Discussion - Are top DEF's worth spending a 10th-11th round pick? (1 Viewer)

[Carthac]

Hello everyone! Was doing some brainstorming today, and figured I would start up a topic on something in FF that has always made me wonder. I am typically a "Rent a DEF" type player that is rarely married to one DEF. However, I have been reconsidering some things.

http://fantasy.nfl.com/research/scoringleaders#researchScoringLeaders=researchScoringLeaders%2C%2Fresearch%2Fscoringleaders%253Fposition%253D8%2526statCategory%253Dstats%2526statSeason%253D2012%2526statType%253DseasonStats%2526statWeek%253D1%2Creplace

Going off of 2012 fantasy stats I found off of nfl.com(not sure if this is from standard scoring), the average score by all the defenses in the NFL was 126.16. Denver last season put up 182 points, ranking them the third DEF in the league. Last season, the Chicago DEF put up 223 points, putting them just ahead of Ray Rice in points scored(1st round pick). Given the rounds in which defenses are often chosen(10+), and the type of picks that come with the late rounds(high upside backups, typically non starters), why are top defenses often avoided by more savvy FF players?

For example, I am thinking about spending a 10th or 11th round pick on the Denver Broncos. With their division looking extremely weak, and 2 games vs the Titans and the Jaguars, they are looking to have a ton of great matchups. Combine this with the quality of their defense from last season(although they lost Dumervil) and a few decent additions this offseason, what would you guys think about drafting them a little higher than their current ADP of 114. Picks around the same ADP include(from FBG)

111 Denarius Moore 112 Bernard Pierce 113 Andy Dalton 114 Denver Broncos 115 Chicago Bears 116 Isaiah Pead 117 Johnathan Franklin 118 Ben Roethlisberger 119 Houston Texans 120 Justin Blackmon

While I see some intriguing picks in this round(Pierce, Franklin), I feel picking the Denver DEF would be a lot more reliable of a pick. Another point not to be overlooked, if you are in a league where taking a player off FA puts you at the end of the line for tuesdays to pick up new FA's, this could allow you to save those picks for the suprise Alfred Morris type players that seem to occur every year. So, what do you guys think of my theory? Would love some feedback. Thanks!

 

[Mystery Achiever]

I think the rankings vary too much year to use a pick that early. Also, you said Denver scored 182. Did you look at whether they were a top D week to week vs having a couple of big games? And is 182 points significant.y more that the 4th, 5th, 6th scored?

 

[Carthac]

I think the rankings vary too much year to use a pick that early. Also, you said Denver scored 182. Did you look at whether they were a top D week to week vs having a couple of big games? And is 182 points significant.y more that the 4th, 5th, 6th scored?

Rankings vary, but I would say its much easier to predict than say the kicker position. Cant find the per game scores on Denver's D sadly. 4th place DEF had 182, 5th had 163. 12th had 137. There are always surprise DEF's that emerge as the season goes on, but with such a strong amount of evidence on the side of Denver being a strong choice, and the risk being quite small...

 

[Mystery Achiever]

I just looked up one league and Denv was 2nd last year and 23 rd the previous year . I guess how your individual draft goes helps determine how much of a risk the pick is in those rounds, but I think you generally have a bigger chance of success taking a flyer on a position player there.

Here is my league if you want to look at the weeklies.,you can go back to 2010.

http://football30.myfantasyleague.com/2012/top?L=79129&SEARCHTYPE=BASIC&COUNT=30&YEAR=2012&START_WEEK=1&END_WEEK=17&CATEGORY=overall&POSITION=Def&DISPLAY=points&TEAM=*

 

[KellysHeroes]

I did a redraft last night, 14 rounds and when people started taking Team Ds I was picking up players like Miles Austin and Lance Moore to shore up my WRs. Ask yourself, would trade a player like that for a Team Defensive?

 

[Carthac]

I did a redraft last night, 14 rounds and when people started taking Team Ds I was picking up players like Miles Austin and Lance Moore to shore up my WRs. Ask yourself, would trade a player like that for a Team Defensive?

Austin, definitely not. Moore, probably would. However, Austin is 8th round ADP. Big difference from 114 of Denver DEF. If Denver went in the 8th round, I would gladly take an Austin type player, and revert back to playing "Rent a DEF"

 

[KellysHeroes]

I did a redraft last night, 14 rounds and when people started taking Team Ds I was picking up players like Miles Austin and Lance Moore to shore up my WRs. Ask yourself, would trade a player like that for a Team Defensive?

Austin, definitely not. Moore, probably would. However, Austin is 8th round ADP. Big difference from 114 of Denver DEF. If Denver went in the 8th round, I would gladly take an Austin type player, and revert back to playing "Rent a DEF"

I mention Austin because that was the round that Den was taken in, but if Den is still available in 10 and with the players you listed also available I think I would gladly take the D

Round 8 1. Seattle (Sea - DEF) AJ's Lid Sla... 2. Andre Brown (NYG - RB) Redonculous 3. Mark Ingram (NO - RB) Manglers 4. San Francisco (SF - DEF) America's Team 5. Mikel Leshoure (Det - RB) Alpo 6. Kenny Britt (Ten - WR) The305MiamiC... 7. Chicago (Chi - DEF) the prodigy 8. Stevie Johnson (Buf - WR) Wildcard Bit... 9. Denver (Den - DEF) AH-187 10. Miles Austin (Dal - WR) The Light of... 11. Houston (Hou - DEF) Eddie's Fine... 12. Tony Romo (Dal - QB) DaHawks

 

[Anarchy99]

Reviewed here.

http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=682042&hl=

 

[cheatsheetwarroom]

The tough thing about drafting a defense early is that you be commited to them for a good chunk of the season, commited to the point that you end up having to allocate a bench position to another defense for bye week replacment. That's a tough pill to swallow for me as I want my bench as deep as possible with players at the skill positions.

As others have said it's tough to predict who the top defenses will be, and you can almost always find a diamond in the rough at some point early in the season. I'd rather use that late-round draft pick on a skill player that could turn into much more.

 

[Carthac]

Big thanks for the link to that post Anarchy

 

[FUBAR]

The tough thing about drafting a defense early is that you be commited to them for a good chunk of the season, to the point that you end up having to allocate a bench position to another defense for bye week replacment. That's a tough pill to swallow for me as I want my bench as deep as possible with players at the skill positions.

As others have said it's tough to predict who the top defenses will be, and you can almost always find a diamond in the rough at some point early in the season. I'd rather use that late-round draft pick on a skill player that could turn into much more.

No to the bolded. Unless you just mean for one week, which I'm ok with. Means dropping a player for a week but that's usually not a huge deal.

 

[Adam Harstad]

I did a redraft last night, 14 rounds and when people started taking Team Ds I was picking up players like Miles Austin and Lance Moore to shore up my WRs. Ask yourself, would trade a player like that for a Team Defensive?

That's disgusting. I'm generally warmer to the idea of grabbing elite defenses than most, but there's no way I'd touch a defense when there were sure-fire fantasy starters still left on the board at a premium position.

 

[Adam Harstad]

I did a redraft last night, 14 rounds and when people started taking Team Ds I was picking up players like Miles Austin and Lance Moore to shore up my WRs. Ask yourself, would trade a player like that for a Team Defensive?

Austin, definitely not. Moore, probably would. However, Austin is 8th round ADP. Big difference from 114 of Denver DEF. If Denver went in the 8th round, I would gladly take an Austin type player, and revert back to playing "Rent a DEF"

Don't hate on Moore. He's 25th in fantasy points scored over the last three years, and 18th in points scored over the last five. In his last four (mostly) full seasons, he's finished as WR13, WR27, WR34 (in 14 games), and WR20 (in 15 games). He's one of Drew Brees' favorite targets. Moore is a reliable fantasy starter at WR from year to year and from week to week.

 

[Sigmund Bloom]

I haven't crunched the numbers, but it sure seems like matchup becomes a better predictor of D/ST scoring than the quality of the D/ST as the season goes on, especially for matchups against the worst offenses in the league. I've been writing the rent-a-defense column about the defenses to stream weekly during the season, and in any given more than half of the WW D/STs outperform the best D/STs YTD at the time.

The only D I would endorse taking this year is Denver for the home games against TEN and SD in weeks 14 and 15 and the strong possibility that they'll be playing from ahead in most games. I still wouldn't take them until round 13 at the very earliest, and that's only if most of my round 8-12 targets are gone.

 

[Adam Harstad]

In order for a position to be valuable, it has to meet three criteria. First, it must be productive. Second, it must be predictable. Third, it must be scarce.

If a position is not productive, nothing else matters. If your league created a "head coach" position that got 0.1 point for wins and 0 points for losses, there'd be no reason to draft one before the last round. Even if you were in a 64 team league (making them scarce) and had a crystal ball (making them predictable), the difference between the top coaches and the bottom coaches would be around 0.05 points per game (and the difference between Bill Belichick in 2007 and not even starting a head coach at all would be just 0.1 points per game).

If a position is not predictable, nothing else matters. If your league created a "Team Captain" position that scored points if the player correctly called the pre-game coin toss, there'd be no reason to draft one before the last round. Even if you were in a 32 team league (making them scarce), and Team Captains got 100 points for getting the call right (making them productive), there would be no way to tell ahead of time which Captains would score the best, so there'd be no reason to pay a premium for the right to choose.

If a position is not scarce, nothing else matters. If your league created a "Season Ticket Holder" position that scored points based on how many home games they attended, there'd be no reason to draft one before the last round. Even if you had access to a complete list of season-ticket holders (making them predictable), and your league gave 100 points per game attended (making them productive), there would be literally thousands of people to choose from, meaning you could get as much value from taking the last one as you could from taking the first one.

So these are the three principles that drive draft position: Productivity, Predictability, and Scarcity. Tight Ends and Quarterbacks are both more predictable than Wide Receivers and Runningbacks, but they are far less scarce (most 12-team leagues start 12/32 of the starting QBs/TEs vs. a whopping 24/32 of the starting RBs). Kickers are productive, but they are not predictable or scarce- there's little reason to invest a premium draft pick on the position when you're just as likely to find a top kicker off the waiver wire in week 3.

Defenses fall to the later rounds because they struggle on at least two of the three counts. Defenses are less predictable from year to year than the skill positions, with much more turnover at the top (especially because defenses are more susceptible to matchups than any other positions, and strength of schedule is so hard to predict before the season). They are also far less scarce, as most teams will only roster one, leaving plenty of quality options on the wire. Finally, in many scoring systems, defenses simply aren't that productive. Even in the leagues where defenses are very productive, the lack of scarcity or predictability make them shaky investments not worth anything more than a late-round pick.

There are exceptions. This year, I think there are three defenses that meet the "predictability" benchmark. Seattle, San Francisco, and Denver are all young, proven, and loaded with transformational defensive talents, and I would place a high degree of confidence on the fact that all three will finish among the top 10 at the position. Also, in certain leagues, you will see defenses begin to meet the scarcity benchmark. In one particularly deep Dynasty league I'm in, 31 of the 32 defenses are currently rostered, so playing matchups is out of the question (unless you happen to be especially high on the Oakland Raiders this season ). In leagues with plenty of experienced owners who will all likely be trying to run a Defense By Committee or Streaming Defense strategy, competition over the defenses with the best matchups will be fierce, creating an artificial scarcity (i.e. there won't be a ton of defenses rostered, but there will still be few defenses worth starting in any given week left on the street). In leagues like this, where absurd depth or common strategy create shortages at the position, investing in a defense becomes more palatable.

So, to bring this train back into the station, in leagues that had friendly defensive scoring, I'd be willing to invest a pick in San Francisco, Seattle, or Denver, as those are the defenses I would consider likely to be both productive and predictable. This willingness would rise as roster size increases, and would also rise as the quality of my competition increased, although this is a double-edged sword; an increase in the number of teams playing matchups at defense would increase the price I was willing to pay for a top defense, but it would *ALSO* lower the expected draft position of those top defenses. If the second effect outweighs the first effect, I might wind up drafting my first defense even later than I otherwise would have rather than overspending unnecessarily. In a recent FBGs staff mock, I was the first staffer to take a defense, landing San Francisco in the 14th. The league didn't have very friendly defensive scoring, but the benches were deep (22 players), and the other owners were very experienced and savvy. In that format, with those parameters, I would have considered San Francisco to be good value in the 13th, or possibly even the 12th. However, based on my expectations of the other owners, I felt confident that I could wait until the 14th and still grab my target. If I hadn't been drafting so close to the turn, I would have pushed my luck even further and waited until the 15th round before drafting a defense, but in the 14th I decided I didn't want to risk having all three of my defensive targets taken before the draft made it all the way back around to me.

TL;DR- Are top Defenses worth spending a 10th-11th round pick? It depends, but probably not.

 

[Dragon1952]

I don't usually draft a defense until the end, and sometimes not even then if there are pre-season waivers, but having said that I took Denver at 11.8 in an 18 round draft the other day. In this particular scoring system where DEF get pts for yds allowed and for pts allowed, Denver finished at nearly 15.8 ppg which is around 4-5 ppg better than most positions left at that stage of the draft., and which is better by 3-4 ppg over DEF 7-12 last year.

I think Seattle, San Francisco and Denver are good bets to do well again this year, and maybe New England considering the state of QB's in that division.

 

[silentcoach]

Depends on your league scoring.

In my league a top defense can get you 20 pts a game (avg defense around 10). The difficulty is in predicting that top defense.

If you know who that top defense is, and your league rewards a top defense, then sure, take that defense.

 

[cstu]

I haven't crunched the numbers, but it sure seems like matchup becomes a better predictor of D/ST scoring than the quality of the D/ST as the season goes on, especially for matchups against the worst offenses in the league. I've been writing the rent-a-defense column about the defenses to stream weekly during the season, and in any given more than half of the WW D/STs outperform the best D/STs YTD at the time.

The only D I would endorse taking this year is Denver for the home games against TEN and SD in weeks 14 and 15 and the strong possibility that they'll be playing from ahead in most games. I still wouldn't take them until round 13 at the very earliest, and that's only if most of my round 8-12 targets are gone.

The Bears have the Vikings, Cowboys, Browns, and Eagles weeks 13-16, that seems like a lot of possible sacks and INT's to me. Big question marks over the coaching changes and age of the players on defense though.

 

[FUBAR]

I haven't crunched the numbers, but it sure seems like matchup becomes a better predictor of D/ST scoring than the quality of the D/ST as the season goes on, especially for matchups against the worst offenses in the league. I've been writing the rent-a-defense column about the defenses to stream weekly during the season, and in any given more than half of the WW D/STs outperform the best D/STs YTD at the time.

The only D I would endorse taking this year is Denver for the home games against TEN and SD in weeks 14 and 15 and the strong possibility that they'll be playing from ahead in most games. I still wouldn't take them until round 13 at the very earliest, and that's only if most of my round 8-12 targets are gone.

The Bears have the Vikings, Cowboys, Browns, and Eagles weeks 13-16, that seems like a lot of possible sacks and INT's to me. Big question marks over the coaching changes and age of the players on defense though.

The bears are the team I first think of when looking for a dominant defense but their personnel changes scare me off a bit. Maybe still top half of our starters but i will only take them if they drop.

Tampa bay intrigues me and i took them in an auction cheap before revis; with him there, they could be a top half too.

 

[FUBAR]

I don't usually draft a defense until the end, and sometimes not even then if there are pre-season waivers, but having said that I took Denver at 11.8 in an 18 round draft the other day. In this particular scoring system where DEF get pts for yds allowed and for pts allowed, Denver finished at nearly 15.8 ppg which is around 4-5 ppg better than most positions left at that stage of the draft., and which is better by 3-4 ppg over DEF 7-12 last year.

I think Seattle, San Francisco and Denver are good bets to do well again this year, and maybe New England considering the state of QB's in that division.

That's only good for 4 games. The rest of their schedule is fairly tough.

 

[habsfan]

One potential problem I'v noticed with the "rent a defense" strategy is that it can become pretty challenging when it gets popular in your league. It's great when your opponents are spending a pick on a top DEF and you're managing week to week but when half your league has the same idea, it gets interesting.

 

[silentcoach]

One potential problem I'v noticed with the "rent a defense" strategy is that it can become pretty challenging when it gets popular in your league. It's great when your opponents are spending a pick on a top DEF and you're managing week to week but when half your league has the same idea, it gets interesting.

+1. With a waiver this strategy is less profitable as everyone knows who the top defenses for any given week is, and you may not have a top waiver any given week. As a result you have to think 2 weeks in advance, which is not terrible, but you have to adjust. It may not be as good a plan if you have shallow benches.

 

[Warrior]

A handful of years back, Andy Behrens of Yahoo Sports wrote an article advocating the Chicago Bears in the 8th round of fantasy drafts. I created a thread at another fantasy sports forum laying out a number of reasons why that strategy was so horrible. I couldn't believe this guy was getting paid for advice like that...more of a detriment to those reading his article than a help, and it was on the front page of the Yahoo fantasy site.

Andy somehow came across the message board post and fired back a couple of statistics to make his case, which weren't particularly relevant.

Long story short, Andy invited me into a custom league to prove his point, 10 teams, where he drafted the Bears in the 8th and I didn't draft a defense until the last round. 8 other members of that board joined. I told him I would mix and match waiver DEF's all season long and compare to his Bears strategy. Andy said he'd write an updated article if I proved him wrong. He actually wrote a follow-up mentioning that the league was taking place and also mentioned my board name, which was pretty cool to see on Yahoo.

Cut to the end of the regular season: I finished in 1st place (but was eliminated early in the playoffs), Andy finished almost dead last. Every week, I would choose a waiver defense to pick up and start and explain why on the league message board (matchups-based). Not only did my waiver scavenging defenses score more points than Chicago, but I also hadn't blown an 8th round pick on a defense.

Andy was a pretty nice guy throughout the season. He changed his tune on drafting DEF's early but never did write the follow-up article.

 

[FUBAR]

A handful of years back, Andy Behrens of Yahoo Sports wrote an article advocating the Chicago Bears in the 8th round of fantasy drafts. I created a thread at another fantasy sports forum laying out a number of reasons why that strategy was so horrible. I couldn't believe this guy was getting paid for advice like that...more of a detriment to those reading his article than a help, and it was on the front page of the Yahoo fantasy site.

Andy somehow came across the message board post and fired back a couple of statistics to make his case, which weren't particularly relevant.

Long story short, Andy invited me into a custom league to prove his point, 10 teams, where he drafted the Bears in the 8th and I didn't draft a defense until the last round. 8 other members of that board joined. I told him I would mix and match waiver DEF's all season long and compare to his Bears strategy. Andy said he'd write an updated article if I proved him wrong. He actually wrote a follow-up mentioning that the league was taking place and also mentioned my board name, which was pretty cool to see on Yahoo.

Cut to the end of the regular season: I finished in 1st place (but was eliminated early in the playoffs), Andy finished almost dead last. Every week, I would choose a waiver defense to pick up and start and explain why on the league message board (matchups-based). Not only did my waiver scavenging defenses score more points than Chicago, but I also hadn't blown an 8th round pick on a defense.

Andy was a pretty nice guy throughout the season. He changed his tune on drafting DEF's early but never did write the follow-up article.

If this was last year, taking the bears wasn't what did him in.

 

[hauser42]

I see no reason to not to jump on them if you like them to be a top D. You are setting your starting lineup and might get some other owners to follow suit and pick their top D.

There are times i have taken a TE, K , or D to when I saw a bunch of player at RB and WR that I could livw with as back ups. If you can live with other players for depth why not set your lineup that you think can win you games week in and week out.

Drafting out of the box takes some guts and faith in yourself. Many owners stay close to the cheatsheets and are always middle of the back.

 

[Anarchy99]

If people bothered to check out the thread I linked earlier in the thread, deciphering which defenses are going to be high scorers in a given year has been very difficult (if not impossible). In that thread, I outlined the scoring history for all fantasy defenses for the past 10 seasons, included ADP data from each season, and included most major defensive statistics from the past decade. From my perspective, defensive scoring waivers so much from year to year that I would be inclined to say that it is not worth burning a pick too early on a defense.

Of course, a lot will depend on your league and scoring system . . . but that still doesn't account for the predictability factor. There will end up being defenses that at the end of the year will have merited being taken in the 10th round (maybe even earlier), but there is no guarantee that it will be one of the first few defenses off the board on draft day.

 

[Ghost Rider]

No.

 

[Warrior]

A handful of years back, Andy Behrens of Yahoo Sports wrote an article advocating the Chicago Bears in the 8th round of fantasy drafts. I created a thread at another fantasy sports forum laying out a number of reasons why that strategy was so horrible. I couldn't believe this guy was getting paid for advice like that...more of a detriment to those reading his article than a help, and it was on the front page of the Yahoo fantasy site.

Andy somehow came across the message board post and fired back a couple of statistics to make his case, which weren't particularly relevant.

Long story short, Andy invited me into a custom league to prove his point, 10 teams, where he drafted the Bears in the 8th and I didn't draft a defense until the last round. 8 other members of that board joined. I told him I would mix and match waiver DEF's all season long and compare to his Bears strategy. Andy said he'd write an updated article if I proved him wrong. He actually wrote a follow-up mentioning that the league was taking place and also mentioned my board name, which was pretty cool to see on Yahoo.

Cut to the end of the regular season: I finished in 1st place (but was eliminated early in the playoffs), Andy finished almost dead last. Every week, I would choose a waiver defense to pick up and start and explain why on the league message board (matchups-based). Not only did my waiver scavenging defenses score more points than Chicago, but I also hadn't blown an 8th round pick on a defense.

Andy was a pretty nice guy throughout the season. He changed his tune on drafting DEF's early but never did write the follow-up article.

If this was last year, taking the bears wasn't what did him in.

As stated in the very first sentence, it was a few years back.

 

[Ghost Rider]

Like others have already said, predicting defensive scores and turnovers are impossible. Sure, you could blow a 10th round pick on the Steelers D, since they are a top NFL D every year, but they only had 19 turnovers and 1 D/ST score last year. In 2013, it is a safe bet that the Seattle and SF defenses will both be great (in NFL terms), but what if neither scores more than a couple times on defense and doesn't create a ton of turnovers? Then that 10th round pick on them will not have been worth it.

 

[FUBAR]

A handful of years back, Andy Behrens of Yahoo Sports wrote an article advocating the Chicago Bears in the 8th round of fantasy drafts. I created a thread at another fantasy sports forum laying out a number of reasons why that strategy was so horrible. I couldn't believe this guy was getting paid for advice like that...more of a detriment to those reading his article than a help, and it was on the front page of the Yahoo fantasy site.

Andy somehow came across the message board post and fired back a couple of statistics to make his case, which weren't particularly relevant.

Long story short, Andy invited me into a custom league to prove his point, 10 teams, where he drafted the Bears in the 8th and I didn't draft a defense until the last round. 8 other members of that board joined. I told him I would mix and match waiver DEF's all season long and compare to his Bears strategy. Andy said he'd write an updated article if I proved him wrong. He actually wrote a follow-up mentioning that the league was taking place and also mentioned my board name, which was pretty cool to see on Yahoo.

Cut to the end of the regular season: I finished in 1st place (but was eliminated early in the playoffs), Andy finished almost dead last. Every week, I would choose a waiver defense to pick up and start and explain why on the league message board (matchups-based). Not only did my waiver scavenging defenses score more points than Chicago, but I also hadn't blown an 8th round pick on a defense.

Andy was a pretty nice guy throughout the season. He changed his tune on drafting DEF's early but never did write the follow-up article.

If this was last year, taking the bears wasn't what did him in.

As stated in the very first sentence, it was a few years back.

ok. point being, if you're right, you've made a decent choice. If you're wrong, not so much. But then, that's true for all picks and in leagues with short benches, there usually isn't much of a difference between a 8th round WR and WR from waivers.

I don't think you're going to lose a league because you take your top DEF in the 8th; if you're otherwise strong.

You probably won't win it for taking the DEF either.

 

[Warrior]

A handful of years back, Andy Behrens of Yahoo Sports wrote an article advocating the Chicago Bears in the 8th round of fantasy drafts. I created a thread at another fantasy sports forum laying out a number of reasons why that strategy was so horrible. I couldn't believe this guy was getting paid for advice like that...more of a detriment to those reading his article than a help, and it was on the front page of the Yahoo fantasy site.

Andy somehow came across the message board post and fired back a couple of statistics to make his case, which weren't particularly relevant.

Long story short, Andy invited me into a custom league to prove his point, 10 teams, where he drafted the Bears in the 8th and I didn't draft a defense until the last round. 8 other members of that board joined. I told him I would mix and match waiver DEF's all season long and compare to his Bears strategy. Andy said he'd write an updated article if I proved him wrong. He actually wrote a follow-up mentioning that the league was taking place and also mentioned my board name, which was pretty cool to see on Yahoo.

Cut to the end of the regular season: I finished in 1st place (but was eliminated early in the playoffs), Andy finished almost dead last. Every week, I would choose a waiver defense to pick up and start and explain why on the league message board (matchups-based). Not only did my waiver scavenging defenses score more points than Chicago, but I also hadn't blown an 8th round pick on a defense.

Andy was a pretty nice guy throughout the season. He changed his tune on drafting DEF's early but never did write the follow-up article.

If this was last year, taking the bears wasn't what did him in.

As stated in the very first sentence, it was a few years back.

ok. point being, if you're right, you've made a decent choice. If you're wrong, not so much. But then, that's true for all picks and in leagues with short benches, there usually isn't much of a difference between a 8th round WR and WR from waivers.

I don't think you're going to lose a league because you take your top DEF in the 8th; if you're otherwise strong.

You probably won't win it for taking the DEF either.

:whoosh:

Andy, is that you?

Congrats on missing the entire point of the post, in addition to clearly not reading the entire thing. Feel free to throw away 8th round picks because "you won't lose your league if you're otherwise strong", I'm sure it'll work out well for you.

 

[Heep]

I'm in a league with mostly savvy FF team owners and 6 of the 12 teams currently don't have defenses rostered (myself included) in the offseason. We pick up one a couple weeks or so before the season starts to keep the maximum allowed skill position players in hopes of finding that gem in the preseason. So I would say no, using a pick that early is not beneficial and the reward far outweighs the risk of not having a defense until the last round.

 

[FUBAR]

A handful of years back, Andy Behrens of Yahoo Sports wrote an article advocating the Chicago Bears in the 8th round of fantasy drafts. I created a thread at another fantasy sports forum laying out a number of reasons why that strategy was so horrible. I couldn't believe this guy was getting paid for advice like that...more of a detriment to those reading his article than a help, and it was on the front page of the Yahoo fantasy site.

Andy somehow came across the message board post and fired back a couple of statistics to make his case, which weren't particularly relevant.

Long story short, Andy invited me into a custom league to prove his point, 10 teams, where he drafted the Bears in the 8th and I didn't draft a defense until the last round. 8 other members of that board joined. I told him I would mix and match waiver DEF's all season long and compare to his Bears strategy. Andy said he'd write an updated article if I proved him wrong. He actually wrote a follow-up mentioning that the league was taking place and also mentioned my board name, which was pretty cool to see on Yahoo.

Cut to the end of the regular season: I finished in 1st place (but was eliminated early in the playoffs), Andy finished almost dead last. Every week, I would choose a waiver defense to pick up and start and explain why on the league message board (matchups-based). Not only did my waiver scavenging defenses score more points than Chicago, but I also hadn't blown an 8th round pick on a defense.

Andy was a pretty nice guy throughout the season. He changed his tune on drafting DEF's early but never did write the follow-up article.

If this was last year, taking the bears wasn't what did him in.

As stated in the very first sentence, it was a few years back.

ok. point being, if you're right, you've made a decent choice. If you're wrong, not so much. But then, that's true for all picks and in leagues with short benches, there usually isn't much of a difference between a 8th round WR and WR from waivers.

I don't think you're going to lose a league because you take your top DEF in the 8th; if you're otherwise strong.

You probably won't win it for taking the DEF either.

:whoosh:

Andy, is that you?

Congrats on missing the entire point of the post, in addition to clearly not reading the entire thing. Feel free to throw away 8th round picks because "you won't lose your league if you're otherwise strong", I'm sure it'll work out well for you.

I got your point. All I'm saying is there has to be more behind his finishing last than the one pick. Congrats on winning though.FWIW (which isn't much) I won a redraft last year taking a D fairly high. It was the bears which worked out.

 

[pizzatyme]

There is far too much value in skill positions in the top 10-12 rounds in most leagues.

Why give up a player who is a bye week fill in or matchup warrior for a defense?

I'll play rent a defense and beat you 8/10 times if you take a defense before the 12th rd (again, in most leagues).

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

I'd say the Seattle defense has been more than worth an early selection this year.