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It’s Science Week(TM) here at Dynasty, in Theory and Dynasty, in Practice! Earlier, I took a look at reproducing one of my most-referenced studies, with mixed results. But science isn’t just about re-running our tests to check whether the results hold up. It’s about forming hypotheses and testing them out.
Over the years, I have found that, after four games, preseason ADP typically holds as much predictive power for rest-of-season performance as early-season performance does. This is important to know, but it should not be construed as me advocating that we ignore everything we learned and look only at preseason expectations.
Instead, I would hypothesize that a skilled fantasy owner could outperform both preseason ADP and early-season performance. So let’s put that hypothesis to the test. I’m going to take a look at the top players at each position and predict whether their game 5-12 performance will hew more closely to preseason expectations or to early-season performance.
These predictions could be viewed as me taking a stand on which players are good buy-lows and which are good sell-highs. And they are, indeed, that. But mostly they’re my attempt at preserving my current thoughts for posterity. Because, to quote from the very first Dynasty, in Practice:
The problem with revisiting our past decisions, of course, is recalling our past decisions. For most, the process of recalling is one of remembering. The problem, of course, is that our memories are bad. Worse than bad, our memories are biased. They are systemically flawed in predictable ways.
Enough talk. Let’s take some players, make some predictions, and drop them into a time capsule to revisit at a future date. (Once again, I will be using standard scoring for all rankings for future ease of comparison.)
(One last caveat: because of week 4 byes, a few players will not have had a chance to play their fourth game yet. I have included them and marked them with an asterisk; when evaluating my predictions, I will include their fourth game, as well. I’ve also preemptively removed players such as Ben Roethlisberger and Dez Bryant who will certainly not meet the minimum games played requirement for evaluation.)
Quarterback
ADP | Player | 1st 4 games | Better predictor: |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Andrew Luck | 28 | preseason |
2 | Aaron Rodgers | 1 | early season |
3 | Peyton manning | 24 | preseason |
4 | Russell Wilson | 8 | early season |
5 | Drew Brees | 22 | preseason |
7 | Tom Brady | 5* | early season |
9 | Matt Ryan | 6 | preseason |
10 | Matthew Stafford | 26 | preseason |
11 | Ryan Tannehill | 13 | early season |
12 | Cam Newton | 3 | early season |
13 | Eli Manning | 12 | preseason |
14 | Sam Bradford | 21 | early season |
15 | Philip Rivers | 7 | preseason |
16 | Teddy Bridgewater | 27 | preseason |
17 | Joe Flacco | 25 | preseason |
18 | Carson Palmer | 4 | early season |
19 | Colin Kaepernick | 23 | preseason |
20 | Andy Dalton | 2 | early season |
21 | Jameis Winston | 17 | early season |
22 | Jay Cutler | 31 | preseason |
23 | Marcus Mariota | 15* | early season |
24 | Derek Carr | 14 | early season |
Running Back
ADP | Player | 1st 4 games | Better predictor: |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Adrian Peterson | 3 | early season |
3 | Eddie Lacy | 21 | preseason |
4 | Jamaal Charles | 2 | preseason |
5 | Marshawn Lynch | 49 | preseason |
6 | C.J. Anderson | 56 | preseason |
7 | DeMarco Murray | 40 | preseason |
8 | Matt Forte | 5 | preseason |
9 | Jeremy Hill | 13 | early season |
10 | LeSean McCoy | 30 | early season |
11 | Justin Forsett | 26 | early season |
12 | Lamar Miller | 48 | preseason |
13 | Frank Gore | 20 | preseason |
14 | Mark Ingram | 7 | preseason |
15 | Melvin Gordon | 41 | preseason |
16 | Alfred Morris | 34 | early season |
17 | Carlos Hyde | 12 | preseason |
18 | Latavius Murray | 9 | early season |
19 | Joseph Randle | 4 | preseason |
21 | Ameer Abdullah | 25 | preseason |
23 | Jonathan Stewart | 42 | preseason |
25 | Doug Martin | 19 | preseason |
26 | T.J. Yeldon | 29 | preseason |
27 | LeGarrette Blount | 35* | preseason |
28 | Chris Ivory | 8 | early season |
29 | C.J. Spiller | 28 | preseason |
30 | Joique Bell | 63 | early season |
31 | Giovani Bernard | 14 | early season |
32 | Rashad Jennings | 22 | early season |
33 | Isaiah Crowell | 23 | early season |
35 | Alfred Blue | 37 | early season |
36 | Darren McFadden | 60 | early season |
Wide Receiver
ADP | Player | 1st 4 games | Better predictor: |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Antonio Brown | 3 | early season |
3 | Demaryius Thomas | 22 | preseason |
4 | Odell Beckham | 17 | preseason |
5 | Julio Jones | 1 | early season |
6 | Calvin Johnson | 39 | preseason |
7 | Randall Cobb | 10 | preseason |
8 | A.J. Green | 5 | preseason |
9 | T.Y. Hilton | 41 | preseason |
11 | Brandin Cooks | 49 | early season |
12 | Mike Evans | 77 | preseason |
13 | Emmanuel Sanders | 18 | early season |
14 | Jordan Matthews | 29 | preseason |
15 | DeAndre Hopkins | 4 | early season |
16 | Andre Johnson | 111 | preseason |
18 | Amari Cooper | 16 | early season |
19 | Golden Tate | 54 | early season |
20 | Keenan Allen | 6 | early season |
21 | Julian Edelman | 19* | early season |
22 | Davante Adams | 94 | preseason |
23 | Jeremy Maclin | 13 | early season |
24 | Sammy Watkins | 65 | preseason |
25 | Brandon Marshall | 7 | early season |
27 | Jarvis Landry | 30 | preseason |
29 | Nelson Agholor | 103 | preseason |
31 | Vincent Jackson | 21 | early season |
32 | Mike Wallace | 43 | preseason |
33 | Allen Robinson | 15 | preseason |
34 | Larry Fitzgerald | 2 | early season |
35 | Charles Johnson | 127 | preseason |
37 | Steve Smith | 11 | preseason |
38 | Roddy White | 95 | preseason |
39 | John Brown | 37 | early season |
40 | Torrey Smith | 45 | preseason |
41 | Eric Decker | 26 | early season |
42 | Michael Floyd | 98 | preseason |
43 | Marques Colston | 56 | early season |
44 | Anquan Boldin | 55 | preseason |
45 | Terrance Williams | 36 | early season |
47 | Devin Funchess | 131 | preseason |
48 | Kendall Wright | 28* | early season |
Tight End
ADP | Player | 1st 4 games | Better predictor: |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Rob Gronkowski | 1* | early season |
2 | Jimmy Graham | 11 | preseason |
3 | Greg Olsen | 5 | preseason |
4 | Travis Kelce | 2 | early season |
5 | Martellus Bennett | 8 | early season |
6 | Jason Witten | 6 | early season |
8 | Jordan Cameron | 23 | early season |
9 | Zach ERtz | 32 | early season |
10 | Owen Daniels | 19 | early season |
12 | Delanie Walker | 22* | early season |
14 | Tyler Eifert | 3 | early season |
15 | Kyle Rudolph | 25 | preseason |
16 | Josh Hill | 37 | early season |
17 | Vernon Davis | 30 | early season |
18 | Coby Fleener | 16 | preseason |
19 | Richard Rodgers | 14 | early season |
20 | Heath Miller | 17 | preseason |
22 | Larry Donnell | 20 | early season |
23 | Charles Clay | 4 | early season |
24 | Eric Ebron | 10 | early season |
Conclusions
Well... we aren't really at the conclusions stage of the process yet. We still have twelve more weeks of data to gather. In the meantime, this could serve as a solid list of guys I expect to rebound towards their preseason ADP and guys I expect to keep early-season performance rolling going forward.
After the season has concluded, I'll be able to test my hypothesis that educated fantasy owners can effectively synthesize both preseason expectations and early-season results to create an amalgamation that is a better predictor than either. I will test this by using a combination of both preseason ADP and early-season ranking, (as indicated above). If I'm correct, my correlations will be higher than either other correlation on its own. If I'm wrong, and we really aren't good at predicting which results represent an aberration and which are the new reality... well, the data will show that, too. It's science!