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05 Jan 2011
2010 post-regular season Kubiak review
Just wanted to put up a quick postseason discussion of how I fared using KUBIAK. I played in four leagues this year, made the playoffs in three (narrowly missing them in the fourth due to a tiebreaker), and won the championship in two. These are not money leagues, but everyone was playing to win, and hardly anyone dropped out.
A quick review of some of the more interesting KUBIAK preseason picks vs. how they fared:
Rashard Mendenhall: Didn't quite attain his outrageous KUBIAK prediction, but owners can't complain unless they really reached for him. He finished as the #10 RB in a tight grouping, only 18 points behind CJ2K.
Matt Forte: Finished one point ahead of Mendenhall. I drafted this guy in three leagues. In terms of total points he was a steal, drafted in the 3rd to 5th round, but if he wasn't winning me a game with a 20+ point performance, he was losing me one with a 6 point byline. Hand me the Dramamine.
Dwayne Bowe: Tied with Brandon Lloyd for #1 WR, but put up all those points in the middle of the season, and in Week 16. Kind of Forte-like, but without the abrupt ups and downs.
Brandon Lloyd: I'm torn as to whether this is a KUBIAK miss or not. The reason KUBIAK has trouble picking out breakout players is because KUBIAK tends not to have good information on those players. But KUBIAK obviously had years of stats on Lloyd by 2010. Then again, those stats all suggested a run of the mill WR, so why would KUBIAK expect 2010 Lloyd to be any different?
Arian Foster, Peyton Hillis, Darren McFadden, LeGarrette Blount: You'd think these would all be misses, but prior to the 2010 regular season these were all committee members with small sample sizes for data. I did target Foster based on his entry in FOA 2010... not bad for a seventh round pick.
Randy Moss: KUBIAK can factor in injury histories, but apparently not player boneheadedness.
Mike Wallace: Quietly wound up as the #4 WR overall. KUBIAK liked him, but didn't predict the sudden dropoff of...
Hines Ward: This one hurt since KUBIAK really liked Hines, and I picked him up in three leagues. Gave up on him by Week 3 and he stunk up the bench for most of the rest of the season. I find myself wondering if he got hurt in Week 1.
Leon Washington: What happened to Leon anyway? KUBIAK really liked him but he was relegated to special teams by what, week 4?
Donovan McNabb: I'm also interested to find out why McNabb didn't live up to his KUBIAK rating either. Injuries on the O-line? No running game?
Jamaal Charles: KUBIAK had him pegged as the #9 RB; exceeded this performance by 6 places, but what a slow start.
So taking all this into account, I think it shows what we already know--KUBIAK is pretty good at predicting player performance if it has data on that player, not so good if it doesn't. For me, that paid off with overall rosters that were above average, with few if any busts. That plus monitoring the waiver wire for lottery tickets seems to be the way to go. I'll be getting KUBIAK again in 2011, if there's football.
1 reply , Last at 07 Jan 2011, 10:17am by bird jam
Re: 2010 post-regular season Kubiak review
My team went down in flames thanks to Kevin Kolb, Randy Moss, and Hines Ward. I drafted Kolb and Ward because of KUBIAK. My RBs were awesome though, thanks to KUBIAK.
Ultimately not having a QB did me in. My league is a keeper league and most of the top QBs were kept by other teams coming into the auction. So I really needed Kolb to come through, which he obviously did not. I ended up trading some of my RB depth for Roethlisberger, but it proved to be too little, too late.
I still think KUBIAK is the best projection system around. But every year there are hits and misses. This year I had three of their misses on the same team and it doomed me.
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