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At the Halfway Point... Lessons Learned in Fantasy 2024 (1 Viewer)

I don't think he was a #1 overall dynasty pick

You're right. I don't think he was consensus #1. I think he did go number one by some people. I've heard people say that and joke that they have nightmares about that pick.
I think he was largely consensus #1 for 1 QB leagues, although there were a lot of Nabers truthers too IIRC. For 2 QB/Superflex, seemed like it was mainly Caleb or Daniels, with MJH not far behind.
 
Some leagues yes, Jacobs went 1st in others. Harry was certainly the consensus #1 WR that year over guys like AJ Brown, DK or Deebo.

Thanks. I thought there was a running joke about Harry being the first overall and the fantasy world remembering.
 
I think he was largely consensus #1 for 1 QB leagues, although there were a lot of Nabers truthers too IIRC. For 2 QB/Superflex, seemed like it was mainly Caleb or Daniels, with MJH not far behind.

We're talking a bunch of years ago. Not this past one, though I can see where it got confusing. Not enough names and too many pronouns.
 
Don't let weeks 1-3 ruffle your feathers too much. With 1 fewer pre season games and starters playing less and less, there's bound to be a TON of variability in the first few weeks. I think we've seen most of the studly players stabilize into high producers where they might not have been during the first few weeks.
 
I'm 5-2 in three leagues and 3-4 in another. The 3-4 team was by far the team I was most excited about after the draft. I opened with Bijan, JJ, Mahomes, LaPorta... never think your team is that safe.

1. Trust my gut more. I was all set to pretty much ignore TE until late, but then read a few articles from experts saying this is a year to pay up at TE. Ended up with LaPorta and Andrews. To be fair I did only draft them because they both fell a round past ADP, but still, a bust is a bust.

2. I will absolutely continue to follow my auction draft strategy that worked immensely well this year. Know your league history to be able to predict prices and then target players you like with different pricing scenarios to see which of them you can overpay for.

3. When coming up with criteria for determining "safe" first round picks at the WR position, add "Is his backup QB actually capable of maintaining production?"
 
In all seriousness, I absolutely believe that auto-drafted teams do no worse than manual ones. The reason I always do my own drafts is because it's fun
I had a live online draft one year in a bad storm and ended up unable to connect to the draft. The auto-draft was set to pick the highest ranked undrafted player, regardless of position. I literally ended up with a team without a single RB. On top of that, I ended up with a bunch of untradeable pieces . . . half my team was QB2s and QB3s. The rest of the league essentially said tough noogies . . . should have showed up for the draft. The season was over before Opening Day.
 
Well there are obviously some player/team takes I got wrong but some I got right. That isn't newsworthy though. I continue to follow my own counsel which has always been perhaps the greatest lesson I learned years ago now.

IDK this year seemed like there was a lot more early offseason leverage/value plays vs the market that continued through training camp and preseason and I wasn't expecting that, although I pounced on it early so I am glad that I did. The unexpected part is that usually those values are discovered by the August/September draft crowds and ADP adjusts significantly. That didn't happen this year.

So the lesson might have been that those early discounts may be lasting longer and longer throughout draft season because the market/media is historically dumb (in these specific instances) and getting dumber. I'm not sure how to take that revelation and turn it into actionable strategy for next year, but it depends on how I read the landscape at that point. I don't ever recall coming into a draft season with so many identified values. Next year might be completely different - I always hit early drafts hard regardless so again not sure what I'd change.

Are mid-high stakes leagues getting more and more filled with guppies?
 
Dynasty thinking seems to creep into my redraft leagues more and more every year. I was guilty of it with MHJr, Worthy, etc. but so were a bunch of other owners in my leagues drafting young unproven guys hoping for breakouts that haven't materialized
 
In all seriousness, I absolutely believe that auto-drafted teams do no worse than manual ones. The reason I always do my own drafts is because it's fun
I had a live online draft one year in a bad storm and ended up unable to connect to the draft. The auto-draft was set to pick the highest ranked undrafted player, regardless of position. I literally ended up with a team without a single RB. On top of that, I ended up with a bunch of untradeable pieces . . . half my team was QB2s and QB3s. The rest of the league essentially said tough noogies . . . should have showed up for the draft. The season was over before Opening Day.
Which platform was that? I don't think that could ever happen on Yahoo, but their AD algorithm has its own annoyances, specifically, the requirement that you fill every starting position before drafting any bench players. They should have a setting where you tell it to always draft DST/K in the final two rounds, don't take a second TE, etc. Hell, with AI they should allow you to write a paragraph describing what you want in general and then have it execute that strategy
 
Trust your own rankings and don’t be afraid to go against the grain/ADP. Drafted 10th in a 12 teamer and the 2 guys I really wanted were Henry and K Williams. Passed on a bunch of higher ranked WR’s and RB’s. Had an opinion and went with it. Dominating because of those decisions
 
The late round QB advocates are probably going to be out in full force in the offseason considering how the top guys of Allen, Mahomes, Hurts, Stroud, etc. have largely underperformed this year (although things could change in the second half).

And then next year of course you'll have wanted to go early at QB when the late round QB sentiment takes effect.
 
In all seriousness, I absolutely believe that auto-drafted teams do no worse than manual ones. The reason I always do my own drafts is because it's fun
I had a live online draft one year in a bad storm and ended up unable to connect to the draft. The auto-draft was set to pick the highest ranked undrafted player, regardless of position. I literally ended up with a team without a single RB. On top of that, I ended up with a bunch of untradeable pieces . . . half my team was QB2s and QB3s. The rest of the league essentially said tough noogies . . . should have showed up for the draft. The season was over before Opening Day.
Which platform was that? I don't think that could ever happen on Yahoo, but their AD algorithm has its own annoyances, specifically, the requirement that you fill every starting position before drafting any bench players. They should have a setting where you tell it to always draft DST/K in the final two rounds, don't take a second TE, etc. Hell, with AI they should allow you to write a paragraph describing what you want in general and then have it execute that strategy
I believe it was through the NFL.com site.
 
stay away from drafting RBs on bad offensive teams.
Eh, not so sure. Hubbard, pollard, Giants RBs, Kamara have all exceeded ADP on bad offenses. On mediocre offenses guys like Swift, Barkley, Mixon, Najee have all been good to great.

Obviously the counter is Rhamondre, Jerome Ford, Zeke, Achane (he’s an outlier though) have been disasters but my point is I’m not sure this is a blanket lesson to be had here. Volume still matters a lot and even on bad offenses.
 
In all seriousness, I absolutely believe that auto-drafted teams do no worse than manual ones. The reason I always do my own drafts is because it's fun
If the league has traditional scoring settings I can believe this. But I play in several leagues with some pretty abnormal settings and putting those settings into FBG dominator crushes the basic auto draft.

So, I do think if you’re going to do this you need to manually re-rank the guys to adjust values for your league’s scoring.
 
Just use the Draft Dominator and don't get cute overtweaking it.

You'll have so much more time in the offseason, so much more fun on draft day and you'll most likely end up with a much better team.
 
WR’s are getting injured more than RB’s and when you add in QB injuries to the impact on WR’s it makes drafting WR’s early more volatile then I can ever recall.
 
Here's what I got majorly wrong in my projections process this year at a team level (not including injuries).

- Thinking the Chiefs would stray from what worked well last year in the regular season and projecting them to be the number 2 offense.
- Projecting the Browns as a mid-ranked offense thinking whatever Joe Flacco did last year would somehow carry over.
- Underprojecting Tampa Bay a ton. I had them as the 25th ranked offense. Someone tell me what my lesson learned here is? What should I have seen here that I obviously missed?
 
I don't think I learned anything truly new this year. Been playing for almost 30 years now, and there are a ton of ways to win (and lose) and this year is no different.

My personal thoughts -
  • Good fantasy managershave the skill to make the playoffs consistently. Even great fantasy managers lack the skill needed to win it all consistently. If you're winning it all on a regular basis, you're not good, the league you are in sucks. Winning it all is more luck than skill.
  • Buck the trend. I've had much better luck going WR heavy in a year where everyone is preaching "Stud RB" or going RB when people are focused on WR in a given year than I have trying to make the prevailing theory on drafting work.
  • Over the last 5 years or so, stud TE's were worth their weight in gold. I'll say it now, because I think the theory is coming to an end (maybe...), but I owned Kelce in 4 of the last 5 years, and drafted him in the first 2 rounds in 2 of those years. Kelce, along with a few others (Gronk, Andrews a few years ago) gave you a solid 5-10 point advantage over any team sporting another TE. They were consistently scoring on par with elite WR's at a position where the alternatives were scoring less than 10 points. I used to go out of my way to get a top TE no matter what the expense.
  • I never draft a Def or a K before the last 2 or 3 rounds...you can always get a good one via waivers or from bye-week drops, and it's nearly impossible to pick who will be good enough to warrant a premium.
  • I prioritize consistency over ceiling, especially in round 1 and 2. All I want from round 1 and 2 is someone who won't completely flop. The odds of me taking a guy on a new team in the 1st two rounds is slim to none. Give me someone on the same team as last year, with the same OC/HC, and the same scheme over the top guy who just got a new HC or a new QB, etc. any day.
  • Targets are the only WR stat I care about. If you're involved, the stats will come.
  • Personally, I don't touch HR threats. Guys like DeSean Jackson who routinely posted stat lines of 3 rec -110 yds - 2 td's just as often posted lines of 2 - 30 - 0. Goes back to the consistency thing.

I'm sure many of you have had success with methods different than the above, which goes back to my 1st bullet - there's more than one way to win...especially when luck can be a cruel mistress. This year isn't any different than any other year. I have more mantras - I just might not share all of them. :wink:
 
The late round QB advocates are probably going to be out in full force in the offseason considering how the top guys of Allen, Mahomes, Hurts, Stroud, etc. have largely underperformed this year (although things could change in the second half).

And then next year of course you'll have wanted to go early at QB when the late round QB sentiment takes effect.
In the vast majority of my drafts, this wasn't the case in that those top ADP QBs were going much later than the years prior. Your point stands though and I think the trend will continue into next year and they'll keep going later. Except for Lamar and like you said if one of them has a bigger 2nd half, but Allen would be my guess to go with Lamar but otherwise people are going to keep waiting longer and longer (and pushing RBs WRs up the board even more and more).
 
The late round QB advocates are probably going to be out in full force in the offseason considering how the top guys of Allen, Mahomes, Hurts, Stroud, etc. have largely underperformed this year (although things could change in the second half).

And then next year of course you'll have wanted to go early at QB when the late round QB sentiment takes effect.
In the vast majority of my drafts, this wasn't the case in that those top ADP QBs were going much later than the years prior. Your point stands though and I think the trend will continue into next year and they'll keep going later. Except for Lamar and like you said if one of them has a bigger 2nd half, but Allen would be my guess to go with Lamar but otherwise people are going to keep waiting longer and longer (and pushing RBs WRs up the board even more and more).

Yeah the only reason I ended up with Allen at QB in my auction league is because he went for $15 instead of $21-$23 in previous years. I'm happy. He's QB4 in my league right now.

My lesson learned at QB is to just play off value.
 
In all seriousness, I absolutely believe that auto-drafted teams do no worse than manual ones. The reason I always do my own drafts is because it's fun
I had a live online draft one year in a bad storm and ended up unable to connect to the draft. The auto-draft was set to pick the highest ranked undrafted player, regardless of position. I literally ended up with a team without a single RB. On top of that, I ended up with a bunch of untradeable pieces . . . half my team was QB2s and QB3s. The rest of the league essentially said tough noogies . . . should have showed up for the draft. The season was over before Opening Day.
That's brutal. If someone lost connection or whatever in one of my leagues, we rotate positions and take the best available so that doesn't happen. If a guy just doesn;t show up or log on...that's another story.
 
What is the lesson learned for the Buccaneers?

Most people had them ranked in the bottom half of the league offensively. I pretty much had them repeating their stats from last year more or less. I did not see any particular reason to bump them up a ton. They have surpassed these projections and then some this year. Of course, now with injuries they will probably come down to earth a bit, but they are a top 5 offense currently.

Is it the new OC? Is he that good? Another year for Baker Mayfield with a fairly consistent roster?
 
Don't spend a high pick on a TE when there is no clear #1 TE going into the season, even in TE premium (1.5PPR/FFPC) leagues. I went into my FFPC drafts thinking I needed to snag one of the top four TE's in the first 3-4 rounds (which I did in almost every one of those leagues). In hindsight, it wasn't really clear who the top TE was (I heard arguments for all four), and it certainly wasn't clear who the top four even were (with guys like Andrews, Kittle, Ferguson, etc. on the outside of that four).

Looking at who's leading the overall standings in those contests, I see several top teams who waited on drafting a TE, but then took guys like Kittle, Bowers, Pitts, and Njoku several rounds later than the "top" TE's were going. Some waited even longer and grabbed Kraft, Kmet, Otton, Conklin, Freiermuth, etc. Looking at TE scoring so far this season, there really isn't much difference between those groups and Kincaid/McBride/Kelce/LaPorta. If anything, the lower-drafted guys are outperforming the top guys. Who would have thought.
 
On the flipside, I waited on QB in almost every redraft draft that I had this year. A couple of exceptions, where I was able to get Hurts or Allen relatively late, but for the most part, I didn't draft QB's until Round 10 or later. Lots of Mayfield, Geno, Purdy, Cousins, Goff, etc. on my teams. And I don't regret it in any of those leagues.
 
I will never ever listen or watch Matthew Berry again.
He's jumped the shark.
All noise now,no insight.
 
What is the lesson learned for the Buccaneers?

Most people had them ranked in the bottom half of the league offensively. I pretty much had them repeating their stats from last year more or less. I did not see any particular reason to bump them up a ton. They have surpassed these projections and then some this year. Of course, now with injuries they will probably come down to earth a bit, but they are a top 5 offense currently.

Is it the new OC? Is he that good? Another year for Baker Mayfield with a fairly consistent roster?
I think there's definitely something to be said for Free Agent QBs hitting their 2nd or higher year with a team. It takes a while to really learn a new playbook/scheme and for the players to get on the same page. All that said, Coen is from the McVay coaching tree and I THINK he was on staff when Baker was (briefly) with the Rams. Coaching DOES matter and I honestly think that OCs who are flexible with their scheme are the ones who do well with lesser talent. Guys like Getsy, who did well with a ton of talent, and who are very rigid to their scheme, tend to perform poorly. Finally, Tampa is a SERIOUS outlier right now. There will very likely be some regression back to mean for their offense, particularly once the big boy DCs figure out how to scheme against it.
 
Don't spend a high pick on a TE when there is no clear #1 TE going into the season, even in TE premium (1.5PPR/FFPC) leagues. I went into my FFPC drafts thinking I needed to snag one of the top four TE's in the first 3-4 rounds (which I did in almost every one of those leagues). In hindsight, it wasn't really clear who the top TE was (I heard arguments for all four), and it certainly wasn't clear who the top four even were (with guys like Andrews, Kittle, Ferguson, etc. on the outside of that four).

Looking at who's leading the overall standings in those contests, I see several top teams who waited on drafting a TE, but then took guys like Kittle, Bowers, Pitts, and Njoku several rounds later than the "top" TE's were going. Some waited even longer and grabbed Kraft, Kmet, Otton, Conklin, Freiermuth, etc. Looking at TE scoring so far this season, there really isn't much difference between those groups and Kincaid/McBride/Kelce/LaPorta. If anything, the lower-drafted guys are outperforming the top guys. Who would have thought.
What evidence is there that this is a “sticky” trend? For years everyone knew you don’t draft a rookie TE, then last year SLP was TE1 and there’s a good chance Bowers does it this year. Some years the top TEs pay off, sometimes you find value in the middle rounds and other years you’re best off punting the position

I feel like a good role is don’t go chasing
 
don't buy lemons. Don't draft guys who are hurt in camp in the first 5 rounds

The equivalent to this, right here, right now, this week is Jauan Jennings. Not sure if I should blow my wad to grab him in a league where I faced WR Armageddon a few weeks ago, or let another sucker pay up for his potentially bum hip.
 
Don't spend a high pick on a TE when there is no clear #1 TE going into the season, even in TE premium (1.5PPR/FFPC) leagues. I went into my FFPC drafts thinking I needed to snag one of the top four TE's in the first 3-4 rounds (which I did in almost every one of those leagues). In hindsight, it wasn't really clear who the top TE was (I heard arguments for all four), and it certainly wasn't clear who the top four even were (with guys like Andrews, Kittle, Ferguson, etc. on the outside of that four).

Looking at who's leading the overall standings in those contests, I see several top teams who waited on drafting a TE, but then took guys like Kittle, Bowers, Pitts, and Njoku several rounds later than the "top" TE's were going. Some waited even longer and grabbed Kraft, Kmet, Otton, Conklin, Freiermuth, etc. Looking at TE scoring so far this season, there really isn't much difference between those groups and Kincaid/McBride/Kelce/LaPorta. If anything, the lower-drafted guys are outperforming the top guys. Who would have thought.
What evidence is there that this is a “sticky” trend? For years everyone knew you don’t draft a rookie TE, then last year SLP was TE1 and there’s a good chance Bowers does it this year. Some years the top TEs pay off, sometimes you find value in the middle rounds and other years you’re best off punting the position

I feel like a good role is don’t go chasing
I think that is my point. I'm not saying to never draft a TE in the early rounds. What I'm saying is, in hindsight, the TE situation this year was much more "muddy" than we (or at least I) realized. The consensus top guys all had risk. LaPorta is in an offense with too many mouths to feed. Kelce is old, and KC is much more about winning with defense these days than with offense. Kincaid was speculated to be a "target monster" but he's essentially never done it before. It was exactly that... pure speculation. And, while McBride had a nice season last year, a good chunk of that was with a different QB (and it's just a small sample size in general).

I've won leagues drafting TE's early, particularly in TE-premium scoring. But, that was with guys like Kelce (in his prime), Gates, Jimmy Graham, Gronk, Witten, etc. In their prime, those guys were "can't miss" (barring injury). This year, I made the mistake of thinking that, just because the scoring system favors the position, it's a necessity to grab one early. Well, now I'm looking back and realizing that the exact opposite was true. Grabbing one early MAY have worked out, but based on the first half of the season, doing so was very likely to be a mistake/reach. In short, don't go chasing after the top TE when it's really not that clear WHO the top TE is. Not just the top TE, but the top tier of TE's was, in hindsight, pretty unclear.

And, for me, I think this lesson goes a bit deeper. I've always been a believer of being a "fluid" drafter. It's OK to have a plan going into a draft, but you have to be able to zig when everyone else zags. I'm not sure I reached for the TE's that I drafted, but just going into the draft with the mentality that "I have to grab one of those top TE's at some point in Rounds 1-4" somewhat goes against what I've always felt is a key to success... Not being tied too tightly to any particular strategy.
 
3 years ago one of my fantasy buddies and I were talking about how boring our league was, because there was only like 1 trade each season. We created a 12-team redraft and told the new owners we wanted to make this a league where fun and activity was our goal. Year 1, me and my buddy had a secret side bet to see who could trade their entire team first. He won the bet, and didn't have a single player he drafted after 7 weeks. I completed the task by week 10. We both made the playoffs, but finished 3rd and 6th. All owners returned, and year 2 was incredible! We had 11 completely active owners and everyone was trading like crazy. 1 guy had family stuff and kinda gave up after a few weeks. We found a replacement and are now in year 3, and it's by far the best league I have ever played in. All 12 teams have traded at least once, with a total of 20 trades thus far. Every owner is very active, we have a group chat that is insane, and we now have 2 people on a waiting list!

Moral of the story - fun trumps all in FF
 
3 years ago one of my fantasy buddies and I were talking about how boring our league was, because there was only like 1 trade each season. We created a 12-team redraft and told the new owners we wanted to make this a league where fun and activity was our goal. Year 1, me and my buddy had a secret side bet to see who could trade their entire team first. He won the bet, and didn't have a single player he drafted after 7 weeks. I completed the task by week 10. We both made the playoffs, but finished 3rd and 6th. All owners returned, and year 2 was incredible! We had 11 completely active owners and everyone was trading like crazy. 1 guy had family stuff and kinda gave up after a few weeks. We found a replacement and are now in year 3, and it's by far the best league I have ever played in. All 12 teams have traded at least once, with a total of 20 trades thus far. Every owner is very active, we have a group chat that is insane, and we now have 2 people on a waiting list!

Moral of the story - fun trumps all in FF
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this. Absolutely going to do this with someone in my home league next year!
 
Just use the Draft Dominator and don't get cute overtweaking it.

You'll have so much more time in the offseason, so much more fun on draft day and you'll most likely end up with a much better team.
/thread.
 
It's the same lesson Ive learned for the past 34 seasons of playing this game. The lesson or reminder is that I'm not nearly as smart as I think I am. The problem is my offseason arrogance is really strong. I'll never change. Ha ha
 
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