I know there are at least 4 owners in the league who have ipads (Hai, Lily, Tuna, and me). If you have one or are planning to get one, this may be of help. Asides from better user interface, faster performance, and much better portability, iPads are the new "it" toy amongst the urban hipsters if I may say so. So to stay abreast of the tech curve, while staying true to my fantasy geekdom, I went ahead this weekend and downloaded four fantasy football apps. At the cost of less than a website subscription, I got 4 fantasy tools to study for your benefit. All four have been updated at least since August 1, got rated 3+ stars by the App users, and cost $4.99 or less. Hope these reviews help you out in the FADUCO draft and in your other drafts. Review order in chronological order of my downloads.
Rotoworld 2011 Draft Guide ($4.99)
Interface: This RotoWorld app has the prettiest interface out of the four. Players each have a photo, and sorting and filtering players is a breeze. Fonts are large sized enough, and bolded when appropriate. This felt so much better and more intuitive than navigating through a website to find player news and depth charts.
Content Quality: Comprehensive player news and depth charts. Very solid outlook analysis and up-to-date player news from many sources are available when you select a player. It just seemed easier to read than the CBS Sportsline player page. Depth charts are also very accessible going 4 deep in the positions, even identifying who the goal-line backs are. Now for the bad news. Those of you who are interested in physical size attributes and years of experience will be in for a disappointment. You can't tell if Arian Foster is 6'2 or 5'9. Or whether he's in his 2nd year or 6th year. Or if he's 195 lbs or 225 lbs.
Customization: You can flag players as belonging to you or if they have already been drafted (aka taken as keepers by other teams). You can also put players on a "watch-list". But this app is otherwise very limited in how you can customize your rankings. You cannot customize the scoring system to fit your league's scoring. You cannot manually move players up and down the rankings either. This app is a big fat fail in this department.
Overall: You can't use this application as your primary research tool unless you draft players according to their looks. Don't laugh, I think that's how Katy selects her non-Eagles players. However, it's nice to have when you want to quickly check on the status of your keepers and targeted players. Think of this app as a replacement for your fantasy football magazine. You do need to have access to a wireless or 3G connection to use the app, due to the news getting streamed and not downloaded to your ipad. Final Grade: B-
Rotowire Football Draft Kit ($4.99)
Interface: The good news is that this app was built for the iPad, so you get the advantage of the hi-res screen size. The presentation is pretty bares-boned, with just player names and their projections on like a black-and-white spreadsheet list. Readability is very good, since there isn't much clutter. Navigation is also very intuitive. I'd rate the Rotowire app as a wee bit behind the RotoWorld app in the interface department.
Content Quality: The app also has player outlook and news available when you click on the player. However, there is no separate player news menu item. Rankings are pretty mainstream, so secret nuggets are few. There is a depth chart page as well, but it's not as detailed as the Rotoworld one. For example, it's just one category "WR", instead of WR1 and WR2 separately for each team, and no goal-line back ID. Player news are pretty up-to-date. For instance, Jermichael Finley's latest news is as of August 13 and Jeremy Maclin's news reflects his status of August 12 (his mysterious illness makes him still not available to play but Andy Reid is optimistic in case you're curious). Another positive is that updated data gets pushed manually to your iPad, so you don't need a network connection to use the app asides from downloading the data.
Customization: You can flag players as yours, unavailable, or in the watch-list as well. The Rotowire app has the capability to customize projected fantasy points based on your league scoring system. Three minor issues with the scoring customization are that there is no flex RB/WR setting, only a RB/WR/TE and WR/TE flex setting. Also, yardage scoring is points per yard, not yards per points. For our league, which uses 15 yards/point, that means 0.067 point per yard. The app rounds this to 0.07 point per yard, giving you 1.05 points instead of 1.0 point for 15 yards then.There is also no bonus for defense team points allowed. Another nice thing is that you can manually rank players regardless of point projections. Unfortunately, you have to manually rank the combined group of players and can't drill down to just adjusting the RB rankings, for instance.
Overall: The Rotowire app can be used as a stand-alone fantasy draft tool. It has some very nice customization capabilities and a pretty clean interface. This is is a draft tool for the mainstream user. It's safe and inoffensive to the user. If the Federal Government were to sponsor fantasy football teams instead of stimulus funds, this app is what they would use. Final Grade: B
Bloomberg Sports Decision Maker 2011 ($4.99)
Interface: This is not a draft tool per se. Instead, this app is meant to help you with your lineup decisions. For example, it helps you answer questions like "should I start Shonne Greene or Frank Gore?". Selecting players is pretty intuitive, and the app makes full use of the iPad screen with nice green coloring. With as few as three (more likely five) clicks of your fingertips, and voila, magic happens.
Content Quality: The mayor of New York City has made billions providing tools for the brightest Wall Street minds (or the most evil minds if you're an anti-capitalist non-profit goody tree-hugger). Like those secretive hedge funds that have made out like a bandit, the app is something of a black box. Its main metric is something called a "B-score" (As in B for Bloomberg, or B for Bucks, or B for Bandit, whatever). It takes into account past player performance, team support, opponent matchup, and game conditions. The player comparison also displays a Risk/Reward score (Of course the Wall-street crowd is interested in this metric) and an Upside rating that is supposedly based on at maximum the past 32 games.
Customization: Customization is a bit irrelevant for what this app does. You can sort the players by B-Score or Upside, and of course filter by position. I would have liked the capability to save your players, so you wouldn't have to scroll through tens of players to get to your 3rd WR vs 4th WR questions come bye week.
Overall: Strange metrics written by financial gurus? I'm so there dude. At least until week 4 of the season when my managerial efficiency plunges to below 50%. Then again, my record the last two years using conventional or inconsistent methods for starting decisions have led to failure. I cannot recommend this Bloomberg app since this is a new, untested technology. However, I'm on the record that I'll be using it at least until it reveals itself to be a charade like structured finance mortgage bonds.
Final Grade: Incomplete, but A- for interface.
NFL Fantasy Cheet Sheet 2011 ($2.99, only available in iPhone Apps, not iPad Apps)
Interface: This is not a native iPad app, but an iPhone one. Word is that the developers are going to release an iPad version sometime later in August, but I haven't seen that update yet. As it currently stands, this app has the worst interface of the four apps. It's not very user-friendly as Apple apps go. For example, after setting my general custom league settings, I failed to save them since the "save" button wasn't as apparent. There is a bug that only shows the top players when you select a ranking system based on value-based drafting, thus making sorting by that ranking useless for FADUCO purposes. Also, the lack of screen real-estate makes everything seems so crowded. One nice feature is that you can search a player by name, instead of having to scroll through the list.
Content Quality: Since this app has roots on the iPhone, player news volume is limited to twitter-like updates. You do get height, weight, and age stats on players, however. Also, there are high-level ratings of the player's team offense, schedule, and consistency available. A handy feature is that you get to see player's schedules and the pass and run defense of the team they're facing that week. One area that could either be very good or bad is that this cheat sheet is not afraid to show outside-the-box ratings. For instance, it has Tashard Choice listed ahead of Felix Jones using the FADUCO scoring system since he's projected to have 6 TDs instead of Jones' 4. It also has Cedric Benson 5 spots ahead of Frank Gore. You may or may not agree with the points projections it gives, but the deep customization features offset this issue.
Customization: By far the deepest customization features found amongst the apps. You can you customize your league scoring rules (including points allowed for defenses), manually rank your players, and flag players as keepers instead of just "unavailable". To top this set of goodies off, you can save multiple league settings. Someone like Donny who plays in more than 4 leagues would enjoy this feature.
Overall: If the draft was held later in the month, maybe the iPad version would be released by then and this Cheat Sheet app would become the clear winner. However, I really don't like using native iPhone apps on the iPad since I feel constricted. The sometimes unconventional projections may scare some fantasy team owners, but that's not as big an issue for me. Final Grade: B+, will upgrade to A- if iPad version becomes available
Rotoworld 2011 Draft Guide ($4.99)
Interface: This RotoWorld app has the prettiest interface out of the four. Players each have a photo, and sorting and filtering players is a breeze. Fonts are large sized enough, and bolded when appropriate. This felt so much better and more intuitive than navigating through a website to find player news and depth charts.
Content Quality: Comprehensive player news and depth charts. Very solid outlook analysis and up-to-date player news from many sources are available when you select a player. It just seemed easier to read than the CBS Sportsline player page. Depth charts are also very accessible going 4 deep in the positions, even identifying who the goal-line backs are. Now for the bad news. Those of you who are interested in physical size attributes and years of experience will be in for a disappointment. You can't tell if Arian Foster is 6'2 or 5'9. Or whether he's in his 2nd year or 6th year. Or if he's 195 lbs or 225 lbs.
Customization: You can flag players as belonging to you or if they have already been drafted (aka taken as keepers by other teams). You can also put players on a "watch-list". But this app is otherwise very limited in how you can customize your rankings. You cannot customize the scoring system to fit your league's scoring. You cannot manually move players up and down the rankings either. This app is a big fat fail in this department.
Overall: You can't use this application as your primary research tool unless you draft players according to their looks. Don't laugh, I think that's how Katy selects her non-Eagles players. However, it's nice to have when you want to quickly check on the status of your keepers and targeted players. Think of this app as a replacement for your fantasy football magazine. You do need to have access to a wireless or 3G connection to use the app, due to the news getting streamed and not downloaded to your ipad. Final Grade: B-
Rotowire Football Draft Kit ($4.99)
Interface: The good news is that this app was built for the iPad, so you get the advantage of the hi-res screen size. The presentation is pretty bares-boned, with just player names and their projections on like a black-and-white spreadsheet list. Readability is very good, since there isn't much clutter. Navigation is also very intuitive. I'd rate the Rotowire app as a wee bit behind the RotoWorld app in the interface department.
Content Quality: The app also has player outlook and news available when you click on the player. However, there is no separate player news menu item. Rankings are pretty mainstream, so secret nuggets are few. There is a depth chart page as well, but it's not as detailed as the Rotoworld one. For example, it's just one category "WR", instead of WR1 and WR2 separately for each team, and no goal-line back ID. Player news are pretty up-to-date. For instance, Jermichael Finley's latest news is as of August 13 and Jeremy Maclin's news reflects his status of August 12 (his mysterious illness makes him still not available to play but Andy Reid is optimistic in case you're curious). Another positive is that updated data gets pushed manually to your iPad, so you don't need a network connection to use the app asides from downloading the data.
Customization: You can flag players as yours, unavailable, or in the watch-list as well. The Rotowire app has the capability to customize projected fantasy points based on your league scoring system. Three minor issues with the scoring customization are that there is no flex RB/WR setting, only a RB/WR/TE and WR/TE flex setting. Also, yardage scoring is points per yard, not yards per points. For our league, which uses 15 yards/point, that means 0.067 point per yard. The app rounds this to 0.07 point per yard, giving you 1.05 points instead of 1.0 point for 15 yards then.There is also no bonus for defense team points allowed. Another nice thing is that you can manually rank players regardless of point projections. Unfortunately, you have to manually rank the combined group of players and can't drill down to just adjusting the RB rankings, for instance.
Overall: The Rotowire app can be used as a stand-alone fantasy draft tool. It has some very nice customization capabilities and a pretty clean interface. This is is a draft tool for the mainstream user. It's safe and inoffensive to the user. If the Federal Government were to sponsor fantasy football teams instead of stimulus funds, this app is what they would use. Final Grade: B
Bloomberg Sports Decision Maker 2011 ($4.99)
Interface: This is not a draft tool per se. Instead, this app is meant to help you with your lineup decisions. For example, it helps you answer questions like "should I start Shonne Greene or Frank Gore?". Selecting players is pretty intuitive, and the app makes full use of the iPad screen with nice green coloring. With as few as three (more likely five) clicks of your fingertips, and voila, magic happens.
Content Quality: The mayor of New York City has made billions providing tools for the brightest Wall Street minds (or the most evil minds if you're an anti-capitalist non-profit goody tree-hugger). Like those secretive hedge funds that have made out like a bandit, the app is something of a black box. Its main metric is something called a "B-score" (As in B for Bloomberg, or B for Bucks, or B for Bandit, whatever). It takes into account past player performance, team support, opponent matchup, and game conditions. The player comparison also displays a Risk/Reward score (Of course the Wall-street crowd is interested in this metric) and an Upside rating that is supposedly based on at maximum the past 32 games.
Customization: Customization is a bit irrelevant for what this app does. You can sort the players by B-Score or Upside, and of course filter by position. I would have liked the capability to save your players, so you wouldn't have to scroll through tens of players to get to your 3rd WR vs 4th WR questions come bye week.
Overall: Strange metrics written by financial gurus? I'm so there dude. At least until week 4 of the season when my managerial efficiency plunges to below 50%. Then again, my record the last two years using conventional or inconsistent methods for starting decisions have led to failure. I cannot recommend this Bloomberg app since this is a new, untested technology. However, I'm on the record that I'll be using it at least until it reveals itself to be a charade like structured finance mortgage bonds.
Final Grade: Incomplete, but A- for interface.
NFL Fantasy Cheet Sheet 2011 ($2.99, only available in iPhone Apps, not iPad Apps)
Interface: This is not a native iPad app, but an iPhone one. Word is that the developers are going to release an iPad version sometime later in August, but I haven't seen that update yet. As it currently stands, this app has the worst interface of the four apps. It's not very user-friendly as Apple apps go. For example, after setting my general custom league settings, I failed to save them since the "save" button wasn't as apparent. There is a bug that only shows the top players when you select a ranking system based on value-based drafting, thus making sorting by that ranking useless for FADUCO purposes. Also, the lack of screen real-estate makes everything seems so crowded. One nice feature is that you can search a player by name, instead of having to scroll through the list.
Content Quality: Since this app has roots on the iPhone, player news volume is limited to twitter-like updates. You do get height, weight, and age stats on players, however. Also, there are high-level ratings of the player's team offense, schedule, and consistency available. A handy feature is that you get to see player's schedules and the pass and run defense of the team they're facing that week. One area that could either be very good or bad is that this cheat sheet is not afraid to show outside-the-box ratings. For instance, it has Tashard Choice listed ahead of Felix Jones using the FADUCO scoring system since he's projected to have 6 TDs instead of Jones' 4. It also has Cedric Benson 5 spots ahead of Frank Gore. You may or may not agree with the points projections it gives, but the deep customization features offset this issue.
Customization: By far the deepest customization features found amongst the apps. You can you customize your league scoring rules (including points allowed for defenses), manually rank your players, and flag players as keepers instead of just "unavailable". To top this set of goodies off, you can save multiple league settings. Someone like Donny who plays in more than 4 leagues would enjoy this feature.
Overall: If the draft was held later in the month, maybe the iPad version would be released by then and this Cheat Sheet app would become the clear winner. However, I really don't like using native iPhone apps on the iPad since I feel constricted. The sometimes unconventional projections may scare some fantasy team owners, but that's not as big an issue for me. Final Grade: B+, will upgrade to A- if iPad version becomes available
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