The reason I asked, is that Gonzalez posted numbers close to Gates last year, and is available rounds later. Unless you predict a dropoff for Gonzalez or an increase for Gates, Gonzalez seems like a much better value.
Point #1- Gonzo didn't put up numbers "close to Gates" last year. He was 26 points back, which may not seem like much, but it's 50% more than the point difference between Drew Brees and John Kitna last season.Point #2- Gonzalez is 31 years old now, and history hasn't been kind to TEs in their 30s, even if the elite TEs have been able to put up solid scores for a while still. There's a much higher bust risk there, and as I keep saying, the value of an Antonio Gates lies in the extremely low bust risk.Point #3- As I said, I think it's more likely that Gates' numbers go up than down.
I disagree with the premise that TE5 + WR11 is worth less than TE1 and WR26. In general (and I admit that I'm looking more at my history than ADP) the WR drafted 26th will bust more frequently than the WR drafted 11th. In general, WRs who bust will stay in your lineup longer than they should. So you'll end up putting up bad scores for the first couple weeks, that don't show up in your VBD analysis. You can't just look back at the actual WR26, or even the guy who was actually drafted 26th last year, and assume you start him every week, and get every point he scored. How many people had Lee Evans on their bench last year when he blew up? How many people had Marques Colston or Anquan Boldin in their starting lineups the first week of their rookie seasons? How many people kept Randy Moss in their starting lineup way too long last year? At the same time, guys like Gates, Heap and Gonzalez never come out of your starting lineup. In leagues where you have to set a lineup each week, I'd much rather draft guys I feel confident starting every week than guys I hope will do well, like WR26.
And I'd rather start one guy who I know is a guaranteed producer and a second guy who I know has a high chance of busting than two guys with a moderate chance of busting, because I'm going to do far better at the beginning of the season (no "Randy Moss syndrom" where I leave guys in too long just because I had them overprojected at the start of the season). Besides, if my high-bust player busts, I'm better prepared for it.Really, the only arguement I can really support and get behind against drafting Gates is that, since he's so chronically underrated, his trade capital is pathetic. It's very rare that you'll find someone who accurately values Gates, which means he's pretty much untradeable, since his perceived value is far below his actual value. The nice thing about a WR11 is if you're deep at WR, he presents more trade value than TE1, even though TE1 presents more real-world value than WR11.
Joe Horn (#43) - injury so let's throw him outLee Evans (#7) - clearly #1 on BuffaloTerry Glenn (#20) - clearly #2Rod Smith(#61) - clearly #2Matt Jones(#47) - 1a or 1b or 1cMy point being that we can improve our odds of hitting at WR25 if we focus on WR1s on their team.
While I agree with your point, there's a bit of revisionist history going on here. Matt Jones was viewed as more of a clear-cut WR1, and Rod Smith was *NOT* "clearly #2"- there were several threads started asking if this was the year that Rod Smith finally lost his #1 WR status, and while the general consensus was that it was, there was nothing clear about it (and most seemed to think it would be a 1a/1b scenario).
TEBC is a good solution too'draft 2 decent ones and play the match ups
I have never once seen this strategy work. TE isn't like WR where there are as many as 50 guys who you could make an arguement for starting on any given week (meaning at least 14 startable WRs go unstarted in 12-team, start3 WR leagues). There are probably only 8 or so guys that are really startable, and then most everyone else is just a marginal "start him and pray" sort of guy. So either you have to invest in two top-8 TEs, which seems like an awfully big investment for such paltry production... or else you have two "start and pray" types instead of just one (which I can't envision making any difference).Also, it's easy to see which defenses are good matchups for WRs, since teams always cover WRs with CBs. It's very hard to see which teams are good matchups for TEs, since some teams cover TEs with LBs, some with Safeties, other teams play a lot of zone, some teams assign nickle CBs to TEs, and a lot of this strategy varies from year to year and even from game to game. For instance, in the last two years, Denver has given primary responsibility for covering the TE to everyone from Champ Bailey to Al Wilson to Ian Gold to D.J. Williams to Nick Ferguson to Sam Brandon to Curome Cox to Hamza Abdullah, and it's hard to say from game to game which coverage they'll be using. It's hard to say, then, if Denver's going to be a good matchup or a bad matchup.Besides, TE production, more than production at the other position, seems to be less tied to the quality of the defense you're facing, since a good defense leads to more dumpoffs.
Are we going to see people in drafts taking a TE in round 3, or has that particular bit of nonsense finally perished?Just wondering what the thinking is here in the shark pool about this "shark" move.TIA
Yes there will always be people taking a TE early, especially Gates. But I will not be one of them since there are so many serviceable TEs these days.
Also, with the rise of all the serviceable RBs, I'm passing on Tomlinson, and thanks to all of these new serviceable QBs, I'm not even putting Peyton Manning on my draft board. Plus, who needs Harrison or Holt now that there are so many Reggie Browns?
Good post, David. Similar to what I was trying to say. I was looking loosely at ADP, but your drafted team does look more realistic, and it projects out higher, as I suspected.Following up the consideration of shooting for both Manning and Gates, from what draft positions does this make the most sense? And does it make more or less sense if you play in a league with a mix of "shark" and "guppie" owners?(I realize some here think it is not worth considering at all.)I'm thinking it makes more sense in larger leagues, where talent is spread thinner, and thus overall team scoring is lower. And I'm thinking it makes more sense if you play with lower quality owners, since one can expect to find better value with later picks. And I'm thinking it makes sense to consider this if your pick falls outside the elite tier RBs.
Personally, I think the strategy works phenominally in small leagues. I'm one of the few freaks here that actually plays in 8-team leagues (really, only one 8-team league). It's a keep-3 league (you keep for a draft pick two rounds higher than the player cost the year before) that started the season Gates really blew up, and I was fortunate enough to trade for Gates very early (the same guy owned both Gonzo and Gates). I've dominated the league since then, finishing all three seasons with the best regular-season record in the league, and Gates has been my unquestioned MVP during that span. This year, I finally won a championship to go with it. My strategy? I took Peyton Manning and the Chicago Bears defense extremely high to pair with Gates. In a league where it's so unbelievably easy to acquire solid starters (remember, the 25th best RB in the league is someone's 4th stringer), having a true stud to provide differential is a huge advantage.Now, of course, it's not like Gates, Manning, and Da Bears are the only reason I won. I'd put together a very solid roster from top-to-bottom, and also had guys like Steven Jackson, Kevin Jones (who was a STEAL in yardage-heavy leagues like this one), Maurice Jones-Drew, Brees, Holt, and Boldin... but the point is, I didn't have the best RB corps in the league, and I didn't have the best WR corps in the league. Some guy had Tomlinson, Alexander, FWP, LaMont Jordan, TO, Ocho Cinco, Reggie Wayne, Donald Driver, and Wes Welker (league rewards return yardage, and Welker was a top-10 producer). I didn't even come close. I did, on the other hand, have the best player in the entire league at QB, TE, *AND* Defense (well, Baltimore was probably a better defense, but it was close). That differential at the "meaningless positions" allowed me to dominate the league with a team that very few people would say looked the best on paper. In fact, "on paper", that other team should have shredded my team to pieces... but in the end, I essentially won because his season-ending QBs were David Carr, Steve McNair, and Trent Green.Of course, it also didn't hurt that Jackson and Jones-Drew averaged 212 yards and 2 TDs between them in week 16.
Last year I was delighted to roster Gates at 3-9 in two different PPR drafts. It didn't work out well and I did much better in similar leagues with teams that drafted Winslow or Crumpler several rounds later. But last year, Gates advantage over the next group(s) of TE was not as large as the previous years. If you were convinced he would go back to dominating the position by a sizeable margin this year (second year with Rivers; being used more in offensive game plan; etc) then the question will be where in the draft you get the most value by taking him slightly above early ADP?
Last year, I was delighted to roster Holt at 2-9 in a non-PPR league. It didn't work out well- I should have just drafted Colston in the 16th, instead!
Gates at 3-9 was a phenominal pick last season. You got a guy that finished 16th in season-ending VBD, and you got him with the 33rd pick- that's value, my friend. Very, very solid value. Just because there might have been one or two picks later on that would have presented better value doesn't mean your strategy was bad, because for every Alge Crumpler or Kellen Winslow there was a Ben Watson or a Jeremy Shockey.
SSOG, I've got to give you props for really bringing your "A" game to this thread. One small favor though, please don't start a Ron Dayne thread. 
SSOG, I've got to give you props for really bringing your "A" game to this thread. One small favor though, please don't start a Ron Dayne thread. 
), but I don't see how Gates will regress, since it's not like Rivers is going to be worse next year than this year. Even with only 65 points of VBD a season for the next three years, that would put Gates as a top-12 player over that stretch, all without the questions hovering over Gonzo (notably, the age question, the injury question, and the "his O-line is disintigrating and he'll be forced to stay home and block" question).
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