Ahead of the Curve

Ahead Of The Curve: Context Matters is an edition of a weekly series of fantasy football articles to help IDP owners gain that winning edge. From general advice to standard information, Ahead Of The Curve is an insightful and take-action series every week for those die-hard IDP owners, and certainly will become one of your go-to sources for everything on the defensive side of the ball in your fantasy football lifestyle.

Context Matters

“The completion of the Super Bowl is football’s culmination of an entire calendar year, one grand finale, winner take all football game between with Goliath’s.”   Full scale, galvanizing literary masterpieces like this sentence you just read get churned out every year right around February 1st.  It is a sentence can be typed or written any time of year, but it always seems to find a way to appear en mass right before the Super Bowl.  When you read it today, during the offseason, it’s not very rousing.  When you hear it announced with the piped Sunday Night Football theme through Al Michaels loud yet bland voice, it has a different type of feel.  The difference?  Context.

Beyond my point of how the same thing is described differently at different times of the year, context matters under all avenues.  When we are talking about fantasy football, the context around the player is always paramount.  Does he have any competition?  Did he improve from last year until now?  Will the coaching staff give him more snaps?  What’s the easiest path to playing time?  Are injuries a concern?  All of these questions are not only valid, but they build an accurate profile of not only why a player is valued at his current price, but why.  Now let’s talk about ever April’s favorite topic, the NFL Draft.

The NFL draft occurs smack dab right in the middle of the offseason.  We are three months removed from the granddaddy of them all, the Super Bowl, and we are still three months away from watching our favorite UDFA’s and special teamers suit up for Week 1 of the preseason.  There’s a reason the calendar is designed this way.  The NFL wants to maximize the content making value of the draft when their true content making cow, actual football games, are not being played.  That’s why there are endless draft evaluations and mock drafts.  I’m as guilty of it as anyone as no one actually wants to read my seven round mock drafts.  Why am I talking about this?  What’s the purpose?  Why does it matter?

Well, that’s the context that rookie football players are presented to us in.  They don’t quietly show up.  They have a massive, multi-month marketing campaign designed around how these new guys are going to change fortunes everywhere for the better.  That marketing works too.  What’s the true difference between a rookie and a second year player?  One year in the NFL.  Rookies don’t possess more underlying skill with each draft, it’s just marketing that this new class will be better than ever.  As we all know, everyone buys it too.  It’s cyclical.  We want the empty void of no football filled so we amp up this day to the nth degree.  Rookies are important, but so is every single person on that roster.

That’s an excellent transition and parallel to your fantasy roster.  Rookies are important, but so is every single person on that roster.  It doesn’t matter if you’re in redraft or dynasty, the value of a rookies are always the highest today. There are endless opportunities for rookies to ascend to the top of the mountain today.  There are no roadblocks, but that’s simply because time has not happened so those road blocks are not visually there, but they are coming.  Wherever a player gets drafted, there will be competition, or a coaching issue, or a change in scheme, or something else, or all of these things… but today?  None of that exists yet.

Staying Ahead Of The Curve

Understand the context that this sport is presented in.  That is how and why rookies become highly valued commodities today, then cycle to low value commodities during the early weeks of the season, and then cycle back to high value commodities towards the end of the year.  Understand that it does not have to do with the specific player, but rather the environment that the player is presented in.  Take advantage of this context.  Fantasy football is played for many reasons, but only one is universal, it’s to find an end season winner.  Use the context of the offseason to win your league.  Find value and sell value at a profit because you understand how ‘it’ all works.  Understand context.  Context matters.

Thank you for joining us this week to get Ahead Of The Curve with Context Matters.

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