Advanced Stats in Fantasy Football

[Branimal]

I know a fair amount about advanced statistics in hockey and baseball, but I've had trouble finding information about football. For example, in baseball, there's a lot of talk about "Wins Above Replacement" in helping to evaluate players. Is there anything similar in football? (Maybe Win Probability Added is the similar football stat?)

 

And in general, are there any advanced stats that you would like to see in fantasy football? Are there stats that help predict future performance? Or are there stats you wish were part of standard fantasy football scoring?

 

Thanks!

[marcheese]

I personally think advanced stats will only ever truly work in baseball. Baseball is the one true team sport where advanced stats can be applied to an individual player, since their production is solely based on them. In hockey, or football, or basketball, a lot depends on the teammates around you. It's hard to score a touchdown, score a goal, or hit a jump shot without having the aid of your teammates, meanwhile, getting on base or hitting a home run depends solely on you (for the most part... guy on deck, runners on base etc. obviously impact that, but for the most part, its an individual driven sport).

 

I love advanced stats too, but I believe that this can only be applied most accurately to baseball. Corsi scores and the like for hockey have value, but not as much value as WAR or wOBA.

[BA Baracus]

Numberfire has a statistic call Net Expected Points. That's about the best attempt I've seen at tracking individual statistical performance in the NFL.

[Tripleshot]

I've already started a new advanced FF stat - ADAR, or Alcoholic Drinks Above Replacement. It's kind of like WAR in baseball, only in reverse, where the higher the ADAR, the worse the player. The premise is how drunk you have to get when you think of that player taking over for your starter.

[Branimal]

Thanks for your replies, guys!

 

Marcheese: you are right that advanced statistics work best in baseball, as the game can be more easily broken down to individual contributions. I am a big fan of Corsi in hockey also, though. Because to me, hockey can be simplified essentially to goal attempts (aka shots). So measuring shots for vs. shots against for a certain player is useful and perhaps more reliable than other measures like plus/minus.

 

So, rather than a football analogue of WAR, is there a version of Corsi that would apply to football? Like, is there any way of measuring "scoring chances for vs scoring chances against"? I know this is tough because of how teams switch possession regularly...