Every year about this time, there are plenty of folks in the fantasy industry who call it "ridiculous" to put much stock into analyzing potential matchups. While none of these folks have every aimed their arrows directly at me when they say this, it pains me a little bit. Why? It's bad advice.

Let me begin by saying their rationale is understandable. We don't know what November and December holds. For that matter, most of us don't even know what Week 1 holds. Just because a lot changes between now and then doesn't mean we shouldn't try to predict the future with what we know at the moment. After all, it is our job as owners to predict the future the best we can.

Fantasy football is a stock market game, and our job as analysts is identifying when stocks may be poised for an increase or ready to tank. The schedule is one of the most assessable, easy-to-understand tools we have at our disposal to warn us of when impending doom may hit or success may be forthcoming. The trick is understanding how offseason additions and subtractions - both from a coaching and personnel standpoint - on defense can affect what offensive players do this year. A lot of folks don't have the time or desire to do this. I've done it for roughly 10 years, and I'm pretty certain I owe a great deal of my success to it.

Having said that, it's important to understand my PMAs have never been about ranking players based solely on projected matchups, but rather using it as a (small) part of my evaluation. In fact, the schedule is worth no more than 10 percent of my grade at any position and among the last of the five to seven factors I consider at each spot. The schedule alone does not make Odell Beckham Jr. or David Johnson an elite player at their position. My PMAs have always been about using matchup analysis to help unearth potential gems in the middle-to-late rounds.

Circling back to the original premise, Week 16 is not the time to find out Beckham will almost certainly be shadowed by Patrick Peterson. Owners should know that before they draft him. Does that mean OBJ is not a top-five fantasy pick? Of course not. It means owners should know the odds are somewhat unfavorable Beckham is going to be an elite player during their league's championship week before they choose him. If that sounds like more detail than one should consider, perhaps are getting an idea how much thought I put into this.

Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of good analysis in the fantasy industry. However, analysis without giving a second thought to potential matchups is incomplete, just as if a financial market analyst on TV didn't mention the history of the CEO in his/her second-quarter recommendation of a stock and based his/her opinion only on "recent trends." Like the stock market, fantasy football is full of plenty of moving parts, and it is important to be able to account for as many of the important variables as possible.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming …

I am still fine-tuning my updated Success Score Index (SSI), which involves meticulously grading and assigning certain weights to several attributes that I feel are critical to fantasy success at that position, so that score will not appear on the first round of Big Boards this week or next. It is the number that allows me to compare apples to oranges across the positions. I also am not finished yet with scoring averages for each player, although I anticipate that will be included with the SSI for the second round of Big Boards starting in two weeks.

For all of those unfamiliar with my Big Boards, allow me to explain the color-coding system before we start:

Red – For lower-level players, a red matchup means they should not be used in fantasy that week. For a second- or third-tier player, drop your expectations for them at least one grade that week (i.e. from WR2 to WR3). For elite players, expect them to perform one level lower than their usual status (i.e. RB1 performs like a RB2).

Yellow – For lower-level players, he is a borderline start at best. For a second- or third-tier player, they can probably overcome the matchup if things fall right. For the elite players, expect slightly better than average production.

White – This one that could go either way. In some cases, I just don’t feel like I have a good feel yet for this matchup. Generally speaking, these matchups are winnable for all levels of players.

Green – For non-elite players, the stage is basically set for said player to exploit the matchup. For the elite player, this matchup should produce special numbers

Note: Next week, I will release my first Big Boards for 0.5 PPR leagues as well as The Fantasy Championship (TFC) and FFPC Big Boards. In the final set of Big Boards over the following two weeks, I will rank 200 players and present my final rankings for kickers and defense/special teams.

Here is the scoring system that I used to rank the players in the Non-PPR format: