Championship Week

The time has arrived. It was a tremendously competitive league this year. All six playoff teams are over .500 and separated by total season points and one win. The playoffs have been no different. As the stakes have risen so has the level of play.

The quarterfinals saw Rmmm's Golden Eagle (D Pilcher) and Yer X-MOM (P Smith) land a bye week while Yankinfowlsandfeline (J Smith) narrowly defeat TheSloppyButts(M R Smith) 102.99 to 99.71. The defending Brothers Keeper champion, Ghost, handled Points ON the Bench with a 27.08 point victory finalizing the semifinal matchups.

The eagle has landed. In the first game that was decided, 22 points separated Yankinfowlsandfeline from Rmmm's Golden Eagle. It wasn't even close. Rmmm's Golden Eagle had only scored below 100 points once during the regular season (week 2). It was a bad time to do so again.

In the second contest, Ghost and Yer X-MOM battle hard. The whole Sunday was back and forth. By the end of Sunday night, Ghost had around a 16.5 pt advantage with Yer X-MOM having one last player playing Monday night. It was going to be a seriously close game. Without CJ2K running for a 94 yard TD run in the second quarter against the NY Jets, we probably would be looking at a a different matchup in the final. But as it stands, Yer X-MOM beat Ghost by the second smallest point separation of the entire fantasy year. A cool 2.12 fantasy points. It could have been a bit different depending on who else could have been started by each team, but the chosen starters are the only ones who get to score for their teams. Yer X-MOM has had CJ2K through ups and down the past two seasons. He's owned CJ2K ever since he was picked off free agency prior to the start of CJ2K's professional career. The loyalty has payed off huge dividends. When the most important game of the season came, CJ2K did what he used to do more regularly and became elusive when he got to the secondary of a defense. Yer X-MOM could not be more thankful for the years of success with CJ2K.

As it stands, it will be Yankinfowlsandfeline against Yer X-MOM for the league finals. Neither are foreign to the Brothers Keeper championship game. Yankinfowlsandfeline was the first champion of the league back in 2007. Yer X-MOM was a back to back champion in 2009 and 2010. He will attempt to remain the only two-time champ by defeating Yankinfowlsandfeline. Otherwise Brothers Keeper will have two two-time champions. However, with the win, Yer X-MOM will be the league's first three-time champion. Trophies await the final victor. It's been a quiet and competitive year in Brothers Keeper. The year's end is near.

Good luck.

2012 Brothers Keeper Draft Results

We had a tremendously good time along with good food (thanks J Smith and everyone else!). Glad to see all turned out for the draft... and one who arrived late again (D Kessler's new tradition)! We had one who was on the fence about being able to make it and arrived anyhow. Way to go Ghost! Thanks to all our wives for making it happen too. Great food and friendships all around. Even got injury updates throughout the draft (like last year's Arian Foster horror!). This time it was A Detroit RB and QB! What a way to see your leaguemates shudder!

There was on rule change announced, namely, the institution of a waiver wire, which was previously lacking. See a further post on this later on.

Here's the final draft, with the appropriate changes following the trade between ThePunchin Munchkins and Rmmm's Golden Eagle. They worked it out over lunch. I would have voted against it but Rmmm's Golden Eagle knew he wanted nothing to do with D Sproles RB.

You can access the spreadsheet, the league website, or see the results below.

2012 Brothers Keeper Draft: AWOL's Beware

Every year at the end of August we clear our schedules for the very purpose of fantasy football success. We study. We build spreadsheets. We chat up our fantasy league mates for info on their strategies. Some even plan the food while others plan draft scenarios sabotage. And most importantly we draft our own winning teams. We don't want anyone else claiming our season's success because they drafted for us in our absence. Do not go AWOL on your league.

Be there for the draft. Don't be embarrassed about it. If you're afraid of what your non-playing-fantasy-football friends think don't be. You like this game and drafting can be the most intense fun of the season. You work all year for a couple bucks and maybe a family vacation and you're a good father (or mother for the ladies with kids). No one is going to think you should be nominated for worst father of the year by skipping out on a few hours of "family time" to draft with some buddies one or two weekends. You put food on the table and shelter over the heads and clothes on backs. You can do this without guilt. Believe me. There are more guilty ways to spend a little spare time than being out with some fellas for a fantasy football draft.

2012 Brothers Keeper Draft
Here's the all too familiar skinny on the 2012 Brothers Keeper 6 fantasy football draft:

Date: Saturday, August 25, 2012
Time: 5:30 PM CDT
Place: Grace Memorial Baptist Church, Slidell, LA
          58516 Pearl Acres Rd., Slidell, Louisiana 70461 (Google Map)
Bring: Courage, $15, side dish, and drinks. Oh yeah, your draft info/cheatsheets... I'm not giving you mine. The money is to pay for delicious BBQ.

Don't be like the rest of Louisiana and geaux AWOL!

It'll be awesome. Don't miss it.

If you miss it, you'll be penalized with a bad 1st round pick like Colt McCoy QB... because we all just know you love Colt McCoy.

Even the man with twin babies will be there... and so can you.

If the man from Texas will be there, you're not too far to make the drive... despite high gas prices. You can do it.

Rating and Ranking the Accuracy of Fantasy Football Projection Sites: 2011 Season Results, Multi-Year Accuracy, Free Cheat Sheets, and Weekly Advice Winners

Is that a $2 bill? Where's that go?

Accuracy can really matter a lot. Maybe not always. But sometimes you really need predictions to be correct. Perhaps it's a pregnancy test. You don't want to be like a woman all hopeful on a false positive and then find out some prediction instrument was baseless. No one likes let downs like that. We don't like it in fantasy football either.

Employers like genuine numbers too. Usually numbers related to money. Working the checkout you need to be exact with your cash register. Boss's care about those pennies! Those stock holders need to be paid somehow! So if you are asking yourself, "Who has the most accurate fantasy football projections?" or "Which cheatsheet should I use?" or something along those lines, this post is for you because you care about winning. You don't want to put your stock in something worthless. Everyone knows and utilizes ADP.

The Accuracy of 2011 Preseason Fantasy Football Projections

So whose fantasy football draft rankings are the most accurate? Whose fantasy football projections are the best? I like accurate fantasy football projections and so should you. A couple years ago I introduced you to a blogger who has taken it upon herself to evaluate preseason fantasy football projections after the fantasy season was complete. Finally someone began holding those prognosticators feet to the proverbial fire. There was a huge void to fill and she has done so quite unbiasedly. Thankfully after each season the FFLibrarian does the major task of evaluating the most accurate fantasy football projections on the Internet (submitted to her) and then reports the accuracy results to the fantasy football playing masses (Bless you Fantasy Football Librarian!). So who has the most accurate fantasy football projections? Who is the best predictor of regular season fantasy football statistics? And by the way, she, thankfully, breaks it down by position for each year as well. So for your viewing pleasure check out: 2011 (2011's participants; see also the F.S.T.A. contest rules and F.S.T.A. contest results here; see previous contest awards too); 2010; 2009; 2008; and 2007.

The Fantasy Football Librarian is no longer alone. Now you can also see FantasyPros accuracy evaluations from individual experts. So head on over to FantasyPros where they employ their PAY methodology to evaluate individual preseason draft rankings from 2011 (and summary). See also the draft rankings from 2010 (and the full results where you can view individual positions if you'd like). This doesn't just give you just website rankings results but you can also see multiple individual experts from each site evaluated. So take a look and maybe get informed about whose fantasy football rankings you should check out. Others like ProFootballWeekly and The NY Times Fifth Down have picked up on FantasyPros work.

The Multi-Year Accuracy of Fantasy Football Projections

It is all about consistency. Which fantasy football sites have the most accurate projections over the course of several years? The FFLibrarian has also collated the results from each of the previous years of research/analysis into a handy Multi-year Accuracy Results thus determining which sites have been the most consistently correct over a longer period of time. See the previous post (FFLibrarian's Multi-year Accuracy Results) for 2009's results (yes, I think she skipped 2010... Kids will do that you know). It should be interesting to see which sites are climbing the ranks or falling compared to last year's Multi-year Accuracy Results.

Free Fantasy Football Cheat Sheets
If you haven't seen it, take a look at Fantasy Rundown's 2012 Fantasy Football Rankings and Cheat Sheets. There you will find a ton of rankings you can find for free all in one place nicely organized. Study up along with all the free flowing fantasy football news from my own FF & NFL News page. If you access my daily edited The Brothers Keeper Evening Star you can see past daily editions and read up on the news I highlight including fantasy football strategy articles and research. Check out my FF Tools page for more tools at your disposal. Some are free sites and others require money. You will also find some fantasy football research articles there and on my Advanced Stats page. Whatever the case you can't just use a cheat sheet any more. You need to be prepared with a plan and be up on the latest injury news and transitions on NFL

Weekly Sit/Start or Rankings Advice Accuracy

Another fantasy site (that I have mentioned before), FantasyPros began to evaluate the best weekly fantasy football sit/start advice in 2009. They did it again for each week of 2010 and 2011. So check out their full results and the interviews of their top experts from 2010 and some analysis after 2011 along with Which Fantasy Experts Like to Gamble? If you used FantasyPros Expert Consensus Rankings then you should see the results of using multiple combinations of sit/start advice (How Accurate are Expert Consensus Rankings?). By the way I have their widget on my NFL News page. It definitely advocates the "Wisdom of the Crowd" approach to your weekly sit/start decisions and gives you an idea for the accuracy of their widget.

Good luck drafting!

2012 Post-Keeper Pre-Draft Spreadsheet

Well, after an abnormal delay by our league we finally have our keepers set for the upcoming Brothers Keeper fantasy football season. There were some teams who had some very difficult decisions to make on who to keep (Ghost and TheSloppyButts come to mind). However, the stress is gone and our keepers are locked in for the upcoming draft.

Here is the Post-Keeper Pre-Draft Spreadsheet (link) for your preparation pleasure. Try saying that last sentence out loud ten times fast! That task alone ought to send R Johnson's head into overdrive and give the rest of the league another easy win when we play his team! Comic Shtick aside here is the spreadsheet (please make two notes: [1] V Cruz WR and L Robinson WR for Forever Tide is subject to change rounds once his preference is given; they were both 15th round values but one must become a 14th round value upon his choice; L Robinson WR will be 14th rd, and V Cruz a 15th rd pick; [2] Cal Johnson WR is a 1st Rd value for Ghost and has no 2d rd pick):



Please be sure to watch for draft day details coming in the near future. It is crunch time for studying and draft day prep. Good luck.

2012 Pre-Keeper Values

Decisions. Decisions. With the countdown to the Brothers Keeper declaration date marching ever closer (two weeks from tonight, Sunday, August 12 at 11:59 PM CT) we have to weigh the values of or final 2011 rosters for the upcoming season. Who will we keep? Who will we throw away? Every year I struggle tremendously with this and this year is no different. Perhaps it is just as difficult for you. If it isn't, that means your team has no depth of talent! And that's okay, because you won't have the anguish others will feel for throwing players into the draft pool. Therefore it would be beneficial to the league to post the keeper values for each team's final roster from 2011.

This is usually done on a team by team basis when I post reviews for each team. While I have the basics in place for a possible series of posts covering each team's fantasy year and forthcoming expectations, I will venture to say that I will be unable to complete them in time.  If you are unable to see the values for your team please consult the Yahoo page for your team last year and do your own calculations. You can see some information there and on previous posts here.

I will review the information to see if it is correct. If you see anything that is incorrect please let me know and I will look into it and fix it if need be. However, in my estimate it is pretty accurate.

Again, I do not have the information to know who is and who is not developmental so we are on an honor system this year. I do know my own team's developmental eligible players. I hope you know your team's developmental eligible players.

Please log in to the league if you have yet to do so. We will need to nail down a draft date, time, and location. I hope you have a good offseason and wish you all the best as we stare down the beginning of league year activities.

Here is the link to the spreadsheet. From there you might be able to sort the information by team to see your team more succinctly. Otherwise, you also have the visual below.

Please be reminded that if you keep two 1st Round Keepers you will not have a second round pick. Also remember that if you keep two or more from the same round after the 1st round you will need to select a player to move up a round. For instance, one year I kept two folks who were a 10th round pick. I had to choose one to become a 9th round pick from those two. So be sure to indicate this to the Commissioner when you report your keeper selections to him. Also, if a player was a keeper last year he will move up a round if kept again this year. I have this reflected in the chart below. I also have calculated the value of players you did not draft but was drafted by another team in 2011. Please feel free to ask me or the Commissioner about any clarifications of the Brothers Keeper Canons you may need help with. Please see below this chart for my best guess on each team's keepers! It is back by popular demand yet without commentary and no clue about who is developmental.

My Best Guess at Each Team's 2012 Keepers
Please remember these are my guesses as to what will be done. Not my recommendation on what should be done or what I think is best. I could be way off. But D Kessler always keeps T Gonzalez! I also cannot remember developmental eligible players other than my own and P Manning since he didn't play a single game last year. The teams are being presented in their draft order.

ThePunchin Munchkins (M Peltonen)
M Vick QB Rd 14, M Austin WR Rd 13, and A Bradshaw RB Rd 3.

Simba's Buttkicker! ( R Johnson)
C Newton QB Rd 15, R White WR Rd 1, and M Turner RB Rd 1.

Yer X-MOM (P Smith)
C Johnson RB Rd 12, A Foster RB Rd 4, and M Wallace WR Rd 7. M Lynch RB Rd 8 as developmental.

Points ON the Bench (D Kessler)
D Brees QB Rd 1, P Rivers QB Rd 1, and T Gonzalez TE Rd 2!!!!

MOTHERSHIP RUSH (R C Smith)
S Smith (Car) WR Rd 15, W Welker WR Rd 5, and P Manning QB Rd 3 (developmental), and B Wells RB Rd 8.

Rmmm's Golden Eagle (D Pilcher)
D Sproles RB Rd 11, M Forte RB Rd 1, and T Brady QB Rd 1.

Forever Tide (M Mohler)
V Cruz WR Rd 15, R Gronkowski TE Rd 7, and R Mathews RB Rd 5.

Yankinfowlsandfeline (J Smith)
A Rodgers QB Rd 9, H Nicks WR Rd 5, and M Jones-Drew RB Rd 1.

TheSloppyButts (M R Smith)
D Murray RB Rd 15, R Rice RB Rd 2, and L McCoy RB Rd 1.

Ghost (B Garner)
A Dalton QB Rd 15, Cal Johnson WR Rd 1, and A Peterson RB Rd 1.

Brothers Keeper 6: The 2012 League Year Keeper Deadline and Draft

More Than A Feeling
Time. She has slipped away! The Summer has arrived and it is time to begin to plan for our sixth annual Brothers Keeper Fantasy Football league year. As always we will need to announce the keeper declaration date and draft date. The NFL regular season begins Wednesday, September 5, 2012 with the Dallas Cowboys taking on the NY Giants. The draft will need to be before this game, preferably no later than Labor Day, Monday September 3rd.

To Keeper or Not to Keeper?
The commissioner has already determined that the keeper declaration deadline date will be Sunday, August 12, at 11:59 PM CT (cf. Section II. D.). Please email him, call him, text him, tell him in person, or write it in invisible ink and mail it to him. Just make sure it is legible and that he remembers it.

Please review your 2011 final rosters to view your team's players. I did not have time to track who all is developmental eligible and who isn't other than for my own team. So please don't let the honor system down this year. I will attempt to get the keeper values for each team's rosters in the very near future.

If you need a reminder of the keeper rules please consult the Canons. It could be worth your time to revisit. Here's a little countdown widget for your convenience:

Draft Considerations
The draft date is still not yet determined. However, if you wish to no longer play in Brothers Keeper, please notify the commissioner as soon as possible. I have no idea why anyone would want to leave such an awesome league, but if you must please do your due obligation to the league as we will need to do a team transfer process just like last year. If not, sign into the keeper league website so you do not miss out on other discussions regarding the dates, times, and location of league actvities.

Just by way of review, the draft order is as follows:

1. ThePunchin Munchkins
2. Simba's Buttkicker!
3. Yer X-MOM
4. Points ON the Bench
5. MOTHERSHIP RUSH
6. Rmmm's Golden Eagle
7. Forever Tide
8. Yankinfowlsandfeline
9. TheSloppyButts
10. Ghost

A Fantasy Football Draft Value Chart Update: 2011

On July 31, 2010 I published one of my most popular posts in the broader fantasy football arena: Building a Fantasy Football Draft Value Chart has shown up high on multiple search engines queries and has been viewed over 1000 times according to the blogger statistics. The third most popular post has been Do Bookends Rule? A Study on the Value of Draft Slots/Positions in a Snake Draft with just over 350 page views. That study could only have been produced on the heels of it's predecessor (Building a Fantasy Football Draft Value Chart). The methodology is still the same as in 2010's update. However, don't be fooled, there are others using my work for their leagues now as well. There is value for those who know what it is trying to convey. Be sure to tailor any draft value chart for your fantasy football league's rules and scoring.

Review and Baselines
By way of a brief review, I have built an Ideal Fantasy Football Draft Value Chart that is league specific in order to place a numeric value on every draft pick in the fantasy football draft according to the Brothers Keeper scoring settings. In order to eradicate human errors in the actual fantasy football drafts, the Brothers Keeper Ideal Fantasy Football Draft Value chart provides us with the an educated estimate of the perfect market efficiency value of each draft pick. Instead of utilizing straight fantasy points, I have utilized fantasy points over baseline (FPOB) in order to evaluate the players from different positions equally. The baselines from years past are as follows:

Baselines of Overall Performance For Each Year:

2006
10th Ranked QB = 240.3 fantasy points
50th Ranked RB/WR = 148.9 fantasy points
10th Ranked TE = 112 fantasy points
10th Ranked K = 118 fantasy points
10th Ranked DEF = 139 fantasy points

2007
10th Ranked QB = 281.18 fantasy points
50th Ranked RB/WR = 150.8 fantasy points
10th Ranked TE = 106.55 fantasy points
10th Ranked K = 127 fantasy points
10th Ranked DEF = 146 fantasy points

2008
10th Ranked QB = 266.32 fantasy points
50th Ranked RB/WR = 163.28 fantasy points
10th Ranked TE = 100.9 fantasy points
10th Ranked K = 129 fantasy points
10th Ranked DEF =142 fantasy points

2009
10th Ranked QB = 304.34 fantasy points
50th Ranked RB/WR = 155.65 fantasy points
10th Ranked TE = 138.6 fantasy points
10th Ranked K = 122 fantasy points
10th Ranked DEF = 137 fantasy points

2010
10th Ranked QB = 313.44 fantasy points
50th Ranked RB/WR = 153.88 fantasy points
10th Ranked TE = 124.25 fantasy points
10th Ranked K = 120 fantasy points
10th Ranked DEF = 131 fantasy points

Now that the 2011 fantasy football season is complete, the 2011 baselines can now be added:

2011
10th Ranked QB = 303.26 fantasy points
50th Ranked RB/WR = 149.65 fantasy points
10th Ranked TE = 133.75 fantasy points
10th Ranked K = 135 fantasy points
10th Ranked DEF = 136 fantasy points

As you should notice, the baselines did not differ wildly from those of the previous 2 seasons for TE, K, and DEF. It did decrease for QBs and WR/RBs. For those interested here is the 6 year average of those baselines:

6 Year Avg
10th Ranked QB = 281.12 fantasy points
50th Ranked RB/WR = 154.5 fantasy points
10th Ranked TE = 1116.46 fantasy points
10th Ranked K = 123.2 fantasy points
10th Ranked DEF = 139 fantasy points

Brothers Keeper Ideal Fantasy Football Draft Value Chart
Below is the post 2011 Brothers Keeper Ideal Fantasy Football Draft Value Chart. The first column is the round each pick is made in. The second column is the individual team's draft position for a snake draft. The third column is the overall pick number. The next five columns detail each season's Ideal Draft Value for each pick from 2006 - 2011 (One Louder!).



The 2010 Amendment to Consider
Now that you can see the 2011 update we need to revisit some Brothers Keeper history. The inaugural season of this keeper league was 2007. As you should recall, it utilized the full 17 weeks of the NFL regular season in order to complete the playoffs. As such the 2006 and 2007 FPOB numbers are actually skewed higher because the fantasy point totals involved actually reflect an extra week of fantasy point production compared to the 2008 - 2010 fantasy seasons. In order to make the Brothers Keeper Ideal Fantasy Football Draft Value Chart more accurate I have added a preferred colored column to it that reflects the average FPOB from 2008 - 2011 since we have only used 16 weeks of the regular NFL season to complete our fantasy football playoffs (cf. I. League Settings). Therefore the 4 Year Average does not include the 17 week skewed FPOB from 2006 - 2007. For your consideration the difference between the 4 Year Average and the 6 Year Average is small after the first round as indicated in the far right column titled Difference.

If you think the 4 Year Average of the FPOB from 2008 - 2011 is better, then take a look at the 4 Year Average of the baselines from those years:

4 Year Avg
10th Ranked QB = 294.7 fantasy points
50th Ranked RB/WR = 157.6 fantasy points
10th Ranked TE = 121.25 fantasy points
10th Ranked K = 123.67 fantasy points
10th Ranked DEF = 136.67 fantasy points

Here, then, is the 2011 update to the visual graph of the Brothers Keeper Ideal Fantasy Football Draft Value Chart:

For those who would like to visually see the difference between the 4 Year Average and the 6 Year Average see the following graph:

Now that we have the 2011 update completed we can proceed with better research in the upcoming blogs. I will refer to the Brothers Keeper Ideal Fantasy Football Draft Value Chart often. This should also aid competitors when valuing draft picks in any potential trade. May you enjoy your fantasy football offseason as the 2012 season begins to near!