Musesboy
Footballguy
I haven't seen very much feedback for most of the freelance articles, so I thought I would start a thread to discuss this one.
Scott Ridgill's article relates to something that I have tried to take advantage of in recent years, and I am sure that a lot of the sharks here already do something similar.
The aim is to look at SOS to help identify plays that will lift a good team to the level needed to win a fantasy championship. As the article states, the initial predictions are likely to be quite inaccurate given the unknowns entering the season. But after a few weeks, a true sense of what teams are strong or weak begins to emerge. I find it very useful to trade for players that have favorable remaining schedules. It can be advantageous to give up a slightly better player to obtain one with a great looking SOS the rest of the way.
Winning a league in FF is not easy if the other owners know what they are doing. A small edge can make all the difference.
As for the points the articles raised, I have a few comments and questions:
It is widely accepted that early SOS will be wrong. This is because the projections are still influenced strongly by the performances from the previous year. Scott highlighted the Jets' performance as an example of how a team can be ranked as a difficult opponent and then become one of the easiest. So my first question is how can we better identify why such discrepancies occur? Can we make our SOS more accurate at the start of the season? I thought about the Jets and realized that the decline in their run defense was probably due to other factors. Vilma was still playing like a fantasy stud, but the offense had lost three or four starting QBs. Teams were able to dominate the Jets in most games and it led to them increasing rushing attempts to run out the clock later in the game. So one key factor in predicting SOS is not just the strength of the opposing defenses, but also the strength of their offense. A struggling team might lose so easily that teams will not attempt to pass against them for the whole game. It can skew the SOS calculations unless that is realized. Some of the SOS ratings look like tough matchups because of that, but are in fact fairly easy. If a team has a great passing game like the Rams or Colts, they will tend to pass the ball even when they are ahead. It is their nature and their strength. Others will tend to run such as Baltimore or Chicago. So I would say that it is important to realize some teams will play to their strengths and SOS should be ingored for teams with those tendencies.
What other reasons are there for SOS projections to be inaccurate? Injury to the defense can certainly play a part. When the Bills lost Spikes, their run defense went from being extremely tough to very weak. Part of that was also due to the stuttering offense though.
Going back to the Jets; their SOS changed in week 8 after facing Atlanta the previous week. Atlanta has one of the best rushing attacks in the NFL. Thinking about that, it is important to look at opponents already faced, as well as opponents that will be faced in the future. If a team looks to have a weak pass or rush defense, is it because they just played five elite offenses in the last seven weeks? What about SOS for TEs for teams that happened to face Gates, Gonzalez, Heap and Shockey early in the season? Does it mean that Jeb Putzier is a good play against them? So I think that previous opponents has to factor into the calculation somehwere.
Going back to Scott's example of Hasselbeck being a good play in the second half of the season: I like the tactic but I would like to point out just how volatile performances can be from week to week. Hasselbeck faced the 49ers twice over the closing stretch. The first game saw him complete 19 of 31 passes for 233 yards and a TD for around 15 points. The second game was totally different and he completed 21 of 25 for 226 yards, 4 TDs and around 25 fantasy points. So the same team against the same opponent saw a wide variation in fantasy performance. So while I love looking at SOS, I would stress that it is not an exact science. The same two teams can meet within a two or three week period with very different results.
Do weather conditions play a part? Do players perform better at home vs. on the road? Do teams have certain opponents that generally cause them problems?
I think that SOS is a fascinating topic and I enjoyed the article. I would like to see some suggestions from the FBGs staff after the trends become clear. It would be interesting to see a series of articles showing the players to target or avoid based on the upcoming schedule. If this could be done halfway through the season I would be intrigued.
A big part of fantasy success is being strong at the right time. If you can obtain players with easy opponents for your divisional games and for the playoffs, you are already a step ahead of the opposition. SOS can be a very useful tool inthat regard.
Scott Ridgill's article relates to something that I have tried to take advantage of in recent years, and I am sure that a lot of the sharks here already do something similar.
The aim is to look at SOS to help identify plays that will lift a good team to the level needed to win a fantasy championship. As the article states, the initial predictions are likely to be quite inaccurate given the unknowns entering the season. But after a few weeks, a true sense of what teams are strong or weak begins to emerge. I find it very useful to trade for players that have favorable remaining schedules. It can be advantageous to give up a slightly better player to obtain one with a great looking SOS the rest of the way.
Winning a league in FF is not easy if the other owners know what they are doing. A small edge can make all the difference.
As for the points the articles raised, I have a few comments and questions:
It is widely accepted that early SOS will be wrong. This is because the projections are still influenced strongly by the performances from the previous year. Scott highlighted the Jets' performance as an example of how a team can be ranked as a difficult opponent and then become one of the easiest. So my first question is how can we better identify why such discrepancies occur? Can we make our SOS more accurate at the start of the season? I thought about the Jets and realized that the decline in their run defense was probably due to other factors. Vilma was still playing like a fantasy stud, but the offense had lost three or four starting QBs. Teams were able to dominate the Jets in most games and it led to them increasing rushing attempts to run out the clock later in the game. So one key factor in predicting SOS is not just the strength of the opposing defenses, but also the strength of their offense. A struggling team might lose so easily that teams will not attempt to pass against them for the whole game. It can skew the SOS calculations unless that is realized. Some of the SOS ratings look like tough matchups because of that, but are in fact fairly easy. If a team has a great passing game like the Rams or Colts, they will tend to pass the ball even when they are ahead. It is their nature and their strength. Others will tend to run such as Baltimore or Chicago. So I would say that it is important to realize some teams will play to their strengths and SOS should be ingored for teams with those tendencies.
What other reasons are there for SOS projections to be inaccurate? Injury to the defense can certainly play a part. When the Bills lost Spikes, their run defense went from being extremely tough to very weak. Part of that was also due to the stuttering offense though.
Going back to the Jets; their SOS changed in week 8 after facing Atlanta the previous week. Atlanta has one of the best rushing attacks in the NFL. Thinking about that, it is important to look at opponents already faced, as well as opponents that will be faced in the future. If a team looks to have a weak pass or rush defense, is it because they just played five elite offenses in the last seven weeks? What about SOS for TEs for teams that happened to face Gates, Gonzalez, Heap and Shockey early in the season? Does it mean that Jeb Putzier is a good play against them? So I think that previous opponents has to factor into the calculation somehwere.
Going back to Scott's example of Hasselbeck being a good play in the second half of the season: I like the tactic but I would like to point out just how volatile performances can be from week to week. Hasselbeck faced the 49ers twice over the closing stretch. The first game saw him complete 19 of 31 passes for 233 yards and a TD for around 15 points. The second game was totally different and he completed 21 of 25 for 226 yards, 4 TDs and around 25 fantasy points. So the same team against the same opponent saw a wide variation in fantasy performance. So while I love looking at SOS, I would stress that it is not an exact science. The same two teams can meet within a two or three week period with very different results.
Do weather conditions play a part? Do players perform better at home vs. on the road? Do teams have certain opponents that generally cause them problems?
I think that SOS is a fascinating topic and I enjoyed the article. I would like to see some suggestions from the FBGs staff after the trends become clear. It would be interesting to see a series of articles showing the players to target or avoid based on the upcoming schedule. If this could be done halfway through the season I would be intrigued.
A big part of fantasy success is being strong at the right time. If you can obtain players with easy opponents for your divisional games and for the playoffs, you are already a step ahead of the opposition. SOS can be a very useful tool inthat regard.
