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Fantasy Football is Half Luck (1 Viewer)

steelers1080

steelers1080

Footballguy
At a certain point, no matter how good you may be at crafting an incredible roster, you need some luck to make it through the playoffs. How many of you have amazing rosters that just let you down at the last second?

I unfortunately have 0 playoff luck, and it has cost me 5 years in a row. I'm sure some of you have been caught in similar situations. My Dynasty team is a juggernaut in the regular season year after year and has been carefully crafted through trading and drafting. It consists of Dalvin Cook, Alvin Kamara, Leonard Fournette, Josh Jacobs, Leveon Bell, James Conner, David Johnson, Mike Evans, Tyreek Hill, Stefon Diggs, Amari Cooper, AJ Brown, Antonio Brown, Zach Ertz, George Kittle, OJ Howard, Aaron Rodgers, Dak Prescott, Baker Mayfield and several other young players. By any definition my team is utterly stacked and should be piling up championships. For all my work I have two second place finishes and zero championships. 

My team steamrolls its way through the regular season only to lay a huge stinker in the playoffs. Last week I had multiple stars put up 5 pts or less, and this week Rodgers and Kamara combined for 13. It's incredibly frustrating that these all-stars always seem to have a down week when it really counts. Hope you have better luck than me!

 
I play in a 10-team, 17 roster spot redraft league.  Just for fun, I decided to see how an 11th team would do.  The 11th team is the waiver wire, and they would currently be leading the league in points.  As the name of the movie implies... Any Given Sunday

 
Back in pre-Twitter 2000, I’d say it was about 50-50 luck vs skill - when doing your homework could actually paid off.

 Now I’d say it’s more like 70-30 with all the info out there, and I might be underestimating the luck contribution.

 
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steelers1080 said:
My Dynasty team is a juggernaut in the regular season year after year and has been carefully crafted through trading and drafting. It consists of Dalvin Cook, Alvin Kamara, Leonard Fournette, Josh Jacobs, Leveon Bell, James Conner, David Johnson, Mike Evans, Tyreek Hill, Stefon Diggs, Amari Cooper, AJ Brown, Antonio Brown, Zach Ertz, George Kittle, OJ Howard, Aaron Rodgers, Dak Prescott, Baker Mayfield and several other young players. By any definition my team is utterly stacked and should be piling up championships.
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How many of those players can you start at each position? A team being that stacked might just mean you have an awesome bench, but other teams can match you with starters even if their teams are paper-thin.

Otherwise ... yeah, plenty of luck in head-to-head. You have lots of players with good fantasy reputations, but also a lot of 2019 letdown guys.

 
There's tons of luck involved.

I'm in a 10 team league, 6 making the playoffs (2 division winners with byes and then the next best 4 teams).  Week 13, if I won I'd have the division title and thus the bye, and with the loss by the other team he'd be out of the playoffs and another team in as the 6 seed.  I lost as I started the wrong QB, but I was still in the playoffs.

But had I won based on which QB I started, another team would have never made the playoffs - and the team that would have (but didn't) would have won their game this past week and be a "final four" team.  So strange to me that my choice of which QB to start would have altered the playoffs by so much of a bunch of other teams.

 
rockaction said:
Dude, I was seriously thinking about this when I went to bed the other night, so if you're satirizing, somebody has taken that quite literally.  
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That one guy said:
For us not too statistically inclined, what means this?  Examples of such scoring systems?
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I was kidding. But it does raise the question of whether there's a better way to determine a playoff champion than one and done.

Maybe the regular season should be H2H and the playoffs be a three week all-play. :shrug:

 
Way more than half luck now. Studs always have a bad week and if it comes in the playoffs bye..bye no matter how good you think your team is. Weather is always a factor as well. In my main 14 team league the 3 years I had by far the best team in the league, blew away the field in wins and scoring I never won it all.    The 3 years I won the league I barely made it into the playoffs and was the 7th and 8th seed.

I remember one year in a MNF game I had no healthy RBs but had Fred Taylor and his backup at the time James Stewart. Taylor was ??? all week but I had to start then both as I had nobody else healthy. Stewart scores twice in the first half and racked up good yardage then gets hurt early in the second so they had to put Taylor in, late in the game I am losing and thinking it was over as JAX was running out the clock, Taylor breaks off a 40 yard run for a TD to give me a win and knock off the top seed.  Pure luck..of course I played it up like I planned it that way.

FF has been dumbed down for the masses to play. In the early days before every sire had rankings, cheat sheets and auto drafts. Where you actually had to attend a draft in person with your magazines and own rankings those who prepared well usually did well.  We used to have to follow the X-Season close to see who was winning RB battles, backups, schedules.   Now you can do a draft in 1-2 hours from your laptop with almost no prep work.

I posted before my daughter won a 12 team league last year with half sharks using  "Auto Draft"

 
Andy Dufresne said:
I was kidding. But it does raise the question of whether there's a better way to determine a playoff champion than one and done.

Maybe the regular season should be H2H and the playoffs be a three week all-play. :shrug:
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One league I'm in has 6 playoffs team in 12 teamer with points for playoff rounds 1 and 2.  So 4 playoff teams played this weekend with 2 highest scoring move on vs H2H and the same this weekend. 

 
Redraft mostly luck, dynasty more skill involved. Liken it to poker and much like that you tend to see the same teams in the playoffs year after year. Once you get there, it’s mainly luck unless you just have a juggernaut of a team.

 
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Week to week, yes, luck plays a big role.  But don't underestimate matchups and being prepared for injuries. If you have a stud who didn't play and you didn't handcuff that's on you. If you don't have depth, that's on you. If you didn't plan for playoff matchups, that's on you.

Generally, good players make the fantasy playoffs. And at that point, playing another good player in a single elimination playoff, yes, luck is huge. But over the course of a season, better teams win more, and winning more should give you advantages. In my case, I won a bye in week 14 because of my strong season. 

I also prefer dynasty for this reason because again overtime the better teams win more often.  Can a poorly run team get lucky and win one championship in a dynasty? Yes. But it is rare and they almost never win more than once. Good teams regularly get into the playoffs; regularly get Byes; and regularly find themselves in the Championship game where they have a fifty fifty chance of winning.

 
Sometimes you make blunders and it costs you. Out of the redraft because I failed to notice INDY D was available vs the Pick King and it cost me a win. Went with the Vikings vs Blaaaaaa. Yeah, the other team had the Indy D against Mr. Pick-6.

 
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We're making semi-educated guesses on what football players are going to do in a game......there will always be a ton of luck

 
Andy Dufresne said:
I was kidding. But it does raise the question of whether there's a better way to determine a playoff champion than one and done.

Maybe the regular season should be H2H and the playoffs be a three week all-play. :shrug:
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Gotcha...in my big $ 10-team keeper league, we have a 12 week regular season, so playoffs start one week earlier than all other leagues I’ve ever encountered.  What that provides for, though, is a 2-week championship match.  The 2 teams that make it to championship square off for cumulative points over weeks 15 & 16; lineup changes are allowed but waiver/add-drops shut down after week 15

That certainly doesn’t solve all aspects of fantasy flukiness, but for the overall champ I think it’s a nice twist to overcome late season inconsistencies that occur in real NFL.  I have suggested adding double-headers during regular season as I do think we could better suit the good teams making playoffs with more matchups

 
we play a two week final and combine the scores......helps a little....

we have been tossing around a full all play format once the playoffs start....all 6 teams play in first week, last two are eliminated....second week all 4 play.....last two are eliminated....final weeks the last two standing play....

 
95% luck ... the guy about to win our league Auto-Draft the whole thing.... the rest of us are die hard Sharks... wtf? 

Is flipping a coin pure luck or skill?

 
I played in a league once:

top 5 W/L records

If the highest scoring team didn't have one of the top 6 W/L records, they got the last playoff spot.  Otherwise, 6th best W/L.  This also encouraged teams with bad W/L to keep trying all season.  

50 point bonus for best W/L record

50 point bonus for top scoring regular season team

25 point bonus for second best W/L record

No playoff matchups; combined scores and bonuses of weeks 14-16

It was interesting and I believe reduced variance of the FF playoffs 

 
Dizzy said:
Can't we all just agree on one "FF is 75% luck" thread?
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It is a discussion we have over and over, and probably will again during the offseason doldrums.

My keeper league is total points with modest points for head-to-head, so it does reward season-long performance rather than playoff/head-to-head luck.

But even the total points leagues takes a lot of luck - some guys just underperform/outperform/get hurt for a variety of reasons. 

 
We split our league winnings into two pots.  Typical H2H playoffs and total points.   I'm crushing in the league this season and should win total points.   I have no idea how I will do in the playoffs this weekend.  Wouldn't surprise me at all to be beat since it is mostly luck in the playoffs . 

 
Doug B said:
How many of those players can you start at each position? A team being that stacked might just mean you have an awesome bench, but other teams can match you with starters even if their teams are paper-thin.

Otherwise ... yeah, plenty of luck in head-to-head. You have lots of players with good fantasy reputations, but also a lot of 2019 letdown guys.
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2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 2 RB/WR/TE Flex spots

Choosing a starting lineup can be hell. The depth can help when injuries hit, but it always feels like it's my guys getting injured/suspended. 

 
I think most of the league settings in this thread increase the luck component by a lot. 

Change your league to start 11 or 12 offensive players. Move to an all play situation or award a playoff spot by most points scored.  Go to hybrid best ball, to remove the lineup setting part, as lineup setting has a high luck component and punishes deeper teams. 

There are tons of things to do that can reduce luck.  If you play in a 10 team league that starts like 8 players it's going to be very luck driven. 

 
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guess I'm not sure why people differentiate the "playoffs"....it's just like any other part of the fantasy season.....and if you aren't drafting and roster managing with an eye on weeks 14-16 you are probably doing it wrong anyway.....there is no more luck involved in week 15 than there is in week 3......

 
I think Deamon has approximately the right ratios. Playoffs are different from the regular season because it is one and done. 

 
There is a thread for people to whine about how unlucky they are.  Why do people keep starting new threads about it?

 
Warhogs said:
I think Deamon has approximately the right ratios. Playoffs are different from the regular season because it is one and done. 
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but the fact that it is one and done changes nothing about any "luck" factor or percentage luck factor.....its just "another week of FF" like any other...

 
Stinkin Ref said:
I'll ask you too.....how is there more luck involved in week 15 than in week 3...?
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The "weighted coin flip" someone mentioned above is the best example. Averages work out over a season.  If you build a good team and have a 70 percent chance to win every game you play, then over the course of a season you should have a winning record and make the playoffs. 

That same 70 percent chance throughout playoffs (drop it a tad to 65 percent since you're playing only good teams), and it is unlikely that you will win 3 playoff games in a row.  You actually only have a 27 percent chance to win the title in this case. 

Over a full season of waiver moves, some luck going either way, etc... usually the strong teams get in.  In playoffs, one guys kicker could go off for 24 points and beat a stronger team. 

 
IHEARTFF said:
That's not the comparison. It's week 1-13 vs where you can go 8-5 or so and week 15 you have to win.
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I was referencing the stat percentages above where somebody said the "luck factor percentages" basically magically flip flops when the calendar goes from week 13 to week 14....

 
Deamon said:
The "weighted coin flip" someone mentioned above is the best example. Averages work out over a season.  If you build a good team and have a 70 percent chance to win every game you play, then over the course of a season you should have a winning record and make the playoffs. 

That same 70 percent chance throughout playoffs (drop it a tad to 65 percent since you're playing only good teams), and it is unlikely that you will win 3 playoff games in a row.  You actually only have a 27 percent chance to win the title in this case. 

Over a full season of waiver moves, some luck going either way, etc... usually the strong teams get in.  In playoffs, one guys kicker could go off for 24 points and beat a stronger team. 
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you said this....

Reg Season:  75% skill, 25% luck. 
Playoffs:  25% skill, 75% luck.

I just don't see how this magically changes from week 13 to week 14.....the FF gods have no idea if your league starts the playoffs in week 14 or week 8.....

I have some leagues where the playoffs start in week 13.....and others not until week 14.....so in the same week (13) I am 25% lucky and 75% lucky....got it.....lol...whatever...

maybe if I can add those together I am 100% lucky which means there is no way I can lose....but unfortunately that 100% only adds up to 100 of 200 cause it's two separate leagues which means I am really only 50% lucky in week 13.....dang it....

you put what you think is your best lineup out there every week after putting yourself in the best possible position to win any match up....and the chips fall where they may.....

 
Stinkin Ref said:
you said this....

Reg Season:  75% skill, 25% luck. 
Playoffs:  25% skill, 75% luck.

I just don't see how this magically changes from week 13 to week 14.....the FF gods have no idea if your league starts the playoffs in week 14 or week 8.....

I have some leagues where the playoffs start in week 13.....and others not until week 14.....so in the same week (13) I am 25% lucky and 75% lucky....got it.....lol...whatever...

maybe if I can add those together I am 100% lucky which means there is no way I can lose....but unfortunately that 100% only adds up to 100 of 200 cause it's two separate leagues which means I am really only 50% lucky in week 13.....dang it....

you put what you think is your best lineup out there every week after putting yourself in the best possible position to win any match up....and the chips fall where they may.....
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Yes I did.

Reg Season Success (over the course of about 13 games) usually skill wins out.
Playoff Success (over the course of 1-3 games), luck plays a greater factor in your success.

Flip a weighted coin 13 times where the odds of it landing in your favour are 70%, and you will end up happy with the results.  Do it 2-3 times, where you have to get it right each time, and you're far less likely to be.

 
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