Brian Analyses his Fantasy Football Draft

We just had our fantasy football draft and I've spent most of the night analyzing the results. Sometimes I think I do more engineering work at home than I do at the actual work. For reference my team is Power Dump. I'm sure you remember my team from last year.

I went through each team and looked at how their picks compared with average player picks. So for example Nick picked up Carson Plamer with the 68th overall pick. So far this year Carson Palmer has been taken with the 90.3 pick on average. So I took each teams average picks along with the average draft pick and compared them. I decided that many times the later rounds don't matter as much and people generally use those picks on risky players and players that won't really impact the team. So I also compared the first 12 rounds to drop out any crazy outliers from the final 5 rounds.

The average pick is the your average overall pick for those rounds. If you had a later picks then your average pick is obviously higher than someone who picked early in the draft. This accounts for the first 5 rounds being perfectly even. [We do a keeper league so the first 5 picks are preselected -ed] The average selection is the average overall pick that your players went for in all of Yahoo drafts.

IN DRAFT ORDER here are the results:

Fuck you Brad Watson
FIRST 12 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 46.5
Average Selection - 54.5
FIRST 14 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 54.3
Average Selection - 62.9
OVERALL
Average Pick - 66.0
Average Selection 70.9

Power Dump
FIRST 12 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 47.0
Average Selection - 50.3
FIRST 14 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 54.,9
Average Selection - 55.5
OVERALL
Average Pick - 66.7
Average Selection 64.7

Caketown Spartans
FIRST 12 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 47.6
Average Selection - 46.0
FIRST 14 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 55.5
Average Selection - 56.8
OVERALL
Average Pick - 67.4
Average Selection 67.1

CMU
FIRST 12 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 48.2
Average Selection - 50.3
FIRST 14 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 56.2
Average Selection - 56.1
OVERALL
Average Pick - 68.1
Average Selection 66.7

*Nick you did really well drafting the last 5 rounds. All your picks were below their average pick.

Shit
FIRST 12 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 48.8
Average Selection - 57.4
FIRST 14 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 56.8
Average Selection - 64.3
OVERALL
Average Pick - 68.9
Average Selection 75.3

Cougar Cornbread
FIRST 12 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 49.4
Average Selection - 53.8
FIRST 14 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 57.5
Average Selection - 59.5
OVERALL
Average Pick - 69.6
Average Selection 70.0

*Evan you also did rather well for yourself in the last 5 rounds

Go Blue
FIRST 12 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 50.0
Average Selection - 48.0
FIRST 14 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 58.1
Average Selection - 66.3
OVERALL
Average Pick - 70.3
Average Selection 74.4

Believe in Now
FIRST 12 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 50.5
Average Selection - 47.2
FIRST 14 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 58.8
Average Selection - 56.7
OVERALL
Average Pick - 71.0
Average Selection 66.7


So who had the best draft?

That is subjective to how much you value late round picks. But since it is my belief that the first 12 rounds are the ones that really matter I've computed the delta between the average pick and average selection to come up with a best draft ranking.

Best Draft Rankings:
1. Believe in Now (-3.3)
2. Caketown Spartans (-1.6)
3..CMU (+2.1)
4. Power Dump (+3.2)
5. Cougar Cornbread (+4.5)
6. Go Blue (+8.0) TIE
6. Fuck You Brad Watson (+8.0) TIE
8. Shit (+8.6)

Now we can look at who has the best team by average draft pick.

Best Team First 12 Rounds:
1. Caketown Spartans (46.0)
2. Believe in Now (47.2)
3. Power Dump (50.3) TIE
3. CMU (50.3) TIE
5. Cougar Cornbread (53.8)
6. Fuck You Brad Watson (54.5)
7. Shit (57.4)
8. Go Blue (58.0)

Finally we can rank the best teams overall.

Best Team Overall (All Rounds):
1. Power Dump (64.7)
2. Believe in Now (66.7) TIE
3. CMU (66.7) TIE
4. Caketown Spartans (67.1)
5. Cougar Cornbread (70.0)
6. Fuck You Brad Watson (70.9)
7. Go Blue (74.4)
8. Shit (75.3)


Note: This analysis doesn't include any transactions made after the draft.

I Rule at Fantasy Football

Ever since 2001 I have done a fantasy football league with my Friends from high school. I am a perennial favorite to win the championship. In the 7 years we have done it I have finished in the top two six times. I have only outright won it once though. I even recovered after wasting a first round pick on Tiki Barber 2 years ago. We even have a sweet trophy that the winner each year gets.

In recent years we have switched over to a keeper league in which I dominate. We keep five players from last years team. My team was so stacked that I had to give up Calvin Johnson and Antonio Gates. Also, since I finished first last year I had to draft last in the draft. I wasn't sure who to keep with my 5th keeper. It was between Romo and Calvin Johnson. I knew if I gave up Romo that I wouldn't get him back but I thought there was a chance that I could get Calvin back. As it turns the guy with the pick before me had to choose between Calvin and Chad Johnson, and went with Calvin. I still think Chad Johnson is a good consolation pick.

Here is my draft results. On the right is the round and overall pick and on the left is the average Yahoo draft pick. The first 5 are keepers so there average Yahoo draft pick doesn't matter to me.

1. (8) Adrian Peterson
2. (16) Terrell Owens
3. (24) Andre Johnson
4. (32) Jamal Lewis
5. (40) Tony Romo
6. (48) Chad Johnson (31.3)
7. (56) Darren McFadden (53.2)
8. (64) San Diego (62.8)
9. (72) Fred Taylor (102.2)
10. (80) Javon Walker (102.5)
11. (88) Vernon Davis (72.1)
12. (96) Jay Cutler (96.4)
13. (104) Patrick Crayton (105.3)
14. (112) Rashard Mendenhall (110.2)
15. (120) Seattle (127.8)
16. (128) Tony Scheffler (123.3)
17. (136) Robbie Gould (133.4)

For the most part I was getting players after their average draft pick which means that I was picking up the good talent after they should have been on the board. Like I got Chad Johnson 17 picks after he normally went. It appears that I did overvalue Fred Taylor by about 20 picks. I guess with Maurice Jones-Drew getting all the hype people have been wary to draft an aging injury prone Taylor. The way I see it though is that my 4th back is a pro-bowler who will get the bulk of the carries between the 20 yard lines. Plus in the last 4 games of the 2007 season he averaged 7.7 yards per carry. I really don't know why I thought so much of Javon Walker. I weighed the idea of the premier receiver in Oakland over the fact that the 20th overall pick in the 2002 draft wanted to return his signing bonus and retire. Overall though I think I had one of the better drafts in the league.

I think that Seattle defense will be unexpectedly good and San Deigo even without Merriman will still be tough. I love to draft young talent like McFadden. While I expect total domination, I do have to deal with the team that has Brady, Moss, Brian Westbrook, Marshawn Lynch, Larry Johnson and Calvin Johnson.

On a side note, I don't know which is harder to believe, Chad Johnson saying he could beat Michael Phelps at swimming or Lou Holtz predicting Notre Dame winning 11 games this year.