Stats for the past three seasons
How the player performed the season before is the most important information, but it's not the only relevant information. I want to see what players have done over the previous three seasons, since the most recent season might have been fluky (either good or bad), and I want to see how the player has performed on a more long-term basis (I'm looking for consistency and reliability).
Game log stats for previous season
There's a lot you can learn from looking at stats for each individual game as opposed to total stats. You learn what players are consistent and inconsistent, what players boosted their numbers with a couple big games, what players started strong but faded, what players came on strong at the end with more playing time, what players had good streaks and bad streaks, and more.
Targets for WRs and TEs
I want to know how often a player was thrown to, not just how often he caught it.
Team Info pages
You need to know team context, and a fantasy magazine should provide pages with team info. The specific knowledge I'm looking for includes:
--Rush/Pass Ratio
--League ranking in rushing and passing
--Schedule
--Projected Strength of Schedule
--Coaching changes (specifically head coach and offensive coordinator), and analysis of the impact
--Roster changes, and analysis of the impact
Rookie Introductions
I need information on skill position rookies, their teams, their skills, and their potential playing time. I can learn about NFL players and their stats pretty easily: I do, however, need information, analysis, and commentary about potential impact rookies. The only rookie position I'm interested in drafting is RB, but I'm still interested in QBs, WRs, and TEs for how they might impact teammates.
League Schedule
Preferably, a fantasy mag will have a week by week NFL schedule on a single page.
Simple Accessibility
Preferably, I'd like to see a player's total numbers for the past three seasons and his game logs for the previous season on the same page. That, however, appears difficult to do. It's obviously an assumed expectation that the stats are arranged in neat tables. It's nice if the positional rankings are easy to locate, though I'll probably bookmark that anyway. Having the simplified rankings (cheat sheets) is nice to look at during the the draft.
I'll be making my own documents to use for prep and draft time anyway (probably), but I want a magazine that makes prep and draft time easy without such documents.
Others?
What are some key features you are looking for in a fantasy football magazine?
And perhaps just as importantly: what are some common features of fantasy magazines that really annoy you?
This post should have been a lot shorter. FanBall.
ReplyDeleteFanball's mag has a lot of good features, but I don't want to get stale and just accept Fanball as the only mag worth reading. I want to explore other mags.
ReplyDeleteYes. I spend time thinking about this. You'll be seeing me in book stores closely reviewing mags to make a decision. And calling magazines mags because I'm in a hurry to live, suckers!
Stats can be found all over the internet, I choose mine based upon the cover and the pictures inside.
ReplyDeleteI like the free e-mag from footballguys.com
ReplyDeleteTheir value-based draft strategy worked pretty well for me last year, and they seem to avoid a lot of the common pitfalls some of the more superficial fantasy strategy stuff spews.
I like a magazine to have a few different people give detailed projected stats for players in 2010 - with short blurbs about any surprises they include.