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Draft Dominator Preview (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter David Dodds
- Start date
Iwannabeacowboybaby!
Footballguy
Thanks for taking the time to explain it to me. I'm going to make an effort to use it this season. There's nobody at the live drafts that I attend that use these. I've done pretty well vs. these guys all ready, I can imagine the looks and words I'll get if I walk in there with a laptop and start using that during my draft.I would imagine that these are also good for online drafts as well. Probably easier for me.
Iwannabeacowboybaby!
Footballguy
We've talked about the idea of not to tell guys in your league or to tell guys in your league. Arguments both ways, but I'd have to jump ship and say not to tell guys in the league now. Just like it was mentioned in this thread, someone who doesn't even know much about football, more about computers can actually draft like an expert. Why would I want that. It's not about getting information and dealing with it in your own personal way. Nobody in my $money$ leagues are getting any information about this site from me.FBG staff members, I leave the information in my will if it makes you feel better.
buster c
Footballguy
It looks nice & clean and shiny, but color me skeptical. I plan to continue living in the dark ages. Will continue to bring a cheatsheet and a bic pen to my draft. For instance, it looks like the DD incorporates a strength of schedule feature. while I don't completely ignore SOS, I think it is overplayed and difficult if not impossible to be accurate on. One opinion may be to consider Jacksonville weak, but what if they end up being this year's Carolina? Who projected the Cowgirls to have the #1 D in '03? So while I'll consider overall division strength, I don't feel comfortable having a week-by-week projection which points me to a player who has a perceived weak matchup in a given week.
First I have to wait for the Stat Book now I get teased with the dominator..... :chet: This is too much for me to handle, my mind is spinning wildly. I need some help- Throw me something my way please!!!!!
Captain Quinoa
Footballguy
I agree with Buster.The DD is great for mock drafts though.
Mungo Burrows
Footballguy
I think they're going to work on a "JAA's Wife" app called the Draft Dominatrix that will predict injuries and healing times next year.What? It doesn't tell me who's going to get hurt this year? Bah!
Mungo Burrows
Footballguy
Questions and suggestions:
I forget from last year...does it make suggestions based on strict VBD, or does it provide Dynamic VBD or both?
If Dynamic, what does it use to project the players picked at each position between picks - dvbd picks? vbd picks? ADP? or do we have to enter our guess?
If it uses a vbd/dvbd approach to pick the players, does it use my projections to predict the other players picks, or the default projections? It would be nice to simulate "I use my projections, but everyone else uses Joe's" or something like that.
Is it possible to set up different sets of rules for the other "players" when mock drafting... i.e., Player 1,4,5 and 12 uses ADP, player 2,6,and 8 uses straight VBD, player 3, and 10 uses dynamic vbd, etc. and/or add some element of randomness to the picks (randomly pick a player within the top n available, perhaps weighted towards the top player) to simulate the unpredictability of a draft?
I forget from last year...does it make suggestions based on strict VBD, or does it provide Dynamic VBD or both?
If Dynamic, what does it use to project the players picked at each position between picks - dvbd picks? vbd picks? ADP? or do we have to enter our guess?
If it uses a vbd/dvbd approach to pick the players, does it use my projections to predict the other players picks, or the default projections? It would be nice to simulate "I use my projections, but everyone else uses Joe's" or something like that.
Is it possible to set up different sets of rules for the other "players" when mock drafting... i.e., Player 1,4,5 and 12 uses ADP, player 2,6,and 8 uses straight VBD, player 3, and 10 uses dynamic vbd, etc. and/or add some element of randomness to the picks (randomly pick a player within the top n available, perhaps weighted towards the top player) to simulate the unpredictability of a draft?
I'm with you on that. But the DD allows you to turn off the strength of schedule feature completely, or I think you can input your own defensive strength values to tone down their significance (e.g., making Baltimore only 2% better than Arizona instead of 9% or whatever). I'll have to play around with that aspect of it a bit more myself.
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Shooter McGavin
Down the middle
This is where the problem comes in for me. If I show up at my draft (either of the live ones I do) with a laptop, I'd get laughed out of the bar. It is a great tool to run a few mocks with, though.
M
MelvinTScupper
Guest
I like to play to ubergeek. They think even less of me when I bring the laptop.
Shooter McGavin
Down the middle
But what if they steal your glasses or give you a wedgie?
rtigerbomb
Footballguy
Holy crap! That is friggin' awesome!!! But I have the feeling that if I try to use all the new features during my auction draft, most likely in a drunken stupor, my head will explode.
Doug Drinen
Moderator
Let me echo MT's thoughts here.The beauty of the DD is that it has almost every feature anyone could want, but it's also completely flexible and customizable so you're not compelled to use the features you don't want to use.
Hi Shooter,But you'll likely be laughing out of the bar on the way to the bank in December. Not a bad trade...
J
Shooter McGavin
Down the middle
I had those bastards last year, but ended up in third due to a stupid league rule that gave bonus points to RB's for 20 and 30 carries. The week of the playoff semis was the week that Portis had 30+ carries, which was a bonus of 2 points. I lost by a point. :cX: :cX: :cX: Seriously, I think that preparing well is the most important factor in a good draft. My prep includes doing my own projections (using FBGs as a starting point), doing a few mocks with the DD, and creating my own cheat sheet factoring in my projections, SOS, injury risk, ADP, etc. That's helped my results as I've gotten more into the game (to the point of complete obsession -- hence the posting in May).Hi Shooter,But you'll likely be laughing out of the bar on the way to the bank in December. Not a bad trade...
Mungo Burrows
Footballguy
...but when they inevitably ask to see it, what do you say???
Iwannabeacowboybaby!
Footballguy
Just be up front, you use a software program to help keep track of the draft and it offers suggestions on who to take. If they ask where you got it from that's when you just
and say sorry. Don't have to be rude about it, but we're all on our own I say.
Hi Mungo,Tell them the honest truth: "I bring this laptop in because I'm using the Draft Dominator program. I use it because I'm smarter than you and I take it more seroiusly than you do. It gives me a huge edge over you and I take ever single legal edge that's available. Now shut up and get back to crossing names off with your highlighter so I can continue to kick your ***".
Dead serious.
J
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Iwannabeacowboybaby!
Footballguy
LOL, I know you are serious.How easy is it to use, I should probably run some mocks, so I could get used to using the laptop (my wife's) and the program itself.
Hi RB,Yeah, I guess you'd have to consider whether you could handle the guy if he got his feelings hurt.
The truth does hurt sometimes. I agree.
J
Hi Cowboy,Yes, it's very easy to use. But ABSOLUTELY run it on some mocks and get real familiar with it before your draft. That's just good sense with any new piece of software. You want to make sure you're good with it before you put it in a mission critical test.
J
rolyaTy
You're Heinous
It seems like a lot of worry is being spent on people off the street using the DD to gain advantage over those of us who are well prepared. I agree that this could be a problem, and will be, but i think there are enough "tweaks" experienced players can do to give them the edge.Also, to the FBG's, I wonder if it's possible for the "out of the box" DD configuration to have less than optimal settings. That way, if someone uses it without really knowing much about it, it wont help them as much as those who scour the forums and experiment on their own to learn the best configurations. Dont know if it would be very helpful, but it would penalize the less prepared, and benefit the more prepared.
Wingnut
Footballguy
Anybody wanna trade their laptop for a nice leather couch/chair combo? Last year I split from the g/f for a while and moved out, and had to decide whether to buy a laptop or furniture.I Shoulda sat on milk crates. 
We need a drooling smiley to describe what I think of the new DD.Bravo, Henderson and Co.
We need a drooling smiley to describe what I think of the new DD.Bravo, Henderson and Co.The Lone Cowboy
Footballguy
FBG Staff - I have a question/possible enhancement regarding a somewhat unique aspect of the league I play in and how I could incorporate it into the DD.
I am the Co-Commisioner of a league that is going into it's 7th year with largely the same 12 owners that have been in it from the beginning. Needless to say it is an extremely competitive league. I've used the DD for the past two years and I wouldn't think of doing a single draft without it.
We got our format originally from an FF mag that basically uses a salary for each player based on their previous years point production. Each team has a salary cap of 18.5 mil and the roster requirements are as follows: 2 QB, 4 RB, 4 WR, 2 TE, 2 K, 2 D. The mag has since been discontinued but using their salary formula, I recreate the salary sheets for our league each season manually.
The player's salary values work in such a way that it takes some real skill to assemble an awesome team and still be under the cap.
Obviously, a player's salary directly effects his value, in some cases more pronounced than others.
For instance, this year the 5 most expensive QB's are:
4.00 Culpepper
3.95 Manning
3.90 Hasselbeck
3.85 T. Green
3.80 Favre
In contrast, a couple of value picks that stand out this year are:
2.05 Vick
2.85 Pennington
1.65 Brunell
Since our salaries are based on last year's production, there are always a few nuggets that emerge at each position for one reason or another.
Here's my question:
Is it possible to use (or tweak) the DD in such a way as to make it aware of the players salaries and factor that into their overall ranking? As well as being able to consider my overall cap as I draft my team?
Vick is commonly viewed as one of the top 3 QB's to have this season. But with Daunte and Peyton costing nearly twice as much, taking Vick and using that 2 mil at another position definetly has its advantages. (If you believe Vick has the ability to produce at an equal level to the other QB's.)
It can also have the effect of lowering a players value.
Take a look at the highest paid WR's this year:
3.50 Moss
3.25 Holt
3.00 C. Johnson
2.75 Boldin
2.50 Harrison
2.35 Ward
2.30 Mason
2.00 S. Moss
I personally will be a little apprehensive about drafting Boldin this year with that kind of price tag. He will be lower on my draft board for this league than he would be in a non-salary league.
In contrast to Boldin at 2.75, I would probably rank Steve Smith (1.70), D. Jackson (1.95), and even Peerless Price (1.10) above Anquan because of the value that emerges when using the salary cap.
In the past two years using DD I've just manually kept the player salaries in mind. If DD suggested receiver A with receiver B not far behind, I would consider taking receiver B if there was a substantial difference in their salaries.
It would be awesome if I could enter the salaries of every player into the dominator (and Yes, I wouldn't even blink at taking the time to do this!) and have it's help in determining the best value when it's time for my pick.
I apologize for being a little on the wordy side! I am an extremely obsessed connoisseur of FF and a devoted FBG. There is no depth too deep when it comes to preparation for an FF season.
I would be more than happy to shoot you a copy of our salary guide (excel format) if you are interested in seeing the impact it has across the other positions.
My sincerest thanks for striving to provide the best FF arsenal available. Your efforts are enormously appreciated.
I am the Co-Commisioner of a league that is going into it's 7th year with largely the same 12 owners that have been in it from the beginning. Needless to say it is an extremely competitive league. I've used the DD for the past two years and I wouldn't think of doing a single draft without it.
We got our format originally from an FF mag that basically uses a salary for each player based on their previous years point production. Each team has a salary cap of 18.5 mil and the roster requirements are as follows: 2 QB, 4 RB, 4 WR, 2 TE, 2 K, 2 D. The mag has since been discontinued but using their salary formula, I recreate the salary sheets for our league each season manually.
The player's salary values work in such a way that it takes some real skill to assemble an awesome team and still be under the cap.
Obviously, a player's salary directly effects his value, in some cases more pronounced than others.
For instance, this year the 5 most expensive QB's are:
4.00 Culpepper
3.95 Manning
3.90 Hasselbeck
3.85 T. Green
3.80 Favre
In contrast, a couple of value picks that stand out this year are:
2.05 Vick
2.85 Pennington
1.65 Brunell
Since our salaries are based on last year's production, there are always a few nuggets that emerge at each position for one reason or another.
Here's my question:
Is it possible to use (or tweak) the DD in such a way as to make it aware of the players salaries and factor that into their overall ranking? As well as being able to consider my overall cap as I draft my team?
Vick is commonly viewed as one of the top 3 QB's to have this season. But with Daunte and Peyton costing nearly twice as much, taking Vick and using that 2 mil at another position definetly has its advantages. (If you believe Vick has the ability to produce at an equal level to the other QB's.)
It can also have the effect of lowering a players value.
Take a look at the highest paid WR's this year:
3.50 Moss
3.25 Holt
3.00 C. Johnson
2.75 Boldin
2.50 Harrison
2.35 Ward
2.30 Mason
2.00 S. Moss
I personally will be a little apprehensive about drafting Boldin this year with that kind of price tag. He will be lower on my draft board for this league than he would be in a non-salary league.
In contrast to Boldin at 2.75, I would probably rank Steve Smith (1.70), D. Jackson (1.95), and even Peerless Price (1.10) above Anquan because of the value that emerges when using the salary cap.
In the past two years using DD I've just manually kept the player salaries in mind. If DD suggested receiver A with receiver B not far behind, I would consider taking receiver B if there was a substantial difference in their salaries.
It would be awesome if I could enter the salaries of every player into the dominator (and Yes, I wouldn't even blink at taking the time to do this!) and have it's help in determining the best value when it's time for my pick.
I apologize for being a little on the wordy side! I am an extremely obsessed connoisseur of FF and a devoted FBG. There is no depth too deep when it comes to preparation for an FF season.
I would be more than happy to shoot you a copy of our salary guide (excel format) if you are interested in seeing the impact it has across the other positions.
My sincerest thanks for striving to provide the best FF arsenal available. Your efforts are enormously appreciated.
Mungo Burrows
Footballguy
Joe's answer has a rather nice ring to it.I'm not too worried about getting my ### kicked and the laptop smashed, but I should probably worry about the damage I might do to my laptop while I'm smashed.
Bruce Henderson
Footballguy
It is Dynamic VBD if you use the Best Value Pick suggestion. If you just use the player pool "Overall Tab" then you are using just straight VBD.For the positions between picks it uses a combination of the FBG rankings, and ADP. After 50 picks or so, it goes to straight ADP.
Currently it will use the projections that are in the Dominator, be it the FBG default projections or yours that you modified.
Currently you can't set up different rules. This is still a manual effort on your part to simulate.
Bruce Henderson
Footballguy
The Draft Dominator has three notes columns for each player. You could enter their salaries in the Note1 column for example. It is still going to rank players based on the projections / VBD though. If you don't care about the projections, you can "zero" them out, and enter your own ranking.Each team can have a different salary cap.
sos32
Footballguy
That is what I did last year! It worked very well Those notes colums were very handy, I inputed all the player's salaries (it was time consumming, but not nearly as long as I thought it would take) and used the other 2 colums for personal notes. When it came time 2 choose between players at my draft selection it helped to see those salaries on the right in making my selection. Just my 2 cents
lukiedookie
Footballguy
That is exactly what I say. Others like the "challenge" and say they don't "need" a silly "computer program" to beat me.The standings say otherwise. Punks.
I didnt use the DD at our draft last season ...Drink Gatorade ... not HATEorade
Bruce Henderson
Footballguy
I'll admit it... The first time I used my laptop at my local draft, I was a little nervous. What would the other guys say? But you know what... to my suprise, not one person said a thing about the laptop. What was even more suprising, is the next year, three other guys showed up with laptops. Moral of the story: Set the pace... let the others play catch up.
Spike
Footballguy
A question for David Dodds:
In the "Daily Email Update" of 5-26-04, you stated the following:
I've had a few guys email me wondering what to say to the other owners who might give them a hard time about carrying a lap top into the draft. I suggest you tell those owners the honest truth: "I bring this laptop in because I'm using the Draft Dominator program. I use it because I'm smarter than you and I take it more seriously than you do. It gives me a huge edge over you and I take ever single legal edge that's available. Now shut up and get back to crossing names off with your highlighter so I can continue to kick your ***".
The question is - what if you're having an on-line draft? Do you think it'd be a little too "busy" to be bouncing back-and-forth? As most drafts have very finite time limits between picks, you could really get yourself doing too much to make your pick.
In the "Daily Email Update" of 5-26-04, you stated the following:
I've had a few guys email me wondering what to say to the other owners who might give them a hard time about carrying a lap top into the draft. I suggest you tell those owners the honest truth: "I bring this laptop in because I'm using the Draft Dominator program. I use it because I'm smarter than you and I take it more seriously than you do. It gives me a huge edge over you and I take ever single legal edge that's available. Now shut up and get back to crossing names off with your highlighter so I can continue to kick your ***".
The question is - what if you're having an on-line draft? Do you think it'd be a little too "busy" to be bouncing back-and-forth? As most drafts have very finite time limits between picks, you could really get yourself doing too much to make your pick.
BroncoFreak_2K3
sucker for Orange
I agree, seems like it would be very harried at times. I'm the commish and my league drafts on-line with MFL. I usually try to keep a running list of everyone's picks on paper in case of a mistake by someone or computer glitch (it's happened more than once). I'd love to use this application for this year's draft but I don't think I could keep up with the running draft on-line and inputing picks into the DD within a two minute time limit. Would it be possible with some practice? I guess with practice I could get better use to using it come the time for our actual draft, what's the thinking on this???.....
Sennacherib
Footballguy
I've done this two ways. Trying to run it all on one computer was very difficult, especially in the league I commish. However, the last two years I've taken the laptop to my office and used the desktop there to monitor/run the online draft, with DD running on the laptop for my own use. As long as you're lucky enough to have two computers available, it works pretty smoothly. Having all the picks in DD as well as the chat room/draft room/whatever also helps with the inevitable "Wait, who went with the last 5 picks? My dialup connection booted me out!" questions that people always ask.(edited for typo)
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The Lone Cowboy
Footballguy
If you are taking the time to write down the selections on paper, you're already spending more time than you need to.It could not be easier to use the DD during your draft to keep track of everything.It practically runs itself. All you have to do when someone makes a selection is click the name of the player (which is normally at the top of the list) and click a single button which adds the player to that team's roster.The DD automatically advances itself to the next team and is waiting for you to click on the next player.It really could not be easier to keep track of your draft.Assuming you are handy with the PC in general, using the DD will be a breeze.Of course there is some setup to do before hand (entering in the team names, draft order, and keepers if any) but all that info is saved in the DD so you show up ready to g
f course there are tons of other things working behind the scenes to provide you with the best suggestion for when your pick comes up, but it really doesn't REQUIRE you to go ubergeek on it.
f course there are tons of other things working behind the scenes to provide you with the best suggestion for when your pick comes up, but it really doesn't REQUIRE you to go ubergeek on it.
Hi Spike,I wrote that in the Daily Email Update that David sent last night. The answer is as Cowboy says below - it's actually faster and easier to keep up with the draft with the Dominator than it is with pencil and paper.
You have to get familiar with it for sure, but it doesn't take long.
J
BroncoFreak_2K3
sucker for Orange
Thanks for the info. I'm pretty good with computer programs, and I like plunking around with programs, so that shouldn't be a problem. Looks like I'll have to borrow the wife's laptop because this sounds to good not to take advantage of (both for myself and against the competition).If you are taking the time to write down the selections on paper, you're already spending more time than you need to.It could not be easier to use the DD during your draft to keep track of everything.It practically runs itself. All you have to do when someone makes a selection is click the name of the player (which is normally at the top of the list) and click a single button which adds the player to that team's roster.The DD automatically advances itself to the next team and is waiting for you to click on the next player.It really could not be easier to keep track of your draft.Assuming you are handy with the PC in general, using the DD will be a breeze.Of course there is some setup to do before hand (entering in the team names, draft order, and keepers if any) but all that info is saved in the DD so you show up ready to g
Any update on the official release date?Also, one other question and I apologize if this has been covered. in regards to the projections the program uses, if I use a somewhat unique scoring system (i.e., instead of breaking out points for rushing and passing yardage, we combine the two and score for total yards), will the program accept this type of scoring, because my VBD #'s would be different than those included with the program.Thanks again.
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JAA
Footballguy
While Ill say you dont need it for a draft, it makes maitaining league information SOO much easier especially with keeper/partial keeper auction leagues where you need to maintain auction prices. Having the Export->Excel is KEY!!It takes a little to get used to, but once you do you wont know how you ever lived w/o it.
JAA
