The fantasy industry is filled with opinionated people. There's nothing wrong with that. Sports and opinions go hand-in-hand. There's the game, and there's what should've happened in the fourth quarter if the QB had just looked left. There are guys who are "washed up" and "undervalued" and "physical mismatches" and "due for a rebound." There are starters who look unstoppable, and backups who look out of place, and vice versa.
What we observe sometimes goes several steps beyond opinion. It can form the basis for what we believe about players. It's seemingly irrefutable. It's "truth."
That's the slippery slopes of opinions, or judgments. And in this industry, analysts are supposed to have opinions about nearly every player. Because opinions suggest knowledge, or in this case, specialized knowledge. That's a lot of slippery slopes.
So when Sony Michel signed with the Chargers yesterday, most fantasy analysts had an opinion. Some insist he's going to be the new #2 RB behind Austin Ekeler. Others are confident he'll pick up scraps with Isaiah Spiller and Joshua Kelley. Still others view Michel as a terrific goal-line threat. And yes, any of these might be right. The Chargers might also dump him later this month if Spiller gets moving. Or they could go all in on a guy who racked up 229 touches last year, and who could easily crack 150 without compromising Ekeler's usage (for context, Kelley had 134 touches in 14 games two years ago).
Opinions alone aren't a problem. But they can become a problem when they're disguised as facts--as truth--and ignore all of the other possible truths to explore.
When we hear someone say that managers "shouldn't" draft Player B before the fifth round, that's a red flag, and not just because it's insulting to managers who disagree. When we read that a starting RB's job is "safe," that's a red flag, because historically a sizable minority of starting RBs lose their job each season, often unexpectedly. And going back to Sony Michel, when we learn what he'll supposedly mean to his new offense, we need to take a step back.
Because as fantasy managers, we should be asking more questions than we can answer. Absolutely no one knows what role Michel will take on, just as no one knows what impact Kenyan Drake will have in Baltimore.
Each player's value is designed differently. Some have very narrow ranges of outcomes, assuming full healthy. Most first- and even second-round fantasy draft picks fit into this group. Most top-10 QBs probably aren't at much risk of falling outside the top 20. The same for most top-8 TEs. There are always anomalies, and most of us do our best not to overweight anomalies when developing our rankings.
Others players have relatively wide ranges of outcomes, whether because they're above-average injury risks, or age-based regression candidates, or at risk of losing their favorable positioning on the depth chart. Or conversely, because they're rookie backups who could realistically start by midseason, or an untested starter who might or might not take a huge leap forward.
Whether you hear it from me or anyone else (and please call me out if you hear it from me), ignore absolutist thinking. As you prepare to draft this next week, don't buy into definitive analyses. As you manage your teams this season, embrace complexity and uncertainty, because that's what compels us to dig deeper and get smarter.
We get in trouble when we're long on opinions and short on curiosity. In our desire for quick answers, we might never consider most of the best answers. In Houston, based on personnel, Dameon Pierce looks like a bellcow lock. He also earned 10+ carries in only nine of his 48 college games. How might he respond to a weekly 16+ touch workload? Will Houston add a veteran like Devonta Freeman or Latavius Murray, capping Pierce's ceiling? Historically, how do bellcows fare in bottom-8 offenses? And so on.
In these final days before Week 1, don't be satisfied with simple answers to complex questions. And don't stop asking questions.
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