Fantasy Sports Drafts

It's that time of year. Fantasy "input your sport here" and you have everything planned. From the position of the over hyped first round pick to the sleeper in the final rounds, every pick is a tactical one. You probably have entered a couple of mock drafts, or at the very least looked at the top picks in the draft. Maybe even going as far as analyzing how the new wide receiver will affect your quarterbacks passer rating, or how the lack of a defense will force your center in hockey to play back and reduce his points. Maybe it's the position of your basketball forwards that you don't like. Doesn't matter, you are an expert and no one will convince you otherwise.

I take the same walk as you. Whether you are the up to the minute stat checker, or the casual Monday morning roster mover you have something in common with me. You like sports, and expect them to produce something in your fantasy league. I feel you, and understand your ways. For football, I use my own algorithm to pick my players. I developed the equation about five years ago and have fine tuned it over the years. You might say I am too dedicated, but this is my response: for football, I enjoy the game until hockey starts. Once hockey starts, that's all I care about and I spend at least three nights a week positioning my team.

Here is how I broke down my football league this year. My algorithm doesn't take into effect the injuries of players, or their probabilities. To put this into a nut shell, I came up with an equation that requires a little bit of research for football but is spot on in hockey. For football, I input every offensive lineman's height and weight. You don't get O-line stats in most football leagues, but the QB's effectiveness has a direct correlation to these guys. Next I average their height to weight ratio. For every time a sack was directly allowed, I input a negative five into the equation. For every run over 5 yards I add .05 to this number. (I do this because you can't get reliable stats on which holes a running or quarterback will go). Runs of of six to 10 yards get a .10 and anything eleven or more yards gets a .30
So now we have 3 numbers, the height and weight of each lineman, their average height to weight ratio (this is always in proportion to each player so that you are not making the same stats for everyone) and finally the sack/run number. (If the sack/run number totals zero, I make it a -3.14 which is roughly pie. You'll catch that reference later.)
Now I take the QB's average passing yards per play ( make sure this is per play and not per game). This becomes my fourth number. Finally I add the number of plays thrown to a WR/TE minus the number thrown to a RB or any other non WR/TE.
This gives me my fifth number.
So here is what I do: You make a quadratic equation. Look up the formula on Google for reference as it will look weird in line format.
First take the height and make it in inches. No 6 foot 3. It's 73 inches. Then you take the weight of that line man and divide it by the height. So let's say a guy is 6 foot 3 and 400 lbs. Looks like this: 400/73 = ~5.48
Next we take the height to weight ratio. Again convert to total inches. For argument's sake let's say everyone on our O-line is 6 foot 3 and 400 lbs. We want to use a BMI calculator for each person, but since we have all the same guys, we take our BMI and divide it by 5 (5 offensive lineman). So in this case our BMI is 50, and we have 5 guys
50/5 = 10
Next, let's say last year we allowed 15 sacks. (this is a two part math problem)
15*-5 = -75
Next we need our run totals. Let's say we allowed 50 runs of five yards, 16 runs of 5-10 yards, and 10 runs of 11 or more:
50 * .05 = .75
16 *.1 = 1.6
10 *.3 = 3.0
.75 + 1.6 + 3.0 = 5.35
Next we take the sack number and divide it by our run number:
-75/5.35 = -14.01
Let's say the QB's pass per play was 7.5
lastly, let's say our QB threw to his WR/TE's 400 times and non WR/TE's 200 times:
400-200 = 200
Let's put this together: 5.48 *-14.01*7.5/-75*200
5.48*-14.01*7.5 = -575.81
-75*200 = -15000
-575.81/-15000 = .03838
Square root of .03838 = .196
Then finally we use that 10 way up there and multiply it by .196 which gives us: 1.96
This is how effective our offensive unit is in relation to the QB. This dives deeper into the stats and tells us a number. These numbers don't do anything unless you have two or more QB's to relate. I use this specific equation for effective QB's in football and goalies in hockey.
For the last 3 years I have won the championship in football by a landslide. With the exception of last year, I have won 4 straight championships in hockey. I had some injuries in my hockey league late in the playoffs and didn't bother using this algorithm. It cost me.
It should be noted that I have an effective equation for defensemen, forwards, WR's, RB's and Defensive units. I use all of them, but only showed you how I use two.

So with that in mind, let's think about why it's so important to draft yourself and not auto draft. Everyone knows that the top picks are the best players. An auto draft will accomplish getting you this. What auto draft won't get you is the last picks of the draft. Those, like the first rounds, are selected off of pre draft rankings. Those players could wind up off NHL or NFL rosters by the end of the year. That is why I developed this equation and it has worked. It also goes to show why you should never auto draft: you don't get to pick your last player.