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Projections are hard, especially when it comes to Fantasy North American Football. The list of caveats that come with evaluating a single player’s offensive performance any given week are many.
- Weather
- Home vs. Away
- Thursday game limited prep
- Offensive Coordinator Whims
- Injury
- Injury to another offensive player or lineman
- Injury to defensive player(s)
- Flow-of-game
- Defense’s efficiency increasing offensive attempts
The bullet points could go on long enough to make this less of a fantasy article, and more sharpshooting fodder for someone walking down a flight of stairs. With baseball and basketball, certain biases can be ignored as there is almost daily data dumps to guide your internal analysis with outside projections. Football is mercurial by its very nature.
There’s a scene in the new season of Ted Lasso (post-Christmas episode, mind you. Save that one for the holiday season, where it makes sense and doesn’t immediately cause the world to break out in hivemind pearl-clutching) where SPOILER begrudging TV Commentator Roy Kent is asked how a young player will perform, and he chooses honesty; he doesn’t know how individual players will perform, that pundits just guess and pass judgment, and that the very pre-game television show is essentially hokum. I think we all know that punditry in sports journalism tends to err on the side of entertainment over honest analysis, but the larger point is sound. Let’s apply this honesty to projections generated on a Monday morning for the following weekend’s games.
Projections and blurbs leading up to the first slate of games posted on Monday morning are fun to read, but they lodge themselves in the back of your cranium like peanut butter on the top of a dog’s mouth. They will influence your behavior, these too-early projections. They will be the small wavering hesitation of your thumb as it decides whether to toggle your RB from bench to flex on Sunday at 11:55am, the very thing telling you to bench a player that every other fiber of your being knows will perform well. You gotta listen to those fibers, friends. They keep you regular!
With that in mind…
A Blurbstomp Reminder
We will analyze player blurbs from a given evening, knowing that 1-2 writers are usually responsible for all the player write-ups posted within an hour of the game results. We will look at:
- Flowery Diction – how sites juice up descriptions of player performance
- Q and Q – when a site contradicts a player valuation on back-to-back blurbs
- Formatting Foibles – when a blurbsite deals with an unknown quantity
- Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award – Given to the player blurb that promises the most and delivers the least.
- Reader’s Indigestion – Readers submit the blurbs that wounded their soul
The hope is that by season’s end, we’ll all feel more confident about our player evaluations when it comes to the waiver wire. We will read blurbs and not be swayed by excessive superlatives, faulty injury reporting, and micro-hype. I will know that I have done my job when Grey posts, and there isn’t a single question about catchers that he did not address in his post. Onward to Roto Wokeness!
Flowery Diction
Mark Ingram and Phillip Lindsay are expected to see most of the work in a run heavy Texans “attack.”
The Texans also have David Johnson and Rex Burkhead, who are likely to see work as well. With just five wide receivers on the roster, the Texans aren’t built for high volume passing. Instead they’re likely to repeatedly run the ball whenever they have the chance. With a win total of just four games, the lowest in the league, this plan of attack seems destined for a head-on collision with reality. Nevertheless, the Houston’s offensive philosophy is likely to yield slower paced games that are far less fantasy friendly for opposing teams than in years past. The Texans host the Jaguars in Week 1.
Source: Rotowire.com
Green squiggly underlines (I’m seeing red squiggly underlines on my final draft) tells me that the above blurb-prose contains over-use of hyphenated phrases, but then not employing said hyphen (run heavy, high volume, slower paced, fantasy friendly). Speaking of which, I used two parentheses in that last sentence. I’m sure Strunk & White are waiting on the roof of my building, waiting for me to emerge from my writing cave into the sunlight, only to bathe me in boiling tar and white feathers. I’ll be a beautiful swan, albeit a swan screaming in agony as my skin sl…Fantasy football, right?
Attack is in quotation marks, immediately letting me know that this blurb would serve as a vicious hit piece. This was filed under Mark Ingram’s player profile, but it hardly seems fair, as the analysis contains no information about Ingram. In fact, the blurb’s main purpose seems to be trashing the entire Texans offense, and also somehow any offensive team they face. This blurbist has been burned, friends, burned. I used repetition and italics to really emphasize the level of burning. I hope you all picked up on that. Either way, this read like the blurbist wanted to stomp on their own blurb, a concept I’m only just starting to wrap my melon around. Blurbhausen effect?
Q and Q
ESPN’s Jeff Dickerson said David Montgomery will rush for 1,400 yards in 2021.
Dickerson cited head coach Matt Nagy’s pledge to give Montgomery 20 carries a game as justification for his prediction. “Montgomery is too good to ignore — the Bears have to feed him,” Dickerson said. “If the Bears once again become one-dimensional on offense, forget about it. There is too much at stake for that to happen.” There’s no way Montgomery — who notched 16.3 carries a game in 2020 — will see 20 totes a game, as only Dalvin Cook and Derrick Henry averaged more than 20 carries per game last year. The Bears would have to be a vastly improved team for Montgomery to challenge Cook and Henry as preeminent workhorses. Montgomery’s upside lies in his pass-catching role, which is far from a sure thing headed into Week 1.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
The game of Kindergarten Telephone continues. The purpose of the blurb is to inform you that one Jeff Dickerson declared that David Montgomery will rush for 1,400 yards on 20 carries a game in 2021. Now for some bullet-pointed copy to make sense of the erroneous and biasing nature of this blurb:
- Dickerson made this projection in a linked “ESPN Bold Predictions” piece. Not a data-or-anecdotally-backed projection, but a water cooler conversation starter.
- Hence, “Jeff Dickerson said” is not an accurate header for this blurb. He made an entertaining bold prediction because they’re fun to make, and because he was paid to do so. Said puts a nuanced level of trust in the reader, as if it was a fact.
- “If the Bears once again become one-dimensional on offense, forget about it. There is too much at stake for that to happen.” What does this mean? One-dimensional regarding the run or pass-heavy? Forget about what? Montgomery getting 20 carries? What’s at stake? Nagy’s job, the Bears’ playoff aspirations? WHY IS THIS QUOTE INCLUDED IN THE BLURB?!?
- Blurbist then immediately discounts the take based on actual evidence from last season.
- So…why?
I guess this blurb exists to remind everyone that David Montgomery is the running back of the Chicago Bears, and that he will probably not receive 20 carries. This blurb isn’t even about David Montgomery, it seems to be about Jeff Dickerson’s Bold Predictions, but I get that it would be confusing to create a player page for a writer working for your direct competitor. This brings me to my next blurb…
Formatting Foibles
Ron Rivera
Washington Football Team co-owner Tanya Snyder confirmed that the organization is down to three options in their hunt for a new name.
The three names they are choosing from are not public information. The Washington Football Team will roll with the generic name for the second consecutive season, but Snyder at least confirms that they are making inroads on selecting their name of the future.
Source: Rotoedgeworldsports.com
If you’re managing a Player News section on a fantasy sports website, why do we occasionally get blurbs that have no bearing on fantasy sports, and are labeled so incoherently? Why is Ron Rivera the “player” this is filed under? What does the name change have to do with anything besides trolling D*n Sn*der? They do this for baseball and basketball too. I guess I’m confused why they give player profiles to coaches and not owners. I would love if owners had their own player profile pages, including how much money they’re making from the franchise, how much taxpayers are footing the bill for the team’s stadium vs. what the owner contributed, and how much the owner makes a year vs. how much they put towards player salaries. Do it, Rotoworld, take your toe out of the rhetorical pool and put your whole dang foot in the drink! Imagine the water cooler conversations then! Oh, and the team names: Washington Waffles, Washington Wallflowers, or the Washington Warios. You’ll never guess which team is leading fan voting!
Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award
The 49ers’ Week 1 depth chart listed Jimmy Garoppolo as the starting quarterback ahead of Trey Lance.
This doesn’t come as a surprise, especially with Trey Lance still recovering from a chipped bone in his finger. While Lance is expected to be ready for Week 1, San Francisco has treated Garoppolo as their starter for most of the preseason, and Lance didn’t do enough to beat him out for the QB1 job. With that being said, it’s unlikely Garoppolo holds the starting role for the entire year, and Lance would immediately be in the top-12 conversation for fantasy purposes once he gets the nod.
Source: Rotoedgeworldsports.com
This was the easy winner, as it is content that exists despite itself. You don’t lead a blurb’s analysis with, “This doesn’t come as a surprise…,” as rhetorically you just showed the world your knickers. If it’s news, but it’s not a surprise and based on prior knowledge, is it actually news? Isn’t it technically “olds?” I feel stupider having carved out thoughts on this subject, but I feel stupid every time I peruse the cable bill and see that I’m still renting a modem, and also, cable bill? We don’t have cable, and we have use wireless, so virtually no cables are necessary. It’s a double negative.
We learned nothing. Not true. We learned that I refer to my internet bill as my cable bill, and have thus found myself owned by my crumbling cognition. The plan that was discussed is still the plan, Jimmy is still QB, Trey is waiting in the wings, and I’m certainly not on first-name basis with either of the fine people. How gauche!
Reader’s Indigestion
Reader bobsnyder4210, whose suffixed numerals I read as 420 because I am a tiny tater tot baby with the brain of a baked ham, found this little beauty of circular logic. This circle is drawn by a cat whose paws were crudely wrapped in gauze around a pencil:
From RotoNBCEdgeWorld:
“Ravens RB Justice Hill suffered a torn Achilles’ during Thursday’s practice.
It explains why the Ravens tried out Le’Veon Bell, Devonta Freeman, and Elijah Holyfield on Monday. Hill, initially slated to be active as the team’s No. 3 back by default, will go on season-ending injured reserve and begin the long road back to 2022. With only Gus Edwards and Ty’Son Williams available at this time, both should be expected to handle an immense amount of work while a dusty veteran eventually gets up to speed behind them. Williams will undoubtedly be listed as a priority add in John Daigle’s Waiver Wire column on Tuesday.”
Specifically, this: “…both should be expected to handle an immense amount of work while a dusty veteran eventually gets up to speed behind them.” We already expected Gus to get JK’s work. We already expected Williams to get most of what used to be Gus’ work. How does bringing in veterans for workouts all of a sudden mean an “immense amount of work” that is any different from what they were going to be doing anyway? If anything, bringing in a veteran like Bell means one of them is in danger of having little to no work in the very near future. Or am I missing something??”
Bobsndyer4210, the only thing you’re missing is the amount of time spent reading and analyzing this here blurb. You’ll never get that time back, and you will only leave with more questions if you return to the labyrinth. Escape now while you still have the chance, for I am the minotaur and my pity is shortlived!
Till next week, stay bored and blurb on!
