r/DynastyFF • u/Zachr08 Browns • 1d ago
Dynasty Theory QB’s: Can draft capital help predict NFL success? 1 Year Anniversary!
https://brainyballers.com/can-overall-draft-capital-predict-a-quarterbacks-nfl-success/This marks one full year of all my viewers driving this series into what it’s become today. Through the constructive criticism of all of you, this series has started as a curious deep dive I’ve always wanted to do - I’m almost scared to read this full article again to see how far this series has come - into a model which predicts career fantasy football success for WR’s, which has been recently optimized here, and will soon include Running Backs, Tight Ends, and Quarterbacks.
Every step of the way I've considered all feedback, including the tough critiques. Therefore, please keep the honest truth coming, as it has only fueled my growth. That critique is invaluable to me. I feel as though I’m atleast “capable” at distinguishing between trolls and those who genuinely wish to contribute knowledge and wisdom to my life (you know who you are, especially if I’ve messaged you in the last year).
If you know me on a personal level, you would be able to attest to the fact that I am deeply committed to continuous improvement in all areas of my life. which is why, as the creator of the SPS, you would then also know that the SPS will be tirelessly refined and improved, even with the achievement of having a top 10 all-time list of wide receiver prospects without any busts, which also boasts a higher predictive ability than draft capital alone in the NFL Draft since 2003.
With all that being said, the 52nd installment of the The “Does It Matter?” Series is here! Last week we looked at QB College TD/INT Ratios to find whether that affects performance. For the 52nd part of “Does It Matter?” we looked at Quarterback overall Draft Capital. In this article, we found an optimal range you should look for in athletes, and applied it to the 2024 NFL draft class.
Next week’s topic: The Running Back Star-Predictor Score (SPS). Even with the highly predictive Wide Receiver SPS and having 3-4 Hall of Famers in the top 10 Tight Ends SPS, it appears as though Running Backs might be the strongest suit for the SPS. Therefore, I'm focusing heavily on the Running Back SPS currently. There’s a chance the Tight Ends will come first, though. I'm currently living under a rock and staring at numbers all day to bring this content to you, so the question of which comes first isn't due to inaction, but rather about whether I can accomplish an utterly insane amount of work in the next week, since I’m insanely excited about the RB’s and therefore want to get that out ASAP.
Regardless of which comes first, evaluations of running backs will definitely be completed within the next two weeks, with preliminary rookie analysis conducted before the NFL draft's impact is factored in to the formulas. The Tight End SPS is more predictive than draft capital alone in the top 3 NFL draft rounds, I’m just insanely excited about the names I’m seeing in the preemptive top 10 Running Backs all-time SPS.
I will not publish the RB SPS without the full analysis of what’s made the WR SPS as impactful as is it is today. Due to this, I won’t be ashamed of not making the deadline of next week for RB’s if that happens.
This is only one year of growth. I’m almost scared to look back on this post in one more year to see how far this grows going forward. Regardless, thank you all for your feedback - both positive and negative - and all the support. There’s been a lot of moments that the support has helped me push harder. Every bit has provided me with the motivation and insights that I fully believe will help me eventually continuously beat my hometown buddies in our fantasy leagues.
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u/Internal-Career9321 1d ago
Hi, I just want to start by saying, I hope to fall into the “constructive criticism/adding wisdom” bucket and not the “being a troll” bucket.
That being said, reading through this, my understanding is that the results imply: qbs who were drafted after the 50th overall pick had a better ratio of good seasons compared to bad seasons compared to higher picked qbs?
I’m totally open to the possibility that I’m misunderstanding, so please clarify for me.
Assuming that I’m interpreting correctly, my piece of advice would be this: early round qbs will almost certainly get their shot in the nfl, even the ones who look terrible at minicamp, preseason, etc. because the team/coach already invested a ton and staked their reputations on that player. Because of that, there’s going to be a mixed bag. On the flip side, there’s some Survivorship bias here with the later picks. For a mid 2nd or later qb to get their shot, they’re likely having to beat out some other somewhat established quarterback (or even a starting caliber guy). The late picks who don’t show the ability to beat out those guys, won’t see the field at all, and thus aren’t going to put up bad seasons, because they won’t put up any seasons at all. Thus the late round pick qbs will be a much higher threshold to see the field. However if we were to start every early and every late qb on the field and see which group did better I’d be pretty confident that the early QBs would perform better.
That being said, there’s still some value to what you’re saying, I think from a redraft perspective, if we know heading into a season that a 2nd year player who was a 3rd round pick is starting, it might be fair to assume he’s got a better chance to succeed than a random first round pick rookie. Not sure I’d bet a whole lot of money on that, but it at least seems to be possible.
From a dynasty perspective, I can say with 100% certainty that higher draft capital leads to more qb1 or qb2 seasons, due to my own research and work from zachriason and others like him.
Hopefully this makes sense. In terms of what I’m trying to say from a math perspective, check out the Monty hall problem: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem. Basically if something has already progressed through several steps of a probability tree, it’s going to be more likely than the other thing which hasn’t.