Scenario Studio

“The starter in front of him is out.” Push Opportunity and Snap Share up by 1.5σ. Notice how much of the gain is volume and how little is efficiency — that asymmetry is the single most useful thing to internalize about this sport. Backups who inherit a role get paid immediately; players who need to get better rarely do.

“He is due for touchdown regression.” Drag TD Rate down to −1σ. The projection barely moves. That is deliberate: scoring rate is shrunk hard toward a league prior because it is the noisiest component of fantasy scoring. Most “he's due” arguments are already priced.

“This game is going to be a shootout.” Push Game Environment to +2σ. The effect is real but small — a couple of points. The market's opinion about team scoring is genuinely informative, but it does not tell you who on that team gets the ball.

Break the model on purpose. Set every factor to +3σ. The projection you get is the model's theoretical maximum for that position, and it is lower than most people expect. That number is a useful sanity check the next time a projection site tells you someone is going to score 34.