Why Rank Backups?
A facet of fantasy football that usually receives too little attention
is the ranking of real football backups. On the surface, this is
reasonable - if everything goes well, the backup should never gain
significant enough playing time to warrant a spot in your fantasy
football roster. They are, by definition, backing up against something
going wrong. However, things do go wrong, and to win your league
title you need to know how to turn other’s losses into your gains.
If you won your league title last year, or even came close, you
probably received help from one or more of these players, all of
whom entered training camp as backups- quarterbacks Kurt Warner,
Jeff George, and Tony Banks; running backs Stephen Davis, Tyrone
Wheatley, and Olandis Gary; wide receivers Marcus Robinson, Patrick
Jeffers, and Germane Crowell. That is a pretty impressive honor
roll. But then again if you tried to pin your fantasy hopes on the
likes of Rick Mirer, Byron Hanspard, or Jammi German you would have
been sorely disappointed. The obvious question is: how do you predict
which backup is going to be the next Kurt Warner and which is going
to be the next Rick Mirer? Well, read on.
All right, now that I see that you are reading a little more, I
must confess, no one could have predicted the season Kurt Warner
had. They didn't call it a fairy tale season for nothing. However,
you could have predicted Warner would have been a player to watch
after the offensive offseason the Rams had that; furthermore, after
he threw three touchdown passes during week one, you would have
known to snap him up. In every league that I played in last year,
not a single team picked up Warner on the waiver wire after his
awesome first game. I did, and was able to win a couple of league
championships despite losing stars like Jamal Anderson and Vinny
Testeverde to injury.
The Process
What I do to rank backups is a simple process. Since trying to rank
backups off of last year’s performance is shady business at best,
I use a numerical rating system. The system is weighted towards
what I believe is most important for a backup at a particular position
to achieve success. For quarterbacks it is weighted towards those
players who are surrounded by other good players and are in a good
system; for receivers I rely mainly on physical talent and experience;
for running backs I rely on a balance between the system, the talent,
and the opportunity. I’ll go into the specifics of each system later.
The important thing is to pick a few important criteria and keeping
the scoring simple.
Next, Make a list of all the backups at whatever position you are
ranking. I usually stick to the top backup, plus maybe a hot rookie
or intriguing free agent pickup, as well as multiple players if
a spot is contested. Usually for 31 teams I come up with between
35-40 backups that I am going to rank. Then I run them through my
system and come out with a rating for each player. Next I order
them highest to lowest.
You have now completed the first and most important step in ranking
backups: these rankings are your basic structure from which you
will rank players. The next thing that I do is move players up or
down a few spots depending on my own intuition, instincts, or things
that I think the system left out. Additionally, depending on small
scale changes in a situation I will adjust the player manually instead
of re-doing the system.
The next step is dividing between those players who, given an opportunity
to start would be worth a roster spot, and those who are backups
because they simply aren’t good enough to start. Pick a point on
your list below which you wouldn’t want the players even if they
were starting. Below that line should be players who won't possibly
produce, above it they should, at least if given the opportunity.
This division will also help in the event that a starter gets injured-
you’ll have an immediate breakdown of whether or not they are worth
picking up (or drafting if it is still in the pre-season For example,
this step actually helped me make the aforementioned distinction
between Warner and Byron Hanspard (though not during the same week
obviously). When Trent Green went down in the pre-season, I looked
at Warner’s rating and it was high enough that he was draft-able
(due to the influx of Mike Martz, Marshall Faulk, and Torry Holt
into the Rams offense). When Jamal Anderson went down (his was my
#1 back in the same league), I had low marks across the board on
Hanspard and instead waited, eventually picking up RB Olandis Gary
two weeks later. It made all the difference in the world.
The last step is knowing where your new, and much shorter, list
of backups fits in with the actual starters. This is the most subjective
part of the process, but there are a couple of guidelines. Ideally,
I make a cutoff between starters who are worth playing in fantasy
football and those who don’t ever put up good enough stats to start.
For example, that distinction for quarterbacks usually starts with
Troy Aikman, so I start mixing in the backups with the starters
here, using common sense to figure out where they go. Don't be apprehensive
about drafting backups in really good situations over marginal starters.
The Jeff George's of fantasy football are consistently better picks
then the Troy Aikman's and Elvis Grbac's- one might produce outstanding
numbers or he might not, the others will never produce outstanding
numbers.
However, I never draft a NFL backup for a position that doesn’t
already have a reliable fantasy football backup on my roster. It’s
just not worth the risk if a starter gets injured early in the season
to not have a starting player to stick in there. After you have
a your starters though, and a solid backup you feel good about,
go ahead and gamble on those players who potential might be higher
than some of the mediocre starters.
My Own Rankings
First off, let me say that if you want to be really good at fantasy
football, then you need to do all this rankings yourself. That’s
the fun of fantasy football, putting your own thoughts on the line
versus other owners. This article is a recommended technique for
putting your own ideas out there. Furthermore, every league has
its own unique rules, and those rules can drastically affect a player’s
rankings. So get a good idea of your league’s rules and start plugging.
For me, I rank the backups at the quarterback, running back, and
wide receiver positions. However each ranking system is partial
to the position. For every position I consider the likelihood that
they will have an opportunity to start. When I tally the totals
I make two totals- one considering starting opportunity, the other
doesn’t. The former total is for draft day, the latter for an in
season situation when a player actually gets injured and the backup
becomes the starter. Additionally, if you are drafting a backup
as insurance to a starter, I usually add a few points because they
are more valuable to you personally then they would be otherwise.
For quarterbacks I consider four factors about evenly (besides opportunity)-
system, team, talent, and experience. First, is the quarterbacks
offensive coordinator Mike Martz or Mike Shula? How about the team
around him, is it Errict Rhett and Kevin Johnson as in the case
of Ty Detmer, or is it Marshall Faulk and Isaac Bruce for Trent
Green? Then I consider the players physical talent, is this Mike
Tomczak or Jeff George? The last thing I consider is experience,
since it seems like most of the "surprise" quarterbacks lately have
been grizzled veterans who have moved to a better offense. In the
last three years there have been six quarterbacks to go from being
pre-season backups to end of the year top ten players. The only
one without significant pro experience was Trent Green (Washington
'98). Remember Warner had played several seasons of pro ball in
Europe and the Arena Football League.
In most leagues, running backs are the hardest to find, and thus
ranking them is the most important. The first two (and most important)
things I look at with running backs are talent and opportunity.
Neither alone will bread a successful fantasy running back, but
together they are a sure-fire combo. After that I consider the total
quality of the offense, and then the quality of the running game.
In terms of evaluating the quality of an offense, a key is that
while lots of offenses put up yards, the good ones are the ones
scoring the touchdowns (duh). And every coach in the league would
rather have their running back running in for "safe" scoring plays.
There are less backups turned stars at running back then at any
other position, so I will rank fewer backups with the starters then
at quarterback and wide receiver.
Wide receivers are very different then most other positions. There
are two starting on every team, and most teams run three receivers
or more quite a bit. So it is easiest for a wide receiver to break
out since they have two players who might get hurt and plenty of
opportunity to show their stuff while they wait for that to happen.
Furthermore, there are very few teams in the NFL who don’t feel
like they could upgrade at least one of their starting receivers,
so a change is more likely to happen. So when I rank wide receivers
I look primarily at the player, first their physical talent, and
second their experience. It takes a most receivers a several years
(between two and four) to develop, so usually a player will have
the maximum amount of experience points if they’ve completed two
to four seasons in the league. Next I look three small factors-
the quality of quarterback, the quality of offense, and the chance
that they could be the #1 receiver. It is important to realize that
the second receiver is only worthwhile on a few teams in the league-
so try and grab backups who have the ability to be a #1 and who
don't have a clear cut star receiver already on the roster.
Regardless of whatever criteria you choose to use, having a backup
draft list is really helpful for several reasons. One of course
is that come draft day, particularly in deeper leagues, you will
have a leg up on other owners simply because you have out-prepared
them. Secondly, it is a really helpful exercise to do to get to
know the league and forming opinions on it. Making this lists should
include getting to know the depth charts around the league, a team’s
offensive history, and the injury history of a particular starter.
Lastly, by using a system you can dig out sleepers that a casual
glance across the league might have missed.
Findings
Some of the things that stood out to me when I made my list were:
1) There is a big drop-off after the top three backup quarterbacks
(Jeff George, Trent Green, and Neil O’Donnell), but most of the
players in the second group are veterans who you could pick off
the waiver wire at any time. I think we will see a couple of veteran
QB’s spark there teams for short runs, and that could be very valuable
for your fantasy team.
2) There are a lot of quality backups at running back, but
no one that is guaranteed to shine. Some nice sleeper picks include
Priest Holmes, Adrian Murrell, Doug Chapman, Michael Basnight, Natrone
Means and Ahman Green. Still, I don't see another Stephen Davis
here.
3) The top of the backup WR list is populated by big, young
wide receivers from passing offenses. There should be a lot of opportunities
for these guys once injuries hit, and I think we definitely will
see someone approach Marcus Robinson-Germane Crowell type production
this year. My favorite sleepers from this position are three third
year men: Tony Simmons, Corey Bradford, and Donald Hayes. But the
top reserve receiver is probably EG Green who will go into Indianapolis’
training camp behind Jerome Pathon.
Conclusion
Well, I hope this helps some. I really recommend making these lists
for yourself, try it with running backs first and see how it goes.
Cheatsheets can tell you some things, but there is not substitute
for your own preparation.
