Every season, mistakes are made, busts are drafted, bad strategies are adopted, bad habits are repeated, and lineup decisions that have been obsessively debated over for an entire week result in wrong decisions. There are certain mistakes that even the cagiest of fantasy veterans make, even though they try to avoid them. Somehow, certain bad habits seem to always haunt you, even though you try your best to avoid them. Every year after those bad habits and choices occur, you should take note...I mean literally write them down somewhere on your drafting and general fantasy football material, so you will have a blatant reminder to avoid those choices during your next draft and/or the following season.
Here is a short list of the more important things we learned or re-learned from this fantasy football season...
~~Never again will I target or consider drafting Steve Smith of the Panthers unless by some major transaction he ends up with Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, or Drew Brees as his QB. I drafted him in one of my leagues (12-team, PPR) at pick 3.07, and even though I wasn't crazy about drafting him, the top tiers of WRs ran dry quickly and he seemed like the best available WR on the board. What kills me most is that even though I targeted (and drafted) Joseph Addai in the fourth round, Hakeem Nicks was on the board when I picked Smith.
~~Don't take a defense early. Quality undrafted waiver wire pickups this season included the Raiders, Patriots, Seahawks, Lions, Chiefs, Falcons, and Cardinals. Instead of burning a mid-round pick on the Vikings, Cowboys, or Ravens you could have taken a chance on some quality sleeper options like Peyton Hillis, Santonio Holmes, Jay Cutler, or Matt Ryan. Every season, there are always several free agent defenses that quickly play themselves into the top 10 of fantasy defenses.
~~Kickers are solely reserved for your last round. This is more of a reminder than something that should be learned. You should already know this, right?
~~If you try to pick a value QB in the middle rounds as your first QB drafted, don't be afraid to quickly draft another one as insurance as quickly as the following round. This especially held true for those owners who drafted Kevin Kolb as their first QB in the middle rounds during their 2010 drafts.
~~Even though most fantasy football veterans will advise you to be patient on the waiver wire and not get excited about a free agent having a huge performance, I learned this season that I would have absolutely smashed the competition in any of my leagues if I immediately picked up one or more of the likes of Michael Vick, Kyle Orton, Brandon Lloyd, Marcedes Lewis, Mike Tolbert, Benjarvis Green-Ellis, Chris Ivory, Ryan Torain, or Matt Cassell after their first notable performance. Usually patience is a virtue, understanding that most free agent players who have a big performance one week are likely to retreat back into the kingdom of scrubs the following week. However, if you have the roster space available, it is certainly worth jumping all over any player who comes out of nowhere with a big game. If I wasn't so patient this season, I had the roster space to own at least half of those players I just mentioned. Fortunately, I quickly learned my lesson several weeks into the season and was able to quickly grab Danny Woodhead and LeGarette Blount in one of my leagues as soon as they made an impact.
~~Matchups in the playoffs are more important than ever. The "riding your players who got you there" theory can be detrimental. Players like Matt Ryan, Peyton Hillis, LeSean McCoy, Matt Forte, Ahmad Bradshaw, Calvin Johnson, Dwayne Bowe, Reggie Wayne, and Terrell Owens struggled against tougher matchups during weeks 14 through 16. If you have a safe backup option with a good matchup, benching a better player with a tough matchup is certainly not unorthodox and would be advised depending on the players and matchups involved.
~~Never ever pick up a QB, RB, or WR from free agency and immediately start him during your fantasy playoffs, unless your team suddenly suffered an outbreak of injuries or a RB goes down and happens to have a very solid free agent backup taking his place for a game. This especially holds true for WRs. By the time week 14 rolls around the waiver wire should be picked pretty darn clean in those three positions. If you are in the playoffs, then you must be strong with most, if not all of your starters. The only time you might consider picking up a free agent QB, RB, or WR is if your starter(s) at one of those positions are facing a tough matchup(s), and/or you have a good WR having a backup QB throwing him the ball. There may be a player on waivers who has an easy matchup and looks enticing, but like I said, after a season's worth of transactions, that player is probably average at best. I re-learned that lesson the hard way when in the Championship game (week 16) of my keeper league, I picked up Kevin Walter and plugged him into my lineup. My other options as my third WR included Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, and Blair White. Knox was facing the Jets awesome secondary, Harvin traveled to Philly and had the rookie Joe Webb as his QB for the game, and White needed a TD to be fantasy relevant. Walter had just come off of a nice 7 catch, 79 yards, and 1 TD performance in week 15 at Tennessee and was facing a simple Broncos secondary for week 16. I didn't pick him up until I heard the news that Andre Johnson was going to miss the game, so I figured Walter would be Matt Schaub's top target and a better option than the WRs on my bench, who were facing adverse scenarios. Walter proceeded to get a measly 14 yards and 0 TDs, while Knox lit up Darelle Revis and Co. for 92 yards and 2 TDs, Harvin recorded 100 yards, and White did indeed get a TD. Fortunately, none of that mattered because my opponent scored enough points to beat me, even if I had Knox's 21.2 points in my lineup...but still, never again.
Theory of Every Third Season
I have a working theory that I have been formulating and speculating about over the past few years. I call it "The Theory of Every Third Season." I'm not referring to the obvious third season of WRs theory, but rather the third year of general fantasy football gaming. Every three years it seems that there are more unordinary or strange occurrences, more so than most fantasy football seasons, such as higher fantasy player turnover at the tops of stats sheets, a larger number of breakouts and busts, more success for amateur owners with either unorthodox strategies or lack of strategies altogether, and simple dumb luck being dished out at a higher rate. I don't know if this just occurs to me in my leagues, or if it is a widespread phenomenon.
For me, it began in 2001, my first year playing fantasy football. I came to my draft utterly unprepared with no cheat sheets, strategies, or ideas of how things worked. I was lucky to have Marshall Faulk fall to me at the fourth pick, and then I turned around and picked Jeff Garcia (then with the 49ers and breaking some of Joe Montana's and Steve Young's passing yards records). After that it was a complete crap shoot. I basically just filled the positions then picked the best football (not necessarily fantasy football) players available to fill my bench. Needless to say, I went on to win the Championship by beating the Commissioner at that time, who had absolutely dominated that league in previous years. That was a crazy season, and I ended up being part of the more fluky side of that year, which included my WR2 being a 39 year old Jerry Rice looking youthful with the Raiders.
2004 included Mushin Muhammad topping the WRs lists in the absence of Steve Smith in Carolina, the emergence of Antonio Gates, and the fall from the top of Ahman Green. 2004 may have not been the greatest example of my working theory, but 2007 proved to be off the wall.
2007 saw the fantasy birth of Adrian Peterson, an unexpected revival of Jamal Lewis' career in Cleveland, the emergence of Ryan Grant mid-season, the downfall of Larry Johnson, Derek Anderson coming out of nowhere to have a big season (his only fantasy relevant season), the end of Marvin Harrison, the revival of Randy Moss in New England....I could keep going on and on.
This last season saw all of Arian Foster, Peyton Hillis, Michael Vick, Kyle Orton, Brandon Lloyd, Dwayne Bowe, Darren McFadden, Steve Johnson, Hakeem Nicks, and Mike Wallace have repeat dominant performances and reach the top 10 of fantasy players at their respective positions. Of course some of these players were quality sleeper targets, but to see so many free agent pickups and sleepers be so high on stat sheets is unusual. Meanwhile, early round picks like Randy Moss, Joseph Addai, Brandon Marshall, Ryan Mathews, Ronnie Brown, Beanie Wells, Steve Smith (both of them), Shonn Greene, DeAngelo Williams, Brent Celek (who was an early pick at his position, not necessarily an early round pick), Cedric Benson, and Chad Ochocinco fell to the wayside.
Fantasy player turnover and excessive breakouts and busts are only part of the equation. Dumb luck seemed more prevalent during those seasons. This ideal of luck is likely more subjective for my leagues, but I am betting the "luck" occurrence is higher during these every third seasons throughout the fantasy football world, likely related to the player turnover factors.
The example of my first season in 2001 is the start. In 2007, a new owner in the league I commission spent her first round pick on Jamal Lewis and absolutely wasted valuable mid-round picks on garbage. After extensive ridicule for the next couple of weeks, Lewis actually did very well (his first year in Cleveland), and that owner "laughed" all the way to the best record in our league, with the help of Tom Brady and Terrell Owens.
2007 also marks one of the only two years I did not make any fantasy playoffs since I started playing in 2001.
This season, an owner drafted Arian Foster early, Peyton Hillis late, and picked up Michael Vick off of the waiver wire after week 1. What kills me is he had last priority on the waivers, and every other owner, including myself, had a chance to get Vick. Unfortunately, the rest of us bought into Andy Reid emphasizing that Kevin Kolb was still his starting QB after returning from a concussion. That owner went 13-0 on the season (with the help of Maurice Jones-Drew, Calvin Johnson, and Antonio Gates). The rest of his picks were mainly garbage, and outside of Gates he didn't have to deal with any major injuries.
The eventual Champion of my keeper league adopted weak strategies by drafting his QB (Tom Brady) in the second round, his TE (Dallas Clark) in the third round, and his defense (Jets) in the seventh round. Granted he had two RBs and a WR as his keepers, but those two RBs were Cedric Benson in the fourth round and Shonn Greene in the eleventh round.
So what the hell does all this mean? It certainly does not mean that all the seasons in between are pretty cut and dry. Every season experiences turnover and unexpected results, just not as much as the third seasons I mentioned. What it does mean, is that during the 2013 season, I will reorganize my strategies and attempt to take more chances in order to compensate for the expected randomness. If this theory indeed holds true, than maybe I will have a second round QB and score on more sleepers. Or maybe, this third season pattern is something I can't affect in any way, and it is simply the years that amateurs succeed, and certain owners get lucky. Maybe it is just part of the thread of the realm of fantasy football that cannot be influenced.
Much of my observations which caused me to formulate this theory are certainly subjective. Am I suggesting you should perform unorthodox drafts and transactions during the 2013 season, 2016 season, and so on? Absolutely not.
Am I just "talking" out of my rear?...
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