This page breaks down the fantasy season into roughly four parts: preseason team-by-team assessments, mystery content, fantasy regular season, and fantasy playoffs.
What the heck is "mystery content"? It's the period that begins today, right after the rundown of the defending Super Bowl champs, and it ends the day before Week 1. With the other three parts, I have a good sense of what I'm going to write about. But this one-month stretch is a crapshoot. We've got preseason games, sudden injuries, injury-related setbacks, looming suspensions, holdouts, and anything/everything else that might influence who we draft in each round.
My goal here is to keep things simple and interesting. Simplicity means focusing on things that I understand, and which have clear-cut fantasy implications. You won't hear me pontificating on how Wide Receiver ABC saw more targets on second downs versus first downs. Maybe someone smarter than me can connect the dots between that and future production. I can't. I call it a stat orphan -- something that might be interesting, but doesn't influence my decision making.
The "interesting" angle is a yearly challenge. Some of you have been with me for as long as a decade. While many of the players change, the themes often remain the same. This motivates me to write what I care about, because if I care about it, hopefully you do, too.
There are three things I care most about when assessing fantasy values: what's happening in the real world for each of these players and the surrounding personnel impacting their outlooks; what homegrown research can I share that might shed light on the most probable outcomes; and what are my biggest pain points?
The first "thing" is pretty basic. Alvin Kamara reportedly has been suspended for the first three games. As subscribers might have noticed, my ranking of Kamara, Jamaal Williams, and Kendre Miller didn't change, because I had assumed he'd be suspended for 2-4 games. Had the news gone differently, then it would have been more notable, and it might have spurred a bigger discussion on its fantasy relevance.
Another example: the Colts just signed Kenyan Drake. I had stubbornly kept Jonathan Taylor as a mid-first-round draft pick. But the Drake signing is intriguing. This is potentially actionable news, signaling that Indy's shallow backfield beyond Taylor (especially after Zack Moss's injury) just got a bit deeper. Perhaps Drake is a straight-up replacement for Moss, and nothing more. Or maybe it gives Indy more flexibility as it deals with the disgruntled Taylor. Either way, this news matters, just as Baltimore's signing of Melvin Gordon matters. Each team is bracing for the possibility that they'll begin the season without their #1 RB.
The second "thing" is research. Over the years I've explored the impact of RB touches and snap counts; how we might define "middle age" for each position, based on historical numbers; impacts of dual-threat QBs on their RB teammates; home-team fantasy advantages; short- and long-week fantasy advantages; how great and poor defenses correlate with great and poor QB and RB fantasy numbers; and so on.
It's a lot to keep track of, and a lot to update throughout each year. But it's also part of the FF4W DNA. The research has to be actionable. There's a lot of research in various folders on my computer that haven't seen the light of day, and probably never will. It's interesting, but not useful. So I retire it and move on to the next hypothesis.
During this next month, I'm going to write about player news that (I think) matters, and will share thoughts on why and how it matters. And I'll weave in research that (hopefully) challenges conventional wisdom and/or substantiates commonly held theories.
That brings us to the third "thing" in this month of mystery content. As fantasy managers, what are our pain points? How much can we trust high-upside RBs coming off significant injuries, like Breece Hall and Javonte Williams? Can we trust that the Broncos' passing attack will rebound, or should we fade Russell Wilson and his talented receiving corps? And what the heck do we do if Michael Thomas (overall 96 ADP) is available when we pick at #127?
Some players have narrow realistic ranges of outcome. Most have pretty wide ranges. Some (like Josh Jacobs) have ranges that go from zero points to 250+. And if we can get smarter about these guys -- if we can effectively narrow these realistic ranges based on publicly available intel, research, and good ol' fashioned logic -- then we can save ourselves from a lot of headaches, while also capitalizing on largely hidden buying opportunities.
News, research, and pain points should give us a lot to talk about these next 30-some-odd days. As always, jump in and share your opinions on any topic. Ask questions. Answer questions. I have no idea what the fantasy topics will be at this stage. But as we all know, the NFL will give us plenty to talk about.