Some myths are real like Bigfoot or the Chupacabra. Others are more dubious in nature. Ray Flowers gives his thoughts on some fantasy myths.
Preseason stars star when it counts.
In 2015, the top five quarterbacks in preseason passing yards were Zach Mettenberger, Jimmy Garoppolo, Ryan Nassib, Austin Davis and Ryan Griffin. The top five runners were Lorenzo Taliaferro, Henry Josey, Joe Banyard, Rashaad Jennings and Andre Williams. The top five in receiving yards were Allen Hurns, Justin Hunter, Brice Butler, Roberts Woods and Travis Kelce. Preseason numbers don’t matter.
Strength of schedule matters.
The strength of schedule argument pertains to team versus team junk. It has very little to do with the fantasy game. Besides, good teams sometimes have bad fantasy defenses.
Planning for the playoffs early is a winning move.
Calling shenanigans here. There is no way anyone, even the Oracle (that’s me by the way), can predict the health of players. One key injury to an offensive player can sink a whole offense. Conversely, an injury or two to a main cog on defense can have catastrophic results (think what happened to the 49ers last season). You shouldn’t plan for the playoffs until the season hits at least the midway point.
Drafting players from bad teams is a losing move.
In fantasy, we don’t care if a team gives up 30 points and 400 yards a week while going 3-13. In fact, having offensive players from a team with a terrible defense is a good thing since the offense is going to have to open things up in order to try and catch up. Moreover, the worse a team is the less likely it is they have tremendous depth, which means bad teams often feature their better players even more so than good clubs. Team record matters little.
Drafting players who have the same bye week is idiotic.
You can try what most do and spread the bye week risk over multiple weeks. However, why not just draft a club comprised of players that all share the same bye week? If this plan works then you would lose that one week but still have your full roster the rest of the season. Instead of losing one key piece over six weeks you just lose them all at once. Think of the club you could put together if you took only guys with their bye in Week 10: Andrew Luck, Melvin Gordon, Frank Gore, Julio Jones, Torrey Smith, Andre Johnson, Dwayne Allen. That team could win some games, couldn’t it?
Third year wideouts have their breakout efforts.
If this was true then we should see evidence that a whole bunch of stars from the 2012 Draft exploded last season. Did we? Here are all the wideouts that were taken in the first three rounds in 2012: Justin Blackmon (suspended), Michael Floyd (regressed from 2013), Kendall Wright (lost 37 receptions and 364 yards from his second), A.J. Jenkins (pitiful), Alshon Jeffery (broke out in 2013), Ryan Broyles (two catches), T.J. Graham (uh, no), DeVier Posey (one catch), Rueben Randle (did break out with 71 receptions and 938 yards), Mohamed Sanu (56-790-5 is hardly a breakout) and T.Y. Hilton (had his best effort but was an 80-1,000 guy in year two). Guys who are going to be stars have at least as good a shot of breaking out in their first or second season as they do their third.
You have to draft a running back in the first round.
The game has changed. Players are seemingly hurt more than ever before and we know that teams utilize split backfields more than ever (one guy for the early downs, another guy for third downs and sometimes a different guy for goaline work). You can take that data to mean you have to get your stud runner in the first round. You can also look at the data and think to yourself, especially in a PPR setup, that going with an elite wide receiver in the first round is actually safer than putting all your marbles in the basket of a runner who is likely to get hurt, underperform or be replaced in certain situations.
The best fantasy team always wins.
This is not even close to accurate. You could score the most points in your league and go 0-13. There are always going to be better teams that fail to make the playoffs over lucky teams because of the one matchup per week scenario that fantasy football leagues employ. If you want to banish that scenario then you will have to go to a total points set up. Life isn’t fair and neither is fantasy football.