The Art of the Forecast

I am somewhat amused every year when I see Fantasy Football experts posting season-long projections for players. This pattern is a ritual that I used to participate in for many years, before I realized how much of a waste of time this can be. I learned that by noticing that while my projections were getting better, my Return on Investment (ROI) had not changed much over the years. I had boom and bust seasons even as I got better at my projections! That’s when I realized that year-end projections do not mean much in Fantasy Football since it is a game scored weekly. In the old days of Fantasy Football, it made sense that so many of us thought year-end projections mattered. We had come to Fantasy Football via Rotisserie-style Fantasy Baseball, where these statistics matter. Once I learned that Fantasy Football is a weekly game, I needed to change my way of forecasting player value. Join me on this journey and learn the art of the forecast. 

Weekly Values Matter

Whenever I speak on Fantasy Football Twitter about how weekly values matter, I get the usual response, “That’s why I use Points per Game (PPG).” The problem with PPG is simple: 2+2+40 equals 14+14+14 in PPG but not in Fantasy Football. Maybe in Best Ball, I want the guy who blows up for that one big game, but not in Redraft. After two games of just 2 points, that player is probably riding the bench on your Fantasy Football team when he goes off for that 40-point game. I searched and tried other weekly value metrics instead of PPG. 

The Science of Fantasy Football professor has also developed weekly value metrics. They all perform better than or as well as other methods, and they all highlight players whose weekly value is higher than the consensus, and beating the consensus is a path to more winning in Fantasy Football. My MVP Index is like consistency on steroids because it rewards upside consistency while penalizing bad games that can sink your Fantasy Football matchup. The Professor and I Beta Tested using six different weekly value metrics last year with great success. Let’s examine my attempt to forecast the future using my MVP Index for this season. 

MVP Index Explained

Before I can explain my art of forecasting the future for 2025 using my MVP Index, I need to define what the MVP Index does. Every week in Fantasy Football, there are three possible outcomes for a player’s statistics. They can help your team win by having a huge points week. They can cause your team to lose by having a very low points week. They can keep your team in contention by having a performance above the historical median of output expected. Combining these three outcomes into one easy-to-understand number was the goal of the MVP Index. While the historic median for Fantasy Football points differs for each position, using the same expected performance level for RB, WR, and TE gives us a score to compare while making Flex starting decisions all season.

Art of the Forecast 2025

In my career forecasting the weather, I learned a critical fact that guides me in approaching any forecasting situation, including Fantasy Football. There is a logical range of outcomes with any storm system. In a winter storm forecasting situation, it mattered to my clients how much snow I thought they would get, and just as important, which direction any error was likely to be. Forecasting 2 to 4 inches of snow with less snow if I was wrong would be handled differently than the same base forecast where I indicated 6 to 8 inches of snow was possible if I was wrong. In Fantasy Football, if I forecast BOTH players to have the potential to reach WR12 status, but one guy has a higher ceiling and a higher floor forecast, then the guy I want on my team is an obvious choice. Both have the likely outcome of WR12, but one guy has a larger range of logical outcomes and becomes a much riskier selection. 

Preparing my MVP Index forecasts for the 2025 season, I looked at many variables, some about the player and others about the team he was playing for, and even some coaching tendencies, if those were easy to figure out. Looking at the last 5 seasons for a player gives you an idea of what that player has been able to contribute in Fantasy Football terms for his best and worst years. The NFL often stands for “Not for Long”, so not all players have that many years to compare. More important than the range of outcomes a player has posted is whether they are improving or declining performance in the most recent three seasons. Has the offense gotten better since last season? Did the defense get better or worse? Sometimes the answers to those two questions are an educated guess, so I use a range of outcomes approach. One thing I don’t attempt to predict is injuries. 

Let’s look at a sample player so I can show how this approach works. Patrick Mahomes has posted MVP Index values of 87.5, 75, 152.9, 117.6, and 140 over the past five seasons. The KC Chiefs' defense has been outstanding over the last two seasons, and Mahomes no longer needs to throw 4 TDs a game to win, and it shows in his MVP Index results. When I prepare my range of outcomes for the next season, I round off my predictions to the nearest 5 points on either side because I realize I can’t be exact down to the single point. The initial range for Mahomes is established using his high and low figures from the last five seasons, for 75 to 150. The offensive line might improve this season by adding a new rookie left tackle so that Mahomes might have more time for the deeper passes. The defense took some hits to free agency but should not drop out of the Top 12 this season, which limits Mahomes' value to the upside. Mahomes had a Best 10 Game MVP Index of 130 last season, so it’s not likely he will exceed that number by more than a few points. His worst season in the previous 3 was 75, which seems like a safe floor for him this year. Getting Rashee Rice back from injury and adding even more playmakers to that offense with two talented rookies and the return of Travis Kelce for one more year made me forecast a higher MVP Index for Mahomes at 95, with a range from 75 to 135. Two straight seasons under 100 is why I didn’t forecast a higher MVP Index for Mahomes for 2025, keeping him just under 100. 

Conclusion

Forecasting season-long outcomes for players in Fantasy Football is tricky and doesn’t reflect their value in a game that counts points every week. Even the best prognosticators must be humble enough to admit that in late May, we don’t even know what we don’t know when it comes to the NFL season that doesn’t start until September. Using a range of logical outcomes is one way to deal with the uncertainty. You might notice I said, “range of logical outcomes” and not “range of all outcomes” since that would be 0 points to maybe 20 points over the record season of all time. Narrowing the range to account for at least 80% of expected outcomes provides more helpful information when predicting the future in Fantasy Football. 

Comparing this information with Average Draft Position data will give us a great indication of the weekly value of each player. Early in your Fantasy Football drafts, you want to limit your risk, while in later rounds, you want to swing more for upside value. Don’t think drafting a WR 50th off the board and having them finish WR48 is a “WIN.” Take the swing at upside at that point in the draft, hoping for a Top 30 finish, and don’t worry if that player is outside of the Top 60. But drafting a vast range of logical outcomes players with the 1st pick in the draft and having them finish RB12 can doom your team early in the draft.