Playoff defenses - who to target?

First, the quick and dirty - what you came for:

WEEK 14/15/16 PLAYOFFS - DEFENSES TO TARGET

1. Lions (currently 8th-best, facing teams who are 30th against defenses, 24th, and 22nd, in Weeks 14, 15, 16 respectively) 
2. Packers (6th-best, against 12th, 17th, and 30th)
3. Ravens (10th-best, against 17th, 32nd, and 15th)
4. Cardinals (4th-best, against 14th, 31st, 10th)
5. Patriots (7th-best, against 12th, 17th, 29th)
6. Eagles (best, against 10th, 17th, 27th)
7. Vikings (12th-best, against 29th, 19th, 17th)

WEEK 15/16 PLAYOFFS - DEFENSES TO TARGET

All of these are good options:

• Packers (6th-best, against 21st and 30th)
• Lions (8th-best, against 24th and 22nd) 
• Patriots (7th-best, against 17th and 29th)
• Eagles (best, against 17th and 27th)
• Cardinals (4th-best, against 31st and 10th)
• Ravens (10th-best, against 32nd and 15th)

One-week starters - Week 15

1. Cardinals (4th-best, against 31st)
2. Ravens (10th-best, against 32nd)
3. Lions (8th-best, against 24th)
4. Chiefs (15th-best, against 24th and out for blood at home)
5. Seahawks (11th-best, facing 23rd)
6. Packers (6th-best, facing 21st, but on the road where they haven't exactly been great)
7. Eagles/Patriots (1st and 7th-best, facing 17th)

One-week starters - Week 16 - all good options:

• Packers (6th-best, against 30th, but on the road)
• Patriots (7th-best, against 29th)
• Eagles (best, against 27th)
• Bills (2nd-best, against 24th)
• Dolphins (3rd-best, against 24th)
• Lions (8th-best, against 22nd)
• Browns (14th-best, against 28th)

THE DATA - 

Playoffs in Weeks 14, 15 and 16:

Playoffs in Weeks 15 and 16:

Just Week 15:

Just Week 16:

Hope this helps. Best of luck in your playoffs!

Ceilings and Floors, and simplifying your lineup questions

Every week, you're confronted with difficult lineup choices. That's part of fantasy football. Some people go to sites like reddit's fantasy football subreddit (/r/fantasyfootball); some use various experts' rankings; some use the hosting site's projections; etc. Some people are well-informed enough and watch enough games that they primarily use their own gut. All of these are great (except hosting site projections...) and worth using, but sometimes the decision isn't easy at the end of the day. If you think in terms of ceilings and floors, you can usually make the decision a little easier on yourself.

When you're thinking about how a player will perform, you usually aren't thinking "this player will probably catch eight passes for 123 yards, I bet!" That doesn't really make sense unless you have the sports almanac from Back to the Future II; predictions about the future don't work like that. You're thinking "they might have a good game because of X!" It's a vague idea, which is sometimes hard to use when comparing players.

Here's how to use this effectively: figure out the player's ceiling and floor.

The ceiling is the best-case scenario for the player (and factor in about the odds of that scenario happening). Conversely, the floor is the worst-case scenario for the player (and factor in about the odds of that scenario happening).

Seems simple enough - and it really is that simple. Apply it for yourself and see what happens. We'll use Keenan Allen and Cordarrelle Patterson for our example.

Keenan Allen is the WR1 in SD and will be at home against the Seahawks. Last week he pulled down 5 passes for 37 yards on 9 targets while being aggressively shadowed defended by the Cardinals' Patrick Peterson (Thanks to reddit's /u/mudville9, who noted that Peterson oddly stayed to one side of the field on 58/62 snaps in Week 1 - the Cardinals must not have perceived Allen as a WR1 threat over Malcom Floyd).. Thankfully, Richard Sherman,who is probably a little better than Peterson, doesn't play shadow coverage; he stays to one side of the field. In Week 1, Sherman's coverage meant that Rodgers never threw to Boykin all day (and the Packers put Boykin, their WR3, on Sherman's side of the field constantly). It's possible that the Chargers try to keep Allen on the non-Sherman side of the field, but it's a bit more likely that they use him all over the field as per normal. Remember though, the Seahawks defense gives Sherman lots of room to work and compress the non-Sherman side of the field, bracketing receivers and generally favoring coverage on that side. As a result, things are not incredibly easy for any WR against the Seahawks (though Cobb and Nelson had a reasonably decent day lining up on that side of the field in Week 1).

Given that, it's probably safe to set his floor somewhere around what happened in Week 1 to Allen (since he likely won't be blanketed all game, but probably some of it) - blanket coverage, but pulled in a number of shorter passes. His ceiling is probably a little above what Nelson did last week (9/83) with a possible score in there. I tend to think the ceiling is slightly more likely than the floor, but that's very open to differing opinions.

Cordarrelle Patterson only grabbed 3 passes for 26 yards on 5 targets (in comparison, Jennings had 7 targets), but also rushed for 102 yards and a score on 3 carries against the Rams last week. This week he faces the Patriots. The Patriots have Revis instead of Talib now, but didn't use him in shadow coverage in Week 1 against Mike Wallace/the Dolphins, indicating they probably won't use him in that capacity too often. Wallace deserves shadow coverage over Hartline more than Patterson deserves shadow coverage over Jennings, so it's probable - as probable as any Belichick prediction ever is - that Revis will be in the same capacity against the Vikings. The Patriots have a horrendous run defense and AD is AD, so lots of yards will be picked up in the ground game. Patterson's carries are super-unpredictable, because either AD's rushes cause the Patriots to pack the box allowing Patterson to run outside the tackles or AD's rushes are so effective that Patterson doesn't even get the minimal 3 carries he got last week. Regardless, 100 yards rushing isn't likely to happen again, so set that aside. The Patriots needing to pack the box means Patterson will be left open (anytime he's not dealing with man coverage from Revis) across the middle, meaning lots of potential opportunities there.

Given that, Patterson's floor is probably a little higher than Week 1 in terms of receiving totals. It's reasonable that the passing game might not be needed quite as much, but when it is used it'll be effective. I tend to think the Patriots will keep the game close at a minimum, so passing will remain part of the equation all game, raising the floor and making the floor less probable. It's not unreasonable to set the ceiling high, including a score and maybe a couple middling carries to round out the totals.

I have Patterson edging out Allen this week as a result, in large part because I think Allen's floor is more likely than Patterson's. That said, remember that essentially what we're doing is predicting a range of possibilities, and there's lots of overlap in that range - I have these two players very close in my rankings.

The more detail you can think through, the better, but even with limited information the same principle applies: figure out the realistic best case scenario, the realistic worst case scenario, about the relative probabilities of each, and use that to make your start/sit decisions.

Soon, I'm going to start posting a weekly Strictest Cornerback Watch to help decide how concerned you should really be about players like Sherman, Peterson, Haden, and other star corners.

The Question of Ellington

With the reports of Ellington's foot injury today (and the resulting migraines suffered by Ellington/Lacy owners), all anyone's been talking about is what to do. Is Dwyer worth a pickup? What's the most recent news? HELP ME WHAT DO I DO I'VE LOST THE SEASON ALREADY

Okay, calm down. There are two related questions to answer. 1. What's the best way to proceed from here, and 2. Is Dwyer good enough to justify a pickup?

HELP ME WHAT DO I DO?
Let's start with the bad news. The Cardinals play the very last game of Week 1, kicking off at 10:20PM Eastern time. You can't wait until game time to get the most updated information and make a choice then. You're going to have to make some decisions in advance.
If you're looking at waiver/free agent pickups, you can't wait until the last second to pick up a player, especially if it 's someone that another owner could have eyes on (for example, you probably aren't the only one in your league looking at Ellington's backup, Dwyer...though whether that's a good decision or not is up for debate, and we'll analyze it below). There's not much benefit to waiting for information anyway unless you are seriously considering starting Ellington if he's healthy enough to start.

Let's say Ellington somehow ends up playing. Can I safely start him?
Safely? No. If I have a decent flex option, I'd absolutely start him over Ellington this week unless the news is suddenly incredibly good (which is unlikely at this point). Even if he plays, his downs will probably be limited which massively lowers his ceiling. I'd rather start any flex option over that spinning roulette wheel.


Is Ellington's backup, Dwyer, worth a pickup?
If Ellington is out, Dwyer will receive the bulk of carries. While I've said before that relying on preseason data is fairly unreliable, it's about the best data we have for this situation, so let's take a look:

Texans v. Cardinals (0-32). Dwyer: 4 carries, 7 yards (1.8 ypc, longest carry 4 yards), 0 receptions.
Cardinals v. Vikings (28-30). Dwyer: 5 carries, 10 yards (2.0 ypc, longest 4 yards, 1 TD), 0 receptions.
Bengals v. Cardinals (19-13). Dwyer: 5 carries, 7 yards (1.4 ypc, longest 7 yards), 0 receptions.
(Dwyer didn't play the last preseason game)

Dwyer's best performance was against the Vikings; let's take a closer look. His TD play was a goal line carry of 1 yard early in the 1st, and a few carries early in the 2nd. His carry in the Cardinals side of the field (on the Arizona 5) went for a loss of a yard, while his best two carries were back to back in the midfield.

This is a really small sample size - 14 carries over three games. However, in those 14 carries, he's amassed a gigantic...24 yards, averaging 1.7 yards per carry. He is certainly no Ellington.

Of course, Dwyer is likely to do better when he has a full game in front of him. That said, the immediate panic should not be "I have to go pick up Dwyer." I would rather start a semimarginal flex option than Dwyer, who is likely to share at least a few carries with Stepfan Taylor anyway.

Of course, if you have no other options and the waiver wire doesn't have any good options - sure, go ahead and pick him up. Then you can at least wait until gametime to see who to start.

IN SUM: 
1. If you have a flex option on your bench, put him in your starting lineup instead of Ellington and forget about this mess until next week.
2. If you need a replacement from the waiver wire to fill that gap, just pick up the player now.
3. Pick up Dwyer as a last resort only.

Are Losing Quarterbacks Good Fantasy Football Options?

“Well, go ahead and pick up RG3. He’ll be losing the game so he’ll be throwing the ball more; more opportunity for points.”

If you tend to go look online for fantasy football advice (I have it on pretty good authority that you do), you’ve probably seen a comment like this. People accept this as a reasonable statement because it sounds reasonable. Hell, I’m sure I’ve followed advice like this in years past.

But is it true? If not, it’s worth correcting people from this assumption.

I really don’t think it can possibly be true. Simply put, quarterbacks who score more fantasy points are more likely to win the game.

HOW MUCH MORE DO QUARTERBACKS THROW THE BALL WHEN LOSING?

We can probably accept that quarterbacks do throw the ball more when losing a game – that’s basic gameplay. How much more do quarterbacks tend to throw the ball when losing, though?

On average, a quarterback who won a game in 2013 attempted over 32 passes, while a quarterback who lost a game attempted just under 38 passes. That’s almost a 20% difference in passes attempted – a reasonably sizable gap, but not gigantic.

Interestingly, winning and losing quarterbacks averaged almost the same number of completed passes. Yes, a losing QB throws the ball significantly more than a winning QB, but doesn’t actually complete any more passes.

Therefore, we should expect that a winning quarterback scores more, and probably significantly more, fantasy points than a losing quarterback. If they complete the same number of passes, both QBs have had the same number of attempts to gain fantasy points, and the losing QB (by definition) ended up losing the game regardless.

DO LOSING QUARTERBACKS SCORE MORE FANTASY POINTS THAN WINNING QUARTERBACKS?

We know now that we expect this answer to be no, since winning QBs average the same number of completed passes as a losing QB. Let’s look at the data:

Average weekly points for winning quarterbacks: 17.8.

Average weekly points for losing quarterbacks: 12.8.

That’s a gap of almost 5 points, a larger gap than the plot hole in Signs (seriously, most of the planet is covered in their greatest weakness, not to mention water vapor and rain…). Clearly, the data supports the conclusion that “you want to pick up a QB who is likely to lose” is wrong.

DO QUARTERBACKS WHO ATTEMPT MORE PASSES NONETHELESS SCORE MORE POINTS?

Here’s where it gets confusing. So, losing QBs generally attempt more passes than winning QBs. Losing QBs also score fewer fantasy points. However, more fantasy points is correlated with lots of attempted passes.

In the average game last year, a QB threw 35.3 attempted passes.

Average fantasy points when attempting more than 35 passes: 17.1.

Average fantasy points when attempting 35 or fewer passes: 13.7.

The extremes of the data are Flacco’s 62 attempted passes in Week 1 (18 fantasy points) and Kaepernick’s 15 passes in Week 5 against the Texans, of which only 6 were completed (9 fantasy points).

CONCLUSION

You do want a QB who is throwing a lot, but you want one who will ultimately win the game while throwing a lot. The basic rationale that “throwing more means more QB points” makes sense, and is supported by the data. The next logical step that people take – that losing QBs throw more – is also true. However, all increases in attempted passes are not equal – if a QB loses, the increased attempted passes aren’t scoring many points.

Therefore, you do not want a QB who loses the game on your fantasy team, though the rest of the underlying logic is valid.

It should come as no surprise that you’d generally rather have a winning QB than a losing QB on your fantasy team, all else being equal. When you see someone claim that they’d rather have a losing QB than a winning QB, do them a favor and show them this analysis.  

If you have questions that you’d like me to address in a future post, don’t hesitate to comment, email strictscrutiny0@gmail.com, or tweet @strictscrutiny0!

Thanks to pro-football-reference.com for having excellent and easily-accessible stats.

-The Strictest Scrutiny, where everything is analyzed except for whether Jamaal Charles is more man than machine.

"Why should we switch from a snake draft to an auction?"

We’ll start this off with a topic that’s fairly simple and straightforward, especially for more experienced readers: auction or snake drafting. This is intended to help you convince others in your league that auction drafting is the superior format most of the time – just link your league to this post.
Around this time, people are scheduling their draft dates and nailing down any disputed rules for the year. One question is the style of draft that you do. There are two styles of drafting: snake and auction.
I get it - a snake draft is the most familiar. It's safe. People might feel like they will suddenly botch their entire draft and fantasy football season if they step outside of their safe circle. There would be something to say for that if an auction weren't fairly intuitive, but at the end of the day, an auction is, in my opinion, the best format for fantasy football leagues generally, especially when the players are a bit experienced.

RULES
A snake draft is the most familiar. Teams take turns picking who they want for their team. In the second round (and all even rounds), the teams select players in reverse order from the first round. (e.g., the first team in a 10-team league to select in the draft would have the first pick, then the 20th at the end of round 2, then the 21st at the beginning of round 3).
An auction draft is a bit different. Everyone has a “budget” (by default, $200 on ESPN leagues). An owner nominates a player for at least $1. Anyone can bid on that player until no one will outbid, then the player goes to the highest bidder. Repeat until rosters are full.

PROS AND CONS
A snake draft has a number of advantages over an auction draft that are definitely worth considering:

• It’s very easy to understand.
• Teams who have to autodraft aren’t completely screwed…mostly.
• It’s a bit faster, generally.

Auction drafts, in comparison, have several advantages over snake drafts:

• Order doesn’t really matter.
• Everybody has an equal shot at every player. (More on the first two bullets below)
• It’s more strategically deep – you have a bit more flexibility in how much weight you want to give certain positions when drafting.
• You aren’t subject to runs on a position. (More on this below)
• It’s more exciting – everyone is engaged in the heat of the moment as long as they have money to spend.

Order and equal shot: Oh, random ordering says you pick 8th in a snake draft? Guess you have zero chance at Jamaal Charles, AD, Shady, etc. Purely random chance. In an auction, you have the same opportunity to get these players as anyone else, regardless of what random order you started in. Think they are worth over 1/3 of your team? You are free to bid 70 (if you’re a crazy person, that is) on them. Whatever you think they are worth, you can value them at that level, and so can everyone else. This is the selling point for me.
Runs on a position: So, you draft 1st. You take Jamaal Charles. The next 18 picks include 6 QBs. Do you take Brady/Ryan/Romo so you’re not stuck with someone horrible (the answer to this is generally no, but we don’t need to go into the particulars for this post). It’s annoying at best – and it can’t happen in an auction. If you value the QB position and want to avoid a run, you’re free to spend whatever you think a player is worth.

I very rarely hear someone prefer a snake draft who has experienced both kinds of drafts. It’s a fairer format, as long as no one is autodrafting (do. not. let. anyone. autodraft. in an auction. ever. Their team will be barely functional at best). If people are brand-new to fantasy football, it’s worth considering doing a snake draft for simplicity’s sake, but auctions aren’t really that much more complicated. That said, anyone who hasn’t done an auction draft before should do a mock draft before the real thing so they understand the format and get a feel for their budget.

Best of luck, and hopefully there are a few more auction converts this year. Cheers for draft fairness!

Welcome to The Strictest Scrutiny!

Welcome to the fantasy football blog with just the right mix of in-depth statistical analysis and subjective considerations. You have to have both – numbers without looking at subjective considerations could easily miss predicting whether a sudden point spike is a fluke due to bad coverage or a predictor of future success because a WR finally learned how to set a hard plant and run a route successfully. Looking at subjective considerations without statistical data is equally unhelpful since intangibles don’t score fantasy football points.

To that end, the analysis here can help you in your league. It should be one source, and not your only source, for fantasy football information. Anyone who says "I'm the only source you need" doesn't actually care whether you do well, they only want your pageviews.

A couple of things about me: I am an attorney, so I am required to consider and allow for all possible situations and adapt accordingly. I err on the side of completeness – I’d much rather consider 10 possibilities and discard them all than to ignore a possibility that later materializes (like Foles’ incredible point surge last year). That's where the legal reference in the title of the blog comes from.

I’m also a poker player. I tend to be risk-neutral, to the greatest extent I can be. If there’s a 50/50 shot at either getting 20 points in a week or zero points, or a 100% shot at 9 points, I’d generally take the 50/50 shot (since expected payoff is 10). In these situations, just like any risk-reward play, you should contextualize it based on the team you’re hitting on that given week. For example, if you’re against a team with no one on bye who has consistently outscored your team by 20 points, then take the risk-reward play. Easy enough.

Just to round out the mix, I have an economics background, so digging through statistics, looking at data displays, and thinking about issues like relative positional scarcity are things I actually find fun. So, I'll do the work for you on that front.

Thank you for reading this. I hope this is as useful to you as it is fun for me to write. Best of luck in your leagues!

You can follow me on Twitter @StrictScrutiny0, or come say hi to me on reddit under the username StrictScrutiny.