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Drinen rambles about something having to do with:
Rod Smith
Introduction to these player comments
Here's another one you can file under "Drinen doesn't pay attention to anything unless it has direct relevance to one of his fantasy teams": Rod Smith had 113 catches last year. You probably knew that but, since I've never played in a league that gives points for receptions, I've trained my eyes to look right past that "REC" column without giving it a second glance. I was aware of the 1343 and the 11, but the 113 was news to me. But maybe I should be paying attention to Rod Smith's reception totals, even if I don't get any points for them. Suppose Rod's line had been 83 / 1343 / 11 instead of 113 / 1343 / 11. Should that make any difference in how I view his prospects for this year? To put it another way, do receivers with a high yards-per-catch average tend to retain their value better or worse than receivers with a low yards-per-catch average? I figured this one would be an open-and-shut case. I'd run a few quick numbers, determine that yards-per-catch doesn't make any difference either way, and then move on with my life. I was wrong. I'll take you through it step by step. I looked at all WRs from 1970 through 2000 who finished above the baseline, and then played at least 8 games in the next season. I separated those WRs into two groups: (1) those whose yards-per-catch was above league average and (2), those whose yards-per-catch was below league average. [NOTE: when doing studies involving yards per catch, it's imperative to look at relative (to league average) figures instead of absolute figures, Leaguewide yards-per-catch numbers have been steadily declining for three decades.] Here's how the two groups did the next year:
The low YPC guys look a tiny bit better, but there's not enough difference here to draw any meaningful conclusions. That's just what I was expecting to find: nothing. But then I decided to see if age was throwing a monkey wrench into this study (as it frequently does). So I broke the collection of WRs into old (29 or older) and young (28 and younger), and re-ran the numbers for each group. I was surprised by the results.
For young WRs, the yards-per-catch numbers are irrelevant to their next year's success. But for old WRs, the low yards-per-catch guys did much, much better than their high yards-per-catch counterparts. In fact, old WRs with a low YPC held their value better than either group of young WRs did. With a data set this big (there were 243 old WRs in the study), a split as drastic as this is unquestionably significant. There is something real here. But what is it? What logical explanation is there for a result like this? I'm really not sure, but this is the best I can come up with for now: It's "normal" for a WR to have a high YPC when he's young and a low YPC when he's old. The two groups that did best were the two "normal" groups: the young high-YPC guys and the old low-YPC guys. Meanwhile, the two "abnormal" groups did poorly. Maybe what this says is that "abnormal" performance is more likely to be a fluke than "normal" performance is. To be more specific, maybe what's happening is that old WRs with a high YPC were, on the whole, lucky. After all, YPC is pretty sensitive -- just a few flukey big plays can alter your YPC substantially. OK, let's see if we can apply this to the 2002 season. The old WRs who were above the baseline and had a high YPC last year are as follows:
If history holds true, this group will see it's fantasy production decline by 18 percent from what it did last year. That's a substantial bite. First of all, I think Morton, Schroeder, and Ismail have to be thrown out of this analysis because a team change could have effects that overpower whatever is being measured here. I'd throw out Harrison, too, because his YPC was just barely above average (.5%, to be exact). That leaves Bruce, Conway, and Horn on my avoid list. Based on this, I probably will be avoiding Conway this year, simply because I don't have any particular reason to like him. Bruce and Horn are both on my only keeper league team. If I really trust my theory here, then I should be looking to trade those two. Do I really trust my theory? I'm not sure yet. Just for fun, let's look at what kind of list this article would have generated had it been written one year ago: Derrick Alexander, Jeff Graham, Rod Smith, Bill Schroeder, and Tim Brown. I'd say those results are not particularly encouraging. Technically, four of the five did decline (Schroeder was the exception). But Smith, Brown, and Graham only declined by a tiny amount. It did red-flag the year's biggest WR bust, though. Maybe Isaac Bruce and/or Joe Horn will be this year's Alexander.
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