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Yes, I realize that Brown is likely not going to average 4.81 YPC, but now even RW is using the "if you just take away the one big play..." logic. Yes, and Dorsett doesn't hold the record if we take away that 99.5 yarder...except we can't because he did, so he does. TIA. Have a great season.[/rant]
This one is the best though, they just posted today...Arian Foster tweeted that he is trying a vegan diet.
I dont think it is a concern but it would be something to monitor. I dont know why he is trying this with the season around the corner. There is an article out there of tony gonzalez switching to vegan. He lost 10 lbs and some strength because he wasnt getting enough calories and protein. Hopefully arian doesnt make the same mistake.
Think Ricky Williams before and after his spiritual journey. But realistically, I think Foster will be fine. If he shows up to camp 20 lbs lighter then I'll begin to worry.
I would think he would lose more weight during camp, because he would need to consume more calories than usual depending on how hard they are training in camp. If his vegan diet isnt done correctly during camp he could loose a lot of weight quickly. Im sure he will do it correctly but ya never know...
Hey all, I'm new to the forum, and I just gotta ask- what's wrong with eating McDonald's 10 times a week?
Nine burger and fry a day! /Ricky Gervais
Well, when the bulk of his damage was a fluke run and a CarolinaGame, with most of the remainder sub 4.0, I can understand the caution.I think pointing out those hidden fluke plays is useful info.PSI'd disagree with yudkin in that yhe more big plays a player makes, the more comfortable I am with leaving them in, as I feel they're more predictive.Isn't it one is a fluke, 2 is a trend, or something like that?
While I certainly think it's something to consider, it would seem that a large number of big plays could be an indicator that a player is just an explosive player and we should expect to see that continue. I mean, nobody at this point is saying that Randy Moss was a mediocre receiver that just got lucky and had a ton of big plays, right?I think another thing to consider is HOW a big play happened too. I could be wrong, but my memory is that Cruz piled up his big plays in a few different ways. Some were deep passes where he beat the secondary and some were quick passes he broke and took to the house. A guy breaking big plays in a variety of ways indicates a guy that is multidimensional, explosive, and earning his plays rather than a guy getting lucky.
You can see him losing 300/3 cause of the long play factor? Doesn't the long play factor mean he's good at making long plays...so shouldn't he get around as many or more long plays? If the guy is getting one long play a year I can see how that shows that he's not that good at it...but 5 ridiculously long ones like Cruz's should mean he's the one creating these plays, right?People are saying the same things about Jordy Nelson and I don't get it. It's like they don't expect either WR to have one long play this year because they had too many last year. And then the reasoning is always some cop out like "regression to the mean." So in other words, just cause a a lot of mediocre WRs can't make long plays, WRs that can make long plays won't because they have to be average cause you know...peer pressure to fit in with the other WRs and stuff?'David Yudkin said:
This.Seems a bit late in the game to make a switch like that. Vegan is more strict than vegetarian. Can a highly trained athlete get enough protein eating vegan? Sure. But at the same time I imagine they need quite of protein and calories not only to maintain muscle mass, but also to rebuild the tissue they tear up every week during the season. Running a calorie and protein deficit during the season would seem like a horrible idea. And with a vegan diet mated to a high caloric demand there's some risk of doing that even if you don't intend to.'lexdizzle said:
Last year he changed his diet and loaded up on a lot of carbs...then he got injured...then he said it was cause of his change in diet and loading up on carbs so he changed back..he didn't elaborate more on it. Ugh...I hope vegan doesn't do the same thing to him.
I think the OP's point, which is valid, is that when it comes to some players we don't make this kind of "correction," but for others, maybe guys who don't have the same appreciation from the pundits, we do. It is inconsistent.As for myself, I will repeat what I said in the Donald Brown thread. If he went untouched on that play and it was a "freebie," then I could see this. Or, if he were a guy who only had 50 touches or so. But he had 134 carries last year, so I think it is harder to throw one run out as an outlier. And if you look at the play, it was ALL Brown. He had to break a couple of tackles in the backfield and another as he ran further downfield. I think you have to take into account what actually happened in the play.'David Yudkin said:
Becoming vegan usually means MORE carbs, not less... I'm actually VERY concerned about this if it's true because a vegan diet lacks many of the important fat soluble vitamins a person needs for optimal health that's only present in animal products, (not to mention superior athletic performance). I might need to send him a tweet and direct him to some smarter sources of dietary advices.
I bought donald brown low in this years salary cap league like i did reggie bush last year. Being productive is all tht matters when it comes to #4/5 RBs, im not trading brown away like i did bush. The ##### on rotoworld wouldnt have gaoned 4 yds on that "fluke" play so ill leave his 2011 ypc just as it is w Elias sports bureau.
Oh ####...I just realized it was the opposite. He was cutting out the carbs and blamed it on that for his injury. He was trying to get leaner before his injury and cut out carbs for that purpose.
I doubt this lasts, but good news for Tate owner
On thing about fantasy football is trying to figure out how TDs and long plays factor into the mix. It works the OPPOSITE way as well. For example, people were leary of Curtis Martin because he had a horrible year getting into the end zone in 2003. No one wanted to draft him the next year because he couldn't score, was over 30, etc. I snagged him in several leagues for a deep discount and he scored 14 times. As much as some people will want to argue and debate it, IMO predicting who scores TD, how many, and how consistently is extremely difficult (and many times comprised of a lot of luck and being in the right place at the right time).This year, as I see it, Antonio Brown is criminally under rated, as most projections have him with very few TDs again this year. Brown now has 85 career receptions and only 2 TDs. Of the 225 receivers since 2000 with at least 75 receptions, that is the second worst ratio after Jacquez Green (92 receptions ans 2 scores). I think it will take an act of Congress to keep Brown out of the end zone at the same rate, so I look at Brown as someone to go out of my way to get. Bottom line, I think far too many people over react when guys score a ton of barely score at all.
'GroveDiesel said:
Cruz didn't just 'luck' into the big plays last season - he really developed into a top deep threat but was also heavily relied on by Eli Manning (159 targets last season). While some are saying to expect a regression, what I see is a soon-to-be-third year wide receiver who broke out in his second season, a guy who had a ton of targets - and he has room to improve in the reception percentage department. He'll be an absolute fantasy monster if he approaches 60% reception percentage this year, which I think is an attainable goal for this player. His yards-per-reception are likely to come down (not that it matters for fantasy purposes unless you play in a Yardage-bonus TD league), but I don't think we should assume a net loss of 300 yards receiving during 2012 for Cruz. TDs are more difficult to predict from year to year, but I think a high single-digit TD total from Cruz is a reasonable expectation, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him in double digits in the TD department this year, either. I've got Cruz down for 85-95 receptions, 1400-1500 yards and 9-10 TDs this year. 85/1400/9 = 16.4 yards per reception. 95/1500/10 = 15.7 ypr
I would actually believe that the way they've been drafting them...
So, if you throw out a long play as an outlier, how many of the plays where he lost yards do you throw out? Don't forget, he was hit in the backfield on the play that he went for 80s yards and that could easily have been a loss. In statistics, you don't just throw out one data point--you throw out a number from both sides. And you do it for every data line--not just one, or one player in this case. It isn't right to take away Brown's best run and then not do the same for every other RB if you want to compare their ypc. The other thing Rotoworld didn't consider: offensive scheme. In 2011, once Manning went down, they finally started running more I formation. So, including Brown's previous ypc and saying "that is more indicative of his ability," is misleading. I have argued before that the shotgun draw plays that IND ran almost exclusively with Manning was not beneficial to Brown's running style. A big reason he did better in 2011 was Manning going down and a more run friendly offense being used. To be fair, we don't know how Brown will run in yet another new offense in 2012, but I am pretty sure it will be better than the shotgun draw of the past. I don't expect him to gain 4.8 ypc this year, especially if his carries goes up, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see 4.5 ypc. Another variable? The offensive line. In Brown's early years the IND line was built to pass block, not run block. And they didn't open many good holes. The OL was revamped this year with bigger OL. I think that could bode well for Brown as well.'GridironMenace said:
"median gain" is what we need, cross out a top for every bottom.If the back carried it 201 times, number 101 is the median number.
Yes! And do it for all players and then compare.
What makes you think his rushes for negative plays are outliers? He had 12 of them last year, (all between -1 and -5 yards) accounting for almost 10% of his rushes.
The problem with this is that the would be very little difference between players....take for exampleDonald Brown had a median rush of 3.Arian Foster had a median rush of 3.Cedric Benson had a median rush of 3.
What if you figure in attempts?
Not sure what you mean.
There is no median for attempts. You multiply attempts x median rush.
Is that really going to tell you much other than who had the most attempts. Those 3 happened to be the first 3 I checked for median, but I'd imagine most players (with a reasonable amount of carries) will have a median of 3. So your most likely going to end up a list ranked in order of rushing attempts.
Yeah and Shonn Greene was droppable two weeks ago too but now he is showing signs of life. I try not to take to base my rankings on rotoworlds synopsis as they tend to become biased against certain players. Green-Ellis is a fulltime starter and was the best thing about the Bengals offense tonight even if that isn't saying much. Remember according to them LaRod Stephens-Howling isn't everydown back material and Vick Ballard can't get it done. Even when those guys had good weeks according to rotoworld it wasn't because of them. They just got lucky.Back to Green-Ellis though, he is easily a RB2 in 12 to 14 league teams.
You probably actually want to look at variance. Assuming high variance is bad, value players based on total yards minus some penalty for high variance. You could calculate variance by carry (home run hitters probably have high variance, plodders low variance) and by game (a high game variance player is unreliable against stronger defenses ... a boom or bust type player). You could also look at the variance in the number of carries per game. You might want to stay away from players that only see the ball a lot in games when the running game is working well (gameplan type RBs). Ideally you'd want the guy with the most consistent production, which means consistent touches game to game, consistent ypc and touchdowns spread out throughout the season. But these guys all get drafted really early (Foster, Rice, Peterson, MJD).I do think its instructive to look at big games for mid tier / bench guys, because one huge game can make a huge difference to a guy on the edge of not being relevant. This seems to be more true at WR than RB, since there's so many touches to go around and there are so many WRs in the "barely rosterable" range. Last year 17 WRs had over 1000 yards and 67 had over 500. So that's about 50 WRs in the "should be rostered but don't feel great starting them" range (obviously this is very crude and doesn't take into account injuries, changes in who's starting, etc). If one of those guys got 50% of his fantasy points in 2 games I'd feel less good about them for next season.Targets and snap percentages should also be looked at. Once again, you want guys that get consistent looks. Andre Johnson and Steve Smith are having bad seasons but get consistent opportunities, and that bodes well for them going forward. Compare this to someone like Hartline. A single game this year accounts for nearly half his yards and his only touchdown, and his targets are highly variable (8, 12, 9, 18, 5, 0!!).
