Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Don't Game your Fantasy Football Lineup

One of the biggest mistake that fantasy football players make each year is to try and game their lineup on a week to week basis. I equate this to trying to beat the stock market. You may get lucky with a couple of wins, but over the long haul, you will lose.

Gaming your lineup means that you bench a great player with a tough match-up in favor of an average player with a great match-up. Its very tempting to do, but over the course of a long fantasy football season, its too risky. Great players like LaDainian Tomlinson are a near-lock to get 20-25 touchdowns over the course of the season and its impossible to know in which game they will occur. Sometimes, a great fantasy football player's numbers will come in spikes or bunches. You are better off starting a great player every game regardless of the matchup rather than trying to guess when the spikes will occur.

This year, try and resist the urge to game your lineup. Stick with your big guns and ride them out through the entire season. You're likely to end up with a better record after its all said and done.

1 comment:

HouTexan said...

I disagree. It depends on how well you prepare. Pasteur said "Chance Favours the Prepared Mind." This works out as so, I prepare and see my no.2 RB historically can't run on the opposing D or similar Ds, lets say Maroney vs Jets. Then I'll look at another back on my team who has a favorable matchup -naybe Deuce v the Colts- (with stats from last year, also depending on offseason FA pick ups for the opposing Defense or ability of the RB's Oline). Then I'll decide, with studying NYJ/NE newspapers and blogs. Then I'll be prepared. Lastly I leave it to instict, my inference would be (in Maroney's case) start him. But usually I wouldn't start anyone over my top picks unless its a bad matchup.
Fantasy Baseball works the best for Pasteur's reasoning.