Feedback and comments from my last Fantasy Football article from Shadyshoelace and KoltClassic have shaped this next instalment of my fantasy football history deep dive series. There will be at least one more of these, hopefully more if I get access to the older master sheets but I’m working with what I have for the moment. The first article, FOUND HERE, looked into if pick position had any visible difference in terms of their success, and whilst not significant, there was clearly differences between them. The replies wondered how many of these teams had Jeffrey Phillips, the best TE this season, due to the sizeable differences from him to the average TE, with Kolt saying there was 14 of the first 16 group leaders that had Phillips.
This got me thinking about what I can do with S22. I don’t want to analysis this seasons’ fantasy as not even halfway finished. Thinking about what group leaders may or may not have led me to the idea to track the top players in each position and see if they winners of each group had them and how many. For the sake of comparison for a future article when S23 is over, centring on Jeffrey Phillips, I added him to. Also, there was a tie for best Kicker between Dougie Smalls and Alex Dasistwirklichseinnachname, though he will be referenced as OCO kicker or Alex. D from now on cause screw using his last name, it’s as bad as Dwyer’s new player.
Now what did I expect to see in this analysis? From my experience in fantasy, this being my first because I missed it in my rookie year, certain positions really lack depth and others are quite close at the top. At least for this season, Hanyadi was the guy you picked if you had first pick. TE’s only had 2 good options with a decent third pick if needed before points dry up. WR were quite spread between who would be best was disputed. No one talked kicker and most people knew who the better teams were and to pick their defence. As for what this leads me to expect to see for S22, a high pickup rate of RB since they seemed to be the most contentious. A position like QB doesn’t have as much priority on it so might see smaller numbers. Of course, Kicker having two players may be a bit of a mixed bad that’s inaccurate and with smaller numbers, not as big of a deal. The same could go with Defence, whilst with the large array of top tier WR for their respective teams, I would assume it to be on the lower end.
In a pretty simple analysis, all I did was see who the group winner was and check to see who they had in their team. In the table player, a “YES” obviously is used to signify if they had a player, with the two top Kickers combined into one. So, without much else to it, below is the data.
What do these results show? Well it looks quite similar to what I think. The top player that was picked up the most by eventual group leaders was Hanyadi, not surprising as I sated earlier, Running Back seemingly has the highest priority placed on it. Whilst Hanyadi was the highest player, he wasn’t the highest position, which goes to defence, despite it technically being Kicker but with two players, it’s fair to half them and approximate there was 9 or 10 of each kicker taken. With the Yeti Defence showing up in almost half of the groups, they could have potentially been a clear top pick of fell perfectly into their lap, an aspect this analysis doesn’t have. On the flip side of this, both Nate Swift, the top Wide Receiver, and Franklin Armstrong, the Quarterback Maestro, only in 6 of the 31 group winners’ teams. This reflect that the top tier in these positions are much closer together, were much more highly competed for, were not always seen as the best option or more realistically, a mix of all these reasons. QB’s points scoring depends heavily on them actually passing and being good, whilst a WR needs to get catches to have the chance to earn points, something hard if they are crowded by many WR or a rush first offence. This additionally explains why their numbers are half of that as Hanyadi.
Finally, the Tight End’s in this analysis, has Austin McCormick as being taken just shy of Hanyadi by the group winners, one less time to sit on 11. When combined with Jeffrey Phillip’s 7 picks in group winning teams, totals to 18 of the 31 groups having either one of the two TE’s, one group winning having played both for half the season each, which has been attributed to both player’s pick counts. This makes the premise of the Phillips being such a strong factor in the winning users so far in S23 intriguing, as he wasn’t the best scoring TE the season before. Will he be able to pass McCormick or was he not actually the best choice? We shall see in time.
Finally, we saw group winners range from having picked only 1 of the top players in their position, from having up to 4. Most surprisingly isn’t the fact that majority of them has either 2-3 players, but that there were more group leaders who managed to get 4 players than who only got one. This may demonstrate a superior draft skill for fantasy football, supreme luck and alignment of the stars in a perfect way, most likely being a bit of both. This illustrates that it isn’t necessary to get the best players in every spot to win, but rather draft a solid team of high earners across the board to truly be successful in your fantasy group to end up with.
~~~Conclusion~~~
This dive into fantasy football history, even if it has just been S22 for now, has really been interesting and whilst turning out predictable results, feels good to shine a light on something so hidden in the darkness. The next look at fantasy, I was thinking about looking into the use of waivers, how much and often they got used and see if there is a way to gauge their effectiveness. I am very open to other ideas so feel free to reply on here, message me on the forum or discord with anything you may think might make a good piece. The league goes much deeper than the dots we watch play on the screen and the draft, things like fantasy keep us entertained and engaged in the league and its history, as well as doing media about it,
This got me thinking about what I can do with S22. I don’t want to analysis this seasons’ fantasy as not even halfway finished. Thinking about what group leaders may or may not have led me to the idea to track the top players in each position and see if they winners of each group had them and how many. For the sake of comparison for a future article when S23 is over, centring on Jeffrey Phillips, I added him to. Also, there was a tie for best Kicker between Dougie Smalls and Alex Dasistwirklichseinnachname, though he will be referenced as OCO kicker or Alex. D from now on cause screw using his last name, it’s as bad as Dwyer’s new player.
Now what did I expect to see in this analysis? From my experience in fantasy, this being my first because I missed it in my rookie year, certain positions really lack depth and others are quite close at the top. At least for this season, Hanyadi was the guy you picked if you had first pick. TE’s only had 2 good options with a decent third pick if needed before points dry up. WR were quite spread between who would be best was disputed. No one talked kicker and most people knew who the better teams were and to pick their defence. As for what this leads me to expect to see for S22, a high pickup rate of RB since they seemed to be the most contentious. A position like QB doesn’t have as much priority on it so might see smaller numbers. Of course, Kicker having two players may be a bit of a mixed bad that’s inaccurate and with smaller numbers, not as big of a deal. The same could go with Defence, whilst with the large array of top tier WR for their respective teams, I would assume it to be on the lower end.
In a pretty simple analysis, all I did was see who the group winner was and check to see who they had in their team. In the table player, a “YES” obviously is used to signify if they had a player, with the two top Kickers combined into one. So, without much else to it, below is the data.
What do these results show? Well it looks quite similar to what I think. The top player that was picked up the most by eventual group leaders was Hanyadi, not surprising as I sated earlier, Running Back seemingly has the highest priority placed on it. Whilst Hanyadi was the highest player, he wasn’t the highest position, which goes to defence, despite it technically being Kicker but with two players, it’s fair to half them and approximate there was 9 or 10 of each kicker taken. With the Yeti Defence showing up in almost half of the groups, they could have potentially been a clear top pick of fell perfectly into their lap, an aspect this analysis doesn’t have. On the flip side of this, both Nate Swift, the top Wide Receiver, and Franklin Armstrong, the Quarterback Maestro, only in 6 of the 31 group winners’ teams. This reflect that the top tier in these positions are much closer together, were much more highly competed for, were not always seen as the best option or more realistically, a mix of all these reasons. QB’s points scoring depends heavily on them actually passing and being good, whilst a WR needs to get catches to have the chance to earn points, something hard if they are crowded by many WR or a rush first offence. This additionally explains why their numbers are half of that as Hanyadi.
Finally, the Tight End’s in this analysis, has Austin McCormick as being taken just shy of Hanyadi by the group winners, one less time to sit on 11. When combined with Jeffrey Phillip’s 7 picks in group winning teams, totals to 18 of the 31 groups having either one of the two TE’s, one group winning having played both for half the season each, which has been attributed to both player’s pick counts. This makes the premise of the Phillips being such a strong factor in the winning users so far in S23 intriguing, as he wasn’t the best scoring TE the season before. Will he be able to pass McCormick or was he not actually the best choice? We shall see in time.
Finally, we saw group winners range from having picked only 1 of the top players in their position, from having up to 4. Most surprisingly isn’t the fact that majority of them has either 2-3 players, but that there were more group leaders who managed to get 4 players than who only got one. This may demonstrate a superior draft skill for fantasy football, supreme luck and alignment of the stars in a perfect way, most likely being a bit of both. This illustrates that it isn’t necessary to get the best players in every spot to win, but rather draft a solid team of high earners across the board to truly be successful in your fantasy group to end up with.
~~~Conclusion~~~
This dive into fantasy football history, even if it has just been S22 for now, has really been interesting and whilst turning out predictable results, feels good to shine a light on something so hidden in the darkness. The next look at fantasy, I was thinking about looking into the use of waivers, how much and often they got used and see if there is a way to gauge their effectiveness. I am very open to other ideas so feel free to reply on here, message me on the forum or discord with anything you may think might make a good piece. The league goes much deeper than the dots we watch play on the screen and the draft, things like fantasy keep us entertained and engaged in the league and its history, as well as doing media about it,
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1127 words by my count