I was on a Mock Draft tonight, and was having a great conversation with a
knowledgeable fan ("Boku", thanks for the chat!) when the topic turned to Joe Flacco's 2010 prospects. "Boku"
was high on Flacco, but I said I was nervous about taking him because of the
Ravens tough schedule of Pass Defenses. "Boku" mentioned (paraphrasing)
that he did not place value on the schedule when looking at a top player pick, because the
schedule is too hard to project. I think the sentiment of a lack of importance
placed on strength of the
opponent/schedule, with all due respect, is a major player scouting miss of many Fantasy Football GM's.
Obviously, it's hard to project the "toughness" (or ease) of a schedule...or
is it?
What don't we do projections on in life? Don't we all make projections
multiple times a day? We take history/data, our experience, and consider possible variables --
and then try to make a sound decision or
prediction. I make a budget at home. I make a budget for business. I look at
conditions, trends, volume, earnings to project stock prices. I estimate routes of
the fastest drive time home. I am making projections all the time.
For example, what would possess someone to have Adrian Peterson # 1 overall
RB for their 2010 Fantasy
Football Draft (I don't recommend that, but...)? Isn't a person making a
"projection" about Adrian Peterson, about his history of success as an RB, their
experience watching him. Then BAM -- a person
decides (or "projects") that Peterson is the best RB, among all RB's
available in the Fantasy Football Draft. We all make some kind
of "projection" on every player we take....either half-baked, well thought out,
or just trusting a magazine's Fantasy Football rankings, (thus a projection made
that the magazine knows better than the person does). We constantly are guessing/projecting the future of
everything in Fantasy Football, but then suddenly HALT
!! The "experts" say -- "YOU CAN'T PROJECT THE TOUGHNESS OF SCHEDULE !!!".
Why not? Why can we project everything else in Fantasy Football, but cannot
project the strength of schedule?
Many things can happen to alter the strength of schedule projections, such as an
injury, a new coach, a new offensive scheme, a new defensive scheme, a trade,
etc. All things we encounter and evaluate when trying to project (example) Ray Rice's
performance, or Sidney Rice's performance. Don't we have similar data to work
with on Team
Defense just the same as the data we have on every individual player? Analyzing
strength of schedule/opponents is critical for preseason (and in-season) Fantasy
Football player scouting.
Perhaps some people think the schedule has no statistical impact on
performance. Let's look at QB's from 2009 in three different ways to make a
case.
- Top Tier QB performance vs. the different levels of Pass Defenses. (Brees, Rodgers, Rivers, Brady, etc)
- "The Rest" = Rookie QB's and mid-level performing starting QB's. ("The Rest" would be -- Garrard, Henne, Campbell,
etc. But no journeymen types.)
- All the starting QB's. (the 2 types above together)
The data is based on:
- Games 1-15, no Game 16
- 3 types of Passing Defenses from 2009 that the QB faced (the top/best
level of Defense faced, the middle level, and the bottom level)
|
FF PPG |
"Top Tier QB's" facing.... |
|
FF PPG |
The "Rest" QB's facing.... |
|
FF PPG |
Combined "Top & Rest" QB's facing.... |
| 12.7 |
vs. Top Level D |
|
7.9 |
vs. Top Level D |
|
10.6 |
vs. Top Level D |
| 16.4 |
vs. Middle Level D |
|
12.9 |
vs. Middle Level D |
|
15.0 |
vs. Middle Level D |
| 19.3 |
vs. Bottom Level D |
|
14.7 |
vs. Bottom Level D |
|
17.8 |
vs. Bottom Level D |
| 16.5 |
All types of Defense |
|
12.0 |
All types of Defense |
|
14.8 |
All types of Defense |
A 7 point per game swing for any QB facing a Top Pass Defense, vs. a Bottom
Level Pass Defense. But schedule/opponent doesn't matter, right?
The hard part of course is projecting the Pass Defense. Can we all agree there are some
Team Defenses we know right away are Top
Defenses? Just like we "know" Adrian Peterson and Peyton Manning will be good
this year? No one can tell me the Jets aren't going to be a top Pass Defense.
They were insanely good last year, and have better personnel this year. See, this
is easy. The Jacksonville Jaguars Pass Defense was awful last year. Were there
any Jacksonville big
personnel moves that are going to race them to a top level Defense (Aaron
Kampman added, off ACL injury, but is that enough to take the Jags to the top)?
Now that's just judging on the gut/logic test. At Metrics we
have...Metrics i.e. all kinds of data on past performance, performance adjusted
for schedule and weather -- all mixed with player and coaching staff scouting.
We have tools to make projections on Team Defense. Any system is fallible, but
we can move the needle in our favor.
With the schedule mind, let's take a look at the "sleeper" Joe Flacco's 2010 and
see if you want to draft him as your Week One starter afterwards. Full
disclosure, I really like Joe Flacco as an NFL QB, but the whole purpose of this
website is to look beyond what we see. We want to verify what we see and project
performance based on
statistical variables and data too.
WEEK ONE = The season starts out
with a trip to face the NY Jets. The Jets were the definitively the worst Pass
Defense for a QB to face in 2009. Giving up an average of only 8.8 FF PPG to
QB's in 2009. If you score 9 points with your QB, you know you are likely to
lose that week. Against the top QB's, the Jets gave up just 10.0 FF PPG to them.
Maybe you will get one point better with Flacco, from 9 to 10? Now the Jets have Kris
Jenkins back, along with Antonio Cromartie, and Jason Taylor. Maybe the Flacco
scoring will actually be much lower then 9-10 fantasy points?
The Jets only gave up double-digit FF scoring to a QB in just 3 of their 16
games (17.9 was the high). Are you really going to pencil in Flacco for 15-20+
FF points against the Jets? Flacco versus Top Pass D's last year -- 8.0 FF PPG.
Flacco projection for Game 1 vs. the Jets has to be an 8-10 FF point performance
at best, possibly worse.
WEEK TWO = Does it get "easier"
with a road game at the Bengals? Flacco versus the Bengals last season (2 games
played) a 4.1 game, and an 8.3 game. A 6.2 FF PPG avg against the Bengals, who
were a top Pass Defense in 2009 and again projected to be in 2010. Do you
think Flacco goes
for 15-20+ FF points in this one? The odds say, NO.
Flacco owners who started him (hypothetically) are now 2 games into the 2010 season, and he has
likely scored +/- 8.0 points per game. That being said, if your starting QB is
scoring 8-10 FF points a game for the first 2 games odds are your Fantasy
Football team is (0-2), and you are in
a total panic as the GM.
WEEK THREE = The Browns gave up
16.3 FF PPG to typical starting QB's in 2009. However, Flacco only averaged 11.9
FF PPG against the Browns last year. The Browns Pass Defense (we see) as
improving under Rob Ryan (brother of Rex). We won't be too negative, and we'll
say that Flacco scores 17 FF points against the Browns in the Ravens home
opener.
WEEK FOUR = The third away game in
first 4 weeks of the season is at Pittsburgh. Flacco averaged 15.0 FF PPG
against the Steelers in 2010, but neither of those games were with Troy Polamalu
in the lineup. The Steelers gave up 17.5 FF PPG to starting (no journeymen) QB's
in 2010 without Polamalu. With Polamalu in the lineup, the Steelers yielded only
6.3 FF PPG to QB's. Maybe with Polamalu back healthy, Flacco will come in
somewhere between the 6 FF points the Steelers have averaged giving up, and
Flacco's 15 FF PPG average against them.. Perhaps another approx. 10 FF point
effort for Flacco, which would be the third 10 (+/-) FF point effort in four
games.
We are now 4 games into this hypothetical 2010 Flacco season, and we are
looking at 3 weak performances and averaging somewhere around 11-12 FF PPG. This
would/will be classified as a "bust". "What is wrong with Flacco", they will
say. It won't be so much about Flacco's talent, as it is the opponents he will
face. It could happen to any QB, it just so happens it is going to occur to Joe
Flacco to start 2010.
This might be the right time to acquire Flacco from a panicky owner, and
acquire on the cheap.
WEEK 5-7 = The will be facing the
Broncos and Bills at home, and an away game with the Patriots. Last year the
Broncos and Bills were two of the toughest teams for a QB to face for FF
scoring. We are not projecting a repeat of that. The Broncos minus D-Coordinator
Mike Nolan, and the Bills having a favorable schedule are two Pass Defenses we
see overrated in 2010, so Flacco should do well against them.
The hidden time bomb is the Week 7 game against the Patriots/Belichick.
Flacco performed fine against the Pats last year, so no problem this
year...right? The Patriots have a Bye week before this home game with the Ravens
game. After the way the Ravens embarrassed Bill Belichick in the playoffs, and
with a Bye week to prepare, it may not go so well for Flacco. Belichick's record
with New England coming off a Bye is (7-2), with 6 straight wins. I think Flacco
could have a poor performance that week (any QB would).
Let's say Flacco scores 35 total FF points in the games against the Bills and
Broncos. But, just 10 FF points vs. the Patriots. We are now 7 weeks into the
2010 season and Flacco may have 4 duds (or worse), and 3 good games -- an
approx. 13 FF PPG average. That would likely be near the bottom of all QB's for
Fantasy Football performance at that point going into the Ravens Bye week.
If this were to come true, do you think Flacco might be easily available to
acquire in trade during the Ravens Bye week? How about maybe even released to
waivers? Why? All because of the way the schedule lines up.
The post-Bye week isn't that great, but is definitely better than the way the
season starts.
- Home with Miami, but we think Miami could be a monster Pass Defense this
year if Mike Nolan can do what he did last year in reviving the Denver
Defense.
- Atlanta away should provide a nice week of FF scoring for Flacco
- Carolina away might be just OK. Panthers are underrated for Defense, and
if the Panthers play ball-control it can limit Flacco's scoring upside.
- Home with Tampa looks nice, but QB's didn't do great against TB last
year...why? Because it was so easy to run all over them. No need to pass
against TB since 12 RB's ran for over 90 yards in a game against them last
year.
- Steelers at home.
- Houston away should be fine, but the Texans are improving.
- Home to New Orleans. That wasn't good for many QB's in 2009, only the
Jets were tougher for QB's to FF score upon.
- Cleveland away in late December could be in a blizzard.
- (The finale' -- home with the Bengals, last game of year, usually not
Fantasy relevant on a number of levels)
We have Flacco projected to score around 15 FF PPG in 2010, putting him
around the 14th best FF QB for 2010 but, there is risk surrounding that
projection. If some of the Pass Defenses we see improving do materialize (i.e.
MIA, HOU, CLE) , and the Pass Defense teams we are very confident in (i.e. NYJ,
CIN, PIT, NO) perform as expected -- then Flacco could be in for a very
underwhelming Fantasy Football season.
The Fantasy Football Draft day play on Flacco, is to pass on him, while
keeping an eye on him as he nears the Bye week to see how cheap he becomes to
acquire.
If you are rejecting taking schedule strength as a consideration for your
player/team projections for the Fantasy Football season, you are not seriously
managing your Fantasy Football Draft or team.
-- R.C. Fischer, Fantasy Football Metrics.com
**Let Fantasy Football Metrics do the schedule analysis for you! Who has
the time and the data base to analyze all these Defenses and schedules? That's
one of the reasons we brought our website into existence, to be an "outsource"
for Fantasy Football GM's. Let us crunch the numbers, and give you the
summarized output. Our Draft Guides/Cheat Sheets are all factored with talent,
performance, and schedule from the prior season and season ahead. Our in-season
services will continually update the view ahead as teams/situations change from
week-to-week, including situations like the recent injury to Ravens CB Domonique
Foxworth. Our Draft Guide is continually updated during the preseason with
the news that affects the projections.
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