The Booth Shadow

How the shadow is worked out

Every week, every team's actual Sleeper line-up and actual player scores are taken as the starting point. Then the rule is applied the way a manager would have to apply it before kick-off:

1. If a rookie already started, nothing changes.
2. Otherwise, take the rookie on that roster with the highest Sleeper projection for that week — not the one who turned out best, because nobody knows that on a Wednesday.
3. Put him in the legal slot whose current starter has the lowest projection, so the team gives up as little as possible on paper.
4. Re-score the line-up with the real points both players actually scored, and re-run the head-to-head.

A "rookie" is a player in his first NFL season — Sleeper's years_exp = 0 and a rookie year of this season, so a long-serving practice-squad player doesn't count — marked R in the line-ups. Players on IR aren't available to start and are ignored. Scoring uses the league's own settings, including the TE premium. Nothing here is a projection of the result — it's what the scoreboard would have read.