3 of the most important slots on your roster (1 Viewer)

[Ministry of Pain]

Throughout the boards I see folks posting constantly with things like this. Such and such can post WR2 numbers, or player "X" has RB2 upside. What does that mean exactly? And you see folks say that because a guy finished WR30 last season that he is a WR3 for most rosters. I want to write/talk about that as I brought it up and highlighted in the RB thread a few weeks ago and Jason Wood and I keyed in on it a couple weeks ago in another thread but it really deserves it's own discussion.

Now I am not saying that you cannot win your league if you have a guy that is WR30 at the end of the season as your WR3, that's not what I am saying. What I am saying is that people have a confused or skewed view of what these slots are about. In PPR leagues where you must start 3 WR or have flex options beyond that; you need to be looking at ways to maximize the points from these very important slots. In my opinion the 3 most important slots on your roster are your RB2, WR2, and WR3 starters. I don't even like to call them that but I'll go over the reason why in a second.

In the regular NFL and I'll use the Miami Dolphins as an example, you have Brandon Marshall at WR1, Bess at WR2, and Hartline at WR3…and the typical NFL fan thinks in those terms because FF is supposed to model itself after the real NFL. So guys go into drafts and they think that if they grab a guy with top10 potential, then get a guy who they have projected at WR20 as their WR2, then get a guy in the low 30s for WR3 that they will be fine. I'm going to walk thru why this doesn't work all the time and how mentally you might want to view your roster and starting line-up differently.

Instead of this…QB-RB1-RB2-WR1-WR2-WR3-TE-Flex(RB3/WR4)

Try thinking of it like this…QB-RB1a-RB1b-WR1a-WR1b-WR1c-TE-Flex(RB2/WR2)

You want to think in terms of guys that will give you a huge advantage. Owners that go WR/WR on the 1-2 turn are not trying to get a WR1 with top10 potential and another guy in the middle teens, they are trying to secure 2 top5 WRs to give them some explosiveness to fire back at the lucky ones who took Chris Johnson and ADP in the 1-2 slots up top. You likely are behind the 8 ball at RB so you might as well find a couple players that when they go off make up a lot of ground quickly. But to the larger point you want guys that are difference makers.

Go back and look at your leagues from year to year and typically it's a handful of players that make the most difference in season and then another handful of players hopefully the ones you already drafted that get hot in weeks 14-17 that make the difference for owners. Let's walk thru an example of what an owner might accumulate at the 1 spot vs what another owner does in maybe the 10,11, or 12 spot. PPR format and you must start 3 WRs minimum, possibly more with a flex.

From the 1 hole…

1.01-Chris Johnson

2.12-Tom Brady

3.01-Anquan Boldin

4.12-Mike Sims Walker

5.01-Chris Wells

6.12-Mike Wallace

7.01-Chris Cooley

Solid team and has the explosiveness of Chris Johnson. I would say this looks something like this…QB-RB1-RB2/3-WR2-WR3-WR3-TE…that's just based on some of FBG projections and DD software

Now let's look at the turn and pick from one of the later picks…

1.12-Randy Moss

2.01-Reggie Wayne

3.12-J.Addai

4.01-C.Benson

5.12-Brent Celek

6.01 Hines Ward

7.12/8.01-Some combo of Matt Ryan/Eli/Carson Palmer

Again pretty strong team and I would lay it out as QB-RB1a-RB1b-WR1a-WR1b-WR2-TE

I say that because Addai has been a top10 back a couple times in his career. And it's an example not a golden rule. Benson gets 300+ carries on the ground, you won't find that in a lot of RBs and he doesn't split much time. Moss and Wayne are potential top5 WRs, and Ward has been a top20 WR in PPR so many times over the past 8 or 9 years I've lost track. You can mix and match players to your tastes.

When you look at most league winners they don't just have one guy tearing it up at RB or WR, they have several that are tearing it up. In fact they tend to have more points on their bench than some guys have on their starting roster several weeks. To me, 3 of the most important slots on your team are the RB2, WR2, and WR3, because you have an advantage over others and can work the draft to spin the deck in your favor. I see guys that draft WR/WR in the 1st and 2nd then not address their third WR slot until the 8th or 9th round…I understand some of the reasons but why not make TO for example your WR3 and have 3 top20 guys that you are attacking with vs the guy that has Mohammed Massaquoi as his WR3…you can make up a lot of ground for missing out on a top tier RB or QB many weeks with that type of match up from the other starting slots. Owners that platoon several guys at their RB2 and WR3 slots many times have a lot of nothing or keep picking the wrong guys. Use that to your advantage.

I always like to make a poker segue way and many of the pros preach about getting their money in when they feel they are at a huge advantage, 75% or better to win the pot and they usually will go all in. Some of them even say they will fold a good hand if they think they are not better than 50/50 to win the pot. I see that analogy in FF a lot. You want to get your money/players/chips whatever in with the biggest advantage.

Another angle I wanted to mention was some very astute posters who I was debating with, in the Laurent Robinson thread. And they were posting that they felt he was possibly a WR3 and even a WR2. I balked and I shouldn't have because they had an excellent point and I want to use it for this. BTW: I'm not a big Laurent Robinson supporter but that doesn't matter for what I am going to discuss next. After you gobble up all the points in the 1st 7-8 rounds for your starting roster, your aim next should be guys that potentially can crack the top20 or higher as your back ups. I am going to give you an example from a friend who I think took a blowtorch to his league for racking up WRs. This is a must start 3 WR league with a heavy emphasis on TDs (12 points) non-PPR and also the option to run 4 wide and go only 1 back if need be. Fixed rosters so you must draft 6 WRs and only 6.

2.07-Calvin Johnson

3.06-Greg Jennings

6.07-Pierre Garcon

7.06-Jeremy Maclin

11.06-Johnny Knox

16.07- Louis Murphy

And just in case anyone asks, he has Turner, Foster and Wells as his 3 top RBs.

A lot of owners would have felt good after the 2nd and 3rd round and perhaps only taken 1 of the WRs that he grabbed in the 6th or 7th but he kept attacking and scooping up guys that IMO all have potential to start at different weeks/times. Sorry to name drop again but Jeff Tefertiller has a wise golden rule that I have tried hard to adopt over the years and he says that you should never draft a player that you wouldn't want to start if you get between a rock and a hard place. In other words you can look at the drafts from year to year and they are filled with junk picks. Guys that you say to yourself "I would never want to roster that player." Dodds says in the perfect draft that you don't want to rule out any players but he also talks about getting the stink off your roster, I tend to lean with his 2nd set of guidelines. Most owners in here have a huge leg up in the majority of drafts they participate in, the one thing you cannot anticipate is the luck factor. Injuries, match ups, inopportune turnovers that force a benching, etc…so keep loading up with guys that could be starters even if not on your team. The fellow whose team I highlighted is already getting calls from other owners wanting him to trade a couple of those WRs since they took one look and see that he is pretty deep at WR. There are owners in his league who are starting with guys like Santana Moss, MSW, or Crabtree as their WR1…I don't have anything against those players at all but is that what you want to roll with as your starting anchor?

Some of you are going to say "Yeah MOP, but maybe those other teams are laoded at RB, QB , etc…" and I get that but you can overcome that by getting guys rounds later that are perhaps just a few points difference or less than the top QBs on those rosters. Just going back to the Laurent Robinson debate, if you really believe he can operate at a high level and by grabbing him later you are stock piling several RB1 types in the early rounds then this plan will work for you. Many owners just follow the herd in these drafts. They take the 10th QB off the board in round 5 without even looking behind them and realizing that all 5 teams already have a QB and they should have waited at least another round.

So sure you should wait to pull the trigger at the right time but your aim should be to find guys that will perform at a WR1 level but come at a WR3/4 price, or a WR2 level but you paid a WR5 price. It sounds simple but I see so many guys just fill their rosters out with players they hope they never have to start. QB for example you see guys take one of the top6 or 7 and then don't take another QB until it is down to the Jake Delhomme and Matt Leinarts of the world. And they justify it by saying they loaded up at other positions but did they really? Did they take a bunch of WR2 potentials or were they just taking guys like Lee Evans and Devin Hester and hoping for the best? You may never start a Matt Stafford over a Matt Schaub but what if you had to? Some owners like to say that if such and such goes down their season is done anyways…really? What if Schaub were to go down with an injury late in the season and you didn't have a plan B? I guess you are sunk if you didn't try and at least get a QB2 with some upside.

Every off season we look back and we take players and their stats in a vacuum and we say things like Fred Jackson was a top12 RB so he was an RB1…if you had Fred Jackson as your RB1 and not much else for whatever reason you likely were getting smashed in the RB column most weeks. If you had Ray Rice however who many got as their 2nd RB in last year's draft to pair with guys like Chris Johnson or Adrian Peterson, you had 2 top5 RBs for most of the year and probably dominated in the stat column most weeks. You've got to look at all your starting slots as guys with the number1 after them…RB1 and another RB1, WR1 and another WR1. Miles Austin was not your WR1 last year. He was many folks 5th or 6th WR drafted or possible waiver wire pick up and he filled in as a WR1b alongside guys like Andre Johnson as your WR1a.

I'll try and land the plane now. Be thinking in your drafts about how you can get a major advantage over other owners at positions and slots that they likely are not going to worry about as much. If you can somehow come out of the draft with a top5-6 QB, 2 top10-12 RBs, 3 top20 WRs, and a top6 TE, then load up with guys that have the potential to break into the top20 across the board, you should have a huge advantage over the rest of your league and be one of the favorites going into the playoffs. So, draft guys you would actually want to start if you had to taking into account bye weeks, injuries etc…whoever is your 4th WR you know that you are going to need at least 3-4 starts out of them with bye weeks from your top3 guys…that's about 25-33% of the season, with bye weeks factored in from the other slots, you likely have to grab guys from your bench in over 50% of the season…you are only full strength for the 1st 3 weeks and then weeks 11-13 before most playoffs start.

Look forward to your posts and feedback, thanks.

 

[Insein]

Long read but good points made. You have said it before in other threads, but basically the point of the draft is to get as many players that can crack the top 10 and top 20 at their positions as possible. If you come into battle with 2 top 10 RB's and 3 Top 20 WR's while the other guy has a top 5 RB and a top 5 WR but below 30 for all other spots, you'll probably win.

 

[shader]

Great post. I thought along those lines in a recent dynasty start-up draft I took part in. In a 16-team ppr league where you can start 2-3 rb's and 3-5 wrs, obviously the receiver position holds the most weight, as you can start 5 of them.

I traded multiple picks to get Andre Johnson, and followed that up with Calvin Johnson. Now logic would tell many owners, that it's time to shore up the RB position. But I reasoned that I can't let my huge advantage go to waste. I added Chad Ochocinco, Jeremy Maclin and Dez Bryant to my WR's, giving me an unbelievable group of receivers, then later traded a future 1st and change for Vincent Jackson to further enhance myself at this position when VJ returns.

I firmly believe that you have to accentuate the advantages that you have, instead of just trying to build a solid team at every position.

 

[LittlePhatty]

Any situation where you can start more than the "normal" number of players at a position, that bumps up the value of those players.

This league would would have multiple TEs being drafted in the first two rounds:

Start

1 QB

1 RB

1 WR

2 TE

This league's draft would probably start with two full rounds of nothing but RBs coming off the board:

1 QB

3 RB

2 WR

1 TE

 

[Ministry of Pain]

Long read but good points made. You have said it before in other threads, but basically the point of the draft is to get as many players that can crack the top 10 and top 20 at their positions as possible. If you come into battle with 2 top 10 RB's and 3 Top 20 WR's while the other guy has a top 5 RB and a top 5 WR but below 30 for all other spots, you'll probably win.

In many leagues, owners come in and grab a QB-RB-WR-TE with their 1st 4 picks. I think FBG has even had staff write articles mostly aimed at intermediate or beginner owners to draft this way because they have a balanced team. There is nothing wrong with that theory itself but since so many adopt it, why not use it to make a huge advantage at the 2nd and 3rd slots at WR and RB? Example...at this point the board for the most part feels that Arian Foster is the steal of the draft, and to some degree Best and a few others. In many drafts where guys are just getting their info form mags and from ESPN, those folks don't know too much about Foster. I understand these 2 backs are gaining momentum but look at the amount of guys that post on these boards...maybe 500 during these 2 weeks leading up to kick off and then it filters out some. How many folks play fantasy football? At least a million? The % of folks that have the inside scoop from these boards compared to the public at large is just a fraction. Doesn't mean this place is bullet proof, in fact the board, myself included, we all get too big for our britches at times but on the whole I think most in here would run thru a regular draft of avg fans like a hot knife thru melted butter. So yeah, don't be afraid to go WR-WR-RB-WR to gain a huge advantage at WR knowing you can come back in the 5th-10th rounds and find a RB that in all likelihood will perform at a much higher level than where you are drafting him and allow you to crush other owners at another position.

 

[Deuce'sWild]

MOP,

Nice read. I agree with your points, but if you are drafting from the middle of the round, do you take a RB like Gore or Turner or shoot for the stars early on someone like A. Johnson or Rodgers. Sure, they give you an advantage at that position, rather than just taking the next RB in line, but I think Gore or Turner both have top 3 potential. Taking a WR in the MIDDLE of the round make any difference to you on your philosophy or do you just stick with trying to take the difference makers at each possible moment? I would think you get an advantage over the top 5 picks, and in the same breath keep those at the end of the round from getting a big advantage over you, perhaps.

 

[Ministry of Pain]

MOP, Nice read. I agree with your points, but if you are drafting from the middle of the round, do you take a RB like Gore or Turner or shoot for the stars early on someone like A. Johnson or Rodgers. Sure, they give you an advantage at that position, rather than just taking the next RB in line, but I think Gore or Turner both have top 3 potential. Taking a WR in the MIDDLE of the round make any difference to you on your philosophy or do you just stick with trying to take the difference makers at each possible moment?

Good question, the OP was written with a good deal of slant towards the ends but I also tried to incorporate what you can do in the middle with the example of my friend this past weekend. If you can get what you feel is a top3 guy in the middle of the 1st round and his ADP is not going to allow you to wait, then yes pull the trigger. I like WR/WR combos but more from the back of the round. A split of RB/WR in the middle parts of round 1 seems like an ideal plan this year.

 

[DexterDew]

Thanks for the write up, MOP!

Since I never seem to have the luck to get a Top 4 pick, I've always went for the draining of the WR pool when you have to start 3 or even 4 WRs (including flex), the reason being much in-line for what you talk about: comparatively, you will have a huge advantage in WR2, WR3 and flex... especially in PPR.

I know I wouldn't want to field a roster where my top WR was Crabtree... that is a hole i don't think i could dig out of

 

[faux_bear]

So is the point of this article then that you should just avoid solid guys with limited upside and try to go big at every pick?

I was pleased with getting Derrick Mason as my third wide receiver, drafted in the 8th round (note I am avoiding writing WR3). However, I know his upside is limited. He's not going to go for 90, 1200, and 8 TD's and crack the top 10. But I do know he's going to probably be fairly consistent and go for right around 75-80 catches and 1000 yards with 5 or 6 scores. Closer to WR20. He's done about that in most of the last few years.

So are you suggesting this was not the right pick and that I should have tried to shoot the moon with a player that has more upside?

 

[Eraser]

 

[Ministry of Pain]

So is the point of this article then that you should just avoid solid guys with limited upside and try to go big at every pick?I was pleased with getting Derrick Mason as my third wide receiver, drafted in the 8th round (note I am avoiding writing WR3). However, I know his upside is limited. He's not going to go for 90, 1200, and 8 TD's and crack the top 10. But I do know he's going to probably be fairly consistent and go for right around 75-80 catches and 1000 yards with 5 or 6 scores. Closer to WR20. He's done about that in most of the last few years.So are you suggesting this was not the right pick and that I should have tried to shoot the moon with a player that has more upside?

Hey FB,I gotta say that Mason posting 1,000 yds in conjunction with Boldin trying to hit that mark as well, something has to give unless we are in a new era of Baltimore football which we perhaps could be. Have 2 WRs ever posted the type of numbers you are projecting for Mason in a Cam Cameron offense? I'm not totally sure. Perhaps if you make Gates a WR in San Diego you might find something close. I'm not saying to not take Mason but there are going to be weeks and if these owners are in division it could be mutiple weeks where you are looking across at something like R.Moss/Wayne/Boldin as the 1-2-3 slots, and that could spell trouble if you roll out Crabtree/Maclin/Mason for example. It doesn't mean you are dead in the water but if one or more of his guys were to go off that week you could be in a big hole. JT(staff) has an interesting breakdown on the Baltimore passing game and maybe you could send him a PM and he can briefly break it down for you but it does seem like a low percentage that 2 WRs in the Baltimore offense are going to soar past 1,000/8. Flacco is still developing though so maybe they both hit high marks this season. If Mason is somewhere in the 25-30 range though you are not making up ground much, and you said you see a ceiling of somewhere in the 20 range.

 

[shader]

So is the point of this article then that you should just avoid solid guys with limited upside and try to go big at every pick?I was pleased with getting Derrick Mason as my third wide receiver, drafted in the 8th round (note I am avoiding writing WR3). However, I know his upside is limited. He's not going to go for 90, 1200, and 8 TD's and crack the top 10. But I do know he's going to probably be fairly consistent and go for right around 75-80 catches and 1000 yards with 5 or 6 scores. Closer to WR20. He's done about that in most of the last few years.So are you suggesting this was not the right pick and that I should have tried to shoot the moon with a player that has more upside?

Everyone plays different. I personally would have no use for Derrick Mason on my roster in any league. I've never owned him, and I can't see a reason to own him, especially now that he isn't even the top WR on the Ravens. That being said, I'm sure there are plenty of people who have won championships with Derrick Mason on their roster.But I'd rather take a flyer on a guy who could explode then Derrick Mason. Because 1,000 yards and 5-6 td's is not too far from 750 yards and 4 td's, which can be found on the waiver wire at any time. JMHO.

 

[Hear-the-Footsteps]

Long read but good points made. You have said it before in other threads, but basically the point of the draft is to get as many players that can crack the top 10 and top 20 at their positions as possible. If you come into battle with 2 top 10 RB's and 3 Top 20 WR's while the other guy has a top 5 RB and a top 5 WR but below 30 for all other spots, you'll probably win.

......Example...at this point the board for the most part feels that Arian Foster is the steal of the draft, and to some degree Best and a few others. In many drafts where guys are just getting their info form mags and from ESPN, those folks don't know too much about Foster. I understand these 2 backs are gaining momentum but look at the amount of guys that post on these boards...maybe 500 during these 2 weeks leading up to kick off and then it filters out some. How many folks play fantasy football? At least a million? The % of folks that have the inside scoop from these boards compared to the public at large is just a fraction. Doesn't mean this place is bullet proof, in fact the board, myself included, we all get too big for our britches at times but on the whole I think most in here would run thru a regular draft of avg fans like a hot knife thru melted butter.

......

Liked your OP. Lots of solid points I agree with.But the bolded part has changed. It doesn't matter if only 500 people in the entire country are "in the know" anymore. It used to matter. But not anymore. Here's why. Let's say each of the following are true...

- Dodds is one of the 500 that know about Foster, Best, and the others gaining steam ever since magazines were printed. And it is his projections that the 160+ cheatsheets are based off of. Then anyone who subscribes to FBG, but just doesn't bother to check the forums, or doesn't have the time to, or just comes here at end of August to print a cheatsheet --- each of them will see Foster, Best, etc in decent slots.

- Ditto that sentiment by the guy over at Fantasy Index. And ditto that with the guy over at Fantasy Guru. Ditto that sentiment for Rotoworld, FF Toolbox, Fantasy Football Cafe, and even CBS Sportsline and ESPN.

The guys that run those sites are all "in the know" and update their cheatsheets nearly daily in the last weeks leading up to the season.

A great example is from a draft of mine this past weekend. There is one guy we always tease b/c in about 8 yrs he has never made the playoffs. In the earlier years, he'd be the guy that took an IR player in the 2nd round b/c he didn't know. He was the only true "guppie" as people here call it. But this year, he went to a pretty standard site (like cbs sportsline or espn). And even though this is the guy that came in not knowing who Kareem Huggins, Greg Camarillo, Javon Walker, etc are - he drafted pretty decently. B/c he used a cheatsheet printed the very day of the draft. And the cheatsheet was not from a magazine from two months ago. Rather it was from a site where the man behind the projections does know.

I do agree with go for guys that have a real shot to become stars, over just taking a WR ranked 45th as your WR5. Instead, go for the guy that may be ranked 50th-60th; and probably won't breakout. But if he does, he is the kind of guy that can be WR20 at year's end. I agree with that mentality 100%. But it is harder than it used to be. There used to be mostly guys that knew there stuff, with the occasional guy that didn't. But even the guys that didn't, now fall into decent players - while still not even "knowing" what the 500+ here that you are referring to know.

 

[hook014]

So is the point of this article then that you should just avoid solid guys with limited upside and try to go big at every pick?I was pleased with getting Derrick Mason as my third wide receiver, drafted in the 8th round (note I am avoiding writing WR3). However, I know his upside is limited. He's not going to go for 90, 1200, and 8 TD's and crack the top 10. But I do know he's going to probably be fairly consistent and go for right around 75-80 catches and 1000 yards with 5 or 6 scores. Closer to WR20. He's done about that in most of the last few years.So are you suggesting this was not the right pick and that I should have tried to shoot the moon with a player that has more upside?

Everyone plays different. I personally would have no use for Derrick Mason on my roster in any league. I've never owned him, and I can't see a reason to own him, especially now that he isn't even the top WR on the Ravens. That being said, I'm sure there are plenty of people who have won championships with Derrick Mason on their roster.But I'd rather take a flyer on a guy who could explode then Derrick Mason. Because 1,000 yards and 5-6 td's is not too far from 750 yards and 4 td's, which can be found on the waiver wire at any time. JMHO.

Good point. I probably swing for the fences more than anyone in my main league and sometimes it doesn't work out too good. But you know what? For all the chances I take I always end up in the top half of the league. Now that's not a "look at me" statement but rather confirmation that even with taking a shot to win it all and missing, you rarely end up in the basement. So why play it safe?I'm always looking for guys that can start and make a real difference on my roster rather than Mason or Kevin Walters or guys like that. I understand they can help w/ bye weeks and such but they probably wont be there when the byes show up because I'll drop them to take a chance on an upside guy. And those guys always show up.Having said that i hate to see this kind of article because my opponents could learn alot from it and make my job harder. I learned these lessons the hard way through too many middle of the pack finishes without having a good shot at the top money. No one likes to see his successful strategy laid out in plain english so could you please just hide this for awhile? Thanks

 

[Rovers]

MOP, Nice read. I agree with your points, but if you are drafting from the middle of the round, do you take a RB like Gore or Turner or shoot for the stars early on someone like A. Johnson or Rodgers. Sure, they give you an advantage at that position, rather than just taking the next RB in line, but I think Gore or Turner both have top 3 potential. Taking a WR in the MIDDLE of the round make any difference to you on your philosophy or do you just stick with trying to take the difference makers at each possible moment?

Good question, the OP was written with a good deal of slant towards the ends but I also tried to incorporate what you can do in the middle with the example of my friend this past weekend. If you can get what you feel is a top3 guy in the middle of the 1st round and his ADP is not going to allow you to wait, then yes pull the trigger. I like WR/WR combos but more from the back of the round. A split of RB/WR in the middle parts of round 1 seems like an ideal plan this year.

MoP, I love your posts, but this opening post seemed to wander around. This quoted post is spot on IMO. An except from your opener:In the regular NFL and I’ll use the Miami Dolphins as an example, you have Brandon Marshall at WR1, Bess at WR2, and Hartline at WR3…and the typical NFL fan thinks in those terms because FF is supposed to model itself after the real NFL. So guys go into drafts and they think that if they grab a guy with top10 potential, then get a guy who they have projected at WR20 as their WR2, then get a guy in the low 30s for WR3 that they will be fine. I’m going to walk thru why this doesn’t work all the time and how mentally you might want to view your roster and starting line-up differently. NFL WR1's, 2's and 3's are a completley different animal. I don't follow the logic in mentioning the difference. I find it near impossible to draft 3 RB's that are ranked as RB1, RB2, RB3. Same for WR's. I might get 2 WR2's and 2 WR3's, and one RB1, along with an RB3 and an RB4. I think it's about taking darned good guesses at which players will outperform their ADP and rankings. I think it is very difficult to draft two top 5 players at any position. Certainly, forget about RB's, not gonna happen. QB's either, so we are talking about WR's exclusively. Unless you are picking late, you can forget about 2 top 5's too. I kind of lost you with the Terftiller reference. Don't draft a player you aren't comfortable starting? That rules out a late swing for the fences pick. For instance, I like Cribbs as a WR very late. Do I want to start him? No... but I'll take a shot on his upside as WR5. Laurent Robinson is another. The more I draft, the more I know that any roster will either be balanced and almost automatically rather pedestrian (and often solid but not championship material), or it has some strengths and weaknesses. I draft late to fill in those weakenesses in the hopes of making a nice call, that 2009 Ray Rice for example. That is about the onlyy way to get 2 top 5 RB's... that swing for the fence pick. I guess what I'm saying is your point got lost on me. I read it and still wasn't sure what the core message was. Please don't take my comments as an attack. I love yer stuff. Just got lost in this one.

 

[Ministry of Pain]

Long read but good points made. You have said it before in other threads, but basically the point of the draft is to get as many players that can crack the top 10 and top 20 at their positions as possible. If you come into battle with 2 top 10 RB's and 3 Top 20 WR's while the other guy has a top 5 RB and a top 5 WR but below 30 for all other spots, you'll probably win.

......Example...at this point the board for the most part feels that Arian Foster is the steal of the draft, and to some degree Best and a few others. In many drafts where guys are just getting their info form mags and from ESPN, those folks don't know too much about Foster. I understand these 2 backs are gaining momentum but look at the amount of guys that post on these boards...maybe 500 during these 2 weeks leading up to kick off and then it filters out some. How many folks play fantasy football? At least a million? The % of folks that have the inside scoop from these boards compared to the public at large is just a fraction. Doesn't mean this place is bullet proof, in fact the board, myself included, we all get too big for our britches at times but on the whole I think most in here would run thru a regular draft of avg fans like a hot knife thru melted butter.

......

Liked your OP. Lots of solid points I agree with.But the bolded part has changed. It doesn't matter if only 500 people in the entire country are "in the know" anymore. It used to matter. But not anymore. Here's why. Let's say each of the following are true...

- Dodds is one of the 500 that know about Foster, Best, and the others gaining steam ever since magazines were printed. And it is his projections that the 160+ cheatsheets are based off of. Then anyone who subscribes to FBG, but just doesn't bother to check the forums, or doesn't have the time to, or just comes here at end of August to print a cheatsheet --- each of them will see Foster, Best, etc in decent slots.

- Ditto that sentiment by the guy over at Fantasy Index. And ditto that with the guy over at Fantasy Guru. Ditto that sentiment for Rotoworld, FF Toolbox, Fantasy Football Cafe, and even CBS Sportsline and ESPN.

The guys that run those sites are all "in the know" and update their cheatsheets nearly daily in the last weeks leading up to the season.

A great example is from a draft of mine this past weekend. There is one guy we always tease b/c in about 8 yrs he has never made the playoffs. In the earlier years, he'd be the guy that took an IR player in the 2nd round b/c he didn't know. He was the only true "guppie" as people here call it. But this year, he went to a pretty standard site (like cbs sportsline or espn). And even though this is the guy that came in not knowing who Kareem Huggins, Greg Camarillo, Javon Walker, etc are - he drafted pretty decently. B/c he used a cheatsheet printed the very day of the draft. And the cheatsheet was not from a magazine from two months ago. Rather it was from a site where the man behind the projections does know.

I do agree with go for guys that have a real shot to become stars, over just taking a WR ranked 45th as your WR5. Instead, go for the guy that may be ranked 50th-60th; and probably won't breakout. But if he does, he is the kind of guy that can be WR20 at year's end. I agree with that mentality 100%. But it is harder than it used to be. There used to be mostly guys that knew there stuff, with the occasional guy that didn't. But even the guys that didn't, now fall into decent players - while still not even "knowing" what the 500+ here that you are referring to know.

You have some great points. I would still maintain that a good portion of the guys you see in local bars on Sunday afternoons that play in maybe 1-2 leagues have a fairly limited knowledge of players and what is discussed here and several of the sites you mentioned. It still is a smaller percentage IMO. I'm not saying that everyone in here is elite, far from it, but you also don't want to reach for a guy 4 rounds higher than anyone in your league would possibly think. I have a league where every year I take the 1st TE off the board and I look up 5 rounds later and guys that were projected as borderline top6-7 are still on the board and I say to myself try and remeber this next year. I waited a full round later than I would to grab Antonio Gates this year and still going into the early 7th round Jermichael Finley was floating around. I wasn't going to take 2 TEs when I could only start 1 but it speaks of trying to know the type of league you are working the draft in. A league made up of FBG posters and it's gonna be DD software right down the line, happened a majority of the time in the 1st 7-8 rounds in almost all the US drafts 1-12.

I do agree with several of your points.

 

[Ministry of Pain]

MoP, I love your posts, but this opening post seemed to wander around. This quoted post is spot on IMO. An except from your opener:

In the regular NFL and I'll use the Miami Dolphins as an example, you have Brandon Marshall at WR1, Bess at WR2, and Hartline at WR3…and the typical NFL fan thinks in those terms because FF is supposed to model itself after the real NFL. So guys go into drafts and they think that if they grab a guy with top10 potential, then get a guy who they have projected at WR20 as their WR2, then get a guy in the low 30s for WR3 that they will be fine. I'm going to walk thru why this doesn't work all the time and how mentally you might want to view your roster and starting line-up differently.

NFL WR1's, 2's and 3's are a completley different animal. I don't follow the logic in mentioning the difference.

I find it near impossible to draft 3 RB's that are ranked as RB1, RB2, RB3. Same for WR's. I might get 2 WR2's and 2 WR3's, and one RB1, along with an RB3 and an RB4. I think it's about taking darned good guesses at which players will outperform their ADP and rankings.

I think it is very difficult to draft two top 5 players at any position. Certainly, forget about RB's, not gonna happen. QB's either, so we are talking about WR's exclusively. Unless you are picking late, you can forget about 2 top 5's too.

I kind of lost you with the Terftiller reference. Don't draft a player you aren't comfortable starting? That rules out a late swing for the fences pick. For instance, I like Cribbs as a WR very late. Do I want to start him? No... but I'll take a shot on his upside as WR5. Laurent Robinson is another. The more I draft, the more I know that any roster will either be balanced and almost automatically rather pedestrian (and often solid but not championship material), or it has some strengths and weaknesses.

I draft late to fill in those weakenesses in the hopes of making a nice call, that 2009 Ray Rice for example. That is about the onlyy way to get 2 top 5 RB's... that swing for the fence pick.

I guess what I'm saying is your point got lost on me. I read it and still wasn't sure what the core message was.

Please don't take my comments as an attack. I love yer stuff. Just got lost in this one.

The bolded part is crucial to understanding this. Josh Cribbs is kind of an interesting late pick but to me he is like a Devin Hester, all over the place and you will likely be pulling your hair out figuring out when to start him. Robinson(I can't believe I am going to post this) is much more stable in certain ways. He is likely to take over the WR1 duty for St Louis and even if he is a steady guy that produces some runs like 4/60, 5/80, 3/30/TD...if he can pull it together to where he is a steady 12-13 point diet he is almost a no brainer as a bye week filler for your roster. Look at Massaquoi last year and you will see he had 2-3 big games or startable games and then was a bag of dounts most other weeks. I wouldn't want to start Cribbs...I would probably want to start Robinson. Does that make sense? Tefertiller is saying that you drafted Cribbs but in the back of your mind you don't really want to have to start him...you took a risk that he blows up over the season but if that doesn't happen you don't want to touch him let alone start him. Whereas a guy like Robinson you probably don't mind flipping him out there on your roster for bye weeks and perhaps even more. He looks like he has a better chance IMO and many others of hitting top30 numbers over the course of the season whereas Cribbs won't surprise anyone if he finishes outside of the top50.

I hope I am explaining this right.

 

[Ministry of Pain]

Good point. I probably swing for the fences more than anyone in my main league and sometimes it doesn't work out too good. But you know what? For all the chances I take I always end up in the top half of the league. Now that's not a "look at me" statement but rather confirmation that even with taking a shot to win it all and missing, you rarely end up in the basement. So why play it safe?

I'm always looking for guys that can start and make a real difference on my roster rather than Mason or Kevin Walters or guys like that. I understand they can help w/ bye weeks and such but they probably wont be there when the byes show up because I'll drop them to take a chance on an upside guy. And those guys always show up.

Having said that i hate to see this kind of article because my opponents could learn alot from it and make my job harder. I learned these lessons the hard way through too many middle of the pack finishes without having a good shot at the top money. No one likes to see his successful strategy laid out in plain english so could you please just hide this for awhile? Thanks

I take that as a big compliment Hook. And I'm sorry to make your job harder but you'll find a way to stack the deck in your favor anyways.

 

[bonesman]

So is the point of this article then that you should just avoid solid guys with limited upside and try to go big at every pick?

I don't really get the point either... can this be summarized and packaged in a sentence or two?What's the thesis statement here? Draft BPA? Draft upside? Draft guys that score a lot of points unless they are Fred Jackson?

 

[Stinkin Ref]

RB2-4 and WR2-4 is what seperates the men from the boys.......

in top to bottom competitive leagues you almost have to hit on one or two guys that you "more high on" than some other guys to have a shot at winning.........

seperating yourself from the pack at RB2-4 and WR2-4 is where the money is made.........

 

[Todem]

I just drafted my one and only 12 team redraft (PPR all TD's 6 points distance TD's bonus points too).

The most important slots on my roster are always RB2/3 And WR 1

WR1 - You must hit on this one. IMO in PPR if you don't hit on your WR1 you are more than likly done. It is not easy to find stud PPR WR's after round 3. In fact it is the toughest position in FF to grab. WR's are week to week for the most part but there are only a handfull of truly top caliber guys who get ton's of targets.

RB2/3 - This is where your titles are won and lost. This is where you grab 2 guys who perform like top 10 RB's. Nail this and more than likely you are in the money game.

Rounds 4-7 is where your destiny takes place (for the most part). Also as always the WW is vital to finding a gem or a guy who you can plug in as a WR3 or flex to put you over the top.

Rarely do you find guys late. It does happen and most champions have one pick late (Round 9 and beyond) they point to as helping their team to a title.

So this year I swung for the fences (as I usually always do) and took some shots on guys i think can and will be top 10 guys

QB - Kevin Kolb

WR1 - Roddy White

WR2 - Marques Colston

RB2 - Arian Foster

RB3 - Jahvid Best

RB4 - Ahmad Bradshaw

Late round specials

Jabar Gafney

Laurent Robinson

Greg Camarillo

James Jones

Kareem Huggins

 

[Instinctive]

100% agree. We do a 1/2/2/1/WRRB Flex league, and I started off completely zigging where everyone zagged. RBs and QBs went off the board like crazy to begin, so I figured: Why not build an advantage at a different position that should be quite sizable, and then fill in the rest with guys who have decent floors with HIGH ceilings?

8th out of 14, ended up with AJ, Moss, Roddy, Finley in the first 4 rounds (wanted Gates). I literally got my top 3 ranked receivers before shotgunning RB with Bradshaw, R Bush, Spiller, etc...now each week's matchup will look like this:

WR1: 1st ranked WR

WR2: 2nd ranked WR

WR3: 3rd ranked WR

against his:

WR1: perhaps 5th ranked WR

WR2: 12-20th or so WR

WR3: 35th+ ranked WR

And so as you can see, at each "WR slot," the advantage of having a top guy improves. Your WR3 being THE WR3 will outscore his WR3 (WR35 or so) by a massive amount. Same thing (to a slightly lesser degree) at WR1.

The whole idea in this hobby of ours is to outscore your opponent. If you can build up a big enough advantage at a position like WR/TE, then do decently at RB and hopefully well at QB...even those RB disadvantages will be overcome. And even then, who's to say you don't hit on a top RB with at least one of those shotgun picks later? Or pick up Jerome Harrison in week 12 because you like his playoff schedule?

Gaining as large an advantage as you can at one position typically means a lot. There's a whole bunch of guys every week who perform as "RB2s" and you can find em pretty easily. Kevin Faulk in a PPR can always fill in for a few points when you need them, and he's not THAT much worse than your typical 20th ranked RB.

Your 20th ranked WR, however, is drastically worse than your tier 1 guys. So get as many tier 1s as you can, and then shoot for upside.

 

[GroveDiesel]

I think this kind of goes along with the general FBG strategy:

Go VBD early to gain the biggest advantage possible comparable to the other teams. Then start swinging for the fences and taking guys with high ceilings but higher risk later.

The key to this, IMO, is figuring out which positions are shallow and should be taken earlier, and which ones are deeper and loaded with guys you can get later with high upsides.

This year, I think that the WR position is actually very shallow at the top, pretty boring in the middle, with a number of guys that you can get late with high upsides. The TE position has some elite guys at the top too that can give you a huge advantage if you take them early. A guy like Jermichael Finley or Antonio Gates could score like a lower WR #1 or a WR2. That's a huge difference maker. The RB position this year has basically 3 guys at the top and then a huge middle group IMO. And with guys like Foster, Best, Spiller, Charles, Benson, Brown and a few others, you can wait a bit and still grab one or to guys that actually has top 10 upside. Then I like guys like Leon Washington and Thomas Jones late who could put up huge numbers if they become the #1 on their team. That could also apply to Reggie Bush since he seems to have possibly gotten it and is one Pierre Thomas injury away from being THE guy in a high powered offense.

 

[LittlePhatty]

RB2-4 and WR2-4 is what seperates the men from the boys.......

RBs and WRs are lottery tickets, so buy as many as your bench can hold.Don't take a backup K.Don't take a backup DEF. (or in IDP, draft the minimum you need to start)Don't take a backup TE. *gasp* (in start 1 leagues)All of the above can be had on the waiver wire in a 12 team league. Wait until your bye weeks come up to grab fill-ins for these positions. Things will have changed by then anyway. There's no reason to plan for Dallas Clark's bye week by drafting Kevin Boss. Instead of those backups, buy more RB and WR lottery tickets. If a WR named Mike Williams turns out to be golden, the Kevin Boss owner will be scrambling to the waiver wire, ready to drop him for Williams. You want to be the guy who already drafted him instead.

 

[One]

What's with the font?

Strains my eyes.

 

[bonesman]

QB - Kevin KolbWR1 - Roddy WhiteWR2 - Marques ColstonRB2 - Arian FosterRB3 - Jahvid BestRB4 - Ahmad BradshawLate round specialsJabar GafneyLaurent RobinsonGreg CamarilloJames JonesKareem Huggins

Who's your RB1? ... I drafted almost the same team out of the 1 slot but took Eli and Stafford at QBC. JohnsonRoddyColstonS. Smith (Car)BestBradshawEliZ. MillerFloydD. Mason T. JonesStaffordCarlsonM. Thomas (jax)James JonesL. MooreIt's a 1RB, 2WR, 2 Flex (PPR) so I'll be killin it w/ the 4 WR sets if Floyd scores as much as he should.

 

[TERPDUDE]

As always a thought provoking post . Always enjoy reading and love the anti herd mentality. I have one disagreement , I believe the average fantasy player is more informed than ever .Whether it be ESPN, yahoo , cbssportsline somewhere someone is pumping up what used to be our sleeper picks . No longer do people have to search team websites or local papers for info as someone has breaking news about it somewhere. My local bar league guys will all be aware of Finley, Foster , Knox etc and grab them well before ADP . Also you must allow for the homer picks for example the Eagle/Giant fan will reach earlier for the Mccoy/Bradshaw picks as will other team fans . All in all great post and will apply some of the principles when I can

 

[-jb-]

Score more points than your opponents. It doesn't really matter how. A team that has the QB7/RB6/RB18/WR6/WR18/WR28/TE6 has a very good shot at winning. You need to be better than average, even if it's just slightly, in order to get into the playoffs. Then you need to get lucky.

So, I guess I don't really get the concept here outside of drafting guys you think are better than the consensus.

 

[hook014]

RB2-4 and WR2-4 is what seperates the men from the boys.......

RBs and WRs are lottery tickets, so buy as many as your bench can hold.Don't take a backup K.Don't take a backup DEF. (or in IDP, draft the minimum you need to start)Don't take a backup TE. *gasp* (in start 1 leagues)All of the above can be had on the waiver wire in a 12 team league. Wait until your bye weeks come up to grab fill-ins for these positions. Things will have changed by then anyway. There's no reason to plan for Dallas Clark's bye week by drafting Kevin Boss. Instead of those backups, buy more RB and WR lottery tickets. If a WR named Mike Williams turns out to be golden, the Kevin Boss owner will be scrambling to the waiver wire, ready to drop him for Williams. You want to be the guy who already drafted him instead.

This is my roster to a "T". Only 2 of my opponents have caught on so far. But do take a backup QB as your whole season can be a wash w/o one.

 

[Cyclones]

RB2-4 and WR2-4 is what seperates the men from the boys.......

RBs and WRs are lottery tickets, so buy as many as your bench can hold.Don't take a backup K.Don't take a backup DEF. (or in IDP, draft the minimum you need to start)Don't take a backup TE. *gasp* (in start 1 leagues)All of the above can be had on the waiver wire in a 12 team league. Wait until your bye weeks come up to grab fill-ins for these positions. Things will have changed by then anyway. There's no reason to plan for Dallas Clark's bye week by drafting Kevin Boss. Instead of those backups, buy more RB and WR lottery tickets. If a WR named Mike Williams turns out to be golden, the Kevin Boss owner will be scrambling to the waiver wire, ready to drop him for Williams. You want to be the guy who already drafted him instead.

Thats what I did this year. I had pick 4 in a 10 team redraft and went MJD in the first round, then Rodgers (hated taking a QB here but at #17 overall the value was too good to pass up.) In round 3 Marshall was still there, and in round 4 Clark went ahead of my pick so I basically had to pick Gates because I knew the TE run had started. This goes against the conventional wisdom of building up studs at one position in the first few rounds and gave me a RB/QB/WR/TE in the first four. From there I picked 5 straight RBs - Charles, Spiller, M Bush, Portis, and Donald Brown. My WR corps is weak (Aromadoshu, Jacoby Jones, Evans, TB Williams, and Lance Moore to go with Marshall) but I have several "lottery tickets" at RB, and my QB and TE figure to give me an advantage most weeks. I will grab a QB off the wire to start for Rodgers during his one bye week and a kicker for one week to start for Longwell, and TE when Gates is off.

 

[tombonneau]

Interesting premise, MOP. Though I'd like to see a "blackball list" of the top 5 players each at QB/RB/WR that you feel define exactly what you're talking about and who (whom?) you always avoid.

ETA: Serif font + computer screen =

 

[Stinkin Ref]

RB2-4 and WR2-4 is what seperates the men from the boys.......

RBs and WRs are lottery tickets, so buy as many as your bench can hold.Don't take a backup K.Don't take a backup DEF. (or in IDP, draft the minimum you need to start)Don't take a backup TE. *gasp* (in start 1 leagues)All of the above can be had on the waiver wire in a 12 team league. Wait until your bye weeks come up to grab fill-ins for these positions. Things will have changed by then anyway. There's no reason to plan for Dallas Clark's bye week by drafting Kevin Boss. Instead of those backups, buy more RB and WR lottery tickets. If a WR named Mike Williams turns out to be golden, the Kevin Boss owner will be scrambling to the waiver wire, ready to drop him for Williams. You want to be the guy who already drafted him instead.

This is my roster to a "T". Only 2 of my opponents have caught on so far. <_< But do take a backup QB as your whole season can be a wash w/o one.

x 2

 

[BassNBrew]

MoP, I love your posts, but this opening post seemed to wander around. This quoted post is spot on IMO. An except from your opener:

In the regular NFL and I'll use the Miami Dolphins as an example, you have Brandon Marshall at WR1, Bess at WR2, and Hartline at WR3…and the typical NFL fan thinks in those terms because FF is supposed to model itself after the real NFL. So guys go into drafts and they think that if they grab a guy with top10 potential, then get a guy who they have projected at WR20 as their WR2, then get a guy in the low 30s for WR3 that they will be fine. I'm going to walk thru why this doesn't work all the time and how mentally you might want to view your roster and starting line-up differently.

NFL WR1's, 2's and 3's are a completley different animal. I don't follow the logic in mentioning the difference.

I find it near impossible to draft 3 RB's that are ranked as RB1, RB2, RB3. Same for WR's. I might get 2 WR2's and 2 WR3's, and one RB1, along with an RB3 and an RB4. I think it's about taking darned good guesses at which players will outperform their ADP and rankings.

I think it is very difficult to draft two top 5 players at any position. Certainly, forget about RB's, not gonna happen. QB's either, so we are talking about WR's exclusively. Unless you are picking late, you can forget about 2 top 5's too.

I kind of lost you with the Terftiller reference. Don't draft a player you aren't comfortable starting? That rules out a late swing for the fences pick. For instance, I like Cribbs as a WR very late. Do I want to start him? No... but I'll take a shot on his upside as WR5. Laurent Robinson is another. The more I draft, the more I know that any roster will either be balanced and almost automatically rather pedestrian (and often solid but not championship material), or it has some strengths and weaknesses.

I draft late to fill in those weakenesses in the hopes of making a nice call, that 2009 Ray Rice for example. That is about the onlyy way to get 2 top 5 RB's... that swing for the fence pick.

I guess what I'm saying is your point got lost on me. I read it and still wasn't sure what the core message was.

Please don't take my comments as an attack. I love yer stuff. Just got lost in this one.

The bolded part is crucial to understanding this. Josh Cribbs is kind of an interesting late pick but to me he is like a Devin Hester, all over the place and you will likely be pulling your hair out figuring out when to start him. Robinson(I can't believe I am going to post this) is much more stable in certain ways. He is likely to take over the WR1 duty for St Louis and even if he is a steady guy that produces some runs like 4/60, 5/80, 3/30/TD...if he can pull it together to where he is a steady 12-13 point diet he is almost a no brainer as a bye week filler for your roster. Look at Massaquoi last year and you will see he had 2-3 big games or startable games and then was a bag of dounts most other weeks. I wouldn't want to start Cribbs...I would probably want to start Robinson. Does that make sense? Tefertiller is saying that you drafted Cribbs but in the back of your mind you don't really want to have to start him...you took a risk that he blows up over the season but if that doesn't happen you don't want to touch him let alone start him. Whereas a guy like Robinson you probably don't mind flipping him out there on your roster for bye weeks and perhaps even more. He looks like he has a better chance IMO and many others of hitting top30 numbers over the course of the season whereas Cribbs won't surprise anyone if he finishes outside of the top50.

I hope I am explaining this right.

I don't think you are. I think you just shot down your own point. You don't believe that Robinson has that WR1/2 potential that you are talking about.

 

[aimlessgun]

I like the post, but isn't this just a very long way of saying 2 things?

1-Draft the best value at every pick

2-Get upside, especially mid/late.

If you went RB/WR/QB/TE in the first four rounds, that easily could have been the highest points advantage combination available to you, even if your WR3 and RB2 are questionable. It's just about whoever is there (or in an auction whoever is cheaper than their peers).

 

[Montana16]

I understand what you are saying and have an explanation. when i draft, my goal is to get a top player at every position for where i drafted him. of course I dont want my wr3 to put up wr3 numbers. I want him to lead the league!! But the problem here is that EVERYONE else is thinking the same thing. When im drafting a wr2 or 3, its because my wr1 have all been picked so I want at least a floor of wr3 numbers and hope I get 1500 yds 12 tds.

The point is that I took the guy that i felt gave me the best chance to get this from what was available. personally with qbs I try to only take qbs that i feel have 30 td potential. I dont want chad henne...he sucks. But stafford could throw 30 tds so I rank him wayyyyy over henne. We all wan tthat major advantage, thats why the pickings get slim and we have to think of "floor" production and upside cuz thats the best we got.

 

[Kitrick Taylor]

Score more points than your opponents. It doesn't really matter how. A team that has the QB7/RB6/RB18/WR6/WR18/WR28/TE6 has a very good shot at winning. You need to be better than average, even if it's just slightly, in order to get into the playoffs. Then you need to get lucky. So, I guess I don't really get the concept here outside of drafting guys you think are better than the consensus.

I have to disagree with this post. A little better than average doesn't do squat in our league. More often than not the guy with the best player in the league wins it. It doesn't always happen than way, but its definitely more than a trend.We play all TDs are worth 6.I won last year withQB1, RB 6, RB 13, WR 13, WR 30. WR 45, TE 4. It wasn't about having RB 6 & RB 13 either. It was all about having Aaron Rodgers, and the incredible number of points he could score in any given week. I went up against much more solid top to bottom teams throughout the playoffs. However, Rodgers scored 47 in week 15 (twenty points is the +/- number for a good week by a QB), and I won by 3 vs the #1 team in the league. I also won my dynasty league the year Larry Johnson went ballistic. I rode him to the title. The preceding years the LT2 owner won 2/3 because he had LT2. Before that, the Priest Holmes owner won a couple because he rode Priest to the title. Prior to that it was Marshall Faulk and Emmitt Smith. Obviously you need to field a decent team around that player, but I'd love to know the percentage of leagues that the Chris Johnson owner won in last year, or if all TDs count 6, how many Aaron Rodgers owners won those. I'd bet the percentage is very high. IMO you can win without having the best player in your league that year. You just need to have just about everything else come together for you.As to MOPs theory, I like others here, fail to see the core premise. If I draft WR/WR at 12/13 am I supposed to take Anquan Boldin at 36 instead of Gates/Clark or Finley? I really think that Gates/Clark & Finley could very well outperform Boldin and the rest of the WRs in that area. At minimum Gates and Clark are safer bets. So then if I do take Gates and Boldin, I'm now looking at 60/61 for my first RB and QB. Eli and Foster are then my QB1 and RB1. Two premium positions to be certain.

 

[-jb-]

Score more points than your opponents. It doesn't really matter how. A team that has the QB7/RB6/RB18/WR6/WR18/WR28/TE6 has a very good shot at winning. You need to be better than average, even if it's just slightly, in order to get into the playoffs. Then you need to get lucky. So, I guess I don't really get the concept here outside of drafting guys you think are better than the consensus.

I have to disagree with this post. A little better than average doesn't do squat in our league. More often than not the guy with the best player in the league wins it. It doesn't always happen than way, but its definitely more than a trend.We play all TDs are worth 6.I won last year withQB1, RB 6, RB 13, WR 13, WR 30. WR 45, TE 4. It wasn't about having RB 6 & RB 13 either. It was all about having Aaron Rodgers, and the incredible number of points he could score in any given week. I went up against much more solid top to bottom teams throughout the playoffs. However, Rodgers scored 47 in week 15 (twenty points is the +/- number for a good week by a QB), and I won by 3 vs the #1 team in the league. I also won my dynasty league the year Larry Johnson went ballistic. I rode him to the title. The preceding years the LT2 owner won 2/3 because he had LT2. Before that, the Priest Holmes owner won a couple because he rode Priest to the title. Prior to that it was Marshall Faulk and Emmitt Smith. Obviously you need to field a decent team around that player, but I'd love to know the percentage of leagues that the Chris Johnson owner won in last year, or if all TDs count 6, how many Aaron Rodgers owners won those. I'd bet the percentage is very high. IMO you can win without having the best player in your league that year. You just need to have just about everything else come together for you.As to MOPs theory, I like others here, fail to see the core premise. If I draft WR/WR at 12/13 am I supposed to take Anquan Boldin at 36 instead of Gates/Clark or Finley? I really think that Gates/Clark & Finley could very well outperform Boldin and the rest of the WRs in that area. At minimum Gates and Clark are safer bets. So then if I do take Gates and Boldin, I'm now looking at 60/61 for my first RB and QB. Eli and Foster are then my QB1 and RB1. Two premium positions to be certain.

You disagreed with me, then went on to pretty much agree with me. You won with a QB1 in the QB position, a RB1 in the RB1 position, a RB2 in the RB2 position, a WR2 in the WR1 position, a WR3 in the WR2 position, a WR4 in the WR3 position, and TE1 in the TE position. You were essentially a below average team outside of one position, despite saying that average teams don't make it - and that's the point I'm trying to make. You don't need to be king of the mountain at every position. You don't need to be king of the mountain at any position. You need to make the playoffs, and you need to get lucky. How many points did your team score by season's end, and how close was that to other teams? When did you draft Rodgers? Did you draft him with the intention of him killing it, thus giving you the leg up on your opponents, or did you have him ranked behind Manning and Brees like most people? IOW, did you get lucky with the Rodgers pick? Just a little?Three years ago, I led the league in total points by a wide margin. I came in second. Two years ago, I led the league in points. I came in third. Both times, I got beat by the wild card team. Players get hot. Teams get hot. It has little to do with whether or not your RB2 is tremendously better than other RB2s. Especially if the rest of your team is ####. Put a good team together. A team that, at the end of the day, scores more points than the opponent.To simplify what I'm trying to say:9+1+0+0+0+0+0 = 102+2+2+2+2+0+0 = 108+1+1+0+0+0+0 = 101+1+1+1+1+1+4 = 10It doesn't really matter how you get there. Just score the points.

 

[Todem]

QB - Kevin KolbWR1 - Roddy WhiteWR2 - Marques ColstonRB2 - Arian FosterRB3 - Jahvid BestRB4 - Ahmad BradshawLate round specialsJabar GafneyLaurent RobinsonGreg CamarilloJames JonesKareem Huggins

Who's your RB1? ... I drafted almost the same team out of the 1 slot but took Eli and Stafford at QBC. JohnsonRoddyColstonS. Smith (Car)BestBradshawEliZ. MillerFloydD. Mason T. JonesStaffordCarlsonM. Thomas (jax)James JonesL. MooreIt's a 1RB, 2WR, 2 Flex (PPR) so I'll be killin it w/ the 4 WR sets if Floyd scores as much as he should.

Out of the 5th slot and I landed MJD. We start QB RB RB WR WR RB/WR flex TE DEF K

 

[Kitrick Taylor]

Score more points than your opponents. It doesn't really matter how. A team that has the QB7/RB6/RB18/WR6/WR18/WR28/TE6 has a very good shot at winning. You need to be better than average, even if it's just slightly, in order to get into the playoffs. Then you need to get lucky.

So, I guess I don't really get the concept here outside of drafting guys you think are better than the consensus.

I have to disagree with this post. A little better than average doesn't do squat in our league. More often than not the guy with the best player in the league wins it. It doesn't always happen than way, but its definitely more than a trend.We play all TDs are worth 6.

I won last year with

QB1, RB 6, RB 13, WR 13, WR 30. WR 45, TE 4.

It wasn't about having RB 6 & RB 13 either. It was all about having Aaron Rodgers, and the incredible number of points he could score in any given week. I went up against much more solid top to bottom teams throughout the playoffs. However, Rodgers scored 47 in week 15 (twenty points is the +/- number for a good week by a QB), and I won by 3 vs the #1 team in the league.

I also won my dynasty league the year Larry Johnson went ballistic. I rode him to the title. The preceding years the LT2 owner won 2/3 because he had LT2. Before that, the Priest Holmes owner won a couple because he rode Priest to the title. Prior to that it was Marshall Faulk and Emmitt Smith. Obviously you need to field a decent team around that player, but I'd love to know the percentage of leagues that the Chris Johnson owner won in last year, or if all TDs count 6, how many Aaron Rodgers owners won those. I'd bet the percentage is very high.

IMO you can win without having the best player in your league that year. You just need to have just about everything else come together for you.

As to MOPs theory, I like others here, fail to see the core premise. If I draft WR/WR at 12/13 am I supposed to take Anquan Boldin at 36 instead of Gates/Clark or Finley? I really think that Gates/Clark & Finley could very well outperform Boldin and the rest of the WRs in that area. At minimum Gates and Clark are safer bets.

So then if I do take Gates and Boldin, I'm now looking at 60/61 for my first RB and QB. Eli and Foster are then my QB1 and RB1. Two premium positions to be certain.

You disagreed with me, then went on to pretty much agree with me. You won with a QB1 in the QB position, a RB1 in the RB1 position, a RB2 in the RB2 position, a WR2 in the WR1 position, a WR3 in the WR2 position, a WR4 in the WR3 position, and TE1 in the TE position. You were essentially a below average team outside of one position, despite saying that average teams don't make it - and that's the point I'm trying to make. You don't need to be king of the mountain at every position. You don't need to be king of the mountain at any position. You need to make the playoffs, and you need to get lucky. How many points did your team score by season's end, and how close was that to other teams? When did you draft Rodgers? Did you draft him with the intention of him killing it, thus giving you the leg up on your opponents, or did you have him ranked behind Manning and Brees like most people? IOW, did you get lucky with the Rodgers pick? Just a little?Three years ago, I led the league in total points by a wide margin. I came in second. Two years ago, I led the league in points. I came in third. Both times, I got beat by the wild card team. Players get hot. Teams get hot. It has little to do with whether or not your RB2 is tremendously better than other RB2s. Especially if the rest of your team is ####. Put a good team together. A team that, at the end of the day, scores more points than the opponent.

To simplify what I'm trying to say:

9+1+0+0+0+0+0 = 10

2+2+2+2+2+0+0 = 10

8+1+1+0+0+0+0 = 10

1+1+1+1+1+1+4 = 10

It doesn't really matter how you get there. Just score the points.

The part that I disagreed with was your initial statement that is bolded above. The thing you are missing there is QB1 or QB2, or even RB1 or RB2. Those are the guys that typically win our league.

I took Aaron Rodgers with my 1st rounder (9th pick) and had him ranked as the #3 overall player, only behind ADP and DeAngelo QBs are highly valued in our league, and it won't surprise me if 5/6 go in the first round this year.

I certainly do agree with you anyway to get to 10 argument, and I like the concept that MOP is trying to get across here. The problem is my redraft is filled with people that have been doing this for 15+ years. Some of us are slightly better than others, but there are few if any really bad draft picks made. It makes the concept of stacking one position difficult, as you will most likely not be able to make up for it later.

 

[BRONG]

 

[Babu Bhatt2]

I get what MoP is saying. I was with him in the Laurent Robinson thread, and I think it comes down to drafting WRs early. Backup RBs, if given an opportunity, can produce; the same is not true of backup WRs, in general. Thus in later rounds as you fill out your roster, it is better to take backup runners and TEs/QBs that have slipped than it is to take WRs, because most of the WRs available in these rounds are not startable even in their best-case scenarios. Knowing this dictates your early strategy as well.

I've been in a number of drafts this year and I rarely find myself drafting a WR after round 8 or so. After Santana Moss and Jeremy Maclin are off the board (around WR30 or so) I usually have three or four guys and I'm done there. Players like Steve Breaston, Lee Evans, Dexter McCluster or Chris Chambers will not be on my team because even at their best, they will be weak fantasy performers. Maclin and Moss I am more comfortable with as my WR3 or WR4 because I think they could put up top 20 numbers this year. I start out my draft knowing that I need to get at least three of the top 30 or so WRs, and this dictates my strategy--I almost always wait on QBs and TEs and draft exclusively WRs/RBs for the first seven rounds.

The last few weeks I have been drafting two WRs later (10th round and up): Jabar Gaffney and Laurent Robinson. I view these two guys as exceptions to the rule. Both operate in WR voids--there are catches to be had, but nobody is quite sure how they will be allocated. Gaffney has a solid QB in Orton and very little competition; Robinson has a rookie QB and even less competition. I think Orton and Bradford are good enough to give their chosen target borderline WR!/WR2 numbers, which is the source of these players' upside. By contrast, I don't think Trent Edwards is good enough to do this, which is why I avoid Lee Evans even though he is more talented.

I agree with MoP that guys like Massaquoi should not be rostered in a redraft league. I am continually surprised that these players are drafted, but they always are.

 

[-jb-]

Score more points than your opponents. It doesn't really matter how. A team that has the QB7/RB6/RB18/WR6/WR18/WR28/TE6 has a very good shot at winning. You need to be better than average, even if it's just slightly, in order to get into the playoffs. Then you need to get lucky.

So, I guess I don't really get the concept here outside of drafting guys you think are better than the consensus.

I have to disagree with this post. A little better than average doesn't do squat in our league. More often than not the guy with the best player in the league wins it. It doesn't always happen than way, but its definitely more than a trend.We play all TDs are worth 6.

I won last year with

QB1, RB 6, RB 13, WR 13, WR 30. WR 45, TE 4.

It wasn't about having RB 6 & RB 13 either. It was all about having Aaron Rodgers, and the incredible number of points he could score in any given week. I went up against much more solid top to bottom teams throughout the playoffs. However, Rodgers scored 47 in week 15 (twenty points is the +/- number for a good week by a QB), and I won by 3 vs the #1 team in the league.

I also won my dynasty league the year Larry Johnson went ballistic. I rode him to the title. The preceding years the LT2 owner won 2/3 because he had LT2. Before that, the Priest Holmes owner won a couple because he rode Priest to the title. Prior to that it was Marshall Faulk and Emmitt Smith. Obviously you need to field a decent team around that player, but I'd love to know the percentage of leagues that the Chris Johnson owner won in last year, or if all TDs count 6, how many Aaron Rodgers owners won those. I'd bet the percentage is very high.

IMO you can win without having the best player in your league that year. You just need to have just about everything else come together for you.

As to MOPs theory, I like others here, fail to see the core premise. If I draft WR/WR at 12/13 am I supposed to take Anquan Boldin at 36 instead of Gates/Clark or Finley? I really think that Gates/Clark & Finley could very well outperform Boldin and the rest of the WRs in that area. At minimum Gates and Clark are safer bets.

So then if I do take Gates and Boldin, I'm now looking at 60/61 for my first RB and QB. Eli and Foster are then my QB1 and RB1. Two premium positions to be certain.

You disagreed with me, then went on to pretty much agree with me. You won with a QB1 in the QB position, a RB1 in the RB1 position, a RB2 in the RB2 position, a WR2 in the WR1 position, a WR3 in the WR2 position, a WR4 in the WR3 position, and TE1 in the TE position. You were essentially a below average team outside of one position, despite saying that average teams don't make it - and that's the point I'm trying to make. You don't need to be king of the mountain at every position. You don't need to be king of the mountain at any position. You need to make the playoffs, and you need to get lucky. How many points did your team score by season's end, and how close was that to other teams? When did you draft Rodgers? Did you draft him with the intention of him killing it, thus giving you the leg up on your opponents, or did you have him ranked behind Manning and Brees like most people? IOW, did you get lucky with the Rodgers pick? Just a little?Three years ago, I led the league in total points by a wide margin. I came in second. Two years ago, I led the league in points. I came in third. Both times, I got beat by the wild card team. Players get hot. Teams get hot. It has little to do with whether or not your RB2 is tremendously better than other RB2s. Especially if the rest of your team is ####. Put a good team together. A team that, at the end of the day, scores more points than the opponent.

To simplify what I'm trying to say:

9+1+0+0+0+0+0 = 10

2+2+2+2+2+0+0 = 10

8+1+1+0+0+0+0 = 10

1+1+1+1+1+1+4 = 10

It doesn't really matter how you get there. Just score the points.

The part that I disagreed with was your initial statement that is bolded above. The thing you are missing there is QB1 or QB2, or even RB1 or RB2. Those are the guys that typically win our league.

I took Aaron Rodgers with my 1st rounder (9th pick) and had him ranked as the #3 overall player, only behind ADP and DeAngelo QBs are highly valued in our league, and it won't surprise me if 5/6 go in the first round this year.

I certainly do agree with you anyway to get to 10 argument, and I like the concept that MOP is trying to get across here. The problem is my redraft is filled with people that have been doing this for 15+ years. Some of us are slightly better than others, but there are few if any really bad draft picks made. It makes the concept of stacking one position difficult, as you will most likely not be able to make up for it later.

Thanks. I would still like to know how many points you had going into the playoffs compared to the rest of the league. We are definitely on the same page regarding an inability to stack rosters based on other league managers. I guess that's what I don't "get" about this topic. Given the OP example of drafting two WRs to "fire back" at the Chris Johnson owner isn't a very revolutionary idea against good opponents. It would be ignorant to believe that they won't draft a solid WR at the end of round 2 to complement their RB, and it would be arrogant to think that you could somehow pull a fast one on them by getting some gem of a RB in round three (or seven) because everyone else passed on him. It simply doesn't happen in competitive leagues. Does anyone really believe that they are the only person that believes CJ Spiller might pan out? Or Bradshaw? Or Dez Bryant? Or whoever. Targeting these players really doesn't give you a leg up, because EVERYONE is targeting them. If you truly know in your heart of hearts that Arian Foster is a RB1, then you'll likely want to draft him round 6. Oh wait, if you draft him in round 6, then you won't be able to get Bradshaw, another guy that could pay dividends.If the league is competitive, everyone will have solid starters, and everyone will have high upside back-ups.

Build a good team. Work the wire. Trade. Hope for the best.

 

[Rovers]

MoP, I love your posts, but this opening post seemed to wander around. This quoted post is spot on IMO. An except from your opener:

In the regular NFL and I'll use the Miami Dolphins as an example, you have Brandon Marshall at WR1, Bess at WR2, and Hartline at WR3…and the typical NFL fan thinks in those terms because FF is supposed to model itself after the real NFL. So guys go into drafts and they think that if they grab a guy with top10 potential, then get a guy who they have projected at WR20 as their WR2, then get a guy in the low 30s for WR3 that they will be fine. I'm going to walk thru why this doesn't work all the time and how mentally you might want to view your roster and starting line-up differently.

NFL WR1's, 2's and 3's are a completley different animal. I don't follow the logic in mentioning the difference.

I find it near impossible to draft 3 RB's that are ranked as RB1, RB2, RB3. Same for WR's. I might get 2 WR2's and 2 WR3's, and one RB1, along with an RB3 and an RB4. I think it's about taking darned good guesses at which players will outperform their ADP and rankings.

I think it is very difficult to draft two top 5 players at any position. Certainly, forget about RB's, not gonna happen. QB's either, so we are talking about WR's exclusively. Unless you are picking late, you can forget about 2 top 5's too.

I kind of lost you with the Terftiller reference. Don't draft a player you aren't comfortable starting? That rules out a late swing for the fences pick. For instance, I like Cribbs as a WR very late. Do I want to start him? No... but I'll take a shot on his upside as WR5. Laurent Robinson is another. The more I draft, the more I know that any roster will either be balanced and almost automatically rather pedestrian (and often solid but not championship material), or it has some strengths and weaknesses.

I draft late to fill in those weakenesses in the hopes of making a nice call, that 2009 Ray Rice for example. That is about the onlyy way to get 2 top 5 RB's... that swing for the fence pick.

I guess what I'm saying is your point got lost on me. I read it and still wasn't sure what the core message was.

Please don't take my comments as an attack. I love yer stuff. Just got lost in this one.

The bolded part is crucial to understanding this. Josh Cribbs is kind of an interesting late pick but to me he is like a Devin Hester, all over the place and you will likely be pulling your hair out figuring out when to start him. Robinson(I can't believe I am going to post this) is much more stable in certain ways. He is likely to take over the WR1 duty for St Louis and even if he is a steady guy that produces some runs like 4/60, 5/80, 3/30/TD...if he can pull it together to where he is a steady 12-13 point diet he is almost a no brainer as a bye week filler for your roster. Look at Massaquoi last year and you will see he had 2-3 big games or startable games and then was a bag of dounts most other weeks. I wouldn't want to start Cribbs...I would probably want to start Robinson. Does that make sense? Tefertiller is saying that you drafted Cribbs but in the back of your mind you don't really want to have to start him...you took a risk that he blows up over the season but if that doesn't happen you don't want to touch him let alone start him. Whereas a guy like Robinson you probably don't mind flipping him out there on your roster for bye weeks and perhaps even more. He looks like he has a better chance IMO and many others of hitting top30 numbers over the course of the season whereas Cribbs won't surprise anyone if he finishes outside of the top50.

I hope I am explaining this right.

I understand the premise. I just don't agree with it. First, I don't like the Cribbs-Hester comparison. I think Cribbs is more talented and versatile. In the last 2 preseason games Cribbs went something like 8-87-1. He is listed as a WR now. I think his role could get expanded. Neither of the CLE starting WR's excite me. Cribbs is CLE's WR3 now in front of Stuckey. Maybe Mangini wakes up and gets him the ball more often. Robinson on the other hand will get drafted earlier than Cribbs now. He's probably a solid FF WR4 now. Then you go looking for WR5. late picks are when I go looking for the perfect storm. Is it even possible to take a fifth WR in a 12 team league that you would want to start? There would likely be better waiver wire pickups later on. A player like Cribbs has that very small chance of blowing up. Who drafted Miles Austin last year? If I want to gamble a pick, I'll do it late.

 

[bonesman]

so... not only is this topic not worth the special typeface and enlarged font size... it's not worth discussing to elaborate on to those that are confused on the actual point?

 

[Ministry of Pain]

so... not only is this topic not worth the special typeface and enlarged font size... it's not worth discussing to elaborate on to those that are confused on the actual point?

Hey Bones, sorry about that. It seemed like a decent amount of folks did get what I was driving at. And I did change the font around if I'm not mistaken...my MS Word doesn't seem to always carry over to here as well. I thought about what some of you posted and I understand but the major point is to not settle for just a platoon at spots. Meaning there really isn't a WR1, WR2, WR3...it's more like 1a, 1b, and 1c...guys that have R Moss, Calvin, and then Boldin as their 1-2-3 could have a gigantic advantage over those rolling out S Moss, J Maclin, and Massaquoi. The larger point is when you look at teams that run over leagues during the regular season, they typically are not sporting the WR#12, WR#20, and WR#28 as their 3 starters, many in here would say that is good production for their WR1, WR2, and WR3 slots and yet somehow the winners or division leaders racked up WR#2, WR#6, and WR#11, so they are loaded and when any of their starters has a big week they are tough to beat, when they have 2 of them explode they become near impossible. It also deals with the varaince week to week...Laurent Robinson supporters are quick to point out he was #13 after 2 weeks in 2009 yet he actually ranked #26 in week1 and #16 in week 2, I looked it up. Stats in a vacuum don't tell the whole story.

 

[Grigs Allmoon]

MoP - You must go through a lot of keyboards.

I'll have to come back to this one later.

 

[plastik]

Throughout the boards I see folks posting constantly with things like this. Such and such can post WR2 numbers, or player "X" has RB2 upside. What does that mean exactly? And you see folks say that because a guy finished WR30 last season that he is a WR3 for most rosters. I want to write/talk about that as I brought it up and highlighted in the RB thread a few weeks ago and Jason Wood and I keyed in on it a couple weeks ago in another thread but it really deserves it's own discussion.

In my opinion, there is a lot of merit to thinking of players in this way as it establishes a point of reference. Let's assume that talent (and production) is evenly distributed within a 12 team league (start 3 WR). The top 12 scoring players at WR will each be some team's WR1, the next 12 (13-24) will be each team's WR2, and the next 12 (25-36) will be each team's WR3. To say that a player has 'WR2 upside' means that you think the player has the potential to be somewhere within the top 13-24 WRs in terms of scoring by season's end.It is self evident that, in order to win, one's team must be better than average. Obviously, this means that one has to fill as many starting spots with players (or a committee of players) that provide production better than the average production for the spot in which they are starting. For example, one needs to be able to start either a group players at the very top of their range (e.g. WR1, WR13, WR25) or multiple players from the higher ranges (e.g. 2 RB1's or 2 WR1's and a WR2).To me this way of speaking makes perfect sense and provides a commonly understood way to communicate one's expectations for a player's production.

 

[da_budman]

so... not only is this topic not worth the special typeface and enlarged font size... it's not worth discussing to elaborate on to those that are confused on the actual point?

Hey Bones, sorry about that. It seemed like a decent amount of folks did get what I was driving at. And I did change the font around if I'm not mistaken...my MS Word doesn't seem to always carry over to here as well. I thought about what some of you posted and I understand but the major point is to not settle for just a platoon at spots. Meaning there really isn't a WR1, WR2, WR3...it's more like 1a, 1b, and 1c...guys that have R Moss, Calvin, and then Boldin as their 1-2-3 could have a gigantic advantage over those rolling out S Moss, J Maclin, and Massaquoi. The larger point is when you look at teams that run over leagues during the regular season, they typically are not sporting the WR#12, WR#20, and WR#28 as their 3 starters, many in here would say that is good production for their WR1, WR2, and WR3 slots and yet somehow the winners or division leaders racked up WR#2, WR#6, and WR#11, so they are loaded and when any of their starters has a big week they are tough to beat, when they have 2 of them explode they become near impossible. It also deals with the varaince week to week...Laurent Robinson supporters are quick to point out he was #13 after 2 weeks in 2009 yet he actually ranked #26 in week1 and #16 in week 2, I looked it up. Stats in a vacuum don't tell the whole story.

I agree with alot of your points but in your scenario, unless the guy who took Boldin at wr 3 got a steal, he has just used his top 3 picks on wr's. In my opinion that sets him up both to have below average players at other positions and also severely limit his ability to take value when it presents itself because now you have put yourself in a "need" situation at rb. Can it workout? sure, but I bet i can get better value than wasting a 3rd round pick on a 3rd wr early. Assuming you are picking at the bottom, (which is where you would be snagging your top 2 picks) Things swing back around to you at the 3/4 turn do you really want to take wr 3 there? In that case you almost certainly have to take 1 rb, If your other pick there is a wr, you lose out on the potential of a top te, a top/mid tier qb, or a decent 2nd rb. I don;t think the chance to draft an above average wr changing teams and going to a run first team is a good move.My rule of thumb (and all things are fluid depending on talent each year. and howthe draft goes things change) is never draft a wr 3 early. I realize there is a big drop off but I am willing to gamble on the likes of Knox, Mike Wallace,Robinson, Murphy type players drafted later as my wr3. draft 2 or 3 of these guys who have upside late and I think you are ahead of the game.I agree with you that drafting people who will never start is just a waste of a roster spot. Instead of drafting the has been guys on the decline or qb's in terrible passing offenses, draft guys with tremendous upside. One caveat though. I would be worried if my starting lineup had too many of those potential guys. I love best and Mathews but I wouldn't want both ofthem formy starters. Give me one of them plus a vet who I have a pretty good feeling for,As always thanks for the post mop.

 

[SYMPHONY X]

So basically, the approach here is to load up at one position, either RB or WR early, and then hope that your upside picks hit at either RB or WR, depending on which one you didn't load up on. There is also a third element in play here if you go with this strategy, and that is having to hit a gem later at QB (especially if you play in a 6pt TD league for QB's), which means that you are probably grabbing 2 or 3 QB's in the middle rounds and using a commitee. Gonna need to start the right QB each week also to matchup with the Brees, Manning, Rodgers, and Brady owners.

I say, why not just balance your team early on, and still swing for the fences later to fill out your balanced roster? One guy in my 10-team RB/WR/TE flex league started out grabbing a bunch of top WR's early, not so much by choice, but because all the RB's and QB's were being snatched up. Here is what he ended up with as his top QB/WR/RB options:

QB: Farve

RB: Harrison

RB: McFadden

RB: Caddy

RB: Jacobs

RB: Freddy Jackson

WR: AJ

WR: Fitz

WR: DJax

WR: Boldin

WR: Hester

We can start 4, or even 5 WR's with our flex rules, but in my opinion, he will get absolutely buried by at least half the teams in the league at RB week in and week out, and possibly also at QB, and his WR's will not make up for it. Other guys who took a QB, 2 RB's and 2 WR's with their first five picks, and filled in with upside guys later, on will have a much better chance of consistently winning, and even winning it all, in my opinion.

I guess that's what makes this hobby so much fun. There are many different ways to go, but if you do choose to load up early at one position, then you will probably be weak at at least 2 other positions. Am I thinking right here? We all need to hit on some upside picks later in the draft to have any chance at the money, but I would rather build a balanced team early, and not be completely screwed if my upside picks later on didn't hit.

Thanks for yet another great post MOP!

 

[Ministry of Pain]

So basically, the approach here is to load up at one position, either RB or WR early, and then hope that your upside picks hit at either RB or WR, depending on which one you didn't load up on. There is also a third element in play here if you go with this strategy, and that is having to hit a gem later at QB (especially if you play in a 6pt TD league for QB's), which means that you are probably grabbing 2 or 3 QB's in the middle rounds and using a commitee. Gonna need to start the right QB each week also to matchup with the Brees, Manning, Rodgers, and Brady owners.I say, why not just balance your team early on, and still swing for the fences later to fill out your balanced roster? One guy in my 10-team RB/WR/TE flex league started out grabbing a bunch of top WR's early, not so much by choice, but because all the RB's and QB's were being snatched up. Here is what he ended up with as his top QB/WR/RB options:QB: FarveRB: HarrisonRB: McFaddenRB: CaddyRB: JacobsRB: Freddy JacksonWR: AJWR: FitzWR: DJaxWR: BoldinWR: HesterWe can start 4, or even 5 WR's with our flex rules, but in my opinion, he will get absolutely buried by at least half the teams in the league at RB week in and week out, and possibly also at QB, and his WR's will not make up for it. Other guys who took a QB, 2 RB's and 2 WR's with their first five picks, and filled in with upside guys later, on will have a much better chance of consistently winning, and even winning it all, in my opinion.I guess that's what makes this hobby so much fun. There are many different ways to go, but if you do choose to load up early at one position, then you will probably be weak at at least 2 other positions. Am I thinking right here? We all need to hit on some upside picks later in the draft to have any chance at the money, but I would rather build a balanced team early, and not be completely screwed if my upside picks later on didn't hit.Thanks for yet another great post MOP!

It's not bad but he should have found a better QB than Favre along the way, and Harrison is like a 7th round RB in most redrafts I went thru the past 2-3 weeks, this person really waited awhile it seems. WHat if they had gone...AJ, Fitz, DeSean, RB(Charles, Benson, Addai), TO(5th), QB(6th)...this would have given them 4-Wide, 1 solid RB, a QB, then they could have branched out a few different ways, maybe take a RB in the 7th and 8th to round that spot out. This person was on to something but the execution of it might have fallen short. Good Post