I've been thinking about the NFL fantasy football draft for this year, and I think I have under-estimated the importance of the OL in my draft. It's easy to do, because almost nowhere do you see the OL stats tied to the individual player stats, but I think if you incorporate the OL stats into the stats for each position, you could really set up a solid drafting order. If I didn't have anything else to do, here's how I think it should be done, and why I think OL stats might be one of the most important factors for a player's draft value.
RB: If the OL is bad, then it doesn't matter how good the RB is. He's not going to get huge as often. Though a bad OL will mean lots of dumps to the RB, these dumps will usually be unplanned, and won't go for big yards.
WR: If the OL is bad, he won't have time to make his plays down field, meaning he's not going to get as many big point plays.
QB: Won't be able to throw to the WR because of pressure, so won't get huge yards.
TE: Here a bad OL is good for the player's stats. A bad OL will mean more passes to the TE because he'll be midfield, in the QB's view, when the QB is under pressure.
So... drafting my QB, WR, or RB would be based on the following criteria, in order:
1. Start here. Assign points to teams based on negative rushes, sacks, and QB hits. The team with the fewest points wins. (I don't know yet how to factor in things such as the Jets loss of Alan Faneca...)
Now the criteria for drafting each position depends on (in order):
For QB:
1. Last year's TD's
2. Last year's OL score - low is good
3. Last year's yardage
4. This year's starting RB
For RB:
1. Last year's OL score - low is good
2. Number of yards last year
3. Number of TD's last year
For WR:
1. Last year's OL score - low is good
2. Number of yards last year
3. Number of times thrown to last year/number of drops
3. Number of TD's last year
For TE:
1. Last year's OL score - here high is good... a bad OL means more dumps to RB and TE.
2. Number of TDs last year
3. Number of drops last year
The best player in the league gets one point in each category. This point is multiplied by three if it is the most important stat, by 2 if it's the second most important stat, etc... When you're done, you should have a point value for every player in the league, which should mean you can rank every player in the league for the draft.
Now, am I going to go add up all of that data? Probably not. If I did though, and drafted accordingly, I'd have the best team in the league. No doubt. (I always have to pick one sleeper though...)
