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0-1, 0-2 Starts and Probability of Making FF Playoffs? (1 Viewer)

just_want_2_win

just_want_2_win

Footballguy
I've seen a lot of stats about NFL teams going 0-1, 0-2, and 0-3 and making the playoffs. That got me thinking how that applied to fantasy football.

However, searches of this forum and the web in general didn't net me any results.

Has anyone ever come across such figures? There are a few threads here about "panic" so I am curious how much of a setback going 0-1 is in FF.

 
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ponchsox said:
0-1 you're done, no chance of making the playoffs
Click to expand...
That's what I thought. Fifty percent of FF owners already are doomed.

No, seriously, I was wondering if anyone's come across percentages. For instance, something like teams starting 0-1 make FF playoffs 55% of the time, 0-2 25%, etc. Maybe there are no such figures but I thought if anyone's ever read such stuff, it'd be those in this forum.

 
kind of depends on number of teams that make the playoffs.

is it like the fgc where the highest scoring team and best record get a chance to dance or solo based on record. etc

 
Any statistics would be too generalized to be meaningless.

How many teams in your league?

How many teams make the playoffs?

How active is trading?

How deep are the rosters?

Is it keeper/dynasty where someone will sell out for future years?

I'd rather be 1-0 than 0-1 but any idea about thinking of diminished probabilities of making the playoffs is silly.

 
I have no idea how to find those figures. Only the FF host sites will have that data, they might not even have the software to collect that data, and there's no guarantee that they publish that data. *shrug*

That said, last year two teams in my money league made the playoffs with only one game over .500, while the regular season leader was either 10-4 or 9-5 (I think 9-5). So I'd bet that an 0-1 start is not a big detriment.

That said, there are lots of ways to lose week 1. If you put up decent numbers but ran into a Manning/McCoy/Cruz buzzsaw, then it's not worth losing sleep over. If you've got Gronk and Gordon on your bench and look fine at other positions, I think you're still in it. If you're looking over a list like Cam/Trich/David Wilson/Dez/James Jones/Lamar Miller/Sudfeld... it's time to start worrying.

 
I started 0-3 last year and went on a huge winning streak to close out the season. Ended with 4 losses, won the championship.

You can't help it if you play the Highest Scoring team a few weeks in a row.

 
Started doing some calculations, realized I was taking way too many leaps and assumptions.

If you have a good team, you'll still have a good chance of making the playoffs. If you have a bad team, you don't have a good chance. If you have an average team, your chances dropped fairly significantly, rough (very rough) calculations showed around 15-20% in a 10 team league.

 
I was curious so here are the results of my 6 year, 12 team, 6 playoff berth, 13 week regular season league. The results were lower than I thought they'd be.

Code: 
0-1   10/36   28%0-2    4/23   17%0-3    0/14    0%0-4    0/8     0%0-5    0/5     0%0-6    0/4     0%
 
Hoosier16 said:
I was curious so here are the results of my 6 year, 12 team, 6 playoff berth, 13 week regular season league. The results were lower than I thought they'd be.

0-1 10/36 28%0-2 4/23 17%0-3 0/14 0%0-4 0/8 0%0-5 0/5 0%0-6 0/4 0%
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This is great and interesting. Thanks for compiling.

How many regular season wins does a team making the playoffs usually have in your league? What's the fewest wins that's gotten in? I also am surprised that 0-1, in your league at least, was that much of a setback.

And it's also good to hear that some owners have overcome starts as bad as 0-3. Has anyone come back from an even worse winless record?

 
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I started 0-4 and squeaked into the playoffs in 7th (very balanced league as 8-11th were tied). However 8 of 14 make it so its not a tough feat. I lost in the semi finals.

I was 0-4 with most points scored in the league so it was bound to turn around.

I'd like to see more stats on it though.

 
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Lydia said:
Any statistics would be too generalized to be meaningless.

How many teams in your league?

How many teams make the playoffs?

How active is trading?

How deep are the rosters?

Is it keeper/dynasty where someone will sell out for future years?

I'd rather be 1-0 than 0-1 but any idea about thinking of diminished probabilities of making the playoffs is silly.
Click to expand...
:goodposting:

 
I took a chance with my new dynasty league by drafting crabtree harvin and gordon. Hoping I could scrape by this first half of the year. I still have megatron hopkins and streater. Lost first week by not much

 
I ran a bunch of simulations of a 12-team league where the top 4 teams (33%) make the playoffs (14-week regular season). 21% of 0-1 teams made the playoffs, compared with 45% of 1-0 teams.

After two games: 12% of 0-2 teams and 58% of 2-0 teams.

After three games: 6% of 0-3 teams and 70% of 3-0 teams.

 
I did it for my league. 16 team with doubleheaders. 8 teams make it

Since 2005, 46 teams have started 0-2 and 11 have made playoffs

18 teams have started 0-4 and 2 have made playoffs

8 have started 0-6 and none have made playoffs

 
If we make a very simplified assumption that Fantasy Football is pure luck and each team has a 50/50 chance of winning any given match up, we can calculate expected probabilities of making the playoffs, assume 13 game season.

Across the top is the number of wins needed to make the playoffs, and down the side is the number losses to start a season. Thus if you need 8 wins to make the playoffs, at 0-1 you have a 19% chance, if you drop to 0-2 you drop to a 11% chance.

7 8 9 10 11 121 38.72% 19.38% 7.30% 1.93% 0.32% 0.02%2 27.44% 11.33% 3.27% 0.59% 0.05% 0.00%3 17.19% 5.47% 1.07% 0.10% 0.00% 0.00%4 8.98% 1.95% 0.20% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%5 3.52% 0.39% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%6 0.78% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%7 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%8 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%9 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%10 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%11 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%12 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%13 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%For comparison purposes, if you want to assume you actually have a 55% chance of winning any given match up, the results would look like this:

Code: 
	7	8	9	10	11	121	52.69%	30.44%	13.45%	4.21%	0.83%	0.08%2	39.71%	19.11%	6.52%	1.39%	0.14%	0.00%3	26.60%	9.96%	2.33%	0.25%	0.00%	0.00%4	14.95%	3.85%	0.46%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%5	6.32%	0.84%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%6	1.52%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%7	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%8	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%9	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%10	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%11	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%12	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%13	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%
 
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I think one of the writers at Yahoo analyzed this last year or the year before, but I can't find it. For some reason I have 0-3 in my head as the likely death sentence in most leagues.

 
16 team dynasty league 2010-2012

0-1 16.6% (4/24) made the playoffs

0-2 5.5% (1/18) made the playoffs

6 teams make the playoffs each year

 
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Also depends on who you lost to - if you have the 2nd highest score for the week, and lose to the top score, you are probably going to be ok. Conversely, if you have the 2nd worst point total and happen to beat the lowest point total in week 1 - you probably are not very good.

Then you have the whole sample size issue of having good players who played poorly in week one, but will play towards their norms in following weeks, or guys who were 1-week wonders, who come back to reality in future weeks.

 
Losing one game drops your chance to win, on average, the same any week. It doesn't matter when it happened. 0-1 then winning 2 in a row is the same as 1-0 and going 1-1 the next 2 weeks

 
Sinn Fein said:
Also depends on who you lost to - if you have the 2nd highest score for the week, and lose to the top score, you are probably going to be ok. Conversely, if you have the 2nd worst point total and happen to beat the lowest point total in week 1 - you probably are not very good.

Then you have the whole sample size issue of having good players who played poorly in week one, but will play towards their norms in following weeks, or guys who were 1-week wonders, who come back to reality in future weeks.
Click to expand...
In many cases it is the opposite of what you said in the first paragraph, depending on your league playoff tiebreakers. If head to head is before points scored in the playoff tiebreakers then a loss to a good team hurts real bad. It is almost like two losses, because in many fantasy leagues there is no AFC or NFC, everyone is in the same division. So if you lost to a playoff contending team then its like you are now 0-2 because you also lost (or are behind and need to win if you have another meeting with that team) a playoff head-to-head tiebreaker and need to catchup with more than one win to get ahead again. If you lost to a bad team that won't make the playoffs then it is like you are just 0-1.

 
spreagle said:
Sinn Fein said:
Also depends on who you lost to - if you have the 2nd highest score for the week, and lose to the top score, you are probably going to be ok. Conversely, if you have the 2nd worst point total and happen to beat the lowest point total in week 1 - you probably are not very good.

Then you have the whole sample size issue of having good players who played poorly in week one, but will play towards their norms in following weeks, or guys who were 1-week wonders, who come back to reality in future weeks.
Click to expand...
In many cases it is the opposite of what you said in the first paragraph, depending on your league playoff tiebreakers. If head to head is before points scored in the playoff tiebreakers then a loss to a good team hurts real bad. It is almost like two losses, because in many fantasy leagues there is no AFC or NFC, everyone is in the same division. So if you lost to a playoff contending team then its like you are now 0-2 because you also lost (or are behind and need to win if you have another meeting with that team) a playoff head-to-head tiebreaker and need to catchup with more than one win to get ahead again. If you lost to a bad team that won't make the playoffs then it is like you are just 0-1.
Click to expand...
in most cases its exactly like I said in the first paragraph. Trust me when I tell you this: a loss to a bad team is far worse than a loss to a good team. If you lose to a bad team, there is a very good chance you are also a bad team, but just don't realize it yet.

 
Eminence said:
I started 0-3 last year and went on a huge winning streak to close out the season. Ended with 4 losses, won the championship.

You can't help it if you play the Highest Scoring team a few weeks in a row.
Click to expand...
If you're 0-3 and not one of the higher scoring teams your chances are pretty low.

 
3 years ago I started 0 - 6 and won the league. 12 team league, but 8 teams made the playoffs and I won the next 10 games to get the title. I was also the highest scoring team by 300 points at the end

 
Too many variables to give an accurate answer. Depends on how strong your team is and if you lost because of bad luck, along with how big the league is/how many teams make the playoffs.

If you have a 50-50 chance of winning every week and you're 0-1 and need to go 7-6 to make the playoffs.....the probability of going 7-5 the rest of the way is about 39% If you're 0-2, the probability of going 7-4 the rest of the way.....assuming a 50-50 chance of winning each week becomes 32%.

But if you're a middle of the road team, you won't be 50-50 each week.....some weeks you're going to be a dog (say 40% of winning) and a favorite in others (60% chance)......so the percentages above will go down a little.

So I think a middle of the road team starting 0-2 has about a 25-30% chance of getting to 7-6 and making the playoffs.

 
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