The FFPC Footballguys Players Championship is one of the most popular tournament style contests in fantasy football today. In 2019, the contest was comprised of 700 individual leagues of 12 teams. The drafts for these leagues were conducted over the course of the preseason, beginning as early as May, and running right up until the Thursday night opening game on September 5. Similar to our Best Ball Analysis, we have examined the drafts of the winning teams in this competition to identify trends on player selection and roster construction.

To our knowledge, no other analysis of winners in this competition has ever been conducted (sans our analysis last year, but that was not as deep as what we have provided here). If you are a new player, the data contained in these reports should help provide you with a framework for drafting in 2020. If you are an experienced player, a lot of what you see may seem like things you already know, but seeing the numbers crunched should confirm a lot of the best practices that you have been implementing when drafting these teams in the past. Also note that unlike best ball, the drafts for these season long contests are only a partial component of overall success. Waiver wire pickups, and weekly lineup decisions also play a part.

The analyses may either be in the conext of “winning your league” or “winning in the championship round”. And when we speak in terms of “winning in championship round”, that is going to be based primarily on the production of players within that 3 week (14-16) sprint, which can be unpredictable. When you review the “Deep Dive into the Top 5 Overall Winners”, we note a player’s statistical ranking specifically within that timeframe.

The overall grand prize in 2020 is $500,000. You can find a quick overview of the competition HERE.

In 2020 due to the possibility of the season being affected by the Corona Virus epidemic, folks should be aware of the following additional rules for this years contest. The FFPC has declared the following in the event of a shortened NFL season, with respect to prize distribution.

Translation: Win early, and win often in the event the season ends prematurely, or is compressed with a late start. A lot of players often emphasize player matchups during the league playoffs, or championship rounds, but given this situation which may cut the season short, it may be prudent to place a higher value on teams that have favorable schedules the first half of the season.

Enough of the chit chat, let’s look at the data!