Player Ranking Philosophy |
How did we compile our Big Board college fantasy football projections and player rankings? This article is intended to help answer that question.
Projections and Rankings Explained
Folks, fantasy football is all about the numbers. That statement might sound obvious, but there are many fantasy players who put too much stock in hunches, school allegiances, and poorly compiled rankings on draft day.
Put your allegiances aside. Keep your gut feelings in check. Gloss over those other ranking “lists”. And immerse yourself in the stats.
The meaningful stats.
This is the key to building a strong foundation to your fantasy football roster.
So, which stats are we talking about here? The following are obviously important:
Pass Attempts
Completion %
Yards per Completion
Passing Yards
Interceptions
Passing TDs
Rushing Attempts
Rushing Yards Per Carry
Rushing TDs
Receptions
Receiving Yards Per Catch
Receiving TDs
Points Against
Yards Against
Sacks
Turnovers Gained
Defensive and special teams TDs
PATs
Field Goals
Distance of FGs
Quality of offense returning
To attempt to accurately project those statistics above, you must take many factors into consideration:
* How many games did the player play in 2008? In 2007?
* What was his role in the offense last season? Do we expect it to change in 2009?
* Does he have heavy competition at his position?
* Who else on the offense is returning?
* How experienced is his o-line?
* Strength of schedule
* Have there been any changes in the coaching staff or general offensive philosophies?
* If the player doesn’t have a track record, can we use the offense’s track record to build a projection? How did players at the position fair in past years under the current coaching staff - whether at this school or in an earlier stop in the coaching ladder?
* What direction did the offensive emphasis go in spring practices?
* Are there injury or off the field concerns?
So now we have a good sense for what a player is going to produce for the upcoming season. Using the statistics above as our guide and baseline, each Geek staffer takes a crack at creating a stat projection for each major player in the country.
We compare notes - perhaps partake in a few heated debates - and eventually come to a consensus on groups, or tiers, of players by position. These are players that are of similar fantasy ability level. Once the players are assigned to a tier, we rank within that tier.
Next comes a critical step. Taking all of the information we have gathered, and calculating Fantasy Points Per Game (PPG) and Draft Value.
Fantasy Points Per Game
The fatal flaw that many college fantasy football players make in draft preparation is looking at the previous year’s data without regard to the number of games played. For example, last fall Florida QB Tim Tebow accumulated approximately 360 total fantasy points, while Baylor QB Robert Griffin tallied about 300. At first glance, this is a significant difference. However, when you factor in that Tebow played in 14 games to Griffin’s 12, the difference isn’t quite as great as it first appeared. Tebow’s 2008 PPG was 26.07. Griffin’s PPG was 25.33.
Fantasy PPG is the backbone to projecting players and compiling our Big Board rankings. If you aren’t looking at production at the game level, well, then you aren’t doing your homework. It’s a tedious process, but don’t worry - we’ve done all of the dirty work for you. All players in our 2009 Draft Kit have been projected to their 12 game statistical averages. Everyone here is measured by the same standard!
Draft Value
Now that we’ve put all players on an even playing field by assigning each a Fantasy PPG, our rankings are easy to compile for each position. But Fantasy PPG doesn’t translate across positions. Just because a QB scores more points than a RB or WR doesn’t mean he’s more valuable on draft day, right? You need a method to attach a value to each player so that you can make these cross-positional determinations when you’re on the clock.
That’s where Draft Value comes into play.
Draft Value applies your league’s roster criteria into your projections to assign a value to each player. These values aren’t The Bible when it comes to draft day, but they are extremely helpful in grouping players together to help narrow down your choices - specifically for the Top 50 overall players.
Draft Value is the end result of a complex calculation best described in this article. For the sake of our rankings, we used the following information to create our Draft Value baselines:
1. 10 teams
2. 17 round draft
3. Starting lineups: 2 QB, 3.5 RB, 3.5 WR, 1 TE, 1 DEF, 1 PK
These numbers are plugged into an equation in our database, and the result is a draft value for each player to help you navigate through the early rounds of your draft.
Scoring System Used in Projections:
1.0 pt per 25 passing yards
1.0 pt per 10 rushing/receiving yards
0.5 pts per reception
4.0 pts per passing TD
6.0 pts per rushing/receiving TD
-2.0 pts per INT
