my draft

Yeah, that approach arose in fantasy baseball about ten years ago and then football finally adopted it several years back, with FFG being head cheerleader.

 

So would you make a spreadsheet that takes every players projected stats and compare them to some definition of what the average player at that position would produce and rank them that way?

 

Not the average, it's either the worst starter or the best player not starting depending upon your preference. When I was originally developing scoring systems in the '90s, I was using averages, but what it does is to skew the results to the extremes.

So basically you take each player's projected fantasy points total according to the scoring system (and projections accuracy is a whole 'nother can of worms), sort them, then go down to either the worst starter or best backup. You then take their raw points total and subtract it from everyone else's raw points total, thus giving you the points above replacement.