Fantasy football takes no skill (1 Viewer)

[jackdubl]

Secondly, I make a living off fantasy sports. What's that make me, then? And not just playing them and winning money from them, either, but actually being hired full-time as a fantasy sports expert. That's my JOB TITLE. Saying I am not a fantasy sports expert is like saying someone who works as a cop is not a police officer.

I think your analogy is poor. You meant to say that it's like saying a cop is not a constitutional law expert. Which, of course, he isn't. Or it's like saying a cop is not a legal expert. Which he also most likely isn't. So just want to point something out to the "writer"-- writer not equal expert. A competent writer would understand this rather easily. Neither does getting paid for something. I know plenty of people getting paid who to do something that they are incompetent at.

 

[ToySoldier13]

Sheesh, a lot of vitriol the last couple of days, its just a fantasy football discussion guys - relax a little.

On phone right now so just a quickie in response to Dave and his attempt at using the Spiller value pick that paid off as a testament to skill. That doesn't work brother, it is still a perfect example of luck however you try to spin it. Regardless of what one's research told them about Spiller, his value was still utterly reliant on luck (injury). It just so happens that lucky break went your way, had Jackson not been injured you'd have wasted an 8th round pick and a bench slot.

You can absolutely set yourself up for the POSSIBILITY of success in your draft choices, waiver picks, and sit em/start em decisions; but the final outcome will always be determined by the breaks.

 

[footballnerd]

Sheesh, a lot of vitriol the last couple of days, its just a fantasy football discussion guys - relax a little.On phone right now so just a quickie in response to Dave and his attempt at using the Spiller value pick that paid off as a testament to skill. That doesn't work brother, it is still a perfect example of luck however you try to spin it. Regardless of what one's research told them about Spiller, his value was still utterly reliant on luck (injury). It just so happens that lucky break went your way, had Jackson not been injured you'd have wasted an 8th round pick and a bench slot.You can absolutely set yourself up for the POSSIBILITY of success in your draft choices, waiver picks, and sit em/start em decisions; but the final outcome will always be determined by the breaks.

of course there's chance and luck in the hobby, that's why I tip toe around the Fantasy Gods at times. But the premise of the thread is that Fantasy Football in particular requires NO skill.

 

[Hoss Style]

So, in reading through this thread the OP (xander) has said that he doesn't play Fantasy Football much and is in a 10 team league only because he was invited.

He basically is admitting that his involvement with the game is almost nonexistant.

He then has a series of articles talking about how FF takes no skill.

He proceeds to argue with a guy who has a long track record of being in the game and has thousands of games to back it up.

And I argued with the OP.

Looking back - I'm the idiot for arguing with a guy who started out the thread by telling us he was ignorant about the sport in the first place.

Live and learn.

 

[Coolerheads]

After reading this entire thread, I have some things to point out:

1.) FF would be "100% luck" if you listed every eligible player at his position before the start of the draft, and radomly chose one of them to fill each slot on your roster. (And no, you don't get a bench.) That would make it completely random, and eliminate any influence of skill. If everyone in the 12 team leauge did this, you should expect to win the leauge 1/12 of the time. If you are the only one who does this, you should be happy if you somehow don't go 0-13.

There is plenty of luck involved each week, but most of that happens after the first kickoff, when the work (and skill involved with figuring out who to start, and why) have already stacked the odds in your favor.

2.) The author wants to have it both ways, saying he is an "expert" while contending that FF is "100% luck." Which is exactly the same as me saying I'm an expert at guessing heads or tails in coin-flipping.

3.) Fantasy Lacrosse exists? And you get paid to write about it? If it's the pro leauge, there are only eight teams, each of whom play a 14 game schedule. Talk about a lack of variation! The results of each week means even less than it does in the NFL, which shoots down about half of the points you made.

4.) There are ways to further reduce the role luck plays in FF, but they won't be very popular:

a.) You could play in a two-team leauge that goes H2H every week, with a starting roster of 8 QBs, 16 RBs, 24WRs, 8 TEs, 8Ks, and 8 Ds. That way, one bad week/injury has much less effect on the overall performance in said given week. Or,

b.) Play rotisserie style like they do in baseball, with the 12 catagories perhaps being: Passing yards, Passing TDs, Rushing yards, Rushing TDs, WR yards, WR TDs, TE yards, TE TDs, receptions, fewest turnovers, most kicker points, and fewest defensive points allowed. Make it a 12 team leauge, starting 2QB/3RB/4WR/2TE/2K/2D, with a flex position or two, and you'd have a very different game, one that rewards luck a lot less often. (Side note: Nobody does this, and it ticks me off; I would love to play in a FF roto leauge!)

c.) In either case, and in a regular H2H leauge, eliminate the playoffs and go with a 16 game regular season--best record wins. Bad beats are part of the game, but it's silly that it should determine a championship. We've all been on teams that scored the second most points in a week, only to lose to the top scorer; however, I can never recall, in the 100+ leauges I've ever been in, a single case where I scored the second least amount of points and still won. And that, my friends, is "luck" of the worst variety.

 

[Ignoratio Elenchi]

We've all been on teams that scored the second most points in a week, only to lose to the top scorer; however, I can never recall, in the 100+ leauges I've ever been in, a single case where I scored the second least amount of points and still won.

The probability that this has never happened to you is extremely tiny if you've really played in 100+ leagues. It's almost certainly happened to you at least a couple of times. You just don't notice, because you don't bother to look up your weekly scoring rank when you win. You're just happy you got the win and move on. It's only when you score a bunch of points and lose that you bother to check how bad your luck was that week.

 

[Coolerheads]

We've all been on teams that scored the second most points in a week, only to lose to the top scorer; however, I can never recall, in the 100+ leauges I've ever been in, a single case where I scored the second least amount of points and still won.

The probability that this has never happened to you is extremely tiny if you've really played in 100+ leagues. It's almost certainly happened to you at least a couple of times. You just don't notice, because you don't bother to look up your weekly scoring rank when you win. You're just happy you got the win and move on. It's only when you score a bunch of points and lose that you bother to check how bad your luck was that week.

I'm not saying it hasn't happened, just that I (most likely) remember that bad luck more than the good. (Which is the exact opposite of the way most people operate, but I've always been a fatalist.) It would take me hours to catalog all of the times each situation happened; and even then, it would only show about 60% of the leauges I've been in, so I'm not sure it's enough of a sample-size to bother with. At any rate, that was the least importaint part of what I posted, but thanks for bringing it up anyway.

 

[Ignoratio Elenchi]

I (most likely) remember that bad luck more than the good. (Which is the exact opposite of the way most people operate

I doubt the bolded is true. See this, for example.

 

[ToySoldier13]

Let's test this. All of you who think you weild the indescribeable and unquantifiable force that is Fantasy Football skill - pick your perfect rosters on here each week. You will NEVER pick them perfect, which means you can always get beat regardless of how skilled you think you are, points only league that won't matter but in a HtH even one loss can change a the entire dynamic. Go for it, let's say 1 QB, 2 WR, 2 RBs, 1 TE, 1 FLEX, 1 DEF, and 1 K and we'll use standard scoring.

If someone can just once pick a perfect roster I will concede that there may be some skill involved.

 

[duaneok66]

Let's test this. All of you who think you weild the indescribeable and unquantifiable force that is Fantasy Football skill - pick your perfect rosters on here each week. You will NEVER pick them perfect, which means you can always get beat regardless of how skilled you think you are, points only league that won't matter but in a HtH even one loss can change a the entire dynamic. Go for it, let's say 1 QB, 2 WR, 2 RBs, 1 TE, 1 FLEX, 1 DEF, and 1 K and we'll use standard scoring.If someone can just once pick a perfect roster I will concede that there may be some skill involved.

amazing logic in this post.

 

[ToySoldier13]

Let's test this. All of you who think you weild the indescribeable and unquantifiable force that is Fantasy Football skill - pick your perfect rosters on here each week. You will NEVER pick them perfect, which means you can always get beat regardless of how skilled you think you are, points only league that won't matter but in a HtH even one loss can change a the entire dynamic. Go for it, let's say 1 QB, 2 WR, 2 RBs, 1 TE, 1 FLEX, 1 DEF, and 1 K and we'll use standard scoring.

If someone can just once pick a perfect roster I will concede that there may be some skill involved.

[*]Joined: 02-October 12

Anyone want to lay odds that this is an alias account created by the OP that created an account only to spam the board with his article? Who else would take the time to bump this waste of time?

Pathetic.

Nice try, I have nothing to do with the OP though. I bumped it because not one of you masters of the art of fantasy football has yet explained how I am the leading scorer in 2 of my leagues but not in first place. In one of them the 8th highest scorer is sitting in first. You haven't yet explained how simply printing out a cheatsheet on draft day is often just as viable as doing research. You haven't explained how you can control a gust of wind pushing a FG wide or how you can make someone fumble or miss a tackles; how you decide when which rbs get carries. You have no control over anything that happens, so how are you skilled?

 

[Ignoratio Elenchi]

Let's test this. All of you who think you weild the indescribeable and unquantifiable force that is Fantasy Football skill - pick your perfect rosters on here each week. You will NEVER pick them perfect, which means you can always get beat regardless of how skilled you think you are, points only league that won't matter but in a HtH even one loss can change a the entire dynamic. Go for it, let's say 1 QB, 2 WR, 2 RBs, 1 TE, 1 FLEX, 1 DEF, and 1 K and we'll use standard scoring.

If someone can just once pick a perfect roster I will concede that there may be some skill involved.

[*]Joined: 02-October 12

Anyone want to lay odds that this is an alias account created by the OP that created an account only to spam the board with his article? Who else would take the time to bump this waste of time?

Pathetic.

Nice try, I have nothing to do with the OP though. I bumped it because not one of you masters of the art of fantasy football has yet explained how I am the leading scorer in 2 of my leagues but not in first place. In one of them the 8th highest scorer is sitting in first. You haven't yet explained how simply printing out a cheatsheet on draft day is often just as viable as doing research. You haven't explained how you can control a gust of wind pushing a FG wide or how you can make someone fumble or miss a tackles; how you decide when which rbs get carries. You have no control over anything that happens, so how are you skilled?

 

[Neil Beaufort Zod]

I know this is a sensitive subject, and I appreciate the time and energy people put into the hobby, both playing and producing content.

But if I'm going to hear about someone who manages 100 teams, I'd like to know how all 100 teams did. I expect some champions and some awful teams. But how many finish in the money? The law of averages suggests that if you join 100 12-team leagues, you should win at least eight times. That's just 12 robots drafting and simulating seasons. If you pay attention and play in leagues where some folks don't put in a lot of time...you should win a lot more, and come in the money a lot more than that.

So how many times would an expert win? I understand that betting services are considered successful if they hit 60 percent of their predictions (not my area of expertise, so I apologize if that's wrong). Could we apply the same to a fantasy expert? Could I expect 60 league titles, or 60 times in the money? Is that how we define an expert?

We all know the owners who play in 12 leagues and hype up their big dog champion each year. But if they have another couple of good teams and nine losers...are they experts? How many good teams would they have to produce each year to be considered one?

We all know luck plays a role in fantasy football. So does "preparedness," which is not a skill. So how much is actual skill? Even if it's a small amount, it could be the difference in determining winners and losers each year. But if someone plays in a lot of leagues, I'd like data from all of them to see how they really did.

 

[ToySoldier13]

Aww, no one took up my skill challenge; feel free to try next week. Did any "experts" have Freeman as their number 1 QB? Top 5 even? What about VJax? Cobb? CJ?K or Howling? Dan Bailey? Of course not. Because whatever you claim about your mad research and magical fantasy skills, at the end of the day you are really just making educated guesses and praying they work out.

 

[Ignoratio Elenchi]

How'd you do in fantasy lacrosse this week?

 

[Mario Kart]

Aww, no one took up my skill challenge; feel free to try next week. Did any "experts" have Freeman as their number 1 QB? Top 5 even? What about VJax? Cobb? CJ?K or Howling? Dan Bailey? Of course not. Because whatever you claim about your mad research and magical fantasy skills, at the end of the day you are really just making educated guesses and praying they work out.

Not sure who you are but if you have a beef with someone, PM them. Quit this holier than thou attitude and come correct if you would like to make a point about something. Until you do that, keep your childish rants to yourself. Go take your ball home and whine to mommy how no one wants to play with you.

 

[ToySoldier13]

Aww, no one took up my skill challenge; feel free to try next week. Did any "experts" have Freeman as their number 1 QB? Top 5 even? What about VJax? Cobb? CJ?K or Howling? Dan Bailey? Of course not. Because whatever you claim about your mad research and magical fantasy skills, at the end of the day you are really just making educated guesses and praying they work out.

Not sure who you are but if you have a beef with someone, PM them. Quit this holier than thou attitude and come correct if you would like to make a point about something. Until you do that, keep your childish rants to yourself. Go take your ball home and whine to mommy how no one wants to play with you.

The beef isn't on my end bro, it was Ignartio and Hooper who started in with wild accusations. I am entirely entitled to my "holier than thou" attitude as my arguments have been unbreakable thus far. Isn't that what we are doing here? Having a debate? As far as I can tell, the skillful masters of fantasy football have yet to join the actual discussion - they are instead too busy making accusations and personal attacks. That is the sign of men who have been beaten and broken and means that the "no skill" side has won this argument.

 

[squistion]

Aww, no one took up my skill challenge

Um, possibly because it was the most inane skill challenge ever offered in this forum.

 

[Ignoratio Elenchi]

Aww, no one took up my skill challenge; feel free to try next week. Did any "experts" have Freeman as their number 1 QB? Top 5 even? What about VJax? Cobb? CJ?K or Howling? Dan Bailey? Of course not. Because whatever you claim about your mad research and magical fantasy skills, at the end of the day you are really just making educated guesses and praying they work out.

Not sure who you are but if you have a beef with someone, PM them. Quit this holier than thou attitude and come correct if you would like to make a point about something. Until you do that, keep your childish rants to yourself. Go take your ball home and whine to mommy how no one wants to play with you.

The beef isn't on my end bro, it was Ignartio and Hooper who started in with wild accusations. I am entirely entitled to my "holier than thou" attitude as my arguments have been unbreakable thus far. Isn't that what we are doing here? Having a debate? As far as I can tell, the skillful masters of fantasy football have yet to join the actual discussion - they are instead too busy making accusations and personal attacks. That is the sign of men who have been beaten and broken and means that the "no skill" side has won this argument.

So much dumb.

 

[Underachievers]

Aww, no one took up my skill challenge; feel free to try next week. Did any "experts" have Freeman as their number 1 QB? Top 5 even? What about VJax? Cobb? CJ?K or Howling? Dan Bailey? Of course not. Because whatever you claim about your mad research and magical fantasy skills, at the end of the day you are really just making educated guesses and praying they work out.

You will have a tough time getting some people here to admit that skill plays a very small part of winning in fantasy football. Some managers have ego's that will just not allow that to happen.

 

[sporthenry]

Aww, no one took up my skill challenge; feel free to try next week. Did any "experts" have Freeman as their number 1 QB? Top 5 even? What about VJax? Cobb? CJ?K or Howling? Dan Bailey? Of course not. Because whatever you claim about your mad research and magical fantasy skills, at the end of the day you are really just making educated guesses and praying they work out.

So do you think poker has no skill? Because you don't see the same players winning the WSOP every year, yet the professionals still seem to do better than the average joe.

 

[ToySoldier13]

Aww, no one took up my skill challenge; feel free to try next week. Did any "experts" have Freeman as their number 1 QB? Top 5 even? What about VJax? Cobb? CJ?K or Howling? Dan Bailey? Of course not. Because whatever you claim about your mad research and magical fantasy skills, at the end of the day you are really just making educated guesses and praying they work out.

So do you think poker has no skill? Because you don't see the same players winning the WSOP every year, yet the professionals still seem to do better than the average joe.

Of course poker takes skill, but poker has a set number of variables and outcomes. While you can't control the cards themselves, you can react to them mathematically. You can also read the other players and adjust your bets and reactions accordingly. None of that is true of fantasy football. I liken it more to blackjack - while knowlegde of the game absolutely helps you more than someone without that knowledge, the final outcome is always determined by luck.

 

[onehung]

This years version of this thread is eerily similar to the ones in years past. The result is always the same.

 

[sporthenry]

Aww, no one took up my skill challenge; feel free to try next week. Did any "experts" have Freeman as their number 1 QB? Top 5 even? What about VJax? Cobb? CJ?K or Howling? Dan Bailey? Of course not. Because whatever you claim about your mad research and magical fantasy skills, at the end of the day you are really just making educated guesses and praying they work out.

So do you think poker has no skill? Because you don't see the same players winning the WSOP every year, yet the professionals still seem to do better than the average joe.

Of course poker takes skill, but poker has a set number of variables and outcomes. While you can't control the cards themselves, you can react to them mathematically. You can also read the other players and adjust your bets and reactions accordingly. None of that is true of fantasy football. I liken it more to blackjack - while knowlegde of the game absolutely helps you more than someone without that knowledge, the final outcome is always determined by luck.

The final outcome of poker is determined by luck too though. You can play a hand perfectly, you can call pocket Jacks with pocket Aces and lose. There is definite mathematics to react to just you have to know how to sift through all the numbers. Perhaps it is more like sports betting but knowing that CJ is going against the defense giving up the 4th most to RBs or VJax was going up against the defense giving up the 3rd most to WRs or Freeman was going up against the defense giving up the 6th most to QBs. Of course you can't predict everything and you can't get everything right but would you say there isn't skill in betting either? Because gamblers or even the sports books get plenty wrong. Certainly there are some variables that can't be accounted for but that doesn't mean it takes no skill. You can cite the ability to not get a perfect record as some evidence of it taking no skill (which to mean makes no sense) but I can cite hundreds of examples of stats which prove some skill like targets, red zone targets, opponent's defense, etc. What would you call benching your WR's against Revis? More times than not, that WR gets shut down, just b/c he goes off once, doesn't mean it all of a sudden isn't skillful, but that luck is involved too.

 

[OG_GF]

I play a lot of poker and fantasy football. I write a weekly article and I have been playing FF for about 15 years. I guess you could consider me an "expert".

It's true in poker, and FF that the people that usually say it's all luck, are also the people with very little skill. But sometimes AA does get beaten by QQ. Happened to me a couple weeks ago in a $700 pot. Sucked. I was 82% to win. But that's all you can do, is get your money in the pot when you are favored.

FF is similar but more often than not your decisions are "crowdsourced". Your decisions are mostly based on other peoples analysis.

Another major difference is there are certain things you can do, that are a time investment in FF, that will increase your chances of winning. For instance, each week as the waivers process, I watch what players are dropped and I am ready to scoop up players I want. There is no luck involved in this, and it's hard to say there is any skill. I'm simply investing the time to take advantage of an opportunity.

I don't usually play multiple leagues in a year, so I have maybe only played 20 total seasons of FF, I have never finished worse than 6-8. Why? Because I am absolutely obsessed, and I invest 5 times the amount of time as the next guy and I never give up.

In the end, what you guys are talking about is variance. Happens in FF and it happens in poker. Both games rely on luck, and skill. If you are lucky, patient and skillful, you might win what is usually (odds wise) a 1-9 or greater longhsot.

 

[rickyg]

Let's settle on fantasy for all being 20% skill (drafting explosive players that match your scoring system well, playing matchups on a weekly basis, working the waiver are and trades) and the rest of it is dumb luck.

You can draft impeccably and half your team can (and does) bust.

You can pick up a waiver wire darling and he gets injured or is a one week wonder.

You can play the matchups and a stud player lays an egg in an easy matchup while the other player torches a tough matchup on your bench .

The weather can interfere with players performances.

So can injuries.

80% of it is dumb luck. I've been playing ff for over 12 years and I am convinced. The smarter I think I get about this game the more the game shows me it's mostly luck

And ps I have won many titles and gone to even more Super Bowls in my 12 plus years playing. And I still feel this way.

 

[OG_GF]

It's impossible to quantify, and purely situational.

And I see it all the time in poker and in FF, someone plays badly and still wins. Yes, luck is part of the game, but giving it a percentage is purely a guess. That is true for both games. I think poker is more reliant on luck than FF, FWIW.

 

[Ignoratio Elenchi]

FF is similar but more often than not your decisions are "crowdsourced". Your decisions are mostly based on other peoples analysis.

Poker is much the same in this regard. The vast majority of poker players know that they have a 12% chance of hitting a three-outer on the turn or the river, for example, not because they've done that calculation themselves (or even know how to do it) but because someone else did it and published the results. Doing that kind of analysis is one skill, which in poker and in FF is usually outsourced to "experts." Knowing what to do with the results of those analyses is another skill altogether.

 

[rickyg]

It's impossible to quantify, and purely situational.And I see it all the time in poker and in FF, someone plays badly and still wins. Yes, luck is part of the game, but giving it a percentage is purely a guess. That is true for both games. I think poker is more reliant on luck than FF, FWIW.

You are right in that you can't put a percentage on it. Anyone who puts a percentage is just giving an opinion. Not fact. But i think we can all agree that there is a tremendous amount of luck in Ff. Good post

 

[OG_GF]

FF is similar but more often than not your decisions are "crowdsourced". Your decisions are mostly based on other peoples analysis.

Poker is much the same in this regard. The vast majority of poker players know that they have a 12% chance of hitting a three-outer on the turn or the river, for example, not because they've done that calculation themselves (or even know how to do it) but because someone else did it and published the results. Doing that kind of analysis is one skill, which in poker and in FF is usually outsourced to "experts." Knowing what to do with the results of those analyses is another skill altogether.

Well, I didn't invent math so ...But that's irrelevant. I didn't know he had QQ. I didn't know I was 82% until I saw his hand. Knowing the math didn't really help me win (or lose, in this situation) the hand. I played the hand as well as I could, re-raising all in pre-flop, but 18% is not 0%. Sometimes you can play skillfully and still lose. I see it more often in poker than I do in FF.

 

[[icon]]

It's impossible to quantify, and purely situational.And I see it all the time in poker and in FF, someone plays badly and still wins. Yes, luck is part of the game, but giving it a percentage is purely a guess. That is true for both games. I think poker is more reliant on luck than FF, FWIW.

Yep. I love the people saying stuff like "fantasy football is luck... Just look at any league with similarly skilled players and its a total crapshoot" Anyone from here enters any casual bar league and we have a MUCH higher chance of cashing. Not 100% of course because there is most certainly SOME Luck... But case in point.... I've never NOT finished top 6 (money) in my 16 team $250 bar league. I've won 3 of the last 6 (and cashed 100%) years in my $100 10 team office league... Etc... Some folks will say "sure... You're playing with #######." These guys draft from current sheets... They set their lineups every week.... They make moves... There is no collision. The difference is, I am more informed and I have a better working knowledge of the player pool and tendencies of the game than them.... And frankly I'm likely just mediocre compared to most of the shark pool. There is most certainly a skill level involved. The closer the skill level of the players, the greater the influence of luck (variance).

 

[ToySoldier13]

...The closer the skill level of the players, the greater the influence of luck (variance).

I think you may have just bridged the decades old great polarizing divide good sir. I am more than willing to accept that as the end all be all resolution to this debate - provided we also account for format alongside owner knowledge/dedication (it may take me a while to actually say the word skill). Total points with only other casual owners 1% luck, HtH with all sharks 99% luck, then everything in between. Sounds about right.

 

[Hoss Style]

So are we arguing semantics here?

Is the ability to "be good" at FF an actual skill? I see people keep writing it off as just "hard work" or "research". Those aren't skills? It's there that many of us disagree.

Since I used to work in a field that relied heavily on research, you'll never convince me that "research" or the work involved in gathering it is not a skill. It is. I've seen countless people who don't know where to focus their efforts and end up getting less done in a longer amount of time. They worked as hard as anyone else yet ended up with less information that they could use. Further more - using that information towards improving your goal is absolutely a skill - and directly related to the problem solving skills of the individual using the data.

Imagine for a moment that no FF sites existed. No FBG, no ESPN, Yahoo, etc. Would you consider it a skill then? The massive amounts of interpretation needed to unravel what the stats actually mean (player situation, quality of opponent, coaching philosophies, injuries, game situations, etc, etc) - that would obviously be a skill that would require huge amounts of information and knowledge of how the game works and player/coach motivations.

Now, because there are sites (like this one) that do a lot of that work for us - it's no longer a skill?? That's what I don't get - there are true "experts" out there that teach others how to interpret certain things (in it's simplest form - a "cheat sheet") and some people want to devalue the entire hobby because this information is readily available.

And even with all this info out there - I still see tons of owners make bone headed moves on a weekly basis.

Again - researching intelligently and using it towards your goal effectively is a skill. Just because there are great sites out there that do a lot of the work for us doesn't mean that the "skill" aspect is gone. The deeper leagues, IDP leagues, larger rosters and more intricate scoring all ramp up the skill required exponentially.

For those of you arguing against, especially the OP (and his alias) - if you don't understand this then you are lacking a skill of your own - comprehension.

*Edited to add*

...The closer the skill level of the players, the greater the influence of luck (variance).

This is also very true. Notice that [icon] uses the word "skill" in there. When people with similar skill levels compete it is always more difficult to succeed. In FF, sports, science, etc. Just because people of similar skill are relying on "that big break" to push them ahead doesn't negate the skill involved that got them to that level in the first place.

 

[Neil Beaufort Zod]

I don't think the poker analogy is a great one. In poker you could have inferior cards (players) and still win because you convinced your opponent to lay down their better cards (players). Anyone ever win a fantasy matchup because you scared the opponent into starting a backup?

Yes, poker takes skill. The skill part has nothing to do with the cards-- that's just math-- and everything to do with reading the opponent and playing off them. That skill allows a player to minimize losses and maximize gains. And the luck part still overwhelms them much of the time. There is no comparable skill in fantasy football. Maybe the "art" of trading? It's not really there.

If I replaced half your league with six people off the street, gave them a subscription here, Draft Dominator and made it worth their while to follow the games and waiver wire... I think they'd win just as much as you and your "regular" owners. People often mistake preparedness for skill. Poker players employ a skill we don't have in fantasy football. And for those who claim an unusual success rate, again I'd like to see the results of every team in every league before labeling it skill.

If I show you my multiple titles and my 6-1 team, can I call myself an expert? If you respond by asking about by 2-5 team, my 3-4 team and all the years I didn't win...can I ignore you? The whole picture often reveals more than we volunteer.

 

[Angry Beavers]

To succeed in any one given season or league is luck.

To consistently be a playoff team, win championships etc is skill.

I will also add:

I takes more skill than luck to get into the playoffs and manage the regular season. At that point more "luck" is involved as anything can happen in one given week.

 

[jonathanjoseph]

Very interesting discussion here. Just read through the whole thread and want to chime in given that I've actually got some knowledge and data around this.

As a primer, my startup (which I won't link to in this post but it's always available in my signature-- I don't want this to come off like too much like a commercial) is measuring very granular fantasy football expertise BECAUSE luck plays such a significant role. The poker analogy is a good one, although the differences other posters have mentioned are also accurate. At the end of the day, a professional poker player can play masterful strategy and lose to a noob who just got lucky and got good cards on any given hand. Just like any week a great fantasy player can lose to the girl in your league who chooses players based on the color schemes of the uniforms. Any one result in poker or fantasy is highly dependent on luck, but that's why you can't judge a poker player's expertise or a fantasy player's expertise by one hand or in the case of fantasy; one week, one league or one season.

What we've done is take the approach of quantifying a fantasy player's skill by examining every single move (draft pick, start/sit, trade, waiver wire) as an individual data point, taking into account league scoring settings and roster composition and measured against alternative options and we take injuries into account. We identify a user's "Fantasy IQ" by examining every move across leagues, scoring systems and providers (and thus create league power rankings as well).

With that background, our we're coming across some really interesting data and results so far in our Beta users that apply to this discussion. We're finding a noticeable dropoff in performance in users who play in more than 3 leagues. The obvious takeaway here is that performance correlates to some degree of effort or concentration, because if luck played were the only determinant of performance, the number of fantasy leagues a player plays in shouldn't have a noticeable affect on results.

Further, our results so far show that there is a small percentage (<10%) of people who play fantasy football who are noticeably better than everyone else. For these players, their Fantasy IQ is much higher, but their H2H results and points for are only marginally higher than the average player, reflecting some of the luck. I'm leaving out some of the other other data, but what we're seeing is that there is a definitely a difference in "skill", but it takes a consistent performance over time for that to show up and that very few of you are more "skilled" than the average Fantasy player. If the general figure is <10%, I'd wager that somewhere around 15%-20% of the guys here at FBG are in that truly skilled category.

Thanks for the interesting discussion guys.

 

[JamesTheScot]

No, it eliminates the luck. Just like playing million poker hands. Play in one league and maybe you get lucky or suffer a bunch of bad luck. Play in twenty and your average results tell you a lot.

No - it doesn't eliminate the luck. Poker is always used as analogy for FF - and in some ways it makes sense to do so. But not in this case. In poker, half way through a hand, the ace in your ATs doesn't suddenly become useless due to injury - and remain useless to you the rest of the night. In poker, your opponents pocket TT doesn't suddenly turn into QQ because the cards higher then them got hurt. In poker your KK pre flop, doesn't suddenly get demoted to KQ because the team drafted another RB to replace the presumed starter. Your pocket rockets don't suddenly become useless because they're playing in a blizzard during FF playoffs (Brady/Moss owners froma few years ago?) There are WAY more variables in fantasy football than in poker - and many of them can't be accounted for, let alone controlled.You cannot eliminate luck in FF. You can mitigate variance in poker. But the two are NOT the same. In poker you are dealing with a constant - the deck. In FF there is no constant, therefore, you can only hope to maximize your skill, thus limiting the amount luck plays into the results - but you cannot eliminate it from FF.

As such, no matter what % you think luck is involved..10%, 20% or 40% - that will be the only contstant. Whether you are in 1 league or 100.

Not to mention that you can't pretend to have RG3-Rice-Harvin in your lineup and convince your opponent to forfeit his game on Saturday to avoid greater loss on Sunday.I dislike the poker analogy as well.

In fantasy football, the impact of luck is magnified/diminished in relation to the quality of your opponents as well as your league format. Playing in a league with equally skilled owners is going to magnify the impact of luck while playing with a bunch of noobs is going to diminish the impact of luck. Similarly in a H2H versus total points format.

I've always said if you really want to see who is good, play in a total points league where rosters are not exclusive. Every player is available to every owner every week. And even then, injuries and the inexplicable stinker will still have significant impact in the week's production if the owners are similarly skilled.

 

[xander756]

Looks like I ended up with the last laugh, after all. The Championship game of my fantasy football league just wrapped up and guess who won it? Considering I'm posting here, you probably already guessed it. I did. Funny thing is, I didn't even need to play in 20 leagues to get a win, like some of you people do. I was in just one league. And I won it. That gives me a 100% win percentage this year. What's yours? Here are some screens: http://penguinrungames.com/images/allluck.png http://penguinrungames.com/images/allluck2.png

If anybody is qualified to claim that fantasy football is all luck. It's me. And it is. There was no skill involved in this. Fantasy football is all luck.

Let's just take a look back at some of my favorite quotes from this thread.

Peyton Manning in the 4th in a 10 team league? Not much skill in making that pick I agree. Not because ff is all luck but apparently you dont have the skill.

Drafting Peyton Manning in the 4th round of a 10-team league shows that at least one of the owners is most definitely not an "expert".

Manning wasn't worth a 4th round pick eh? Yeah it's not like he had an amazing year or anything. 4,350 yards and 34 touchdowns which currently ranks him 7th in all fantasy scoring totally wasn't worth it. You guys are absolutely right! HAHAHAHAHAHASo once again, I have proven myself to be the real fantasy expert here.

 

[Mentos]

I wish to subscribe to your blog.

 

[gsmayes]

nobody cares, xanderwhatever.

 

[wiscstlatlmia]

Looks like I ended up with the last laugh, after all. The Championship game of my fantasy football league just wrapped up and guess who won it? Considering I'm posting here, you probably already guessed it. I did. Funny thing is, I didn't even need to play in 20 leagues to get a win, like some of you people do. I was in just one league. And I won it. That gives me a 100% win percentage this year. What's yours? Here are some screens: http://penguinrungames.com/images/allluck.png http://penguinrungames.com/images/allluck2.png

If anybody is qualified to claim that fantasy football is all luck. It's me. And it is. There was no skill involved in this. Fantasy football is all luck.

Let's just take a look back at some of my favorite quotes from this thread.

Peyton Manning in the 4th in a 10 team league? Not much skill in making that pick I agree. Not because ff is all luck but apparently you dont have the skill.

Drafting Peyton Manning in the 4th round of a 10-team league shows that at least one of the owners is most definitely not an "expert".

Manning wasn't worth a 4th round pick eh? Yeah it's not like he had an amazing year or anything. 4,350 yards and 34 touchdowns which currently ranks him 7th in all fantasy scoring totally wasn't worth it. You guys are absolutely right! HAHAHAHAHAHASo once again, I have proven myself to be the real fantasy expert here.

What does you winning prove about anything? lolETA: Aren't you a fantasy writer? Wouldn't that give you advantage over others in the first place?

ETAETA: This is a really sad attempt at attention... I'm sorry nobody took your season long blog seriously

 

[Ignoratio Elenchi]

Way to humiliate yourself further OP.

 

[FUBAR]

In my case, all it takes is someone dropping the bears D before their bye week

 

[rickyg]

While I'm not sure what Xander was getting at in his last post, I still agree that fantasy football is largely based on luck.

I just lost by a hair in my leagues sb. 2nd year in a row I got there. Very competitive league. That said, both years were mostly luck. This year my team was HORRID for the first half of the season. Dez, McFadden, cam newton. Need I say more? I was the epitome of mediocrity.

With a few weeks left in the regular season I was 7th in tp and in 7th place. Dez and cam woke up, I grabbed Moreno, Alexander, and my team just exploded. I hot hot at the right time.

By contrast, the 1st place team, which was by far and away the most dominant team ever to grace our league, had 200 to more than the 2nd place team who was also great. He had griffin, nelson, shorts, foster, martin, hernandez, and more. he was stacked.

I snuck into the playoffs, eliminated the 3rd and 1st seeds and just lost by a hair in the sb.

Ask the #1 seed if he thinks winning a ff championship is luck. Methinks he will agree.

I think that the regular season record and total points have more skill involved. But once you get to the playoffs and its one and done its a total crap shoot IMO.

 

[xander756]

Arian Foster had one fantasy point this week. I wonder how many people got screwed solely because of him? How can anybody on this board even TRY to argue that fantasy football takes skill?

 

[Mello]

Arian Foster had one fantasy point this week. I wonder how many people got screwed solely because of him? How can anybody on this board even TRY to argue that fantasy football takes skill?

From what I've seen, the better players in leagues tend to make the playoffs most years. I think there's skill involved there. Once the playoffs arrive, it's basically all luck though.

 

[cvnpoka]

When I used to play FF on Stats (they used to run FF leagues!), they had a great stat called "Coaching Percentage". On a weekly basis, it basically told you how well your fielded team performed versus your optimal lineup. Regardless of team, every player who made 80%+ on Coaching Percentage made the playoffs each of the four years I was on Stats.

What skills does FF take? To name a few: statistics, combinatorics, probability, psychology, meteorology (believe it or not), risk analysis, and economics. The bottom line is that anything that can be done well requires skill. We know that you can do well at FF empirically by the vast numbers of people who have above average win-rates. This point cannot be disputed. In fact, I have a database full of FanDuel, DraftStreet, and Yahoo league play that clearly shows consistent winners.

When I first saw this thread, I figured it would just fade away quickly. But apparently it stirred a debate instead. Look, if you don't think this game, or any game for that matter, takes skill, then you aren't very good at it. Part of playing anything at a high level entails knowing what it means to be on a high level. Even stating "FF takes no skills" as a premise is ludicrous. Yes there is luck involved, but that doesn't negate skill.

a great coaching percentage is way more likely to indicate teams with terrible benches than a skillful owner.

 

[butcher boy]

Arian Foster had one fantasy point this week. I wonder how many people got screwed solely because of him? How can anybody on this board even TRY to argue that fantasy football takes skill?

Arguing either extreme is dumb. Winning in FF takes a certain amount of skill and a certain amount of luck. Some weeks one of the two may be more of a factor than the other. It's really that simple.

 

[xander756]

nobody cares, xanderwhatever.

Clearly based on the fact you replied, you do.

 

[ConstruxBoy]

70-80% skill to get to the playoffs. 40-45% skill to win the title. IMHO.