Evaluating Risk in the Draft

Regardless of a player’s talent level, there may be some associated risk when selecting a player, which could impact his fantasy value. This can be for a number of reasons including injury probability/injury recovery issues, off-the-field/personal issues, competition at the position within the team, and age. In the following sections, we will review some of the common risk factors involved with drafting a fantasy football team and share mitigation steps in avoiding unnecessary risk.

Injury Probability/Injury Recovery Issues

One of the most common risk factors to a fantasy football draft is the injury concern. Sometimes a player is prone to injury and sometimes a player is quite the opposite and never misses a start. Being able to count on a player to be there for you throughout the season and into the playoffs is critical to your success. By looking at a player’s history of starts and paying attention to the weekly injury reports will give you some indication as to his toughness and ability to bounce back from an injury. Or several seasons Fred Taylor donned the name “fragile Fred” due to his non-stop string of injuries. Teams could simply NOT count on Fred to be there on a week to week basis. When he was healthy, he was a force but when he had an injury, you never knew when you might get a start from him and then get only three carries before his day was over. On the other hand, players like Steve McNair and Brett Favre would have to have their legs amputated before missing game time. They are simply a less risky player when evaluating injury probability.

Also, injury recovery consideration can be important to monitor when evaluating a player for the upcoming season. You have to pay close attention to what exactly the injury is, how severe the injury is, and compare timetables for a return to action for player with similar injuries in the past. Players always seem to be overly optimistic when recovering from a significant injury and will often mislead you. Also, paying close attention to injury recovery for players can find you a mid-season goldmine on the free agent waiver wire. Often, owners will drop a player due to the lack of understanding about the injury or from lack of patience. Unless you are severely under the gun to make a move, you should always give players at least a few days to fully reveal the extent of an injury. Many times the initial report is not accurate and the extent of the injury is rumor-based. A perfect example of this is Ben Roethlisberger’s motorcycle accident. When the injury first occurred, the reports were that he would miss the season due to significant knee injuries. The knee injury ended up not being true and the prognosis for Ben became significantly better. The point is, fully understand the in jury before you make a hasty decision.

Off-The-Field/Personal Issues

Let’s face it, certain players have a tendency to get into trouble off-the-field. This in many instances can impact a player’s playing time from suspensions to jail time to just being in the coaches dog house. When drafting a player, you have to realize the inherent risk in drafting him due to his personal issues, just like the NFL teams do. A perfect example of this is the ongoing drama that is Terrell Owens. TO killed many a fantasy team in 2005 with his season ending de-activation from the Eagles. Every one in the world saw it coming and fantasy owners should have known TO to be a huge risk when they were drafting him. Guys like this can also be a steal in that other owners may be leary to draft a player with off-the-field/personal issues. It is simply a risk and a gamble that you must decide (or not) to take. If you are comfortable with the inherent risk that a player brings to the table and can get him for a steal, take a chance. But don’t ever pay too much for a player with significant risk factors. Do your homework before you draft and pick a player with risk.

Competition at the Position Within the Team

Another risk factor in drafting is the possibility that a player will lose his starting spot or have reduced playing time to another player at his position. We saw this in 2005 with the explosion of Larry Johnson onto the scene in Kansas City. Priest Holmes had been incredible for several years but Priest Holmes was also coming off a significant injury and was an aging veteran (see the next section for expansion on this). In many leagues last year, Priest Holmes was drafting as high as the first round and quickly lost his starting job to Larry Johnson. Paying attention to Larry Johnson’s final few games in 2004 would have told you how much talent he has and would soon be beating down the door to get additional playing time. Sure enough, in 2005 Larry took over and is now an elite fantasy player, leaving Priest Holmes in the dust. So the lesson is, try to draft players that don’t have as much competition at their position and if you are going to draft a player with significant competition at his position, get his backup.

Aging Players

Age brings a certain amount of risk in a player. This relates both to injuries as well as competition being more of a factor. Guys slow down when they age and they also don’t’ recover from injuries as fast as they did when they were younger. When a player eclipses 30 years of age, start paying close attention to age as a risk factor. The one exception to the rule may be with pocket passer quarterbacks. Many of them actually seem to get more savvy with age and become better players. Younger quarterbacks typically struggle for a few years and in non-keeper leagues, it is normally best to wait until the third year for them to be significant fantasy players.