Following your gut feeling

[Halcyon]

Everyone remembers that time that their "gut feeling" convinced them to pick up the stud breakout wide reciever after week 1. The 16 times that we pick up a hot player only to have him do nothing the rest of the season, well, those are quickly forgotten.

Gut feeling is highly overrated. If your gut feeling is based on stats and analysis and your opinions on a players' viability in a new system, it's not really gut feeling. If it's just an arbitrary decision--a true gut feeling--then you're probably shooting yourself in the foot.

Ideally, I'd like to base all my decisions on SOMETHING, even if it's just the fact that one player is shorter than another.

[Sixxgunn]

My gut told me once to draft Corey Dillon,as it was late in the draft and he was relatively unknown.I had started him for quite a few weeks,producing nothing but disappointing stats and fantasy losses.Then my head said,"Dump this bum,he stinks!",so I did.That week,he broke The Almighty Walter Payton's single game rushing record....playing against me because that owner's gut said"Pick up Dillon,he could be good".I nevertheless missed the playoffs that year,and decided to always trust my gut from then on.

[V-unit]

I remember last year when I had Chambers on my team.They were playing dallas the #1 pass Def so I benched going with what everyone adviced me to and he goes of and scores 3 TD's.

[KingGhidra]

The same can be said of so many things - like when KG alluded to tall RBs getting injured. If KG finds a statistical confirmation of this and acts on it and Green and Deuce get injured - thats not luck fellas - thats a whole bucketload of skill.

Okay I just did a spreadsheet. I didn't expect much to come of this, but it was actually pretty interesting. I pretty much took a list of top fantasy performers for 1998 and 2003 and looked at their entire careers. I ignored people who weren't getting at least 100 carries in a season.

I got a list of 61 running backs with a combined 368 seasons of playing experience. The average games missed over a career is 13.76% or a shade over 2 games per season. That's actually a useful statistic since it's a decent sample size. Don't fret about backs who miss 1-2 games a year. In fact, you should probably expect your stud RB to miss 2 games no matter what his history is.

Anyway here's how they break down by height.

5-8: 3 RBs, 5.9% or < 1 game missed/season. Not really significant since the sample is so small. Most notable player is Barry Sanders.

5-9: 6 RBs, 9.85% or 1.5 games missed/season. Again not really significant because of the small size. However, if not for Michael Bennett it would be about 1% lower. Notable players: Priest, D. Davis, Henry, Bennett.

5-10: 12 RBs, 9.69% or 1.5 games missed/season. Natrone Means throws things off. This category would be 1% lower also. Notable players: Ricky Williams, Thomas Jones, Marshall Faulk, Thurman Thomas, Charlie Garner, Brian Westbrook, Rudi Johnson, Emmitt Smith, LT2, Rudi Johnson, Tiki Barber. The most interesting thing is how many top backs are 5'10.

5-11: 13 RBs, 15.06% or ~ 2.5 games missed/season. Small sample size again, but the huge leap up from 5-10 is somewhat interesting. Notable players: SA, C-Mart, Shipp, Bettis, Portis, Staley, Jamal Lewis, Hearst, Jamal Anderson.

6-0: 10 RBs, 19.21% games missed. Definitely a steady increase in games missed as you get taller. Notable players: Stephen Davis, TJ Duckett, Edge, Tyrone Wheatley, Bam Morris, Correll Buckhalter.

6-1: 11 RBs, 19.23% or ~ 3 games missed/season. Notable players: Hambrick, Deuce, Dillon, Barlow, Alstott, Taylor.

6-2: 5 RBs, 11.45% or 1.8 games missed. This is why having a small sample size is bad. Notable players: Antowain Smith, A-Train.

6-3: 1 RB, 0% of games missed. The ultimate stud, Eddie George is the only person I've found this tall.

Definitely not leaping to any conclusions here, but the increase in games missed after 5-10 is interesting enough that I'm gonna go back to 1993 and possibly 1988 so I can add another 50-60 players to the sample and see how things shake down.

*bump*

By request of CBM.

[Mudd]

I don't follow my gut enough. Too many times have let "experts" change my mine, only to have it bite me.

My gut said Stecker this week with Dillon and Henry on a bye. Glad I didn't listen to "experts" as that was the difference for me this week.

[Challie]

KG, did you ever finish your number crunching back to 1993?

[Chopper]

Very interesting stuff, KG. Thanks.
Curious...did you notice any correlation with regards to the weights of those most injured?
I've never crunched numbers, but I sort of felt that weight that was somewhat 'disproportionate' to height would be an injury predictive factor. That is, a slight Thurman Thomas, Bennet or Faulk may get more abused over the course of a football game. Similarly, a heavy Means or (dare I say it) Fred Taylor might have a better than even chance of injury (especially leg/ankle).

If so, perhaps similar reasoning might apply to WR's and QB's?

[KingGhidra]

Very interesting stuff, KG. Thanks.
Curious...did you notice any correlation with regards to the weights of those most injured?
I've never crunched numbers, but I sort of felt that weight that was somewhat 'disproportionate' to height would be an injury predictive factor. That is, a slight Thurman Thomas, Bennet or Faulk may get more abused over the course of a football game. Similarly, a heavy Means or (dare I say it) Fred Taylor might have a better than even chance of injury (especially leg/ankle).

It would be hard to do, since these guys change weights often throughout their career. On the other hand, by the time they are in the NFL, they most likely have stopped growing.

[IRON CHEF]

Anyone notice KG's sig?? I think I understand now why he has "dissapeared".