In short, Clasgens states that, like in poker, it is vitally important for fantasy football players to know something about their competitors' personalities, likes, etc. He mainly focuses the conversation on trading strategies, eg. does the player show weakness in bargaining and how can you take advantage of it. He doesn't dwell on the correlation between scouting out other player tendencies and draft strategy. Which has me wondering....Do most players have tendencies? In other words, will Player X consistently pick a RB in the first round and a QB in the second round year after year? Does Player Y provide any clues (via what he/she says, does, acts) that indicate beforehand what type of player they will choose in a particular round? Are these cues easy to pick-up? Are they consistent tells? Do the tells remain the same regardless of the player (eg. a tendency to focus on RB's means that the player actually likes QB's)?
If we were still living in the pen and paper era, many of these questions would go unanswered. I mean, who actually keeps paper copies of the drafts. However, in some leagues, one can find years worth of drafts archived online. If you play with the same people year after year, and the draft materials are online, then maybe you could start to answer these questions...
Even if players do have tendencies, especially ones that can be picked up from reviewing their old drafts (as opposed to trying to garner clues from tells), is this information useful to a fantasy player? I think it might be...Much like chess, checkers, or some other strategy game, it pays to be able to think several moves ahead. If you know how your competitors will draft, it might help you to achieve this feat (by crafting better draft scenarios).
At the same time, it might not help at all...Something to think about anyway.
Photo courtesy of Microsoft Office
Interesting post!
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