Inside Science News Service - August 28, 2008
. . .Research plays an enormous role in fantasy football success. First of all, in order to play, fantasy players must become familiar with football. They must identify the top performers, how much playing time they are likely to get, and make reliable predictions about their statistics for the year (which is incredibly difficult). According to Joel Sokol, a professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering, this is because a player's statistics depend so heavily on playing time and the strategy of his real life NFL team. . . .Sokol was originally drawn to his chosen field in part because he saw how he could apply its lessons to improve his fantasy baseball team. He studies complicated phenomena like protein structure modeling, warehousing, and manufacturing, in addition to all sorts of issues in sports. His experience has helped him develop a wide range of insights to suggest ways to build a better fantasy football team.
http://www.livescience.com/culture/080828-fantasy-football.html