A scientific breakdown of my rooster build:
Background: Last year, I finished a respectable 28th overall (i.e. in the money). For the most part, I liked my roster, and the process I used to build it, so this year, my build process will be the same, with a few exceptions. If you care to view my roster from last year, you can find it
here. This is my third year reading this thread religiously, and despite the nice finish, I know my team would have been improved with a few changes, namely, 2 QBs, instead of 3, and more WR's.
About my brain: I'm a numbers guy, and things in my mind are black and white (no gray area). Because of that, I process choices based on numbers and less on things like "gut feel" and "emotion" (i.e., I setup my spreadsheet, and trust the smart guys at FBG.com with their projections, then run the analysis that leads to my roster build.) I also weighed weeks 14-16 at a much greater rate than weeks 1-13.
Entering arguments: I'm a 30-man roster-guy. While I might consider 29, or 28 in the future, I think the greatest chance for survival lies with 30 men. Based on some great survival-rate analysis posted by certain board members last year, I determined that my roster this year would be composed of: 2 QB, 4 RB, 10 WRs, 5 TEs, 5 PKs, and 4 DEFs.
Thought process: I believe a roster should be built in two parts. The first part is defining your "core" team. By core, I mean 1 QB, 2 RBs, 3 WRs, and 1 TE. Part of this step is determining how much you'll spend on that core of 7 players. I used my core from last year to give me a rough dollar amount, then used Excel solver to determine the optimum amount to spend this year. Once I had that amount, I used Excel solver again to build my core. This is my core:
QB Matt Ryan $19
RB Arian Foster $34
RB Cedric Benson $3
WR Brandon Marshall $22
WR Dwayne Bowe $17
WR Torrey Smith $16
TE Brandon Pettigrew $15
The second part of the roster build is filling in the scrubs. Since I know how much I had left to spend, and which positions I had left to fill, Solving for the rest was pretty easy. The team I came up with had some kickers and defenses that were more expensive than I wanted, so I made some adjustments to that part of my roster to give me more money to spend on WRs. In the end, this is how my team turned out:
Code:
FlyjetzThis entry is still alive. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Matt Ryan $19 0.00 bye Jake Locker $9 0.00 bye ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Arian Foster $34 0.00 bye Cedric Benson $3 0.00 bye Evan Royster $3 0.00 bye Taiwan Jones $2 0.00 bye ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Brandon Marshall $22 0.00 bye Dwayne Bowe $17 0.00 bye Torrey Smith $16 0.00 bye Kenny Britt $13 0.00 bye Michael Crabtree $11 0.00 bye Titus Young $10 0.00 bye Justin Blackmon $7 0.00 bye Steve Smith $5 0.00 bye Harry Douglas $3 0.00 bye Josh Gordon $3 0.00 bye ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Brandon Pettigrew $15 0.00 bye Tony Gonzalez $13 0.00 bye Heath Miller $7 0.00 bye Kellen Davis $4 0.00 bye Dwayne Allen $2 0.00 bye ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Nate Kaeding $4 0.00 bye Jason Hanson $4 0.00 bye Rob Bironas $3 0.00 bye Matt Prater $3 0.00 bye Mike Nugent $3 0.00 bye ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Philadelphia Eagles $6 0.00 bye Carolina Panthers $3 0.00 bye Cincinnati Bengals $3 0.00 bye New Orleans Saints $3 0.00 bye ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Parting thoughts: Clearly this roster is weakest in the RB area. If the Foster/Benson combo doesn't pan out, I'm out early. Also, I don't like the bye situation in Week 7, but I think that's early enough to survive.