Career Fuel
Four positions. Four clocks.
The headline is the selected roster's average fuel at each position. Player faces sit on the curve at their exact age to one decimal.
Career fuel board
No roster players match these filters.
A base rate, not an expiration date.
Equal follow-up only
Every historical player had to be old enough by the 2025 cutoff to receive the full position horizon: age 40 for QB and age 35 for RB, WR and TE.
Fantasy-relevant cohort
Each mature player had at least one meaningful positional finish. Points are truncated at the same position horizon for everyone, including the decline years.
Two model lenses
A 55% Total Points tank means 55% of pooled mature-cohort horizon production remains. A 75% PPG reading comes from comparing every included mature-cohort player-season at that age with that player's own peak, then measuring the age against the position's best age—not a 75% chance the player succeeds.
Where the curve comes from
Career Fuel is a transparent historical base-rate model with two lenses. Total Points asks how much pooled, equal-follow-up horizon production historically remains. PPG vs Peak controls for player quality by measuring every season against that same player's personal peak before building the position age curve.
Source data
The positional curve uses nflverse weekly regular-season player statistics and player biographies from 1999–2025. DynastyProcess supplies identifier crosswalks, while Sleeper supplies the current league, rosters, birth dates and player photos.
Fantasy Points age-curve research is a timing sanity check only. No proprietary Fantasy Points percentages are copied into this model.
Maturity and equal-follow-up filter
A player must begin inside the data window and be old enough by September 1, 2025 to reach the full position horizon. QB requires age 40 because meaningful quarterback production continues after 35. RB, WR and TE require age 35. Every player's points are then truncated at that same horizon, so older players cannot contribute extra follow-up that younger cohort members never had an opportunity to record.
An age-35 rule for every position would produce 423 players: 64 QB, 137 RB, 130 WR and 92 TE. The safer QB-40 adjustment produces the model's final 407-player cohort: 48 QB, 137 RB, 130 WR and 92 TE.
Fantasy-relevance qualification
A mature player enters the model after at least one season meeting both the positional finish and minimum Full PPR threshold. Finishes are ranked against every player in that NFL season before the maturity filter is applied. The cohort stays fixed across all three formats so changing scoring does not change the comparison group.
| Position | Finish | Minimum PPR |
|---|---|---|
| QB | Top 24 | 125 |
| RB | Top 36 | 90 |
| WR | Top 36 | 90 |
| TE | Top 24 | 70 |
The two formulas
Total Points fuel at age A = mature-cohort selected-format points from age A through the position horizon ÷ all mature-cohort selected-format points through that horizon
Step 1: player age-season percentage = that player's PPG at age A ÷ that same player's peak-season PPG
Step 2: position age score = average of those same-player percentages at age A, normalized so the best reliable age is 100%
Current-player expected PPG = his personal peak PPG × the historical position age percentage
In Total Points, the gray bars trace each age's mature-cohort production share and the rust line is the average of the four strongest age-seasons. Each expanded player card overlays a navy PPG-retention marker at every displayed age. Navy is not raw league-average PPG: each included historical season is first divided by that player's own best qualifying-season PPG, those percentages are averaged at the position and then fitted to one peak. Orange markers plot the selected player's actual completed seasons against his own best qualifying-season PPG; his best season is 100% and the orange history is not smoothed. On the PPG player cards, the bottom of each mountain is the selected scoring format's lowest reliable position-age percentage, not 0%; the summit is always 100%. The visible chart requires at least 15 qualifying PPG players at the ending age, producing endpoints of QB 35, RB 32, WR 34 and TE 33. The underlying Total Points calculation still preserves equal follow-up through QB 40 and age 35 for the other positions. The rust-highlighted bar only locates the selected player's current age and does not represent his current performance.
Tenths of a year
Current age is calculated on September 1 of the 2026 season, rounded to one decimal. Values between whole ages are linearly interpolated inside the selected curve. In Total Points, the half-life age is the interpolated point where 50% of historical production remains. Switching scoring or model view immediately recalculates every player, team average, league ranking and positional chart.
PPG survivor rule and limits
The PPG curve uses the same age-mature cohort. It includes an age-season only when that historical player has four or more recorded regular-season stat weeks; exactly four weeks qualify, so this is not a “more than four games” rule. A recorded stat week is a unique week containing that player in the nflverse weekly player-stat source. It is the denominator used here for PPG and is not an official games-played field.
For every included age-season, selected-format fantasy points are divided by recorded stat weeks. That PPG is then divided by the same player's highest PPG among his qualifying 4+ stat-week seasons. The position percentages are averaged by age and fit with a player-count-weighted, single-peak isotonic curve: reliable ages carry more influence, noisy reversals are pooled with neighboring ages and post-peak retention cannot rise. Retired players do not count as zero at later ages.
Orange uses the same four-stat-week minimum but only the selected player's real completed seasons. It is neither smoothed nor projected. Neither lens adjusts for current role, injuries, contract or draft capital.