Fantasy football: How much is luck?

In my championship game, I pulled my starting kicker (Tynes) and my starting defense (49ers) and replaced them with Dan Bailey and the Chargers and doing so was the difference in winning and losing.

Too many people draft teams and don't adjust based on matchups. I think there's also a lot to be said for playing defensively and acquiring players to make sure nobody else gets them, even if you don't need them. I kept Russell Wilson and Colin Kaepernick on my bench for that reason. I started Wilson once and never played Kaepernick.

I had a good draft, but the reason I won this year was because I picked up players every week and paid attention to matchups. Luck is obviously involved on some level. I won one game this season because someone who knew better forgot to swap out a starting receiver who was not going to play. I won by three points that week. Without that win, I would have gone against Cam Newton in the first round which was the week he went nuts against the Falcons and I would have lost.

 

This is definitely something I started doing this year that I hadn't before, turning over my bench a lot even when I didn't need players, just to prevent others from shoring up their lineups.

I still finished fifth in the league, but it was mostly a bad luck thing. Tom Brady went crazy on a Monday night when I essentially had my playoff game won. I probably averaged the most points in the playoffs of anyone in our league, but I lost the quarterfinal 122-120 because of that Brady game, and then won big in my fifth-place game.

I had the misfortune of drafting Chris Johnson in the first round this year. It looks like his year-end numbers will end up all right, but he was a source of near-constant frustration this year. I think three of his five touchdowns came in one game.

I'm going to try something next year I've never done before - draft a quarterback in the first round. It seems like Rodgers, Brady, and Brees are such sure bets, moreso than any running back who may be in and out of a lineup all year. Or get screwed in goal-line situations.

 

Rodgers, Brees and Brady were all really consistent this season. I think running backs are becoming less valuable, especially in a league like ESPN's where receivers get a point for every catch.

With running backs, if you took Rice, Foster or AP in the first round, you were likely pretty happy. If you took Chris Johnson, LeSean McCoy, Darren McFadden or DeMarco Murray, probably not so much...

The quarterbacks taken in the first and second round (Rodgers, Brees, Brady, Newton) were definitely safer picks than running backs. There's too many teams where backs split time or where one guy gets all the yards and someone else gets all the short yardage TD opportunities...

Only one player (Foster) has more than 15 touchdowns this season. Also, there is only one player this season with three receiving and three rushing touchdowns. So the days of picking a back who they throw to in the end zone a lot are done. I know he was injured, but Sproles had six receiving touchdowns but only rushed for one. Danny Woodhead is the only guy who had three receiving touchdowns and four rushing touchdowns. Woodhead is a nice player, but other than bye weeks or a really deep league, how many people are starting Danny Woodhead?

 

I bring back this thread to crow.

I am in three fantasy leagues this season. All three of my teams are playing for a championship this week.

Luck? Ha!

Only losers need luck.

 

I'm in my league championship game, and two of my first three picks were Aaron Rodgers and Julio Jones. My other drafted QB was RGIII. I had Josh McCown, and had to obviously drop him last week. I chose Jay Cutler from options that included Joe Flacco and Kirk Cousins. I was lucky in that he passed for three TDs, of course, but I do think that there was some Bears value available throughout the year because people still see them as a poor offensive team.

I still think a lot of fantasy is luck, but I kind of zagged in the draft this year when others zigged. I went with a QB in the first round - second or third pick. I went with WRs in the next two rounds (Dez Bryant and Jones), and only then did I get around to some RBs.

I was fortunate to hop on Alshon Jeffery early, along with the Carolina defense.

I've been quite aggressive with my week-to-week roster management, particularly at the DEF and K positions, though Carolina is good most weeks.

Anyway, I'm going to probably punt RBs early again next year and see if that's a worthwhile strategy or something I got lucky with just this year.

 

In my money league I finished with the highest point total, and it wasn't particularly close. I also missed the playoffs. So yeah, luck is a bit of a factor.

I'm in two leagues. I'm playing for the championship in one and had the highest point total in the other. In both leagues I waited until the 8th or 9th round to take a QB. (Took RG3 in one, Stafford in the other, and had Alex Smith as a backup in both.)

I still prefer going RB over QB early, but only if I'm really confident in the RB. I got Peterson in one league and Charles in the other, and I had no doubts about either guy. I would take a top QB over someone like Darren McFadden or Chris Johnson, who I wasn't high on.

If you can't get a top 2 or 3 guy at QB I'd wait though, because the rest are almost interchangeable.

 

Been leading my league most of the year - more points, more wins - not having Peterson last week and going against Jamaal Charles killed me - still only lost by 30 in a Yahoo league. And I lost Reggie Wayne early.

Still had a good time with it after not playing for years.

 

In our league, QB's get 6 pts for a passing TD and 1 pt for every 20 passing yards. So QBs score a ton of points, and there's a lot more separation between the top guys like Rodgers and Brees and the 7-10 guys. So going QB early is a little different than in most leagues.

 

Yeah, that makes a big difference. Our league was 4 points for a QB touchdown pass. I got into it with the commish, because he wanted to change it to 6 points the day after the draft. He seemed astonished that some of us actually look at the scoring system before drafting a team.

 

I had a ton of bad luck this year. I was third in points scored in one league and finished 4-9, 11th place and out of the playoffs. In the other, I finished second in points and second overall, earning a first-round bye.

Then Adrian Peterson got hurt, and I was stuck plugging in a waiver wire back to try to patch the hole. On top of that, I had three guys on my bench who would have gotten me to the finals if I had played any one of them. I mean, how the hell could I know that Justin Tucker was going to score all of the Ravens' points? Ultimately, I lost by a damn point.

 

Oh it's plenty luck, probably mostly luck. I had the highest scoring team in my league this season and finished first. Ran into Jamal Charles last week and lost to a team that I had outscored in 12 of the previous 14 weeks.

 

FF is lots of luck. I got my dad into it two years ago and of course he is in the finals this year. He only drafted 4 RBs. Only rostered 4 RBs all season and only 4 different RBs played for him this season. You would think they were studs, but not really.

Here is his RB core: Marshawn Lynch, Steven Ridley, Rashard Mendenhall, and Joique Bell. He only had one big free agent this year; Julius Thomas and started playing Riley Cooper after his big games. He rolled with Matt Ryan for most of the season with a bit of Andy Dalton but had no real stars. His best WR was Demaryius Thomas but spent a lot of time rolling with Steve Smith, Steve Johnson and Mike Williams.

How did he win games? Luck. All of his players seemed to perform the best on the same week, including his Kansas City defense. Won a lot of close games, got blown out a bunch too, but is still in the hunt. Meanwhile, I finished last for the second year in a row after finishing second two years in a row.