The various published rankings do a pretty good job of ranking players within positions (including comparing across age/ability/potential). See FBG rankings, DLF rankings, DLF mocks, etc. The rankings that best match my views on players are, unsurprisingly,
my rankings. You should decide before (or during) the draft if you want to try to compete in year 1 or wait and target year 2 and adjust your rankings accordingly (in terms of your willingness to draft old guys vs. developmental guys).
For comparing different positions against each other, a lot depends on your league's rules. In PPR dynasty leagues, WRs have a double edge over RBs - they're aided by PPR, plus they have longer careers. And, for the first 2 rounds of the draft, we happen to be in a time where there are several elite youngish WRs and very few elite youngish RBs. Elite QBs who give you a significant edge on the field have a lot of value if they're young, but right now that's just Rodgers, Luck, and maybe Wilson. Luck is a reasonable choice at #1 overall in most formats (and Rodgers in the first round), but some formats really devalue the QB position (e.g., 10 team PPR where you can start 4+ WRs and only 1 QB). If you can, look at the VBD leaderboard for your league's setup for the 2014 season to get a sense of the relative value of the positions.
Be careful about making trades before you have a sense of player values, especially trades involving draft picks. If you're thinking about trading future rookie draft picks, you can plug in the rookie from this year who is going at that pick to get an estimate of its value.
Great advice! Thanks!
My league starts 3 WR, 2 RB and a flex so I plan on going after those 2 positions first. I'd rather stack up on those players and go for someone like Tannehill rather than using a 1st round pick on Luck or Rodgers
While it is good to plan ahead and go through some possible scenarios of how your start up draft may play out, I think it is good to remain flexible. As Dawn points out draft the best player available.
Who is the best player available?
There are a combination of ways you can determine this. As long as your lead is head to head scoring then I think using projections and value based drafting principles are a good way of measuring that, however you also have the dimension of time beyond this season to consider.
There have been many studies about the expected career curves of players at different positions.
Here is a study I began earlier this year looking at the career arcs for RBs.
Here is an article looking at similar things for the WR. Another article focusing on when WR have their peak years
here. Similar study done on the TE position
here. The QBs have already been discussed somewhat in this thread.
Some other important concepts are replacement level value which is the points/game for the worst player who should be rostered based on your starting requirements and the total number of roster spots allowed for each team.
I did a study on this prior to the 2014 NFL season. This should be updated to include the 2014 season (dropping 2011) but I haven't gotten around to that yet.
This is how I defined baselines and what they were:
Replacement level players and baselines for 12 team leagues of 20 roster spots per team.
This means 240 total players will be rostered at all times.
I am concerned with 3 different baselines.
1. Core player baseline
2. Worst starter baseline.
3. Worst roster spot or replacement level player baseline.
For the core player baseline you want players who are capable of providing more than one season of top 24 performances at their position. If the player crosses a key age landmark where players at their position decline, which is 35 for a QB 29 years old for a RB 33 years old for a WR, 32 for a TE, that player should not be considered a core player anymore.
The worst starter baseline is to help determine which players could start for you and provide some advantage to your lineup.
The worst roster spot baseline is used to help decide if a player is worth a roster spot at all. Any player below this baseline is below replacement level. This can also be related to opportunity cost. Carrying a player who is giving you zero removes an option of that roster spot being instead used on a free agent, who could be potentially spot started or perhaps traded, when the current player you have is doing nothing.
All three of these baseline values also depend your starting requirements and your roster size. For this evaluation I used a common starting alignment of 1QB 2RB 3WR 1TE 1K 1DT 1Flex = 10 total starters. With 50% of your roster dedicated to starting positions you have another 10 roster spots that you use for back ups. You want the best 20 players you can roster. You do not want to tie up too many roster spots on long shots or long term projects. If you have more than 4 roster spots tied up with rookies or players that you cant start or trade you are not optimizing the use of your resources. This makes it more difficult for you to win and less interest from other owners in trading for your players.
Baselines for Standard leagues
total points and points per game using a 3 year average:
Quarterback 12 301.98 18.9
Quarterback 24 211.52 13.2
Quarterback 36 98.1 6.1
Running back 12 183.27 11.5
Running back 24 137.7 8.6 (132.25 last 2 seasons 8.27 )
Running back 36 98.2 6.1
Running back 48 74.8 4.7
Running back 60 53.6 3.4
Running back 72 37.7 2.4
Running back 84 28 1.75
Wide receiver 12 167.67 10.5
Wide receiver 24 130.03 8.1
Wide receiver 36 110.36 6.9
Wide receiver 48 95.63 6
Wide receiver 60 77.46 4.8
Wide receiver 72 61.82 3.9
Wide receiver 84 51.9 3.2
Wide receiver 96 44 2.75
Tight end 12 95.4 5.9
Tight end 24 68.2 4.3
Tight end 36 45.5 2.9
Core player baseline is
Quarterback 302 points
Running back 138 points
Wide receiver 110 points
Tight end 95 points
Worst starter baseline is
Quarterback 212 points
Running back 98 points
Wide receiver 96 points
Tight end 68 points
Replacement level value for 20 roster spots is 39 points.
Baselines for points for receptions leagues
total points and points per game using a 3 year average:
Quarterback 12 301.98 18.9
Quarterback 24 211.52 13.2
Quarterback 36 98.1 6.1
Running back 12 223.7 14.6
Running back 24 166.7 10.4
Running back 36 124.93 7.8
Running back 48 94.4 5.9
Running back 60 67.2 4.2
Running back 72 51.2 3.2
Running back 84 38.2 2.4
Wide receiver 12 253.9 15.9
Wide receiver 24 197.93 12.4
Wide receiver 36 164.66 10.3
Wide receiver 48 145.1 3 9
Wide receiver 60 119.2 7.4
Wide receiver 72 98.3 6.1
Wide receiver 84 79.9 5
Wide receiver 96 65.9 4.1
Tight end 12 155.3 9.7
Tight end 24 106.4 6.7
Tight end 36 70 4.4
Tight end 48 42.8 2.7
Core player baseline is
Quarterback 302 points
Running back 167 points
Wide receiver 165 points
Tight end155 points
Worst starter baseline is
Quarterback 212 points
Running back 125 points
Wide receiver 145 points
Tight end 70 points
Replacement level value for 20 roster spots in PPR is 49 points.
You can use the above numbers as a reference (although updating to 2014 numbers could change some of these somewhat) for how to tier players using whatever projections you prefer. You still need to consider the career expected performance based on their age and to some extent the team they are on, and contract factors. All of these things should be aimed at determining how long you can reasonably expect a player to be good based on their peak years and also when to expect them to decline. People use this information to help identify exit value for players as well. If your player is approaching an age where you expect that player to decline, you can consider trading that player away prior to this happening. You can use this to possibly buy at a reasonable price as well.
Categorizing players into tiers has been the most useful pre-draft strategy for me. Having that preparation combined with ADP should help you map out which players are under/over valued and how you want to approach your start up draft. This also allows you to be flexible enough to take advantage of opportunities such as during the start up draft trades or even shifting your strategy mid draft because of how the first few rounds unfolded.
Here is DLF ADP
Having players in tiers helps me determine if I can trade down in the start up draft and how far before all of the players in current tier will be drafted. This can also help me identify when it is worthwhile to trade up to take the last player in a tier as well as helping me decide which players to prioritize when I do draft.
As far as what to expect in a start up draft?
WR will be drafted early and often. In a
DLF mock I participated in back in January 30 of the first 50 picks were WR. In the July mocks this is 29 WR out of the first 50 picks. Because of the long term value of a top level WR I think it is wise to invest in these players over similarly valued RB. In the long run you will never regret having too many good WR. Other owners in your league will always be willing to trade for good WR. Running backs are very important but they also usually do not have the career arcs that a WR will. Therefore WR is a safer asset in the long run.
That said I constructed my team differently than that mainly based on how the draft fell to me. For the mock drafts the rules are:
* PPR scoring for all
* Start QB/RB/WR/TE and 4 Flex spots (RB/WR/TE)
So it is possible to start up to 5RB or 5WR. To me this puts the onus on drafting the best player more than the position. But of course with all of the considerations discussed above.
For my draft I ended up with this roster with July ADP:
1.05 5. Brown, Antonio PIT WR (6)
2.08 20. Murray, DeMarco DAL RB (27)
3.05 29. Thomas, Julius DEN TE (75)
4.08 44. Miller, Lamar MIA RB (48)
5.05 53. Landry, Jarvis MIA WR ® (50)
6.08 68. Garcon, Pierre WAS WR (121)
7.05 77. Spiller, C.J. BUF RB (68)
8.08 92. Ebron, Eric DET TE ® (114)
9.05 101. Brown, John ARI WR ® (79)
10.08 116. Tannehill, Ryan MIA QB (82)
11.05 125. Williams, Andre NYG RB ® (160)
12.08 140. Forsett, Justin BAL RB (71)
13.05 149. Roethlisberger, Ben PIT QB (96)
14.08 164. Jennings, Greg MIN WR (ND)
15.05 173. Manning, Eli NYG QB (155)
16.08 188. Garoppolo, Jimmy NEP QB ® (224)
17.05 197. Gerhart, Toby JAC RB (ND)
18.08 212. Miller, Heath PIT TE (230)
19.05 221. Gresham, Jermaine CIN TE (ND)
20.08 236. Thomas, Logan ARI QB ® (ND)
First of all because I had a top 6 pick I was able to secure a top 5 WR in Brown to fill my one required WR spot. I don;t like chasing runs so getting a WR here seemed like the best way to get ahead of the inevitable run.
I took risks with Murray and Thomas. I thought Thomas would be staying in Denver. Oops. Spiller and Forsett later somewhat balances that out. I value Garcon and Greg Jennings more than other people do apparently. This was prior to the 2015 draft so rookies and free agency has changed things significantly.
Building your team on the foundation of multiple WR picks in the early rounds is I think a better overall strategy in the long run than what I did here. This team does end up with potentially four good to very good RB in a PPR format.
