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What gives you your edge? (1 Viewer)

rugcleaner

Footballguy
What do you do that you think gains an advantage in fantasy?

With the plethora of information readily available at even the least enthusiastic players fingertips. How do you maintain your own perceived advantage yearly?

Me, I think its watching the games. I watch as many games as possible, and it turns out to be a very high percentage of them, I believe I watch more than others in my leagues. Everything starts with passing the "Eye test" for me, the FBG's and Shark pool have also been a huge boost this year, I only wish I had found this years ago.

 
This day and age with the playing field being level you have to think of ways to knock other people off their game. To my surprise mind games work more than you would believe.

 
Just paying attention to news and being more active on WW, trades, less patient.
Good point. The ability to take a wait and see approach to FA acquisitions has been severely diminished with all the news feeds. You have to be on top of the data and willing to move in a hurry. You set yourself for more misses but if you are on top of the news the opportunity is still there.

 
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I enjoy FBG, but I think with the prevalence of information out there it's lost a lot of "value" (in terms of helping you win). I think the boards here are the biggest, help you spot guys you might have missed and "crowdsource" information.

 
Watching games is a big one. I believe I have a good eye for talent so I use my evaluation to jump on guys before they breakout. I also think identifying trends is a skill I have that many don't. I'm willing to grab guys early based on a smaller sample size. I think your average owner doesn't accurately assess risk/reward and how to leverage the probability of various outcomes, again, an area where I excel.

 
#1. I limit myself to 1 team nowadays. I used to run the typical 3/4 teams a season, then I burned out. The past 4 years, I've had only 1 team in a dynasty, and I think doing that really keeps me hungry and focused, instead of drained and overwhelmed.

#2. I live and die by my own coaching decisions. I will come to player threads for some slight consensus feelings on a player which I put minimal stock into, but ultimately I make my lineups, not anyone else. Helps me sleep better at night.

 
rugcleaner said:
What do you do that you think gains an advantage in fantasy?

With the plethora of information readily available at even the least enthusiastic players fingertips. How do you maintain your own perceived advantage yearly?

Me, I think its watching the games. I watch as many games as possible, and it turns out to be a very high percentage of them, I believe I watch more than others in my leagues. Everything starts with passing the "Eye test" for me, the FBG's and Shark pool have also been a huge boost this year, I only wish I had found this years ago.

THIS

I watch ALOT of football. I have 5 TVs on one wall in my mancave and watch way too much football on a Sunday. The "eye test" is important but I don't claim to be a better talent evaluator than the experts (FBG or other), I just think that I watch MY players more closely than the experts can and thus I develop a clearer picture of the value of my players. For example, I traded Rodgers mid-year as I saw that neither he nor GB was playing well. Got Bortles, Decker, and Gurley in return - two guys I could see were being underrated by the fantasy community and one (Gurley) who I thought still had more upside.

Second, I work the waiver wire like a mofo. Am constantly churning talent, evaluating their usage and letting them go of they aren't what I've been led to believe.
 
Chaka said:
Ilov80s said:
Just paying attention to news and being more active on WW, trades, less patient.
Good point. The ability to take a wait and see approach to FA acquisitions has been severely diminished with all the news feeds. You have to be on top of the data and willing to move in a hurry. You set yourself for more misses but if you are on top of the news the opportunity is still there.
Have to be reasonable about it, but there are league owners 6 weeks in stil playing names over production (hello Matt Ryan). People hold too close to draft position (just cuz you took Ameer in the 3rd, don't make him worth a 3rd once the year starts and we see what he is). I turn my roster over constantly. I see a lot of players settle with their bench as if it's just their bench. I'm churning the bench weekly.
 
(Dynasty only)

reading high quality draft reports, listening to smart people (like Cosell) and being patient with rookies.

I'm one of those losers who listen to podcasts even when I am eliminated from playoff contention.

Also picking up leftovers of people who weren't patient.

 
Definitely watching the games helps a lot.. And being patient... I dropped freeman week one and paid the price this season.

Draft prep well, then be patient for a few weeks before you blow it up...

 
Follow prospects starting in college. You won't be the first to everyone, but you'll get to enough of them before others...and avoid more landlines too.

 
Follow prospects starting in college. You won't be the first to everyone, but you'll get to enough of them before others...and avoid more landlines too.
I wish I had the time. I have done well watching game clips of soon-to-be rookies between Feb and the NFL draft. This board is great for throwing out player names and I enjoy the exercise of looking up their metrics, tracking them from the combine to the draft, watching tons of game clips during the FF offseason. I've proven to myself over time that I see the right things in players to be right a lot more often than most. One of my favorite aspects of FF is the research and watching of game clips. What else would I do for 4 months?

 
Follow prospects starting in college. You won't be the first to everyone, but you'll get to enough of them before others...and avoid more landlines too.
I wish I had the time. I have done well watching game clips of soon-to-be rookies between Feb and the NFL draft. This board is great for throwing out player names and I enjoy the exercise of looking up their metrics, tracking them from the combine to the draft, watching tons of game clips during the FF offseason. I've proven to myself over time that I see the right things in players to be right a lot more often than most. One of my favorite aspects of FF is the research and watching of game clips. What else would I do for 4 months?
i used to do both, but time is getting the best of me and I enjoy the college game more. For God only knows what reasons we still watch the browns, but otherwise it's prime time after the kids go to bed only and even then I don't watch every game. I primarily rely on twitter now for nfl stuff to be honest.
 
Two hikers are traveling through the woods when they see a bear. They go stock-still, hoping it won't notice them, but it lifts its head and starts looking in their direction, then suddenly turns and charges. One hiker bends down and starts tightening his shoelaces. His friend, mortified, says "do you really think you can outrun that bear?"

The hiker calmly replies "Don't have to. I just have to outrun you."

I don't have to be good at fantasy football. I just have to be better at it than my leaguemates. So rather than burning all my energy trying to master fantasy football- a topic that sites like Footballguys already have pretty thoroughly covered- I spend my time learning about things like hyperbolic discounting, loss aversion, the endowment effect, confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and the like. Find the bugs in our mental software, and then exploit them mercilessly. Work smarter, not harder.

(Watching a lot of football and forming my own opinions independent of conventional wisdom helps, too.)

 
Follow prospects starting in college. You won't be the first to everyone, but you'll get to enough of them before others...and avoid more landlines too.
I wish I had the time. I have done well watching game clips of soon-to-be rookies between Feb and the NFL draft. This board is great for throwing out player names and I enjoy the exercise of looking up their metrics, tracking them from the combine to the draft, watching tons of game clips during the FF offseason. I've proven to myself over time that I see the right things in players to be right a lot more often than most. One of my favorite aspects of FF is the research and watching of game clips. What else would I do for 4 months?
Watching a lot of college football is something I love doing but I don't watch nearly as much as I use to instead choosing more family stuff on Saturdays. But I like watching high skilled and talented athletes at all levels. And over two decades plus I seem to be on the higher end of projecting athletic performance among the people I've been around and competed in FF leagues with.

Two hikers are traveling through the woods when they see a bear. They go stock-still, hoping it won't notice them, but it lifts its head and starts looking in their direction, then suddenly turns and charges. One hiker bends down and starts tightening his shoelaces. His friend, mortified, says "do you really think you can outrun that bear?"

The hiker calmly replies "Don't have to. I just have to outrun you."

I don't have to be good at fantasy football. I just have to be better at it than my leaguemates. So rather than burning all my energy trying to master fantasy football- a topic that sites like Footballguys already have pretty thoroughly covered- I spend my time learning about things like hyperbolic discounting, loss aversion, the endowment effect, confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and the like. Find the bugs in our mental software, and then exploit them mercilessly. Work smarter, not harder.

(Watching a lot of football and forming my own opinions independent of conventional wisdom helps, too.)
Great metaphor.

At the end of the day we are making slightly educated guesses about future performance that depends on a multitude of variables. NFL GMs swing and miss...hard. and all.the.time. And of course luck and randomness are huge factors.

We are all just trying to guess a little more accurately and consistently than the other schmucks in our leagues. FF has its issues, makes lots of people want to quit, but I still love it. Frustrations and all.

 
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Good question....

Obviously a combination of things. Being on a forum like this gives me the heads up to certain players who might be off my radar or who might need to be considered, like a Diggs earlier in the season, who I did pick up and helped me win a few games.

The eye test is important, meaning watching games. I was watching highlights of a Bears game earlier this season and saw Langford running the ball before Forte went down, and I was like....this guy is good. Unfortunately I waited one week too long to pick him up, lesson learned.

Being aggressive on the waiver wires and knowing when to pick someone up before they break out.

Having a hunch....knowing certain players are more probable to get injured and knowing opportunity with their back-ups.

Watching the schedule and match-ups......

And obviously some luck.

With that said, every year I think I get better at fantasy football by learning from my mistakes. That's the key....don't make the same mistakes over and over. Being consistent in your methods.

That's about it.....good luck to anyone still in the hunt!

 
I'm good at maximizing my chances of getting lucky, I almost always have the most ww moves and cycle through RBs like mad (Yahoo only) through Sunday/Monday. I watch a pretty healthy amount of actual player film too (see my sig) and only use box scores as a supplement. Most importantly, I stopped joining high stakes FFPC leagues. All those ####### dudes were good and I was actually happy to break even. Now I just pick on friends, luckily those leagues are still very much worth the time investment from a monetary standpoint.

 
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I take notes at seasons end. Watch off season moves and make a general ranking before I look at the groupthink on the Internet.

 
Experience helps. I find it pretty easy to make the playoffs year in and year out, short of devastating injuries out of my control. Experience drafting, experience on what to read, experience with team's tendencies...I rely more on past experience more than anything, and not overthinking this silly game we play. Growing up and having kids and raising a family takes a lot of time away from doing the previously mentioned "edge" activities.

Plus alternating Wheat Chex with Post Raisins, Dates & Pecans.

 
I'm a person just like you
But I've got better things to do
Than sit around and smoke dope
'Cause I know I can cope
Laugh at the thought of eating ludes
Laugh at the thought of sniffing glue
Always gonna keep in touch
Never want to use a crutch

Gives me my Edge

 
Scouting rookies. Having a basis of what a players strengths are and opportunities they may have is important.

 
Time.

Honestly, that's it. I know for a fact I put 3 times the minutes per day into researching players, rankings, injuries, matchups, etc. then the average person in most of my leagues. I use the tools that FBG and MFL have available, where as most people don't... or don't as much. Someone may take 5 minutes looking at matchups based on MFL's "passing d ranking", but actually looking at the charts of how many fantasy points that team gives up to qbs, etc on a weekly basis. Little things like that that just take more time.

I don't have that much time but I make it, and love/am addicted to FF so much that I'll spend the extra hour a night that my leaguemates might spend sleeping or watching TV, to do those little things. We all have internet, we all have FBG or other sites, we all have loads of info built into our league hosting sites.... those that spend the time on their addiction usually end up ahead and can consistently make the playoffs. Once you hit playoffs its all luck.

 
Ilov80s said:
Just paying attention to news and being more active on WW, trades, less patient.
While I mostly agree with your last point, some of my best acquisitions have been players I still like a lot while others have soured somewhat. Mostly on defense, but mack, honey badger, ansah, and a few others could have been acquired moderately cheaply (and I did) last year or early this year.

Trading with a purpose. I've traded away most of my picks throughout the years for good players who lost their shine. That's kept me competitive every year in a couple leagues, one of which is in its 16th year and I've not won the division twice.

In large leagues, trading for solid, but not great, starters helps. Guys like Eli Manning can be had cheap but in a 32 team league are worth it.

 
I am exceptionally lucky.
This. Almost every year I get lucky.

I don't have time to follow NCAA, but I do try to watch a lot of NFL on Game Pass Rewind. I have a docking station in my kitchen & the 30 minute run time is perfect - about the same amount of time it takes to prep dinner. I get in a second game sometimes while the kids are practicing music. That gives me a pretty good base knowledge to form independent evaluation - I dismiss a lot of JAG type players who are that weeks hot WW pickup.

But mostly it's luck, every year.

 
I take notes at seasons end. Watch off season moves and make a general ranking before I look at the groupthink on the Internet.
This is also important. Create your own baseline then use the masses to either identify value, a landmine, or where you may be wrong.

 
-preemptive pickups

-load your roster with upside and make every spot count every week. always look to make incremental improvements

-don't be afraid to be wrong about a player...let the facts and situation speak for themselves and don't be afraid to move on. for instance, in one league I drafted Braford and Bridgewater as my QBs...within 2 weeks I had Palmer and Dalton who I rode to an 11-2 record.

-make logical risk based decisions not emotional decisions

-don't chase last weeks points...each week is a different story

 
As I've been trying to tell my wife this season, a huge benefit can be picking up the guy the week BEFORE everyone knows to pick him up.

These boards have been very helpful in this area in particular.

 
Annual notes.

Learn from my old mistakes.

Think 2 weeks ahead, don't worry about other people's rankings.

Have no problem swallowing my pride, then cutting bait.

Watching players play and rusting my eye test. NFL Game Pass is huge.

 
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We all know there is a huge amount of luck involved in this game. I'd offer two thoughts on that:

1) As my HS basketball coach always use to say, "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." The better prepared you are, the better chance you have of maximizing opportunities when they come around, and consequently the more luck you will have.

2) I highly recommend payouts to the teams with the best reg. season record and most total points. Both of my main leagues have significant payouts to best reg. season winner and numerous other categories. This balances out the luck factor a little bit as you are rewarding more that just the team that is able to go on a 2-3 game win streak at the end of the year.

Anybody can get lucky for a few weeks or even a season. But my experience has been that the better owners- the ones who spend more time, do more digging, and have better football/FF acumen---are the ones who are consistently in position to compete for championships.

 
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Anybody can get lucky for a few weeks or even a season. But my experience has been that the better owners- the ones who spend more time, do more digging, and have better football/FF acumen---are the ones who are consistently in position to compete for championships.
In most leagues it comes down to this, IMO.

In my keeper league there's teams that are in the playoffs every year, and a few that haven't made the playoffs yet after 6 years in the league.

Those of us who consistently make the playoffs aren't luckier, we're simply more into fantasy football and have much more information on the subject.

 
Knowing is half the battle. The other half is knowing how to use what everyone knows.

That and spending a lot of time on FF. Its hard to be good if you dont, and most people dont

 

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