By Dan O’Shea
Most decisions we make in fantasy football are based on the historical record. We say we balance the stats we have in hand with the ones we envision for the future, but when it comes time to draft, smart decisions are more like 90% based on fact and 10% based on what we see as the likely future course.
Call yourself a gambler if you like, but when it comes time to draft a running back, are you really going to go with the growing hype around Giovani Bernard over a proven top tier RB? Not likely. The numbers have been established, and they don’t lie. The future is fun to talk about, but a scattershot investment.
Still, the ability and the willingness to take chances is part of what makes fantasy sports so much fun. It’s why we make predictions, track potential sleepers and, every once in a while, draft Cordarelle Patterson over Victor Cruz.
And if you don’t even like taking mid-round or late-round chances, you can still let loose your inner gambler by participating in mock drafts. That’s how I stumbled onto the idea for this little exercise: Forget the numbers, and draft a team mostly based on future prospects and hype (though as I found out, you can’t entirely forget last year’s numbers). Anyway, this is what I ended up with through the first eight rounds in a mock draft when tried to think only about future potential.
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Posted on September 3, 2014
