Dynasty 101: Draft Preparation, a Numbers Game
Editor’s note: This article is one in a series of articles geared towards the Dynasty Football World Championship contest sponsored by our friends at FFtoolbox.com. This is the world’s first dynasty fantasy football contest designed to reward the long term, successful dynasty coach, and crown a Dynasty King! Find out more about the Dynasty World Championship at DynastyKing.com, and be sure to check FFtoolbox.com’s articles, tools and rankings for sports beyond fantasy football, including Baseball, NASCAR, Golf and more!
The Dynasty 101 series is geared towards those who are new to the format. The second installment details the importance of knowing your league rules, as well as how to go about researching and ranking players.
In the initial installment of Dynasty 101, I described the allure of dynasty leagues, as well as their advantages relative to the re-draft format. Now that you’re hooked, I want to discuss how best to go about poring through the plethora of available data. You undoubtedly have various articles, rankings, cheat sheets and the like in front of you, but there’s one document which, above all others, demands your immediate attention – your league manifest!
To illustrate the importance of knowing your league’s rules, I want to share a story from my own drafting experience. Does anyone out there remember Dante Hall? In his nine years in the league, the speedy but diminutive former Chief/Ram compiled an impressive 14,386 total yards. Hall really burst onto the scene in 2002, when he collected a robust 2,120 yards, to go along with six touchdowns. Yet when one of my buddies took him in the first round of our 2003 draft, he was laughed out of the room.
Why?
Well, for those who don’t remember, Dante Hall was primarily a return man. In fact, all but 1,989 of those 14k-plus yards (86%) came from kickoff and punt returns, as did 57% of his career touchdowns. As a part-time receiver in a league that awards no points for return yards, Hall was roster deadweight.
Now, we’re a competitive group, but not without compassion, so we gave him a mulligan and let him off the hook with no punishment other than his already red face. Playing Devil’s advocate though, what if we weren’t? He’d have wasted his first-round draft pick, putting himself at a huge disadvantage because he didn’t know the rules.
What are the defining characteristics of your league? How many teams are there? Which positions are considered, and how many players start at each one? Is it a point-per-reception (PPR) league? Does the league utilize a standard scoring system, or is it specialized? What is the overall roster size? These questions, along with many others, need to have answers before you can begin your research.
As another example, let’s consider two hypothetical leagues. League A is a 16-team league which starts two running backs, and League B is a 10-teamer which also starts two ball-carriers. If you were a member of both leagues, would you valuate the running back position in the same way?
Once again, it all comes back to the numbers. Doing the math, on any given week League A will see 32 running backs in starting lineups, which is a 60% increase over the 20 starting ball carriers in League B. Given the relative lack of star power at the running back position, odds dictate they’ll go off the draft board much sooner in League A than in League B, thereby necessitating an early commitment to the position, but also affording subsequent value at other positions. Playing this type of numbers game in advance of your draft can help you both predict and cope with a positional “run,” as well as shape your overall strategy.
The next number I want to consider is one of extreme importance to dynasty leaguers: age. When one thinks of building an everlasting dynasty, it’s standard belief that younger is better. Does that theory necessarily hold water? To test just that, let’s consider another hypothetical league, which is comprised of twelve teams and has the following starting requirements: one quarterback, two running backs, three wide receivers and one tight end. Now consider the following table, where the top scorers at each position (according to 2012 standard PPR scoring) are juxtaposed with the league’s starting requirements, as well as their age (during the 2012 season):
|
Position |
Number of Starters |
Average Age |
How Many Age 28+ |
% Over 28 |
|
QB |
12 |
27.7 |
5 |
41.7 |
|
RB |
24 |
25.8 |
4 |
16.7 |
|
WR |
36 |
26.9 |
15 |
41.7 |
|
TE |
12 |
27.3 |
4 |
33.3 |
So does age truly matter?
In short, kinda sorta. The two main factors in play here are the average age of each position group (with the number of starters noted) as well as how many within each position group were age 28 or older. The number 28 was chosen due to the fact the average NFL rookie is approximately 22 years old, and the average lifespan of an NFL player is roughly six years. In other words, the final two columns show deviation above the average age for each position.
The data shows that quarterbacks, wide receivers and tight ends have a greater likelihood of performing at a high level despite increasing age. This shouldn’t be too surprising, as relative to running backs, the level of impact collisions is greatly diminished. In addition to an increased average age, each of the three positions has a higher proportion of players age 28 or older. This means that in terms of drafting, since overall skill persists, youth shouldn’t function as the biggest factor.
The running back position, however, tells a different tale. Given the inherent punishment, it’s not surprising to see ball carriers begin to fade at a younger age. Though there will always be exceptions like Adrian Peterson who prove the rule, youth and workload should serve as a definitive tiebreaker, and older players should generally be devalued.
Continuing with the impact of numbers, it’s imperative to assess each player’s consistency. On the microscopic level, this includes data such as games played, touchdowns, pass attempts, total yards, targets, receptions, yards per carry, etc. – the types of general statistics which can be found on most any sports website. On a macroscopic level, however, the combination of these numbers is manifested in each player’s yearly fantasy finish. In other words, how likely is a player to replicate his statistics on a long-term basis? Though many will always be predisposed towards picking the boom or bust types of players, dependability cannot be understated.
Conversely, one of the more overrated concepts in dynasty football is a team’s coaching situation. The average tenure amongst the current 32 NFL coaches is 3.2 years, and only New England’s Bill Belichick and Cincinnati’s Marvin Lewis have been with their respective franchises for at least ten years. While 3.2 years isn’t an insignificant period of time, it more than likely represents only a fraction of a player’s career. Drafting a player based upon projected long-term usage is meaningless given the strong likelihood he’ll see multiple coaches over the duration of his career.
Similarly, selecting players based on positional circumstance is a good way to wind up overvaluing them. The poster boy for this type of shortsightedness is Miami running back Daniel Thomas, who was drafted highly due to the expectations of a clear path to the starting job. He wound up losing the job to Reggie Bush, and is now stuck behind Lamar Miller in the pecking order. Thomas currently averages 3.5 yards per carry in his two-year career. Talent should always trump situation, as dynasty is a long-term investment. A player with immense natural ability is worth waiting for.
So given the aggregation of all the points (and numbers) above, you’re now ready to rank. Doing so generally involves a system of tiers, and there are two main schools of thought with that concept. The first is that since your league has a finite size, the size of your tiers should directly reflect how many players can possibly be drafted in each round. For example, in a 12-team league, each tier would contain 12 players. While this method is not without merit, in my opinion, that’s what ADP data is for.
My preferred technique is to rank directly based on talent and comfort level, and indiscriminately of the numbers. Given the combination of the four main positions, there’s a strong likelihood you’ll have a collection of talent that outnumbers the amount of potential slots in any given round. In other words, are the players selected at the top of the second round really any worse than those picked at the bottom of the first?
The main advantage to this system is that you’re not shoehorning players into a rigid network. You’re afforded greater flexibility with the numbers while still creating distinct levels. You’re also benefited with ability to rank based on comfort, as opposed to surrendering to some inflexible matrix.
Given a thorough knowledge of your league’s rules, as well as an understanding of several factors determining each player’s “draft-worthiness,” you now have the tools necessary to craft a rankings list. How are you going to put that list to use, as well as handle a live draft? That’s a topic for the next installment.
Eric Hardter is a Senior Writer for dlfstg02.dynastyleaguefootball.com, and a veteran of multiple dynasty leagues. For additional insight, you can follow him on Twitter under the handle @EDH_27 or submit questions to the DLF Mailbag.
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