In the voice of the movie trailer voiceover guy:
In a world, where reboots have become routine and popular ideas of the past are brought back to life, there is a formula that laid hidden during last year’s pandemic-marred season, quarantined to the background as a madman forged on with his follies. But not just any madman, a Fantasy Madman.
That Madman’s formula is back, a draft value quotient to quiet fantasy discontent, a metric to guide you back to a functional fantasy reality, a tool to help you shed the mask of uncertainty. It’s the DVQ, reborn, ready to lead you out of the basement of fantasy despair and back into the light in a return to normalcy, or the closest degree of normalcy Fantasy Insanity can provide.
The drafts have begun, data collection is ongoing, Excel sheets are myriad and active. This fantasy knight has emerged from the dark with a new, grittier version of his former formula. It’s the second coming of fantasy glory. The rebirth of fantasy madness.
Did we overdramatize a bit in that intro? Most likely. But yes, the DVQ is a bit different than last time you saw it.
We eliminated some evaluations we felt were either unimpactful or redundant. We amplified the disparity in positional projections compared to peers, focused on positional impact based on roster expectations in 12-team PPR formats, added a helping of overall evaluations, included a hint of scheduling impact and sprinkled in a dash of past team or coaching staff tendencies against the average — among some other components.
The end result has the same goal: a DVQ rating that reflects where a player should be drafted. Because there is more disparity in scoring among the top NFL players than at the bottom (the difference between the No. 1 player and No. 5 player is likely larger than any five players anywhere else in the rankings), there is a steep parabolic curve that flattens latter half — it just dips down to zero without mirroring the disparity at the top.
This shows the expected gaps in value when drafting. When you see a big dip in DVQ ratings among available players, that is illustrating a separation in tiers. Fail to get one of the players before the dropoff, and you will be lift to sift through a pool of similar-producing options. This data could help you determine, say, if you reach for a weaker player at a position of need or grab a backup at another position since that player is rated significantly higher.
So you see, the DVQ delivers it all. A basic target range for drafting a player, a tier system based on numerical data rather than colored coded bars like many fantasy providers, all based on a system that equalizes projections based on positional value.
Like Jerry Maguire once said: Help me, help you. That is what the Madman is here for. And the DVQ is our Ambassador of Quan.