This year is my 24th playing fantasy football. Next year, I'll have been a part of this hobby for half of my life.
I began playing fantasy football when pay phones outnumbered cell phones and magazines were the technological advancement to the tablet and not the other way around. Think of Job, not Jobs and you know the kind of tablet I'm talking about.
For those of us prone to navel-gazing, the final month of the year and the fantasy football season is a natural time for reflection. Here are three lessons I've learned this year that I hope to apply productively in 2020 and hope you find useful enough to do the same.
These aren't specific points about players. I find articles with these types of lessons fail to identify the root causes with accuracy and it breads more narratives that you have to work even harder to overcome.
Of the three lessons below, two are esoteric but valuable for self-discovery. The third is steeped in the practicality of fantasy analysis.
1. Lessons Are Often Recurring in Nature
Our learning process is often layered and cyclical rather than linear. Of course, read an author's advice—especially when posted in typical online tabloid form such as list articles like this one—and the neatness of the lessons are too on-the-nose.
Fantasy, and reality, is more like walking through dark city streets littered with holes:
You walk down a street.
You fall.
It's dark. You're in pain from the impact. You're scared because you don't know where you are or what to do.
You figure out you're in a hole. You figure out how to climb out of the hole and you continue walking.
You continue down the street and you fall again.
It's dark and the fall hurt but you know it's a hole and you climb out and keep walking.
This time you see the outline of what you think is a hole but it's a shadow and you step into the actual hole. You brace yourself as you're falling and roll through the impact.
This time the fall wasn't as painful and it takes you less time to climb out.
As you reach the end of the street, you see the hole and you walk around it. You feel good about yourself and you're thankful that you didn't have to suffer a fall again.
The end?
Nope. You turn the corner, and head down another dark street and if you've become an expert on holes, you're still learning about booby traps and people dropping rotten fruit from the roofs of the buildings.
If you're open to learning, the basic mistakes decrease but many of the root causes behind the mistakes you're prone to making don't always change. If you're a data-intensive fantasy player, you'll likely seek more data as a way to address what you've been missing and sometimes to the detriment to the context that on-field observation has to offer.
If you're film-intensive fantasy player, you'll dig deeper into the tape to the point that you'll exclude opportunities to understand data that matches the eye test and is more efficient in its depth and delivery. And if you're one of the less common individuals with an inclusive mindset that incorporates the disparate sources of information into your understanding of the game and the hobby, you may discover your inclusive behaviors get you bogged down with competing sources of information and you're second-guessing way too often.
Many of the important lessons you initially learned playing fantasy football will likely confront you again in a slightly different form for as long as you play.
2. Imprinting May Also be a FAntasy Phenomenon
The psychology behind imprinting is that early-life interactions with the adults that raise us impact how we think, feel, and behave. Those early-life interactions create an "instinct."
We are attracted to certain looks, voices, styles of movement, and specific personality traits based on the individuals that imprinted on us. Our brains calculate these observations as an incredible rate and evoke strong feelings within us about those people.
This is neither good nor bad as much as they are influential. Depending on the lessons we've learned or yet to learn, we are either blind to their influence or we understand the nature of their influence and how to manage it, if needed.
I believe our first 2-3 years of playing fantasy football imprints certain instinctive behaviors with our perspective on players and strategy. The first advice I received about drafting came when I drew a spot at the end of the draft order in a serpentine format and my friend advised me to consider taking a wide receiver instead of a running back despite being in the height of the Stud RB Era of fantasy football.
I drafted Jerry Rice and in my first year, earned the most points and the best record in our league as my team made the championship round. Among the successful players I selected included second-year runner Terrell Davis in the third round, 34-year-old receiver Irving Fryar in the middle rounds, and third-year receiver Derrick Alexander in the late rounds.
All three had their best seasons up to that point of their careers.
I believe that the advice I earned, the choices I made, and the early success I had as a result of those choices had tremendous influence on my fantasy life:
- I've always preferred the last spot of the draft order and had the most success there.
- My selections of the young and still lesser-known Davis as well as the legendary Rice added weight to the idea an enhanced knowledge of rookies could help me find breakout players in later rounds at the most important position of running back (at the time) and use the early rounds for drafting to players at other positions.
- Sustained success with this idea led me to become a vocal proponent of drafting running backs later, valuing older players who others wrote off too soon, and learning as much as I could about rookies.
Some of my most popular features early in my fantasy writing career were about rookies, third-year receivers with breakout potential, and Upside-Down Drafting. Although I don't approach every draft the same, and I'll often go against tendency, I am more open to rookies, older veterans, and waiting until a later point of the draft to select running backs.
I'm not alone. If you read the Mission of the Top 10, you'll notice that I highlight a basic difference between me and Sigmund Bloom's player preferences. This difference is usually most notable with younger and lesser-known players. My long-running joke about Cecil Lammey motor-boating big backs is a reference to his imprinting.
I could share a lot more examples about player preferences based on their on- and off-field behaviors, but I fear it might reveal personal experiences relayed to me in private that are not mine to share. Still, you get the point.
I recommend reviewing your earliest successes—the players you drafted, when you drafted them, how long they were in the league, their style of play, and anything else that's notable about the trajectory of their career leading to the point that you selected them. You might be surprised about the patterns that still show up with your drafting and team management today.
3. Offensive Line Play Is A crucial But Difficult area of Fantasy Football
This year, I recommended Devonta Freeman as a running back worth drafting early because of my belief that he would rebound from injury. I also selected Freeman in one of the few re-draft formats where I still compete and it was the difference between me making the playoffs with a strong group of scorers and missing the postseason with a competitive weekly point total but too many "could've won's" in the league's power ranking analysis.
Freeman wasn't the problem. When the offensive line opened creases or gave him room to create behind the line of scrimmage, Freeman performed well. This didn't happen enough because Atlanta's offensive line dealt with a lot of injuries that led to lesser talents taking the field and exhibiting a lack of cohesion with their more experienced teammates.
I saw the offensive line falling apart in August but I thought there was enough depth and the injuries were minor enough that Freeman's skill and the existing healthy veterans could offset the losses. I was dead-wrong here.
In contrast, I touted Todd Gurley as borderline RB1 (low-end RB1/high-end RB2) for much of the summer despite the Rams losing two key offensive linemen. Gurley is the No.12 fantasy back heading into Week 16 despite the line play that also had to roll with a pair of rookies for a stint during the middle of the year.
Moreover, opposing defenses figured out Sean McVay's scheme and delivered counter measures that the Rams didn't overcome. This forced the Rams to make changes that led to fewer outside zone plays and more man and gap runs.
Despite this disruption and Gurley's meager yards-per-carry average this year, Gurley is exactly what I projected in August.
Nick Chubb leads the NFL in rushing and yards per carry (if you still value it) and he's a yards-after-contact phenomenon. He has to be when you considering his supporting cast. His offensive line has one quality starter, left guard Joel Bitonio and the Browns' red zone game has declined significantly from last year.
The 49ers have an excellent rushing offense despite missing multiple offensive linemen for parts of the year and a roulette wheel for a backfield that has yielded fantasy production from four different options—five if you include fullback Kyle Jusczyck. Based on my observations of the offense, San Francisco's fullback, tight ends, and well-executed diversity of run plays have all compensated for these injuries.
The teams that also break the biggest plays often have receivers that excel as downfield blockers. The 49ers are no exception.
These four examples illustrate that there's no single method for evaluating how an offensive line and running back will combine for production. After all, we're evaluating five linemen and potential 2-3 tight ends and occasionally a fullback. Each has varying amounts of skill as zone blockers, lead blockers, and gap players and then we have to determine if the backs are skilled at the schemes that the line will use.
We haven't even gotten to opponents and how well the front-seven maintains gap discipline, which individuals demand double-teams, and which schemes are more susceptible to specific plays that our offensive line of focus runs well.
Because this lesson is mainly about discovering the nature of my ignorance, I'm filing this lesson under "separating the dark from the dark."
Next year, I'm considering ways to incorporate line play into my running back analysis that goes beyond a one-grade label for the line. It would be preferable to take into account the following:
- Which plays earned the greatest success, how frequently the unit ran them, and to which side of the field?
- Of those plays, who were the key players involved and are they still healthy and a part of the team?
- Are the running backs the same players as last year and who is skilled at running these successful plays, who is not?
- Is the offense remaining the same as last year or is there a new coaching staff?
- Is there a new quarterback and is he skilled at checking the offense into more successful plays based on the pre-snap look of the defense?
- How creative is the runner compared to the skill of the offensive line?
There are several factors I could have mentioned but you see why the variables of runner, linemen and supporting blockers, blocking schemes, opponents, and quarterback are all significant and tough to pinpoint with a grade or singular formula.
Good luck in Week 16, I'm hoping to defend my dynasty title this weekend. I have a team with five of the top-10 overall scorers in the league. Unfortunately, three of them are quarterbacks (Lamar Jackson, Russell Wilson, and Patrick Mahomes II) and this is a one-quarterback lineup format.
I look forward to you reading this column again next year.
