Fantasy projection

A fantasy projection is a forward-looking estimate of how many fantasy points a player will score, built from historical performance, usage trends such as snap counts or minutes played, matchup difficulty, injury status, and the specific scoring rules of the league or platform, such as points-per-reception settings. The result is usually expressed as an expected total, sometimes with a range reflecting floor and ceiling outcomes rather than a single number.

Projections differ from average draft position, which reflects what other drafters have actually done rather than a model's independent estimate of output; the two frequently disagree, and that disagreement is a common source of perceived draft value when a projection is higher than where a player is typically being drafted. Projections feed directly into daily fantasy sports lineup construction, where price-adjusted expected value drives roster decisions, and into season-long draft rankings and weekly start-or-sit decisions.

The main pitfall is treating a single projected number as reliable on its own: a player projected for fifteen points might realistically range from five to thirty depending on game flow, so relying on the mean alone understates real risk. Projections that ignore correlation between teammates, relevant to value over replacement player roster construction, can also mislead lineup-building decisions that depend on how players' outcomes move together.