You Get What You Pay For in Fantasy Football!

Why should I pay StatLeader 10 Bucks for information on my Yahoo Default League when I can get free scoring projections from Yahoo?

That's a fair question, and one we love to answer. Now, you can go directly to their site to verify what we are telling you (we've even included the link for you) but to save time and effort, we've provided a screen shot below:






First let's start by looking at the Yahoo Default scoring system for Offensive players. It goes as follows:

Every 50 passing yards: 1 point

Every Passing TD: 6 points

Every Interception Thrown: -2 points

Every 20 Rushing Yards: 1 point

Every Rushing TD: 6 points

Every 20 Receiving Yards: 1 point

Every Receiving TD : 6 points

Every Offensive Fumble Return TD: 6 points

Each Return TD: 6 Points

Each 2 point Conversion: 2 points

Each fumble lost: -2 points

Now, let's look at what is in the Yahoo Week 3 projections table. Starting with the passing stats for Daunte Culpepper, Yahoo is predicting 309 yards and 2.3 TDs. 2.3 TDs??? How the heck do you get 2.3 TDs??? Best I can figure is that Culpepper makes a weak "dying quail" toss that only makes it about a third of the way into the end zone. So does this extra .3 TD count for 1.8 points? You'll see a little further down in the article.

Next, we'll check the rushing numbers. They (Yahoo) are projecting Daunte to get 36 rushing yards and -here we go again- 0.2 rushing TDs. Combine this with Onterrio Smith's projected 0.4 rushing TDs and Moe Williams' 0.1 rushing TDs and you get a grand total of 0.7 rushing TDs for the team. (None of the Minnesota receivers are projected to have any rushing TDs). Looks like it's gonna be a tough week for the Vikes.

OK, so how does Yahoo use this marvelous information to get Culpeppers' predicted 21.8 points? (When was the last time you had a QB get 21.8 points in a game?). Well, the closest Rocket Man can figure is that they appear to calculate the values as follows:

309 Passing Yards gives 6 points (309/50 = 6 with 9 extra yards

2.3 Passing TDs produces 13.8 points (2.3 * 6)

36 Rushing Yards yields 2 points (36 rounded up to 40, then 40/20 = 2)

No points for the 0.2 Rushing TD

Now, any of you that have lost your weekly match-up by one point know that you can't round 36 yards up to 40, no matter how hard you try. Likewise, you don't get partial TDs, it's either 2 or 3! That's a potential swing of 6 points, a pretty significant amount when you're only about 21.8 total points.

Oh, one more thing, the Yahoo projections forget to take into account the rest of the scoring system including such things as interceptions, fumbles, etc. Daunte might not throw a pick, but has has a fumbles per game average of more than 1. Also...where are the Kicker and Defense projections?

Come on Yahoo, you actually pay someone to produce this for you??

When StatLeader calculates our projected values, we do it based on the full scoring system. We don't bother wasting time trying to figure out whether Peyton Manning will throw for 251, 252, or 299 yards (5 points in all three cases). We developed our approach to take into account not only past scoring, but also other items such as:

How consistent a player is in week-to-week Fantasy Football points production.

His weekly level of participation.

His scoring trends.

The performance of the defense he is playing against relative to how many passing, rushing, and receiving Fantasy Football points (not yards) they have previously allowed.

Finally, we pass all the numbers, I'm told it comes out to more that 280 per player per week, through some proprietary statistical routines (known only to our two Rocket Scientists, Rocket Man and KirkC) to get the final predictions.

Yes, StatLeader does charge for our information ($9.99 for any one of the 11 leagues we follow or $19.99 for all 11, and your membership is good for a full year). Add to this all of the extra features currently on the member site, well, you'll be making a pretty good investment.

Finally,

Doc's Bottom Line: Same as the headline. You get what you pay for. In my humble opinion, any system that forecasts Ahman Green to score 0.7 rushing TDs this week is worth about as much as you paid for it, nothing.

Note: If you have a question for Doc, or a comment on this or any of his articles, you can reach him here.