The San Diego Chargers are going to get throttled this year. I know it. You know it. It's going to be ugly. How much do we bump a player in our rankings because he is sure to play for a winning team? How much do we drop a player because his team will be terrible?

I like to think I heavily consider a player's surrounding cast when creating my rankings. To not do so would be foolish. Case in point for me this season, I think the New England Patriots are still the best team in the NFL. Hence, I'm higher on Tom Brady than the average Footballguys.com staff member. Also, I have Priest Holmes ranked ahead of Tomlinson on my board, partly because I think the Chiefs will have a much better season.

Well, I'm a statistics kind of guy, and statistics guys like to look at tables and graphs to find some patterns. I've been beating this concept around for a few years, but haven't been sure how to approach it. Here's what I did...

Procedure

1. Using NFL data from 1980 through 2003, I compiled lists of the top 24 players at each position and noted how many wins their team had that season (Huge thanks to Doug Drinen).



2. Grouping players by their fantasy rank after each season I found the average number of wins from each rank. On average, how many wins does the #1 RB's team get each year? #4 QB? #10 TE? Etc.



3. Slap this data in some graphs



4. Ponder whether there's any significant meaning to be harvested from this exercise.

Pre-analysis Thoughts

1. Well, duh?!?! Players that gain more yards and score more touchdowns will win more games. Yeah. Duh. I agree, but to what degree? Also, is this more true and relevant at any specific position?



2. My gut says it's going to be most significant to the quarterbacks. Why? Because I believe their statistics have a larger impact on the outcome of games. Can a QB produce solid fantasy numbers on a crappy team? Is a RB more likely than a QB to produce solid fantasy numbers on a crappy team? I would guess so. Also, I'm guessing that the WR and TE tables will be a bit more erratic. Crappy teams have to throw more, hence the opportunity to pile up some garbage time stats. Again, this is off the cuff and most likely a case of perception not being grounded in reality.



3. This whole exercise is using postseason data. Using consensus preseason data about perceived number of wins in the coming season and correlating it to fantasy points after that season might be a better tool. Seems it would be more akin to the actual situation we face heading into each new season. Problem: Where do we get consensus preseason prognostications going back to 1980? I considered Vegas odds, but decided to pass on that.

And Away We Go

Here is the condensed table of data.

This is hard for me to interpret on first glance in this format. However, I noticed right away that the top player at each position averages the most wins each year. I though it would be close, but didn't expect it to be true of #1 across the board, especially at the TE position. Here's the same data as a graph:

Thoughts About the Graph

• Yes, I feel we can confidently say there is a correlation here, but I think we knew that would be true. "How strong is the correlation?" would be the better question, and "Is it better at some positions than others?"



• It's very strong at the top and bottom ends of the spectrum across the board. The top player at each position's team has averaged nearly 10 wins (11+ for QBs) and the #24 ranked player's team has averaged less than 8 wins.



• My gut feels good about my guesses above. The QBs display the most consistent trend in the data. When I applied a trend-line to each position, the QB data fit all models with the highest R-squared values. What are R-squared values? Geeky math stuff that most of you won't care about. Also, the QB trend-line displayed the strongest correlation between wins and rankings. The opposite was true of the WR and TE positions. They had weaker R-squared values and a weaker correlation between winning and rankings.

Big Finish

What does this mean in terms of LaDainian Tomlinson and your personal rankings? I'm afraid that it's not as relevant as I would like it to be. The #1 RB has been on a teams that have averaged 10.4 wins. This means that for every #1 RB on a 14 win team (Marshall Faulk, 2001), there was probably a RB on a 6-win team (Barry Sanders, 1990). If you feel Tomlinson is the exceptional case. You can feel justified in your rankings and projections. I think he's pretty darn special. However you have to realize that the odds are against us.

The correlation aspect of the data doesn't really give us much to work with. There is a fairly obvious trend that we expected to see (remember the "Well, duh?"). Yes, better players play on teams that win more games. I'm guessing I won't get much argument on that as an overall trend <ducks> (because I sense some argumentative e-mail coming my way). However, the data indicates that positional ranking has stronger ties to winning teams for quarterbacks more than it does for other positions. In fact they rank as QB, RB, WR, TE in order of relevance. However, that amount of relevance is pretty darn small in the grand scheme of things. They only thing I feel I've proved here is that it should be a consideration when doing your rankings and projections, and more so for quarterbacks.

Lastly, I may be opening a large can of worms here, but we should also ask if there is a real cause and effect that can be studied. It's a "chicken or the egg" sort of situation. Do winning teams give quarterbacks more chances to score? Or do top quarterbacks help their teams win more often? I have to say it's an obvious two way street and that both are probably true. Which is truer? Not so sure about that one. My gut says it most likely the later.

Always look forward to your feedback. Hit me with your comments, questions, or concerns. I look forward to being humbled by the massive amount of knowledge within the Footballguys.com community.

Dave Shick!
[email protected]

PS Advice for the younger Footballguys.com members: Don't forget to be nice to the math studs. They may end up signing your checks someday.