I saw a fantasy football segment on Sportscenter last night. The analyst advised fantasy drafters to be sure to pick their running backs early on, before the other positions. I figured this must mean that the drop-off in talent at the RB position must be steep compared to QB and WR. I wanted to verify this myself so I calculated the 2006 Fantasy points earned by the top 30 RBs, WRs, and QBs. I graphed the fantasy points versus the position rank to check the "steepness" of the fantasy value dropoff at each position:
I assigned the typical Yahoo fantasy point values:
- QB: 1 pt. / 25 passing yrds + 4 pts / TD minus 1 pt / INT
- RB: 6 pts / TD + 1 pt / 10 rushing yrds
- WR: 6 pts / TD + 1 pt / 10 reception yrds
I can't see what on earth the sportcenter analyst was talking about, there does not seem to be any steep talent drop off with any of the positions. I can tell that the first 10 or so picks are likely to be RBs and QBs, but once the first round goes by, it looks like there should be an equal mix of all 3.
Can anyone explain to me why the analyst advised using your first 2 or 3 picks on running backs? Thanks.
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Maybe there is more variance among RBs, so by having more than one good one you pad yourself against getting stuck with a bad one.
ReplyDeletePeter, maybe it's the opposite... Maybe if you look at the standard deviation of fantasy points earned by a typical running back each week it is much lower than the standard deviation of a typical WR or QB. In head to head leagues, stability is important. So maybe going with the RB gets you "guaranteed" points and less chance of having a really bad fantasy week.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's because you start three RBs and only one QB each week!
ReplyDelete