Fantasy Football is 90% Luck

[drd0g 0]

To prove someones point here... our league draft in '05 was at a "gentlemen's club". One owner failed to show and the other owners voted to drop him from the league. (He was a whining ###### and we were glad to be rid of him) Being one owner short we invited "Brittany" to take his place. Brittany didn't know a TE from a folded one dollar bill, but agreed to join us for Sunday fun. Brittany was present for rounds 1-3 and chose the player next up on the board. (SAlexander was her RD1 pick but I don't remember the rest of her team) Anyway, after round 3 she was otherwise entangled so she was given the highest rated player on the board. During the season we replaced bye week absentees with active players, but she had no, zero, zilch free agent moves, no trades and no involvement. (Except for one Saturday night in early December when we all showed up to "update her" on her "skills".)

 

To make a long story longer, she went 8-5, was the three seed, upset #2 in the semi's and won the league championship over the 4 seed by a staggering amount... like, 100 points over two weeks. We tried like hell to throw her a party but she wanted more than the $250 we owed her for being league champion, so we just gave her the $250 and she showed her appreciation in the form of... oh never mind. You get the picture.

 

We sure do miss Brittany.

[TK0001 97]

I'd say luck plays as much of a factor in fantasy football as it does real football. Any team can get besieged by injuries, so luck plays a part in keeping players healthy (not so much as proper conditioning, but I digress). But good teams have the ability to draft well, which is seeking out talent that other teams might not see, which is 100% skill. They can also make good trades, which is also 100% skill.

 

The problem comes in the playoffs. I think luck plays a huge part in the FF playoffs because usually your option to trade (use skill) is taken away.

 

So, I think the regular season is mostly skill, the playoffs are mostly luck.

[KSB2424 3,083]

Fantasy Football is alot like Poker. A whole bunch of it is luck, however the skilled player can minimize the effect luck has on the outcome as well as "make their own good luck" with knowledge and being game savvy. A skilled poker player can win pots he is not supposed to win, just as a skilled ff player can make the right moves (trades, lineup settings, handcuffing, ect.) to win games he was not supposed to win, due to bad luck.

[Evil Genius 0]

nobody... I've won my league 4 out of 10 years and there are FFT members who have played in it. I'm the only owner to win more than 1 time.

 

And it's still 100% chance.

 

Cue the stupidassed jokes about how I must play with retards or it's a two-team league... but only the biggest ass-holes think it takes skill. You're actually dead-on... I show up with my cheatsheet (though not FFT's) - pick my players, go home and play.

 

And I win. Not because I'm skillful, but because I'm lucky. End of story.

 

This is blatently false.

 

Luck is the perception of favour or disfavour in regards to what are a collective of random elements.

 

'Luck' as a human perception, is more likely to be experienced when the random elements are many, complex, or are perceived to have a likely outcome, and the outcome occurs as opposite of the presumed outcome. Luck is also readily perceived when a relatively large outcome (the Superbowl) is perceived to have been swayed by small, brief or seemingly trivial events (one screen pass, for example).

 

FF is not entirely random - there is determinant selection in both the draft and team management throughout the year.

 

For FF to be 100% 'luck' - or to be legitimately perceived as 'luck', then draft selection and team management decisions, like waiver wire pick ups, trades and start/sit decisions would have to be entirely random. Then, by definition, the outcome would also be random and therefore 'lucky'.

 

Mephisto is continually working, I presume, to minimize random elements, and thus make the outcome more predictable (and favourable) based on his determinant decisions, from the draft onward. As such, the game for him, if not 'skillful', has outcomes based in part on conscious decision, and is not, by definition, 'luck'. Or, to paraphrase the vernacular of The Matrix - we are all mere slaves to causality.

 

But if he isn't - and his draft and every decision thereafter is entirely random - then it would be fair to say that his winning (and losing) is entirely luck.

 

Then again, Mephisto has never been known to have been wrong in my experience, so please defer to his emotional assertion that his (repeated) winning is merely a bizarre and meaningless correlation, entirely exclusive of any decision he has made, or will make.

[Phurfur 70]

Fantasy Football is alot like Poker. A whole bunch of it is luck, however the skilled player can minimize the effect luck has on the outcome as well as "make their own good luck" with knowledge and being game savvy. A skilled poker player can win pots he is not supposed to win, just as a skilled ff player can make the right moves (trades, lineup settings, handcuffing, ect.) to win games he was not supposed to win, due to bad luck.

 

[Mephisto 15]

This is blatently false.

 

Luck is the perception of favour or disfavour in regards to what are a collective of random elements.

 

'Luck' as a human perception, is more likely to be experienced when the random elements are many, complex, or are perceived to have a likely outcome, and the outcome occurs as opposite of the presumed outcome. Luck is also readily perceived when a relatively large outcome (the Superbowl) is perceived to have been swayed by small, brief or seemingly trivial events (one screen pass, for example).

 

FF is not entirely random - there is determinant selection in both the draft and team management throughout the year.

 

For FF to be 100% 'luck' - or to be legitimately perceived as 'luck', then draft selection and team management decisions, like waiver wire pick ups, trades and start/sit decisions would have to be entirely random. Then, by definition, the outcome would also be random and therefore 'lucky'.

 

Mephisto is continually working, I presume, to minimize random elements, and thus make the outcome more predictable (and favourable) based on his determinant decisions, from the draft onward. As such, the game for him, if not 'skillful', has outcomes based in part on conscious decision, and is not, by definiton, 'luck'. Or, to paraphrase the vernacular of The Matrix - we are all mere slaves to causality.

 

But if he isn't - and his draft and every decision thereafter is entirely random - then it would be fair to say that his winning (and losing) is entirely luck.

 

Then again, Mephisto has never been known to have been wrong in my experience, so please defer to his emotional assertion that his (repeated) winning is merely a bizarre and meaningless correlation, entirely exclusive of any decision he has made, or will make.

 

I may have done all that, but the ultimate results of the games are entirely out of my hands and in the hands of those who perform in the NFL each week.

 

Also, in keeping with drd0g's example, in my league, I once had an owner who showed up, drafted a team, and we never heard from him again all season long. He submitted a starting lineup for week 1 and that was it.

 

Despite all the bye weeks, including for QBs and sometimes multiple players on bye, he only lost 3 games that season (as I recall), went into the playoffs, and ended up finishing 2nd.

 

I bounced him from the league for his failure to participate, but he won money and could have won it all.

 

If someone who puts in a starting lineup and vanishes can get that close to winning it all... having done nothing... except use his "skills" at the draft and his "skills" to submit a starting lineup prior to week one... then it doesn't take a whole lot to win it all.

 

I agree with all of the mitigation and study and handcuffing and all of those self-important explanations... but until the actual performance of the players, their conditioning, the play-calling... or any of the stuff that goes into an NFL game comes under your control... you don't have any.

[Evil Genius 0]

I may have done all that, but the ultimate results of the games are entirely out of my hands and in the hands of those who perform in the NFL each week.

 

Also, in keeping with drd0g's example, in my league, I once had an owner who showed up, drafted a team, and we never heard from him again all season long. He submitted a starting lineup for week 1 and that was it.

 

Despite all the bye weeks, including for QBs and sometimes multiple players on bye, he only lost 3 games that season (as I recall), went into the playoffs, and ended up finishing 2nd.

 

I bounced him from the league for his failure to participate, but he won money and could have won it all.

 

If someone who puts in a starting lineup and vanishes can get that close to winning it all... having done nothing... except use his "skills" at the draft and his "skills" to submit a starting lineup prior to week one... then it doesn't take a whole lot to win it all.

 

I agree with all of the mitigation and study and handcuffing and all of those self-important explanations... but until the actual performance of the players, their conditioning, the play-calling... or any of the stuff that goes into an NFL game comes under your control... you don't have any.

 

Agreed that random elements play a huge part. Agreed.

 

And pleasantly suprised to not be 'dissed. or cursed out.

 

And yes - I can't make any given WR catch or drop passes.

 

But I certainly can conjecture and react based on the probability that he will, or will not, especially relative to the defensive system, week-to-week, that intends to stop him from doing so, and the relative health/physical abilities of those who intend to pass to him and block for him.

 

But I think the most interesting point in this discussion is the difference between guesses (based on inductive/deductive reasoning) and pure luck. Not skill - no, because your intent is to define skill as a physical ability to affect the outcome of a RB's personal statistics. We don't have that, and that's obvious.

 

But I'd rather be playing flag football anyways, many Sundays, than merely watching the pros, and skillfully (I hope) affecting the outcome of a real game. Heck, let's do both one after the other, and then, drink beer like I was born to....

 

Amen, brother.

[mr.shitty 0]

Ive run and participated in leagues for 20 years ish... and the one thing I have learned is it is not that much luck.

Luck is a factor but not as much as many think...

 

Id say its

50% draft skill

30% dedication/management

20% luck

 

I helped run a service that ran close to 100 leagues and every year the same handful of sharks would always win (place in the money)

 

We also knew who the "investors" were. team owners that never made the playoffs... Ive seen guys with 4 leagues for 10 years and make the playoffs once or twice and Ive seen the sharks make the playoffs 90% of the time.

 

I can pretty much tell what team owners will make the playoffs and which will have the worse records before the draft.

[ratbastard1 0]

It's still a crapshoot.

 

The bottom line is this... if it's important to your own self-esteem to have yourself convinced that you have "fantasy football skill" - you tell yourself that.

 

I guess it takes "skill" to roll dice down a table and to pick my mega-millions numbers, too.

 

When will I ever learn?

 

You crack me up while you cut me up. Please email my shrink your solutions to my pain.

[ohiomauler 0]

Luck comes into play in many forms. Getting lucky this year is when you're playing the Brady owner on his bye week(not me). Luck is when your opponent sits a guy who goes off. Luck is not losing a game or two a year by micro-managing your team and overreading match-ups like I did thinking Romo wasn't as good a start against Chicago as some stiff named Young. You have to be lucky if you can even that out or not do it at all. This year the 'never bench your studs' theory is a minefield with all the injuries. You're lucky this year if your 1st rd. pick is still standing.

 

I find I've gone farther towards championships when I have a team that gets me steady points every week. This year I've got one of those teams that scores huge every once in a while. I'll have weeks when I lose when every player has a collective letdown and score 90-100 pts. followed by a week where I score 150+. This year I've gotten clobbered by more 'garbage time' points than ever before, bad luck. Last week I won 181-66, but sat there with an empty feeling wishing those points were spread out to close games where they could have made a difference.

 

You also have to be lucky to not pull the plug on guys after 3-4 weeks of bad play(Lee Evans and the like).

[Mephisto 15]

The knucklehead leading my division (2nd place overall) left $30 on the table in an Auction Draft!!!

 

He had, what most others in the league (pre-season) thought was the worst draft of the group. Adrian Petersen has been a goldmine for him, but after that and Gates, he didn't have squat. Injuries made it worse.

 

He picks up crap, they go off for one week in weird ways, he wins. Roddy White in week 4 was the difference in his game. Week 5, he picks up Leon Washington and starts him. He had 1 reception in the game, but he also had a 98-yard kickoff return for a TD. He wins by 5. Week 6, it's a one-week Jason Wright pick up and start that's the difference in his game. Week 7, the pickup of Reuben Droughns and the single point he got him helped him eke out a tie. Week 9, the 47-rushes for 36-yards and FOUR TDs by Jamal Lewis. Dude laughs every week about how he turns a pile of sh!t into a dozen fantasy roses.

 

Of course, he's lost to me both times, accounting for his only two losses.

 

Crap....................... shoot.

[traders2001 0]

Dice, lottery numbers, and roulette wheels are random; picking players, and even their performances, are not. NFL coaches, scouts, and oddsmakers will disagree with you mightily on whether or not player performance is random and the equivalent of a 'crapshoot'.

 

 

The NFL draft is a crapshoot , Coaches , scouts will tell you this .

[dak11 0]

Fantasy is all luck in regard to the players. You have no idea how any player will produce any given week, if or when they'll get injured, or which one's will have off years.

 

The 'skill' involved in fantasy is giving yourself a chance to be more lucky. This involves drafting, picking up, or trading for players you hope will perform for you.

 

So, while it is a combination of skill and luck to a certain extent, the skill has nothing to do with how the players on your team will perform.

[NAn 39]

I just checked in here, as knew when it got to 3 pages that Meph was in here and it's always entertaining to hear his tirades on this subject every year

 

But then I find this?!

 

Actually... if you read Moz's 370-f carry analysis

 

Moz's analysis?!?!

 

[edjr 5,567]

No Limit Hold Em and Fantasy Football are both about 90% luck

[edjr 5,567]

Fantasy Football is alot like Poker. A whole bunch of it is luck, however the skilled player can minimize the effect luck has on the outcome as well as "make their own good luck" with knowledge and being game savvy. A skilled poker player can win pots he is not supposed to win, just as a skilled ff player can make the right moves (trades, lineup settings, handcuffing, ect.) to win games he was not supposed to win, due to bad luck.

 

 

 

 

Take for example me.

 

The Joseph Addai owner was 1 and 4 going into week 6 and I was 5 and 0 and I had Ronnie Brown. Addai was hurt and out that week and due for a bye next week. I offered Brown for Addai straight up and he took the offer. Some people on this board laughed at me saying it was dumb, some people said it was genius. Brown getting hurt doesn't really factor in because Addai > Brown when healthy. I was genius enough to see the Addai owner needed to win and couldn't afford having him out for 2 weeks.

[madd futher mucker 36]

Chris Moneymaker was lucky enough to win ONE World Poker Tournament event and became famous. Phil 'the Poker Brat' Hellmuth has won something like a dozen. Ergo, Hellmuth is about 12 times luckier than Moneymaker.

 

In one of my league, I was lucky enough to make the play-offs 5 consecutive years. My friend in the same league has not made the play-offs yet (top 6 on a 12 teamer). I study FF, make calculated roster moves, and trades that I think (often incorrectly) that will benefit my team. He makes few roster moves and is afraid to trade because he thinks he will get screwed.

 

I know one of these years he will make the play-offs and sometime (quite possibly THIS year) I won't. But so far, I've been totally lucky and the poor guy has had no luck at all.

 

I agree with Mephisto. FF is all about luck (just like poker), and I just happen to be Irish!

[madd futher mucker 36]

To prove someones point here... our league draft in '05 was at a "gentlemen's club". One owner failed to show and the other owners voted to drop him from the league. (He was a whining ###### and we were glad to be rid of him) Being one owner short we invited "Brittany" to take his place. Brittany didn't know a TE from a folded one dollar bill, but agreed to join us for Sunday fun. Brittany was present for rounds 1-3 and chose the player next up on the board. (SAlexander was her RD1 pick but I don't remember the rest of her team) Anyway, after round 3 she was otherwise entangled so she was given the highest rated player on the board. During the season we replaced bye week absentees with active players, but she had no, zero, zilch free agent moves, no trades and no involvement. (Except for one Saturday night in early December when we all showed up to "update her" on her "skills".)

 

To make a long story longer, she went 8-5, was the three seed, upset #2 in the semi's and won the league championship over the 4 seed by a staggering amount... like, 100 points over two weeks. We tried like hell to throw her a party but she wanted more than the $250 we owed her for being league champion, so we just gave her the $250 and she showed her appreciation in the form of... oh never mind. You get the picture.

 

We sure do miss Brittany.

 

Can you PLEASE PLEASE find Brittany and let her know there will be an opening in my league? I want to find out how good my luck really is!

[De Novo 0]

I just checked in here, as knew when it got to 3 pages that Meph was in here and it's always entertaining to hear his tirades on this subject every year

 

But then I find this?!

Moz's analysis?!?!

 

Sorry NAn, I don't really pay attention to who the posters are so I'm surpised I even remembered that it was three letters. Sorry about the slight.

[kwyjibo 0]

All of the guys in my league seem to know what they're doing. But it's kind of funny how the same guys seem to get hit with a preponderance of injuries year after year.

[NAn 39]

Sorry NAn, I don't really pay attention to who the posters are so I'm surpised I even remembered that it was three letters. Sorry about the slight.

 

No worries DN...just giving you a hard time.