1. An object at rest will remain at rest until some force acts upon it. An object in motion will remain in motion until some force acts upon.
2. Force equals mass times acceleration.
3. For every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction.

There's a lot of strong dynasty analysis out there, especially when compared to five or ten years ago. But most of it is so dang practical— Player X is undervalued, Player Y's workload is troubling, the market at this position is irrational, and take this specific action to win your league. Dynasty, in Theory is meant as a corrective, offering insights and takeaways into the strategic and structural nature of the game that might not lead to an immediate benefit but which should help us become better players over time.

Many of you doubtless recognized the rules at the top as Isaac Newton's three laws of motion. When Newton wrote Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica and first laid out his laws, he intended to explain the motion of the planets in the heavens.

My goals here are less lofty. I just want to explain the motion of the players in your leagues. Thankfully, they're still up to the task.

Newton's 1st Law

• An object at rest will remain at rest until some force acts upon it. An object in motion will remain in motion until some force acts upon it.

With Newton's first law, he introduced us to the principle of inertia. Inertia is an object's basic resistance to any changes in motion. Anything with mass has inertia, but I find that quite a few things without mass seem to possess it as well.

One of my most useful pastimes is looking up historical charts of player values over time. For instance, I might head over to KeepTradeCut (a site that creates crowdsourced player values by asking all visitors to compare a set of three players). I might click on a player's page (such as Marvin Harrison's) and select the "All Time" option on the dynasty value graph.

Looking at Harrison's graph, we notice a few trends emerge. His value rose slightly around the NFL draft, then fell back slightly for a month or so after as the market sorted out its thoughts on his new situation. It was then basically flat until his rookie season kicked off. His value plummeted following a terrible Week 1 (1 reception for 4 yards), then spiked following an amazing Week 2 (4 receptions for 130 yards and 2 TDs), and has been slowly declining since that peak.

One observation is that once at rest, his value remained at rest until some force (NFL games) acted upon it. A second observation is that once his value started falling, it kept falling until some force (more NFL games) acted upon it. His value was 7260 on March 1st; it had fallen to 6811 by September 1st, despite no notable news in between.

Spend a lot of time looking at charts like these, and you'll see that pattern a lot. Fallers often keep falling, and risers often keep rising long after the events that prompted the initial movement. For instance, Drake London saw a near-linear increase in player value from December of his rookie year all the way up through the beginning of his second season, a pattern far too regular and consistent to be explained by any changes in his surrounding circumstances.

Why might this be the case? Because many judgments in fantasy football are relative, not absolute. A player is flagged as a trendy sleeper, and that signals to savvy managers that they'll need to draft him slightly ahead of ADP. The player's ADP rises, but he's still perceived as a sleeper, so savvy managers still draft slightly ahead of it to ensure they land him, raising his ADP even further.

The same process plays out in reverse for fallers. Once a player gets marked as a fade, the perception sticks, and the movement becomes self-sustaining. Decisions that we "like" or "dislike" a player are simultaneously indexed to the market and used to help set the market, creating a feedback loop.

Newton's 2nd Law

• Force equals mass times acceleration

So we know trends in player values often remain until a new development disturbs their equilibrium. Newton's second law explains what happens when that disturbance occurs.

For physical objects, Newton's second law describes the relationship between how much mass they have, how much force is applied, and how fast they move. To accelerate a very large object very slowly, a certain amount of force is required. Applied on a very small object, that same force will accelerate it very quickly.

Player rankings in fantasy football behave similarly. They may lack physical mass, but our level of certainty imparts a certain mental mass to their position.

You likely recognize this intuitively. Patrick Mahomes II will see his value shift in response to an unexpected game (whether unexpectedly good or unexpectedly bad)... but not as much as Cam Ward will. All new information moves the market, but it doesn't always move it the same amount. The more we know about a player (or, more accurately, the more we believe we know about a player), the more "mass" his values will have, and the more resistant to new information they will be.

Newton's 3rd Law

• For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction

Phrased slightly differently for a fantasy crowd, Newton's 3rd Law could translate to “for every riser, there must be a faller”. The corollary would be “everyone can't be sleepers”.

Rankings are a zero-sum game. Managers can only have three quarterbacks in their Top 3 at any given moment. If a new quarterback joins that trio, an old quarterback must be displaced. If a receiver rises 20 spots in the rankings, all the other receivers must collectively account for a 20-spot drop (whether it's one receiver dropping 20 spots, or 20 receivers dropping one spot each).

Attention gets focused on players who fall due to injury or poor performance, but at the same time, there are dozens of players who are playing pretty much as expected yet still seeing their value fall as hot sleepers start passing them.

Managing your team like Sir Isaac