If this is the first time you are reading me you need to understand something before going any further. I have no tact whatsoever. I say what I think when I think it. I like to think I have a good handle on the topic before speaking, but what I say, I believe.

So when it comes to ranking players when I say rankings are crap, I mean it. Does that mean they are worthless? Absolutely not. Even crap can be used as fertilizer and we all know that fertilized crops grow better than those without it.

So how can you use crappy rankings to help you in fantasy football? Well there’s good crap and there’s bad crap. First you need to find the good crap. Dan Grogan of Athlon Sports has been around the fantasy world for a long time. He has made a living from it for a long time so his crap is golden.

He will be joining us on next week’s Podcast to talk about his rankings. We will also have Ben Curran of This Just In.

Rankings
Okay, enough of the promotional crap – it’s time to get to the Common Fallacies the title suggests I talk about. Well the first part is part of some of the common fallacies found in fantasy football. And that is fallacy, not phallus-y. though there are some similarities if you look deep enough.

Most people who rank players do so from projections – how else could you create a fantasy ranking. The problem lies in the projections. How do you accurately predict what a player will do in the coming year?

How many of you thought Randy Moss was done when he was in Oakland? Did you see 50 TDs for Tom Brady before the season? Really? C’mon, it’s just the two of us – you can be honest.

If you see someone projecting more than five quarterbacks to throw for 30+ TDs – run away.

From 1989 through 1993 the league began transitioning to a pass-first philosophy. From 1993 through last year the NFL average of runs to pass had a high of 46.87% in 2004 and a low of low of 44.15% in 1995. While some might think there is not too much of a difference between running the ball 46.87% over 44.15% the difference is huge.

There has been one time the passing TD leader topped 50 passes. Last year. Only twice has a quarterbacked thrown between 45 and 49 TD passes (Dan Marino and Peyton Manning). Marino threw for 44 TDs in 1986 and Kurt Warner threw for 41 in 1999. But after that the drop-off is dramatic.

This means that there have only been five seasons in the history of the league where someone has topped 40 TD passes in a year. This is not an easy thing to do. Those of you thinking Brady is throwing for 40+ TDs should take notice.

After pro-rating the strike-shortened 1982 season, I found 13 years where the top TD passer finished with between 30 and 34 TD passes. There were also six more where they finished between 35 and 39. That means that in my 30-year study, which includes 14 years of the pass-first era, 19 seasons the top passing TD producer finished between 30 and 39 TDs passing.

The season with the highest percentage of pass to run was 1995. In that year five quarterbacks had a combined TD total of over 30. Two of them had to use rushing TDs to push them over the top. The NFC North had three of them – Brett Favre led the league with 38 passing TDs. He was joined in the NFC Central by Scott Mitchell with 32 TDs and Erik Kramer with 29 (plus one rushing).

The same fallacy holds true for the running game. Too many people predict too many backs to have completely healthy seasons. This just doesn’t happen. If someone is predicting 10 backs will gain 1500 yards – not gonna happen.

Since 2003 the league has averaged 18.4 running backs that top 1000 rushing yards per season. Typically you will see 17-18 in a year. But with 16 games, 1000 yards is only 62.5 yards per game. Do you really want a back that averages 62.5 ypg as your featured player?

There have been a lot fewer 1500 yard backs in the same time span. Last year was an aberration with no back topping 1500 rushing yards. However, the previous four years had 5, 5, 5 and 6 backs at that range. That is a more realistic prediction. Five backs will produce 1500 rushing yards this year. And 1500 yards is a healthy 94 ypg average.

Think your top guy is going to get 10 rushing TDs? It only happened six times last year but again, last year was a down year for running backs. The four years prior saw 9, 9, 10 and 10 respectively so you should expect nine backs to score 10 rushing TDs this year. But what about those big 15+ TD years. Those have occurred just 10 times in the last five years with 2005 having the most – three. In other words, don’t hold your breath unless you have a back named LaDainian Tomlinson (there’s a reason he is the first player picked in most drafts).

But how about predictions for 1000+ yards and eight or more TDs? You’d think anyone who scored 10 TDs would have to go over 1000 yards. You’d be wrong. Further those backs that top 1000 yards aren’t always pushing it in the last yard or two.

In 2003, there were six backs that topped 1000 yards and failed to score at least eight TDs. There were seven such backs in 2004; five in 2005 and then in 2006 the number of backs topping 1000 yards but topping eight touchdowns ballooned to 15. There were 10 of these guys last year.

That means that over the past five years, 47% of the backs that topped 1000 yards failed to score eight TDs. Ask Willie Parker owners if they were pleased with his 2007 season.

He Did it Last Year
So he can do it again? Check the popular rankings that have Brady at the top of their lists. Then ask them what they expect him to do this year. Invariably they will project 4500 yards and 40+ TDs. Some will say he will break last year’s record.

Not gonna happen.

Remember only five times has a quarterback thrown for 40 or more TDs in a single season. In the history of the game. And Marino did it twice. According to many pundits, Favre was finished entering last year. He had thrown for 20 and 18 TD passes in his previous two years. Last year he threw for 28 and finished second in the MVP voting.

John Elway is a first ballot Hall of Famer. He is fifth on the all-time passing TD list. He never topped 30 TD passes. That’s right – never.

Brady’s best season prior to last year was 28 TD passes. Other than last year he has averaged 24.5 in his starting seasons that don’t include last year. I think I am being generous in predicting 4300 yards and 35 TDs for him this year. And I am considered crazy for suggesting such a drop-off.

That said, Devin Hester followed up a season with five return TDs with one that had six. I am still shaking my head at that but that just shows that exceptions do happen, which is why I am predicting no more than three return scores for Hester this year.

Fantasy Football is all Luck
Not true. There is a certain element of luck involved. But many times it can be mitigated by careful planning in your rules and your roster building. If you have an injury-prone player (Fred Taylor) draft his backup (Maurice Jones-Drew) even if you have to take the backup first.

Set up your scoring rules to include individual defensive players or, for team defenses, scoring categories for first downs allowed, points allowed and yards allowed. Perhaps even time of possession. These are all standards of a good defense and help remove the luck created by basing your scoring on turnovers and defensive scores. Add return yardage to give another category that is somewhat predictable (over the course of a year).

To Get the Best Advice You Have to Spend Big Dollars
Uh uh. Fantasy Sports Group offers some outstanding advice both in our forums and our blog sites. All free. Our Podcast is highly thought of and brings in some of the top minds from around the net as guests.

But we aren’t alone. Many see the pay for info model of business as quickly disappearing. Sure there are still a lot of pay services. And many of them are very good. I can recommend some to you if you like. But so much information is easily accessible now that when you enter into an agreement with a pay service you should do so with the understanding that you are not paying for information. You are paying for analysis – the opinion of one or more persons that you respect.

The information is free. It is their take that you are paying for. And even the best of us is going to be wrong an awful lot of the time. You will see testimonials on the web sites and they are true. Each service does help many, if not most, of their subscribers. But if you are in a league with eleven other owners and you all subscribe to the same service – and you all do exactly what they tell you to do – guess what … eleven of you are still going to lose. And a couple are going to have really bad seasons despite getting the same advice from the same people.

Because only one of you can have Tomlinson. And that is the big unspoken secret to the pay services. They do a lot of homework and have some great advice – but they are not infallible. To suggest so is the biggest fallacy of all.

Tags: Fantasy Football