How to Project RBs: Part 2

by Cameron MacMillan (Cameron) Last Updated 2015-10-04 02:25:31

How to Project RBs: Part 2

Projecting players’ scores is what Fantasy Sports is all about. There are a variety of methods that allow you to wind up with an accurate projection for any given player or players, but let’s face it, if you don’t have any method for projecting players’ output, then you’re probably not going to be a long-term winner. Even if you are making a killing each week utilizing the ‘feel for the game’ approach, projecting with stats might help you better understand how you are making those projections. Even if you are projecting based on ‘feel for the game’, you are probably still doing a bit of math and stats in your head in order to back up your guesses. In Part 2 we finalize an approach I use for Weekly NFL Projections.

Jacobs in the Top 10?

After hearing the news that Brandon Jacobs will start this week, it’s clear Tom Coughlin was reading Part 1 of this series, and noticed the Average Yards Per Carry table. I kid. We all know that Bradshaw fondness of fumbling this season is the main reasoning behind his demotion, but the timing of this switch is a bit precarious for moving forward with these projections in Part 2 since it effects two of the 10 players mentioned in this piece. For the sake of example, let’s assume that the Giants were planning to use both of their Running Backs this week as they had in the past to keep it nice and simple.

Percentage of Workload – Step 2: Percent of Team’s Carries

Percentage of Workload – (APG/Team’s Total APG), or as I am going to insistently attempt to coin, POW. POW is extremely important for Running Backs. A top RB will get many more touches per game (often around 20) than a top WR (often around 6). This makes an RB’s output much more consistent, in general, than WRs from week-to-week. A higher POW often means a player’s ceiling is higher, because they will have more opportunities to produce. Below are the same RBs from Part 1’s YPC, APG, and POWs.

Goal-Line Power – It doesn’t matter what site you are playing, touchdowns are much more valuable than yardage. The Goal-Line Power factor (we’ll call this GLP) in the table below is the:

Average of [(Amount of Goal-Line Carries Per Game / RB Average) + (Total Rush TDs / RB Average)]

This represents an RBs knack for finding the end-zone in their current offensive system. In this case, RB Average will be calculated from the same pool of RBs (those with at least 50 carries), which makes the RB averages 4.1 for GL carries and 3.64 for Rush TDs. When doing this on your own, you’ll want to use the field-size from which you would readily roster players from to calculate any averages. Doing the math gives us the following for GLP:

• Essentially, POW is a way of determining how featured, a featured Running Back actually is.

Defensive Matchups and Initial Projections

Here’s where Ray Lewis reminds you that Tom Brady and the QBs get all the attention. Don’t forget about the DE-FENSE! There’s 11 guys on that side of the ball too, and they each have control on the outcome of the game. Since, in the fantasy sports world, defenders come lumped in as one-unit, it’s easier to pull their stats. Each week, I like to take a look at NFL.com’s Stats to work the defensive Rushing/Passing numbers into my projections. Once we have all of the stats from defense to formulate our Rushing Projections per player, I like to:

• Use Each RBs per game average ( from rushing only ), assuming Non-PPR, 1 pt. per 10 Yards, and 6 pt. per rushing TD.

• Use the yardage and TDs allowed per game by their opponent, and apply those numbers to the player’s POW and GLP factors to determine their projection based on the matchup ( Author’s Note: This step involves dividing the Rush yards Allowed per game by 10 to account for fantasy points ).

• Then evenly average the outcome of the step above, with the Season Average number shown in the table below in order to get our RB rushing projections for the week.

Other Factors

Before making the projections final, there are ‘Other Factors’ I like to cover:

• PPR and Receiving – The projections above only account for that player’s rushing production. It is very important to combine your receiving and projection totals per player. In the next article, we will go over how to project receivers, and how to combine the two in excel. For now, I’m going to just manually add the following to each players’ projection:

(Rec. Yards Per Game / 10) + (Rec. TDs Per Game X 6).
Note: If you do PPR, you will need to factor that in as well.

• Injuries and Adjustments – This week Reggie Bush is back, which will take out of Chris Ivory’s production. Beanie Wells has been consistently in consistent, so Hightower value remains the same in my eyes (unless word gets out that Beanie is removed from the game entirely). Finally, as we mentioned earlier, we are going to ignore the adjustments that need to be made for Bradshaw and Jacobs for the sake of example today. Also, be sure to take note of any injuries to your RBs Offensive Line/Quarterback, and adjust accordingly.

• Team’s Ability – Check the points spread on these games. If your RB’s team is favored by a lot, notch his value up, because they will likely be running the clock out. If your RB’s team is favored to lose by a lot, notch his value down, because his team will likely be airing it out to catch up.

Final Weekly Projections

So we’ve finally got all the information we need to project our 10 RBs this week. This may look daunting at first, but once you get the hang of it, you can do these projections for all of the players in under 30 minutes in Microsoft Excel. This is a great starting point to project your players, and as you get a better feel-for-the-game, you can adjust your projections accordingly.

Factoring in the ‘Other Factors’ to the Projections above, I’ve calculated my final weekly projections for the 10 players below (now including receiving, non-PPR):

Ceilings and Floors

The last point to discuss, is to analyze Ceilings and Floors. In a lot of instances, you will find that your projections wind up being very close between two players and you can’t decide whom to choose; this is when Ceilings become very important. Ceilings are predominantly determined by a player’s ability, as mentioned in Part 1, and they are also a sign of consistency. If your projections have two players coming in at about the same projection, you want to choose the player who is capable of breaking the big plays ( YPC ), the player who will get the most touches in the game ( POW ), or both. I am mentioning floors to be technically sound, but to be honest, if you have to consider a player’s floor, you should not be selecting them. By first, projecting your players based on stats, then choosing the players with the highest ceilings, you’ll certainly see a dramatic increase in your results.