jwb
Footballguy
That's what I am trying to say - in an 8-teamer, it very often isn't set in stone. Lineup decisions take more thought when you have four to five very viable starting options as opposed to two or three. I play in roughly nine 12-14 team dynasty leagues. In most of them, I can right now pretty clearly see a starting lineup - it's rare when I have more than 2 "studs" at any position. Of course, that will change with injuries, sleepers emerging, etc. But generally, I have a few nice options at each position, and the rest are filler. In my one 8-teamer, I always end up with studs across the board - every week I end up benching guys like Boldin, Ocho, M Austin, VJax, etc because there just isn't room to start them. It makes for a harder "start" decision. I do agree that anyone can lay an egg at anytime - that's really not what I am saying.We'll just have to agree to disagree here. Both "who do I start" and "who do I draft" involve a certain skill, and both involve a certain amount of luck as well. WDIS, imho, requires a lot more luck than the other one. I don't have any facts or figures to back it up, that's just the impression I have. Frank Gore could put up a dud against Detroit while Steven Jackson goes nuts against the Jets, for no real rhyme or reason. Heck, a guy could go for 180/2 against a team on the road and later play against that same team at home and go for 45/0? Why? Random chance.
At least when we're talking about player's success over the course of a whole season there are general reasons behind it, and they're often reasons that we knew about ahead of time, where people were separated by how important they think those reasons are. Beanie Wells could go for 1500/15 next year, or he could go for 500/5, and there are people in each camp. But those people are separated by one group seeing a guy that is talented enough to overcome stuff like a bad offense, Tim Hightower, etc while others do not believe he possesses that kind of talent. If he ends up in the 500/5 level, it will likely be because of a reason that many people were talking about before the season.
Meanwhile, if Beanie runs for 200/3 against the Jets and 27/0 against the Lions, what people out there had reasons that would lead them to foreseeing that?
I don't really know a good way to put this into words, but when we're talking about whether or not a choice was more skill or more luck, typically the longer something lasts the more the luck will balance out. If you choose to draft someone you get a whole year for all the flukey, lucky weird stuff to balance out and get a true estimation of how good a job you did with that pick. When you're talking about a decision (like "who do I start at RB2 this week?") that only has one game to work itself out, there's no chance for the luck to balance itself out. Granted, you're doing WDIS with more than one position so that helps balance it out some, but it's still a small number because your RB1, WR1, TE1, etc are all probably still pretty set in stone.
Most of these WDIS decisions are either really obvious or are basically toss-ups. The fact that in the majority of cases where it's not obvious, you probably don't feel very strongly one way or the other and just kind of see it as a toss-up is proof enough of that. It's close, but you're picking one and hoping you get the right one. By comparison, with draft picks, people often feel VERY strongly, and have a laundry list of reasons for strongly preferring one player over another even if other players view that person completely differently.
Maybe this will make what I am saying clearer:
Here's an 8-team wr group: (pick 2 to start)
Fitz, AJ, VJax, M Austin, Ocho
And here's a 12 team: (pick 2 to start)
Fitz, AJ, Avery, Cotchery, D Bess
Based on what we know now, which group gives you more options to play matchups? Sitting Fitz isn't so far-fetched when you have VJax or M Austin to replace him, is it? Say Fitz draws revis next week, and VJax or Austin gets some patsy. You sit Fitz in the 8-teamer. But in that 12 teamer, there's almost no way you sit Fitz for Avery/Cotchery, no matter who he draws. There's really no decision to make in the 12-team league. There's a pretty big decision to make in the 8-team one.
Now, there are some 12 team teams that have a ton of studs, and some 8 team teams that have only 2 options. But it's generally not the norm - there are usually more viable starting options in smaller leagues, making the decision a little more meaningful.
I'm basically disagreeing with the assumption stated earlier that smaller leagues require less skill. They definitely don't. No less so than larger ones, imho - it's just different.
Last edited by a moderator: