The 50/50 Rule
If you have been playing Fantasy Football for a few years you’ve probably heard of the 50/50 rule. Basically half the Players you draft won’t be on your roster by season’s end. This isn’t necessarily a fact but you can bet that your final roster will look different if you plan on remaining competitive. As an example I won my Fantasy Football league last year with three key Players on my Roster I didn’t draft. I picked up Alvin Kamara, Jerick McKinnon, and Alex Collins during the Season. On most teams in a 12 team league that Running Back trio would have been amazing. Did I mention that I had drafted Leonard Fournette in the first Round last year as well! Now you should also know that this is in a PPR Keeper League and my Keepers were Antonio Brown and Julio Jones. How could I lose? Well I did trade Julio Jones away midseason. It would be impossible to draft a team that strong. I just made the right trades and waiver wire picks when the opportunity arose.
This year’s draft has already been completed. You can see the condensed online draft with all of my selections on the Cobe Life YouTube channel.
Already my roster has gone through some significant changes. I felt pretty good about landing Jerick McKinnon with my only pick in the first two Rounds. That was until he went down with a torn ACL during San Francisco’s last practice of the preseason! I took a flyer on Martavis Bryant because Oakland gave up a third Round pick to acquire him. Well I guess Oakland is in the habit of giving away third Round picks because they cut him on final cut day. In case you haven’t already figured it out, so did I. I also drafted Dez Bryant, planning on stashing him on my Bench for up to 4 weeks with the hopes a decent team would sign him. Unfortunately with the injury to McKinnon and my best Running Back on the bench being Mark Ingram (In case you weren’t aware Ingram begins the season on a four game suspension) I was forced to abandon my plan and drop Dez so I could pick up McKinnon’s potential back up Matt Brieda. With my initial draft strategy in shambles I also decided to hedge my bets at Quarterback by replacing Martavis Bryant with Alex Smith.
So before the season has even begun I’ve already changed 3 of my players from a total of 15 on the roster. What are the odds that I end up switching four more players over the course of the season? Pretty damn good.
Safe floor vs High ceiling
There are many Fantasy Football pundits that will talk about the importance of choosing Players with a High ceiling. Now there are a number of Players with exceptionally high ceilings that are guaranteed to score you a fair amount of points every week. The more of those Players on your team the merrier. But what about the Players with High ceilings and seriously low floors? It’s great when your Flex Player gets you 15 points, but it isn’t much of a picnic when they get you 1.3 points. This is where Safe Floor Players come in. In order to understand what your mix of Players should be in your league you need to understand how many points are required to win on average each week. In my PPR Keeper League it usually takes about 125 points to have a decent chance to win each week. Your starting roster requirements are 1 Quarterback, 2 Running Backs, 2 Wide Receivers, 1 Tight End, 1 Flex (RB, WR, TE) 1 Kicker, and 1 Defence. Breaking it down by position the average amount of points you are looking for are QB-20pts, RB-15pts, WR-15pts, TE-10pts, K-7pts, DEF-8pts. So a totally average week would net you 120pts. So somebody on your roster needs to exceed their weekly average to help guarantee your victory. Of course some of your players could under perform as well. So what is the best way to prepare for the inevitable? The answer is having two thirds of your starting roster as Safe Floor Players. I would rather a Running Back or Wide Receiver that gets me 10 to 12 guaranteed points every week as my number 2 or Flex than a Player that gets me over 20 points once every four weeks, and less than 10 points the others. Just cause they have a high ceiling doesn’t mean they are Fantasy gold. The rest of your roster should be filled with High Ceiling hopefully Safe Floor Players. A great example of a Safe Floor Player is the Number two Slot Receiver on any team with a decent offense in a PPR league. They might not catch many touchdowns but they generally catch around 5 passes minimum every week for over 50 yards. A good High ceiling Player to target is the deep threat Wide Receiver or Bell cow back on a High scoring team.
Don’t Stream just Target
People preach streaming Defenses, Kickers, and even Quarterbacks. I won’t knock their choice because I’ve done it myself. It can work provided you find yourself in the right situation to do it. First of all you won’t have success streaming a particular position if two or more other Managers are streaming that position as well. You don’t want to find yourself fighting to claim Ryan Tannehill off of waivers because he happens to be playing the New York Jets. Secondly you need to temper your expectations. Just because somebody is playing in a favourable match up doesn’t necessarily mean they will finish with a favourable result. Especially if they aren’t a Top tier talent. Thirdly it’s sometimes a lot more work thsn it’s worth. While you are trying to decide which Defense to stream that week your opponent noticed that Carlos Hyde pulled a Hamstring during practice and quickly snatched Nick Chubb as a free agent. There’s enough to think about during a Fantasy Football season. Why give yourself more?
Some positions don’t matter
This is one of the most idiotic beliefs in Fantasy Football. Don’t worry about which Kicker you draft because you can always pick one up in Free Agency. That’s total horse shit! Wait until you lose because your kicker on that high scoring offense finds himself in a heavy snowfall in November and finishes with 1 point, while your opponent was laughing his way into the winners column with New Orleans Kicker playing at home inside the Superdome. Just wait on a Defense because they are too unpredictable from year to year. Another totally daft statement. You want to talk unpredictable? Lets talk about starting Running Backs! I won my league last year because a number of Top Running Backs got injured. The Dalvin Cook injury made Jerick McKinnon a marquee starter. Mark Ingram wasn’t at 100% so Alvin Kamara progressed faster than anticipated. The Top Team in my league on paper lost their considerable advantage when David Johnson injured his wrist in the first game of the season. You would think that might be enough to scrap the entire season for that team. Well she still made the Playoffs and won her division. You know how she did it? She did it by dominating on Defense. That’s right! Not only did she spend a mid Round pick on the Jacksonville Jaguars. She also picked up the Minnesota Vikings when another Manager dropped them because he was streaming Defenses. For the rest of tbe season she switched back and forth between the two Defenses depending on which one had the better match up and averaged WR2 numbers! When did you draft your WR2? I doubt if it was in the 10th Round! While everyone else in the league was getting 6 to 10 points per week from their Defense, she was getting 11 to 15. She drafted Carlos Hyde as her third Running Back because he was undoubtedly the number 1 in San Francisco (safe floor) and he was a serviceable replacement for David Johnson. So what did that all add up to? Fantasy Football victories!
Don’t listen to the “Experts”, just use common sense and you’ll do fine.
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