I get cocky sometimes about fantasy football. And when I get cocky, I get lazy. And when I get lazy, I scale back my research to spend more time with family. My family loves that. Readers of this page don’t, because my reasoning isn’t as sound and my picks aren’t as accurate.
There was a period last fall when I was hitting 75%-90% of my unconventional weekly predictions week after week: 4-for-4, 7-for-8, and so on. Hard work was paying off. “This is easy,” I thought. Because I’m human, I started getting cocky and believing far more in myself than in my research. Like I had some ability to predict future events. Except, of course, I didn’t.
I’ve known one person with unexplainable predictive abilities: my late grandfather. He didn’t talk about it much, but a few years before he died, at my repeated urging, he gave me a demonstration using a deck of cards. He never touched the cards. We were on opposite sides of the room. It was not a trick. My mind was blown.
He served in the Pacific in World War II as a Naval physician and earned two Purple Hearts. Once during the war he and his squadron were stateside, awaiting orders to ship out for another tour. My grandfather was struck with the sense that if he went, he’d never come back. He requested leave from his commanding officer, and it was granted. A few weeks later, the ship he would have been on sunk. A few years later, my mother was born. And I’m alive because of it.
I‘ve lived in awe at the notion that some people allegedly can perceive things before they happen, and that my existence should not have been. And so I sometimes fall into the trap of believing that my run of good luck in the fantasy world is an unexplainable feat. Again, I’m only human. I get cocky.
Fantasy football success is not granted; it’s earned, driven by three overarching behaviors:
Of course, luck (the good and bad kinds) are the x factors in any prognostication. But over time, the impact of luck wanes, as one’s complete body of work—good or bad—more fully represents one’s abilities to predict the future.
Hard work done the right way breeds fantasy success. Ignore gut instincts. Disregard hunches. Eliminate guesswork. If you catch yourself saying, “I just know so-and-so is gonna blow up this week,” back it up with facts, or else it’s nothing more than a dart throw.
None of this stuff is easy. If it starts to feel that way—and believe me, I’ve been there—get back to the basics and build back up . . . one name, one stat at a time.
Over the next 5+ months, I'm going to make hundreds of predictions. All will be unconventional. Hopefully at least 65% will be correct. Many will be wrong. And we'll learn from both the highs and the lows.
There was a period last fall when I was hitting 75%-90% of my unconventional weekly predictions week after week: 4-for-4, 7-for-8, and so on. Hard work was paying off. “This is easy,” I thought. Because I’m human, I started getting cocky and believing far more in myself than in my research. Like I had some ability to predict future events. Except, of course, I didn’t.
I’ve known one person with unexplainable predictive abilities: my late grandfather. He didn’t talk about it much, but a few years before he died, at my repeated urging, he gave me a demonstration using a deck of cards. He never touched the cards. We were on opposite sides of the room. It was not a trick. My mind was blown.
He served in the Pacific in World War II as a Naval physician and earned two Purple Hearts. Once during the war he and his squadron were stateside, awaiting orders to ship out for another tour. My grandfather was struck with the sense that if he went, he’d never come back. He requested leave from his commanding officer, and it was granted. A few weeks later, the ship he would have been on sunk. A few years later, my mother was born. And I’m alive because of it.
I‘ve lived in awe at the notion that some people allegedly can perceive things before they happen, and that my existence should not have been. And so I sometimes fall into the trap of believing that my run of good luck in the fantasy world is an unexplainable feat. Again, I’m only human. I get cocky.
Fantasy football success is not granted; it’s earned, driven by three overarching behaviors:
- Research: the accumulation of knowledge
- Distillation: separating the useful from the irrelevant
- Application: formulating sound conclusions
Of course, luck (the good and bad kinds) are the x factors in any prognostication. But over time, the impact of luck wanes, as one’s complete body of work—good or bad—more fully represents one’s abilities to predict the future.
Hard work done the right way breeds fantasy success. Ignore gut instincts. Disregard hunches. Eliminate guesswork. If you catch yourself saying, “I just know so-and-so is gonna blow up this week,” back it up with facts, or else it’s nothing more than a dart throw.
None of this stuff is easy. If it starts to feel that way—and believe me, I’ve been there—get back to the basics and build back up . . . one name, one stat at a time.
Over the next 5+ months, I'm going to make hundreds of predictions. All will be unconventional. Hopefully at least 65% will be correct. Many will be wrong. And we'll learn from both the highs and the lows.