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Also a good reason to introduce PPC (Points Per Completion) for QBs so that we can shift fantasy drafts to 17 QBs taken in the first 24 picks, and we wont have to have this thread anymore.It's also a great reason for people to finally abandon that ridiculous PPR scoring system since it's not really needed to balance out the value of RBs anymore
This is the scoring system for the redraft league I play in. We've been under this system, or similar for 15+ years. Almost all the same owners as well. I expect it to go something like this next year.
I was thinking along the lines of 1 pt every 25 yards passing and 4.5 pts for passing TD, and 0.5ppr. My bad, I def see your point now.
I think we are starting to split hairs here, as everyone seems in agreement that Brees/Brady/Rodgers deserve mid-late round consideration.But, the thread isn't "Draft a QB in the first 3 rounds". This coming season, the QB ADP is going to shoot up. I think it is very wise to adapt to that, but not overreact to it. If a QB is projected to produce the most VBD/VORP - take him. If he is not--don't. And again - the reason so many RBs come along in the later rounds, is because the RBs infront of them failed for whatever reason. The later the RB is drafted, the more likely he is to fail (the bigger the red flags are). The later a RB is drafted, the more expensive his handcuff is - as there is a more likely chance of him producing.'David Yudkin said:
I'm not sure I totally agree with the RB assessment, but then again I may be missing what you are trying to say. If your contention is that PLAYER Y needed PLAYER X on his own team to fail or get hurt to have fantasy value, then I would say that wasn't really the case for a number of backs. Guys in that bin include Ryan Mathews, Reggie Bush, Beanie Wells, Marshawn Lynch, Fred Jackson, etc. My point in most of this has been that if someone took Rodgers / Brees / Brady "early" (doesn't have to be confined to only the first round), then that was a very solid start. As I just showed, pairing Rodgers with just about anyone worked out well. In your strategy (I'll call it the non-QB early strategy), you would have to hit on your first round pick AND the guy later on to come close to a Rodgers and PLAYER X pairing. So you would have needed to draft Megatron AND hit on the right QB. The only truly value picks past the 3rd round at QB were Stafford, Manning, and Newton. I don't think many people saw Cam coming, so that one is save to say was a bit of a fluke. Other QBs may have been borderline fantasy startable, but nowhere near the Big 5 scoring wise this year.My other point about there being fewer stud RBs definitely plays a role in all this. Back 7 or 8 years ago, you could rely on there being a 300 touch back at the end of the first AND usually in the second round. Now those guys are a rarer breed, so you might not get one let alone two of them.The key to all of this is hitting on more of your picks than missing and avoiding injuries. Even if you do hit a home run with your first pick, you could still go nowhere if you whiff on the rest of your picks. Another thing I forgot to mention is that this year I saw quite a few leagues where someone invested early in a QB and also ended up with Cam Newton. While on the surface you would thinkk that was a good thing, it really wasn't. The owner in all the leagues I saw this in tried trading one or the other QB, but no one was willing to trade what the QB was worth. So Newton rarely played in any of those leagues because Rodgers or Brees was always starting.
I had something similar happen this year. I went Vick in the late 1st and also ended up with Stafford. I never was able to get anything back for Vick. I even tried moving Stafford just before his stretch run but (luckily) no one bit and his huge playoff run saved me in several of those games.
I saw this too. Brees/Cam and Brady/Cam in both my leagues. The lucky Cam owner in each case wouldn’t sell Cam low to pick up a decent WR2. Cam was worth so much more than that, so they hung on to him (maybe to play keepaway with the rest of the league), but ultimately it cost them a roster spot and a potential incremental improvement in their overall roster. So, it really wasn’t lucky to have Cam after all. Unless you had the guts to trade away Brees and roll with Cam. Because the offers were all lowball in the opinion of the Cam owners.
That is my point, although there are exceptions. Guys like Lynch and Jackson got major bumps due to their team situation, Lycnh also losing weight. But, guys like Murray, Spiller, Sproles, K. Smith even Reggie Bush (who wasn't projected to be a workhorse), benefitted because other risky backs didn't pan out.So, rather than there being a major influx of available RBs during the season, there is simply a shuffle. Kevin Smith was a nice find, but only because Best went down. Spiller because Jackson went down. Willis because Moreno was a bust, then wen't down. The shuffle is a raffle - every owner in the league has a shot at these guys. But, the ones most hurt by it, are the ones that waited to draft a RB. They drafted guys like Best, Felix, Ingram, Thomas et cetera. So, suggesting that this shuffle is a positive to those who waited to draft a RB is false, in my opinion. In most cases, those owners are simply trying find band-aids - lesser options than those they drafted in the first place. The handcuff effect/benefit is further evident here: Nobody drafted Toby Gerhart earlier than his handcuff value dictated, because he simply wasn't going to beat AP out. People did draft McGahee earlier, because he had a shot to beat out Moreno. People did draft Pierre Thomas earlier, because Ingram was a question mark and in a RBBC. So, waiting on a RB makes it harder to get the handcuff/other parts of the RBBC, because they have more value. Again - those that lost Moreno, likely went back into the "shufffle", to find band-aids. Those that lost AP, had Gerhart.
We can debate the merits of some of the situations of these guys. Before the season, Bush was getting pimped as an everydown, between the tackles RB. Mathews was thought to be getting a much heavy workload this year. Best was part of a much better offense, and while he got hurt, was off to a great start. If, as you suggested, people bought the associated pieces that came along later, then they also got decent numbers. I owned Best . . . so downstream that caused me to end up with Kevin Smith. As a Best owner, I picked him up way sooner than someone else would have.No matter how you slice it, the chances of finding a truly passable starting fantasy QB off the wire had you have an injury were pretty remote. I ended up succeeding winning with flotsam and jetsom off of the waiver wire this year, but lordy mama that was not something I ever want to have to do again. Bottom line, you can always find a plug and play RB that can give with small doses of decent production. With pretty much the Top 25 QBs in the league already rostered it is very hard to have to find a QB mid season to compete with the big boys. The only waiver wire guy that produced at a QB1 clip over the second half of the year was Carson Palmer . . . and he averaged 14-16 points a game worse than Brees/Rodgers/Stafford did in that stretch.I still say it is far easier to find pasable RB production somewhere than it is to find elite QB production either later in the draft or off of the waiver wire.
I don't think we need to debate the pre-season value of the RB - the ADP does that for us. Some pay off - Matthews, Wells, Bush - but a lot don't - Felix, Best, Ingram, Moreno et cetera. Not the point I was trying to illustrate.The odds of you ending up with a better RB core than you drafted, when you don't draft RBs early, are slim. I suppose that is where we disagree. The "shuffle" is a collection of newly valuable RB. A majority of those guys are newly valuable becuase OTHER risky, later round RB failed for whatever reason. It is a gamble, shuffle, drawing - whatever you want to call it. The reason the odds of you ending up better are less than 50/50, is because those that went RB early, and don't NEED weekly RB1/2 production, also have access to this pool.I think this is where we disagree, and might have to leave off: I can get a starting QB in round 4. He may not end up being the Matthew Stafford of this season, but he is likely to be Tony Romo/Eli Manning. I can win with Eli Manning. Can you win with Mark Ingram, Jahvid Best and Felix Jones? Maybe. But, Manning/Romo are a lot safer. If you like your chances in the yearly RB shuffle, then QB in round 1 might be the way to go for you. I am going to go with the guy that I feel gives me the biggest advantage, position ignored. Because of the shortage, that is often RB.
What's interesting here and probably something that has not come through is that I historically have ALWAYS drafted in your vein. maybe even more pronounced than you (waiting even longer to take a QB). I have always loaded up early on RBs, then WRs, and usually would be the last guy to take a QB but would then take 3 of them in rounds 9-12. That strategy has always worked for me, as one of them would usually emerge as a legit fantasy starter. However, in recent years, that has gotten me a fantasy starter but still well behind the curve in terms of the elite QB scorers.I play in leagues with other scoring quirks. Bonuses for long plays, 300 yards passing, etc. That further distorts the scoring differential among the QB gods and the mere mortals.The other thing I have learned about myself is that I generally can better sift through what you call "the shuffle" and have done very well identifying the guys that will do better and avoided the guys that have done worse. Given that, it may be time for me personally to try taking a stud QB early, as in most years I end up with a stable of RBs that are all productive. If I have a fault most years, it's ending up with a bonafide regular WR3 or flex player, so most years I have to mix and match at those spots once bye weeks and injuries set in. That's where I would typically find a flavor of the week to throw in or pluck someone short term off of the wire.Again, the point of this exercise was to evaluate an alternative option to what traditionally has been a RB early and often draft strategy (which has been geting less prominent in the first place). I think we have done that, and my going away position is that for leagues that put a premium on QB scoring taking one in the first or second rounds is not only a viable strategy but probably a preferrable one depending upon where you are drafting from.
