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| A pickled Mantasy. |
There is something about Tuesday that is refreshing, win or lose. The rankings reset, the standings update, and your team gets to breathe and prepare. The hoping is over and the preparation begins. Eight game minutes left now - Rodgers just got lit up. It is a late hit and his calf is cramping. He defines Mantasy - likable, consistent, durable, and fun to watch. He has me thinking about these types of players. When it come to the allure of fantasy football, owners love the power chips - the guys that lead the week and put up the big points. There are so many good players, but there a few that lead us to victory. They are our captains, and I thought it might be interesting to catalogue them thus far.
Here is a chart of each owner's top scorer with the week's result underneath. I will attempt to point out correlations, but I admit to doing this for fun without a real sense of whether there is anything useful to be gained from the collection of this data.
CAPTAIN CHART
WEEK 1 WEEK 2 WEEK 3
PETE J. Cutler (22) J. Best (43) F. Gore (16)
W W L
BRENDAN M. Austin (24) L. McCoy (30) P. Rivers (26)
W W L
SABO R. Mendenhall (20) A. Rodgers (26) A. Rodgers (23)
L W L
FULLER A. Boldin (13) A. Johnson (25) A. Boldin (34)
L L L
TIM C. Johnson (27) T. Romo (16) C. Johnson (24)
W L W
RICK C. Ochocinco (25) M. Schaub (30) A. Peterson (34)
L W W
DREW P. Manning (30) P. Manning (23) P. Manning (25)
L L W
BART T. Brady (22) K. Moreno (17) P. Hillis (25)
L W W
JUDD A. Foster (41) D. Brees (18) D. Brees (25)
W L W
CHANDLER P. Thomas (14) Chargers D/ST (18) B. Marshall (26)
W L L
There are 30 "Captain" tags so far, which is obvious.
*Of those 30...
...12 are QBs, with only 2 teams never having a QB be a captain. No team has had two different QB captains. P.Manning was captain all three weeks. D. Brees and A. Rodgers had the honor twice.
...11 are RBs, with only C. Johnson being a double captain.
...6 are WRs, with only A. Boldin doubling up once.
...7 went to a player taken in the first round.
...1 was un-drafted.
...1 was a defense.
*Only 2 players scored fewer than 20 points (P.Thomas and K.Moreno) and still captained a winning effort.
*Only two players scored more than 40 points (A.Foster and J.Best) and both teams won that week.
*Teams have a 2-5 record when their captain has fewer than 20 points.
*Teams are 5-2 when their captain has 30 or more points.
*Teams are 5-7 when their captain is a QB.
*Teams are 9-2 when their captain is a RB.
*Teams are 1-5 when their captain is a WR.
*The two teams that have never had a QB be captain are a combined 1-5.
Some quick theories and conclusions:
-It may seem obvious, but these stats confirm that although it is nice to have an elite QB, their high scores will rarely overcome the opposition.
-On the other hand, not having a dominant QB may be a huge detriment. Put another way, the teams that ever had a QB captain, likely got solid production out of that position on non-captainship weeks, whereas the teams that have never showed strength at QB may be losing valuable points there. (This is a very typical correlation and is a simple supposition.)
-RBs still rule the roost, even with the NFL becoming a passing league. A big day from a RB is a real difference maker.
-For some reason, WRs don't captain teams to victories. I'm not sure what to make of this and I think it is due to a small sample size, but it is unclear to me why this should be the case since only one of those WR captain scores was low (Boldin's 13) and the rest were 24 or greater.
-The over 30 point win/loss breakdown is interesting. Having one guy go off appears to corollate strongly with victory. To boot, those 2 losses (to 5 wins) when a player had 30 or more points came from a QB and a WR, and only 1 of the 30+ scoring winners was a non-RB. In other words, having a RB score 30 or more points has always (only 4 times, to be fair) lead to a team winning, where as teams are 1-2 when any other position achieves that high total.
Huh?!?
My head hurts from this not making sense or being useful, but still being so damn interesting. I want to give a shout out to my favorite fantasy scientist, Andy Washkowitz, who could, no doubt, do better at making sense of this (quite limited) data. I tried.
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