In the 75th installment of The Wrong Read, Blair Andrews takes a deep dive into the metrics that best help us find Year 2 running back breakouts. Does efficiency make a difference? Can we beat draft position? Are we looking for different profiles from late picks compared to early picks? Last week I explored which Year 1 metrics help us predict Year 2 wide receiver…...

Earlier this week I explored George Pickens’ chances for a Year 2 breakout. While he’s got a lot going in his favor, there are some red flags. But it does raise the question of which metrics actually matter for predicting Year 2 breakouts. Which red flags should we actually be concerned about? Which metrics are so important that they drown out any red flags? How…...

Blair Andrews turns to the running back position to examine the effects of draft age. How much of a difference does it make, if any? Last week I detailed why I am an ageist about rookie wide receivers. It may come as no surprise to discover I’m an ageist about rookie running backs as well. While the benefits of declaring early and breaking out at…...

Earlier this offseason I made an appearance on Ship Chasing to participate in a rookie mock draft. I had the second pick and took Drake London, explaining that I was breaking the tie between him and Treylon Burks in favor of London because he is more than a year younger than Burks. The responses in the comments included joking accusations of ageism. All I can…...

Curtis Patrick reviews the process of choosing a dynasty orphan fantasy football team to build into a perennial winner.  I love dynasty football as much as anyone I’ve ever met. Thus, the winter siren song of startup drafts calls loudly to me. I’ve already turned down offers for new leagues. Eventually, I’ll relent because I enjoy working the board and collecting rookies during the draft…...

Blair Andrews revisits his research on running back draft age. Do younger RBs still provide an edge? Where does that edge come from? And which RBs should we be targeting in redraft and trading for in dynasty? We know, when looking for fantasy wide receiver prospects, younger is generally better. Does this hold for running back prospects? In the Wrong Read, No 30, I found…...

It’s not an overstatement to say we’re obsessed with age at RotoViz. This is especially true when it comes to wide receiver prospects. Breakout age is one of our favorite metrics. We always prefer receivers who declare early. And draft age has long been a key piece of our wide receiver evaluation. It’s been a few years since I’ve looked specifically at draft age, so…...

In the 68th edition of the Wrong Read, Blair Andrews uses a random forest to help you find the most important metrics for wide receiver evaluation. A couple of years ago, I did a fun study called the Ultimate WR Prospect Metrics Guide to determine which metrics best correlated with NFL success. That was a good first step, but it had a couple of holes…....

The year is 2021 and we are still having the same debate that’s been going on for over 10 years. It is particularly poignant this year with the cancellation of the NFL combine due to COVID-19. Why are pro day forty times faster than combine forty times and should we be adjusting them to get an apples-to-apples comparison with official combine laser timing? With no…...

Elite running backs are a precious commodity in dynasty fantasy football. Dave Caban outlines a simple way to maximize your chances of finding tomorrow’s stars. Earlier this month I used regression tree analysis to better understand wide receiver prospect profiles. Regression trees help us to understand the mixture of attributes that tend to drive NFL performance and provide a visual way to understand how these…...

Freak Score is our home-grown size-adjusted speed metric that uses height, weight, and speed to project the TD-scoring potential for NFL prospects. Unlike many other measures for an NFL prospect’s size/athleticism profile, the Freak Score incorporates player height. Since its inception 6 years ago the NFL has seen a great many changing trends, but the Freak Score has remained a top predictor. I recently went…...