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RB Mike Boone, DEN (1 Viewer)

Who is to say that Cook and Mattison are healthy enough to play for the Wild Card Weekend? Cook looks like he's been shot now on average hits twice in a few weeks. Mattison has a balky ankle. Who's to say that heals? Lot of speculation in that Roto report.

 
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BassNBrew said:
The more information out there and the more access to it, the less time I spend on it. The less time I spend on it the more I talk myself into relying on the experts for an edge. It’s a vicious cycle.

being a Panthers fan I had seen how bad their defense was, how they had been shredded and how the team had quit. I was shocked to see Mack ranked so low by the experts.  

I will say that the opinions and information in these forums and published by fbg are a doubled edged sword. My rosters were literally loaded from getting a jump on the wire and heads up on injuries. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have so many choices. 

I need to get back to relying on my eyes. Prime example is will dissley.  He tore it up last year and went undrafted in many of my deep leagues. 
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Analysis paralysis.

 
theplayer11 said:
feel sorry for anyone who actually benched a legit starter, like Mack..and bought into the Boone hype.
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If they benched a legit starter, that's on them, rankings or not.

I picked him up and started him in two title games. I lost both, but for me, it was a case of benching hit and miss guys like Dede Westbrook, Sammy Watkins, Hunter Henry, Randall Cobb, Larry Fitz, etc. Based on last week's relief performance, him likely starting, and the D he was playing against, he represented an intriguing lottery ticket. Yea, Fitz and Cobb outscored him, but it's not like they were no-brainer starts based on the past few weeks. 

 
FBG's value added is the message board, IMO, not the rankings, although I pay for them each year as a "thank you" for helping make fantasy what it is. I've long thought FBGs needs to take a fresh look at the analysis they provide and how they choose to provide week-to-week input. 1-n rankings are not that valuable. Tiered rankings of a "low floor" and "high ceiling" variety are much more useful and can help factor in risk vs. reward. Seeing Boone on a high risk, low floor, swing for the fences list would be significantly better than seeing him #8 on a 1-n list. 

 
Walking Boot said:
Agree that people get way too hung up on ranking numbers without understanding at all what they mean. Especially when the difference between, like, 12 and 26 is less than one projected point. 
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What is a projected point, in your estimation, and what sort of modeling is it based on? And what does a ranking say mathematically, if I'm assuming it takes range into account?

Just for us dilettantes in the back. 

 
And let's not forget the dude was undrafted and played college ball at Cincinnati. 

This was a classic case of groupthink.

 
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Don Hutson said:
Out of curiousity, does anyone know of a fantasy football "expert" who advised against starting Boone?
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Very few, if any. But this isn't their forums. This is the FBGs forums. So calling out one of their contributors seems fair. In the end, guys have to make their own lineup decisions, but we do that based on the input and contributions of the "experts". That's why we pay them real money.

 
Don Hutson said:
Out of curiousity, does anyone know of a fantasy football "expert" who advised against starting Boone?
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This is a good question. 

He was ranked pretty high across the board on most sites.

I didn't want to say this during the season but I found CBS which is largely free, I found their rankings and such to be pretty good. 

-They featured a Mack/Freeman combo as a heavy duo to bring you through over the weekend. Mack was solid and Freeman had one of his best days of the year. 

But to answer your question, I didn't see a lot of folks speaking up and saying to avoid this situation. But now I have a good lesson to learn from, this was flavor of the week based on 2 rush TD the prior week, chasing points, etc...

 
Walking Boot said:
Huh? I mean, sometimes TE12 is projected to score, say, 6.8 points, based on a projection of 38 receiving yards and 0.5 touchdowns, while TE26 is projected for maybe 5.9 points based on 35 yards and 0.4 touchdowns, and people will argue one is a 'much stronger play', the other 'doesn't deserve to be rostered', or 'you're an idiot if you start 26 over 12', when in reality, the projections are saying 'eh, it's a toss up, anyone in the 12 to 26 range has about as much opportunity as anyone else'. 

Placing emphasis on ranking numbers that are based on a false degree of accuracy just adds more error into the process. 
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Oh, I knew that. I thought you had something by which modeling or sims gave you a point total. I know it's broken down and that the rankings often have point values right next to them to guide you along.

My second question was about what they mean when they say "RB3" or something like that. They don't mean he'll be RB3 necessarily, they're just looking at ceilings and floors that are relative. That's where your idea upthread was not noticed, but FBG Dominator already does ceiling and floors. Click on the player, and you'll see the graphs and rankings of the player, complete with floor and ceiling. 

 
Ministry of Pain said:
I didn't want to say this during the season but I found CBS which is largely free, I found their rankings and such to be pretty good. 
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CBS has gotten better through the years.  I was in a bunch of CBS leagues 15-20 years ago and their fantasy writers were horrible.  Ridiculously bad.  The fantasy writing, rankings, and analysis has gotten far better.  And it's seems to be mostly the same staff.  They have learned through the years.

 
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This game is not a science, it is an art, and sometimes artists get it wrong.  Why? There are too many variables. The Vikings game plan. The Packer's defensive game plan. Game flow and player usage. 

I thought Bloom was right because:

a. When Mattison was in the offense didn't seem to lose much so maybe the Vike's OL and scheme was good.

b. Boone's big half last week seemed to confirm (a)

c. Boone appeared primed to get a lot of touches based on last week and the fact that Cook and Mattison were out.

d. Packers run D had not been playing well.

It turned out that (a) was wrong--the Vikings OL and scheme for this game sucked.

It turned out that (c) was wrong--Abdullah got a lot more play than expected.

It turned out that (d) was wrong as the Packer's D was on fire.

If you started Boone over someone like Gurley or Aaron Jones, then that is a recency error on your part--recency error is over valuing more recent data over longer, more reliable data.

And I want to thank Bloom for being one of the few FBG experts who gives advice in his Sit/Start thread and in general for being one of the best and for taking bold postions. What good is it if someone always gives you the standard viewpoint?  FWIW, Bloom was excited about a young player named Brandon Marshall before he did anything noteworthy and I picked him up off waivers in my dynasty league. Kept Marshall his whole career and he helped me to two championships. Thank you Bloom!

Bottom line: experts who actually say something divergent will sometimes strike gold and sometimes not, but at least they have opinions.

 
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shadyridr said:
Bloom really did a disservice to everyone ranking this guy 8th just because he had a hard on for this guy. Was never realistic to rank him as anything other than an rb2.

Some experts need to take their love affairs with players else where and rank players unbiased or not rank them at all. 
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I am not sure what you mean by this? How?

I agree that 8 always way too high prior to the game but I am quite sure @Sigmund Bloom put a lot of analysis into that ranking. 

Of course bias, opinion, gut feeling seep into it, just like all games based on incomplete information. In magic football you don't even have the luxury of calculating rough percentages of victory based upon the cards dealt.

Bloom ###### up, but I am 100% certain that it was a well researched and deeply considered #### up.

Can't fault a guy for that.

Anyone who made the decision to go with his rankings bears the entire responsibility for not either choosing a different expert of the millions out there, or making a decision absent any expert opinions.

 
I still maintain that it was only a bad call to start Boone in hindsight. It was simply a classic case of "any given Sunday" (or Monday, in this instance).

Was it a bad idea to start CMac in week 2 when he rushed for 37 yards on 16 carries? How about Barkley in week 10 when he had 13 carries for one yard...against the jets, no less? In hindsight, yes.

Yes, I understand that those guys are proven "studs", but the point remains the same. Occasionally game script kills fantasy players, and there isn't a darn thing anyone can do about it. They flop, plain and simple.

The writing was on the wall early last night:

1) Rodgers was draining every second of the play clock on every possession 

2) Vikings offense was anemic and vanilla. Cousins was laughable.

3) Vikes o-line played their worst game of the year. Several missed blocks/assignments.

4) GB defensive line was in the backfield all evening. LaDarius Smith was a monster and had a career game.

It's always risky starting unproven players, and I would never have started him over guys like Mack, Jones, etc. He was my D. Henry replacement, and I don't regret the decision. Boone had scored nearly 20 points just last week in relief duty, and looked good doing it. Seemed to have a great nose for the end zone too. It was a logical replacement that just didn't pan out on THAT particular night. Also, just because the kid had a horrible game does not mean he's completely worthless, or that he wouldn't have had a terrific game under different circumstances. He breaks one 50 yarder to the house last night (which he is capable of doing), and we are all celebrating today. His situation was good, but it just wasn't his night....or ours. It happens. In fact, that's fantasy football 101.

 
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Stat Correction said:
It's always risky starting unproven players, and I would never have started him over guys like Mack, Jones, etc. He was my D. Henry replacement, and I don't regret the decision. Boone had scored nearly 20 points just last week in relief duty, and looked good doing it. Seemed to have a great nose for the end zone too. It was a logical replacement that just didn't pan out on THAT particular night. 
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Entire post was great, but this part stands out.

FF is filled with late season, 1-2 game wonders that came out of nowhere. The stars seemed lined up here - looked great in relief last week, was starting, etc. You have to take that shot if you managed to snag him off the WW and it came down to Boone or someone like Dede Westbrook/etc at your flex spot. That's what it came down to for me - I plugged in Boone over guys that routinely give 6 point games.

Like most losing weeks, the winning points were indeed on my bench, but nowhere was it a no-brainer, so I'm comfortable with the swing and miss.       

 
Kwai Chang Caine said:
Bloom and Lammy practically came in their pants hyping him on the podcast. They both went on and on about “this is why we watch so much preseason! Boone is a GREAT player and he’d be starting on many teams!” 
seriously go and listen to them. And at the end of the day, yes it’s my fault for starting him but I invest a lot of time (and money) following FBGs. I understand the national narrative was all over “his fresh legs” etc. but I put my trust into these guys really knowing what he was capable of. 
The sad thing is I tell people all the time that one of the ways to still be successful in FF is to watch as much as you can to see players pass the “eye test.” I did not see Boone against SD. So I foolishly put my trust in Bloom and Lammy. 
Then last night comes and it’s clear by his third carry that, although he does have a huge motor, and he’s probably a good special teams player—he’s undersized and CANT CUT! He doesn’t have the elite skill set of Cook. And that’s my fault for blindly throwing a guy out there that I’d never watched. Three carries and it was obvious why he was third string and apparently became quite obvious to Minnesota that he was 4th string by the second half. 
 

But...I can’t get out of my head Sig’s SLAVSH AND LAVISH praise for this kid. I like Sig. But I’m deeply disappointed in him and Cecil. There is no way Boone should have been touted as a “GREAT PLAYER!” No way. They did a disservice to anyone with eyes who watched him play last night. 
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It was like this when they were in Denver and touted the back up te and 3rd rb every preseason.  Sometimes I feel like this industry is about throwing bold predictions in an effort to call the next Boldin. 

 
rockaction said:
I'm sorry, I phrased that wrong. Yeah. The service subscription to get all access to rankings isn't free, but he answers a pretty demanding thread on Start/Sit on these boards (I'm assuming he runs it gratis) and seems always willing to give advice during Podcasts, on Twitter, etc.

Like I said, he blew this, but this is like people calling out Mike Clay for some stuff on ESPN about regressions to mean, etc. Clay trusts process, and I'm totally with him. That said, I understand the subscriber's lament here. The problem is that here there seemed to be no process, but a hunch and subsequent quantification.
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I went through the Bloom thread on two occasions counting the hits and misses. Mayhems was better the other weeks, but those two weeks you would have been better off tossing a coin. 

That said, I’m a big fan of his rookie stuff and believe he’s gotten better results than Waldman even though Waldman is a far more interesting read. 

 
BassNBrew said:
It was like this when they were in Denver and touted the back up te and 3rd rb every preseason.  Sometimes I feel like this industry is about throwing bold predictions in an effort to call the next Boldin. 
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Finding the next Boldin should be the purpose of the industry.

 
BassNBrew said:
It was like this when they were in Denver and touted the back up te and 3rd rb every preseason.  Sometimes I feel like this industry is about throwing bold predictions in an effort to call the next Boldin. 
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Was going to bring up their Boners for Booker but forgot! 

 
BassNBrew said:

Sometimes I feel like this industry is about throwing bold predictions in an effort to call the next Boldin.
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The thing about Boldin (which everyone seems to forget) is that he was a 2nd-round pick who won the #1 WR job in his first training camp. That sort of pedigree is a little more reliable than someone like Mike Boone -- who wasn't drafted and who spent 2 full seasons as a third-stringer.

But I think it's just human nature to dismiss the "known" in favor of the "unknown". We've all been burned by "known" guys who had bad games, so that makes us leery of doing it again. But we've never been burned by Mike Boone before, so therefore our brains think that it's somehow less likely that Boone could have a bad game.

Of course, now that Boone has entered the "known" category, we'll all be too afraid to play him the next time he gets a start -- and he'll probably explode for 200 yards!
 
Luckily I got destroyed so bad in both ships that it didn't matter who I started in both. Feel bad for the guys who needed just a decent game out of Boone.

 
jwb said:
Entire post was great, but this part stands out.

FF is filled with late season, 1-2 game wonders that came out of nowhere. The stars seemed lined up here - looked great in relief last week, was starting, etc. You have to take that shot if you managed to snag him off the WW and it came down to Boone or someone like Dede Westbrook/etc at your flex spot. That's what it came down to for me - I plugged in Boone over guys that routinely give 6 point games.

Like most losing weeks, the winning points were indeed on my bench, but nowhere was it a no-brainer, so I'm comfortable with the swing and miss.       
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I agree with you that you have to take that shot with Boone over someone in your flex spot like Westbrook. I'd take Boone's upside anyday over a player that will give me 6 points. But they didn't have him ranked in that territory.  They had him ranked as a solid RB1. Big difference.

 
Like I stated earlier: it’s 100% my fault for playing the guy—especially violating one of my own rules about not using a guy I’ve never actually watched. My point of contention is that Cecil and especially Sig, absolutely beat their chests about Boone and if I’m being really honest, in retrospect, came off in that podcast as downright bragging about all the work the two of them do watching preseason, senior bowls and the like. Bloom said this guy was “a GREAT player—a GREAT player!” and would be starting on several teams and this is the kind of fantasy moves that separate the champs from the chumps (I’m paraphrasing that last part).

 The part of me that’s upset with Bloom is that anyone who watched that game knew within three carries why Boone was third string. That’s the part that had me angry. What exactly were these two seeing in the past that justified this ranking??? It doesn’t matter that Boone has speed and energy. He has no vision—he can’t cut! One poster in the game thread called that on his third carry. We all knew that this kid didn’t have it. I don’t want to hear about game flow. He’s undrafted and third string for a reason. For every Warner and Foster story there are thousands of guys like this. 

Anyway, I genuinely like Sig. He comes across as a really decent dude and this is my fault. I played Boone it’s my call and I went with Dodd’s ranking of Bell over Jarrod Cook as well and that cost me too but again, these are my calls. If anyone could get this stuff right all the time they’d be billionaires. 
 

again, I’m upset at the—in hindsight—ridiculous confidence that they had and I don’t understand it. 
 

Lesson learned. Maybe this will help me win in the future not giving into the third string hype and never starting a player for me sight unseen. 

 
Mike Boone is no where near Dalvin Cook in terms of vision, footwork and change of direction ability. He is fast, he runs hard but he lacks instinct that good RB have for the flow of the defense and where holes will open up for them.

Mike Boone tested really well at the combine. He has plus athleticism. Thats it.

 
Kwai Chang Caine said:
 The part of me that’s upset with Bloom is that anyone who watched that game knew within three carries why Boone was third string.  
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I didn't listen to the podcasts, and I used their ranking as more reinforcement that this was a good move. But yes, I totally agree with this take too. I never watched him play before, and my first reaction was "ok, he's one of those smaller guys."  Then I watched him run (really fast) straight ahead... once, twice, three times... uh oh. Plastered in the backfield a few times.  Even with a bad o-line, we've seen other smaller guys wiggle out and get a few yards. Not Boone. He was flat-out awful, and was outplayed by a wide margin by Ameer Abdullah.

 
He kind of reminded me of a late-year Darwin Thompson. Reminder on that whole situation: Carlos Hyde went for over a thousand this year. Chiefs had no use for him. Oops. May cost them a championship, even though he isn't a route runner or all-around back like the Chiefs like.

Anyway, Boone strikes me as what happened with DT and the Chiefs early in the year.

 
rockaction said:
He kind of reminded me of a late-year Darwin Thompson. Reminder on that whole situation: Carlos Hyde went for over a thousand this year. Chiefs had no use for him. Oops. May cost them a championship, even though he isn't a route runner or all-around back like the Chiefs like.

Anyway, Boone strikes me as what happened with DT and the Chiefs early in the year.
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If it’s any consolation, the NFL likes the flavor of the week as much as we do.  Abdullah looked decent and probably should have been on an NFL roster. 

 
BassNBrew said:
If it’s any consolation, the NFL likes the flavor of the week as much as we do.  Abdullah looked decent and probably should have been on an NFL roster. 
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The thing with Abdullah is he fumbles a lot. Thats why he isn't a Lion anymore and why the Vikings wouldn't want to give him the ball too much.

 
Can’t believe the whining and blaming others in here. FWIW, I started him in the championship.  But knew this was a high risk high reward play... which means if the former comes up, I can’t complain.

If he gets a TD on that first drive and game flow is different, we are talking about maybe 70-80 total yards and a TD... or maybe add another TD and another 20-30 yards and 2-3 receptions. Modest day with very nice to excellent production.  Waiver play of the year for the championship... and we could all see the stars align, shame on you if you missed it. 
 

So, was a risk reward play that didn’t work.  And I honestly can’t tell you how much was him vs the surrounding elements of his team and game flow. Having no viable QB and a crap line will cripple all but the most elite RBs, and sometimes even then. 

 
Koya said:
Can’t believe the whining and blaming others in here. FWIW, I started him in the championship.  But knew this was a high risk high reward play... which means if the former comes up, I can’t complain.

If he gets a TD on that first drive and game flow is different, we are talking about maybe 70-80 total yards and a TD... or maybe add another TD and another 20-30 yards and 2-3 receptions. Modest day with very nice to excellent production.  Waiver play of the year for the championship... and we could all see the stars align, shame on you if you missed it. 
 

So, was a risk reward play that didn’t work.  And I honestly can’t tell you how much was him vs the surrounding elements of his team and game flow. Having no viable QB and a crap line will cripple all but the most elite RBs, and sometimes even then. 
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Yet Dalvin runs for days behind that same line.   And since when was cousins not viable. 

 
BassNBrew said:
Yet Dalvin runs for days behind that same line. 
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He had 9 carries for 27 yards in Week 15.  9 carries for 29 yards in Week 13.  11 carries for 26 yards in Week 11.  16 carries for 41 yards in Week 6.  14 carries for 35 yards in Week 4.  The last time Dalvin Cook averaged more than 3.7 ypc in a game was in October.

 
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BassNBrew said:
Yet Dalvin runs for days behind that same line.   And since when was cousins not viable. 
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Dalvin is an elite talent for whom we’ve seen a lot of film.  And, as noted above, he’s had some drinkers as well
 

And I was referring to Cousins this past Monday, not in general. 

 
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