Amongst fantasy football “experts”, creating your own projections is an act that has become a commonality. It all started with Value-Based Drafting created by Football Guys’ David Dodds and Joe Bryant. Since then, many have created their own strategies for making cheatsheets. I’ll now introduce you to my variation of this method.

Points Above Average

The first step is creating projections for every player you think will be drafted in your league. This is a very important part of ranking the players, so I advise that you attempt to be as unbiased and accurate as possible. Once that is completed, we need a common denominator that can rank all players fairly.

The goal is to rank players; not by the overall points they score, but by how much he outscores the other players at his position. To find how a player compares with his other players at his position, we need a baseline. These baselines are set to show us true value at each position while reflecting scarcity.

To find my baseline, I use @FantasyDouche’s Value Based Drafting Revisited; I highly advise that you read this article, as baselines change based on the position requirements and amount of teams in your league. He did all the heavy lifting; all you need to do is input the baselines that correspond to your league settings.

My projections use the Apex Fantasy Football Money Leagues’ settings. If you would like a copy, they are free if you sign up for our mailing list. Apex’s starting lineup requirements: 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, and 1 RB/WR/TE. Therefore, our baselines are set at: 16 QBs, 43 RBs, 60 WRs and 18 TEs.

For each of these positions, we will take the average of the amount players mentioned in the baseline. For instance, let’s take the fantasy points of the top 16 quarterbacks to give us an average. This number provides us with the average fantasy points of a starting quarterback. By subtracting the fantasy points of any given player at that position, you can find how many points above or below replacement he is projected to score – I call this Points Above Average or PAA.

By taking the average of each position we find how much true value a player provides in comparison with other players at his position. This gives us an unbiased metric to judge the value of each position.

Now that you understand how my Overall Rankings are created. I’ll give you a sneak peek of my way too early top 10.

NameTeamPositionPointsPAA
1Jamaal CharlesKCRB337.6130.72
2Calvin JohnsonDETWR328.0108.30
3Matt ForteCHIRB314.3107.42
4Demaryius ThomasDENWR326.2106.50
5Dez BryantDALWR317.297.50
6LeSean McCoyPHIRB303.997.02
7Josh GordonCLEWR314.795.0
8Jimmy GrahamNOTE280.191.93
9A.J. GreenCINWR304.584.80
10Julio JonesATLWR297.077.30

Anything you disagree with? Let me know in the comment section or message me on twitter @BraudeM.