Would You Rather Be Lucky or Good? (1 Viewer)

Curious what y’all think about this subject. 

How much of FF is luck? How much is skill?

Would you rather be lucky or good? I’m sure everyone here has had seasons where they felt cursed. Either bit by the injury bug or faced the highest scoring team in a period many times in the season, or played in a division with an undefeated team & missed the playoffs because of a tiebreaker with a WC, while another division’s 7-7 team won their division? How many times have you left on draft day convinced that your team was a world beater, only to go 6-8? 

I had a redraft season where I was points total (10% of the pot), single game high score ($50), AWB (butt whoopin bonus $50) and somehow managed to win only 2 games all year. It was one of the most dominant teams I’ve ever drafted & they stayed healthy all season. I just ran into a buzzsaw nearly every week. I won the loser-bowl easily, and that + the in-season prizes worked out well for me, but man I wanted that ‘ship.

So if bad luck like that exists, doesn’t it stand to reason that a large part of winning is also luck-based? Your team stayed healthy, your schedule matched up well against the competition, your breakout players broke out, & your depth picks performed well enough to be able to make deals - aren’t all of these partly based on good luck? 

What do you feel about luck vs skill in this game we all love? 
 

ETA, I feel like the more experience the sharks here have, the higher the luck % they’ll vote. They’ve seen things. Terrible things. 

“When I win it’s skill, when I lose I’m unlucky” 

-unknown, though I’ve repeated it more than once. 

The good ones create their own luck.

If we’re talking about one season? I’ll take skill. If we’re talking about consistently over time? I’m still taking skill every time. Skill separates with a larger body of work.

Teezee said:

The good ones create their own luck.

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my favorite definition of “luck” is “where opportunity meets preparation”. So I would never discount skill. One has to put themselves in a position to take advantage of those opportunities. The skill is in the preparation. 

And I get that. But for FF there are a lot of factors. A lot of ways to get unlucky. 

For example, I had a team go wire to wire 1st place in the standings. I got bumped out of the playoffs needing less than 2 points from Keenan Allen in PPR.

He went up for a TD on the 1st drive, came down on his hip (without the football) & left the game. Came back out, ran 1-2 routes & tapped out for the night.

My decades of “skill” didn’t help at all there. 

Teezee said:

If we’re talking about one season? I’ll take skill. If we’re talking about consistently over time? I’m still taking skill every time. Skill separates with a larger body of work.

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Personally I’m starting to feel like I’d rather be lucky than good.

I’ve chatted with long-time poker players about this subject before & was surprised to hear many say the same. That in a game where there are so many skillful players, you still need to catch a good hand every now and then.

20 years ago I probably would have agreed with you 100% & voted 20/80. Back then one could out-hustle one’s league-mates. Research more, watch more college football, read the sporting news, find hidden gems in the preseason games, read the local sports columnists, etc. 

These days there’s just so much information out there that the more valuable skill is almost in noise cancellation. Deciding which experts to tune out, or when not to believe the hype. 

So if all the players in your league all have access to that same info, it seems like one also has to get lucky to win, regardless of skill. In redraft you’ll still need the player you skillfully researched to fall to you when you’re picking. You’ll still need to score more than your opponents more weeks than not. Even peripheral injury can hurt your players. A QB or OL goes down, tanking your RB or WR. And you’ll still need your best players and/or depth players to stay healthy over the course of a season while playing a very dangerous sport. 

It’s a lot to ask of skill alone. 

Another vote for lucky.

If you're in a rube-filled league, then skill is the preferred weapon of choice.

Mister CIA said:

Another vote for lucky.

If you're in a rube-filled league, then skill is the preferred weapon of choice.

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I used to play in a lot of leagues.

i played in a league with basically 9 Tacos (the league) and 3 skilled players.

At the draft, one of the Tacos drafted 4-5 players who were hurt. Like, hurt bad, gonna miss a month+. Like the 1st time it was a dude who was out for the season & everyone gave him a pass & let him pick someone else; so it’s not like he was gaming us. He was just clueless about current events in a time when we all had the Internet already. He showed up with a 3 month old magazine & zero draft prep. 

And because I’m writing this here, you’ve probably already guessed that said Taco got all those dudes back healthy, and basically steamrolled the league, winning a championship. 

We referred to him as Rain Man the idiot savant for several seasons thereafter. Just totally bumbled his way to a ‘ship, Inspector Clouseau-style.

 

Gimme that kinda luck every year & I’ll die a happy man. 

I've told this story once or twice before. One more time.

About 15 years ago I joined a $20 father/son redraft league with other dads of kids from our Little League team.  It was a standard non-ppr Yahoo league with a live draft at a local beer and burger type pub. Fun times.  10-team league and 8 teams made the playoffs. 

Two GMs forgot to set their week 1 lineups that resulted in a 0-0 tie. Meanwhile my son and I went on to compile the highest regular season point total in the league;  unfortunately, we caught everybody on their best week and finished in 9th place.

Both of the teams that forgot to set week 1 lineups made the playoffs.  In retrospect, Had either team set a week 1 lineup (or more to the point,  had they not tied), we would have made the playoffs. 

And had we made the playoffs, our woulda/coulda/should lineup would have steamrolled to a championship. 

It's all luck.  

Hot Sauce Guy said:

These days there’s just so much information out there that the more valuable skill is almost in noise cancellation. Deciding which experts to tune out, or when not to believe the hype.

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You make some very valid points on a general level for the casual base. But if you ever want to own a skill, it has to come from you. One has to develop their own way of doing things or else you will always rely on luck or coincidence. It’s like a clock being right twice a day. You can’t rely on outside influence and opinions. That process of elimination that you speak of is futile bc you have no idea of what you’re doing other than hoping. To me, create>hope.

Now if one has no desire to hone a skill then of course luck bc that’s really all you have right?

There's always an element of luck. It can be mitigated somewhat by skill but some things are out of a person's control, as evidenced by my bad beat story. (Full disclosure: I had to look up gamelogs to find the stats)

My worst luck came in 2015. Longtime 0.5 PPR keeper league. Had a monster team, highest scoring team in the league, #1 seed in the playoffs. Get to the championship game and Odell Beckham is suspended for week 16 and my opponent has Rueben Randle who he throws into his starting lineup on Monday Night Football. I enter MNF with a 14 point lead. Giants are getting blown out. Randle is doing nothing. Then in the 4th quarter, Randle catches a 72 yard TD, finishing with a line of 2-80-1, good for 15 points. I lose by 1. If Beckham doesn't get suspended, I would've had Beckham and my opponent wouldn't have started Randle and I win easily.

I was on the other side of the ledger in 2019 in the same league. Snuck into the playoffs as the 8 seed. My first round opponent had Lamar absolutely killing it every week. Won that game on the back of Jameis Winston (of 30 TD/30 INT fame that season) going off for 456 + 4 TDs (as well as 3 INT) plus a rushing TD. Got 13 bonus points for completions above 25 (+8), 300 passing yards (+2), and 400 passing yards (+3). Final score: 112-110

That win propelled me to a matchup with the #1 seed, who had CMC and Michael Thomas having their historic seasons. Jameis puts up another 450+ yards passing and 4 TDs (with only 1 INT). Got 8 bonus points that week. Final score: 142-139.

Good luck ran out in the final as I lost 106-95. The kicker for me is that I was not confident in my team so in our final waiver run, I picked up Gronk to have as a potential keeper for 2020 (TE premium) instead of Tyler Higbee, who was in the midst of his end of season heater. Had I picked up Higbee, I win the championship. 

I won a 32 team IDP league (8 offense, 11 defense starting lineups) 3 years in a row with the highest scoring team each season and none of the finals being that close, so that's a time when my luck held. Made a couple of astute (lucky?) pickups/trades to help - thank you Tim Hightower and Matt Asiata.

Missed the playoffs in my keeper league in 2014 because I ran into the highest scoring team in Week 13 when I had the 2nd highest score of the week and needed a win to get in. Had I gotten in, I would've had the highest scoring team each week of the playoffs and won the championship.

I think that if you think you're somewhat skilled, the bad luck hurts worse. The good luck feels way better so if I could only have one, it would be luck.

Firm believer that chance favors the prepared. But I’ve also seen dumb luck run it’s way to a title. 

Teezee said:

You make some very valid points on a general level for the casual base. But if you ever want to own a skill, it has to come from you. One has to develop their own way of doing things or else you will always rely on luck or coincidence. It’s like a clock being right twice a day. You can’t rely on outside influence and opinions. That process of elimination that you speak of is futile bc you have no idea of what you’re doing other than hoping. To me, create>hope.

Now if one has no desire to hone a skill then of course luck bc that’s really all you have right?

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I’m certainly not someone who relies entirely on experts. 

I thinK maybe you missed my point. with so much information, so easily accessible, the playing field between my skill (or what I perceive as such) is more level compared to those who may not do as much research as I do. 

In just about every league platform that info is spoon-fed to my opponents. A morsel of info, or a hunch I was planning to ride just shows up in a random blurb. 

Heck, not 45 mins ago I got an email from FBG about what a bargain Michael Thomas will be in the 3rd. I’d already come to that conclusion 6 weeks ago & now it’s bubbling up. By draft day maybe he’s a 2nd.

the point isn’t about whether I work hard to develop my own rankings - of course I do. I’m a member of a FF community. But that now-a-days even the casual league-mate who isn’t obsessing about football in the offseason will get most of the same info I've already scrounged for. 

So more and more, luck matters. And even the most skillful FF Mgr relies on luck more than they’d like to admit. 

Hot Sauce Guy said:

I’m certainly not someone who relies entirely on experts. 

I thinK maybe you missed my point. with so much information, so easily accessible, the playing field between my skill (or what I perceive as such) is more level compared to those who may not do as much research as I do. 

In just about every league platform that info is spoon-fed to my opponents. A morsel of info, or a hunch I was planning to ride just shows up in a random blurb. 

Heck, not 45 mins ago I got an email from FBG about what a bargain Michael Thomas will be in the 3rd. I’d already come to that conclusion 6 weeks ago & now it’s bubbling up. By draft day maybe he’s a 2nd.

the point isn’t about whether I work hard to develop my own rankings - of course I do. I’m a member of a FF community. But that now-a-days even the casual league-mate who isn’t obsessing about football in the offseason will get most of the same info I've already scrounged for. 

So more and more, luck matters. And even the most skillful FF Mgr relies on luck more than they’d like to admit. 

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In fantasy, absolutely luck is involved, I’m not one to deny that. But if the question is one or the other, I lean heavily on skill.

If you can win over 50% of your leagues, to me there is skill taking place.

May I ask what is it that you are actually researching? If you’re dissecting or comparing sources, rankings or lists, that’s not research to me. It’s essentially a mix and match of your perspective/opinions against others. 

What I’m trying to get at here is if one wants to be “skilled” or consistently successful in fantasy, you need to learn how to evaluate talent. After all it’s a game of humans. Research the players, not others’ opinions. I think for most, people who strive to understand and grasp fantasy have it backwards when they should be honing the skill of evaluating talent. If you can look at football through the perspective of a scout or evaluator, the other things will come.
 

You have to watch tape, lots of it. You have to know what makes a player successful. Learn what to look for like feet. The feet tell the whole story for every athlete on the planet. Know what is fundamental technique to each position ie - hands, hips, feet, leverage, etc. Then when one graduates from the physical things, you can go on to try and tackle the things between the ears. Bc the best football players I’ve ever seen were never the most athletic, the fastest or strongest. They were the best at processing, learning, adapting, overcoming, preparing and so on. Tom Brady, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, all these guys were never the best physically, but they had the mentals to put them over the top. Even if you take a step down and look at today’s best players, they all have the mind that separates them from the rest. I am of the belief that a successful athlete is more mental than physical.

Now people are going to say, “it’s not that serious bro, I’m not going to devote all that time and energy to be skilled at fantasy football.” There’s the disconnect.

If one is actually serious about being “skilled” at fantasy football, then it makes sense to put in the work to evaluate the players individually. If not, then your results will reflect that.

But I digress and get what you’re saying. There’s an unknown science or uncontrollable variable at play here when selecting specific athletes to accrue the most metrics over a course of time. And how to navigate those intricacies of these variables such as coaching, organizations, philosophies, progression, schemes, injuries, physical and mental makeup and how that translates on the field, etc. 

But I promise you, it can be done. One can absolutely be skilled in fantasy football if enough attention to detail is supplied and energy is focused in the right way. If you play in 10 leagues and you win 4+ of them, I’d say that’s more skill than luck. It’s the same if you play in only one league and win 4 times or more in 10 years. There’s a lot of those people out there. It’s just that they will never tell you this but it’s all the approach. And if the approach is researching or investing time looking at the wrong things, then I can see why so many believe the art of fantasy football is more about luck than skill.

I would much rather be lucky because luck doesn't lose where skill will.  

Today's game is much more luck than skill because information is so easy to get.  Then it comes down to who stays healthy and who performs as expected.  I voted 90/10 in favor of luck.  

Back when I started (1985) it was much more skill based.  You had to do research and figure out things on your own.  There weren't cheatsheets at your finger tips to print out 5 minutes before the draft.  You actually had to know what you were doing.  This is why I prefer IDP leagues.  With as frustrating it is to find good IDP info it means you have to put in the work so it lessens the luck factor.  

Gally said:

I would much rather be lucky because luck doesn't lose where skill will.  

Today's game is much more luck than skill because information is so easy to get.  Then it comes down to who stays healthy and who performs as expected.  I voted 90/10 in favor of luck.  

Back when I started (1985) it was much more skill based.  You had to do research and figure out things on your own.  There weren't cheatsheets at your finger tips to print out 5 minutes before the draft.  You actually had to know what you were doing.  This is why I prefer IDP leagues.  With as frustrating it is to find good IDP info it means you have to put in the work so it lessens the luck factor.  

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Try changing your approach and investing in your own system of analysis rather than other people’s opinions and I think you may be surprised at the results. Why milk the cow when you can be the cow? If you can tackle that, then the more information out there, that is actually to your advantage. Let the sheep think that. I personally indulge in lists and ranking bc it gives me a good idea of what others are thinking. To know what others are doing gives you a huge advantage if you have established your own evaluations. Information is useless if you don’t know how to use it. 

Gally said:

I would much rather be lucky because luck doesn't lose where skill will.  

Today's game is much more luck than skill because information is so easy to get.  Then it comes down to who stays healthy and who performs as expected.  I voted 90/10 in favor of luck.  

Back when I started (1985) it was much more skill based.  You had to do research and figure out things on your own.  There weren't cheatsheets at your finger tips to print out 5 minutes before the draft.  You actually had to know what you were doing.  This is why I prefer IDP leagues.  With as frustrating it is to find good IDP info it means you have to put in the work so it lessens the luck factor.  

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You could have pulled this post straight from my brain  

Teezee said:

But if the question is one or the other, I lean heavily on skill.

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While that was the title topic, the poll was far less an either/or. 
 

If your approach is to find and latch on to the right content creators, prognosticators or list makers then I think that approach is futile. That’s being lazy. There’s always a money grab or a paywall or somebody trying to sell you something. Rely on yourself. Sure you can run into some success following others but it’s often not sustained. If you want to get good at anything, you have to practice. If you want to be good at riding a bike, ride a bike. If you want to read a book about riding a bike, then don’t be surprised you don’t know what the hell you’re doing when you actually get on a bike.

Hot Sauce Guy said:

While that was the title topic, the poll was far less an either/or. 
 

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Sorry man I didn’t realize there was a poll! Great topic by the way!

I think there are many paths to skill-based success. I hear TeeZee's study of the players physical and mental. I think others have great success reading what scouts report. Some study and develop a talent for reading rookies and excel in their rookie drafts. Others focus on established players and maybe analyze NFL teams structures for where change can be anticipated, Some emphasize player development and career tracks to project future results. Some spend the time to develop targets vacated and available as one way of distinguishing from compiled ADP. Most who are good get really good at a one or a few of these or other ways to calculate beyond the general patter and assumptions.

If we get good at any particular system, I think we tend to believe our approach is the only good system because chances are we aren't also good at other whole approaches.  Maybe we have tried to, for example, evaluate rookies from college performance numbers and not had success in rookie drafts and then instead find a way to look at older players and capitalize on where careers are heading and find success at that. I think a guy like that tends to think success at rookie drafts is luck and evaluating between older players, skill.  

You may believe that some people just have permanent good or bad luck. I don't believe any source is pulling the strings to help some guy's fantasy team, so I think that evens out. If you don't have a more successful strategy and analysis than average, I believe over time you will be less successful than average (unless you develop one). These guys tend to think no one really knows more than they do, so losing must be luck. Guys who win more (that can be by a small percentage in very good leagues and by a higher percentage in less competitive leagues) generally know they can have more than their equal share of success and don't think its primarily luck.

I'll admit that I've had success that I didn't deserve on several occasions. Good luck can certainly exist in an opponent's player or players getting injured or having terrible games at key moments and I can have similar bad luck in a particular playoff or weekend, but I think more skilled managers tend to make playoffs and win more than their equal share of championships and that just because others don't know how the more skilled are succeeding doesn't mean they aren't more skilled.. 

Catbird said:

I think there are many paths to skill-based success. I hear TeeZee's study of the players physical and mental. I think others have great success reading what scouts report. Some study and develop a talent for reading rookies and excel in their rookie drafts. Others focus on established players and maybe analyze NFL teams structures for where change can be anticipated, Some emphasize player development and career tracks to project future results. Some spend the time to develop targets vacated and available as one way of distinguishing from compiled ADP. Most who are good get really good at a one or a few of these or other ways to calculate beyond the general patter and assumptions.

If we get good at any particular system, I think we tend to believe our approach is the only good system because chances are we aren't also good at other whole approaches.  Maybe we have tried to, for example, evaluate rookies from college performance numbers and not had success in rookie drafts and then instead find a way to look at older players and capitalize on where careers are heading and find success at that. I think a guy like that tends to think success at rookie drafts is luck and evaluating between older players, skill.  

You may believe that some people just have permanent good or bad luck. I don't believe any source is pulling the strings to help some guy's fantasy team, so I think that evens out. If you don't have a more successful strategy and analysis than average, I believe over time you will be less successful than average (unless you develop one). These guys tend to think no one really knows more than they do, so losing must be luck. Guys who win more (that can be by a small percentage in very good leagues and by a higher percentage in less competitive leagues) generally know they can have more than their equal share of success and don't think its primarily luck.

I'll admit that I've had success that I didn't deserve on several occasions. Good luck can certainly exist in an opponent's player or players getting injured or having terrible games at key moments and I can have similar bad luck in a particular playoff or weekend, but I think more skilled managers tend to make playoffs and win more than their equal share of championships and that just because others don't know how the more skilled are succeeding doesn't mean they aren't more skilled.. 

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Touche and well said!

In redraft, skill and avoiding bad luck gets you into the playoffs. 

Playoffs is 90% luck.

Been playing FF since 1990.  "Back in the day'  When all we had was magazines to prepare for a draft and the USA Today sports pages to find out about injuries you really had to put time in and do your homework.  And it paid off.

Now players can basically go to sites like this who do everything for them, print off a few cheat sheets and be able to compete.

In my main 14 tea, league where 8 teams make playoffs. I have won 4 times, every time I won I was not the best team.  Twice I won as the 8th seed.   I entered the playoffs 3 times as the #1 seed and never won. One year my team was the highest scoring team by far and only lost 2 games.    Lost in first round to 8th seed because Clinton Portis scored 5 TDs in one game.

So I go with 50-50..leaning toward 60% luck,

Catbird said:

I'll admit that I've had success that I didn't deserve on several occasions. Good luck can certainly exist in an opponent's player or players getting injured or having terrible games at key moments and I can have similar bad luck in a particular playoff or weekend, but I think more skilled managers tend to make playoffs and win more than their equal share of championships and that just because others don't know how the more skilled are succeeding doesn't mean they aren't more skilled.. 

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to the contrary, I think everyone would be better off accepting that outcomes of games, and the performances of individual players are unpredictable, and no amount of skill will predetermine those outcomes. 

The elephant in the room is that good and bad luck are defined in the eye of the beholder. In IDP if my QB fumbles a bad snap for -2, (the center’s fault) and your DL recovers it for +2 points, did I have bad luck or did you have good luck? 

Skill can best be summed up as preparation. We are doing our best to draft players we believe will have reasonably predictable outcomes on any given Sunday. And on any given Sunday they could exceed those expectations, meet them, or fail to live up to them. That’s where the luck comes in. 

EveN on draft day, in a snake draft one might get lucky & have a player fall to them in a given round. The skill is recognizing that & drafting that value player. But one can’t happen without the other. It took luck for your skill there to matter. 

When I drafted Davonte Adam’s, he was tearing up the league. I skillfully spent a 1st round pick on a player I thought was a lock to finish as the WR1. It felt like the most skillful pick ever right up until he hurt his toe. How could I, such a skillful manager, not have predicted that outcome?! 



When I drafted Jamal Lewis in the 3rd round, it was because I researched a little harder. I’d read an article about his recovery & new ACL procedures (used to take 2 years to recover) and my skill was rewarded with a 2K season. But not without the luck that Lewis actually went out and balled out of his mind, or the luck that the Ravens would run the guy 25+ a game fresh off of a torn ACL. 

The reality is that our collective skill as FF managers ends the second the whistle blows & the ball is kicked off. The actual factors on the field that create those outcomes are completely out of our control.  We can set a lineup, but whatever happens is wildly unpredictable. 

It certainly wasn’t my skill the year Clinton Portis threw a TD to my WR late in a game I was losing but ended up winning on the double TD. I certainly didn’t set my lineup with that expectation. To that point I’d never had that happen on a team in all the years I’ve played. It was lucky as heck. 

No offense intended to the “it’s skill!” camp, but there’s an awful lot of ego and/or arrogance involved in proclaiming that winning at FF is 90% or 100% skill.

In the bolded statement above, the assertion is that FF players somehow don’t understand how better FF managers are winning; they can’t recognize the greatness of their betters? 

C’mon. That’s preposterous. The winningest fantasy managers I know 

1. outwork the competition (preparation)

and

2. have good luck.

looking back the last 10 years, we’ve had 6 different winners in my IDP league. 
The guy who won 3x works really hard. Obsessively so. Is he that much more “skillful” than any of the other 6 guys who won it once or the dude who won twice (me)? Eh. 

Even if we use that sample as a basis of skill vs luck, he’s still only 30/70. 5 of the other 7 years he didn’t make the playoffs. His 50% playoff rate is actually below my 60% rate. But I’ll be the 1st to admit that 2 of my playoff years I had no business being there and it was dumb luck & an early exit for my scrubby injured teams. 

So like the joke above, was 3x champ skillful when he won & unlucky when he lost? You seem to assert above that both good and bad luck happen, but rather than evenly, one of those is more or less mitigated by skill. 

IMO one can certainly be more skillful on draft day, but that gap is narrowed by the amount of information available. Good or bad luck is what happens once the season starts. 

The only time I believe skill is a factor in-season is with regard to trading. The skilled managers will often be the ones fleecing their competition. But that could also be seen as being lucky enough to play with someone who’ll make a bad deal.

Interesting discussion. In the poll it seems to be a battle of 70/30s. 

Da Guru said:

Been playing FF since 1990.  "Back in the day'  When all we had was magazines to prepare for a draft and the USA Today sports pages to find out about injuries you really had to put time in and do your homework.  And it paid off.

Now players can basically go to sites like this who do everything for them, print off a few cheat sheets and be able to compete.

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exactly this. 

Da Guru said:

Lost in first round to 8th seed because Clinton Portis scored 5 TDs in one game

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Ah yes, the 2003 Chief’s game. Brutal. 

Hmmm not seeing the option for: ten percent luck, twenty percent skill
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will
Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain
And a hundred percent reason to remember the name.

I've always said it's 50% luck so I'm not deviating from that in this poll.

And I'll say it's AT LEAST 50% luck.  Skill will reveal itself over time but it's not more than 50%.

A great discussion we have had in my oldest league for many years. If you do your homework you can skillfully find that hidden gem in your draft that can make your season a winning one. But as one member of our league states after every draft. "The schedule already knows who's going to win this year". As I've seen in some posts above,you can skillfully draft the best team,you can skillfully work the waiver wire and you can skillfully barter trades,but  a large amount of luck is involved in your schedule. You can have the best team and still not win your league because of the schedule,I'm sure we've all been there. Luck comes into play in regards to injuries also,just like in "real" football the healthiest teams usually find their way to the postseason. I'll go 60% skill,40% luck.

I do not think it involves much "skill" at all.

For example take 2 people that are learning how to juggle, they both take a 8 hour training course. At the end of the day the one that is a better juggler has more skill. However, in the case of fantasy football, there is not much of that skill that is needed because rarely do people put the same amount of effort into fantasy football in the league.

50% luck

40% effort

10% skill

RenegadeRoy said:

Hmmm not seeing the option for: ten percent luck, twenty percent skill
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will
Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain
And a hundred percent reason to remember the name.

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Teezee said:

Try changing your approach and investing in your own system of analysis rather than other people’s opinions and I think you may be surprised at the results. Why milk the cow when you can be the cow? If you can tackle that, then the more information out there, that is actually to your advantage. Let the sheep think that. I personally indulge in lists and ranking bc it gives me a good idea of what others are thinking. To know what others are doing gives you a huge advantage if you have established your own evaluations. Information is useless if you don’t know how to use it. 

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I didn't say I didn't use my own system.  I said information was easy to get.  Even a novice with absolutely no clue what football is can take a cheat sheet 5 minutes before a draft and draft a competitive team.  Then if they get no injuries and no down seasons out of those guys (luck) they will have a chance.  Back when I started (1985) if you had no clue what you were doing you had no chance to be competitive.  You had to work for your information.  It reduced the luck aspect quite a bit.  

I will agree that those that can decipher the tons of info available and have a good system can improve over the canned responses out there but the novice is still a lot closer to that then in the past.  There are no more "sleepers" in most leagues.  What were sleepers a novice takes 5 rounds early because they don't know any better that they could wait.  Skill still has a role but that difference between skilled and novice is much closer now.  

I did also forget to mention the biggest luck factor of all.................schedule.   That is the great equalizer.  I have seen teams that are bottom of the league in points scored not lose a game and roll through the season because they always play a team that has an off week and gets the win even though 9 of the 12 teams would have beaten them.  Vice versa I have seen the highest scoring team finish at less than .500 because they are always playing the highest scoring team of the week even though they are #2 and would have beaten every other team.  

As @Hot Sauce Guyhas pointed out many times once the actual games start it is all about luck.  Did I have a TD overturned by penalty?  Was my WR hauled down in the end zone because he beat the guy so bad that was his only way to stop the TD only give that TD now to my opponents RB from the 1 yd line.  

Bottom line there is a ton of effort (skill plays a part but it is added to the effort it takes in the first place) in prepping and putting youself in the best chance to be successful, however the actual games are 90% luck based on outcome.  Any team on any given Sunday so to speak.   I would say preparation is 90% skill vs 10% luck but the actual game play is the reverse.

The poll is seriously flawed.  The days of skill superseding luck in FF have long since passed, don't kid yourself. 

If you're in any decent leagues, lucks role is way higher on those (more level) playing fields, no question.

Of course FF nerds on a FF site year-round are going to try and claim more skill than luck, duh.

Gally said:

I will agree that those that can decipher the tons of info available and have a good system can improve over the canned responses out there but the novice is still a lot closer to that then in the past. 

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That's pretty much exactly what I meant above by filtering the information. In the past the skill was in gathering info, because it wasn't spoon-fed on the  league news feed or hundreds of web resources for FF. One had to go looking for that info. 

And the answer isn't "do your own research and don't rely on experts" because it would be foolish to ignore all of that great info that we used to have to work so hard for.  That info is a valuable tool. Its the analysis that one has to own for themselves. How does one synthesize information, especially when two experts you trust have differing opinions?  Look around at the Bengals WR opinions, or Jonathan Taylor. Some see Taylor as the next great breakout RB, while others point out that the Colts don't seem to want to feed him enough for that to happen. As a gatherer of info, it's up to me to determine which side of that debate I land. That, to me, is the skill in 2021. 

I'm not going to spend dozens or hundreds of hours digging for information that's already been researched & published. I have no issue with expert opinions on players.

The skill these days is in learning about those experts to see who you agree with. I'm much more inclined to take something Bloom, Waldman or Dodds says at face value over some intern at Yahoo or ESPN I've never heard of, but I'll read all of their input nonetheless because one of them might be on point. Information is information, but not all opinion should be weighted equally, nor should any one resource be dismissed. 

My greatest IDP pick of all time was Mr Irrelevant in the draft, my 26th round pick Darius Leonard in a tackle-heavy league. he ended up as the #1 IDP player that year & I was getting stupid points from him on a weekly basis. I learned his name from the free preview of a little poorly formatted IDP page that's relatively unknown. In the years since I've paid to subscribe, because that page earned every penny with that recommended sleeper. 

Gally said:

There are no more "sleepers" in most leagues.  What were sleepers a novice takes 5 rounds early because they don't know any better that they could wait.  Skill still has a role but that difference between skilled and novice is much closer now.  

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Definitely a testament to the amount of info out there. Off topic, but that one is one that's vexed me since the explosion of FF info on the internet. The 4-round reach for the sleeper that I'd partly planned my draft around. There was one particular draft where I felt that paradigm shift, and it was one of my worst drafts ever. I went in with skill and was defeated by managers who didn't know the difference between a guy you could get in the 8th who could justify a 4th round pick & actually TAKING THAT GUY in the 4th round.  

Harry Frogfish said:

The poll is seriously flawed.  The days of skill superseding luck in FF have long since passed, don't kid yourself. 

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How's the poll flawed? I literally gave you 8 options. I was even generous & didn't include a 100% option for either! lol 

Or do you mean the current results are flawed? 

Harry Frogfish said:

If you're in any decent leagues, lucks role is way higher on those (more level) playing fields, no question.

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Agreed. 

Harry Frogfish said:

Of course FF nerds on a FF site year-round are going to try and claim more skill than luck, duh.

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I kinda think it's the opposite. The most experienced managers I know always acknowledge the role that luck plays. They have a much larger sample size to judge from. 

Hot Sauce Guy said:

How's the poll flawed? I literally gave you 8 options. I was even generous & didn't include a 100% option for either! lol 

Or do you mean the current results are flawed? 

Agreed. 

I kinda think it's the opposite. The most experienced managers I know always acknowledge the role that luck plays. They have a much larger sample size to judge from. 

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Actually, I think the poll is flawed in one respect. Different people can interpret it in different ways, depending on whether they are looking at it at macro or micro level.

Luck absolutely plays a bigger role than skill in any given league in any given year, so I don't disagree with what Harry Frogfish is saying if looking at it from that perspective, but the more leagues you play in and the more years you play, that little bit of skill advantage you have over your opponents adds up to the point where it makes you a profitable player.  So, over the long term skill wins out.

Marauder said:

Actually, I think the poll is flawed in one respect. Different people can interpret it in different ways, depending on whether they are looking at it at macro or micro level.

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How so? The choices seem pretty clearly spelled out. 

Marauder said:

Luck absolutely plays a bigger role than skill in any given league in any given year, so I don't disagree with what Harry Frogfish is saying if looking at it from that perspective, but the more leagues you play in and the more years you play, that little bit of skill advantage you have over your opponents adds up to the point where it makes you a profitable player.  So, over the long term skill wins out.

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I agree with Harry too, and have throughout the topic. Interestingly, I also agree with the bolded above. I believe developing a draft strategy, analyzing your leaguemates historic record of player preferences & draft style can give you a leg up on the competition, and that skill definitely plays a role. 

But as @Gally and I have been saying, the more information is out there, the more level the  playing field becomes between the "skilled' and everyone else. Everyone else is no longer buying a 3 month old magazine. Everyone else has all the same information that the "skilled" managers have.  

How that information is applied is where the skill comes in. And even then, luck plays a huge factor game to game, or even play to play. So yeah - I agree with both you & Henry. Skill matters. Skill does not "80%" matter, even over the long haul. I'd always rather be lucky than good. 

Hot Sauce Guy said:

I kinda think it's the opposite. The most experienced managers I know always acknowledge the role that luck plays. They have a much larger sample size to judge from. 

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Almost 1 in 3 are claiming it's at least 70% (mostly) skill.  That's pretty funny.

I think it's mostly luck and as evidence I point to the leagues where disgruntled managers are constantly trying to change league settings to "get rid of" luck. It never works. They block last year's luck and this year's luck still finds a way in.

Harry Frogfish said:

Almost 1 in 3 are claiming it's at least 70% (mostly) skill.  That's pretty funny.

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Yeah, but we don't know their history. All sharks aren't created equal.  

Also, in a way I think some folks take the idea of luck as an insult. No one who works hard and achieves something wants to be told, "yeah, well you were just lucky"

I get that. I mentioned earlier there's ego involved, and probably also pride. Saying someone had good luck doesn't negate their skill though.

To use my brand as an analogy, I had a hot sauce on Hot Ones. That was the single luckiest thing imaginable. That sauce took me 5 months to create, and subsequently won #1 overall grand prize at the longest-running fiery food competition in the country. So lots of hard work to make a good product, which was then fortunate to be recognized by judges in blind tasting, and then an EXTRAORDINARY amount of luck to be one of like 80 sauces to have ever been on the show. Even luckier that 7/13 guests shouted it out.  

And if someone tells me I was "lucky" to have a sauce on there, I will agree with them 100%.

They aren't saying I wasn't skillful in creating it. Those things can be mutually exclusive. But to complete the analogy, the luck I experienced was far more valuable to my brand than the skill of creating the sauce. 

I think that's a lot like skill vs luck in FF. In the end the luck is going to help you win more than the skill. It's no insult to tell a skilled player who drafted well that they were lucky to win. It's just a fact. 

habsfan said:

I think it's mostly luck and as evidence I point to the leagues where disgruntled managers are constantly trying to change league settings to "get rid of" luck. It never works. They block last year's luck and this year's luck still finds a way in.

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Well said. 

Hot Sauce Guy said:

How so? The choices seem pretty clearly spelled out. 

I agree with


Harry


too, and have throughout the topic. Interestingly, I also agree with the bolded above. I believe developing a draft strategy, analyzing your leaguemates historic record of player preferences & draft style can give you a leg up on the competition, and that skill definitely plays a role. 

But as @Gally and I have been saying, the more information is out there, the more level the  playing field becomes between the "skilled' and everyone else. Everyone else is no longer buying a 3 month old magazine. Everyone else has all the same information that the "skilled" managers have.  

How that information is applied is where the skill comes in. And even then, luck plays a huge factor game to game, or even play to play.  So yeah - I agree with both you &


Henry


. Skill matters. Skill does not "80%" matter, even over the long haul.  I'd always rather be lucky than good. 

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I voted 70% skill, mainly basing if off my own results.  I've been playing FF since the early 90's but over the last 6 years I've been playing in a high volume of leagues and keeping detailed track of my results.  Over those 6 years I've made a profit in 4 of the 6 and the 2 losing years were only small net losses (as opposed to the much larger net profits in the other 4).   Maybe I've just been lucky over that time but I don't think so.  I've had my share of bad luck.   To answer your question in the title, I'd much rather be good than lucky.  Luck will even out over the long term.  Skill won't.

Marauder said:

I voted 70% skill, mainly basing if off my own results.  I've been playing FF since the early 90's but over the last 6 years I've been playing in a high volume of leagues and keeping detailed track of my results.  Over those 6 years I've made a profit in 4 of the 6 and the 2 losing years were only small net losses (as opposed to the much larger net profits in the other 4).   Maybe I've just been lucky over that time but I don't think so.  I've had my share of bad luck.   To answer your question in the title, I'd much rather be good than lucky.  Luck will even out over the long term.  Skill won't.

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I won't argue with any of this other than to point out that the "unskilled" in most leagues tend to become more skilled over time. So to that effect, skill kinda evens out over the long term as well. 

Of course you have those who burn their fingers on the toaster over and over again. Heck, I consider myself skilled, and I can't tell you how many times I drafted Fred Taylor back in the day, expecting him to finally have that one great healthy season. lol 

Marauder said:

I voted 70% skill, mainly basing if off my own results.  I've been playing FF since the early 90's but over the last 6 years I've been playing in a high volume of leagues and keeping detailed track of my results.  Over those 6 years I've made a profit in 4 of the 6 and the 2 losing years were only small net losses (as opposed to the much larger net profits in the other 4).   Maybe I've just been lucky over that time but I don't think so.  I've had my share of bad luck.   To answer your question in the title, I'd much rather be good than lucky.  Luck will even out over the long term.  Skill won't.

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I assume profiting is just straight a money equation and that you get paid out for other things than just winning the title.  I would agree that there is skill in being competitive every year over many years but whether you actually win the league or not in a given year is mostly luck based.  That's not to say you won't profit (assuming more payouts than the single winner) but to actually win it takes a great deal of luck.  

I am the winningest owner in my long term league (started in 1985).  I have the most money won and the most titles but we also don't have playoffs.  There was still luck involved in every single win I have had as there were games I shouldn't have won and did and vice versa.  Some years (like last year) I have been the highest scoring team by far and finished no higher than 4th.  I should have easily won the title but my pts against were astronomical.  My game had the highest scoring team in it 14 times and I lost 7 of those (5 when I was the second highest scoring team).  I have also had years where I was in the bottom third of teams in scoring due to injuries but was able to win the title.   

Playoff leagues ratchet up the luck to a different level.  You cannot win without luck being on your side no matter how good your team is.  One week where your QB gets injured in the first quarter and you lose....playoffs over....no title.  That is all luck.  

Gally said:

Playoff leagues ratchet up the luck to a different level.  You cannot win without luck being on your side no matter how good your team is.  One week where your QB gets injured in the first quarter and you lose....playoffs over....no title.  That is all luck.  

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100% this. See my Keenan Allen hip pointer example above. Safe to say that year getting 2 points out of Allen in PPR in any game is basically a lock, and so I sat down to watch what I thought was the inevitable: Allen making a couple grabs & me advancing to the LCG for the 1st time in a couple of years. He was overthrown twice and dropped one pass on the opening drive. He went up to catch a TD in the corner of the end zone & was basically done for the day. 

Playoffs ovah. Skill negated entirely by that little piece of bad luck. Which also happened to simultaneously be a little piece of monumentally good luck for my opponent, who absolutely should have lost that game. Neither my skill level nor his skill level factored in. it was the playoffs and we were both skilled & had good teams. 

It just all comes down to a bad bounce here or a lucky break there. Even on non-scoring plays - I can't tell you how many times I've needed a minute amount of points at the end of a game & had a 1st down replay ruin my day. Either I needed the drive to continue, and instead of 1st and 10 on 4th and inches, it's "take a knee, game over", or an opponent who had 1 player left in that same scenario while I had a very thin lead, and the 1st down was granted so they played on, had a reception or a 15 yard run and *poof* I lost. 

Just a bad bounce, really. 

And you mentioned schedule earlier - doesn't matter how many points I score if my opponent scores more. And scrubby players have career days too. Just comes down to whether you're facing them when they do it.

Winning at FF is really alllllll about luck, whether you're skilled or not. 

It's like the old poker adage:

There's more luck than good players want to admit, and more skill than bad players want to admit.

It takes skills to put yourself in a position where luck even matters. If not, then I should be able to set my redraft to auto every year with whatever site's own rankings and I should have a 50-50 chance of winning. I'm quite certain that number is closer to 0. Of course skills won't win you a league without luck and bad luck will kill the season, but that luck only matters if u were in the running in the first place. So not black and white and you're all right, but skills > luck. Or you're all wrong and luck < skills. Read it either way that works for you.

Pigskin Fanatic said:

It takes skills to put yourself in a position where luck even matters. If not, then I should be able to set my redraft to auto every year with whatever site's own rankings and I should have a 50-50 chance of winning. I'm quite certain that number is closer to 0.

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a player in a FF league I was in years ago put that to the test. Couldn’t make the draft or find a proxy, decided to pre-rank & autodraft.  Made the playoffs. 

In my decades-old FBB league a team Auto-drafted one year & won the championship. 

The sad truth is that the better technology gets, the less skillful fantasy players need to be. 

IMO, admitting that is the next step towards becoming even more skillful & finding new ways to apply those skills. Because technology is leveling the playing field, and has been for a long time now. I think some folks are just hesitant to admit it. 

Pigskin Fanatic said:

It takes skills to put yourself in a position where luck even matters. If not, then I should be able to set my redraft to auto every year with whatever site's own rankings and I should have a 50-50 chance of winning. I'm quite certain that number is closer to 0. Of course skills won't win you a league without luck and bad luck will kill the season, but that luck only matters if u were in the running in the first place. So not black and white and you're all right, but skills > luck. Or you're all wrong and luck < skills. Read it either way that works for you.

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Totally disagree.  Auto-draft teams seem to do better than most in my experience.

zed2283 said:

Totally disagree.  Auto-draft teams seem to do better than most in my experience.

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it's real and it's a thing. I've noticed this in fantasy baseball for years. 

Sometimes taking the human element out of the equation helps. Removes the preconceived bias of not liking a certain player or team & just goes with the math. 

I guess the lesson there is that we should all be a little more robotic & a little less emotional in our drafting. 

Agree with those who say winning the title in a given league is a decent amount of luck, but building contenders on redraft or dynasty is heavily skill based.