Methodologies

This engine doesn't invent its signals from nothing -- it's built by farming real, published methodology from working analysts, checking what's freely reconstructable from public data, and being explicit about what isn't. This page is the credit and the honesty check: what each signal is actually based on, and where it's a real reproduction vs. an "inspired by" approximation.

Vegas / market signals

Implied team totals, YoY delta, ADP-capital composite. Synthesized from several sources discussing how Vegas lines translate into fantasy signal: Draft Sharks ("The Vegas Data You're Not Using, But Should Be"), RotoWire's John McKechnie (source of the ADP-capital composite formula), FantasyPros' correlation work on prop lines, and Sharp Football Analysis's own win-total framework. What's real here: implied totals and the YoY backtest are built directly from nflverse::load_schedules() -- exact, not approximated. The magnitude-correction factor (real teams move ~40% further YoY than the naive implied number predicts) is our own real backtest across 826 team-seasons, not from any single source.

Ryan Heath (Fantasy Points)

Franchise pieces ("Anatomy of a League Winner," "Statistically Significant") consistently name which stat matters and why -- FP/DB as his stated #1 QB predictor, 1D/RR as his most-repeated "hidden gem" efficiency stat. What's real here: FP/DB, CPOE, avg. separation, Speed Score, and MTF/touch are exact, free reconstructions from nflverse. 1D/RR and YPRR use a real but approximate routes-run proxy (on-field-for-a-pass-play, which overcounts blockers -- his own stated caveat too, this isn't a gap we introduced). Designed targets and first-read share are genuinely paywalled (PFF/SIS charting) -- not reconstructed, not guessed at.

Dwain McFarland (Fantasy Life)

More transparent than most -- publishes his actual input list and validation numbers (WoW/FoF/YoY stability by position) in the open. The Utilization Score's real weights are still proprietary, though, so the version here is an honest equal-weighted percentile composite of his named inputs (snap share, rush share, target share, route share, PPG), explicitly NOT a fitted replication -- and it shows: a real backtest found this version doesn't reproduce his published stability differentiation (RB 0.32 < WR 0.61 < TE 0.71) the way his real model does. Reported as a real finding, not hidden. The Rookie Super Model's raw ingredients (adjusted YPTA, draft capital, program strength) are live; the composite itself isn't built, same reason.

Sharp Football Analysis (Rich Hribar)

The most nflverse-friendly of everyone farmed -- his "Tiers" stat vocabulary (touch/red-zone share, goal-line role, conditional PPG, SOS via Vegas) and TD-regression framework are almost entirely free, exact box-score derivatives, not proprietary charting. His own framing of the TD-regression piece: "build it yourself, don't bother extracting his numbers" -- which is exactly what this module does.

The Stability Module -- ours, not farmed

Coaching continuity, O-line continuity/talent/play-quality, and the scheme-shift indices aren't from a named analyst -- they came out of a theoretical (non-data-grounded) write-up from a different AI agent, graded against what's actually real and free, then built and backtested here. See the source-of-truth doc Sections 26-30 for the full build log, including the real Dallas/Chargers 2025 anecdote that grounded the whole investigation and the real data-quality bugs found and fixed along the way.

What isn't modeled

Sacks taken and pick-sixes thrown. Both leagues' real scoring rules penalize these (Got_The_Bens: -0.50/sack; Money_Talks: an additional -2 on top of the interception penalty for a pick-six) -- but no consensus projection source this pipeline pulls from publishes a per-player "times sacked" or "pick-six" projection to score them against. Most fantasy projection sources skip these categories entirely. Rather than leave an unused, misleading scoring rule configured, these are disclosed here as a real, known gap instead (confirmed 2026-08-09).

Full technical detail, formulas, real spot-checks, and every caveat lives in _Documentation/FantasyEngine_Pipeline_Source_of_Truth.md -- this page is the readable summary, that doc is the source of truth.