Has Fantasy Advice Jumped the Shark? (1 Viewer)

[bagger]

Compared to most things in life Fantasy football is definitely in the bottom tier of "return you get vs. time you put in".

that couldnt be further from the truth.if that is true for you, then you are doing it wrong.

I see both sides.. You can put a shyt load of time in, think everything is gonna be great then guys get hurt. game plan goes out of sorts and your shyt out of luck, but for the most part if your willing to make moves and read the articles and watch the games, you should be able to at least make the playoffs and come out a head

dont get me wrong, there is a very substantial portion of fantasy football, especially on a week to week basis, which is luck. amd yes, no planning can mitigate that directly. however that goes into the right strategy. waiting on kickers, defenses, and qbs. understanding that your wr4 in a start 3 wr league will likely play 1/3 of the season, if not more, so you need to be deep there. same with rb3. doing your own projections. mocking your draft spot and seeing where value falls at what position to determine when you should pick your positions (which of course can change on draft day but that gives you a good blueprint going into the draft). be proactive on the waivers, always be looking to upgrade skill positions.all of that is preparation.

i drafted r rice and gore in the first 3 rounds, but am 3-0 and lead my league in points even though many would say those two have been busts ytd. my rb3? vick ballard. ir. but i handcuffed with pierce, and got j bell late along with significant depth at wr and a good te while others were grabbing kickers and defenses in the middle late rounds.

so while there is luck involved, to think that its totally a crap shoot and no preparation is needed is going to equate to a long season where you get no value because you are just following the advice of others and not capitalizing on the value that others dont see but you do through your research.

 

[bagger]

Time to get past the mindset that 'drafting a QB early #1 overall is a bad choice'....

my 10th round pick michael vick would like to have a word with you.

 

[bagger]

It's always been pretty useless. Especially trying to project game stats. Ever really look at the FBG "official" projections? Let's say there are, at most, 18 QBs who might be considered "startable" in a 12-team league. The projection for every guy is 21 points, + or - 3 points. RBs all bunch up into 14 points or 7 points. That is, everyone gets 70 yards, and some get a TD and some don't. The #6 WR for the week might be projected to get 10 points as a mid-WR1 starter, the waiver-wire fodder at WR50? Projected for 7 points. When everything is so closely bunched there's no accountability. Might as well throw darts.

predicting weekly stats is worthless.predict yearly stats and dont waver from those projections until at least week 4.

that meant for me continuing to start bullock at pk one more week as well as antonio brown at wr.

week to week production is very volatile so try not to get too caught up in it especially in the first two weeks.

if you projected as i did that a brown would be a wr2 caliber player based on a lot of analysis, projections, and analysis of those projections in your scoring system, dont doubt yourself or get too cute playing weekly matchups. roll out your starters every week until there is a SIGNIFICANT reason not to.

other than defense who i play matchups with weekly, my starting lineup has only changed once with one player (rice due to injury) in the first three weeks combined.

i dont care what the rankings say week to week. i play my best players based on my yearly projections week in and week out.

 

[Warrior]

What I'm reading is "Poker is all luck because I once saw a guy lose to a runner-runner straight flush"

The best end up in the playoffs more often than not, just like final tables. This is despite a few strings of good/bad luck here and there for the ones that are clueless.

Though I agree with your point of subscriber information being next to useless these days, since everyone has access to similar information on other sites.

But the subscriber contest here is fun, as is the WoC contest, though that's dying a slow and painful death unfortunately :(

 

[bagger]

The advice and information overload doesn't bother me but the attrition due to injury gets me down at times. Increasingly, it isn't a question of "who's hurt", it's "who isn't hurt"?

which is why you are best suited waiting on qbs to some degree, pk and dt to a much larger degree, and te sometimes if you have some sneaky value plays (seemingly olsen the last couple years and j cameron were two i was heavily looking at), and really focus 8 of the first 10 rounds on wrs and rbs.you have to draft for depth. a great exercise is do a mock draft and then on a weekly basis insert the individual players who should be your starter each week. all of a sudden you realize wr4 is playing 3 weeks (barring injury), depending on byes wr5 is guaranteed to play 1 week often times and given injuries it is usually a week or two more. quickly you realize that 30-40% of your fantasy regular season is dictated by your "bench" performing. when you understand that you realize how ridiculous it is to draft the seattle defense, or david akers in the mid rounds, or a qb in the 1st or 2nd round.

you must hammer depth. and by doing so your rb3 from your draft may be your rb1 if the first round pick doesnt work out and is underperforming. maybe your wr4 becomes your wr2 as deshaun jackson did for me. people need to get out of thinking of starters and reserves and get into thinking they are drafting a pool of players they pick from every week. the rankings of those players within that pool may very much change based on a variety of factors, and it goes without saying that the deeper your pools are, the more likely you will be to having viable starters every week regardless of when they were drafted.

 

[SCT]

Im a big fan of this site. Ive been a member for many years (so nothing personal "footballguys"). But i've been wondering lately if fantasy advice is past the point of being the helpful tool it once was.

I also subscribe to a couple other sites and this is why I ask:

• For any given player and any given game you can find legit industry experts diametrically opposed to each other -- an in some cases absolutely dismissive of the other "experts" position
• In the cases where there's actual industry consensus (for example, Alex Smith will feast on Philly) you still have shocking misses
• The NFL itself is so unpredicatable even at a team vs team level, can you really confidently, consistently predict player performance?Obviously Im talking on the margin -- choosing btw QB 4 and QB 8 in a given week, not btw Brees or Pryor

I sometimes listen to Sirius radio Fantasy football channel and you have these people calling in to ask: Who should I start? Bowe or Tate? B Meyer or J Cook? The reality is nobody freaking knows. They just don't. And half the experts will be right on that call and half will be wrong. So which are you listening to THAT week?

So what does this all mean? I dont know. I know that everyone in my league also subscribes to experts. So far my league is a mess. The guy winning is the least clued in guy -- Drafted Brees #1 overall, and the Seahawks in the 7th round. But he's leading so far.

This isnt a rant. I'm 1-2 but I took alot of risks in the draft because i think thats the only way to really win since most everyone is following the same advice these days. Then its a bunch of luck.

But i just keep wondering, is there too much info out there now?

All of these factors point toward the undeniable truth (though many will) that fantasy is mostly blind luck. I haven't scrolled through but I'm sure this is a repeated theme in this thread.

 

[The Jerk]

All of these factors point toward the undeniable truth (though many will) that fantasy is mostly blind luck. I haven't scrolled through but I'm sure this is a repeated theme in this thread.

I know of few longtime players that suggest luck is not a large component of FF, but this is not new. There are countless Shark pool threads over the past decade that debate the proportion of luck to skill. There is no consensus on the exact ratio, but there is nearly unanimous consensus that the shorter the time frame, the greater the role of luck in determining your success.

Skill will become more of a factor over a season compared to one week, and over multiple seasons compared to one season. And you know what, luck is a part of all life, not just FF.

 

[The Jerk]

Skill will become more of a factor over a season compared to one week, and over multiple seasons compared to one season. And you know what, luck is a part of all life, not just FF.

A corollary of sorts to the time duration vs. ratio of luck to skill argument is that the greater your success in fantasy football, the more you attribute success to skill.

 

[UnderDawgs]

This site won me my league last year.

 

[KellysHeroes]

I've gotten plenty of good advise and information from the SP alone. I don't pay for content in part I want to do it myself. Look, FF is a total crapshoot; if the experts got it right majority of the time then we would all pay the $25 a yr and win all our leagues... what fun would that be? I roll about $500 a yr into 8 or so leagues and if I make it back or more then good for me. I play FF because its fun and very challenging, its a hobby and I'm not good enough to win $1000s in fanduel or other contests. FF is very much like the game of life, you can be prepared for just about anything but then stuff happens and its back to the drawing board. Doing your homework on players usuals gets you in a better position but winning in FF is also part lotto. Thats why its so popular, because truly anybody can win.

I get mad like everyone else when Matt Ryan is ranked lower than Kaep becase Ryan is up against an athletic front 7 and his OL will be out matched... or Bowe and Nicks are ranked in the top 25 of WRs and stink it up, but in the end its up to me to set my line ups and no one else to blame. Experts are people too and nobody is prefect.

On a side note, I will admit that this yr the misses have been a little more than usual.

 

[Thunderlips]

There's too much info out there. Sites like this help mainly because the sheer amount of info you get (usually preseason) helps you look at deeper players and situations that aren't readily apparent. It works because you have 10,000+ "experts" weighing their opinion...and if if you have the time to sift.....you usually get nice info. The problem now is that I think that most of the big sites (CBS/YAHOO/ESPN) are basically just grabbing the deep work that sites like this do and making it readily available in blurbs and player updates.

If you're looking to gain an advantage in regards to info....try to start subtly moving your league in a direction away from the 1QB/2RB/2WR/1TE/1D/1K H2H format. Deeper rosters; more flexibility; earlier drafts;IDP.....those are things that can still give people who frequent these websites and advantage.

 

[EBF]

I think you have to find sources you trust and then stick with those sources. If there's no consensus among them, you'll have to make a tough decision.

Besides that, there is A LOT of luck and variance in this game. I think we sometimes forget how much of this is out of our control.

 

[Bills_Fan11]

Compared to most things in life Fantasy football is definitely in the bottom tier of "return you get vs. time you put in".

that couldnt be further from the truth.if that is true for you, then you are doing it wrong.

Either that or I don't live in a communist country (yet).

Sick brag on picking RB/WR depth before K's & D's though - groundbreaking stuff.

 

[az_prof]

The info that is worthwhile is deep insight on matchups, upcoming backups, potential overreactions to great/poor performances to maximize value relative to other's emotions. Week to week WDIS is a crap shoot.

I've found that info in dynasty is WAY more helpful than weekly info for lineup decisions in redraft.

This. I like analysis...tell me something worthwhile, like a stat, a trend, an insight, an observation from someone with an inside view. Those are useful.

Flat out just "start so-and-so" stuff isn't too helpful. I try to take that stuff and flesh it out with stats, etc. I don't like the lists of who to start that offer nothing else.

However, even then things can go amiss. For example, this week all sorts of advice and my own analysis got turned on its head with the supposed sure-shot MIN defense vs. the down and out CLE offense. In the end if your research was thorough and your decision sound, you can't be mad at yourself....it might've been a good decision but just a bad outcome. Can't get 'em all right. You're just trying to reduce the odds of losing.

There is no short cut. There is no substitution for your own observations based on first hand watching of players. This week the experts were saying to avoid Josh Gordon--unheralded third string QB and coming back off suspension without Trent Richardson. My own analysis and gut told me Gordon would be huge. I have loved him since I saw him play last year. He had a great preseason. And with Richardson gone, I knew he would see a ton of targets.

Bottom line is that you can have an edge but you can't just rely on unfiltered "expert" opinion.

 

[Man of Zen]

Skill will become more of a factor over a season compared to one week, and over multiple seasons compared to one season. And you know what, luck is a part of all life, not just FF.

A corollary of sorts to the time duration vs. ratio of luck to skill argument is that the greater your success in fantasy football, the more you attribute success to skill.

The same is true of poker and scratch off tickets.

 

[SCT]

I keep wanting to do all my own research based on first hand observations so I don't have to rely on the often incorrect/unlucky experts, but I keep finding the same thing getting in the way. I have a life.

 

[duaneok66]

I cannot emphasize enough the need to distinguish opinions from facts.

Look at opportunities (targets, carries) not just production.

For lineup choices, make initial choices yourself independent of all the rankings out there. Otherwise, you can end up vacillating back and forth on the contrary positions that you find if you consult enough experts.

Look for experts that give the reasoning behind those rankings and pay far more attention to the reasoning than the ranking.

The hardest part is knowing when to be patient with a player who is underperforming vs. cutting your losses. Usually, players end up regressing to the mean after slow starts, and patience is rewarded. Specifically, I tend to think that TDs will end up reasonably close to what was expected preseason, so a wide receiver like Torrey Smith still has all of the 6-8 TDs we expected him to score out there. (Think Dez Bryant last season.) On the other hand, if a situation has dramatically worsened, until and unless changes are made, you must adjust your forecast appropriately. (Vincent Jackson is not going to approach last year's numbers unless Glennon is given a chance and is sufficiently talented to get him the ball.)

In leagues in which you have a long history, study tendencies of other owners and the league as a whole to help gain advantages in draft/auction preparation. To me, this is very underrated among even very knowledgeable and experienced FF owners.

I hit a slump from 2006-2009 because I got a little lazy and trusted the opinion of others almost exclusively. Since I've gotten back into doing more of my own research and forming my opinions first, I've returned to far greater success. May be just a coincidence but it is more likely that it is not.

Outstanding post. I listen to podcast after podcast after podcast, and I live on here (yes I have no life) . . . BUT I make my own decisions.

 

[oswizzle]

it's GAMBLING! Plain and Simple

 

[Don Quixote]

A lot of the info advantages have gone away. You don't even have to show up to the draft now to get a good team -- a couple of auto-draft teams are currently leading a couple of my leagues.

Redraft leagues are primarily luck now. More skill required in dynasty. The leagues that I'm in that require the greatest amount of skill are my college teams -- a lot less info out there, which adds a bit more of a challenge. It reminds me of what FF was like in the mid-90s.

 

[bluewings]

Fantasy football generally has jumped the shark.

Too popular, too much information, too much money to be made by self described experts and websites. Someone will always declare a player as a break out and another will say he is a bust. B/c One will be right.

yes, ffb info: predictions and projections is a crap shoot. Notice it is difficult to find archived projections and predictions on this site and others b/c it is mostly wrong. Even on this site the same player will be listed as overvalued and undervalued. Predicting NFL player individual stats is just not subject to accuracy with much consistency.

Injuries will eventually kill FFB, and pro football generally.

Fantasy bowling anyone?

 

[ghostguy123]

I just kind of view all the info out there as something to glance at to make sure you don't MISS anything, like drafting of trading for a guy who just got hurt or whatever.

 

[uniman4]

I just gave up, on any questionable calls, i have just learned to live with the fact that every guy i start will not do well, and every guy i don't start will.

I am a guy that researches everything too.

It's the NFL, it's all a crapshoot pretty much.

It usually comes down to if your team has more of the guys that generally do well no matter what vs the teams that mix/match and have to use their gut.

 

[Dentist]

The Sirius XM fantasy channel now is using a porn star for a variety of segments.. Lisa Ann.

I'm pretty sure at that point, fantasy advice has definitely humped the shark.

I pay for a FBG's site because I don't really watch that much football and I don't pay attention to the off-season, and I don't want to spend the time to do my own projections.

I know that David Dodds and Sigmund Bloom watch a lot of football and so while they are going to be wrong a LOT... at least their opinion is based on what they are seeing and paying attention to.

FBG's has great features that customize their advice to my league's setup.. that's nice.. and a lot more than I get out of Sirius XM (although I do listen because it's something i'm interested in) or watching ESPN.

With all the shows and advice there is out there on twitter, the web, tv, and radio... my question is.. is anyone thinking for themselves at all anymore?

Frankly I get enough out of the FFA here that even if I quit fantasy football I might subscribe to the site just to throw a bone to the people running things.

CBS gives me a ton of useful information that we pay for by having our leagues hosted there... it's good information... FBG's is just better.

At the end of the day though, just remember that much like in baseball where the best hitters in the world still don't get on base 6 times out of 10, a fantasy guy can be good at what he does and be wrong 4-5 times out of 10.

 

[The Jerk]

An important note on beating yourself up for making bad lineup choices...

if you've done a good job building depth, you're going to end up making more bad lineup choices than if you have a very weak bench.

I know later in the year it's sound advice to try to trade some depth up upgrade your starting lineup, but early in the season I want to be the guy with a lot of options, and it's a good sign to have bench players outscoring your starters, provided your starters aren't flat out terrible.

While it's not really a goal of mine, I hope to lead the league in bench points, as it is a strong indication that I have the best roster in the league. As long as I'm reasonably efficient in lineup choices, the hits and misses should balance out over the course of a season.

Purely by the numbers, if I have three closely ranked WRs and need to pick one to start, I should expect to be wrong more than half the time. Same is true at other positions. The only exceptions are when you have a huge discrepancy between players, like a Jimmy Graham vs. Charles Clay or something. In that case, you'll be right most of the time, although even then there may be one or two weeks where you could still make the wrong choice with the benefit of hindsight.

 

[bagger]

Compared to most things in life Fantasy football is definitely in the bottom tier of "return you get vs. time you put in".

that couldnt be further from the truth.if that is true for you, then you are doing it wrong.

Either that or I don't live in a communist country (yet).

Sick brag on picking RB/WR depth before K's & D's though - groundbreaking stuff.

don't be mad at me for sucking.And wth communist country?

:baffled:

 

[Bills_Fan11]

Not bragging about how awesome I am @FF on a message board = Sucking!

I'm setting your Age O/U at 12.5.

 

[ebsteelers]

Not bragging about how awesome I am @FF on a message board = Sucking!

I'm setting your Age O/U at 12.5.

im on the over big... just judging on his join date and all

 

[DoubleG]

An important note on beating yourself up for making bad lineup choices...

if you've done a good job building depth, you're going to end up making more bad lineup choices than if you have a very weak bench.

I know later in the year it's sound advice to try to trade some depth up upgrade your starting lineup, but early in the season I want to be the guy with a lot of options, and it's a good sign to have bench players outscoring your starters, provided your starters aren't flat out terrible.

While it's not really a goal of mine, I hope to lead the league in bench points, as it is a strong indication that I have the best roster in the league. As long as I'm reasonably efficient in lineup choices, the hits and misses should balance out over the course of a season.

Purely by the numbers, if I have three closely ranked WRs and need to pick one to start, I should expect to be wrong more than half the time. Same is true at other positions. The only exceptions are when you have a huge discrepancy between players, like a Jimmy Graham vs. Charles Clay or something. In that case, you'll be right most of the time, although even then there may be one or two weeks where you could still make the wrong choice with the benefit of hindsight.

In one of our leagues, the software (CBS I think) tracks a "Coach Rating" - which is basically "did you start who was best?" each week - and quantifies it by how many more points you would have had, etc. The team with the best Coach Rating is usually the team with a weak bench or many injuries (i.e. one that had no choice on who to start). Teams with decent benches (read: good depth) will often have guys on their bench who put up good games while their starters have a weak week. This past week is a great example - Denarius Moore was on my bench, while Reggie Wayne was in my lineup...as was DJax and D. Thomas.

 

[Ministry of Pain]

Im a big fan of this site. Ive been a member for many years (so nothing personal "footballguys"). But i've been wondering lately if fantasy advice is past the point of being the helpful tool it once was.

I also subscribe to a couple other sites and this is why I ask:

• For any given player and any given game you can find legit industry experts diametrically opposed to each other -- an in some cases absolutely dismissive of the other "experts" position
• In the cases where there's actual industry consensus (for example, Alex Smith will feast on Philly) you still have shocking misses
• The NFL itself is so unpredicatable even at a team vs team level, can you really confidently, consistently predict player performance?Obviously Im talking on the margin -- choosing btw QB 4 and QB 8 in a given week, not btw Brees or Pryor

I sometimes listen to Sirius radio Fantasy football channel and you have these people calling in to ask: Who should I start? Bowe or Tate? B Meyer or J Cook? The reality is nobody freaking knows. They just don't. And half the experts will be right on that call and half will be wrong. So which are you listening to THAT week?

So what does this all mean? I dont know. I know that everyone in my league also subscribes to experts. So far my league is a mess. The guy winning is the least clued in guy -- Drafted Brees #1 overall, and the Seahawks in the 7th round. But he's leading so far.

This isnt a rant. I'm 1-2 but I took alot of risks in the draft because i think thats the only way to really win since most everyone is following the same advice these days. Then its a bunch of luck.

But i just keep wondering, is there too much info out there now?

Just starting this thread but I believe this is an excellent topic worth discussing.

On the surface I would say that sometimes it does come down to a coin flip and I appreciate FBGs like Dodds and will weight that opinion more than others. If I didn't feel that way I wouldn't be a subscriber. Excellent thread topic, I think this is something that will be discussed for months. Already 75 posts in here.

 

[adamjw2]

I actually considered starting a league this year where expert help is banned. Just wit vs wit. I've kinda lost the pride of winning when all I'm doing is using someone else's analysis to make all my decisions.

How would one police this?

It wouldn't be for money. So you'd just have to trust each other not to cheat.

 

[Topes]

I have become convinced over the past two years that the FLEX position in Fantasy is a concoction of fantasy pundits.

That way, they can list a hundred guys a week as flex plays. They can't be wrong.

 

[Biabreakable]

I think doing your own projections is useful for learning about the teams, their personnel, their schemes and what the pecking order might be in case of (inevitable) injuries.

I have no illusions about my projections being better than others. But that is not really my goal in doing projections. The goal is to figure out what might happen so I can act on it, to make a better decision by knowing all (hopefully) the pieces in play. The odds and relative value of all of those pieces.

Someone cannot really do that for you no matter how much better their projections might be for accuracy compared to yours. You still need to understand why those projections are what they are and how one change or another might affect the whole pie.

You can use a formula and perhaps get the right answer, but you still won't really know if it is the right answer unless you also know what the question was and what variables went into forming it.

For example I can use a formula for projecting a players yards/carry such as-YPC_n+1 = LgAvgYPC -0.04+0.43*(YrNDiff) http://thedctimes.com/tag/backs-yards-per-carry/ (nice article)

But if I do not know why I am using this formula, (I think a lot of these things are based on baseball which are much larger data sets and more individual/isolated events compared to the team game of football which is organized chaos) I do not think it is a good idea to blindly trust something you do not understand.

If you understand what went into the rankings you are looking at (sometimes not much) then they become more useful (or not if you disagree with the methodology).