The other day, Jut suggested an idea for an article. Jut usually has good ideas and if he doesn't, The Gut Check often finds one after they debate a player or team's prospects. Jut's suggestion (email below) was profiling the most consistent players in fantasy football:

Take the perspective that it's not just about last year's numbers. Point out the players [that] may not have the eye-popping stats at the end of the week, but always gets several catches and a TD every other game. If you just based it on stats, you'd say that [one player] was better than [another] in our league, but, to me, [the more consistent player] was much more valuable. He got his points every week. [The other] didn't….

Excellent idea. Few people haven't had a season where their team(s) scored a ton of points one week then under-performed the next. When haven't you heard a story (or told one) where an owner has a roster filled with players that are statistically considered quality talent but the team seems to have bad luck for one too many weeks? These tend to be the squads that suffers tough losses, goes 7-6 or 6-7 in the regular season, and find themselves scuffling for a playoff spot. Finding out which players are consistent might yield some surprising results and be a new wrinkle for various fantasy personnel strategies.

The methodology involved is pretty simple, but the process is potentially time-consuming depending on how much data and reporting tools you have at your disposal. Fortunately, The Gut Check is somewhat handy with database queries and Doug Drinen of www.pro-football-reference.com is very generous with his tables of data:

• Compile weekly statistical performance of each player by position for any given year.
  
• Calculate the fantasy points for each week. The Gut Check used this basic scoring system:
  
  
  • 0.1 points per rushing and receiving yard.
    
  • 0.05 points per passing yard.
    
  • 4 points per passing touchdown.
    
  • 6 points per rushing touchdown.
    
    
• Calculate the average fantasy points per player by position for any given season.
  
• Calculate the baseline Fantasy Points per Game for positions in a 12-team league from 2000-2003 using these designations:
  
  
  • Elite Performer—These are the top player or players in terms of average fantasy points per game at their respective position-in other words, they are the cream of the crop. During this time span, The Elite is comprised of the best quarterback, the best two running backs, the three best receivers, and the three best tight ends.
    
    
  • QB#1, RB#1, WR#1, TE#1—Based on average fantasy points, these are the top 12 starters including the elite.
    
    
  • RB#2, WR#2,WR#3—These are generally starting lineup positions in most leagues and are the top 24-36 starters (including the elite and #1s)
    
    
  • QB#2, RB#3, WR#4—Depending on the league, these are positions in a starting lineup or first-line substitutions for bye weeks/injuries.
    
    
  • RB#4, WR#5, TE#2—These are generally substitution positions on a roster.
    
    
  • Sub-Par Performance-These are performances lower than the average baseline for the lowest-ranked positional category (QB#2, RB#4, WR#5, & TE#2). The Gut Check designated these categories to take in account bye weeks and roster-quality depth. These are players most leagues deem draft-able and will likely start these players at some point during the season.
    

Here is the baseline averages for each position from 2000-2003:

Using this data, The Gut Check rated positions on the following criteria for seasons 2000-2003:

• Average fantasy points per game
  
• Lowest Percentage of Sub-Par games
  
• Highest Percentage of Elite quality games
  
• Highest Percentage of #1WR, #2WR, #3WR, #4WR, and #5 WR-quality games

A great example to show how this works is the comparison of Marvin Harrison and Chad Johnson in 2003:

From strictly the perspective of 2003's fantasy points with this basic scoring system, Johnson is slightly better but Marvin Harrison would have had the edge if he had played 16 games. But how consistently did Harrison accumulate his points last season? Harrison had sub-par fantasy performances (less than 7.13 fantasy points in a game) for 33.33% of the 2003 season. Although this percentage is still indicative of a very good fantasy receiver, that's five games where he performed worse than the average #5 WR in fantasy football. Yes, Harrison is a great player and there's no denying he's a key cog for many a team, but for an elite receiver you count on five sub-par performances accounts for almost half of a regular fantasy season!

In contrast, Chad Johnson was sub-par for only three games in 2003-18.75% of the time. Furthermore, the Bengal's Pro Bowl receiver was 17% more likely to have an elite level performance than Harrison and 10% more likely to perform at least like a #1 WR.

Heading into 2003, taking Harrison over Johnson would be a no-brainer in most leagues. Unless you are in rotisserie-style league modeled after fantasy baseball where total season points determines the champion, it's actually more detrimental for an owner to have too many players that score a lot one week then play below expectations the next. Johnson turned out to be the better player because he had two fewer sub-par performances and three more elite-level games. Although they only had a total of 5-6 fantasy points separating them, this level of consistency from game to game could have a significant impact on your team's win-loss record.

Which receivers have been the most consistent for the last three years? The Gut Check chose the active receivers with the highest percentage likelihood of performing at least as a #3WR-a clear fantasy starter in traditional leagues:

The names on the list aren't much of a surprise, but the difference in consistency does jump off the page. If one were to draft according to these results, Terrell Owens and Randy Moss would be considered the best fantasy receivers in the game today. Moss isn't a shock, but Owens is a surprise when most people consider Harrison and Holt as better options. Let's look at the data:

• Owens averaged the most fantasy points per game in this span.
  
  
• Only Randy Moss had a smaller sub-par percentage-20.31% to Owens' 22.03%, but it still comes out to the same amount of games where they scored lower than 7.14 points.
  
  
• Owens and Moss had nearly the same number of games where they performed like a #1, #2, or #3 WR-with Owens' percentages slightly higher as a #1 & #3 and nearly 10% higher as at least a #2 WR.
  
  
• Additionally, Moss' and Owens' best fantasy total in a game during the last three years (36.9 and 36.3 points respectively) is nearly the same.
  

The Gut Check wouldn't tell you that based on this data Owens is the top fantasy choice over Moss, but he should be mentioned in the realm of Moss and Harrison. For the same period of time, Torry Holt is actually the player-not Owens-that should have been described as just a notch below for the last three years. Holt, to his credit, had a terrific 2003 and he and Moss were the most consistent high-performers at the receiver position so it's likely he's actually earning the credit he got a bit prematurely.

Along with Chad Johnson, Steve Smith is another receiver that was very consistent last year and may be trending upward. The Gut Check could also throw Peter Warrick, Chris Chambers, and David Givens on this list but the presence of other up and coming pass catchers on their teams (Washington, Booker, and Branch) makes Yours Truly more hesitant to tab them with the same confidence.

Jut initially used Hines Ward and Derrick Mason as examples for comparison. Just looking at the 2003 stats, the results were basically even-Ward had slightly more elite level and #1 WR performances but Mason was playing at a quality starter level more often than Ward. But from a three-year perspective, the difference is noticeably in favor of the Titans primary receiver. Nearly two-thirds (64.91%) of Mason's games were equivalent to a #3 WR compared with less than half (48.44%) of Wards'.

Consistency ratings for running backs are yet another way to illustrate the old fantasy axiom that the top backs tend to be more consistent and prolific than the top receivers.

There are seven backs that had a lower sub-par performance percentage than the most consistent receiver. Six out of these seven also averaged more points per game during this three-year span. The fifteenth-ranked back according to fantasy points was still better than the fourth-ranked receiver. This means knowing your values among positions and is an important draft day tool.

If you judge a back by the percentage of games where he performs at least on par with the average starting-quality RB in a fantasy lineup then Clinton Portis is your back of choice. Over three quarters of his games amounted to at least #2 RB-level performances. That's as solid as you can get. Marshall Faulk, Ahman Green, and Ladanian Tomlinson aren't too far behind, but there's a clear drop off after Tomlinson.

Edgerrin James is as consistent a fantasy player you can hope to draft-over 80% of his games resulted in performances that were at least better than the baseline for even a #2 fantasy quality receiver and no worse than quality, #3 RB in any given week. Considering the fact that James has been recovering from his ACL for two out of those three years, that's still very impressive. Maybe the most overrated back in fantasy drafts for the last three years was Shaun Alexander. The Gut Check believes the Seahawks starter is a terrific player, but the data shows that he was far less consistent than the back that many owners shied away from for two of the last three years-Fred Taylor.

The injury factor obviously plays into this decision, but even against the rest of this list only Anthony Thomas had a higher instance of sub-par performances than Alexander over this three-year span. Once again, Alexander's numbers from 2003 alone show a dramatic improvement and there where only five running backs with fewer sub-par performances. Seattle continues to improve, so expect a similar level of consistency from Alexander as his 2003 outing. So like Holt, he's earning the hype that may have been a bit too generous in the past.

Priest Homes? Incredible 2003 campaign-and it is no surprise that he had zero sub-par outings last year and 75% of his games were on the elite level. Jamal Lewis? Great yardage season, but his elite games percentage 37.5% was far lower than Tomlinson 62.5%, Ahman Green 56.25%, and Clinton Portis 46.15%. But Lewis won many a title for an owner because only 6.25% of his games were sub-par.

Quarterbacks tend to have a great drop off after the first three players. Unlike the other positions, the difference in performance among the first three passers in comparison to each other is very noticeable.

Based on this data, Daunte Culpepper is dramatically the best player in fantasy football today. The Viking has an elite-level game more than half the time he plays-only Marshall Faulk and Marvin Harrison are even remotely close to the 50% mark here. More impressive is combining his elite-level output with only 14% of his performances falling below the #2 QB level-only Ahman Green and Edgerrin James are more consistent and not by much.

Marc Bulger and Kurt Warner illustrate the effectiveness of the Rams' system. Although Peyton Manning ranks near the top of the list, he's only the best choice among passers if you factor in his health-something many owners don't take into account. Jeff Garcia's performances underscore the point that he's a very underrated player in both the NFL and fantasy football.

Both Garcia and Steve McNair continue to be overlooked #1 quality fantasy quarterbacks and present excellent value. Garcia was only behind McNair and Culpepper in consistency over the course of the 2003 season. In fact he was nearly 20% more consistent than Manning. McNair's performances over this three year period is trending upward-only Daunte Culpepper had a higher number of #1 QB quality performances than the co-MVP of the NFL. Speaking of co-MVP's Peyton Manning had a very un-MVP-like amount of sub-par fantasy performances in 2003-37.5%--and only a #1 QB quality performer 50% of the season!

The data for tight ends offers no surprises. Tony Gonzalez is the dominant player at the position. Jeremy Shockey is a player that matches Gonzalez's consistency as a #1 TE and has a similarly low percentage of sub-par games. Unfortunately, Shockey hasn't performed up to par in one the most basic elements that factor into consistency-getting out of the training room.

The Gut Check will try to find ways incorporate these ratings into more of his analysis as the season goes along and definitely into his rankings for next year. This information also looks like helpful data for evaluating trades, lineup choices, and FFTOC strategy. As always, share your thoughts and ideas. Maybe we can figure out even more practical applications of this idea.