RotoGuru Football Forum

View the Forum Registry

XML Get RSS Feed for this thread


Self-edit this thread


0 Subject: teams biult for the playoffs

Posted by: boikin
- [59831214] Fri, Dec 08, 2006, 14:25

As the playoffs begin for meany fantasy league i am reminded how some players teams will consistenly barely make it into the playoff and then consistenlty do well while other players well consistently have one best teams in a league and then fail missarbly in the playoffs. Any answer to why this happens and strategy suggestions for the playoffs?
1Frick
      Donor
      ID: 3410101718
      Fri, Dec 08, 2006, 14:36
It could be teams that struggled with injuries at the beginning of the year, but are healthy in the play-offs. It could also have been the luck of the schedule, you could theoretically go 0 and whatever, by having the 2nd highest scoring team each week. My RIFC AAA team missed the play-offs (the last 2 spots are by points) by 50 points (total 3,000) for the year, while managing to finish with a 9-17 record.

I don't know if that has to do with my teams ability to put up decent, but not great weeks, or if my team had good weeks, but played teams with even better weeks and lost, and then lost on the weeks it did poorly, versus getting lucky and playing a team with an even worse week and getting a cheap win.


Also, I often wonder if managers put to much emphasis on bye week issues. With the new compressed bye week schedule, more teams are on a bye during the bye weeks, but they occur on fewer weeks. In our auction league I took the approach I would tank 1 week, in return I had 2 of the top 3 RBs doing every other week. If you had the choice would you rather have LT paired with a 2nd tier RB who didn't share a bye, or LT and LJ when they both had a bye on week 3? I got smoked on week 3, but every other week, I've had decent success.
2sarge33rd
      ID: 99331714
      Fri, Dec 08, 2006, 14:41
Lets not exclude the simple "luck" factor either. The LT/LJ combo is devastating to face indeed, but you could almost as easily have had LT/SA, and you'd have seen nothing near the same success this year. (They are for the most part, universally recognized as the top 3 RBs in the game atm.)

I think its more a matter of what we see/hear in the NFL every year...peaking...at the right time. Early injuries followed by recoveries as Frick said above...late injuries to teams that were doing well up until then, (Hasselback/McNabb for ex)...
3blue hen
      Leader
      ID: 710321114
      Fri, Dec 08, 2006, 14:51
There are two managers in my main league this year. Let's call them "Craig" and "Bryan". Bryan has scored 965 points this year, and Craig has scored 862. So naturally, Craig is 10-3, tied for the best record in the league, and Bryan is 4-8-1, with no shot to make the playoffs.

Here is why: Craig has allowed 787 points. Bryan has allowed 1048.

Apparently, defense does matter. Or luck.
4boikin
      ID: 59831214
      Fri, Dec 08, 2006, 14:58
Most things above you can not control for but in some leagues that start the playoffs later you have to deal with players that are on teams that cliched there playoff spot (Peyton) and others who are playing for teams that are done for season and playing for nothing. Are there strategies for accounting for this and even maybe taking advantage of it. I have noticed some players will begin to excel at the end of the season when there meaning less games are being played against other meaningless gamed teams.
5sarge33rd
      ID: 99331714
      Fri, Dec 08, 2006, 15:05
Defense counts yes, but not in the sense one owuld think from your comment. The particular "D" you select has some bearing, as does the particular RB etc etc. But Pts Against in FF, isnt much controlled by your on the field D. In H2H, you're facing a team comprised of players facing an array of D's each week. A couple players have big games, and your PtsAgainst goes in the tank that week. A bit of bad luck, and you might face teams all year with individual players having career games against you. (In one league, there is a manager against whom I would be 11-2 if we played each other every week. I have faced him only once this year, and I am 0-1 against him.)
6Frick
      Donor
      ID: 3410101718
      Fri, Dec 08, 2006, 16:17
Some leagues limit roster moves when their post season starts, other leagues don't play on week 17 due to the resting starters issue.

Is there any way to realistically know which team is going to be resting starters in week 15, 16 or 17 in August? No, the only thing you can do is watch the waiver wire and hope to get lucky on which team packing it in, or which team might be moving to that rookie QB and decimating the value of your WR or RB.

Sarge, I specifically avoided Alexander. Now, I would love to claim that it was a brilliant move on my part, but either of the other 2 or both could have missed as much time if not more. Depending on the size of your bench handcuffs (picking up the back-up to your stud) can be a valuable fantasy move. In another league where we start 2 QBs I was finished when McNabb went down for the year and I only have 1 starting QB left (I had initially drafted 3 or starting QBs) and there isn't a starting QB left on the WW.

7mjd
      Sustainer
      ID: 501381415
      Fri, Dec 08, 2006, 16:28
More than any other fantasy sport, good luck is essential in football. The relatively few scoring opportunities (as opposed to baseball or hoops) does not always allow enough time for the cream to rise to the top.

A little luck in the injury department never hurts either. I drafted Greg Jones less than an hour before he suffered his season ending injury in a preseason game. Many drafts were well underway when Dominick Davis failed his physical.

Those who drafted Alexander and survived to get into the playoffs now have a rested RB with fresh legs.
8sarge33rd
      ID: 99331714
      Fri, Dec 08, 2006, 16:45
RE 6, Yeah, I'm in that league too. I drafted 5 QBs. 3 starters and 2 backups. 1 starter lost his job post-draft and pre-season. (Holcomb),1 starter got knocked in game 1 and just came back. (Green) The 3rd starter, lost his job late in the season (Bledsoe). WW pickup went down 32 minutes into his first appearance (Rodgers), etc etc etc.

Luck, in FF, plays as big a role, as does preperation. IMHO at any rate.
9TB
      ID: 72253110
      Fri, Dec 08, 2006, 19:25
Everyone has already said it, but I want to say it too: LUCK.

I love football, but Blue Hen's example in #3 happens in most leagues every year. The play-offs are even worse, where the old adage "On any given Sunday..." proves just as true in fantasy sports. In points leagues, the person who drafts the best players and does the best job of acquiring players via trades, waivers, and free agency wins. In H2H it helps to have a good draft or make good acquisitions, but there is no substitute for great luck.
10RecycledSpinalFluid
      Dude
      ID: 204401122
      Fri, Dec 08, 2006, 19:43
I scored the second most points (2 less than leader) in my roto league. Then promptly lost the first round of playoff due to multiple injuries. Fantasy Football sucks.
11sarge33rd
      ID: 76442923
      Sat, Dec 09, 2006, 08:33
Fantasy Football sucks.

*he said while renewing his 13 subscriptions for next years 2007 Fantasy Football Forecast magazines*
12sarge33rd
      ID: 99331714
      Sat, Dec 09, 2006, 10:28
Looking over some stats from this past season in one of my leagues:

TE 1pt/3yds vs WR 1pt/6yds, else all is pretty much the same. We start 2 WR plus 1 TE plus 1 Flex WR/TE. I decided pre-draft, to go the 2 TE route and snagged LJ Smith and K Winslow as my starting TEs.

Through the 1st 6 weeks of the season:

536 ReYds and 6 TDs

through the following 7 weeks, they only added:

527 yds and 3 TDs. (In one game in each time segment, I went 1 TE and 3 WR)

The yardage difference isnt substantial, until you realize that you are comparing 6 weeks of production to yield 536 yds for 89.33 yds/game, to 7 weeks to get the next 527 yds or 75.28 yds/game. Factor in the 50% decline in TD production, and we see how changing "trends" throughout the season can have a major impact in the course of your W-L record.

At 89.33 yds/game plus 1 TD per game, my 2 TEs were producing just a fraction shy of 42 pts/game.

At 75.28 yds/game and 1/2 TD, they combined for only 28.1 pts/game. Lose 14 points/game in Points For....and you will suffer for it.
13The Beezer
      Leader
      ID: 191202817
      Sat, Dec 09, 2006, 10:33
FF is a lot like poker, except you can pick your cards, the cards have a range of worth rather than a fixed value, and the cards sometimes get injured....

OK, maybe not so much.

There is a similarity in that in poker, the best you can do is put yourself in the best possible position to come out ahead, but sometimes you just lose to the randomness of it all. In fantasy football, you can effectively deal yourself a pair of aces with a good draft (especially in non-standard leagues if you understand the quirks in the rules), but a pair of aces still loses sometimes. That's no reason to stop dealing it to yourself, however.

FF requires no more luck than other fantasy sports, it's just the structure that makes it more random. Fantasy football played roto-style or total points for the whole season takes a lot of the variance out of it. However, hardly anyone likes to play this way because the weekly nature of the sport lends itself to head-to-head play, and that drives the desire for playoffs to mirror the real thing.

If you're a good online poker player, you can reduce the effect of variance on your win rate by playing as many tables as you can handle. Similarly, if you're a good FF player, you can increase your win % by playing more leagues. This mitigates your risk of having one injury or one freakish game in the playoffs ruining all of your teams.
14sarge33rd
      ID: 99331714
      Sat, Dec 09, 2006, 10:44
quite true Beezer. I'm in 3 leagues, and my teams cover the full spectrum performance wise.

1) Tanked early partly due to an early and singular key injury (T Green) and stayed in the toilet all season.

1) Is doing quite well, IIRC Nr1 in points for, 2nd overall in the league via W-L record and clinched a playoff spot.

1) Is barely over 500 (7-6), in the playoffs, but probably going to be eliminated 1st rd.
Rate this thread:
5 (top notch)
4 (even better)
3 (good stuff)
2 (lightweight)
1 (no value)
If you wish, you may rate this thread on scale of 1-5. Ratings should indicate how valuable or interesting you believe this thread would be to other users of this forum. A '5' means that this thread is a 'must read'. A '1' means that this is a complete waste of time.

If you have previously rated this thread, rating it again will delete your previous rating.

If you do not want to rate this thread, but want to see how others have rated it, then click the button without entering a rating, or else click here.

RotoGuru Football Forum

View the Forum Registry

XML Get RSS Feed for this thread


Self-edit this thread




Post a reply to this message: (But first, how about checking out this sponsor?)

Name:
Email:
Message:
Click here to create and insert a link
Click here to insert a random spelling of Roethlisberger
Ignore line feeds? no (typical)   yes (for HTML table input)


Viewing statistics for this thread
Period# Views# Users
Last hour11
Last 24 hours11
Last 7 days22
Last 30 days66
Since Mar 1, 2007914461