Myth:

"Using "value-based drafting" (VBD) is a must!  You have to project specific statistics for players to have consistently successful drafts / seasons."

ERRRRRNNNNT!  

"Oh I'm sorry, that's not the answer.  But tell him what he's won, Don."

"Well Bob, he's won hours and hours of back-breaking micro-analysis and tons more work for himself than the rest of us, and for precious little reward.  Oh and of course a copy of our home game.   See you at the pool."

"Thanks Don.  Don't forget the margaritas." 

"Gotcha covered Homey."

OK, I'm exaggerating (a little).  I know that a lot of owners, including some very successful ones, swear by doing the whole projecting-statistics thing.  And I'm not saying that this myth (whoops I mean method) has no value at all, necessarily.  If it works for you, that is great.  But for my money, an award goes to this one for being over-hyped.  I maintain that while it might help, it's really not necessary and is largely a hideous waste of time.  To me, projecting all those statistics is really just a fancy way of saying, "I think this guy will do better than this guy." 

Some of the arguments I've heard for it are as follows:

"It helps you determine not just who is better, but how much better they will be."

Maybe, but I can do the same without projecting statistics.  In fact projecting statistics is just as much of a guess (if not more) than just ranking players.  If you've done any reasonable amount of reading up on a player, you should have a good feel for how much better you think he will or won't be overall, as well as how he stacks up vs. players at a similar level.  If you're looking at how much better Player Schmoe will be than Player Schlep, to say "Schmoe will get 1100 yds rushing and 8 TDs, but Schlep will only get 875 yds and 5 TDs" is just a complicated way of quantifying your opinion.  You came up with those numbers for (I hope) specific and logical reasons...the same ones that you could simply use to say "I rank him here" without getting lost in a sea of numerology. 

"It helps to determine not just rankings within a position, but between different positions."

Again, I can do that without projecting stats.  And besides, it doesn't take into account other factors which could (and probably will) minimize this benefit during a draft: what are your current needs for each position, was there just a run on a position, are any of the picks an injury risk, and so on.

I do admit that we all probably project stats casually to some degree ("he's not a 1,000 yd rusher, this guy should get at least 10 TDs," etc).  I just don't think it's necessary to do it so precisely for every player and for every meaningful stat.  I saw one FF rag that actually got down to the yard (for example, projecting Eddie George to get 1,243 yds.... you sure?  Gee why not 1,244?  Give me a break).  Of course, if you're one of these die-hard stat nuts and love doing it so much that you would even if it didn't help, more power to you. 

But some of us would rather hit the pool...