On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. This koan comes from Fight Club, or more casually, from Buddhism. We are creatures that are all disintegrating cell-by-cell, moment by moment. But the thought process that comes with that knowledge isn’t solved by nihilism, or the idea that we just give up and discover that life is meaningless. But rather, the point of the koan is to be aware of one’s inevitable demise and to draw attention to the present moment and its value to you. [record scratch] What’s this have to do with fantasy football, EWB? You say, kernels of cheddar cheese popcorn falling out of your mouth and landing in your Country Time Lemonade (thank you to our sponsors).
This sentiment is important to fantasy sports and betting because on a long enough timeline, most players will succeed. Or, at least they’ll arrive at their predictions. And knowing when to be patient and when to cut your losses is one of the most important skills a fantasy footballer (<—Grandma Donk’s words) can have.
At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, professional poker player Mike McDonald made a bet that he could shoot 90 out of 100 free throws. This was a tough bet: only 5 NBA players had shot 90% from the free-throw line in recent years, and McDonald had never played basketball outside of casual pickup games. Yet, McDonald won the bet and pocketed $250,000 because he set the timeline to be quite long: it gave him enough time to recognize his errors and fix them. He knew he had no chance to take a bet on a whim and succeed, so he flipped the odds in his favor by extending the timeline, studying his form, and trying over and over again. As he reported, he realized he didn’t need to be a true 90% shooter to win the bet; he just needed to get on consecutive hot streaks strong enough to add up to 90 free throws within 100 attempts.
And that matters for fantasy football because we all know the situation: “I gave up on that player too early.” Or, “He had a really good week 1 and I was sure he going to repeat.” This is where projections help inform us if a player is due to go on a 90 for 100 free throw streak — or I suppose in football terms, a streak of 100-yard games — or if their big game was just noise among a sea of statistics.
Let’s take a quick example:
Last year, Donkey Teeth projected Kirk Cousins to throw for 4200 yards, 27 TDs, 10 INTs. Here’s how Kirk Cousins actually finished: 4265 yards, 35 TDs, 13 INTs. Now, let’s keep in mind that passing TDs are basically the hardest thing to predict; there’s almost no correlation year over year for passing TDs (except for Russell Wilson, the only QB in the league right now to have 30+ TD seasons continuously from 2017 until now).
So, great work Donk! You basically nailed the Kirk Cousins projection. How cool is that? High five! Except…2000 of those passing yards and 17 of those touchdowns came in the last 6 games of the season. So, 50% of Cousins’ production came in 30% of his games. There’s his hot streak. Only, it started in week 10, probably long after you gave up on him and refused to pick him up off waivers because “he sucks.” And Cousins was, indeed, really bad to start the 2020 season. At one point, Cousins was on pace to throw as many interceptions as 2019 Jameis Winston (over 30). But, Cousins fixed his errors and changed his game and finished the year strong for those players who were paying attention to the data. But if you stuck to your opinion that “Cousins sucks,” you would have missed out on the QB6 to finish the season — a QB who out-scored Kyler Murray, Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Justin Herbert, and Russell Wilson from weeks 10-16..
I dug through my rankings last year, and I told fantasy managers in Week 12 that Kirk Cousins was going to be a top 12 QB rest of season. In my playoff article, I had Kirk Cousins as QB6. The data was there; we just had to listen. We had to be aware.
Now, I’m not here to defend Kirk Cousins. Long-term readers (Hi Grandma Donk!) know that as a Vikings homer, I want Cousins out of the great north. But from a fantasy football standpoint, I use data to analyze my suspicions and remove biases to improve fantasy football outcomes.
This is why it’s important to keep your timeline in mind. Right now, you’ve probably finished your draft and starting at your bench and wondering, “Do I trade my 4th RB? Should I raid the waiver wire? Should I abandon my team and just take up free throw bets?” The answer for all of those is: “It depends on your timeline.”
It depends because a lot of fantasy managers have a bunch of players that may not produce right away. Know how many yards James Robinson got in week 1 of 2020? 62, with 3.8 yards per attempt. Blerg. Did you drop Robinson after just one game? If so, you missed out on his week 2 triumph, when Robinson racked up 100 yards and then started grabbing 5 catches per game. Sometimes players need time to figure out their new role. Wayne Gallman struggled to take the RB1 role with the Giants, competing with veterans Dion Lewis and Devonta Freeman before finally taking the higher snap load in week 7 and finally getting his footing in week 9, when he went off for nearly 600 yards in the second half of the season. Unfortunately, Gallman just got cut from the 49ers. Will we see Gallman be another 2nd half hero for a different team in 2021?
So, keep that timeline in mind as you play this year. If you pick up the 2021 version of James Robinson or Wayne Gallman and drop him after a week, you’re handing your opponents free points. Conversely, if you’re holding onto Devonta Freeman because “he’s gotta get snaps!”, you’re succumbing to a sunk cost fallacy: just because you drafted them or have personal expectations, doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll succeed on a short timeline.
Your job as a fantasy manager, then, is to know the point on the timeline where patience turns into sunk cost. The more you can fine-tune that intuition with data — and often it truly is intuition — the more you’ll feel empowered to make your own decisions and excel at fantasy football. Or, you can just play best ball and not worry about it whatsoever.
What are your thoughts on player timelines in 2021? Are there players you’re thinking of holding onto for a week 2 or 3 breakout? Let us know down in the comments!
