Word to the Winners: Fantasy Football Advice

The Law of Averages -- By Russ Bliss

With a 300 yard, 3 touchdown passing performance, Minnesota Vikings quarterback Daunte Culpepper in week 3 of the 2005 season showed exactly why fantasy owners shouldn’t abandon their studs just because of a poor start to the season. After accumulating 469 passing yards, 0 passing touchdowns, and 8 interceptions through the first two games, Culpepper’s owners were seen scrambling throughout the fantasy landscape crying “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” Some even went so far as to trade their likely 1st or 2nd round pick for anything they could get in return; thusly committing a cardinal sin of smart fantasy football management: Selling low and buying high. Conversely, those who were smart took advantage of this panic and probably got Culpepper for a bargain price at just the right time.

After posting an impressive 272 rushing yards and 2 touchdowns the first two weeks of the season, Pittsburgh’s Steelers running back Willie Parker had a very pedestrian 55 yards and 0 touchdowns in week 3 of the 2005 season. A fantasy darling after only 2 weeks, Parker was a highly sought after commodity in trading circles, outperforming others at the position like Shaun Alexander, Corey Dillon, Edgerrin James, Willis McGahee and many others. In most scoring systems, Parker still ranks higher than a lot of other RBs, but he’s no longer sitting at #2.

So why the turnaround on these two players? What happened to make Culpepper come back to life despite losing his number 1 WR? What happened to Parker, despite the fact he was facing a Patriots run defense that was allowing 98 rushing yards per game and had allowed 3 rushing touchdowns before traveling to Pittsburgh? The answer to this doesn’t just apply to these two players. I merely chose them as examples of something that goes on with a lot of players every year at the beginning of a season. I could have easily chosen Reggie Wayne, or Trent Green, or Domanick Davis, etc etc. The answer applies to all of them: it’s The Law Of Averages.

The Law Of Averages

The Law Of Averages is a theory that dictates that every player will have “spikes” (commonly referred to as peaks and valleys) in their fantasy production from week to week throughout the course of an entire season, but there will be a common average a player will usually hover around in terms of the amount of fantasy points scored each week. Factors like historical performance, age, matchups, additions and subtractions to the personnel around a player, and others go into figuring what the average amount of fantasy points are for each player. If a player is failing to meet his average projection, it stands to reason that if the projection was realistic in the first place, the player will have to have weeks where he exceeds his average to even the discrepancy out. It also applies in reverse to players who are exceeding their average; they’ll have to have weeks where they fall short of their projected average. It’s hardly an extreme idea and if you recognize it, it can help you in making sure you’re smart in your fantasy football management skills. Understanding the Law Of Averages will allow you to optimize your trades, while preventing you from making the mistake of those who dealt Culpepper after week 2.

Let’s apply it to 3 players: a proven stud QB who is not performing at all up to expectations so far after the first three weeks, an under 30 RB who’s been a workhorse the past 5 years, and a rookie RB who’s got the naive thinking about new rushing records.

Peyton Manning

Manning’s 29 years old, so age isn’t a factor (in fact QB trends have shown they usually get a little better in their 30’s). He’s never missed a start in his professional career, so durability isn’t an issue. He’s faced Baltimore (usually a very good defense), Jacksonville (a team that sees him twice each year and has a very good defense), and Cleveland (with new Coach Romeo Crennel who before this season was defensive coordinator for one of the few teams that could frustrate Manning, the New England Patriots), so it’s fair to say his matchups have been at least semi-difficult.

Last year, Manning defied the Law Of Averages by throwing 49 touchdown passes. The last time a QB threw for more than 40 in a single season was 1999 when Kurt Warner (then with the St. Louis Rams) had 41. So clearly, Manning’s performance last year was a spike in his averages, and not the norm. Take the 4 years prior to last season and Manning averaged 4,252 yards and 28 touchdowns per season. There was no reason when projecting Manning’s numbers out for the 2005 regular season to think he wasn’t going to get around 4,252 yards passing and 28 touchdowns. Some projected him up around 36, and others even in the 40’s. But after three games, it’s fairly certain that he’s not reaching 36 touchdown passes this year. However, his current 2005 average is 201 passing yards and less than 1 touchdown per game. It’s almost a certainty he’s going to make up some ground and get back close to his average (if not exceed it by a bit). For him to reach it after his performance to date, Manning will need to average 280 yards passing and 2 touchdowns per game over the last 13 games. These are hardly unattainable numbers for him as he has shown in the past.

But let’s say you don’t believe Peyton Manning will get to his average. Let’s say that Manning is going to fall short of his average by 10%. That means he would finish 2005 with 3,827 passing yards and 25 touchdowns (both of which would be career lows for him). There are 13 games left and he’s thrown for 604 yards and 2 touchdowns, leaving 3,223 yards and 24 touchdowns to be gotten in the next 13 games. That still averages out to about 248 passing yards and 1.8 touchdowns per game. Is he going to throw for that exact amount every game? No. He’ll have spikes both better and worse than it. But that’s still a solid amount of fantasy points expected for a QB and considering the upside he has, is well worth keeping in your starting lineup every week. A savvy fantasy player who has Manning will not undervalue him and trade him away based on his first three games. Savvy fantasy players who don’t have him may want to see just how cheaply they can get him from the guy who does.

Ahman Green

Like Manning, Green experienced a spike in his average yearly value, only it was in 2003. In 2003 Green rushed for 1,883 yards and scored 20 total touchdowns. That was nearly 500 more rushing yards then his prior best season. In 2004, he played through various minor injuries, missed one game entirely, and only had 1,163 yards rushing and 8 total touchdowns. So what was he projected for in 2005? We start with his averages over the past 5 seasons since he’s been a starting RB in Green Bay. For yardage purposes, since 2003 was a spike up, we’ll discard the yardage and touchdowns he got that year. Excluding 2003, Green has averaged 1,240 rushing yards, 455 receiving yards, and 10 touchdowns. Green’s only 28 years old, but he’s not a real big RB (only 6’0” 218 lbs). Including 2003, Greens’ touched the ball 1,749 times in the past 5 seasons (an average of 437 touches per year, or 27 times per game). That’s a LOT of touches over 5 years, and after seeing Green be susceptible to nagging injuries in 2004, there was an excellent chance that he may be wearing down.

When you figure in that the Packers have two young RBs on their roster in Najeh Davenport (who had a great game last year when Green was out) and Tony Fisher, it became a little easier to imagine that Green was probably not going to achieve his yearly averages in 2005, despite it being a contract year. After considering all the factors, let’s use a 15% reduction in his averages, which meant going into 2005 Green was pegged for 1,054 yards rushing, 386 yards receiving, and 6-7 touchdowns. Through 3 games, Green has amassed 170 rushing yards, 106 receiving yards, and 0 touchdowns. That means for him to reach his 2005 projection, Green needs to average 68 yards rushing, 22 yards receiving, and score a TD every other game. These are usually decent RB #2/#3 numbers for fantasy purposes. You know he’s going to spike each direction, but because he hasn’t reached his TD or rush yard average, you can expect him to do a little better than what he has through the first 3 games.

Carnell Williams

Unlike Manning and Green, you have no prior history in the NFL to use as a guidepost for setting an average for him. You have to use what the Tampa Bay starting RB’s usually get each year as a foundation and work from it, projecting up or down based on whether you feel Williams is superior or inferior to those RB’s the Bucs have had in the past. Whichever way you decided, let’s say for this example you projected Williams to finish 2005 with 1,100 rushing yards, 250 receiving yards, and 6 touchdowns. This projects to him to 84 total yards per game and a TD every 2-3 games.

First thing is that you probably projected him to share at least some carries with Michael Pittman, and that just hasn’t been the case. Williams has been a workhorse. He’s amassed 434 rushing yards in 3 games (an average of approximately 144). He’s scored 2 touchdowns already (which puts him on pace for 11 by seasons end). He’s surprisingly caught only 1 pass. Now at 144 rushing yards per game, he’s on pace for 2,314, which is absolutely ludicrous to believe he’ll come anywhere near. But you know that your original preseason projected average is likely to be short of what he’ll accomplish. You bump up his yardage projection by 15%, his touchdown projection by 35%, and get a new total of 1,265 rushing yards, 287 receiving yards (don’t sweat that he hasn’t gotten any receiving yards yet), and 8 touchdowns. Subtract out what he’s gotten already and for the rest of the season you’re looking at a guy who will average 86 yards per game the rest of the season, and score a touchdown about every other game.

Sounds amazingly like Ahman Green from above, huh? But in Williams’ case, there is another factor to be considered. Williams is a rookie, and rookies usually (and this is especially true in rookie RB’s and WR’s who are relied on heavily early in the season by their NFL teams) hit a wall about week 12. When they hit this wall, and it’s because they’re just not used to the length of an NFL season, or the rigors of an NFL training and practice regimen, their production goes down. This has to be reflected in Williams somehow.

Since week 12 represents 11 of 16 games (about 2/3 of an NFL schedule) you take the remaining unused portion of Williams adjusted averages, and apply 75% of it to his next 8 games; the remaining 25% gets applied to his last 5 games. In other words, over the next 8 games, Williams should average around 105 yards per game and score 4-5 TD’s. In the last 5 games though, since he’s a rookie, you can expect his average to drop to about 55 yards per game and 1-2 touchdowns altogether.

Conclusion

Understanding how the Law Of Averages applies to almost every player will prevent you from making mistakes and giving up on players you shouldn’t. It will also allow you to know when the statistics favor you trading away a player who’s outperforming his actual value. This can help you be a fantasy champion instead of a pretender.

Russ Bliss — fantasy football expert and radio host of "The Red Zone with Russ Bliss" on KDUS-AM — went head-to-head with the Line-Up Analyzer last year, and still wishes he had worn a helmet. Russ was so impressed with our predictive analysis engine, he joined the team at FantasyFootballStarters.com. Read more of Russ' article on our Word to the Winners homepage.

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