Fantasy football questions from a guy who doesn't play fantasy football

Cafe Society
1

Are football players allowed to play fantasy football, or would that be a conflict of interest? :wink:
As for my serious question - if you and I had two fantasy football teams that happened to line up perfectly with real football teams - would the winner of the real game always win the fantasy game? What factors would tend to lead to a result where the real and fantasy results are different. Obviously the real game score would have to be close for a different fantasy result. other things that might make a difference:

  1. Offensive vs. defensive: last Sunday’s Chargers vs Colts - the Chargers caught 6 interceptions, but didn’t do anything offensively. The Colts wound up with double the Chargers’s yards.

  2. One or two break out players vs overall competency: Would the Vikings be better than a team with a similar record fantasy wise because Adrian Peterson provides most of their offense, or would a team with a more average RB and QB be better off.

  3. running game vs passing game: is a team with 200 passing yards and 50 running yards better off than a team with say 120 running yards, 70 passing yards, and better time of possesion?

I haven’t played fantasy football, so I’m sure some of these questions are either irrelevant, obvious, or dumb, but I was curious, and figured it might start something interesting, so here it goes.

2

Generally you have individual offensive players and a single team defense. Most of the offensive points are based on the number of yards, TDs scored and turnovers. On defense you basically get points for the converse, yards allowed, points allwed, turnovers created. If you took full teams and matched them up in fantasy land you could definitely end up with a “incorrect” result. Fantasy tends not to take into account return yards on kickoffs and punts (although TDs are counted). So you get a situation like the Pittsburgh Cleveland game where the Steelers had 410 total yards to the Browns 163. yet the Browns almost won it. How? They got over 200 yards in kick and punt returns, giving them a short field.

but I would guess that 90% of the time you would get the “correct” result.

3

So the Chargers-Colts would probably go the wrong way, as more than half of the Charger’s points were from Sproles returning a punt and kickoff, as well as allowing a bunch of yards to the Colts, not getting very many yards, and only winning by 2 points. I suspect the unusual number of turnovers won’t make up for all that.

4

***Are football players allowed to play fantasy football, or would that be a conflict of interest? :wink: ***

The smiley says you’re joking, but this question has a real answer: yes. Money leagues are of course frowned upon, but fantasy leagues with no money on the line is fine. The funniest effect this has had was last year, when Chris Cooley (TE for the Redskins) lost himself his fantasy matchup by catching 3 TDs in a game. Yep, his fantasy opponent was starting him at TE, so every yard and TD he caught was losing him his fantasy matchup. A couple pundits wondered allowed whether this constituted a conflict of interest for him, but every sane person laughed it off.

if you and I had two fantasy football teams that happened to line up perfectly with real football teams

Right there you’ve gone off the rails. Fantasy teams consist of individual players, not teams. So in your Colts-Chargers example, one fantasy team might be starting Peyton Manning and Chris Chambers, while his opponent could be starting LaDainian Tomlinson and Reggie Wayne. So your specific question misses the point.

However, there is a metaphor to be drawn of having a good fantasy showing while losing the real-world game. Any high-scoring shootout is a good example. Consider the week 1 matchup between the Cowboys and Giants. If your fantasy team included Eli Manning (4 TDs), Plaxico Burress (3 TDs) and a bunch of scrubs, you probably won your fantasy matchup despite your core players losing in real life.

Offensive vs. defensive: last Sunday’s Chargers vs Colts - the Chargers caught 6 interceptions, but didn’t do anything offensively. The Colts wound up with double the Chargers’s yards.

Basic fantasy scoring has two interceptions cancelling out a TD, a lost fumble being equivalent to an interception, and a TD worth the equivalent to 60 yards rushing or receiving.

One or two break out players vs overall competency: Would the Vikings be better than a team with a similar record fantasy wise because Adrian Peterson provides most of their offense, or would a team with a more average RB and QB be better off.

Neither, because real-life teams effectiively don’t exist in fantasy football. A psychic owner could have assembled the following starting team in pretty much any draft this year:

QB: Tom Brady (3rd round pick)
RB1: Willie Parker (1st round pick)
RB2: Adrian Peterson (2nd round pick)
WR1: Randy Moss (4th round pick)
WR2: Braylon Edwards (6th round pick)
TE: Kellen Winslow (5th round pick)
K: Rob Bironas (Last round regardless of draft length)
DEF: New England (7th round pick)

Given this as a prototypical fantasy team, you’ll see why your questions aren’t meaningful.

5

Actually, I’ve wondered a bit about this. My league is a 12-team partial keeper league - no one’s roster even has a chance to be as good as the one you describe above. I’ve often wondered if a team with weaker keepers could achieve a certain amount of sucess by intentionally loading up on all the players on a (good) team rather than trying to get the best players possible, on the grounds that it would get very solid production every single week.

For example, one team held Ladanian Tomlinson to start the season. That team’s owner also had a few other good players, but by making trades where he got less than equal value, he hypothetically could have built the following lineup:

QB - Tom Brady
HB - Lawrence Moroney
HB - Ladanian Tomlinson
WR - Randy Moss
WR - Wes Welker
WR - Donte Stallworth
TE - Ben Watson
K - Stephen Gostkowski
DT - New England Patriots

Interestingly, this hypothetical team would have a better record than his actual team, in spite of having a lower average score.

I don’t have the nerve to try it in a real season, though.

6

One major factor in this is if one team scored it’s points by passing the ball versus running the ball. A game could easily be a 35-21 final score, but of all three of the losing teams TDs were via the pass and all the winning teams were via the run, it’s a very realistic possibility that the losing team would win the fantasy match-up. This is because the fantasy scoring for the TDs would be double counted for both the WR and the QB while the running TDs are only counted once for the RB.

7

I think the general answers to your questions is: It depends on the scoring system you play within. I play for free on NFL.com. Using its system, let’s line up the Colts and Chargers matchup. In my league I can start a QB, two RBs, three WRs, one TE, one kicker and a Defense/Special Teams (DST) unit.

Chargers
Philip Rivers: -2
L. Tomlinson: 15
Lorenzo Neal: 1
Chris Chambers: 1
Vincent Jackson: 2
Legedu Naanee: 1
Antonio Gates: 2
N. Kaeding: 5
Chargers DST: 28
Total points: 53

Colts
Manning: 15 (that’s saying something with six INTs)
Addai: 6
Kenton Keith: 7
Reggie Wayne: 20
Aaron Moorehead: 3
Craphonso Thorpe: 4 (I always felt bad for him with that name)
Bryan Fletcher: 7
Ben Utecht: 3
Vinatieri: 1
Colts DST: 22
Total: 73

That’s a pretty sound beating in Fantasy terms. Of course, that just follows one set of scoring rules. Other systems will produce different results.

For your second question: In my league, RBs power your scoring. You get one point for every ten yards rushing as opposed to one point for every 25 yards passing. Thus, throwing for lots of yards is good only if the QB is getting touchdowns. It makes perfect sense, though, because a good fantasy QB will throw for 25-30 touchdowns and 3000 yards whereas a good RB will score 10-12 touchdowns and gain 1500 or 1600 yards.

So, you want to have an awesome runningback and a good QB. That’s why you’d normally never want to rely on one entire team. If Tarvaris Jackson has a crappy, 3-INT game and Peterson has a 150-yard, 2-TD game, it’s awesome to have Peterson and, say, Carson Palmer. And Brian Westbrook and Randy Moss and…well, you get the idea.

8

It works great, but you can’t really do it because the value of those individual players is too high to fit onto a single roster. At least when it comes to drafting. Trading away Tomlinson to finish out a several gaps would get you most of the way, assuming you drafted with this strategy in mind and were enough of a psychic to correctly predict the monster players. I would guess that not one person on the planet correctly valued Tom Brady at the time of their fantasy draft this year.

I’ve been doing a version of this strategy for years, btw, with my New York Fanboys. I usually get killed down the stretch as the Giants morph into a triage unit, but back in 2005 I went into the playoffs with the #2 overall seed in the SDMB Prolate Spheroids 16-man league. My roster at the time was:

Eli Manning
Tiki Barber
Curtis Martin
Plaxico Burress
Laveranues Coles
Amani Toomer
Jeremy Shockey
Jay Feely
Giants DEF

I was rolling over most opponents, and racking up major points. When the playoffs started the Giants played the Chiefs, and Tiki rolled up over 200 yards, so all was good. The finals pitted the Giants against the Redskins, though, and I got slaughtered. Stupid Redskins.

9

The guy that set up our league has RB and WR get a point for every 20 yards. 1 rush for a TD = 139 yards rushing. :smack:

10

In all seriousness there was a mini-scandal last season when it was discovered that Jeremy Shockey was playing fantasy football and some of his on field motives were questioned due to his partiticaption in the fantasy league. I can’t find the articles now because google is bogged down by a million fantasy football pages, but it has happened.

11

Yeah…it’s saying he damned near made me lose this week.

Come on, Manning! Nobody like a loser!

12

What is fantasy football? I always hear it on American tv shows.

13

Basically, you get a bunch of friends together to see who can collect the best American football players and earn points based on each player’s performance.

You take turns picking players in a draft so that everyone has a chance to choose good players. Then, when they play, you award points according to an agreed-upon scoring system.

The idea is to get the best, most consistent offensive players possible and a defensive unit that won’t drag you down. You match up head-to-head with your buddies each week and see whose team earns the most points.

14

There is also fantasy baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, golf, nascar and probably tiddly-winks, all based on the same pricinciple as football.

15

Also available for your enjoyment: fantasy sumo wrestling, fantasy rodeo, fantasy greyhound racing, fantasy dog show, fantasy cricket, fantasy waterskiing and fantasy fishing.

And if sports are not your thing, you can always turn to fantasy movie box office, fantasy soap operas, fantasy fashion, fantasy crime, fantasy U.S. Congress, or, right here on the SDMB, fantasy celebrity death.

Who said life is real?

16

Let me tell you how NOT to play FF.

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[li]Ronnie Brown[/li][li]Frank Gore[/li][li]Drew Brees[/li][li]Tory Holt[/li][li]Javon Walker[/li][li]Vernon Davis[/li][/ul]

17

You sure you aren’t thinking of Chris Cooley? Same division… (If so, I discussed this “scandal” upthread.)

Also, I’m a rabid, hardcore Giants fan in the local market who religiously overdoses on Giants coverage both local and national, and I’ve never once heard of Shockey linked to fantasy football.