Not all projections are created the same. It’s a whole lot easier to project a player like Tony Romo—who will likely have a “sample size” of at least 600 passes—than it is to project someone whose stats might be more susceptible to randomness. One of those players is defensive end DeMarcus Ware.

Ware is an incredibly tough projection in 2013 for a few reasons. First, everyone wants to know how many sacks he’ll total, but sacks are very low-frequency. With so much volatility, they’re perhaps the most difficult individual stat to project from year to year—outside of perhaps forced fumbles.

Ware is also entering his age 31 season—a time when many pass-rushers start to break down. That means Ware’s 2012 stats might or might not be representative of a potential decline. He played much of 2012 injured, but was that a fluke or part of the aging process? It’s impossible to tell, and it clouds our ability to project him in 2013.

On top of all that, Ware is also switching defensive schemes. The change to the 4-3 will impact the defensive ends more than any other position; Ware won’t drop into coverage anymore, and that will obviously affect his pass-rushing totals.

At Dallas News, I examined Ware’s numbers from a broader perspective:

When DeMarcus Ware registered 11.5 sacks in 2012—his lowest total since 2009—we heard a lot of talk about Ware’s injuries being the main culprit. Banged up for much of the season, there’s no doubt that Ware’s health affected his 2012 play. The question, however, shouldn’t be whether or not Ware was hurt, but rather whether or not pass-rushers at his age typically start to decline—whether it be from injuries or a deteriorating skill set.

So I tracked the historic production of pass-rushers in terms of approximate value—a good measure for overall value that incorporates tackles and sacks—and sorted it by age. I did the same for Ware for both his tackles and sacks. Below, the x-axis is age and the y-axis is the percentage of peak career production.

The idea was to see whether or not Ware’s progression has been typical. You can see that the average pass-rusher develops earlier than most positions, peaking at ages 25 and 26. There’s a small drop in play around age 27—to around 90 percent of peak production—and most pass-rushers can maintain that level of play until around age 32 or 33.

Ware’s career has been pretty typical; he peaked at age 26 with his 84-tackle, 20-sack season. However, over the past three years, both his tackle rate and pressure rate have dropped.

So whether due to injuries or not, Ware hasn’t been Ware since 2010. Yes, he had 19.5 sacks in 2011, but his pressure rate fell from the prior year. Based on his total 2011 pressures, he should have generated 11 sacks, meaning he “overachieved” by 8.5 sacks based on how frequently he reached the passer.

Related posts:

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2. DeMarcus Ware and the NFL’s Top Pass-Rushers At Dallas News, I attempted to rank the league’s best...
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Jonathan Bales

SLEEPERLe’Veon Bell
RB – Pittsburgh Steelers
Bell has a chance to see a massive workload as the featured back in Pittsburgh’s offense. His primary competition is merely Jonathan Dwyer, so it would be surprising if the Steelers’ second-round selection didn’t see the bulk of the carries in his rookie year. Bell, who caught 67 passes the last two seasons at Michigan State, can also add value as a receiver.

SLEEPERJustin Blackmon
WR – Jacksonville Jaguars
Yes, Blackmon will start the 2013 season with a four-game suspension. But since that announcement was made, Blackmon’s ADP has plummeted more than four rounds. That’s way too far for a player who caught 64 passes for 865 yards as a rookie despite very shaky quarterback play. Blackmon’s suspension hurts, but it’s not a death blow to his stock; remember, you don’t lose all of Blackmon’s points for the first four games of the season, but rather his points minus the points for a replacement receiver. Despite his knuckle-headedness, he’s a top-25 WR at the cost of a top-50 one.

BUSTMarshawn Lynch
RB – Seattle Seahawks
The Seahawks offense has revolved around Lynch, but that might change in the near future. For starters, the team will rely more heavily on second-year quarterback Russell Wilson, especially with his new weapon in Percy Harvin. On top of that, Seattle has two really talented backs on the bench in Robert Turbin and Christine Michael, ages 23 and 22, respectively. Compare that with Lynch, whose best days are probably behind him as he enters his age 27 season.

BUSTAlfred Morris
RB – Washington Redskins
A lot of Morris’ success last year came at the hands of Robert Griffin, however, whose rushing prowess opened up running room for Morris on read-option plays. In reality, Morris is a below-average running back with sub-par speed who is extremely dependent on his offensive coordinator and quarterback for his numbers. That’s not the kind of running back I typically target, nor is it one you should seek at his current inflated cost.

I feel like I’m going to have to make a serious effort to not take on way too much exposure to Gordon and Blackmon this year. If you recall, I also wrote this post at rotoViz explaining why I have a man crush on Gordon and Blackmon, especially since they were suspended.

I have both guys rated well ahead of their ADP in my 2013 Draft Package.

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It didn’t work out. Every time I went to pick, I had younger players rated higher or equal to older counterparts. The value just wasn’t there. Outside of Drew Brees, all of my starters are well under 30 (most in their early-20s). Actually, I don’t even think I have much of a chance to compete this year. With Lamar Miller, Denarius Moore, Michael Floyd, Alshon Jeffery, Coby Fleener, Johnathan Franklin, and Aaron Dobson among those on my roster, I might be a year or two away.

Anyway, the point is that you really need to understand the thoughts of other owners in your league to draft efficiently. I’ve discussed this before, but it’s really important because the beliefs of those in your league determine ADP. Basically, it boils down to this sort of argument.

1. To acquire value, you need to employ a contrarian draft strategy–emphasizing traits others are overlooking.

2. To employ a contrarian draft strategy, you necessarily need to know the general consensus of opinions within your league.

Conclusion: To acquire value, you necessarily need to know the general consensus of opinions within your league.

And there’s $180,000 of Philosophy classes at work. Now go buy the books and my 2013 draft package so I can recoup some of those funds.

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Last year, Lee recorded 58 tackles in just six games. Playing only 331 snaps, Lee’s tackle rate was 17.5 percent. That’s a remarkable number and, in all likelihood, Lee won’t be able to sustain it over the course of a full season. In comparison, he posted a 12.1 percent tackle rate in 2012.

The key to projecting Lee’s total tackles is figuring out how many snaps he’ll play. Most argue that Lee is injury prone, but most injuries seem to be the result of randomness. They happen so infrequently that it’s really difficult to tell if a player is really more susceptible to injuries than the average person or if he’s just unlucky. On top of that, even if we did label Lee as injury prone, injuries are rare enough that he’d still be likely to participate in a full season, or close to it.

With those things in mind, we can project Lee for a drop in tackle rate—probably somewhere around 14.0 percent—and around 925 snaps played. If those numbers hold up, Lee would total 130 tackles in 2013.

One of Lee’s most impressive traits is that he’s been really good in coverage despite possessing average athleticism. He’s not that fast and he’s pretty stiff in the hips, yet he’s always in the right position. In his limited 2012 action, Lee allowed 16 receptions on 20 attempts (80.0 percent) for 152 yards (7.6 YPA). The season prior—the one in which he played in 15 games—Lee allowed 50 catches on 63 attempts (79.4 percent) for 497 yards (7.9 YPA).

And at DallasCowboys.com, I suggested Vince Young might not be such a bad fit in Dallas:

6.8: Robert Griffin III’s YPC as a rookie ­– the highest mark in the NFL by nearly a yard.

Why would RGIII’s rushing prowess affect the Cowboys’ quarterback decisions? As Nick and Bryan pointed out, Young can give the defense a unique look in practice. With Griffin and possibly Michael Vick set to run read-option, the Cowboys need to be prepared to defend it. In RGIII’s first game against Dallas, he completed 19 of 27 passes for 304 yards and four touchdowns, and you can bet that much of that passing success was generated indirectly through Griffin’s ability to take off on the ground. Young can imitate Griffin and Vick in practice in a way that Kyle Orton simply can’t.

6.9: Young’s net-YPA during his final two years in Tennessee.

Young struggled with interceptions during his lone season in Philadelphia, but he was quietly really effective in 2009 and 2010 in Tennessee. Net-YPA is a stat that factors sack yards into a quarterback’s yards per attempt. Even though Young has taken too many sacks during his career, including on 7.7 percent of his passes in 2010, he’s still been very efficient as a passer.

A year after finishing in the top 12 in net-YPA in 2009, Young checked in at sixth in 2010. He also tossed 20 touchdowns to only 10 picks during that time, a ratio superior to Tony Romo’s career mark.

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It isn’t as if rookie receivers are drastically underperforming. Over the last half-decade, the average fantasy draft position of the top five rookie receivers (in terms of where they were selected in the NFL Draft) is 61st at the position. Together, those 25 players have combined to finish 68th in their rookie years among all receivers. On average, you basically get what you pay for with a rookie receiver.

The problem is that rookie wide receivers get selected late in drafts. Actually, the ADP of the top rookie receivers in each of the last five fantasy drafts has been only 34th at the position. As I discussed ad nauseam in my last book, your goal in the late rounds of fantasy drafts is no longer risk minimization; instead, it should be maximizing upside.

Rookie receivers seem like the natural choice, but they surprisingly don’t possess the upside you covet. To show that 2011 (and Mike Williams in 2010) were outliers, take a look at the top (other) rookie wide receiver from previous seasons:

2010: Dez Bryant (49th)
2009: Percy Harvin (25th)
2008: Eddie Royal (20th)
2007: Dwayne Bowe (24th)
2006: Santonio Holmes (41st)

And these are the best of the best. For every Eddie Royal, there are three Devin Thomas-type players.

You can buy What the Experts Don’t Want You to Know for Kindle, as a PDF, or in paperback.

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A few weeks ago, I posted an article from Pete Prisco that ranks the NFL’s best players at four important positions: quarterback, pass-rusher, cornerback, and left tackle. Since that time, I’ve published my own top 15 rankings for the quarterbacks, pass-rushers, and cornerbacks.

Today, I’ll turn my attention to the left tackles. As with the other positions, age will play a major role in my rankings. At just 22 years old and heading into his third NFL season, history suggests that Cowboys left tackle Tyron Smith is on the verge of becoming a Pro Bowl-caliber player. Is he better than someone like Titans left tackle Michael Roos right at this moment? Probably not, but at nine years his younger, you’d probably prefer Smith long-term.

Also note that I really don’t care about how many sacks a lineman allows. That might seem ridiculous since the goal for anyone in pass protection is to keep the quarterback upright, but sacks are extremely volatile, meaning it’s almost worthless to grade an offensive lineman using the stat. I tracked Smith as allowing only three sacks in 2012, for example, but based on how often he allowed pressure, his most likely sack total was actually nine. If we were to use those three sacks to grade Smith for his 2012 play alone, he’d probably rank higher than he should. The goal when projecting players is to search for stats that are predictive of future play, however, and pressure rates are more predictive than sacks because they’re less susceptible to randomness.

Finally, quarterback play is also a factor in my rankings. I’ve used stats from Pro Football Focus on the average time each quarterback spent in the pocket prior to each pass. It should be no surprise that Tom Brady and Peyton Manning got rid of the ball quicker than any other quarterbacks in 2012, both throwing in 2.50 seconds or less, on average. Quarterbacks can really aid their linemen in sack and pressure rates; Broncos left tackle Ryan Clady allowed just one sack in 2012, for example, but he also benefited from perhaps the quickest decision-making quarterback in the NFL. Tony Romo makes a ton of plays with his legs, but he spends a lot of time in the pocket, which doesn’t help Smith’s numbers.

Below, I’ve listed my top left tackles heading into 2013. The number behind their names is their age when the 2013 season begins. I’ve listed sacks allowed and pressure rate, with the latter stat being a stronger factor in my rankings.

2013 NFL Left Tackle Rankings

1. Joe Thomas, Browns (28): 3 sacks allowed, 1.6 percent pressure rate

2. Russell Okung, Seahawks (25): 1 sack allowed, 2.7 percent pressure rate

3. Duane Brown, Texans (28): 4 sacks allowed, 2.0 percent pressure rate

4. Ryan Clady, Broncos (27): 1 sack allowed, 2.3 percent pressure rate

5. Matt Kalil, Vikings (24): 2 sacks allowed, 3.3 percent pressure rate

6. Jake Long, Rams (28): 4 sacks allowed, 2.4 percent pressure rate

7. Trent Williams, Redskins (25): 4 sacks allowed, 3.6 percent pressure rate

8. Tyron Smith, Cowboys (22): 3 sacks allowed, 6.0 percent pressure rate

9. Eugene Monroe, Jaguars (26): 5 sacks allowed, 3.2 percent pressure rate

10. Joe Staley, 49ers (29): 8 sacks allowed, 3.3 percent pressure rate

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Carter really has just one season of stats to examine, and he compiled them in just 11 games last year. The linebacker played 625 snaps in 2012, recording a tackle on 70 of them. That’s an 11.2 percent tackle rate. In comparison, Sean Lee’s tackle rate was 17.5 percent, although Carter’s number is still respectable.

In 2013, it’s certainly possible that Carter’s tackle rate jumps with the switch to the 4-3 defense. He’ll be playing outside—a more natural position than inside for the 240-pound linebacker. Carter will also play more snaps, assuming he remains healthy. If his rate of snaps per game remains steady, he’ll be looking at around 900 over the course of the season. At a 13.0 percent tackle rate, Carter would record 117 total tackles.

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Projections: A Trip to Vegas

Making projections is really difficult. There’s a lot that goes into it—assessing a player’s talent, his projected workload, the defense, the weather, and so on—and figuring that stuff out is time-consuming. Whenever possible, you want to let experts do as much of the work for you as possible.

There are no experts out there who understand football better than the guys who set the lines in Vegas. They have millions of dollars on the line each week, so it’s in their best interest to make sure the spreads they set are as strong as possible. And they are. Over large sample sizes, the point spreads hold up, making it really difficult to beat them on a consistent basis.

In analyzing Vegas game lines and totals, you can get a really good sense of how a contest will unfold. When the guys in Vegas set the over/under on the Pats-Broncos game at 51 points, that’s meaningful and useful information. Further, they break down the totals to be team-specific; in that hypothetical game, they might have the Pats’ total at 27 points and the Broncos at 24. With the click of a button, we’ve uncovered really accurate projections for the final score of each team.

I started off this section discussing the Vegas lines because they can be a really powerful tool. If you have a solid grasp of who will win a game and how many points they’ll score, you’ll also have a good idea of how fantasy points will be dispersed, at least among teams.

In the book, I have all kinds of advice on how to use the Vegas lines and even the props to project players. You can buy How to Cash in on the Future of the Game for Kindle, as a PDF, or in paperback.

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The easiest way for me to describe my priority order when deciding on my keepers is through a simple matrix where the production of a player is shown across the top (low, moderate, high) and the draft pick cost is down the side (early round, mid-round, late round).

In the boxes of the matrix I have put a number that corresponds with my priority for that action.  So keeping a high production late rounder is the #1 priority.

As you can see, I have keeping a moderate production guy as a late rounder as being preferable to keeping a high production guy with an early pick.Think of the production levels as being something like a high production guy is your typical fantasy stud, while a moderate production guy would be a guy who would start most weeks in your league.

This strategy generally holds if you have 2-4 keepers (it’s a little different if you just keep one player).  But for now let’s think about why this is sound strategy when you keep let’s say 3 players.

The first reason it works is that your leaguemates will just keep their best players from the prior season, often even when they cost 1st through 3rd round picks.  If you keep guys who cost later round picks, you’re going to be picking a lot in rounds 1-3.  Each of your leaguemates might end up with 3 of the top 36 players.  But you’re going to end up with maybe as many as 6 of the top 50 players.

Check out some of my non-keeper/dynasty strategies in my newest books.

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While certain players possess more season-to-season consistency than others, the short NFL season makes over-analysis of each game unavoidable. When a baseball player goes 1-for-10 over a two-game period, we often chalk it up to being unlucky. Meanwhile, when a quarterback turns in two poor performances in a row, the sky begins to fall in fantasy land.

Imagine cutting up the MLB season into 16-game segments. Each player would have a few segments of really poor play and a few periods of outstanding play. Over the course of the entire 162-game season, those peaks and valleys tend to even out, which is why baseball players have such consistent stats from year to year.

Well, the NFL season is too short for those tendencies to always even out. Thus, we often place more emphasis on individual games than we should because, well, it’s all we have to analyze. We label Player X as ‘consistent’ and Player Y as ‘injury-prone,’ not realizing we’re really just looking at the equivalent of one of those little 16-game slivers that MLB players participate in 10 of each season.

You can buy What the Experts Don’t Want You to Know for Kindle, as a PDF, or in paperback.

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