Player projection has become a hot topic over the last few years and is the driving force behind the Value Based Drafting system. If you are one of these stat nuts who must complete individual player projections, then this article is for you. I have outlined all of the basic key tasks that must be completed in order to help you achieve accurate projections. Class is now in session…

Avoid Projections That Include NFL Records
I remember the year following Kordell Stewart's breakout season in 1997 when he had rushed for 11 touchdowns. Heading into the '98 season people were making all kinds of crazy projections for him. I had a friend who even projected him to score 13 rushing touchdowns in '98. Keep in mind that the NFL record for rushing touchdowns by a quarterback is 12. Instead of appreciating the special season that Stewart had, people were now using his near record breaking stat as their baseline. Making such ridiculous claims will certainly be death to your projections, especially when predicting NFL records for statistics as ambiguous as rushing touchdowns by a quarterback! That leads us to Culpepper and Vick this year. If you are working with projections that have them tying or breaking this NFL record you might want to seriously consider making an adjustment. Also please note, I do understand that at some point in time an NFL quarterback will break that record which was established in 1976. It could even happen this year with Vick or Culpepper or it could stand for another 26 years. The point I am trying to make here is that the philosophy of projecting NFL records will lead to drastically skewed numbers far more often than not.

Furthermore, even projecting a player to come close to an NFL records may negatively impact the accuracy of your numbers. When working with touchdown passes, you must consider that the NFL record is 48, only 3 times has a Quarterback even gone over 40 and nobody has ever seriously challenged Marino's single season record. So projecting a player to throw 45 or even 40 touchdowns will not just end up having that quarterback's number projected too high but also the Wide Receivers that he plays with since you still have to account for all his touchdown passes there as well.

Make Sure Your Stats Are Realistic
If you are going to be using player projections then you better have a good idea of what the statistics should look like, even if you are using someone else's projections. Never make the monumental mistake of assuming that the "experts" projections are all realistic. More specifically, you need to have a good grasp of recent trends. For example, over the last 3 years there has been an average of just 5 Wide Receivers who have scored 10 or more touchdowns. In that same time period there has been an average of 11 Running Backs who scored 10 or more touchdowns in a season. The numbers for each respective position has been very reliable and are noted below:

So if the projections you see in front of you is projecting that 8 or 9 Wide Receivers are going to eclipse the 10 TD barrier then you might want to reconsider your source and/or make the necessary adjustments.

Make Sure Your Stats Add Up
This may sound like common sense but you might be surprised how many "experts" make projections without having any idea how ridiculous their actual totals are when they are finished. For example, if you are projecting Kurt Warner to throw 33 touchdowns then you better make sure you project his teammates with a total of 33 touchdown receptions. If you are getting your projections from the astute staff at Footballguys.com then you are in good hands. However, if you are using their projections as your starting point and then making your own modifications from their database, then you must make sure that every touchdown pass you alter is accounted for by one of that quarterbacks' teammates.

Consider Coaching Styles
Everyone knows that Marty Schottenheimer loves to pound the football. He has done that everywhere he has coached. As a result his Wide Receivers typically are not big fantasy producers. In fact, he has never had a Wide Receiver score more than 7 touchdowns in a season. This obviously must be considered when you are projecting David Boston's numbers for the 2003 season.

On the flip side of that equation is Steve Spurrier's "fun and gun" scheme. Despite not having his kind of players in the system, the Redskins still managed to throw 24 touchdown passes as a team last year. Plus, Patrick Ramsey completed just 51.5% of his passes. Only 2 quarterback who played regularly last year had a lower completion percentage (Joey Harrington and Chad Hutchinson) than Ramsey. Now it is certainly not uncommon for a first year quarterback to struggle with his completion percentage. But now if you consider that even if he is slightly improved combined with the fact that the Redskins have added several "Spurrier" type of players at the skill positions this year then you could safely predict that 24 touchdown passes should be their team low. You could even make an argument that with a year of experience and better skill players, the Redskins could end up throwing 26-28 touchdowns (still a fairly reasonable improvement given the surrounding facts). So if the projections you are using has Ramsey being the full time starter and throwing 500-550 passes but only about 18 touchdowns, then this would be a red flag since you know that even a first year struggling Spurrier team will end up with 24 touchdown passes.

Understand the Turnover Rate Among the Top Producers Each Year
I could spend a lot of time here and give lengthy breakdowns of how the top players change from year to year. However, that is a separate article all by itself. What I will tell you is that over the last 3 years, Terrell Owens is the only player (Running Back or Wide Receiver) to score enough touchdowns to finish in the top 10 (in total combined touchdowns) in each of the last 3 season. That one stat alone should be enough to convince you that if your projected top 10 for this coming season looks nearly identical to the top 10 for last years season ending stats, then its time to get out an eraser and start overhauling your players and their numbers.

Identify and Incorporate Strong Trends
This one step takes a little more work and time. Actually it is best developed over the years by picking up miscellaneous tidbits here and there and filing them away. For example, Brett Favre's top scoring Wide Receiver has scored 9 or more touchdowns in 10 of his 11 years and averaged 11 touchdowns per season overall. Knowing this should allow you to safely slate Donald Driver for a minimum of 9 touchdowns. The worst case scenario is Driver ends up with only 8 and your projections still remain very accurate for Driver.

Or how about the fact that in the last 10 years, the top scoring Running Back has scored 21 or more touchdowns 7 times. Additionally, 21 touchdowns is the average total number of touchdowns that the top scoring Running Back has scored over the last 10 years. Translation? Whoever you have rated as your top Running Back should be projected with about 21 total combined touchdowns. If not, then grab you eraser again, assuming you still have some left!

Now there are a lot more factors you could include while making your projections, such as, charting seasonal stats on a linear graph, using the bell curve or cross referencing your numbers via standard deviations. But those lessons are taught in "Advanced Statistical Projections 401". As for you, class dismissed!