Let's Think About Thinking

Why do we care so much about a game about a game? What are the assumptions that guide us and our opponents? How can we leverage those to win? And what can we learn about ourselves in the process?

When I was young, I really wanted to play football…

… Unfortunately I had a very loving mother, and a very lanky frame. It was my mother’s protective love which prevented both my potential football career, and many inevitable, severe injuries.

However, having fallen in love with the game, I had to find more unconventional ways to express it. One way was to create a make-believe football league in my head, and on my whiteboard; in which I tracked each game, each draft, all-time statistics, and even acted out highlights on my make-believe sports network. It should be remarkably unsurprising I fell deeply in love with fantasy football the moment I was introduced.

It’s a very silly game if you ever try to explain it to someone who is unfamiliar. But it perfectly combines my love of football, and my fascination with incentive structures, probabilities, and human decision-making, that has propelled me to study economics, political theory, and law.

I’ve always been a highly curious person. As a child, any time I was told a rule, my immediate inclination was to ask; why? Why is this rule helpful? Who does it help? Could there be a better way of accomplishing the same goal? While this made me a rather irritating kid, it’s made me a reasonably successful community organizer, law student, and fantasy football player.

Throughout your life, how many times was the first way you tried something the optimal one? Throughout human history, how many times have we lived in accordance to a scientific ‘fact’ or moral principle we now regard as false or repugnant? Being wrong in our hypotheses is inevitable. But there can be a compounding, negative effect every time we attribute greater value to our currently held belief than to any equally plausible alternative.

In law, we do this constantly. It’s known as the “burden of proof.” We have decided for valid reasons; procedural consistency and natural justice, to assign a greater burden to most elements of a court proceeding to one side or the other.

A football field is no court of law. But yet, decision-makers constantly place burdens upon one possibility vs. another. There is a yearning for passivity that directs a coach or announcer to view “going for” a 4th down as something which must be justified vs. the “neutral” option of punting. In actuality, there is no neutral option. Every play, every down, coaches and players are presented with decisions. They cannot be abdicated except in our imagination. A punt, a “go,” what play you call if you do “go;” each of these is an active decision you must make, like it or not. I posit that 8-year-olds, unburdened by the learned passivity of growing up, often lands on correct game management decisions more often than we’d imagine.

This same phenomenon undoubtedly applies to fantasy football as well.

Why do so many fantasy managers make so few trades? Do they think the distribution of capital they were assigned in the startup was the most optimal? Do they not roster any players other managers may value more than they do? Do they not roster players of an asset class which may be of greater utility to another manager?

These kinds of queries will be a common feature of this newsletter; in essence, why do we make the decisions we make? Do we realize we are making them? And how do we make better ones?

What to Expect From this Newsletter

Make no mistake, Thinking About Thinking is a fantasy football newsletter. We will discuss players, teams, and projections. But I want to dig deeper; to examine the markets defining our leagues and tournaments, the assumptions guiding our choices and the fallacies our opponents fall into. I want to think about how we think, how we can think better, and how doing so can help you win more, and win bigger.

This newsletter will present a mode of analysis for probabilistic gaming, upon which you can attach a broad range of football evaluations and generate value.

I will write most often about dynasty league strategy, though I expect many editions to be broadly applicable to any fantasy format. I also intend to discuss popular fantasy tournament formats; including Best Ball Mania, Playoff Best Ball Tournaments, and the FFPC Playoff Challenge.

Over this off-season, you can expect the following:

• Key Principles of Dynasty Markets: the dual market, three sources of value, and the “hold tax” [Coming within a week’s time!]

• Weaponizing Uncertainty and Risk, and tailoring your risk tolerance to your team and game environment

• Interpreting Proxy Variables: And why correlation sometimes lies to us

• Yes, I’ll also do Rookie Rankings and Draft Guides for rookie drafts and startups :)

• AND MUCH MORE!

I expect this newsletter to be a lot of fun, and to provide significant value. For those who wish to join us from the maiden voyage, you have my eternal gratitude, and my bendable ear as we shape the direction of this project together.

Thank you,

Jakob

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