Fantasy Personalities: Dr. Jamaal and Mr. Hyde

By Jman70

It seems like being a good fantasy manager involves having a personality split into two types of mindset. Your inner Dr. Jamaal is a student of the game. He spends his hours in the NFL video library, gets up to the minute updates on trades, injuries and rumors and majors in statistical analytics.

The second phase of your inner Dr. Jamaal taking over is taking all these facts and making sense of them. This mostly involves predicting how the NFL players will do in their upcoming match-ups AND predicting how they will do against each other to find which players you will start.

Mr. Hyde is the other personality of every manager. This side strictly listens to experts in picking their starters. The experts usually provide you a tidbit or two on why you have to start that player, but it’s common sense that their info is coming from their inner Dr. Jamaal who has done his homework. Mr. Hyde trusts other peoples Dr. Jamaal, not his own.

Reasons managers are Mr. Hydes can vary to the fact that they really have a good feeling about the other person’s Dr. Jamaal. The Dr. Jamaal might have won major fantasy tourneys, be a media celebrity or maybe have a strategy similar to the Mr. Hydes’ inner Dr. Jamaal, and puts in the time to follow through and come up with the picks. Mr. Hyde might also be convinced that other people’s Dr. Jamaals are better than his own and become convinced that Mr. Hyde is the easiest and most accurate way to win.

Always being a Mr. Hyde can be dangerous and a good way to get a sideline seat come fantasy playoff time. If you put all your trust in one expert you can end up making bad moves not only in who your start but also who you trade or don’t trade. If you put your trust in a panel of Dr Jamaals you can also get caught in a mess of conflicting opinions and strategies that throw you for a loss as well. You lose the reigns to your team too because you have that convenient excuse that the decisions were their Dr. Jamaal’s fault, not your own.

Always being a Dr. Jamaal is dangerous to. You might interpret things a wrong way and they can snowball into an avalanche. Example, “I am sold on the fact that Christine Michael has replaced Thomas Rawls and so therefore will never reconsider picking up the currently injured veteran.” It might be difficult and time consuming to find updates on Rawls health and before you know it- paradise lost.

The successful fantasy is a manager of Dr. Jamaal and Mr. Hyde. It is a balancing act and it does not take much reflection to realize when you are siding too much with one side or the other. Please let me know if you think there is a third side to every good manager and what that side is because in the back of my mind I think there could be but I don’t know what it is at this time. I wish you a great second half 2016 Fantasy Football season!