Economics and Sports Mr. Joseph This is Not a Game Economics and Sports Welcome to your Economics and Sports experience. If you are reading this, you are a member of the inaugural group of students who will share a classroom this coming fall. You should be excited about this I most certainly am. Before you arrive in September, I think it is important that you understand the philosophy that built this class. Have you ever, even for a moment, felt that school was disconnected from your interests, or passions, or lives? I m guessing the answer is yes. It s probably something we ve all felt at some time. I have a different vision for this class. When I imagined the possibilities what this experience could be, everything centered around this question: How amazing would it be if we found kids who love sports, and showed them a different way to look at them. What if we took the conversations we all have as sports fans the arguments about which player is better, or who should be drafted, or traded, or signed or the ones about concussions, or steroids, or college athletes getting paid the conversations about millionaire athletes going broke what if we used those conversations as the basis of a rigorous exploration of the world of economics? What if school was a place you couldn t wait to get to in the morning? What if you were passionate about learning? What if something difficult and challenging was also fun? What if the idea of cutting a class seemed utterly ridiculous, because there was simply nowhere else you d rather be. That is what we are going to create together this fall. It could be amazing. It will be. The Summer Assignment Let s begin with a question. If you were teaching a course called Economics and Sports, and it began in September and ran through the fall, how would you start it? Stop reading for a second and really think about it. What would be the first activity of the school year? What would be the best way to introduce people the topic of Economics and Sports? A fantasy football draft, right? It s almost too obvious. And so that is how we will begin the school year. We will divide the class into leagues and have a semester long competition that tracks alongside the football season*. Has it dawned on you yet how cool this is going to be? Now, it is important that you realize that the thing we want to learn about here is economics, not football, and so there is a very specific way I want you to think about this upcoming draft. The first concept we are going to learn about is something called scarcity. Here is the definition I will give you in September for your notes: *At no time, and in no way, will any of this be for money. This is school.
Scarcity the idea that there are limited resources to fulfill unlimited wants o Scarcity means that we can t have everything that we want. o It is the reason we must make choices Economics is primarily concerned with the problem of scarcity Naturally, when a person picks a fantasy football team, they want to have the best players at every position. Every owner dreams of having a team that goes out every week and just destroys every opponent. Unfortunately, that is almost impossible to do. There are simply not enough players to go around. This is the concept of scarcity in action. You cannot have everything you want and so you must choose. When you return in September, we will conduct a fantasy football draft. The rules, format and size of your league will be determined then. After we hold that draft, you will be responsible for being able to defend your picks on the basis of positional scarcity. For example, if you take a quarterback early in the draft, you will be asked to explain, extensively, that choice in terms of how scarce quarterbacks are generally. So as you prepare for this draft, you need to keep this concept in mind. To help you, I have a list of things you need to do this summer. It is below. Things you need to do this summer: 1. Create a free ESPN account. 2. Read the attached article, Fantasy Football Draft Strategy. It provides an overview of the impact of scarcity. 3. Go to http://games.espn.go.com/frontpage/football. Here you will find resources that will help you understand players better. At the very least, as the season approaches, you will find position specific rankings of players with projected output. If you do nothing else, you will be able to get a grasp of how many players of value exist at each position. Later in the summer, Matthew Berry will publish his 2015 Draft Day Manifesto, which is a worthwhile read about strategy specific to the upcoming season. 4. On a separate sheet of paper, write up a general strategy for your draft. You should plan on it being due September 8 th. Specifically, you need to write out a basic plan for the first 5 rounds of the draft. It does not need to be player specific. It does need to be position specific. What position do you think you will take first, second, etc., and why? Then consider and answer the following questions: How does your strategy change if I tell you the class will be made up of 3 10-team leagues? What if it s 2 16-team leagues? How does it change if I told you that every week, you need to start 2 quarterbacks instead of one? What if there is a wild card position where you can start anyone from any position? What position are you going to take last? I will collect your strategy and your answers to those questions on September 3 rd, and we will draft shortly thereafter. In the meantime, enjoy the summer, and remember, you are about to begin your senior year you have so much to look forward to. I can t wait. Best, Mr. Joseph
Fantasy Football Draft Strategy Things You Need To Think About Chris Liss Rotowire.com 1. Understand the Value of Quarterbacks in your League. Quarterbacks typically dominate the total points leaderboard in most formats, but their values depend on several things including your scoring system, the number of teams in your league, the number of starting quarterbacks (including quarterback-eligible flex positions) and the required number of starting position players (RB, WR). Scoring System Whether quarterbacks get 3, 4 or 6 points per passing touchdown, whether and how much they get docked for interceptions and how many points they get per passing yard all matter. Your league's scoring for passing yards and TDs also affects the value of quarterbacks who run the less credit given for passing stats, the more the running quarterbacks stand out relative to their peers. Point-per-reception (PPR) leagues add more relative value to position players and remove value from all quarterbacks. League Size There are 32 teams in the NFL, and typically 15-20 of them have quarterbacks you'd be willing to use, though probably fewer on any given week when you take into account bye weeks, weather conditions and matchups. In a 12-team league that starts just one-qb, you can almost always find quality quarterbacking late in your draft, or on the waiver wire. Accordingly, in most formats of that sort, you should wait until the middle to late rounds to draft one unless an elite one falls significantly below ADP. In a 14-team league (or deeper), the position typically becomes far more scarce, as the waiver wire is usually fairly barren during the year, and owners are therefore inclined to draft backup QBs earlier. That means you wait on QBs at your peril, though the other positions in deeper leagues are scarce also so you'll have tougher choices to make.
Number of Quarterbacks Started In two-quarterback leagues, or leagues where you can start a second QB as a flex (essentially 2- QB leagues), the value of the position skyrockets, and getting two competent starting ones is almost essential and something on which it's worth spending early picks. Number of Position Players Started The number of starting position players (RB, WR) is crucially important to determining the value of quarterbacks. If you start 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, and one FLEX (RB/WR), the ratio of position players to QB is 6:1. That's high, and it diminishes the value of QBs relative to position players. If you start 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, then the ratio is just 4:1 which is low, and it's more permissible to draft QBs early. In a 14-team league, this ratio is often the tiebreaker for me when it comes to deciding whether to wait on quarterbacks. Once you've figured out the value of quarterbacks, the rest of your job is typically easier. If their value is relatively low, you punt the position and load up on WR/RB unless a star QB falls so far below ADP that you have to take him. 2. Take What the Draft Gives You People often ask whether they should go RB/RB at Pick 9 in a 12-team standard league, or if it would be better to go RB/WR. The answer is it depends. Typically in a standard format, you should go with the best RB or WR available in the first two rounds, and any combination thereof is permissible. Even so, different choices here will have consequences which you must address later in your draft. RB/RB Running backs typically score more points than receivers. That's because they usually have more opportunities for touchdowns and they rack up both passing and rushing yards. Also, given their higher volume of touches, their scoring is less volatile than that of receivers, i.e., you can count on more consistent week-to-week production from them than you can from receivers. But by losing out on elite receivers, you're rolling the dice on mediocre ones who are almost impossible to predict on a weekly basis. Moreover, running backs are more injury prone, so your most precious investments are more likely to lose their value if you go RB/RB. WR/WR Receivers are typically more durable than running backs, but they're limited (with rare exceptions) to receiving yards and scores, they see fewer than half the touches that comparable backs do and their production is more volatile, i.e., it's less consistent on a weekly basis.
But top receivers are reliable over the long haul, and by drafting them, you avoid the nearly impossible task of choosing which mediocre ones to start week to week. Moreover, should one or two of your middle or late-round backs win a starting job, it's far easier to count on their production than it would be for a comparable receiver. Finally, because the league has evolved toward more running back committees, there are typically more useful backs than there used to be, and more who emerge over the course of the season. WR/RB or RB/WR This is obviously fine, too, and gives you some added flexibility. 3. Where to Draft a Tight End? Getting an elite tight end in the middle rounds is worthwhile, but keep in mind a few caveats: Tight ends are injury prone. It's a grueling position due to the dual requirements of blocking and receiving. Tight ends typically lack upside. The No. 1 overall tight end often fails to outscore even the No. 10 overall receiver, who often fails to outscore the No. 20 overall running back. You typically are required to start only one of them. They're usually not too scarce, and more talented pass-catching tight ends have come into the league over the last five years, making good ones available late. That said, once the RB/WR plateau a few rounds into your draft, you should consider a TE or QB. 4. Kickers and Team Defenses In most scoring systems, these positions are afterthoughts because: They contribute only a small amount of total scoring. You need only start one of them, so plenty of choices are available on the waiver wire. Most importantly, both are so difficult to predict that it's only worth investing a very lateround pick on them.