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by prince_45243 » Tue Dec 18, 2012 7:40 pm Post Mortem:
A great week by the Analyzer although some personal bits of advice did not fare as well. The Analyzer had the most breakouts picked with 6 of the top 10 having 10 or more points. FFtoolbox and Fantasy fix had one more above average picked but one fewer breakout. NFL seems to be underperforming every week now whereas they were once the best predictor. Hawk Michaels blog had a good week although they'd had a few poor weeks in a row.
Overall, Analyzer has more than held it's own although the additional comparisons have helped to improve the accuracy of those looking to find breakouts and select teams.
SEA and DET were both picked by all 7 but DET failed to keep ARI's trend going and produced only 3. One breakout/one above
HOU, DEN and PIT were selected by 6 and I gave extra warnings about not understanding the PIT choice. It fell flat but the other two had breakout games.
CIN and MIA were chosen by 5 lists and both had above average with a breakout.
GB, STL and CHI were chosen by 4 lists and had 2 above average with one break out.
Of the 10 picks with 4 or more, 50% had a breakout and 70% were above average.
Of those picked by 3 or fewer, 33% had breakouts and 44% were above average.
I haven't made much of it but people often ask about individual positions on rank lists. And while I do have a statistical reason or some other fudge factor that pushes my list around in shape, as you can see week after week, there really isn't much to the individual rank of the top 10. Sometimes terrible numbers at the top with good numbers in the middle or lower. In other words, a ranking in the top 10 is probably of equal weight within a rank. But, as I've pointed out, the more lists that select a defense, the better it has performed.
DEFENSE ANALYZER
The Defense Analyzer was originally developed based on a statistical analysis of correlation between particular stats (sacks, turnovers, TDs, points against) to determine which combination was most predictive of a break out game (10+ or more points). The analysis showed that while a defense that allowed the fewest points is great in real life, from a fantasy perspective, sacks and turnovers were more predictive of a good fantasy score. Largely because the median score for points against (in the 20s) provided almost no points to a defense but sacks and turnovers were positives. TDs obviously have an even bigger impact but other than sacks and turnovers, are very hard to predict.
My method is to take the matchups for the week, use the defense's Sacks and weighted Turnovers average per game and compare it to the sacks and turnovers given up by the opponent every week. I sum them to get a score. After I do that, I look at the individual performance of the defense as well as opponents. Last year, playing the defense that faced STL every week was better than SF (the number one defense in my league).
And performance by week:
And how generous an opponent has been by week:
Final Rankings:
1) CHI vs. ARI - The Top TO/S ratio and CHI has 3 of last 5 as breakout and ARI has given 4 of last 5 as breakouts.
2) CIN vs. PIT - CIN has had 5 of their last 6 games as breakout games and PIT has given 5 straight above average games with 3 breakouts.
3) NE vs. JAC - While teh trend data isn't as good here with only 1 breakout given up by JAC, the sacks/to is the second best in the league and NE has just gotten off of a set of division leaders to play against.
4) DEN vs. CLE - DEN has had 7 straight above average games with 4 of those being breakouts. CLE, however, has only given one breakout week in the last 11 games. But a top 10 sacks/to ratio here helps as well.
5) NYJ vs. SD - SD has provided 6 of their last 8 games as breakout games and the Jets have 3 of their last 5 as breakout games.
6) SD vs NYJ - Hope this isn't getting too cute but SD has 4 of last 7 as breakout games although also a 0 and a 3 in the count. Jets have given out 4 of their last 6 as breakout games.
7) IND vs. KC - KC seems to have returned to reliably providing defenses with breakout games .
8) ARI vs. CHI - I've had terrible luck picking ARI but CHI has given 4 of the last 6 games as breakouts and ARI has had 3 of the last 5 as breakouts. By the stats, it makes it to top 10.
9) MIA vs. BUF - BUF has given 4 of last 5 as break outs and 6 of the last 7 as above average games. MIA only has 2 of last 5 as above average but BUF has turned into a very reliable opponent to start against.
10) WAS vs. PHI - PHI has given 7 straight above average games with 4 as breakouts. But WAS as a defense has only given one breakout game since Week 6. Still, it's hard to imagine with RGIII returning this doesn't turn a little lopsided.
Riskier Plays
Man I can't believe I don't have HOU vs. MIN up there. I suspect AP will finally get stopped by HOU's number 1 rushing defense. But MIN has only given one above average game in the last 5 and HOU has only 2 breakouts in the last 5. A little worrisome.
GB vs. TEN looks really really really good. GB has 3 of last 5 as above average with TEN giving 2 of last 5 as a breakout. However, there was a lot of better picks up there and the sacks/to wasn't actually that favorable.
SEA vs. SF. SEA has been on fire but SF has only given one breakout game since week 6. Just couldn't chance it.
SF vs. SEA is the same with 4 BELOW average games given out by SEA.
Have to put kids to bed!
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