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Just a short post today to finish off our fantasy sports foray of the last week and a half. In case anyone else noticed, our quarterback predictions showed up on Yahoo, as well as other eminently reputable sites, as MIT-Based Startup Predicts Tom Brady Will Break 24-Year-Old Passing Record. Well, by now we know that this will never happen, with Brady unluckily succumbing to the dreaded torn ACL.

Read Tom Brady and What Might Have Been »

There’s really not much to say about the tight end predictions except to repeat what I said for both the running back and wide receiver predictions. That is, the yardage totals and receptions are depressed. However, when taken in context, the rankings make quite a bit of sense. Well, if you expected Dallas Clark to be the top-ranked tight end. Click for the list.

Read Tight End Predictions for the 2008 Fantasy Football Season »

As I promised yesterday when I gave you our running back picks based on our predictive models, today is wide receiver day. And just like our running backs, you’ll find that the yardage totals of our wide receivers are somewhat depressed. That is, one might believe that some receiver will break out for 1300 yards or more in the season. And it’s likely someone will. But my model is very conservative.

Read Wide Receiver Predictions for the 2008 Fantasy Football Season »

Well, I apologize for not getting these out sooner but my draft just finished this week so there was no gun to my head in getting these models run. But in case you’re still curious about some regression-based predictions for this fantasy football season, I’ll drop the running backs on you today and then come back with wide receivers tomorrow and tight ends on friday.

Some quick notes on the running backs. In general, you’ll notice that the rushing yardage is quite depressed. This is largely because running backs tend toward entropy. That is, once they have a big season, the next season’s rushing total doesn’t quite live up to that previous season. Call it what you will: overwork from the prior year, increased injury likelihood, or teams keying on that back. Whatever the case, you are seeing this effect here. We know that some of these backs will break out and rush for a whole boatload of yards. But my model isn’t going to take risks on backs to do that so it discounts the yards for the whole lot.

The key to my running back model is really to use each player in context. So while LT’s 994 yards may seem too few, when we see him in context, he has the third-highest rushing total. Now that seems acceptable. The same goes for receptions where Brian Westbrook will have the most, even if the total is 33 below his 2007 total of 90.

Without further ado, the list:

Read Running Back Predictions for the 2008 Fantasy Football Season »

Last week I wrote about the Istobe willingness to share with you some of the predictive models that we use in our fantasy drafts. Well, a week later and the Istobe world headquarters is just now kicking the empty pizza boxes to the side and emerging into full sunlight with one hand visoring our eyes. Indeed, it’s been a computer-heavy week running model after model in an effort to win the right to mock our peers.

My quarterback-selection model (like my running back, wide receiver, and tight end models), which I share with you today, is actually a series of regression models that use 27 different predictors to arrive at an estimation of how NFL quarterbacks will fare this year in the following categories:

• Completions
• Passing Yards
• Interceptions
• Passing Touchdowns
• Fumbles
• Rushing Yards
• Rushing Touchdowns

I used these categories to derive a fantasy value based on my league’s scoring system and urge you to the do the same.

The Highlights

1. Tom Brady will have another big season. He’ll ease back on the touchdowns and increase his interceptions. But the yardage? Off the hook. Check out those 5200 yards he’s going to pass for.

Read Quarterback Predictions for the 2008 Fantasy Football Season »