Fantasy Football for Smart People: Lessons from RotoAcademy (Volume 1.0)

By Jonathan Bales

RotoAcademy is the world's first fantasy football training school. I founded RotoAcademy to bridge the gap between the average fantasy football player and the game's elite, and I've teamed up with some of fantasy football's top minds to create educational lessons designed to help you win your league. In this inaugural Volume 1.0 edition of Lessons from RotoAcademy, you'll learn:

· How to Project Rookies (and Why They Matter)
· How to Quantify Offensive Line Play
· Why Your Draft Picks Suck (and How to Fix It)
· How to Project Players on New Teams
· What Warren Buffett Can Teach You About Fantasy Football
· And a Whole Lot More

One of the traits that separates RotoAcademy from other fantasy sports services is that we take a truly scientific approach to the game, valuing the pursuit of knowledge as highly as the knowledge itself. We'll show you the latest theories, trends, and stats in fantasy football, but more important, we'll teach you how to be flexible enough to change your strategies based on new evidence. Whether you want to dominate your fantasy football draft or gain an in-season edge, Lessons from RotoAcademy (Volume 1.0) will show you how to approach the game more analytically to become a true long-term winner.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jonathan Bales
• Release date: Jun 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311027061

Jonathan Bales

Jonathan Bales is the author of the Fantasy Football for Smart People series and founder of RotoAcademy. He's a regular contributor to the New York Times, where he posts both "real" and fantasy football content, as well as NBC, Dallas Morning News, RotoWorld, 4for4, and rotoViz. He was a finalist for the FSWA's Fantasy Football Series of the Year award.

Book preview

Fantasy Football for Smart People: Lessons from RotoAcademy (Volume 1.0)

Jonathan Bales

Copyright Jonathan Bales 2014

Published at Smashwords

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All Rights Reserved ©2014

Jonathan Bales. First Printing: 2014. The editorial arrangement, analysis, and professional commentary are subject to this copyright notice. No portion of this book may be copied, retransmitted, reposted, duplicated, or otherwise used without the express written approval of the author, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.

United States laws and regulations are public domain and not subject to copyright. Any unauthorized copying, reproduction, translation, or distribution of any part of this material without permission by the author is prohibited and against the law.

Disclaimer and Terms of Use: Your reliance upon information and content obtained by you at or through this publication is solely at your own risk. The author assumes no liability or responsibility for damage or injury to you, other persons, or property arising from any use of any product, information, idea, or instruction contained in the content or services provided to you through this book. Reliance upon information contained in this material is solely at the reader's own risk. The authors have no financial interest in and receive no compensation from manufacturers of products or websites mentioned in this book.

Fantasy Football for Smart People: Lessons from RotoAcademy, Volume 1.0

Table of Contents

Fantasy Football for Smart People: Lessons from RotoAcademy (Volume 1.0) contains fantasy football lessons from the world’s first fantasy football school. Enroll to be a student at RotoAcademy.com.

Preface

1 My fantasy quarterback has really big…hands

2 I Got 99 Problems and Jay Z’s Lack of Knowledge Concerning RB Aging Rates Is Definitely One

3 Why should I give a shit about rookies?

4 How to Predict Which Rookie WRs Will Have Elite NFL Careers

5 Keenan Allen, Alshon Jeffery, and College WR Dominance

6 Being Receptive to Different Points of View

7 Why do my draft picks always suck? A statistical look at why your draft picks always suck

8 A New Way to Look at Rookie Wide Receivers

9 How important is goal-line work in fantasy football?

10 How useful is film study in fantasy football?

11 If You’re a Wide Receiver, Don’t Let Women Fool You: Size Matters

12 How much does size matter for running backs?

13 Rin Tin Tin and the Importance of NFL Draft Slots

14 How quickly do elite players become elite?

15 Is it better to draft earlier or later in the year?

16 The Tao of Fantasy Football

17 The Big Uglies, Fantasy Production, and the Tale of Little Joey

18 Stay Away From The NFL Free Agency Kool-Aid!

19 What Warren Buffett Can Teach Us About Fantasy Football

20 Understanding Position Scarcity and Long-Term Position Trends

Postface

Preface

In early 2014, I started a fantasy football training school called RotoAcademy. It’s a newsletter-based service through which every month subscribers receive a book-length PDF with in-depth fantasy football analysis and advice. It’s basically the same sort of content as what’s in the other books in my Fantasy Football for Smart People series, except 1) delivered to your e-mail each month and 2) cheaper. I’ve priced RotoAcademy such that it will always be the best value to enroll.

Fantasy Football for Smart People: Lessons from RotoAcademy—The Fantasy Football School (Volume 1.0) is the first time I’ve published RotoAcademy content in book form. My hope is that you’ll enjoy the lessons you read here enough to enroll in the school. For just a few bucks a month, I think the value is undoubtedly there.

The ultimate goal behind the school is truly to build you into the best fantasy owner that you can be. That doesn’t mean giving you every pick or explaining why I like Player X this year, but rather showing you how the best fantasy owners think.

To accomplish that goal, the content is timeless and presented in a "Nietzschean manner; each topic represents a semi-independent thought. That means you can jump around as you’d like; you don’t necessarily need to read the book in the traditional front-to-back manner. If you’re not particularly interested in a specific section, feel free to skip it. I urge you to come back to each section at some point, however, as the answers to even the most obvious" of questions aren’t always so straightforward.

In addition to running RotoAcademy, I’ve also written multiple new books this year, which you can buy on Amazon or at FantasyFootballDrafting.com. At the latter site, I’ll be selling my draft guide—complete with projections, rankings, sleepers, and more. I’ll also be selling an in-season guide with weekly projections and values for daily fantasy sites like DraftKings. When I started that in 2013, it became way more popular than I envisioned, so it will be back and better than ever this year.

Thanks for your support, and best of luck this season!

Some Free Fantasy Football Stuff for You

I like giving things away, so here’s some stuff for you. The first is 10 percent off anything you purchase on my site—all books, all rankings, all draft packages, and even past issues of RotoAcademy. Just go to FantasyFootballDrafting.com and use the code Smart10 at checkout to get the savings.

The second freebie is an issue of RotoAcademy. I’m really excited about this product and I think if you start reading, you’ll be hooked and become a full-time student. Some of the content in there is also in this book, but much of it is unique, too. By downloading the guide, you’ll be able to see the format and the length of the PDFs you’ll receive each month. Remember, this is a year-long training course that’s absolutely guaranteed to turn you into a dominant fantasy owner.

Go to FantasyFootballDrafting.com for your free issue (RotoAcademy Issue II), add the item to your cart, and enter RA100 at checkout to get it free of charge.

Finally, I’ve partnered with DraftKings to give you a 100 percent deposit bonus when you sign up there. DraftKings is the main site where I play daily fantasy football. Deposit there through one of my links (or use https://www.draftkings.com/r/Bales) to get the bonus, use the Smart10 code to buy my in-season package at FantasyFootballDrafting.com (complete with DraftKings values all year long), and start cashing in on your hobby.

A whole lot of readers profited last year, with one cashing $25,000 in multiple leagues since purchasing my in-season package. There’s an outstanding investment opportunity in daily fantasy sports right now, and there’s really no reason for you not to get involved. With my in-season package, you’ll have all the ammunition you need to win right out of the gate.

Okay, how about we start this thing off with a discussion about the hand size of grown men, huh?

Chapter 1 My fantasy quarterback has really big…hands

Jenn Sterger. So sexy, yet so subtle classy nevermind. But she’s more than sex appeal, because Jenn—the woman quarterback Brett Favre graced with a photo of his shlong—ultimately led to the creation of this article.

When news broke that Favre won the award for grossest text ever sent, I did what was bound to happen at some point in my life anyway: I Google’d Brett Favre’s dick.

Most of the results were blurred out, but—and this is an open forum so we should just be honest with each other here—that wasn’t gonna cut it; Favre’s cock was out there on the internet waiting to be seen and, like any red-blooded American man, I knew I had to find it.

I searched day and night. I barely ate or slept, knowing what I had to do. I was on a mission to bring BFD to the people and, after what seemed like weeks but was in all likelihood about 10 minutes, I did, damn it, I did.

When I finally laid eyes on it, only one emotion flowed through me: disappointment. How could Favre, 6’2", 222 pounds, a legend in the NFL, be so…small!? I don’t know if I ever specifically thought about BFD before the whole Sterger fiasco (I did), but what I do know is that I never would have guessed it would resemble a baby carrot of flesh resting in his hand. It basically looked like his love line.

HOW COULD THIS BE!? It didn’t make any sense. Maybe it really was a banana in his pants this entire time. I went for a jog. I took a shower. I paced. I watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (that’s not related but really just a classic).

Then it hit me. Favre’s dick isn’t small—it’s just that his hands are so big. It’s a cock-tical illusion!

And could it be that the very trait that led us all to believe that Favre’s packing as much heat as a traffic cop is also what made him such a great quarterback? Could big hands lead to passing success?

Let’s take a look.

Quarterbacks and Hand Size

Quarterbacks need to be tall. They need to be tall to see over the offensive and defensive lines. If you aren’t tall, you’re not going to have much of an opportunity to be a championship-caliber quarterback.

That’s the popular opinion around the NFL, and I don’t buy it. Sure, extra height might help a quarterback in certain situations, up to a point. Given the choice between a 6’5 quarterback and a 6’0 quarterback with all other things being equal or unknown, I’ll take the taller one.

But I don’t think height matters all that much, and certainly not to the extent that people believe, even though I’ve done studies showing taller quarterbacks have more NFL productivity and efficiency than shorter ones.

How can that be? Well, I believe height is very strongly correlated with a trait that matters quite a bit for NFL quarterbacks—hand size. Tall quarterbacks typically have larger hands than shorter ones; if hand size were really important for passers, we’d expect the tallest ones to perform the best even if height doesn’t matter at all.

To test this idea, I charted as many quarterback hand sizes and career NFL stats as I could. I found hand measurements for every quarterback who was drafted since 2008, but before that, it’s a crapshoot. Hand sizes weren’t recorded well before that time and there’s really no reliable source to find that data. Some pre-2008 quarterback hand sizes have been made public in various places, however, so I collected as much information as possible.

To start,