Jonathan Taylor is your 1.01 now.

[OhCruelestRanter]

I think the biggest value of watching film is to contextualize the numbers. especially on the collegiate level, raw stats can be mostly useless without an understanding how they are achieved. Cam Akers' numbers looked really awful, but after a simple viewing of some FSU games and you could easily see that his OL wasn't doing him any favors. On the other hand, Taylor's numbers looked otherworldly, but watching the tape gives you a better understanding of why that was. And without watching the Alabama WRs play you might not have the proper context to understand the meaning of their dominator ratings. Analytics based on production is meaningless without the proper context.

I feel like you’re making my point for me. You literally did not have to personally spend a single second of your own time watching “film” to know these things.

The analytic approach rarely involves the “raw stats” that you mention. The idea is to figure out which metrics meaningfully correlate with fantasy and NFL success, which ones are just noise, and then use that information to target players who are undervalued by the community and your league-mates. There’s no perfect formula, it’s just about trying to focus on things that actually matter.

The only thing that actually matters is the player’s skill and on-field abilities. That is what translates to the league and will determine whether they succeed or fail, and you aren’t going to learn anything about a player’s skill or abilities through numbers.

*The scouts from Moneyball have entered the chat*

[nathanq42]

I feel like you’re making my point for me. You literally did not have to personally spend a single second of your own time watching “film” to know these things.

The analytic approach rarely involves the “raw stats” that you mention. The idea is to figure out which metrics meaningfully correlate with fantasy and NFL success, which ones are just noise, and then use that information to target players who are undervalued by the community and your league-mates. There’s no perfect formula, it’s just about trying to focus on things that actually matter.

The only thing that actually matters is the player’s skill and on-field abilities. That is what translates to the league and will determine whether they succeed or fail, and you aren’t going to learn anything about a player’s skill or abilities through numbers.

*The scouts from Moneyball have entered the chat*

To be fair football is a waaaay more dynamic sport. In baseball the most that can happen on a standard play are 5 things.
1) A pitch
2) A swing
3) A catch (in the outfield)
4) Another throw (from the outfield to a base)
5) Another catch (at a base)

Sometimes it take more throws to get to a base, sometimes there are multiple tags in a play (quite rare if I'm not mistaken) but this all lends itself to be much easier to boil things down to numbers, and ratios than a dynamic sport like football/hockey/basketball. Because outside of baseball I've never heard of something similar to moneyball leading to success.

Edit: Actually the most standard play is a pitch with nothing else happening, but that wouldnt help illustrate the point

[PR0v3]

I feel like you’re making my point for me. You literally did not have to personally spend a single second of your own time watching “film” to know these things.

The analytic approach rarely involves the “raw stats” that you mention. The idea is to figure out which metrics meaningfully correlate with fantasy and NFL success, which ones are just noise, and then use that information to target players who are undervalued by the community and your league-mates. There’s no perfect formula, it’s just about trying to focus on things that actually matter.

The only thing that actually matters is the player’s skill and on-field abilities. That is what translates to the league and will determine whether they succeed or fail, and you aren’t going to learn anything about a player’s skill or abilities through numbers.

*The scouts from Moneyball have entered the chat*

Stats don’t play the game, and as far as I know, MLB scouting of high school/college prospects is largely based around tools.

Moneyball was for players already playing in the MLB or upper minor league levels, not prospect evaluation.

[OhCruelestRanter]

The only thing that actually matters is the player’s skill and on-field abilities. That is what translates to the league and will determine whether they succeed or fail, and you aren’t going to learn anything about a player’s skill or abilities through numbers.

*The scouts from Moneyball have entered the chat*

To be fair football is a waaaay more dynamic sport. In baseball the most that can happen on a standard play are 5 things.
1) A pitch
2) A swing
3) A catch (in the outfield)
4) Another throw (from the outfield to a base)
5) Another catch (at a base)

Sometimes it take more throws to get to a base, sometimes there are multiple tags in a play (quite rare if I'm not mistaken) but this all lends itself to be much easier to boil things down to numbers, and ratios than a dynamic sport like football/hockey/basketball. Because outside of baseball I've never heard of something similar to moneyball leading to success.

Edit: Actually the most standard play is a pitch with nothing else happening, but that wouldnt help illustrate the point

See now this is a how you make a point. Yeah- baseball is way more readily tackled from a purely analytical approach than any of the other 4 American sports for exactly the reasons you laid out. As for other sports, take a look at the NBA and you’ll notice that an analytic driven approach has dramatically driven a change in the way teams play, specifically focusing on 3s and dunks/layups. NBA teams now shoot roughly twice as many 3s as they did 10 years ago, because it’s a more efficient shot. One of the big differences with the NFL is that we don’t have access to the data the teams do- things like player velocity and acceleration numbers, etc.

In any case, the less intellectually robust response before yours still misses the point entirely. It’s not that there’s no need for anybody to watch film, but that the individual dynasty gamer isn’t gaining anything other than personal enjoyment from watching some clips on YouTube.

[Sriracha]

I would argue that Baseball has a much larger sample size which limits the noise in the data.

162 games vs 16-20

[CGW]

But that's the case in any sport. There is very little to gain by any fantasy gamer by watching YouTube clips of any sport.

I think there is a good argument that both tape and analyctis have their place. And even those who refuse to admit it, rely primarily on the prospecting of NFL scouts who use both analytics and film study.

That said, I'm glad me pointing out a hole JT missed has spurred a discussion about tape vs analytics. It's always such a fun topic that ends with no1 ever changing anyone's mind on how they evaluate talent.

[PR0v3]

*The scouts from Moneyball have entered the chat*

To be fair football is a waaaay more dynamic sport. In baseball the most that can happen on a standard play are 5 things.
1) A pitch
2) A swing
3) A catch (in the outfield)
4) Another throw (from the outfield to a base)
5) Another catch (at a base)

Sometimes it take more throws to get to a base, sometimes there are multiple tags in a play (quite rare if I'm not mistaken) but this all lends itself to be much easier to boil things down to numbers, and ratios than a dynamic sport like football/hockey/basketball. Because outside of baseball I've never heard of something similar to moneyball leading to success.

Edit: Actually the most standard play is a pitch with nothing else happening, but that wouldnt help illustrate the point

It’s not that there’s no need for anybody to watch film, but that the individual dynasty gamer isn’t gaining anything other than personal enjoyment from watching some clips on YouTube.

The individual dynasty gamer also isn’t gaining anything by doing “advanced analytical dives” of prospects either, considering that draft capital alone is the best predictor of NFL success there is. It’s all just for personal enjoyment, draft strictly on NFL draft capital if you are looking for maximum utility/efficiency. Anything more is just wasted time spent on “personal enjoyment.” You aren’t the next Billy Beane because you found out what dominator rating or speed score is.

[Sriracha]

To be fair football is a waaaay more dynamic sport. In baseball the most that can happen on a standard play are 5 things.
1) A pitch
2) A swing
3) A catch (in the outfield)
4) Another throw (from the outfield to a base)
5) Another catch (at a base)

Sometimes it take more throws to get to a base, sometimes there are multiple tags in a play (quite rare if I'm not mistaken) but this all lends itself to be much easier to boil things down to numbers, and ratios than a dynamic sport like football/hockey/basketball. Because outside of baseball I've never heard of something similar to moneyball leading to success.

Edit: Actually the most standard play is a pitch with nothing else happening, but that wouldnt help illustrate the point

It’s not that there’s no need for anybody to watch film, but that the individual dynasty gamer isn’t gaining anything other than personal enjoyment from watching some clips on YouTube.

The individual dynasty gamer also isn’t gaining anything by doing “advanced analytical dives” of prospects either, considering that draft capital alone is the best predictor of NFL success there is. It’s all just for personal enjoyment, draft strictly on NFL draft capital if you are looking for maximum utility/efficiency. Anything more is just wasted time spent on “personal enjoyment.” You aren’t the next Billy Beane because you found out what dominator rating or speed score is.

But when draft capital is used in combination with other factors it yields statistically more accurate results.

So.. draft capital is not the sole data point that matters.

[PR0v3]

It’s not that there’s no need for anybody to watch film, but that the individual dynasty gamer isn’t gaining anything other than personal enjoyment from watching some clips on YouTube.

The individual dynasty gamer also isn’t gaining anything by doing “advanced analytical dives” of prospects either, considering that draft capital alone is the best predictor of NFL success there is. It’s all just for personal enjoyment, draft strictly on NFL draft capital if you are looking for maximum utility/efficiency. Anything more is just wasted time spent on “personal enjoyment.” You aren’t the next Billy Beane because you found out what dominator rating or speed score is.

But when draft capital is used in combination with other factors it yields statistically more accurate results.

So.. draft capital is not the sole data point that matters.

I’ve yet to see any studies indicating such.

[OhCruelestRanter]

The only thing that actually matters is the player’s skill and on-field abilities. That is what translates to the league and will determine whether they succeed or fail, and you aren’t going to learn anything about a player’s skill or abilities through numbers.

draft capital alone is the best predictor of NFL success there is

Poor guy’s tied himself in a knot, it would seem.

[PR0v3]

The only thing that actually matters is the player’s skill and on-field abilities. That is what translates to the league and will determine whether they succeed or fail, and you aren’t going to learn anything about a player’s skill or abilities through numbers.

draft capital alone is the best predictor of NFL success there is

Poor guy’s tied himself in a knot, it would seem.

Not really, just speaking from the two different perspectives. If you want to ignore your eyeballs and everything that happens on the field, use draft capital. Anything else is a waste of time.

In reality, on field play/skills/attributes are the cause of success, and all the resulting numbers/stats/analytics/draft capital are byproducts of that.

If you want to blind yourself to the true drivers of success, just keep on ignoring the football being played.

There are reasons why Saquon was a better prospect than Taylor, and you aren’t going to know why just looking at the numbers.

[OhCruelestRanter]

The only thing that actually matters is the player’s skill and on-field abilities. That is what translates to the league and will determine whether they succeed or fail, and you aren’t going to learn anything about a player’s skill or abilities through numbers.

draft capital alone is the best predictor of NFL success there is

Poor guy’s tied himself in a knot, it would seem.

Not really, just speaking from the two different perspectives. If you want to ignore your eyeballs and everything that happens on the field, use draft capital. Anything else is a waste of time.

In reality, on field play/skills/attributes are the cause of success, and all the resulting numbers/stats/analytics/draft capital are byproducts of that.

If you want to blind yourself to the true drivers of success, just keep on ignoring the football being played.

There are reasons why Saquon was a better prospect than Taylor, and you aren’t going to know why just looking at the numbers.

This is a remarkably bad faith, strawman argument. Let's break it down.

Not really, just speaking from the two different perspectives. If you want to ignore your eyeballs and everything that happens on the field, use draft capital. Anything else is a waste of time.

First, you say you can learn anything about a player's skill from numbers, then you immediately pivot to a number that's demonstrably useful. Good job. Next, you create this false premise where thinking analytically means you "ignore everything that happens on the field," as if Tee Higgins' freshman season occurred in a video game. It's embarrassing that you need to have this explained to you, but these things all happened on the field. That's... that's what stats are. They're recordings of things that happened on the field. Again, it's astounding that this needs to be explained.

In reality, on field play/skills/attributes are the cause of success, and all the resulting numbers/stats/analytics/draft capital are byproducts of that.

Uhm, yeah. Of course. Literally nobody is arguing this. Again, the idea isn't that a WR breaking out at 18 literally helps him outmuscle a cornerback on 3rd and 12. This is a phenomenally simple concept that seems to be eluding your grasp. The idea is that those numbers/stats/analytics/draft capital help fantasy gamers identify the more talent players more efficiently.

If you want to blind yourself to the true drivers of success, just keep on ignoring the football being played.

Wow. Man, this is what it looks like when somebody who's been emotionally injured on a fantasy football forum starts lashing out. Why would anybody want to blind themselves to the "true drivers of success"?

There are reasons why Saquon was a better prospect than Taylor, and you aren’t going to know why just looking at the numbers.

Sure you can: Draft capital and receiving production. Barkley went a full round earlier, and Barkley produced almost twice as many receptions and accounted for 1.4x as much of his teams receiving targets. Easy.

Again, I really thought we were past the days of people pretending that using your brain and thinking about things analytically meant "ignoring what happens on the field." I didn't think anybody is this intellectually feeble to still fundamentally misunderstand this stuff to this degree, but here we are. Honestly, it seems almost willful, like a deliberate misunderstanding of really simple things. Maybe this is an homage to the recently deceased Joe Morgan? I'm sure he'd be proud.

[jman3134]

Analytics help paint the picture of what you are seeing. You still need to watch the film for context, or the analytics have 0 meaning. This applies to both football and basketball.

[MrUbuto]

Draft capital alone would have had you drafting Hurst over Andrew's which most knew was not the right move

[Ice]

Wow

Draft Capital
Film Study
Analytics

ALL MATTER

Everyone will research a bit differently. Only the fools believe there is one system.

Don’t be the fools!

My take is Taylor is a slightly above average RB today. He could develop into a fine RB but today he is a rookie finding his way and learning to play in a man’s game.

He isn’t a stud yet by any measure. He is flashing both upside and average.

Vision is suspect at this point IMO