Difference of opinion: how do you avoid groupthink bias?

[Dynasty DeLorean]

Succumbing to group-think is terrible and really hard to avoid because there is some truth and some good ideas out there in the "twittersphere" but it's really hard to separate that from the rest of the mess. I would say I generally have opinions that go against the norm and part of that is I don't follow college football. It helps when it comes to the players I actually look at but then it hurts when I am not too familiar with those 2nd and 3rd tier players. I think there is a difference between watching every game of someones college career in real time and watching it on film all in one night and immediately being able to compare that sample of games to that of their contemporaries. How you evaluate and value players will help you avoid group-think. If you have a solid foundation of how you value a player then you will be swayed less by the opinion of the masses. How do you value draft position, athleticism, college production and your own film analysis or that of a scout you trust over the masses on social media. Do you let your opinion sway big time from a sample size of just a few games? Many do, but imo in general you should not. Another thing I've noticed is these devy guys can be really annoying b/c they have to make hot takes on players way too early and then tend to stick to those claims whether the new evidence (i.e. ensuing collegiate seasons) supports it or not. I guess the simplest answer I can give is spend as little time reading other people's opinions as possible.

[Goddard]

I don't use facebook, at least not for football related stuff, but the polls I've seen on twitter are terrible and would never base anyone's value off of that.

Edit: the only good thing about twitter polls is that you can't see the results prior to voting, so I think that takes some of the "group-think" out of it, causing people to have an unbiased vote. Problem is, most of the voters don't seem like they're experienced dynasty managers, so the end results aren't very accurate.

[TheChicken]

You can either avoid seeking opinions or curate that opinion.

If someone is telling me a player they do not own or want to own is a sell, then I try not to listen as their view is pretty irrelevant as they are not making the market. The buy low thread was a classic case of opinions about players people were generally not invested in. This is just noise and needed to be filtered out. In this scenario you want to know who has actually brought (and they thought the price was low) and who was looking to sell .... at a price they think is at a discount.

Trade polls do not allow you to filter out opinions you do not value.

[oban14]

^^^^ Not an indictment as I do not know this guy , I seek out guys with this exact mentality , the chronic rebuilders I call them . It seems they fear losing value more than winning games . When a guy is at his apex and you trade him for a bounty ( results will vary) for me I want proven week winners far above a bunch of picks or donte moncrief types . Just an example of a guy who has been valued far above his production because of that scarce valuable unicorn status he possesses - POTENTIAL - my favorite quote and I am not sure if he was 1st but brian billick said
"your potential is going to get me fired" . Obviously roster construction matters but trading great players for a bunch of picks of potential great players is not my idea of building a powerhouse. I have ventured past many managers who are always rebuilding /chasing potential but never compete . I ate a couple shares of adrian peterson and megatron and even beast mode but what I didn't do was bail too early and watch those bonafide studs lighting it up on other rosters in leagues I owned those guys.
What puzzles me is do they use rebuilding as an excuse for not competing ?
Do they love rebuilding more than winning ?
just curious

My view at the time, and still is when I can get people to make trades with me, is to always get younger and better. Perpetually build for the future. All of a sudden the future arrives and yes I've won a few championships, lost a few championships, but almost always make the playoffs. I brought up Shaun Alexander as an example of an obscenely strong fantasy asset at his peak who was deemed "untouchable". He immediately became an RB2, then became worthless.

If the offer for Shaun Alexander was more than an RB2, or even if it was a young RB3/RB2, he would have been better off making that trade than not. It all comes down to what you're getting in return versus holding tight and getting in the future.

An NFL team sitting at pick 1.1 could potentially trade back to pick 1.32 and acquire 5-6 future first round picks and several picks in later rounds. Do it again the next year, and the next, and then all of a sudden you're the GM of a team with 3-4 first round picks every year for the next five years. Meanwhile, yes those 1.1 picks could have been Andrew Luck, or JaMarcus Russell, or anyone in between. It would be hard to NOT win a super bowl and NOT crush every draft with that many picks.

It feels great to look at your roster and see the #1 overall RB, or WR, or 3 of the top 5 WRs. But nothing stays the same forever. Depending on age and circumstances, let alone injury risk, the value of these players often has nowhere to go but down. And if that's what the future holds, you're better off trading them now, assuming you can get a good haul.

[oban14]

But back to the matter of groupthink - when everyone wants to buy, it's often a good time to sell. When everyone wants to sell, it's often a good time to buy. Warren Buffet wrote about what a good friend "Mr. Market" was. Some days he was depressed and thought the world was ending, and would sell you things at a great discount. Other times it's all sunshine and roses, and he's happy to pay top dollar for a stock you would be happy to get rid of for less. And the best part is he never remembers, gets offended, or holds it against you in the future...

Unlike some owners. But other than the last line it applies to fantasy football.

[Phaded]

I was guilty of succumbing to group think a couple years ago. I made several trades that the "consensus" thought were all a good idea for me, turns out that basically none of these trades were a good idea and it set my team back a good couple of years. I have finally managed to get my team back to the contender status it was before I started pulling the trigger on these trades.

I never used to watch much tape and based a lot of my opinions of players purely off of statistics & consensus rankings. Once I decided to start taking things into my own hands is when I managed to turn things around. At this point; I generally ignore the consensus for players in the NFL as I feel as though I've become good enough that I can figure out what I want on my own. For players not yet in the NFL are a different story but I still take the consensus with a grain of salt. Since I do not watch NCAA; I have very little to go on. I'll pay attention to the names that people are talking about and then investigate those players on my own; then form my own opinion. It is for that reason I will not own Barkley anywhere at this point as I will not go near the outlandish prices for the 1st overall pick.

Groupthink or the "consensus" can be awful; as mentioned, it can also be hard to avoid and it is easy to let it get into your head. The biggest "challenge" for me to learn was to just run my team the way I want to run it. Do not let people convince me that trades are good for me or bad for me. This approach does not work for everyone, but it works for me.

It is for that very reason I do not post my own threads in team advice, I will often post in the threads to offer up my evaluation or how I feel; but my opinion can often go the opposite way of the consensus. I am not afraid to go against the consensus. I posted a big topic about how Amari Cooper was being grossly overvalued because I watched enough tape where I felt that I could make that statement with confidence. So far, so good, but his career is still young.

You will often see me post "unpopular opinions" as a result of the above. I am a challenging owner to trade with since I often sway very heavily from consensus values and trades that around here could be viewed as an "easy accept" are the types of trades I often decline or will counter.

In regards to how to avoid groupthink? I had to learn the hard way after groupthink contributed to the downfall of my team. Hopefully it does not come to that for you.

[jman3134]

^ As long as you aren't an owner who consistently overrates players simply bc they are on your roster, you are probably fine to trade with. The other owner should just ask you what you want.

[Phaded]

^ As long as you aren't an owner who consistently overrates players simply bc they are on your roster, you are probably fine to trade with. The other owner should just ask you what you want.

Oh yeah - I still pull off a lot of trades in my league and am probably among the top of people who actually pull off trades, but one of the biggest problems that people get when trading with me is that there is a very long list of players I do not like; while the list of players I do like is rather short. So teams often end up sending me offers to give me players I just do not want. It is then I will often counter; keeping in the center piece of who they were trying to target on my team.

[Dookmarriot]

I think the best way to avoid groupthink is to only take on board (note, that's not the same as following) people whose opinion you have come to value. It's certainly possible to get top advice from someone you don't know, but if I don't know much about their process and how they came to a conclusion, I'm going to be less inclined to be swayed by it.

[murphysxm]

An NFL team sitting at pick 1.1 could potentially trade back to pick 1.32 and acquire 5-6 future first round picks and several picks in later rounds. Do it again the next year, and the next, and then all of a sudden you're the GM of a team with 3-4 first round picks every year for the next five years. Meanwhile, yes those 1.1 picks could have been Andrew Luck, or JaMarcus Russell, or anyone in between. It would be hard to NOT win a super bowl and NOT crush every draft with that many picks.

Two things here:
A. This is not the scenario you started with. Trading picks and that uncertainty is different than trading a bona fide stud. Not saying trading an an aging stud before his decline isn't a solid strategy, but I think the amount of times you get the timing right is 50/50, so why take the chance. For every Shaun Alexander example there is a Tom Brady or Larry Fitzgerald example.

B. The Cleveland Browns just did this scenario and their GM got fired and they have missed out on drafting a franchise QB in Wentz, so there is that.

[stoneghost28]

I try to listen to a wide variety of sources that disagree with one another and weigh their opinions. I listen to a ton of podcasts, post on twitter, and post here to get a clearer view on market value and arguments I may not be aware of.

Probably the most important thing I can do and should do and usually do is try to figure out where I went wrong, and fix the issues or at least identify the problems and attempt to build a solution. My biggest issue this past year was failing to follow the Malcolm Gladwell kind of thin slicing model. Early in the rookie draft process in '18 I had Hunt and Juju very high on my board, but I let ho-hum combines, and in Juju's case, a lethargic draft year change my evaluation which resulted in me owning one share a piece in total. If I'd simply stayed with my initial Januaryish board, I would have ended up with them on a ton of teams, but over time, I lost interest in them as targets, and instead focused on guys like Mack, Aaron Jones, Carlos Henderson, Godwin, and the TE class. I don't regret liking the guys I liked and pursuing them, but I do regret ignoring my instincts.

Juju's disappearance from my targets list was particularly painful because as a draft geek, I'd always prioritzed targets who fell due to poor draft years after performing well in earlier years, kind of the Marino-Wilfork-Jeffrey effect. There's a consistent peppering of those guys across the leagues pro bowl teams throughout seemingly all era's. Something happens their draft year, they regress, their draft stock sinks a bit, then they hit the pro's and are a stud. Juju was a perfect exemplificiation of that, but the noise on him slowly but surely killed my interest and I only landed him in the 3rd round of an RSO league I'm snakebit in (injuries to Luck, Robinson, and 5 other guys cost me a potential title, a year after suffering similar bad luck in the playoffs).

I'd really like to take away three things from this year:

#1 respect instincts a bit more

#2 respect strong performances from '15 and '16.

#3 Delineate the difference between analytics measurements that have a strong proven background in terms of projecting success and failure, and newly developed metrics that are flawed, or unproven (throwing velocity and Watson for instance).

[maxhyde]

I don't think you can really avoid it...you just have to manage your own team and take advantage where you think there is a gap. Fact is groupthink effects value to a certain extent so not exactly sure how it can be "avoided". It just is part of the game

[saw061600]

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain

I try to follow this quote as a general rule. Not that the majority isn't right (in this case, group think) but when I find myself agreeing with everyone else, even in a single thread, I step back and take the time to reexamine my opinion. By the way, group think works to your advantage too. I.E. If the group (ADP) overvalues a player, sell high and turn a dynasty profit.

[skip]

In summation trust yourself more than anyone else !

This pretty much sums it up for me. My biggest mistakes in dynasty were when I went on the advice of others and against my own judgment. If I do have a question, I typically send it to a couple of people in whom I have great confidence rather than post globally. I would never use Facebook or Twitter but that is really more based on my general opinion of both sources.

[Dynasty DeLorean]

In summation trust yourself more than anyone else !

This pretty much sums it up for me. My biggest mistakes in dynasty were when I went on the advice of others and against my own judgment. If I do have a question, I typically send it to a couple of people in whom I have great confidence rather than post globally. I would never use Facebook or Twitter but that is really more based on my general opinion of both sources.

That's a good point but only if you are self-aware and self-critical. There are a lot of people who make the same mistakes year after year and just chalk it up to bad luck or randomness instead of looking for a solution to the problem.