“3. There are three stages: Thoughtless being. Thought. Return to thoughtless being.

33. Do not confuse the first and third stages. Thoughtless being is achieved by everyone. The return to thoughtless being by a very few.”

 – Chad Harbach via Aparicio Rodriguez in The Art of Fielding

The groundbreaking football book Game Plan by Frank DuPont discusses the way that Madden fanatics may have far more practice making quick game management decisions than NFL head coaches. It’s no surprise, he says, that NFL coaches really struggle with this aspect of the game. Because their many hours of coaching development are spent almost entirely on other aspects of football, it wouldn’t even make sense for coaches like Andy Reid to be good at making decisions in such a context.

Over the last four years, I’ve drafted and played out more than 200 fantasy football teams. It’s my theory that most fantasy experts are presenting misleading information and bad strategies, not from any moral or intellectual failing, but simply because they haven’t put in the practice. A person who plays 4 to 5 leagues a year is going to require 50 years to accumulate the same number of reps.

This is important because fantasy football is a game of strategy, and it isn’t enough to know about football or be able to do mathematical computations. Developing a strategy is about creating conjectures and then testing those conjectures. You read a lot about ‘expert mock drafts’ but participating in a mock draft is likely to make you worse at fantasy football. Even if you haven’t made it explicit, any time you participate in a mock draft, you’re employing a strategy. Essentially, you’ve a theory for your draft, but you receive no feedback because the feedback would come from actively playing out the league.

Competing in Serious Events

In the final week before the season, I participated in more than twenty high stakes drafts alone. At one point I drafted for six consecutive hours. On two separate occasions I was participating in three NFFC Main Event drafts simultaneously – one by teleconference and two by internet. On one of the two occasions, my teams weren’t even in the same format.

This year I’m in 32 leagues, most of which are high stakes. I’m also very excited about the first year of the PFF Dynasty format – my first foray into IDP.  Through one week, the Banana Stand is 24-8 and posted the high score in PFF Dynasty by 33 points.

Tested Contrarian Viewpoints

A lot of the writing I do for both PFF and Money in the Banana Stand is contrarian in nature. Some of these pieces are fanciful or ironic, but most of the outlandish claims you see on the Banana Stand are true. The rankings and strategy suggestions are the result of thousands of hours of participating in drafts, making waiver claims, proposing trades. They’re the result of asking questions, making conjectures, and then testing those ideas within the cauldron of actual high stakes play.

I hope you disagree with many of things I write and many of my rankings and that you’ll let me know in the comments, in emails, and via twitter when I eventually get around to adding that. The only way to get better is to discover that some of your ideas are in error. (Which is why it’s always better to be the loser of an argument.) If nothing else, creative disagreement – even when it ultimately proves fruitless – improves the quality of future ideas.

The Official Money in the Banana Stand 2012 Draft Board

Below I’ve posted my final 2012 NFFC Draft Board, a PPR format which starts 2 RBs, 3 WRs, and 1 Flex. Obviously it won’t aid your draft efforts this season, but you might find it interesting as you go about developing and testing your own ideas.

Last year, I received excellent feedback from readers on my ‘rest of the way rankings’ series. The only way to understand where I’m coming from in those pieces is to see where I started from. Even after one week, it’s clear some of the rankings are in error. (For example, the placement of Adrian Peterson will probably prove absurdly low.)

The highlighted players are those whose ADPs made them targets based on my rankings.