Chris Johnson vs.

Adrian Peterson

1 Introduction
This year, Fantasy Football owners had a large debate. The subject of the debate was which player should
be drafted #1: Chris Johnson (the default #1 pick) or Adrian Peterson. Most owners ended up learning
towards Chris Johnson. He was drafted #1 about 65% of the time while Adrian Peterson was drafted #1
about 35% of the time. The object of this analysis is to determine the probability that Chris Johnson was
a better #1 pick than Adrian Peterson thus far this season.

2 Methods
I will be using Bayesian Statistics to determine the probability. A thoughtful prior belief is necessary to
eventually get to our posterior probability. Since the data I am using are whole numbers (points scored per
game, using ESPN Fantasy Football statistics), I will be using a Poisson likelihood, which is defined as:

λxi e−λ
P (xi |λ) = xi !

I will be using a Gamma Distribution to estimate λ and calculate the prior and posterior likelihoods. The
Gamma Function is defined as:
R∞
Γ(x) = 0 tx−1 e−t dt

The Gamma distribution with parameters shape = a and scale = s, or in other words,
Gamma(shape=a,scale=s), has density:
x
f (x) = 1
sa Γ(a) ∗ xa−1 ∗ e− s

On a per game basis, I determined the expected value, or mean score per game, to be 15. I determined
that the best gamma function for our prior would be Gamma(shape=7.5,scale=2). The prior likelihood
density can be shown with the following plot:

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 Chris Johnson vs. Adrian Peterson

I updated my Gamma functions using this season’s fantasy scores, through Week 13, using the following
function:
s
P
Gamma(shape= xi + a, scale= ns+1 )

3 Results
What the updated Gamma functions ended up being were:

Chris Johnson Adrian Peterson

Gamma(162.5,0.08) Gamma(218.5,0.08)

The following plot shows the posterior likelihood densities for the prior, for Chris Johnson, and for Adrian
Peterson, all on the same plot:

Finally, I did 1,000,000 random draws from the posterior likelihoods for each player and found the
difference between them to calculate the posterior probability that Chris Johnson was the better #1 draft
pick through Week 13. Here is the stated posterior probability:

P (Chris Johnson > Adrian Peterson) = 0.001993, or in other words, 0.1993%.

4 Conclusion
Using Bayesian statistical methods, through 13 weeks of the 2010 NFL season, I determined that the prob-
ability that Chris Johnson was a better #1 pick than Adrian Peterson is 0.1993%. This is dramatically
different from the general consensus prior to this season that Chris Johnson was a better pick than Adrian
Peterson and shows that of these two players, Adrian Peterson was the better choice for a #1 pick.

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