There's no denying the popularity of fantasy football drafts. Many of you will be participating in more than one between now and Labor Day, including those of you who sign up for the People's League (hint, hint). If you go to a million Web sites, you will probably get a million different strategies and pointers for handling your draft. We at the People's Pigskin would like to offer one tip at this time:
Treat the autodraft option the way you would your seat cushion on an airplane: something to be used only in an emergency.
Earlier tonight, I was involved in a live draft for another league. I arrived in the draft room about a half-hour in advance. A few of the players arrived just a few minutes before the scheduled start.
Some never arrived at all. They relied on their pre-selected player lists and the autodraft option.
The results speak for themselves. In the fifth round, one of the auto-drafters picked Sidney Rice. This would have been a fine pick last week, before we learned that he might miss the first half of the season. In the seventh round, that auto-drafter picked Vincent Jackson, who is facing a three-game suspension and may miss even more time than that.
Now, if you have to use the automated draft option because of a family emergency or something, go over your list verrrrrry carefully. You don't want to be the one starting this guy because your list was out of date.
Showing posts with label Sidney Rice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sidney Rice. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Mixed Signals at CBS (and Others)
Most people who play fantasy football don't set their teams the way we do here with polls like this one. Instead, they turn to expert opinions from TV shows, magazines, and Web sites. In fact, the author of the blog Collegiatelivin asked me recently if there was a site I could recommend to help make lineup decisions.
My advice on that front is this: You shouldn't depend on a single site for your expert advice. Each one is as likely as the other to be right on any given call on any given Sunday. And sometime the site may not even agree with itself.
To illustrate what I mean, I'm going to describe the fantasy football site at CBS Sportsline. (And I could just as easily be discussing many other sites, so don't interpret this as a rant against CBS.) Each week CBS Sportsline assigns a "Guru" score for each player. What does that mean? I'll let CBS Sportsline itself answer that:
"The Guru is not a person, but rather our top-secret statistical formula that takes into account each player's past performance, injury status and upcoming NFL opponent to predict the number of fantasy points that player will score this week, based on your scoring system."
CBS Sportsline also offers "Fantasy Analysis" for each player from CBS Sports experts. And sometimes this analysis...well, it seems as if whoever's doing this analysis was not involved in coming up with the Guru score. The left hand of the Web site doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
In setting my lineup for a fantasy team in a CBS Sportsline league, I looked up three wide receivers available on the waiver wire at the time. Here's what the Guru and the Fantasy Analysis said about each one:
Sidney Rice, Minnesota Vikings. Guru score: 3 fantasy points this week. Fantasy Analysis: "He's definitely getting more and more comfortable with Favre throwing passes and who wouldn't? Rice is quickly becoming one of Favre's favorite targets and that should increase his Fantasy value heading into Week 5 at St. Louis."
Kenny Britt, Tennessee Titans. Guru score: 8. Fantasy Analysis: "The Titans host the Colts in Week 5, and Collins could be forced to throw the ball quite a bit in that game, so you could do worse than taking a shot with Britt as a flier flex option in deeper leagues."
Miles Austin, Dallas Cowboys. Guru score: 10. Fantasy Analysis: "Austin has some sleeper potential, but the Cowboys don't seem interested in making him an integral part of the passing attack. Until he finds some consistency, you can leave him on waivers."
Follow along with me here. The player becoming one of Brett Favre's favorite targets (and the one I added to my lineup this week) was predicted by the Guru to score 3 points, while the one who, according to CBS Sports experts, should be left alone (and the one who, as of Wednesday afternoon, was still available in my league) was predicted by the Guru to score 10.
No wonder fantasy football sometimes makes people want to do this.
Remember to vote on the waiver poll, which closes tonight.
My advice on that front is this: You shouldn't depend on a single site for your expert advice. Each one is as likely as the other to be right on any given call on any given Sunday. And sometime the site may not even agree with itself.
To illustrate what I mean, I'm going to describe the fantasy football site at CBS Sportsline. (And I could just as easily be discussing many other sites, so don't interpret this as a rant against CBS.) Each week CBS Sportsline assigns a "Guru" score for each player. What does that mean? I'll let CBS Sportsline itself answer that:
"The Guru is not a person, but rather our top-secret statistical formula that takes into account each player's past performance, injury status and upcoming NFL opponent to predict the number of fantasy points that player will score this week, based on your scoring system."
CBS Sportsline also offers "Fantasy Analysis" for each player from CBS Sports experts. And sometimes this analysis...well, it seems as if whoever's doing this analysis was not involved in coming up with the Guru score. The left hand of the Web site doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
In setting my lineup for a fantasy team in a CBS Sportsline league, I looked up three wide receivers available on the waiver wire at the time. Here's what the Guru and the Fantasy Analysis said about each one:
Sidney Rice, Minnesota Vikings. Guru score: 3 fantasy points this week. Fantasy Analysis: "He's definitely getting more and more comfortable with Favre throwing passes and who wouldn't? Rice is quickly becoming one of Favre's favorite targets and that should increase his Fantasy value heading into Week 5 at St. Louis."
Kenny Britt, Tennessee Titans. Guru score: 8. Fantasy Analysis: "The Titans host the Colts in Week 5, and Collins could be forced to throw the ball quite a bit in that game, so you could do worse than taking a shot with Britt as a flier flex option in deeper leagues."
Miles Austin, Dallas Cowboys. Guru score: 10. Fantasy Analysis: "Austin has some sleeper potential, but the Cowboys don't seem interested in making him an integral part of the passing attack. Until he finds some consistency, you can leave him on waivers."
Follow along with me here. The player becoming one of Brett Favre's favorite targets (and the one I added to my lineup this week) was predicted by the Guru to score 3 points, while the one who, according to CBS Sports experts, should be left alone (and the one who, as of Wednesday afternoon, was still available in my league) was predicted by the Guru to score 10.
No wonder fantasy football sometimes makes people want to do this.
Remember to vote on the waiver poll, which closes tonight.
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