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Top 30 fluke seasons in fantasy history (1 Viewer)

Chase Stuart

Footballguy
I think it's an iffy definition of fluke, to be honest.

Yes, fluke in the sense that most of these were seasons that were pretty radical outliers compared to the players' careers. Not so in many cases, however, in the sense that the big seasons were easy to predict, and the outlier-ish nature is very easy to explain. Like nobody thought Charles White's output as a feature back in the John Robinson Ram backfield was shocking. Just like nobody thought much of Greg Bell taking over the next year and putting up a couple monster seasons. Nobody was shocked when Robert Brooks entered the season as the guy Brett Favre clearly had missile-lock on that he subsequently had a huge season, and there was nothing flukey in it...he just got hurt shortly thereafter. Lot of those kinds of circumstantial seasons in there.

Biggest outliers? I trust the research and believe the data, so sure, why not? Biggest flukes? Hardly, in many cases.

 
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Like the idea of the post, but hate the results. It is almost like a formula was used, just plug in the stats and here are the results. I don't think Willie Parker should be on the list since he had 3 good fantasy seasons and injuries stopped him. Putting Dwight Clark on there when he had 6 straight seasons of being a top 18 receiver is horrible. Ricky Williams, Jamal Lewis, CJ2K are all bad ones too. Steven Jackson at number 10 is probably the worst of all. Actually I take that back, there are probably 6 Hall of Fame guys on his just missed list and those are just stupid.

 
Like the idea of the post, but hate the results. It is almost like a formula was used, just plug in the stats and here are the results. I don't think Willie Parker should be on the list since he had 3 good fantasy seasons and injuries stopped him. Putting Dwight Clark on there when he had 6 straight seasons of being a top 18 receiver is horrible. Ricky Williams, Jamal Lewis, CJ2K are all bad ones too. Steven Jackson at number 10 is probably the worst of all. Actually I take that back, there are probably 6 Hall of Fame guys on his just missed list and those are just stupid.
It's not like a formula was used, a formula was used, then stats were plugged in, and the results were presented (with interesting commentary). Steven Jackson had 168 points of VBD (even more in PPR leagues) in his best season, and never more than 60 points in any other. That's a very unusual split, which is why he was in there.

 
Seems like a lot of the guys on the list are there because they (so far) have had only 1 record-breaking season. I don't know much history before the Priest Holmes Era, so I'm talking about Dwill, CJ's 2k year, Jackson's great 2006, Ricky's near 2k season, and Lewis's 2k season.

In contrast, the likes of Priest Holmes and LT each had their one season for the ages, but also had at least one other excellent season. I was surprised, however, not to see Shaun Alexander's TD breaking season on the list, particularly because his wheels fell off so hard thereafter. Was Alexander close to making the list?

I think the "formula based" criticism above is directed at the idea that having a truly amazing season is just hard to follow up. That Holmes and LT were able to have more than 1 season at such a high level (and avoid the list) is pretty amazing.

 
Chase Stuart said:
msudaisy26 said:
Like the idea of the post, but hate the results. It is almost like a formula was used, just plug in the stats and here are the results. I don't think Willie Parker should be on the list since he had 3 good fantasy seasons and injuries stopped him. Putting Dwight Clark on there when he had 6 straight seasons of being a top 18 receiver is horrible. Ricky Williams, Jamal Lewis, CJ2K are all bad ones too. Steven Jackson at number 10 is probably the worst of all. Actually I take that back, there are probably 6 Hall of Fame guys on his just missed list and those are just stupid.
It's not like a formula was used, a formula was used, then stats were plugged in, and the results were presented (with interesting commentary). Steven Jackson had 168 points of VBD (even more in PPR leagues) in his best season, and never more than 60 points in any other. That's a very unusual split, which is why he was in there.
I guess my definition if flukey is different. To me a guy like Lewis or Jackson having a monster season isn't a fluke, they were great players. A guy like Derek Anderson having a great year is a fluke because he has shown to be mediocre at best at all other times in his career.

 
I would be interested to see the results if a fluke was defined as "highest percentage of a player's career fantasy points in a single year." Of course there would need to be some sort of minimum points scored in a career.

 
Chase Stuart said:
msudaisy26 said:
Like the idea of the post, but hate the results. It is almost like a formula was used, just plug in the stats and here are the results. I don't think Willie Parker should be on the list since he had 3 good fantasy seasons and injuries stopped him. Putting Dwight Clark on there when he had 6 straight seasons of being a top 18 receiver is horrible. Ricky Williams, Jamal Lewis, CJ2K are all bad ones too. Steven Jackson at number 10 is probably the worst of all. Actually I take that back, there are probably 6 Hall of Fame guys on his just missed list and those are just stupid.
It's not like a formula was used, a formula was used, then stats were plugged in, and the results were presented (with interesting commentary). Steven Jackson had 168 points of VBD (even more in PPR leagues) in his best season, and never more than 60 points in any other. That's a very unusual split, which is why he was in there.
I guess my definition if flukey is different. To me a guy like Lewis or Jackson having a monster season isn't a fluke, they were great players. A guy like Derek Anderson having a great year is a fluke because he has shown to be mediocre at best at all other times in his career.
Yeah, I would have used a lower baseline (or I wouldn't have ignored negative VBD values).

To use Jamal Lewis as an example, his best season as RB4 doesn't look like a complete fluke next to his second-best season as RB6.

Patrick Jeffers was a much bigger fluke. His best season was WR7. His second best season was not WR9 or anything like that: it was WR77.

 
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Good stuff Chase thanks for the walk down memory lane. Dalton Hilliard still a favorite of mine. I have been lucky to snoop out many of these players and have them during their fluke seasons. :)

I agree with Man of Zen in regards to Charles White and Greg Bell. The Rams offensive line with Jackie Slater was so dominant at that time that any decent RB was :moneybag: . I was riding that gravy train then too.

 
Seems like a lot of the guys on the list are there because they (so far) have had only 1 record-breaking season. I don't know much history before the Priest Holmes Era, so I'm talking about Dwill, CJ's 2k year, Jackson's great 2006, Ricky's near 2k season, and Lewis's 2k season.

In contrast, the likes of Priest Holmes and LT each had their one season for the ages, but also had at least one other excellent season. I was surprised, however, not to see Shaun Alexander's TD breaking season on the list, particularly because his wheels fell off so hard thereafter. Was Alexander close to making the list?

I think the "formula based" criticism above is directed at the idea that having a truly amazing season is just hard to follow up. That Holmes and LT were able to have more than 1 season at such a high level (and avoid the list) is pretty amazing.
Shaun Alexander was one of the most consistent RB's in football from 2001-2005. In that 5 year span he averaged 1770 yards from scrimmage and 19.6 TD's. He averaged 1500.2 yards rushing and 17.4 rushing TD's.Even if you take out his MVP season of 2005, his numbers were still great. 1406 yards rushing and 15 rushing TD's.

Say what you want him post big contract, but before that he was as good as anyone in the game.

 
Chase Stuart said:
msudaisy26 said:
Like the idea of the post, but hate the results. It is almost like a formula was used, just plug in the stats and here are the results. I don't think Willie Parker should be on the list since he had 3 good fantasy seasons and injuries stopped him. Putting Dwight Clark on there when he had 6 straight seasons of being a top 18 receiver is horrible. Ricky Williams, Jamal Lewis, CJ2K are all bad ones too. Steven Jackson at number 10 is probably the worst of all. Actually I take that back, there are probably 6 Hall of Fame guys on his just missed list and those are just stupid.
It's not like a formula was used, a formula was used, then stats were plugged in, and the results were presented (with interesting commentary). Steven Jackson had 168 points of VBD (even more in PPR leagues) in his best season, and never more than 60 points in any other. That's a very unusual split, which is why he was in there.
I guess my definition if flukey is different. To me a guy like Lewis or Jackson having a monster season isn't a fluke, they were great players. A guy like Derek Anderson having a great year is a fluke because he has shown to be mediocre at best at all other times in his career.
:goodposting:

Kind of a dud of a list, IMO...

 
Chase Stuart said:
msudaisy26 said:
Like the idea of the post, but hate the results. It is almost like a formula was used, just plug in the stats and here are the results. I don't think Willie Parker should be on the list since he had 3 good fantasy seasons and injuries stopped him. Putting Dwight Clark on there when he had 6 straight seasons of being a top 18 receiver is horrible. Ricky Williams, Jamal Lewis, CJ2K are all bad ones too. Steven Jackson at number 10 is probably the worst of all. Actually I take that back, there are probably 6 Hall of Fame guys on his just missed list and those are just stupid.
It's not like a formula was used, a formula was used, then stats were plugged in, and the results were presented (with interesting commentary). Steven Jackson had 168 points of VBD (even more in PPR leagues) in his best season, and never more than 60 points in any other. That's a very unusual split, which is why he was in there.
I guess my definition if flukey is different. To me a guy like Lewis or Jackson having a monster season isn't a fluke, they were great players. A guy like Derek Anderson having a great year is a fluke because he has shown to be mediocre at best at all other times in his career.
Yeah, I would have used a lower baseline (or I wouldn't have ignored negative VBD values).

To use Jamal Lewis as an example, his best season as RB4 doesn't look like a complete fluke next to his second-best season as RB6.

Patrick Jeffers was a much bigger fluke. His best season was WR7. His second best season was not WR9 or anything like that: it was WR77.
You might like this, which looked at outlier seasons for WRs: http://www.footballperspective.com/analyzing-outlier-seasons-for-receivers/

Jeffers was 4th on that list.

 
I am proud to have benefited from Braylon Edwards (#17), Chris Johnson (#16), and DeAngelo Williams (#11).

The funny thing is that only the Braylon Edwards years was the true fluke. I picked him because he was the highest remaining WR on my FBG cheat sheet toward the end of the draft.

Johnson and Williams were calculated risks based on reading the Shark Pool and listening to the Audible.

Now I look for those statiscal outlier possibilities every year.

I confess this year has me stumped, although I think it's possible that if EJ Manuel wins the job in Buffalo and is allowed to sling it around then it could be a Bills receiver.

 
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Chase Stuart said:
msudaisy26 said:
Like the idea of the post, but hate the results. It is almost like a formula was used, just plug in the stats and here are the results. I don't think Willie Parker should be on the list since he had 3 good fantasy seasons and injuries stopped him. Putting Dwight Clark on there when he had 6 straight seasons of being a top 18 receiver is horrible. Ricky Williams, Jamal Lewis, CJ2K are all bad ones too. Steven Jackson at number 10 is probably the worst of all. Actually I take that back, there are probably 6 Hall of Fame guys on his just missed list and those are just stupid.
It's not like a formula was used, a formula was used, then stats were plugged in, and the results were presented (with interesting commentary). Steven Jackson had 168 points of VBD (even more in PPR leagues) in his best season, and never more than 60 points in any other. That's a very unusual split, which is why he was in there.
I guess my definition if flukey is different. To me a guy like Lewis or Jackson having a monster season isn't a fluke, they were great players. A guy like Derek Anderson having a great year is a fluke because he has shown to be mediocre at best at all other times in his career.
:goodposting:

Kind of a dud of a list, IMO...
:goodposting:

Cool concept, but the formulaic approach left us with results that left off the majority of the seasons that most of us would consider the most "flukey".

 
Man of Zen said:
I think it's an iffy definition of fluke, to be honest.

Yes, fluke in the sense that most of these were seasons that were pretty radical outliers compared to the players' careers. Not so in many cases, however, in the sense that the big seasons were easy to predict, and the outlier-ish nature is very easy to explain. Like nobody thought Charles White's output as a feature back in the John Robinson Ram backfield was shocking. Just like nobody thought much of Greg Bell taking over the next year and putting up a couple monster seasons. Nobody was shocked when Robert Brooks entered the season as the guy Brett Favre clearly had missile-lock on that he subsequently had a huge season, and there was nothing flukey in it...he just got hurt shortly thereafter. Lot of those kinds of circumstantial seasons in there.

Biggest outliers? I trust the research and believe the data, so sure, why not? Biggest flukes? Hardly, in many cases.
This is spot on. I thought this was a great idea until I read it. Actually, it is an interesting idea, but just poorly executed. Braylon Edwards was a fluke - no one saw that coming. He had not done much previously and he had crap at QB. Steven Jackson was not a fluke. He caught the tail end of the era of the once powerful StL offense, so as soon as that had totally crapped out (2007), his stats suffered. Playing with Warner/Bulger was easier on RBs than playing with Frerrotte and Boller.

Also, Jordy Nelson was way too early to call. He finally got starter WR targets in 2011 and he blew up, finishing WR2. In 2012 he was WR5 through 7 games. So not really surprising that his stats would drop while injured. All signs point to him being productive if he's healthy, so why would a healthy season count as a fluke? Hell, he even posted 21/286/2 in the last 3 games of the postseason the year before his breakout year. The writing was on the wall.

This was a very flawed definition of fluke.

 
Man of Zen said:
I think it's an iffy definition of fluke, to be honest.

Yes, fluke in the sense that most of these were seasons that were pretty radical outliers compared to the players' careers. Not so in many cases, however, in the sense that the big seasons were easy to predict, and the outlier-ish nature is very easy to explain. Like nobody thought Charles White's output as a feature back in the John Robinson Ram backfield was shocking. Just like nobody thought much of Greg Bell taking over the next year and putting up a couple monster seasons. Nobody was shocked when Robert Brooks entered the season as the guy Brett Favre clearly had missile-lock on that he subsequently had a huge season, and there was nothing flukey in it...he just got hurt shortly thereafter. Lot of those kinds of circumstantial seasons in there.

Biggest outliers? I trust the research and believe the data, so sure, why not? Biggest flukes? Hardly, in many cases.
:goodposting:

 
Peyton Hillis.
Another good one.
Ding Ding Ding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How many players in history have had one great season after being in the league a couple years, and without major injury literally never even had a SERVICEABLE season at any other point in his career.
Derek Anderson
Most knowledgeable Cleveland fans will tell you that Anderson had a couple good games, but didnt play all that welll that season. I remember seeing great catch after great catch from Edwards and Winslow. Not to mention we played as soft a schedule as possible.

He had decent stats I guess, but nothing near the top, not like Hillis was.

 
Agree with many of the comments. Too many of these don't seem like "flukes" to me versus career years for solid players. The guy who came to my mind was 1995 Derek Loville. That was my first year in FF and he was one of the key cogs in my draft. Last pick I made and I was laughed at. This was pre-web sites and I remember my draft magazine listed the pick as SF RB because they had no idea who was the starter at the time.

Loville had 1385 total yards and 13 TDs. To me that is a fluke season when his best ever other year was 4 TDs and 367 yards. When your best season is more than triple your second best season, that is a fluke. Using VBD skews the final stats. Sure, CJ2K had a historic season, but 1600+ total yards and 12 TDs is a great second best season. 367 total yards and 4 TDs is not a great second best season.

 
Patrick Jeffers, like others have said, always comes to mind.

How about James Allen in 2000. Came out of no where to be a solid RB2 (1411 total yards/39 catches/3 TDs in 15 starts).

The whole rest of his career (4 seasons) he started just 17 games and had 2,050 total yards and 4 TDs.

 
Lamont Jordan ran for 1000 yards and caught 70 balls in 05. He caught 88 balls combined in his other 8 seasons and never rushed for more than 550 in any other season.

 

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