Why 4? Teams do not have static schedules; they have waves of difficult games and cupcakes. A four game moving average is sure to keep our statistics useful and relevant, as well as capturing before and after the bye-week for many teams.

In order to adjust to strength of schedule, I also included in the spreadsheet, a 4 period moving average of the Points allowed by position. Since the algorithm is still in test phase, I will just be using it for QBs this week, since quarterback is generally the most consistent of all the fantasy positions.

As I was calculating the “forecasts” or “projections” for this week, I noticed how much things were trending toward the middle (17 points to 14 points range). Take for example Aaron Rodgers: Rodgers has a 4-game moving average of 24 points. This week, he faces a Cardinals defense that has allowed the 3rd fewest points to opposing quarterbacks over the last 4 weeks. (10).The formula so far was just add the two numbers and divide by 2 (24 and 10); I decided that this was too much of a penalty for Rodgers, as he dropped to 4th in the rankings.

With the formula giving to much weight to defenses, I went back into the rankings and picked out a small handful of quarterbacks from each extreme, and altered the weight given to each number. Elite quarterbacks like Rodgers and Brees, have their personal 4 game average count for 70% of the total average whereas quarterbacks like Russell Wilson and Blaine Gabbert, who are more prone at this point in their careers, to be “less in control of the game” than the defense is, got a 60% weight to their personal numbers. (Instead of 50/50)

A final note on another formula adjustment, is since a lot of QBs trended toward the 2 TD average range, I used 4 points as a standard deviation (the points for a passing touchdown), and increased or decreased their projection by 50% (2 points).