Projections Tweak (1 Viewer)

[tytyty]

Getting back a little late in the game this year, I downloaded the VBD sheet. As I do every year, I agree on the rankings in some instances and not in others. Then I get pumped to tweak it up... and then I say eh, they no more then me.

I was wondering what some of the methods are for changing the projections. If there is something glaring I understand. However if Brady is projected at 4,040 yards on VBD what would make you up it 100 or lower it 100. Just a gut feel? Is there a method you personally use?

There are always guys I like more then others (yeah I know I shouldn't) but I would just be upping their projections to move them up on the list. I would really have no other expertise to crunch numbers to support it.

Just curious what some of the ways you go about this.

 

[Skanker]

Very carefully.

 

[stickboy]

Getting back a little late in the game this year, I downloaded the VBD sheet. As I do every year, I agree on the rankings in some instances and not in others. Then I get pumped to tweak it up... and then I say eh, they no more then me.I was wondering what some of the methods are for changing the projections. If there is something glaring I understand. However if Brady is projected at 4,040 yards on VBD what would make you up it 100 or lower it 100. Just a gut feel? Is there a method you personally use? There are always guys I like more then others (yeah I know I shouldn't) but I would just be upping their projections to move them up on the list. I would really have no other expertise to crunch numbers to support it.Just curious what some of the ways you go about this.

First, decide on what draft strategy you are going to follow. If RB is the most important position for you, spend a lot more time on that position and where you expect to draft from that position rather than trying to cover everything.Second, FBG wraps all the criteria into a single projection including factors such as SOS, likelihood of injury, impact of coaching changes, OL strength, etc. If you look at the individual projections or other sites, you will find that by weighting those factors differently they arrive at different projections. For example, given Tom Brady's surgery and the average OL at NE, is he really going to have that banner year that everyone is projecting? Decide which factors matter the most to you, and then tweak part or all of the way to the different projection.Third, take a look at tiering rather than absolute numbers. It is much easier to group a player with other similar ones than it is to come up with an absolute number. Who is within 16 or 32 points (1-2 points/game) of each other? Adjust according to tiers rather than absolutes.

 

[tytyty]

Getting back a little late in the game this year, I downloaded the VBD sheet. As I do every year, I agree on the rankings in some instances and not in others. Then I get pumped to tweak it up... and then I say eh, they no more then me.I was wondering what some of the methods are for changing the projections. If there is something glaring I understand. However if Brady is projected at 4,040 yards on VBD what would make you up it 100 or lower it 100. Just a gut feel? Is there a method you personally use? There are always guys I like more then others (yeah I know I shouldn't) but I would just be upping their projections to move them up on the list. I would really have no other expertise to crunch numbers to support it.Just curious what some of the ways you go about this.

First, decide on what draft strategy you are going to follow. If RB is the most important position for you, spend a lot more time on that position and where you expect to draft from that position rather than trying to cover everything.Second, FBG wraps all the criteria into a single projection including factors such as SOS, likelihood of injury, impact of coaching changes, OL strength, etc. If you look at the individual projections or other sites, you will find that by weighting those factors differently they arrive at different projections. For example, given Tom Brady's surgery and the average OL at NE, is he really going to have that banner year that everyone is projecting? Decide which factors matter the most to you, and then tweak part or all of the way to the different projection.Third, take a look at tiering rather than absolute numbers. It is much easier to group a player with other similar ones than it is to come up with an absolute number. Who is within 16 or 32 points (1-2 points/game) of each other? Adjust according to tiers rather than absolutes.

Very good. I appreciate that. I have done tiering before but always fizzled. I think using the projections FBG has and then tiering will be the way to go. Thanks

 

[stlrams]

I hold off completing my projections until 1 week prior to draft. We hold our draft on the Wednesday before NFL season starts. By waiting I feel that I'm including all the latest information possible. I.E pre-season games, injuries, namiing of starters, etc. I don't see a cut and dry method to tweaking stats. I usually compile stats for every team and players and read some magazines before making out my projections. I don't even look at VBD or website projections until I'm finish then I compare and see if I can support major discrepanices. .

 

[Ray_T]

Getting back a little late in the game this year, I downloaded the VBD sheet. As I do every year, I agree on the rankings in some instances and not in others. Then I get pumped to tweak it up... and then I say eh, they no more then me.I was wondering what some of the methods are for changing the projections. If there is something glaring I understand. However if Brady is projected at 4,040 yards on VBD what would make you up it 100 or lower it 100. Just a gut feel? Is there a method you personally use? There are always guys I like more then others (yeah I know I shouldn't) but I would just be upping their projections to move them up on the list. I would really have no other expertise to crunch numbers to support it.Just curious what some of the ways you go about this.

First, decide on what draft strategy you are going to follow. If RB is the most important position for you, spend a lot more time on that position and where you expect to draft from that position rather than trying to cover everything.Second, FBG wraps all the criteria into a single projection including factors such as SOS, likelihood of injury, impact of coaching changes, OL strength, etc. If you look at the individual projections or other sites, you will find that by weighting those factors differently they arrive at different projections. For example, given Tom Brady's surgery and the average OL at NE, is he really going to have that banner year that everyone is projecting? Decide which factors matter the most to you, and then tweak part or all of the way to the different projection.Third, take a look at tiering rather than absolute numbers. It is much easier to group a player with other similar ones than it is to come up with an absolute number. Who is within 16 or 32 points (1-2 points/game) of each other? Adjust according to tiers rather than absolutes.

I think it also depends on which rankings you use.some mags dont do much in terms of explaining projected shifts in production for a player. FBG tends to have enough articles to support their predictions, but the important thing is to read these articles to determine if their reasoning is valid. sometimes you will not agree with what a writer has to say about a player or a team, and those are the things you want to look out for.Every player rating that comes out be it FBG or other will have a bias in one direction or another. this is not to say that FBG or any other football mag dont know what they are doing. it's more like you cant know everything about everybody.As such, a guy on the west coast should have a better perspective on those teams than a guy on the east coast. This is because the local papers will carry all those small storylines that dont make the national news. so when reading a football mag, keep an eye out and try to find where the bias lies. some mags prefer veterans to young players.... some prefer young players and discount what a veteran brings to the table. Other writers are high on power runners like MBIII, while others are in love with players who bring speed to the table (ie. Reggie Bush, MJD)so once you figure out what type of player the writer (or rater) likes, you can look into correcting their personal bias by tweaking the ratings a bit.I usually dont tweak them a lot, but I have been known to move a player up or down 4 or 5 spots in the ratings based on my own preferences & draft strategy.You will find that in general most of the big football mags dont differ by a lot in their ratings, but having a second mag with completely different writers can sometimes hilight players to look into.ie. if FBG has a guy rated as the #7 RB and one or two other mags have that player rated #15 or 16, I'd look into doing some research on that player if I was thinking about selecting him.Hope this helps.

 

[Tigerbot Hesh]

I usually use the FBGs projections, run them through my league's individual scoring system, get the players sorted according to that, and then move players up or down those rankings as needed. IMO, if you like Player A better than the rest of the field, its easier to just move him up on your cheatsheet a few spots than try to approximate that stat-wise.

 

[Ray_T]

also as an FYI:

do a quality check before buying.

flip through it to see what kind of logic & reason a mag will use to justify their picks or projections.

example: one NFL Draft mag (not to be named here) did a Mock draft and used the logic that the Colts will draft a WR in the first round because Harrison is gone and they need a replacement.

to me, this is poor logic. This move was made 2 years ago in preparation for his departure when Anthony Gonzalez was drafted in the first round. the only reasons his numbers werent huge is cuz Manning was hurt and he was playing behind Harrison and Wayne.

When you see comments like this, it makes you wonder if some of these guys doing the analysis actually know what they are doing.

either way, if you flip through the mag quickly before buying and see too many comments on players that dont make sense, just dont buy.

 

[Stinkin Ref]

I may be the only person that does not look at projections...to me they mean nothing....basically a ranking is a projection....so if FBG's have a guy at #7 and a guy at #8, it is pretty safe to assume the guy at #7 has better projections....I plug my scoring rules into the VBD cheatsheet, print my sheet out and away I go......very ofetn I will take a guy that is ranked lower than another guy, because I just personally think he is going to have a better year....that is my tweaking.....

one guy saying Brady is going to have 32 TD's and another guy saying he is going to have 36 really means nothing to me....

 

[Ray_T]

I may be the only person that does not look at projections...to me they mean nothing....basically a ranking is a projection....so if FBG's have a guy at #7 and a guy at #8, it is pretty safe to assume the guy at #7 has better projections....I plug my scoring rules into the VBD cheatsheet, print my sheet out and away I go......very ofetn I will take a guy that is ranked lower than another guy, because I just personally think he is going to have a better year....that is my tweaking.....one guy saying Brady is going to have 32 TD's and another guy saying he is going to have 36 really means nothing to me....

this is not always the case. What if the difference between the #8 QB on the board and the #9 QB on the board is large? You need to make yourself aware of these things.where you are looking at a huge dropoff from the #10 Wr to the #11, #12 and #13 WRwhen you see a huge dropoff there should be more of a sense of urgency to get in on the position before that dropoff comes about. This is why people use the Tiering system.ie. Tier 1 QB's would be Manning, Brees, and Brady huge dropoff after these 3 would lead to another 5 QB's that would qualify as Tier 2. Then there is another significant drop in production.so if drafting a starting QB, you likely dont want to get a tier 3 QB because this puts you at a disadvantage compared to the rest. so if 6 QB's are off the board and you are up, and dont pick again until 14 selections later, it may be wise to grab one.

 

[GregR_2]

I may be the only person that does not look at projections...to me they mean nothing....basically a ranking is a projection....so if FBG's have a guy at #7 and a guy at #8, it is pretty safe to assume the guy at #7 has better projections....I plug my scoring rules into the VBD cheatsheet, print my sheet out and away I go......very ofetn I will take a guy that is ranked lower than another guy, because I just personally think he is going to have a better year....that is my tweaking.....one guy saying Brady is going to have 32 TD's and another guy saying he is going to have 36 really means nothing to me....

What Ray_T said. A Ranking is just an ordered list based on who you think is better/more valuable/etc. Since a Projection also can be presented as an ordered list, a Projection could be used as a Ranking.But the opposite is not a true... a Ranking is not a Projection. Besides having an ordered list, a Projection includes the information you need to determine how far apart the players are. That can be a very useful piece of information if you choose to use it.Tiering is sort of in the middle of the two. It is an ordered list, and it also contains some information about the drop off, but not as much as a Projection does. The Projection can quantify each drop off regardless of the players involved. A Tier can express that it's a small drop off (if in the same tier) or a larger drop off (if not in the same tier). But you don't capture how much the drop off is in a quantifiable way that makes for quick comparison when you're looking at groups of players available at your next 3 picks, for example.Not saying anyone has to do it a certain way, but those are the benefits and detriments of each.

 

[GregR_2]

Getting back a little late in the game this year, I downloaded the VBD sheet. As I do every year, I agree on the rankings in some instances and not in others. Then I get pumped to tweak it up... and then I say eh, they no more then me.I was wondering what some of the methods are for changing the projections. If there is something glaring I understand. However if Brady is projected at 4,040 yards on VBD what would make you up it 100 or lower it 100. Just a gut feel? Is there a method you personally use? There are always guys I like more then others (yeah I know I shouldn't) but I would just be upping their projections to move them up on the list. I would really have no other expertise to crunch numbers to support it.Just curious what some of the ways you go about this.

I think there are two general ways of using projections in the tools we have, and you should decide which way you want to use it.Group A tweak the projection so that the end result from it, whether in VBD, Draft Dominator, or cheat sheet, will list the players in the ultimate order they think they should be in with every factor they care to include taken into account so the result can be used like a Bible, with the gaps in value between the players being real. As such the projection isn't just a projection of likely on-field stats, but rolls up things like upside, injury risk, risk of TD vulturing, a player's worth ethic, whatever.Group B use the projections as one prediction of fantasy points scored but not taking a lot of other factors into account. Things like injury risk, upside, downside, consistency, other risks like an unsettled QB position on a WR's team, etc. So they would maybe look at the output of a VBD or Draft Dominator tool, and it's just one input of one version of prediction on the player, but then they are going to sort of roll up all the stuff they didn't tweak the projections to represent, and come to a final answer.If you are a Group A person, you may tweak the projections a lot because there are probably factors you wish to include that didn't go into them originally. If you are one of the Group B people, I'd just tweak the Projections where you think a player will do differently than the source of your projections thought, since you're going to mentally roll the rest in each time you come to a decision.Either way though, I would suggest that when tweaking projects, that you extract the projections for the entire team and see how your change affects things. That is, if you lower a QB from 4000 yards and 32 TDs to 3600 yards and 27 TDs, then the receivers should probably be adjusted as well since their numbers right now reflect a QB throwing the higher totals. You also may see something in the split of data that you hadn't considered that will help guide your changes. In fact I think all projections should be done from the team perspective in the first place, for that reason.

 

[GregR_2]

Ok, sorry for the triple post, but I just thought of more I wanted to expand on that last post.

There is no right answer whether Group A or Group B use a better method. You can correctly argue that having a "final" number is really useful. Especially with a fast draft and a short timer, not needing to remember everything but instead having it all rolled up into one value number can really help you optimize what you get from your draft picks.

But, there are also possible situations where only having a rolled up number is a detriment. If let yourself forget the aspects of each player that led to that final number, you may find yourself drafting a bunch of guys that you considered higher risk higher reward without giving enough thought to balancing out the risk with some guys you consider safer to hit a solid amount of production.

I guess the message to walk away with are, these are great tools to have to help your decision making. But they work well when paired together with solid knowledge of the players and, very much as if not more important, preparation to figure out how your draft may unfold and to have thought about how going different directions at any given pick is likely to influence every pick after it.

Doing projections yourself goes a very long way to gaining a knowledge of the players. But its work. I don't do it very much anymore because I'm just not willing to devote the time. The part about how your draft will unfold though, and the consequences you can expect for your decisions, that's one thing I don't think anyone should skimp on.

 

[stickboy]

Ok, sorry for the triple post, but I just thought of more I wanted to expand on that last post.There is no right answer whether Group A or Group B use a better method. You can correctly argue that having a "final" number is really useful. Especially with a fast draft and a short timer, not needing to remember everything but instead having it all rolled up into one value number can really help you optimize what you get from your draft picks.But, there are also possible situations where only having a rolled up number is a detriment. If let yourself forget the aspects of each player that led to that final number, you may find yourself drafting a bunch of guys that you considered higher risk higher reward without giving enough thought to balancing out the risk with some guys you consider safer to hit a solid amount of production. I guess the message to walk away with are, these are great tools to have to help your decision making. But they work well when paired together with solid knowledge of the players and, very much as if not more important, preparation to figure out how your draft may unfold and to have thought about how going different directions at any given pick is likely to influence every pick after it. Doing projections yourself goes a very long way to gaining a knowledge of the players. But its work. I don't do it very much anymore because I'm just not willing to devote the time. The part about how your draft will unfold though, and the consequences you can expect for your decisions, that's one thing I don't think anyone should skimp on.

It's not as much work as you say. FBG provides a single set of projections that most use, but also offer projections from a number of their staffers who weigh the inputs differently. Similarly, there are other sites that provide projections using different systems and weighing other factors uniquely. Find the ones where you agree the most, and compare their numbers against FBG; adjust for significant differences.The other thing is to have an idea in mind of what your draft strategy is going to be and what tiers of players you will be targeting at each position. Then you only need to adjust around those tiers, not the whole league. A sleeper list suffices at the bottom, and the curves are so flat in the middle that most of the time you are just dealing with the upper echelon starters anyway.

 

[GregR_2]

Ok, sorry for the triple post, but I just thought of more I wanted to expand on that last post.

There is no right answer whether Group A or Group B use a better method. You can correctly argue that having a "final" number is really useful. Especially with a fast draft and a short timer, not needing to remember everything but instead having it all rolled up into one value number can really help you optimize what you get from your draft picks.

But, there are also possible situations where only having a rolled up number is a detriment. If let yourself forget the aspects of each player that led to that final number, you may find yourself drafting a bunch of guys that you considered higher risk higher reward without giving enough thought to balancing out the risk with some guys you consider safer to hit a solid amount of production.

I guess the message to walk away with are, these are great tools to have to help your decision making. But they work well when paired together with solid knowledge of the players and, very much as if not more important, preparation to figure out how your draft may unfold and to have thought about how going different directions at any given pick is likely to influence every pick after it.

Doing projections yourself goes a very long way to gaining a knowledge of the players. But its work. I don't do it very much anymore because I'm just not willing to devote the time. The part about how your draft will unfold though, and the consequences you can expect for your decisions, that's one thing I don't think anyone should skimp on.

It's not as much work as you say. FBG provides a single set of projections that most use, but also offer projections from a number of their staffers who weigh the inputs differently. Similarly, there are other sites that provide projections using different systems and weighing other factors uniquely. Find the ones where you agree the most, and compare their numbers against FBG; adjust for significant differences.The other thing is to have an idea in mind of what your draft strategy is going to be and what tiers of players you will be targeting at each position. Then you only need to adjust around those tiers, not the whole league. A sleeper list suffices at the bottom, and the curves are so flat in the middle that most of the time you are just dealing with the upper echelon starters anyway.

The point of my post is that the act of doing projections yourself gives you a wide amount of useful knowledge about the NFL. You have to rigorously look at each team, their offensive system's trends, personnel upgrades and downgrades, past history like O-line continuity, etc, and then decide on team success and distribute the yards, scores, receptions and carries to their roster. You learn a lot in doing that, but as I said, it is work. A lot of times you find out your projection for them after doing that work doesn't match what you'd have projected for them if you just had to pick a number before doing the work.You are not describing doing projections yourself, you're describing tweaking someone else's projections. I doubt most people who tweak projections go through the steps to look at the details of every team as rigorously as if you're starting from scratch. If they do much along those lines, it likely done in a spot manner for teams or players that they disagree with the starting point they are tweaking from. And I imagine many don't even do that much.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with tweaking. Indeed, as I've said already, over the years I stopped doing my own projections because I don't want to put the time into it anymore, and I tweak Dodds projections. When I was doing my own, I found his were so close to mine that I often couldn't tell which was which apart from a few players we obviously differed on.

But there is a trade off of losing knowledge for saving time in tweaking or using someone else's. That was what I was trying to point out.