Finding Hidden Value for Fantasy Football

Fantasy football can require a lot of micro managing, but that’s some of the fun to the sport. Spotting a statistical trend and knowing how to take advantage of it, knowing who to start and sit, and knowing what the matchups are like. Then there’s the whole issue of drafting strategy, at what point do you take certain players, how do you evaluate them in terms of statistics and rankings. It can be hard to keep up on everything, and know how to do things right, but there’s plenty of help available. You don’t want to be the guy from Los Angeles, CA who has to put up with the guy in the league who teases you as being the reason why Los Angeles, CA doesn’t get an NFL team. One of the tricks to learn is player evaluation.

The NFL has moved from over specialization, slowly to hybridization. The goal is for teams to force the other side to guess, that means you have players who can’t be easily labeled as a single thing. The hybrid Tight End is taking the NFL by storm, they can play in close to the line and handle the physicality of linebackers and safeties, and block well enough to be an aid in the run game, but they can also split out wide and with their size be problems for corner backs to handle. Knowing how to evaluate a player as something beyond their listed position on the depth chart can help a prospective fantasy football player take proper advantage.

There are also other issues involved when making draft, start, and sit decisions, knowing the schedules of the teams can help a lot, and knowing the schemes they run. Some teams will sell out to stop another team’s number one threat, so playing someone like Larry Fitzgerald against them might not benefit a fantasy football team owner. Instead you might want to look elsewhere. Other teams will try to play an offensive start straight up and shut down the lesser weapons and make it so that one player has to beat them. This strategy can actually stymie an offense, and lead to a big fantasy football victory. Knowing these defensive tendencies (and this is just general) can help you make the day to day decisions. Knowing which players are undervalued because their position is a misnomer is a huge advantage. If you want to be the guy in Los Angeles, CA who can tease the other players with local teams that their teams deserve a better class of fan, then knowing how to combine scheme, and player role, can lead to huge fantasy football decisions.