It's that time of year again. Over the next week, thousands of fantasy football leagues around the world will be selecting their dream teams hoping that over the course of the NFL season the players they select win them glory. Drafting a good team is not a guarantee you will win your league. Injuries, suspensions and substitutions will affect your fantasy football team throughout the season and identifying the right players to pick up on waivers is crucial.
Conventional wisdom for players old and new of fantasy football is grab a QB with one of your very first picks as they score the most points. However the value is in fact in the running back and wide receiver position in the early stages and I will show you why in this article. This focus on drafting for value has become the most popular mode amongst fantasy football experts and gives you a distinct advantage against your opponents if you draft correctly.
The principle of Value Based Drafting (VBD) described at Footballguys.com is this: The value of a player is determined not by the number of points he scores, but by how much he outscores his peers at his particular position.
So your identifying the gap between the top players at their position and the rest, how much of a drop off is their within position. The bigger gap the more valuable the elite players are at that position and showing the importance of getting one of those elite options before they run out. You are also comparing the points advantage you have or don't have against opposition teams. For example-
QB RB WR TE Cumulative Score
Team A 12 15 (+7) 16 (+6) 7 50
Team B 18 (+6) 8 10 10 (+3) 46
The individual positional point total is not the emphasis, it's the advantage you have in the cumulative score which really matters. You may have better QB's and TE's then your opponents but if you have average RB's and WR's then your're going to lose more often then not. With VBD defined lets look at some of the key indicators for creating the best possible team.
Point Differential
The gap between the elite player and the rest of the pack is crucial to understand the true value of drafting the right players at the right position early in drafts.
Lets look at the point differentials of the top 12 of the QB,RB and WR positions over the past two years using NFL.com standard scoring settings. Their total season score is in red and how big the points gap was between a player and the top player in that position is in the brackets.
2012
QB RB WR
Drew Brees 346 Adrian Peterson 307 Calvin Johnson 220
Aaron Rodgers 344 (-2) Doug Martin 263 (-44) Brandon Marshall 217 (-3)
Tom Brady 340 (-6) Arian Foster 262 (-45) Dez Bryant 208 (-12)
Cam Newton 323 (-23) Marshawn Lynch 247 (-60) AJ Green 203 (-17)
Robert Griffin III 318 (-28) Alfred Morris 241 (-66) Demaryious Thomas 197 (-23)
Peyton Manning 311 (-35) Ray Rice 222 (-85) Vincent Jackson 188 (-34)
Matt Ryan 305 (-41) CJ Spiller 212 (-95) Eric Decker 184 (-38)
Tony Romo 279 (-67) Jamaal Charles 205 (-102) Andre Johnson 184 (-38)
Andrew Luck 276 (-70) Trent Richardson 204 (-103) Julio Jones 183 (-39)
Russell Wilson 276 (-70) Frank Gore 203 (-104) Roddy White 177 (-45)
Matthew Stafford 276 (-70) Stevan Ridley 199 (-108) Marques Colston 171 (-51)
Andy Dalton 250 (-96) Matt Forte 177 (-128) Wes Welker 171 (-51)
2011
QB RB WR
Aaron Rodgers 397 Ray Rice 297 Calvin Johnson 263
Drew Brees 392 (-5) LeSean McCoy 280 (-17) Jordy Nelson 216 (-47)
Cam Newton 369 (-28) M Jones Drew 262 (-35) Wes Welker 214 (-49)
Tom Brady 366 (-31) Arian Foster 250 (-47) Victor Cruz 206 (-57)
Matthew Stafford 343 (-54) Marshawn Lynch 216 (-81) Larry Fitzgerald 189 (-74)
Eli Manning 281 (-62) Michael Turner 213 (-84) Steve Smith 185 (-78)
Tony Romo 276 (-67) Adrian Peterson 189 (-108) Roddy White 178 (-85)
Matt Ryan 273 (-70) Ryan Matthews 187 (-110) Percy Harvin 175 (-88)
Phillip Rivers 255 (-88) Michael Bush 186 (-111) Mike Wallace 171 (-92)
Mark Sanchez 237 (-106) Darren Sproles 185 (-112) Vincent Jackson 170 (-93)
Michael Vick 233 (-110) Steven Jackson 182 (-115) Hakeem Nicks 161 (-102)
Ryan Fitzpatrick 223 (-120) Frank Gore 177 (-120) Marques Colston 160 (-103)
As you can see with the point differential gaps between the positional groups are significant. RB's have the biggest disparity with the depth running out quickly. Once your're down to the 6th or 7th best RB the gap is nearly 100 points to the top RB. Compare that to QB where in the 7th place QB in 2012, Matt Ryan was only 41 points behind Drew Brees. With the WR position the gap is even closer with only 51 points separating the top 12. Breaking it down on a per game here is another perspective:
- The point differential between the top QB of 2012 Drew Brees, and the 10th Russell Wilson was 70 points or just 4.4 points per match.
- The point differential between the top RB of 2012 Adrian Peterson and the the 10th Frank Gore was 104 points or just 6.5 points per match.
The one position where it seems crucial to pick up the top players is TE.
If we go back to the 2011 season the gap between the top two TE's, Rob Gronkowski and Jimmy Graham was 100-140 points greater than the tenth best TE which gave people with those players a massive advantage over the rest of the league at such a shallow position. If you don't get one out of Graham, Gronkowski, Witten then I would wait until the later rounds to take a chance on one of the many options there.
That concludes the first part of VBD drafting series. Next is a focus on the fluctuation of positions.
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