injuries.
So you think Alan Robinson will have a WR1-level season? Okay. Once you start going through some number exercises, you quickly realize what else needs to be true for this to happen (e.g., how many times should Bortles throw the ball, what % should Robinson get, at catch and ypc rate, etc.)
To be useful, your projections don't need to be accurate or predict injuries.
daveR
Footballguy
Chaka
Footballguy
You realize that is the reason that most projections are a joke. Too many variables and what ifs. Might as well roll the bones on Robinson's projections.
-jb-
Footballguy
fantasypros tracks the accuracy of the "expert" projections. You'll find that the vast majority of the top ten site somewhere between 60 and 61%. So, you can draw two conclusions from that - first, everyone is relatively close in their ability, and no one is really good enough to consider them very reliable.
Fantasysports1
Footballguy
Yeah but what list are you going to use? This is the aggregate and provides a fine general list one can modify. If you decide you can take average of a few people but results can be skewed if one or more have a bad ranking or bias.
joey
Footballguy
Print average rankings the day of your draft and then tweak a guy up or down a few slots when it's your turn to pick depending on who you "like better" (that could mean you like the offense better, or like their helmet, or whatever. Just take the guy you like over the guy you despise given equal options. )
Going with this method has saved me tons of off-season time. (Says the guy who visits this board every day for the past 10+ years straight)
Going with this method has saved me tons of off-season time. (Says the guy who visits this board every day for the past 10+ years straight)
BoltBacker
Footballguy
But isn't that also a reason not to do rankings or even tiers? Or enjoy the hobby in the first place?Chaka said:
Sure, there is a level of luck involved... but just like in every other facet of life it's certainly interesting how people that put forth at least some effort are more likely to put themselves in a lucky situation.
I tend to agree with BoltBacker but respect all of your opinions. From the responses, I don't think I have learned much on who is the better person predicting projection on Footballguys... looks to be Henry based on one vote and Dodds also based on one vote.
However, I do not know Otis or SWC who were also mentioned.
I would appreciate further input.
Thanks
However, I do not know Otis or SWC who were also mentioned.
I would appreciate further input.
Thanks
ImTheScientist
Footballguy
I like Blooms rankings
Meast21
Footballguy
Agreed. I'm 100% supportive of Bloom's strategy to not just win your league but dominate it and his rankings reflect that.
Adam Harstad
Moderator
A lot of that is FantasyPros methodology. They only look at rankings that people disagree over. If every expert out there has Calvin over Marqise Lee, and Calvin finishes over Marqise Lee, then that doesn't count as a "hit" for any of them. So a 60% doesn't mean "this expert gets 40% of his calls wrong", it means "when two experts disagree, this guy is right 60% of the time". Which is a lot more impressive. It'd be like a guy who can call coin flips correctly 60% of the time. It might not sound like a lot, but a 60% hit rate is enough to make a fortune.-jb- said:
Also, the fact that the top guys all sit within a few percentage points of each other doesn't mean all experts are close. The top guys (Dodds, Henry, Pianowski, the Sablich brothers, the PFF guys, and the 4for4 guys all come to mind) are all going to be pretty comparable. But they represent a very small portion of the total pool of fantasy experts.
To the OP, both Dodds and Henry have been winning accuracy awards for over a decade. Last year was a great one for Henry- he was the #1 overall ranker on FantasyPros, (FBGs Austin Lee was #2, the first time one site took home both of the top two spots). I believe he also won the FF Index accuracy contest. Dodds is in the Fantasy Football Hall of Fame, though, (yes, that's a thing), and both he and Henry are in the top 5 in FantasyPros accuracy over the last five years. Year to year one might be better than the other, but good luck guessing which one it will be. I don't think you can go wrong using either. I usually lean towards using Henry's projections, just because the FBGs apps default to placing more weight on Dodds' projections. By emphasizing Henry, it helps differentiate me from any FBGs subscribers who happen to be in my leagues.
(The other projectors at FBGs are also pretty good, and there's something to be said for averaging projections and using a "wisdom of crowds" approach, too. But if I'm going into a season drafting exclusively off of one guy's rankings, that one guy is either going to be Dodds or Henry.)
Adam Harstad
Moderator
The point of projections isn't predicting exact final stat lines. It's getting a more detailed sense of how various players compare against each other. Experts who do projections routinely trump experts who only do rankings in ranking accuracy contests.
Not that projections are some sort of silver bullet. I don't use them at all in dynasty. But it's no coincidence that the most accurate redraft rankers are all avid projectors.
Bankerguy
Footballguy
BroncoFreak_2K3
sucker for Orange
AmityRogueWaves
Footballguy
Bumping this thread.
I'm not sure if anybody is still importing "old school" Projections Dominator data into the Draft Dominator Classic, but regardless, I wonder how you guys feel about Dodds, Henry, Tremblay, and Wood and how they compare to the other experts out there. Didn't see their names in the FantasyPros rankings.
I'm not sure if anybody is still importing "old school" Projections Dominator data into the Draft Dominator Classic, but regardless, I wonder how you guys feel about Dodds, Henry, Tremblay, and Wood and how they compare to the other experts out there. Didn't see their names in the FantasyPros rankings.
bagger
Footballguy
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