Weekly accuracy assessment

I've got family in town right now so today's post is going to be brief - but awesome. So you all probably know that I do an annual accuracy assessment of experts' rankings, comparing how they've ranked players during to preseason to how those players performed at season's end. Many of you have asked if I'll be looking at the accuracy of weekly rankings, and unfortunately it hasn't been something I've been able to do due to the time involved...but now, my friends, there's a site that has filled that gap and is an incredible complement to the season-long accuracy assessment. Last week FantasyPros.com released their accuracy awards for weekly rankings and I for one am extremely excited about this. A big kudos to Andy Behrens from Yahoo for being the #1 overall most accurate expert with his weekly rankings from the 2009 season - for the full list of how the experts did, take a look at FantasyPros.com's Expert Accuracy Rankings - 2009.

Though just as important as the results is the methodology used - to see what they gathered and how they developed each expert's PAY (Prediction Accuracy Yield) and subsequent ranking, see the discussion here.

As a final cherry on top to this incredible project (and immense amount of work!), FantasyPros.com has also developed a Cheat Sheet Wizard, which is very similar to what I post each August with the average rankings position spreadsheet. I highly recommend you scope it out for updated consensus rankings...and drumroll please...it includes PPR rankings for those who play in PPR leagues.

Basically, spend a bit of time on FantasyPros.com and you'll get lost in heavenly world of fantasy awesomeness. So have at it, let me know what you think!

Multi-year results for accuracy with RB rankings

Today we're going to take a look at the multi-year accuracy analysis for running backs. If you need a refresher on what exactly the multi-year analysis is all about, take a look back at my first post last week that looked at QBs. The primary thing to keep in mind here is that the number listed under average on the far right is the average percentile ranking for each site for their participation, and the lower the number, the better a site is at rankings as compared to their peers. Some of the 54 sites I looked at have been in it for 3 years, others only 2 or even 1. As with the other positions I've divided them up into the top sites based on length of participation.

Later this week I'll be posting the results for top overall accuracy across all 4 positions, so stay tuned for that. One thing I'd like to point out here is the best average percentile difference between the positions. I'm looking primarily at those sites who have been in it for 3 years since they have the most data we can go on here...you can take this all in yourselves but just a quick snapshot to show you what I mean - the best site for QBs (Ask the Commish) had a 30th percentile average; for WRs (Rotoworld) it was a 29th percentile average; TEs (Ask the Commish again), another 29th percentile average...but here with the RBs (another Rotoworld victory) it's significantly higher at a 38th percentile average. Interesting. Anyway, without further ado...

Sites with 3 years of participation: Ranking Site Average 1 Rotoworld 0.38 2 Sports Illustrated 0.43 3 Yahoo! 0.48 3 ESPN 0.48 5 FFToolbox 0.50 Sites with 2 years of participation: Ranking Site Average 1 KFFL 0.05 2 Fantazzle 0.26 3 Pigskin Addiction 0.28 4 FFToday 0.32 5 Fantasy Hulks 0.33 Sites with 1 year of participation: Ranking Site Average 1 Draft Analyzer Ultimate 0.02 2 Numbers & Guts 0.04 3 Accuscore 0.10

Multi-year results for accuracy with TE rankings

We're rolling on with the multi-year accuracy results - for those who are new to the blog, since 2007 I've gathered and analyzed preseason rankings from fantasy football experts and noted which expert is the most accurate with their rankings. You can see the results of 2009 here, 2008 here, and 2007 here. However, I think many of you would agree that an aggregate look at which site has been the most accurate across all three years is of even greater importance. So I posted the results for multi-year accuracy with QBs and WRs last week and tonight we've got TEs. For details on how the accuracy is calculated, just scope out one of the previous year's results, and to see the details on how/why I calculated a percentile average (remember: the lower the average, the better!) for the multi-year approach, take a look at the QBs post from last week. If you'd like a list of all 54 sites included in this analysis, scope out the WR post. Ten of those 54 sites have participated all 3 years, another 13 sites for 2 years, and the remaining 31 sites for just 1 year.

As with the QBs and WRs, I'm posting the top results for sites that have participated for different lengths of time separately since it's really not fair to compare those sites to one another. Sites should only be ranked relative to other sites that have participated for the same length of time, hence why you see below that I've broken it down into the best of sites that have been involved for all 3 years, top results for those who have only been in it for 2 years, and a few mentions for accurate sites with just 1 year of participation. Clearly I don't believe they can be compared directly but for some relative sense of accuracy, take a look at the percentile averages on the right side. Again, if your average is lower than your peers, that means you have performed with greater accuracy.

Sites that have 3 years of participation:
Ranking	Site	Average
1	Ask The Commish	0.29
2	Yahoo!	0.31
3	FOX Sports	0.34
4	CBSSports.com	0.37
5	Rotoworld	0.38
Sites that have 2 years of participation:
Ranking	Site	Average
1	FFStarters	0.16
2	FFCalculator (ADP_	0.18
3	FFToday	0.20
4	FFTrader	0.21
5	Fantazzle	0.25
Sites that have 1 year of participation:
Ranking	Site	Average
1	Fantasy Mojo	0.04
2	MyOfficePool	0.08
3	Fantistics	0.15

Multi-year results for accuracy with WR rankings

Time to roll out the multi-year wide receiver rankings accuracy results! If you're looking for some background on this multi-year accuracy analysis, take a look at Monday's post on QBs, but essentially I'm averaging percentiles for each site for each year that they participated in the contest (2007-2009). The lower your average, the better your accuracy. Again I'm splitting it into sites that have been participating for all 3 years (which amounts to 10 sites), 2 years (13 sites), and then those from whom I only have 1 year of data (another 31 sites). Today I'm also listing out all of the 54 sites that have ever participated in the contest so that you're aware of which sites the contest has assessed in the past and how many years they've been included.

It's of course not surprising to note that the longer you participate in the contest, the higher your percentile average becomes but I imagine there will be some leveling off of that percentile in the next year or two and the cream of the crop will maintain their low percentile averages. This of course only makes me even more excited to see the 2010 data...

Sites that have 3 years of participation:
Ranking	Site	Average
1	Rotoworld	0.29
2	CBSSports.com	0.35
3	Yahoo!	0.41
4	FFXtreme	0.46
5	FFToolbox	0.57
Sites that have 2 years of participation:
Ranking	Site	Average
1	FFTrader	0.19
2	FantasyFootball.com	0.26
3	FFCalculator (ADP_	0.29
4	KFFL	0.33
5	Football Guys	0.36
Sites that have 1 year of participation:
Ranking	Site	Average
1	ProFootballWeekly	0.06
2	Draft Analyzer Guru	0.08
3	Lester's Legends	0.10

Alphabetical list of all sites that have participated:

Site Years of participation Accuscore 1 Ask The Commish 3 Bruno Boys 1 CBSSports.com 3 Draft Analyzer Guru 1 Draft Analyzer Ultimate 1 DraftSharks 1 ESPN 3 Fanhandle 1 Fantasy Hulks 2 Fantasy Mojo 1 FantasyFootball.com 2 FantasyPros91 1 FantasySharks.com 1 Fantazzle 2 Fantistics 1 FFCalculator (ADP_ 2 FFCheatsheets 1 FFDocs 1 FFGeekBlog 1 FFManiaxs 1 FFNerd 1 FFSherpa 2 FFStarters 2 FFToday 2 FFToolbox 3 FFTrader 2 FFXtreme 3 Fighting Chance Fantasy 1 Football Guys 2 Football Outsiders 2 FOX Sports 3 Junkyard Jake 1 KFFL 2 Lester's Legends 1 Mission Competition 1 MyOfficePool 1 NFL.com 2 Numbers & Guts 1 Pigskin Addiction 2 ProFantasySports 1 ProFootballWeekly 1 RapidDraft 2 Real Time Sports 1 Robocoach 1 Rotohog 1 Rotoworld 3 Sporting News 1 Sports Data Hub 1 Sports Illustrated 3 The Huddle 1 WhatIfSports 1 Yahoo! 3

Multi-year results for accuracy with QB rankings

Happy summer! To celebrate the new season and my return to a land where I can get e-mail and cell phone reception (had a great time this weekend but I do love the creature comforts of civilization...), I have a little something fun for everyone: the start of the aggregate accuracy analysis results. For those who are new to the blog, I've spent the past several years analyzing the accuracy of preseason expert rankings to find out which sites did the best job at predicting position rankings for the season. I started in 2007 and looked at 14 websites; after joining up with the Fantasy Sports Trade Association the following year it grew to 24 websites, and then a whopping 48 sites in 2009. At this point it has become almost entirely a submission process so if your favorite site isn't included, it's likely because they either chose not to submit or just do not know about the contest. You can read all of the details about how I analyze the rankings each year here and if you're a site that's interested in participating this year, stay tuned for more info on that front in August. Also, I want to note that one important condition of participation is that I keep all of the results of the contest confidential except for the top performers, so I unfortunately can't share the full results of each year's contest with you all. Besides I'd really prefer to focus on those who performed well year in and year out versus those who didn't do such a strong job with their rankings.

So I've had a plan to combine the results of the contest each year to create a multi-year assessment of each site, which is far more informative than just one year of results, and I finally had the time to do the analysis. Today we will take a look at quarterback rankings to see which site has been the most accurate with their preseason QB rankings from 2007-2009. Over the past 3 years I've included 54 different sites in my analysis, however only 10 sites have been included all 3 years, and and additional 13 sites have been tracked for 2 years, so for the multi-year analysis I'm focusing on sites that have participated in at least 2 years of the contest. Honorable mentions for those that did well in their 1 year of participation are noted below, too, though.

As you can see above, the contest has grown enormously and with the variation in the number of sites ranked each year, I decided to calculate a percentile ranking for each site each year. For example, Football Guys had the best QB ranking of the 14 sites I analyzed in 2007 so they were in the 7th percentile (1/14) - keep in mind this is not like the SATs; in this case you actually want a low percentile. After calculating the percentile for each year, I averaged each site's ranking from each year it was included in the FFLibrarian accuracy contest. The lower the number in the average column, the better the site did compared to their peers. Ask The Commish's 0.30 percentile means they averaged being in the 30th percentile in QB pre-season rankings over the last three years - that's the best of any of the sites I have data on for all three years. For comparison's sake, the site with the worst percentile ranking for QBs was averaging 0.86 for all three years (0.81 for sites with 2 years of data; 0.98 for those with 1 year).

Sites that have 3 years of participation
Ranking	Site	Average
1	Ask The Commish	0.30
2	Rotoworld	0.31
3	CBSSports.com	0.38
4	ESPN	0.44
5	FFToolbox	0.45
Sites that have 2 years of participation
Ranking	Site	Average
1	Football Guys	0.16
2	Fantasy Hulks	0.27
3	KFFL	0.34
4	NFL.com	0.43
5	Fantazzle	0.46
Sites that have 1 year of participation
Ranking	Site	Average
1	WhatIfSports	0.04
2	Junkyard Jake	0.06
3	FantasySharks.com	0.08

I'm sure there are important things I'm forgetting to mention or notes that I should be making here, so please feel free to ask questions or make comments. As always, this is a work in progress so if you have a better method, please let me know but in the meantime a big kudos to my husband for talking all of this out with me. Just one of the many times it pays to have fallen in love with an economist/stats dude.

I'll be posting the results for RBs, WRs, and TEs over the next week or so in addition to my normal linking. Enjoy and a hearty congrats to Ask the Commish!

Aggregate accuracy rankings ARE coming!

Well I've gone radio silent yet again on you all. I was at the FSTA Summer Conference last week (hopefully you followed along if you had any interest on my FSTA Conference blog - or you can keep an eye on the FantasySportsBusiness.com site for conference wrap-up articles) and then continued on the apartment search for much of the weekend. Don't want to get ahead of myself here but I think we found a place and I for one couldn't be more excited. I'll know more over the next few days but soon the fun of packing and moving can begin.

However, I do have great news on the aggregate rankings front for you guys. I've been blabbering on for awhile about how I'm going to pull together the results of my accuracy ranking contest from the past several years into an aggregate accuracy ranking. For quite some time the data was trapped on a dead computer but this weekend the computer was finally revived and I pulled the old data off - I anticipate having the aggregate results out in the next 10 days or so. So truly, I promise that info is really coming! Keep in mind that each year the contest has grown in popularity (up to nearly 50 sites this past year!) so there are many sites for which I only have 1 or 2 years of results - but more details on this to come.

So let's get on with it and look at today's links since there are really quite a few:

• It has been a few weeks since the FootballGuys.com released TodayInFantasy.com. For those who haven't seen it, go check it out. As a librarian it makes my heart sing - they're basically out to organize and catalog all of the quality fantasy football articles out there based on which player or team is addressed - this is the perfect place to go if you're looking for all the Wes Welker news out there, for example. It's a massive undertaking but they also provide something similar to what I do here on FFLibrarian in terms of offering up links to some of the best FF content - I talked to these guys a bit at the FSTA conference and they clearly realize what I did when I started FFLibrarian: the FF world is just gigantic and needs someone to whittle it down a bit. I'll be checking to make sure they don't link to any must-read articles that I've missed, but I do highly recommend it as a place to scope out. Especially when, say, I go quiet for a week on FFLibrarian...
• You know the season is approaching when draft kits start to appear. NFL.com has quite a thorough and freakishly helpful draft kit for this time of year. They include some articles you've probably already scoped out on their site but also lots of new stuff - rankings, sleepers, team questions, cheat sheets, mock draft results, draft strategy...the list goes on and on and on...
  
• Speaking of draft prep, Fantasyfanplay.com is getting ready to roll out their draft guide but for now take a look at their Sneak Peek for some draft guide insight.
• SI's Fantasy Clicks, Charles in Charge...of our Fantasy Lives, from last week is chock full of good summer FF musings. Who doesn't love a look at bye week conundrums in mid-June?
• If you're a newbie to fantasy football or you're just looking to refresh some of your old patterns, take a look at some Fantasy Football Draft Strategy suggestions from Razzball. Remember that each league is different and how you draft really depends on your scoring system and player set-up - but also the skill level of your leaguemates. 
• A lot of folks I know rely heavily upon mock draft results from experts when it comes time to determine the value of a player and such - so if you're in a PPR league it could be worth it to scope out CBSSports.com's 14-team, PPR mock draft article.
• I enjoy guest columnists to Monday Morning Quarterback and with Peter King covering the World Cup, we have Nnamdi Asomugha to thank for this week's MMQB, Advice for rookies on adjusting to life in the National Football League.
• I love the enthusiasm for Michael Turner in FFToday's Anatomy of an Injury - Running Backs article. I believed in Turner last year, felt he could overcome the supposed curse and put up another tremendous season...last year's down performance hasn't really changed my mind about him, especially upon hearing that he's in incredible shape to start this season. I will happily gamble on Turner this year. Man, between Turner and my love for Gore it sure seems like I'm a bit of an injury gambler with RBs this year...
• One guy I'm not loving is Jay Cutler and I know, I know there are many reasons to dig the guy, least of all the Mike Martz factor - if you need convincing read Rotoworld's Martz Math - but it's just a gut feeling. And that whole leaving Denver thing + his egregious TD to INT ratio.
• Ultimate Fantasy Football Strategy continues to roll out the offensive line analysis with a team-by-team approach. This is one of the best series that I can recommend in the offseason. Read it, digest it, return to it. 
• I'm intrigued with some of the names I see on FFToolbox.com's Who Not to Keep list - good, thought-provoking stuff here for those of you in keeper leagues.
  

Finally, since I hear from talented writers on occasion who are looking for a place to pen their fantasy thoughts, I thought I'd post a link from FantasySharks.com regarding their search for some new writers. Why not give it a shot, right?

2009 Accuracy Results Are In!

There are few things about my "job" as the FFLibrarian that I enjoy as much as the annual accuracy challenge, so this week is just a really awesome week for me - I get to share with you all which site had the most accurate preseason rankings for the 2009 season: CBSSports.com. Congrats CBSSports.com! So first things first - head over to the Fifth Down's Rating the Rankings in Fantasy Football to read up on how the challenge works (just a small dose of math) and see which other sites dominated this year. Then come on back here and read up on some of the other details...

Okay, now that you've been to the Fifth Down, I want to be sure and alphabetically list all 48 sites that I looked at in the challenge:

Accuscore
Ask the Commish
Bruno Boys
CBSSports.com
Draft Analyzer Guru
Draft Analyzer Ultimate
Draft Sharks
ESPN
Fanhandle
FantasyFootball.com
Fantasy Football Geek Blog
Fantasy Football Maniaxs
Fantasy Football Sherpa
Fantasy Football Starters
Fantasy Football Toolbox
Fantasy Football Trader
Fantasy Football Xtreme
Fantasy Hulks
Fantasy Mojo
FantasySharks.com
FantasyPros911
Fantazzle
Fantistics
FFCalculator (ADP)
FFToday
Fighting Chance Fantasy
Football Guys
Football Outsiders
FOX Sports
Junkyard Jake
KFFL
Lester’s Legends
Mission Competition
MyOfficePool
NFL.com
Numbers & Guts
Pigskin Addiction
ProFootballWeekly.com
RapidDraft
RealTime Fantasy Sports
Rotohog
Rotoworld
Sporting News
Sports Data Hub
Sports Illustrated
The Huddle
WhatIfSports
Yahoo!

If you are from any of those sites and want to know how you did in the contest, send me an e-mail. I'd be happy to share how you did in each position and across all 4 positions. Speaking of which, let's mosey on over to the positional ranking details:

Top 15 overall sites:
    SITE    SQ ROOT
1.   CBSSports.com    20.33
2.   KFFL    20.71
3.   ProFootballWeekly.com    20.90
4.   Draft Analyzer Ultimate    21.12
5.   Sports Illustrated    21.56
6.   Draft Analyzer Guru    21.60
7.   Fantasy Mojo    21.81
8.   Lester's Legends    21.87
9.   FFCalculator    21.96
10.  Rotohog    22.04
11.  Football Guys    22.06
12.  FFTrader    22.22
13.  Bruno Boys    22.24
14.  Sporting News    22.39
15.  RealTime Fantasy Sports    22.40

Top 10 sites for QBs:
    SITE    SQ ROOT
1.   Rotoworld    6.913
2.   WhatIfSports    7.557
3.   Junkyard Jake    7.623
4.   FantasySharks.com    7.7485
5.   FFCalculator    8.280
6.   Lester's Legends    8.385
7.   Ask the Commish    8.430
8.   Fantazzle    8.639
9.   KFFL    8.726
10.  Fantasy Hulks    8.752

Top 10 sites for RBs:
    SITE    SQ ROOT
1.   Draft Analyzer Ultimate    20.823
2.   Numbers & Guts    20.967
3.   KFFL    21.589
4.   ESPN    21.820
5.   Accuscore    21.910
6.   Pigskin Addiction    21.940
7.   CBSSports.com    22.121
8.   ProFootballWeekly.com    22.501
9.   RealTime Fantasy Sports    22.751
10.  FFSherpa    23.064

Top 10 sites for WRs:
    SITE    SQ ROOT
1.   CBSSports.com    31.677
2.   KFFL    32.314
3.   ProFootballWeekly.com    32.337
4.   Draft Analyzer Guru    32.921
5.   Lester's Legends    33.051
6.   FFCalculator    33.552
7.   Sports Illustrated    33.820
8.   Sporting News    34.056
9.   Fighting Chance Fantasy    34.200
10.  Draft Analyzer Ultimate    34.310

Top 10 sites for TEs:
    SITE    SQ ROOT
1.   Sports Illustrated    7.172
2.   Fantasy Mojo    7.238
3.   FFToday    7.368
4.   MyOfficePool    7.476
5.   FFStarters    7.549
6.   FFXtreme    7.823
7.   Fantistics    7.870
8.   Ask the Commish    7.937
9.   FFCalculator    7.968
10.  The Huddle    7.971

I've got a lot more in the works during the offseason - I'm going to take a look at the past results from 2007 and 2008 and combine them with these 2009 results to start building a more comprehensive look at which sites are the most accurate with their rankings. I'll also be taking a look at which sites were the riskiest (as compared to ADP from FFCalculator) to see who was risky and accurate, a favorite combo of mine.

If you have any other thoughts about what one could do with all of this data, please e-mail me or leave a comment - I'd love to hear any thoughts on this.

Now for those interested in projections, don't worry we've got you covered there, too. For the first time we included projections in the annual contest and I'll be posting details on those results soon. My buddy Donnie at The Most Credible ran the projections analysis for both football and baseball and the same site came out on top for both: Rotohog. More details on that front to come!

Leaving Las Vegas

Greetings from the Las Vegas airport where I'm waiting on my delayed flight to get back home to New York after another great Fantasy Sports Trade Association conference. The delay would be a bummer but frankly I'm happily working away on a fully charged laptop with free wifi - and listening to the sweet sounds of slot machines. Heavy sarcasm on the "sweet" there...let's just say I'd go crazy if I worked in a casino all day, every day.

So I had a wonderful time meeting some of the brilliant fantasy minds behind all of the the links that I send you to - many thanks to the guys (and yes, it was about 98% male, big surprise) that kept me company throughout the conference. I've been toying with coming up with superlatives for all of the folks I hung out with there - Most Entertaining, Biggest Character, Dude I Was Most Excited to Meet, etc - but there were just too many top notch guys there to narrow the field.

Also I would be remiss if I didn't note the fact that I'm on a lucky streak right now...not only did I win that trip to the Super Bowl but at the FSTA conference I won a football signed by 30 Hall of Famers at this past year's HOF weekend. Crazy lucky, my friends. So a big hearty thanks to Yesteryear Fantasy Football for that great prize.

Now finally we can get to today's links:

• FantasySharks.com's Draft Day 2009 - Lessons Learned does a nice job of summing up some of the draft strategies that you might have employed last summer, and assessing what you might want to focus on for 2010.
• Pyromaniacs.com is doing a great job with their in-depth analysis and I dig their detailed look back at some of the season's flops that might be acquired at a good value next year in Flops to Tops.
• Lester's Legends is cranking out their early 2010 rankings - take a look at the top 25 RBs.
• Read why FFManiaxs think Steven Jackson will be a top 5 back in 2010 - agree? Disagree?
  
• Since I will soon be a librarian based in an art museum in NYC, it only seems appropriate that I link out to this amusing back-and-forth between the Indy and New Orleans art museum directors (kudos to Football Outsiders for that link). Fine art is hanging in the balance of this game, my friends. 
• I learned about an awesome add-on that has been around for a little while - but it's for FFers who are in multiple leagues, play several different fantasy sports, or just those of us who could use all the extra research help we can get: Pick 'em First. Check it out but basically it uses a nice little icon to help you identify which players are available in your leagues (or on your own team) when you're on your favorite FF websites scoping out news, injury updates, start/sit, etc. Good stuff.
  

Finally, take a look at the Fifth Down tomorrow for the results of my annual accuracy challenge - I'll be back talking about it in depth here on the blog for the next several days, weeks, months, however long it takes me to cover it all. If you're desperate to know who was #1 with their preseason rankings this year before tomorrow's post with all the details on the Fifth Down, scope out FantasySportsBusiness.com's write-up.

Accuracy Challenge is coming!

I've embraced a major technology change here in 2010, my football friends. I am now a Mac user. For the past few weeks I've been gleefully coming to you from a new macbook and pretty much loving every minute...until this past weekend. I still love my new mac, don't get me wrong, but figuring out how to use iWork's Numbers to the same extent as Excel has been a challenge. I miss Excel and am considering purchasing Office for macs, but have heard negative feedback on that front, too. What's an Excel user to do? I know with time I'll probably discover lots of the same tips and tricks that I know and love in Excel but if anyone can guide me toward resources to speed that process up, I'd appreciate it.

Now why was I up to my elbows in spreadsheets this weekend you may ask? The annual accuracy challenge of course! This will be the third year that I've run an analysis to compare the accuracy of preseason positional rankings from FF experts out there (here's a look back at the 2007 and 2008 contests)...and I'm so excited to report that I have nearly 50 sites competing in this year's competition. I'll be looking at the top 10-15 sites who were most accurate at ranking QBs, RBs, WRs, and TEs - and then also which sites were best across all positions. I'm working with the FSTA (Fantasy Sports Trade Association) again this year and the site that is most accurate across positions will receive an award at the FSTA annual conference in Vegas in 2 weeks. I'll be presenting the details of the winners on the Fifth Down and here on my blog just after the conference concludes so be sure to come back for the results!

In addition, this year we are looking at the accuracy of preseason projections (we have about 15 FF expert sites participating in that portion of the contest) and The Most Credible is running that analysis. I'll be noting the results of that contest as well. Great stuff up ahead - I love these contests!

But first up, we have some helpful and interesting links for this weekend's games:

• The rankings are starting to roll out:
• Bruno Boys' Divisional Round QB rankings
• FantasyDepthChart's Divisional Round Player Rankings
• Fantasyfanplay.com's QB Rankings: Divisional Round
• Speaking of accuracy and a look back on preseason rankings, Razzball is taking this into their own hands and investigating how well they predicted the top QBs of 2009.
• Another look back on the 2009 season - but with a twist. See what Fighting Chance Fantasy has to say about our parlay bets throughout the season Five Game Parlay Final Results (congrats, Jeff!)...just don't look too closely at my overall record.  
• The Hazean's Tuesday Morning Rehab looks at injuries across the league - both those injuries that will impact the rest of the postseason games and the 2010 season. 
• A few reviews of this weekend's games from ProFootballWeekly.com's Divisional-round matchup tidbits and FantasyPros911's Cowboys-Vikings Review and Preview. 
  
• Get a mix of news and interesting gems from Roto Arcade's Monday Brunch: Packers Looking Pricey for 2010.
  
• Lots of 2010 links being posted these days:
• FFXtreme's 2010 mock draft 2.0 results
• FFToolbox's 2010 NFL Mock Draft 
• FantasyFootball.com's Ridiculously Early 2010 Fantasy Football Rankings
  

Finally the top 5 scorers in the FFLibrarian Playoff Challenge so far:

1. KevinGould (163 points)
2. rikim1228 (156 points)
3. willmushu (153 points)
4. slickens (148 points)
5. itsawrap (146 points)

Good luck to all participating in the league!

All quiet on the offseason front

So in the midst of talking about my accuracy analysis or ranking of the rankings that I did with fantasy football expert sites, what I haven't mentioned so far is that I've agreed with the FSTA to take a stab at doing an accuracy analysis for fantasy baseball as well. As you can probably tell from the name of this blog, my fantasy focus is really football and I know little about fantasy baseball - so here's my request from you all for names of fantasy baseball expert sites that you would like to see analyzed. I can get my research skills in gear here and find some of the bigger names but if there are smaller sites that you'd like included, leave a message in the comments or e-mail me.

One of my favorite football news items for the week is the news about the United Football League, a four-team startup football league that will begin its six-week season in October. For a list of the cities and details on who is throwing money into the UFL, check out this article. Will watching the UFL games provide some quality fantasy football prep with a chance to scope out talent?

Onto other links for the day...

• I'm still working through a mock draft (we're in round 8 of 10) and I was bummed to see Dallas Clark just go off the board - I was hoping he would land to me at the 8.07 spot but I should've known he'd disappear early in the 8th round. So to help me prep for tight ends I've been scoping out CBS Sports' Faceoffs: Spotlighting the tight end position.
  
• Lester's Legends is working his way through all 32 teams with an offseason analysis with a link to KFFL's free agent tracker (wondering about the difference between restricted and unrestricted free agents?)- it's an alphabetical order so they've got Arizona, Atlanta, Baltimore and Buffalo up already.
  
• Take a look at Rotoworld's Top 20 Dynasty League Buys for a wide array of suggestions from the Rashard Mendenhalls to the Brent Celeks to the Tom Bradys of the football world.
  
• ProFootballReference.com is one of my main stops during the offseason since they often crank out interesting factoids, rankings, statistical analyses, etc that are often worth the read. This week's post on ranking the best WRs in NFL history doesn't disappoint.

Prep for the Pro Bowl - wait, what?!

Greetings fantasy fans. Last night at Bowling League Night, I bowled two of my worst games ever. My timing was unfortunate, too, since we were up against the best team in the league, which is also the only team whose members are more or less the same age as we are. But despite the absolute collapse of any bowling prowess I have built up over the past few months, I had a blast last night. Perhaps it was the fact that we ended up playing for pitchers of beer with the other team, which led to entertaining commentary from everyone (one of our opponents let us in on his secret for bowling success: as he gets ready to release the ball he just tells himself what a sexy dude he is; it works, the guy is awesome!) and some amusing celebratory dance moves on the lane from one member of my team. Good times all around.

But back to football - I've heard from several of you that you appreciated the look at the experts' rankings and I'm very glad to hear that. I've had some really good commentary about ways of weighting RBs and WRs more heavily when coming up with the overall expert winner, which I think is certainly worth a look. So expect to see more analysis to come!

Today's links are as follows:

• Wondering what some of the NFL storylines are for the offseason? Read CBS Sports' Here come Vick, Brady, L.T. ... for some early details on stories that are sure to affect fantasy rankings.
  
• Speaking of stories that are likely to have an impact on fantasy, see what Larry Johnson has to say about leaving the Chiefs. Or where Housh might end up.
  
• If you've got a mock draft coming up or you're just curious about how your 2009 fantasy football draft will go, take a look at Fantasy Sharks' Top 25 players for 2009 for some rankings inspiration.
  
• Lester's Legends just won a place in my blog forever - he's continuing his fantasy football analysis to the Pro Bowl. Love it and am not sure I'm seeing that anywhere else - so scope out Fantasy Football Out on a Limb, Volume 22 for some pro-Broncos football insight (clearly another reason I love this post).
  
• If you're looking for all the Pro Bowl action you can get and are hankering for some Pro Bowl practice photos though, take a look at Football News From a Chick's Pro Bowl warm up pics, from across the wire 2/4/2009.
• Looking for rising stars in the fantasy football world? Of course you are, who isn't? SportsBuff.com's Dynasty - Ready to Bust Out? has some great advice on breakout players for 2009. Most of all I really enjoy seeing a player on here that I've never even heard of - it's truly an educational experience to read this article.
  

All for now - back tomorrow with a Friday post to get you through the weekend!

Accuracy analysis for 2008

My 2008 accuracy analysis is up on the Fifth Down! Check it out, Ranking the Rankings in Fantasy Football, 2008 and let me know what you think. Does my system make sense? Will you be thinking about this at all when you decide which rankings to look at next summer? What else would you like me to do with this?

If you're wondering which sites I looked at, here's a full list of all 23 sites in alphabetical order:

• ADP (via FF Calculator)
• Ask the Commish
• CBS Sports
• ESPN
• Fantasy Hulks
• Football Outsiders
• FantasyFootball.com
• Fantasy Football Nerd
• Fantasy Football Sherpa
• Fantasy Football Starters
• Fantasy Football Trader
• Fantasy Football Xtreme
• FFToday
• FFToolbox
• Fantazzle Fantasy Sports Games
• FootballDocs
• FOX Sports
• KFFL
• Robocoach
• Rotoworld
• Sports Illustrated
• SportsBuff
• Yahoo! Fantasy Sports

My plans for the next few months include re-running the analysis with even more sites - I've already heard from a few sites that would like to see how they stack up - and I'd also like to take a look at this from a more historical perspective as well. Consider this my solicitation to fantasy football experts for their historical position rankings. The Wayback Machine can only be of so much help so if you happen to be have your rankings by position on hand for the past several years, send them my way; I'd love to run this same analysis on them.

In case you were wondering about the difference between how all of these sites actually did, you can see the battle was pretty tight based on the numbers for the Top 10 sites below. If you take the square root of the average number listed below, you would get the average amount of ranking spots "off" that each site was per player across all positions. I'm not showing that number here since I think knowing how "off" a site was per player is really most valuable when looking at specific positions, so you'll see that number in the details for the position rankings below. As you can read in my Fifth Down post, I ranked sites based on the sum of squared differences between rankings as averaged by the number of rankings for that position; the square root number is just being shown since I think it's easier for most of us to wrap our minds around than an obscure average number.

Top 10 sites across all positions:

	SITE	AVERAGE
1	Fantazzle	55.025
2	Yahoo	56.793
3	Fantasy Trader	57.033
4	ADP	58.293
5	FFToday	60.843
6	FantasyFootball.com	61.475
7	FOX Sports	63.205
8	ESPN	63.253
9	Ask the Commish	63.802
10	Rotoworld	64.815

Top 10 sites for QBs:

	SITE	SQ ROOT
1	FFStarters	9.249
2	CBS Sportsline	9.309
3	Football Outsiders	9.463
4	ESPN	9.558
5	Robocoach	9.674
6	FFXtreme	9.742
7	FFToolbox	9.750
8	Fantasy Hulks	9.805
9	FOX Sports	9.887
10	Yahoo	9.907

Top 10 sites for RBs:

	SITE	SQ ROOT
1	KFFL	5.638
2	Fantazzle	6.477
3	FantasyFootball.com	6.876
4	FFHulks	6.930
5	Yahoo	7.063
6	SI	7.123
7	FOX Sports	7.208
8	Fantasy Trader	7.293
9	FFDocs	7.334
10	FFToday	7.353

Top 10 sites for WRs:

	SITE	SQ ROOT
1	Fantasy Trader	6.309
2	Yahoo	6.327
3	FFNerd	6.374
4	Fantazzle	6.414
5	FantasyFootball.com	6.421
6	FOX Sports	6.445
6	Rotoworld	6.445
8	FFToday	6.446
9	FFXtreme	6.470
10	Ask the Commish	6.501

Top 10 sites for TEs:

	SITE	SQ ROOT
1	FantasyTrader	5.007
2	CBS Sportsline	5.018
3	ADP	5.249
4	FFStarters	5.555
5	Fantazzle	5.852
6	Yahoo	6.264
7	FFToday	6.655
8	Ask the Commish	7.519
9	FantasyFootball.com	7.595
10	Football Outsiders	7.736

A few things to note - you can see that on average the experts were far more "off" on their QB rankings than other positions. I attribute much of this to the Tom Brady effect. I left him in the rankings (and all other injured players) so to some extent it skews how off a ranking was on QBs, but it should have penalized all sites in roughly the same way.

I also think it's fascinating how close the WR predictions were - sites #4 through #9 are separated by less than 1 ranking spot. Very, very close.

Anyway, I could go on at great length here about all of the interesting things I found in looking at the details (like Laurence Maroney's difference in rankings single-handedly wrecked one site's RB rankings) but I think I'll pause and maybe give you all a breather from my rankings analysis talk.

Back soon with links to more content!

Multiple FF contest winners revealed

Okay I'm going light on links today and focusing instead on two contests I have brewing. First, the FFLibrarian's Challenge via NFL.com's Playoff Challenge...there were an impressive 250 of us in the FFLibrarian's Challenge group and without further ado, the top 10 finishers were:

1. Year of the Vikes
2. Clam Jam
3. Al Davis Wannabe
4. I AM LEGEND
5. 28Rams39
6. Project Fantasy X
7. Salem Cowboys
8. Werewolves
9. Los Angeles Pro State
10. ballsonya
    

Wow, yes I just basically typed "balls on ya". Unless that team moniker was actually "ball Sonya", in which case congrats to Sonya for coming in 10th. Now as promised, the winner will receive a $25 gift card to the store of your choice, courtesy of the Bruno Boys. The top 3 winners will all receive a FFLibrarian t-shirt, which is in the works. Winners, in order to get your gear though you'll need to e-mail me and confirm your name and other info and even share your mailing address with me, which I promise to keep private. Since none of the very generous people who offered to help me design my FFLibrarian schwag actually e-mailed me to follow up, I have created my very own design for better or for worse. The front of the t-shirt will read "I checked out the librarian" and the back will read "Fantasy Football Librarian http://www.fflibrarian.com" - now if you were a top 3 winner and don't want that t-shirt, no problem, just don't respond; you can privately revel in the pride and joy of winning. If you are not a winner and want that t-shirt (or mug, sweatshirt, bumper sticker, baby bib, whatever), I should be making them available soon via Cafe Press (and yes, my family, all of whom are ardent FFLibrarian supporters, will probably be the only people that end up making that purchase and then won't know where on earth they would actually wear such a shirt).

Next, probably of more interest to the majority of you, I have the list of fantasy football expert sites that rounded off the Top 5 for best accuracy at ranking quarterback performances for 2008:

1. Fantasy Football Starters
2. CBS Sports
3. Football Outsiders
4. ESPN/The Talented Mr. Roto
5. Robocoach

Tomorrow I will be posting the Top 5 sites across QB, RB, WR and TE. And soon, very soon my friends, the Top 10 will be posted on the Fifth Down.

Being for the team that wins

What a game - loved the fact that it actually came down to the 4th quarter; bummed it didn't go into overtime. I was talking to my 90-year-old grandpa on the phone yesterday morning and he asked which team I was pulling for since he figured this whole fantasy football obsession of mine might give me an inside track on the winner. I told him I was routing for the Cardinals since my many years of being a Northwestern fan had instilled in me a need to pull for the underdog. My grandpa, also a Northwestern alum, paused and said, "well I'm pulling for the Steelers; I like to be for the team that wins." So here's to being for the team that wins and my grandpa's foresight.

In my morning scour for news and fantasy insights, I came across this update from ESPN on police arrests and such from the Super Bowl. My favorite part? The DUI crash involving a police horse (no horses were injured) - does that not pique your curiosity? I really would've enjoyed seeing what on earth happened there.

But to other links that are probably more interesting to the rest of you:

• I think I might be linking to Gregg Rosenthal's blog every time I post but frankly, I've been living vicariously through him a bit here and feel all his blog posts on the Super Bowl Experience, including this wrap-up post, are pretty much worthy of a read.
  
• Wanna talk Super Bowl ads? The Fifth Down's Some Late Surprises - in Super Bowl Ads takes a look at some of the 4th quarter surprises and a quick wrap-up of some of the best ads of the day.
  
• NBCSports takes a look at why that Warner fumble at the end of the game wasn't reviewed - I love that it was Neil Rackers who immediately demanded an explanation from a ref. That's what I like to see out of my kickers.
  
• The Fantasy Sharks' First 2009 Preseason Rankings - WR are up and who doesn't love Fitz at #1? Even my friends who pretty much knew nothing about players were singing his praises after his great 2nd half performance last night. The Sharks also have their 2009 TE rankings up and in the State of the Shark I learned that they'll be beefing up their IDP coverage next year, which I couldn't be more pleased about.
  
• No-offseason.com has a nice 2009 Top Free Agent WRs article - I saw Antonio Bryant go pretty high in a mock draft recently and I realized Bryant is probably one of those guys that I am not going to have on any of my teams since I just don't trust him to repeat his 2008 production.
  

So moving on in the accuracy assessment of which fantasy football experts were the best for the 2008 season, let's take a look at running backs. Back in December I did an analysis of the sites through Week 13 for RBs on the Fifth Down and KFFL still comes out on top as the champ by a healthy margin - but the rest of the top 5 changed rather significantly during the playoffs. So here are the Top 5 sites at accurately predicting RB performances based on preseason rankings:

1. KFFL
2. Fantazzle Fantasy Sports Games
3. FantasyFootball.com
4. Fantasy Hulks
5. Yahoo! Fantasy Sports

Remember to scope out the rest of the top 10 on the Times' Fifth Down blog later this week!

Top expert sites for TE predictions in 2008

One of the things I noticed in Tampa was the unbelievable amount of Steelers love. As I flew out yesterday, the plane that deboarded at my gate was full of Steelers fans - at least two gentlemen got a "Here We Go Steelers" cheer going and tiny children to old men were decked out in Steelers gear. I don't even think this plane came from Pennsylvania. The airport attempted to have some Cardinals/Steelers diversification going on but seriously, anyone with even half a good eye and even the crappiest of hearing aids could tell that Tampa is quickly becoming Pittsburgh's town. John Clayton reports that there are roughly 30 bars in Tampa that will be overrun with Steelers fans this Sunday - how many for the Cardinals? Zero.

So part of the fantasy sports conference I attended this week included a dinner cruise (for some it may have been more of a booze cruise...) and while I was waiting for the live band to really kick things off so I could get my dance-loving self onto the dance floor, it occurred to me that a conference with roughly 5 women and 150 dudes was not likely to erupt into a dance party. Must admit I was a little bummed but fortunately I instead had the pleasure of learning which fantasy expert is the most likely to serenade a boatful of conference attendees with some karaoke (not to mention a bit of a dance). I'll let you all ponder which fairly well-known writer that might be...

To the daily links, which are heavy on the Super Bowl details of course:

• If you're not doing so well in the FFLibrarian's Challenge for the postseason and are looking for another way to show off your awesomeness, try competing against the ESPN fantasy crew in their Super Bowl pick 'em league. There are over 2500 in the group including Matthew Berry (whom I must note - not to blow his cover - comes across as a genuinely nice guy), Eric Karabell, etc.
• Matt Cassel is among the droves of football-related folks in Tampa this week - The Big Lead has an interview with him covering topics ranging from his future in the NFL to his consumption of sports news to his favorite TV show (The Office).
  
• Hey speaking of the Pats, the Tom Brady injury watch is so on. NFL.com sees Brady's fantasy stock on the rise for 2009 - Brady was just taken at the end of the 4th round of my mock draft. I toyed with grabbing him at the 4.07 spot but went with Welker instead. We'll see if that was a mistake. I have my eyes on a different QB in the 5th round though...and no, it's not my golden boy Jay Cutler; sadly he's already gone.
• Worried about Ben Roethlisberger's ribs? You'll learn nothing new from the big guy himself in his interview with Gregg Rosenthal but the Big Ben Mum on X-Ray Report article kind of amused me nonetheless.
  

Finally, as promised here is my list of the top 5 fantasy expert sites in terms of their predictions for tight ends for the 2008 season...

1. Fantasy Football Trader
2. CBS Sports
3. ADP (average draft position) from FF Calculator
4. Fantasy Football Starters
5. Fantazzle Fantasy Sports Games

I'm intrigued that fewer of the "big" expert names are on this list, but they are represented in other rankings and deeper into the top 10 as you'll see over the next week or so.