Does Overall Rank Really Matter?

The one measurement we have in Fantasy Football as to how good we are is our overall rank, but does it really matter? If we’re not playing for a high rank then what else are we really playing for? I want to start off by saying I’d love to win a competition like the Fantasy Premier League (FPL), as we all would but it’s unlikely to happen, which leaves me with competing in mini-leagues that offer prizes. It’s almost the sole reason I actually play Fantasy Football in the first place, to take money from my friends.

This is why I believe rank doesn’t really matter. For most of us we will never experience the joy of winning one of the main competitions over the course of an entire season and instead we have to set our sights on monthly prizes or mini-leagues.

Mini-League Glory

One argument that could be put forth here is that mini-league glory and a high rank go hand in hand. I certainly can’t argue against the fact that if you have a high rank you’re probably also doing well in your mini-leagues. In some situations, however, we will make decisions based on our mini-leagues without taking rank into effect. For example I will sometimes a look at my mini-league rival and see that they’ve taken a point hit, making me much more tempted to take a hit myself without any thought of how it might be affecting my rank in the short or long term.

Another tactic is “blocking” which a lot of people will use, getting in a player their rival has to make sure they can’t be used to close the points gap. That player might not help you get up the overall ranks but might help you win your mini-leagues.

Additionally, if you’re anything like me, once your mini-leagues are won you like to start having a bit more fun. In my first season of playing FPL (five years ago now) I had a 100-point lead for a large chunk of the season and going into the final weeks I took lots of hits to change my team and make the Gameweeks more fun for me. This killed my rank and I quickly went from just outside the top 10,000 places to finishing 20,698th. I could have played safe and avoided the point hits as they weren’t needed but I decided it was more fun to keep changing my team.

There’s also the head-to-head aspect, where you might be basing your decisions solely on your opponent for that week and nothing else. I’m sure in these cases rank goes out of the window as a consideration.

Can people with higher ranks help us?

It’s great to see people on Fantasy Football Scout doing well and nice to see how the site is helping people achieve higher ranks. We spend a lot of time asking and answering questions but when taking advice from others do you ever take into account what their current or previous rank is? After all, if rank matters to us that much surely we should only take advice from those that have previously or are currently at a high rank?

Whenever I ask a question I always take the answers at face value. I’ve never checked what someone’s rank is before taking the advice. I think someone at a low rank can give just as good advice as someone with a high rank, after all it’s only you that makes the decision in the end so weighing up lots of different options is always handy and good advice is good advice regardless of the person’s rank.

Where’s the fun?

For a lot of people the fun in Fantasy Football is achieving a high rank and to do that you quite often have to go with the crowd and get a player because everyone else has him. For others they like to go for the differential from the off, playing 4-4-2 instead of the classic 3-4-3 or getting in that player no one else has.

This is often done at the expense of rank. A lot of the time a player is a differential for a reason (they might not be scoring as well as others but have decent fixtures) and often won’t remain a differential for long. At that point they continue their quest to change to the next differential.

Conclusions

Rank is important, it’s ultimately what sets us apart from the next player and competitiveness is fun! However, I think for a lot of the time mini-leagues are more important and don’t always go hand-in-hand with rank. For me my rank doesn’t really matter. I’ll still check it and want to be higher but finishing outside of the top 100,000 last year didn’t make me want to achieve a higher rank this year any more. What is driving me on this year are my mini-leagues. Whatever your aim in Fantasy Football you need to have fun so I’m not sure rank matters all that much.

What do you think? Does your rank and other people’s ranks matter to you? What is your aim for a Fantasy Football Season? Are mini-leagues more important than rank or do they just simply go hand-in-hand?