What's new
Fantasy Football - Footballguys Forums

Welcome to Our Forums. Once you've registered and logged in, you're primed to talk football, among other topics, with the sharpest and most experienced fantasy players on the internet.

early lessons from WSL mocks (1 Viewer)

FUBAR

FUBAR

Footballguy
Pretty sure these mock drafts started as a way to test concepts and values of players. We might have gone away from that somewhat and these have become leagues people want to win. But we can still learn things from them.

A couple observations -

QB: there are 12 I'd feel fine with as my starter. Unless you get value with the big 4 there isn't much to be gained by reaching early, but don't get locked out.

RB: you can get a good rb in the late 1st, into the 2nd in most leagues. But there aren't many safe bets.

WR: the big name studs are falling further than before. Calvin and green should be had into the 2nd in 12 team leagues.

TE: Gronk goes very early, Graham is still great but then there's a huge drop.

Thoughts?

 
It's amazing how high Russell Wilson has jumped after pretty much matching his 2014 projection in 2014.

 
Gronk/Graham astounds me. It's as if folks really believed Gronk was going to get hurt every year, and when he survived 2014, we thought, "OK, he's good to go." I owned Gronk widely last year. This year, I suspect I'll own many more Graham shares.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Bamac said:
Gronk/Graham astounds me. It's as if folks really believed Gronk was going to get hurt every year, and when he survived 2014, we thought, "OK, he's good to go." I owned Gronk widely last year. This year, I suspect I'll own many more Graham shares.
Click to expand...
So you jumped all over Gronk coming off major surgery - albeit much cheaper I'm sure but, an injury risk is an injury risk....

But, now you back away?

yeah, I think 2014 showed a lot, I don't think he was 100% yet and still crushed it..

I kinda get your point..... It's the "Astounded" level I don't get since you obviously see the value in these leagues of going TE early AND the value of Gronk.

 
The RB position is more unsettled than I can ever remember it in 20 years of playing FF. It's become almost like the QB position - if you can't snag a top-5 stud there's no need to chase, as there's a big interchangeable pool of about 15 guys after them who could all finish in the top 10. We're over 100 picks in in WSL1, and there are still RBs on the board I feel I could build an RB2 by committee out of with a fair degree of confidence.

Starting WR/WR has become a very viable strategy in PPR formats, especially for teams drafting down near the turn. The "bona-fide stud WR" pool has grown from 2-3 guys three years ago to 8-10 now.

I have no idea what to make of TEs beyond Graham and Gronk this year, and apparently neither does anyone else. It wouldn't surprise me if by the time MBSL rolls around there are multiple TEs going 50 picks earlier or later than they are now.

 
BassNBrew said:
It's amazing how high Russell Wilson has jumped after pretty much matching his 2014 projection in 2014.
Click to expand...
I can't speak for the other drafters who took Wilson but I took him on the 5/6 turn (so not real early but ahead of the run) not based on what he did last season but the increased passing I think he will do next year - Especially if Marshawn Lynch is gone (which is at least as good as the chances Seattle wins on Sunday and probably better)

 
Noone can overcome the march of time.

Fitzgerald, Cruz, A Johnson, V Jackson all dropped 4-5 rounds in one year. I'm guessing one of these guys has a resurgence.

 
FUBAR said:
Pretty sure these mock drafts started as a way to test concepts and values of players. We might have gone away from that somewhat and these have become leagues people want to win. But we can still learn things from them.

A couple observations -

QB: there are 12 I'd feel fine with as my starter. Unless you get value with the big 4 there isn't much to be gained by reaching early, but don't get locked out.

RB: you can get a good rb in the late 1st, into the 2nd in most leagues. But there aren't many safe bets.

WR: the big name studs are falling further than before. Calvin and green should be had into the 2nd in 12 team leagues.

TE: Gronk goes very early, Graham is still great but then there's a huge drop.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Great topic - glad you started it.

The WSLs are where I really start to think about the coming season in particular, so getting new ADP from these and the thoughts of some diehards who tend to know what they are talking about certainly helps.

As for particular positions:

RB is tricky after the first few names. I think that we have a few studs, but no one is completely without some question marks (even L.Bell, who was just injured). That said, the Top 5-10 backs are certainly worth that RB1 status, but they are starting to age (Forte, Lynch) and some are not in great standing for next year either due to contract (DeMarco) or being out of favor some with their head coach (McCoy). Lacy feels more solid than in past years. Charles is starting to get up there too and has some injury history. Who knows on ADP.

RB2 is deep (either you extend RB10+ into that group or don't) - There's value in RB11-20 for sure (Hill, CJ, Ingram, LMiller, Ellington, etc.) and with guys beyond RB20 are still reasonably solid and not too far from RB15.

To me, this reflects the state of the NFL today. Most teams want to use >1 back in their system, and one of those guys better be a pass catcher in the "air it out" league. That extends 3rd down backs that get 4-6 catches a week into lower RB2/RB3/flex range.

TE - After Gronk and Graham, a second tier emerges (JThomas, MBennett, Kelce) but they are certainly much lower than the Top 2. Depth falls off as questions (age, skill, usage) rise. That's interesting as you would think that there'd be more TEs involved in the passing games today.

QB - I agree that after about 10 guys, it starts to get to a 2nd/3rd tier and then all sorts of questions pop up after 20 guys are picked. Several teams are looking for true starters - just like every year it seems.

WR - I see this as a very deep pool as there are more and more 3-wide sets and teams that use 3 WRs that can contribute. Gone are the "one guy goes deep and can stretch the field" and the "possession WR2" offenses. More are 3-wide, situational, and 3-4 guys on some teams are fantasy relevant. The WR20-40 range is deep, and WRs at 40+ are still very viable.

 
Fiddles said:
No olsen or gates in your 2nd TE tier Jeff? They were 4/5 last year and 7/8 the year before.
Click to expand...
Didn't break down the whole tier. Olsen yes. Not sure about Gates - either end of 2nd or top of 3rd.

Clear gap though after the Top 2, that was my point. As I went 8th (or 9th) in the first, I would have taken either if they fell to me, especially in the 1.5 PPR format.

 
Jeff Pasquino said:
Fiddles said:
No olsen or gates in your 2nd TE tier Jeff? They were 4/5 last year and 7/8 the year before.
Click to expand...
Didn't break down the whole tier. Olsen yes. Not sure about Gates - either end of 2nd or top of 3rd.

Clear gap though after the Top 2, that was my point. As I went 8th (or 9th) in the first, I would have taken either if they fell to me, especially in the 1.5 PPR format.
Click to expand...
its actually 2 PPR

 
Captain Hook said:
by_the_sea_wannabe said:
If I can't land Graham/Gronk I see me waiting a long time for TE in all of my leagues this year unless someone falls a couple of unexpected rounds.
Click to expand...
perhaps in regular leagues - not a good idea in these leagues
Click to expand...
Eh, not necessarily. People (like myself) have won without a top 1 or 2 TE before. Just different strategies. For me last year, I was able to strike gold on Antonio Gates much later after passing on TEs for a number of rounds. Most had given up on Gates, saying he was too old or bought too much into the Ladarius Webb hype. I was able to snag other WRs/RBs in place of a top tier TE.

 
FUBAR said:
Pretty sure these mock drafts started as a way to test concepts and values of players. We might have gone away from that somewhat and these have become leagues people want to win. But we can still learn things from them.
Click to expand...
IMO...as a subscriber, as soon (within reason) as the regular season was over...the staff at FBG should publish an ongoing 2015 rankings cheatsheet...with adjustments made for playoff performance/injuries, etc....and then also as they feel comfortable adding rookies pre and post draft....and as free agency unfolds, etc.....a fluid cheatsheet that changes potentially hour to hour....everyone would realize it's very early so the fear of "not putting out a quality product with my name on it" would not be a factor....not sure why they don't do this for subscribers, as many of us have to make offseason (redraft as well as dynasty) decisions and it would be nice to see what the experts we are paying think.....I know there is some dynasty stuff out there, but there are also a ton of hybrid/small keeper redraft leagues that could use the experts opinions in the "off" season.....

since they don't....this is really one of the only ways to get an idea of where people see guys heading into next year.....in fact, as Jeff mentioned, I wouldn't be surprised if what we do in here lays the foundation for some of them as they move forward....they get a quick glance at the feel of the FF community....I think the staffers here probably in some ways are having us do some of the initial work for them....

:offsoapbox:

so I agree it's a way to see values/concepts/etc....but yeah I do it to win.....

and honestly discussing strategy to win these is kinda fun, but also kinda of like wishing your opponent "good luck".....

but I'll play.....a little

plenty of TE's out there that could make the jump into the top 10....the winners of some of these may be guys that hit on one or two of those late allowing them to load up elsewhere....

I see a lot of guys chasing the runs at some positions and drafting guys that IMO don't deserve the use of that early of a draft spot.....leaving let's just say "weekly advancing difference makers" there for the taking.....not that I'm always taking advantage of it, cause it's not always that easy, and sometimes you have to "cave to the run".....but while we do these to see values, etc.....those values are more within position because you can't really get say "a 3rd round grade" on a guy in this 16 team survivor format....cause thats' not where he would go in most of our normal home league drafts, etc....

"good luck"...

 
Stinkin Ref said:
FUBAR said:
Pretty sure these mock drafts started as a way to test concepts and values of players. We might have gone away from that somewhat and these have become leagues people want to win. But we can still learn things from them.
Click to expand...
IMO...as a subscriber, as soon (within reason) as the regular season was over...the staff at FBG should publish an ongoing 2015 rankings cheatsheet...with adjustments made for playoff performance/injuries, etc....and then also as they feel comfortable adding rookies pre and post draft....and as free agency unfolds, etc.....a fluid cheatsheet that changes potentially hour to hour....everyone would realize it's very early so the fear of "not putting out a quality product with my name on it" would not be a factor....not sure why they don't do this for subscribers, as many of us have to make offseason (redraft as well as dynasty) decisions and it would be nice to see what the experts we are paying think.....I know there is some dynasty stuff out there, but there are also a ton of hybrid/small keeper redraft leagues that could use the experts opinions in the "off" season.....

since they don't....this is really one of the only ways to get an idea of where people see guys heading into next year.....in fact, as Jeff mentioned, I wouldn't be surprised if what we do in here lays the foundation for some of them as they move forward....they get a quick glance at the feel of the FF community....I think the staffers here probably in some ways are having us do some of the initial work for them....

:offsoapbox:

so I agree it's a way to see values/concepts/etc....but yeah I do it to win.....

and honestly discussing strategy to win these is kinda fun, but also kinda of like wishing your opponent "good luck".....

but I'll play.....a little

plenty of TE's out there that could make the jump into the top 10....the winners of some of these may be guys that hit on one or two of those late allowing them to load up elsewhere....

I see a lot of guys chasing the runs at some positions and drafting guys that IMO don't deserve the use of that early of a draft spot.....leaving let's just say "weekly advancing difference makers" there for the taking.....not that I'm always taking advantage of it, cause it's not always that easy, and sometimes you have to "cave to the run".....but while we do these to see values, etc.....those values are more within position because you can't really get say "a 3rd round grade" on a guy in this 16 team survivor format....cause thats' not where he would go in most of our normal home league drafts, etc....

"good luck"...
Click to expand...
I've always felt like we set adp here. I've looked at other drafts in the past, but the fbg rankings end up closely mimicking these drafts mores than those. Could be community group think developed over the years or us doing the lifting for the staff.

A good example is Wilson. Last year we had him at QB12. Dodds had him at QB13 and fog experts at QB12. You watch him move up to QB6 where we are drafting him. What's funny is that our scoring devalues him and he should have been higher in the expert rankings based solely on FBG scoring.

 
Stinkin Ref said:
FUBAR said:
Pretty sure these mock drafts started as a way to test concepts and values of players. We might have gone away from that somewhat and these have become leagues people want to win. But we can still learn things from them.
Click to expand...
IMO...as a subscriber, as soon (within reason) as the regular season was over...the staff at FBG should publish an ongoing 2015 rankings cheatsheet...with adjustments made for playoff performance/injuries, etc....and then also as they feel comfortable adding rookies pre and post draft....and as free agency unfolds, etc.....a fluid cheatsheet that changes potentially hour to hour....everyone would realize it's very early so the fear of "not putting out a quality product with my name on it" would not be a factor....not sure why they don't do this for subscribers, as many of us have to make offseason (redraft as well as dynasty) decisions and it would be nice to see what the experts we are paying think.....I know there is some dynasty stuff out there, but there are also a ton of hybrid/small keeper redraft leagues that could use the experts opinions in the "off" season.....

since they don't....this is really one of the only ways to get an idea of where people see guys heading into next year.....in fact, as Jeff mentioned, I wouldn't be surprised if what we do in here lays the foundation for some of them as they move forward....they get a quick glance at the feel of the FF community....I think the staffers here probably in some ways are having us do some of the initial work for them....

:offsoapbox:
Click to expand...
As a long-time subscriber (and one currently subscribed thru 2021), I would love to see this. I utilize last August's Draft Dominator just to track these early drafts. It would be great to get a much more recent list of rankings.

I really enjoy FBG and believe it has the best collection of players/staffers, but I would love to see a more year-around product for subscribers. Basically since everything starts being free soon through the start of camps, it is basically like having a 6-month premium membership here.

 
RB is tough at this point this year. Seems to be more question marks in 2nd-4th tiers than usual. It feels like marginal RBs are coming off the board sooner than in years past, but that could just be me continually falling behind the RB curve.

 
renesauz said:
RB is tough at this point this year. Seems to be more question marks in 2nd-4th tiers than usual. It feels like marginal RBs are coming off the board sooner than in years past, but that could just be me continually falling behind the RB curve.
Click to expand...
For what it's worth ... it's not just you. In WSL's the past two years, RBs 41-50 have come off the board starting at around pick 140 through picks 175-180. In WSL1 this year, we're 153 picks in and there are 50 RBs off the board already.

In a vacuum, it seems like reaching, but look at some of the names and it's nothing like the collection of handcuffs and role players you're usually expecting in this range ... quite a few of them (Jennings, Blount, Gore, Freeman, etc.) have a decent chance to be Week 1 starters. In aggregate I don't see a huge quality difference between the RBs that went in the 5th-7th round and those in the 8th-10th.

 
To jump into the TE conversation, Delanie Walker just went TE 16 is WSL3. That means, each team "theoretically" could have a "startable" TE. For the life of me, I cannot remember the position ever that deep...and we have not even gotten into the 2nd year guys who could easily make a leap.

 
Sweet Love said:
To jump into the TE conversation, Delanie Walker just went TE 16 is WSL3. That means, each team "theoretically" could have a "startable" TE. For the life of me, I cannot remember the position ever that deep...and we have not even gotten into the 2nd year guys who could easily make a leap.
Click to expand...
:yes: although G&G are heads above the others, unless you believe someone is going to grow further than others (I think Kelce takes a leap forward), you can certainly wait on TE.

 
FUBAR said:
Sweet Love said:
To jump into the TE conversation, Delanie Walker just went TE 16 is WSL3. That means, each team "theoretically" could have a "startable" TE. For the life of me, I cannot remember the position ever that deep...and we have not even gotten into the 2nd year guys who could easily make a leap.
Click to expand...
:yes: although G&G are heads above the others, unless you believe someone is going to grow further than others (I think Kelce takes a leap forward), you can certainly wait on TE.
Click to expand...
I don't want to reveal too much as we are all still drafting, but part of this exercise is to discuss how things are going to make each other better come late summer. While these are not "wow" numbers, I think most who purposely wait on TE would be satisfied with 50-500-5TDs (or the points that go with those numbers...in our case, 180 total points). I can see about 20+ guys with the potential to hit those numbers in 2015 (18 did in 2014).

 
Reaper said:
Bamac said:
Gronk/Graham astounds me. It's as if folks really believed Gronk was going to get hurt every year, and when he survived 2014, we thought, "OK, he's good to go." I owned Gronk widely last year. This year, I suspect I'll own many more Graham shares.
Click to expand...
So you jumped all over Gronk coming off major surgery - albeit much cheaper I'm sure but, an injury risk is an injury risk....

But, now you back away?

yeah, I think 2014 showed a lot, I don't think he was 100% yet and still crushed it..

I kinda get your point..... It's the "Astounded" level I don't get since you obviously see the value in these leagues of going TE early AND the value of Gronk.
Click to expand...
I'm late to this thread, but as someone in the same position as him (I grabbed Gronk every chance I got last year), I think he means that he likely won't have an opportunity to get Gronk, but now Graham has started to slide from his draft position last year, so he'll be available.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

BassNBrew
2014 Survivor Leagues - Week 2
Replies
2
Views
1K
snellman
snellman
F
$$$ Dynasty Startup - $150 entry - WWE Wrestler theme - Superflex - 36 teams - 3 of each player in database (3 copy) $$$
Replies
3
Views
129
Freezang
F
F
Dynasty Startup - $100 entry - NBA Legends theme - Superflex
Replies
0
Views
100
Freezang
F

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Top