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Dynasty Rankings (6 Viewers)

Actually people are more likely to be giving up EV by holding players who were drafted in the 1st 3-4 rounds much longer than they will later picks, if they drafted those later picks at all.

You are not likely to hold a dud who was a later NFL pick as you are to hold a dud who was a 1st round NFL pick.
So? That's a problem with their add/drop process, not their draft process. It should be treated as such. If people are bad at deciding when to cut bait, the solution is not to draft less talented players to make cutting bait easier.
See in reference to you saying that there is greater expected value from a higher round draft pick smart guy which is the context of my post.

If you draft a 1st or 2nd round NFL draft pick as a rookie you are much more likely (and wise) to hold on to the guy for 3 years compared to a player who is drafted lower or a UDFA.

So what does that do to your EV when you are holding players like LaFell 3 seasons compared to a flyer you might give up on after a few games?

I think you are smart enough to figure this out with your 3 articles. I wouldn't know though.

BTW I am in a pretty good mood. Should have known better than to click on this thread and all the flippant remarks. Don't know if I will read any more of this tonight. Might make me angry again.

 
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Bia, I don't really understand why you're getting all chippy in here. You're getting perfectly polite disagreement and debate from these guys. It's been an enjoyable conversation to follow, minus some cringes here and there when you take offense. I don't think anybody is intending any, though.

 
I respectfully disagree. Some guys aren't ready. It takes years for some guys to really contribute. The passing game in the NFL is a lot different than the passing game at the college level.
I'm not saying Stephen Hill or Justin Hunter or Brian Quick have no chance of developing. I'm saying you have to factor that development time and how value will erode over that time into how you rank players. So many WRs are ready to contribute that we have no patience for the others, and the ones that don't do anything right away are easy to acquire later.

That's not to say you should favor just anyone slated to start. That's the Robiskie rule, right? Or the LaFell rule. Ultimately a player only matters if he can be a top 20 or top 25 WR, and you should avoid any player without that upside. It's part of the reason Woods does nothing for me. How similar can he be to LaFell without actually being LaFell. "At least he has a pulse" as EBF said has no bearing on me.

I don't mean to color myself as some huge Stacy supporter. I only took him once and it was a special circumstance (handcuff, needed RB, didn't need TE, got Michael 2 picks earlier). I just disagree that he was a bad pick or that he's lost all value. He's lost value but so has Woods, and Woods CTD has been a best case scenario.

 
Actually people are more likely to be giving up EV by holding players who were drafted in the 1st 3-4 rounds much longer than they will later picks, if they drafted those later picks at all.

You are not likely to hold a dud who was a later NFL pick as you are to hold a dud who was a 1st round NFL pick.
So? That's a problem with their add/drop process, not their draft process. It should be treated as such. If people are bad at deciding when to cut bait, the solution is not to draft less talented players to make cutting bait easier.
See in reference to you saying that there is greater expected value from a higher round draft pick smart guy which is the context of my post.

If you draft a 1st or 2nd round NFL draft pick as a rookie you are much more likely (and wise) to hold on to the guy for 3 years compared to a player who is drafted lower or a UDFA.

So what does that do to your EV when you are holding players like LaFell 3 seasons compared to a flyer you might give up on after a few games?

I think you are smart enough to figure this out with your 3 articles. I wouldn't know though.

BTW I am in a pretty good mood. Should have known better than to click on this thread and all the flippant remarks. Don't know if I will read any more of this tonight. Might make me angry again.
First and most importantly, I apologize for seeming flip. I promise you I don't mean to be the slightest bit flippant. Flippant suggests disrespect, and I truly have nothing but respect for you (and thrifty, and squistion, and all of the other regulars around here). I disagree with you on this, but I don't think there's a poster in this thread I have yet to disagree with about something. I still think you guys are the best and the brightest in the dynasty format, and that nothing on the internet compares to this thread as a compendium of dynasty wisdom. If I'm coming off as dismissive, then I apologize, because the last thing I would want to do is dismiss your concerns. I'm trying my best to address your concerns as candidly and as thoroughly as possible.

Second, It is important to remember one truth; If you hold a player, that means you expect that player's EV to be greater than anything available on the street. That's why you're holding him. If you thought a free agent had a higher EV, you would drop the player in question to roster that free agent.

Once we realize that, then obviously any highly-drafted rookie who we hold on to for several years should offer us a better EV than a lowly-drafted rookie who we cut bait on early and use the roster spot to churn the wire. If that's not the case, then there is a flaw in our add/drop process that's causing us to hold a lower-EV option (our rookie pick) instead of cutting him for a higher-EV option (putting the roster spot to work churning the wire). This is a serious problem, but it's not a problem with how we're conducting our rookie drafts, it's a problem with how we're deciding our add/drops after the rookie draft is over. As such, the solution to this problem isn't changing the way we approach the rookie draft, it's changing the way we approach free agency.

 
I don't mean to color myself as some huge Stacy supporter. I only took him once and it was a special circumstance (handcuff, needed RB, didn't need TE, got Michael 2 picks earlier). I just disagree that he was a bad pick or that he's lost all value. He's lost value but so has Woods, and Woods CTD has been a best case scenario.
Eh. Woods has 86 yards in two games. He's on pace for 688 yards, which would have been one of the best rookie seasons from last year's WR class. The only way you can view him as a disappointment right now is if you were expecting him to be Randy Moss. Nobody was expecting him to be Randy Moss.

Has his value gone up? It might have solidified a little bit. It certainly hasn't gone down. Only a fool of an owner would have downgraded him based on the last 5 months. The mere fact that his perceived value hasn't gone down is actually a win when you consider that some of his ADP peers like Franklin, Stacy, and Rogers have hit the toilet. Relative to the other picks you could've made in his ADP range, Woods has been a success. He hasn't vaulted up the charts like Michael, but that's a totally unreasonable expectation in the first two weeks of a rookie's season.

I think part of the issue here is the time frame you're using to evaluate the rookie. If you're an itchy trigger finger stock market type who drafts based on whoever has the best chance to boom yesterday, I guess you might not be happy with how things are going for someone like Hunter or Woods. If you're using more of a long view, it's likely that you haven't downgraded either player at all. There are heaps of elite WRs who would've been seen as failures or mediocrities if you had reached a verdict on their careers after the first two games they ever played. That isn't how every owner approaches things though.

The idea that you're better off playing the instant returns lottery with inferior fast yield prospects and then buying low on the slow yield long term guys later in their development doesn't consistently work in reality for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is because many owners recognize that players sometimes take years to develop and thus aren't going to freak out and sell low on their developmental guys.

 
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Eh. Woods has 86 yards in two games. He's on pace for 688 yards, which would have been one of the best rookie seasons from last year's WR class. The only way you can view him as a disappointment right now is if you were expecting him to be Randy Moss. Nobody was expecting him to be Randy Moss.
I stated in the same post his career to date has been a best case scenario. Yes he won the starting job. Yes Manuel has looked good. Yes he actually got catches. Yes the retired backup called him a playmaker. Still, try to sell him for what you paid for him, and you will not get much interest. That is why I would say his value went down. He was an unexciting prospect and there has been little new reason for excitement. "Nobody was expecting him to be Randy Moss" is exactly the point. We expected him to be a boring #2 WR on a bad team, and that's your return. Congratulations on the top 60-80 WR you spent a 2nd round pick on.

I think part of the issue here is the time frame you're using to evaluate the rookie. If you're an itchy trigger finger stock market type who drafts based on whoever has the best chance to boom yesterday, I guess you might not be happy with how things are going for someone like Hunter or Woods.
I am not evaluating a rookie based on 3 months of his career, I'm projecting the possible arcs for his career and incorporating that into when I should try to buy him. Woods' possible career arcs are mediocre high volume target, medium term boring NFL WR2, and Robiskie. Stacy's possible career arcs are Morris, short term NFL RB2, and one year roster clog. Hunter's are late blooming stud (Sid Rice), deep threat we pretend is a good prospect (Ashley Lelie), or wasted athleticism. In none of those cases should I spend a mid 2nd on Woods. In none of those cases should I spend a early 2nd on Hunter. In one of those cases I should spend an early 2nd on Stacy. It didn't happen but so what. Appreciate the bet that was made, and stop pretending all bets are foolish.

The idea that you're better off playing the instant returns lottery with inferior fast yield prospects and then buying low on the slow yield long term guys later in their development doesn't consistently work in reality for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is because many owners recognize that players sometimes take years to develop and thus aren't going to freak out and sell low on their developmental guys.
You have to realize if the player you're drafting is scratch and win or long term growth or a checking account with interest. You have to appreciate when other owners in your league understand that, and adapt your trading style to what kind of an investor they are.

If you feel Justin Hunter won't see the field early and will struggle, why not try and anticipate the low point instead of paying sticker price. If it only works some of the time it's still probably a better strategy than neglecting that information all the time.

 
Eh. Woods has 86 yards in two games. He's on pace for 688 yards, which would have been one of the best rookie seasons from last year's WR class. The only way you can view him as a disappointment right now is if you were expecting him to be Randy Moss. Nobody was expecting him to be Randy Moss.
I stated in the same post his career to date has been a best case scenario. Yes he won the starting job. Yes Manuel has looked good. Yes he actually got catches. Yes the retired backup called him a playmaker. Still, try to sell him for what you paid for him, and you will not get much interest. That is why I would say his value went down. He was an unexciting prospect and there has been little new reason for excitement. "Nobody was expecting him to be Randy Moss" is exactly the point. We expected him to be a boring #2 WR on a bad team, and that's your return. Congratulations on the top 60-80 WR you spent a 2nd round pick on.

I think part of the issue here is the time frame you're using to evaluate the rookie. If you're an itchy trigger finger stock market type who drafts based on whoever has the best chance to boom yesterday, I guess you might not be happy with how things are going for someone like Hunter or Woods.
I am not evaluating a rookie based on 3 months of his career, I'm projecting the possible arcs for his career and incorporating that into when I should try to buy him. Woods' possible career arcs are mediocre high volume target, medium term boring NFL WR2, and Robiskie. Stacy's possible career arcs are Morris, short term NFL RB2, and one year roster clog. Hunter's are late blooming stud (Sid Rice), deep threat we pretend is a good prospect (Ashley Lelie), or wasted athleticism. In none of those cases should I spend a mid 2nd on Woods. In none of those cases should I spend a early 2nd on Hunter. In one of those cases I should spend an early 2nd on Stacy. It didn't happen but so what. Appreciate the bet that was made, and stop pretending all bets are foolish.

The idea that you're better off playing the instant returns lottery with inferior fast yield prospects and then buying low on the slow yield long term guys later in their development doesn't consistently work in reality for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is because many owners recognize that players sometimes take years to develop and thus aren't going to freak out and sell low on their developmental guys.
You have to realize if the player you're drafting is scratch and win or long term growth or a checking account with interest. You have to appreciate when other owners in your league understand that, and adapt your trading style to what kind of an investor they are.

If you feel Justin Hunter won't see the field early and will struggle, why not try and anticipate the low point instead of paying sticker price. If it only works some of the time it's still probably a better strategy than neglecting that information all the time.
Think you're way off here. I don't see how a guy like Woods has the upside to be mediocre, but a guy like Stacy might be a Pro Bowler. IMO outside of the truly elite top prospects, for the most part prospects are all darts, but they definitely have differing chances of hitting the bullseye, and those chances plummet the deeper one gets into the NFL draft.

 
Woods' possible career arcs are mediocre high volume target, medium term boring NFL WR2, and Robiskie. Stacy's possible career arcs are Morris, short term NFL RB2, and one year roster clog. Hunter's are late blooming stud (Sid Rice), deep threat we pretend is a good prospect (Ashley Lelie), or wasted athleticism.
Think you're way off here. I don't see how a guy like Woods has the upside to be mediocre, but a guy like Stacy might be a Pro Bowler. IMO outside of the truly elite top prospects, for the most part prospects are all darts, but they definitely have differing chances of hitting the bullseye, and those chances plummet the deeper one gets into the NFL draft.
The baseline for relevance and xxtreme value fluctuation is much lower at RB. Many RBs can step into a situation and gain value. (These are obvious statements, I feel.) People will react to "Morris" in different ways and by claiming my opinions are like so silly and stuff, it's clear which side you're on.

STL is an emerging offense with a blackhole at RB, and if presented a starting role little more than competence would be enough to cause Stacy to gain in value significantly. IMO that door is still open as long as DR and Pead look brutal. If you want to argue he could have just as easily (or more likely) been Ballard, that's fine, it's all part of the spectrum of possibilities. It's a possibility for B{a,e}ll too and they were taken ahead of Gio and Austin and Nuk and Patterson by some people. Just looking at draft stock especially crosspositionally is very limiting. Opportunity can be blind to your draft stock. Those who drafted Stacy did not read the opportunity wrong.

If you are looking at the same players and evaluate them differently, I can appreciate your opinion on their skill level. I am just telling you how I read them, how I think that affected their value dropping, and how it affected my strategy. I just don't agree that just because Woods was a high 2nd makes him more likely to be a bullseye. The NFL does not always care about finding top 36 WR with every pick they make at the position. They are not drafting for my fantasy team.

If Stevie goes down and Woods becomes great, I'll gladly eat crow. But not actual crow. I mean figuratively. This is not a crow eating bet, just an expression.

 
Any thoughts on buying high on Gio? What RBs would it take to get him after a 2 TD week where he looked great but only had 9 touches?
Offered Charles, denied.
LOL.

Stop trolling, nobody is that dumb.
Which was the dumb part, offering Charles, or not accepting Charles? Rice, Foster, Lynch, Forte, Johnson was the tier I was interested in. The knock on Gio predraft was maybe he's only a part-timer, and while he has looked great, workload still seems to be a potential limitation. Might be the only hope to cling to if you want to trade younger at this point.

 
Woods' possible career arcs are mediocre high volume target, medium term boring NFL WR2, and Robiskie. Stacy's possible career arcs are Morris, short term NFL RB2, and one year

roster clog. Hunter's are late blooming stud (Sid Rice), deep threat we pretend is a good prospect (Ashley Lelie), or wasted athleticism.
Think you're way off here. I don't see how a guy like Woods has the upside to be mediocre, but a guy like Stacy might be a Pro Bowler. IMO outside of the truly elite top prospects, for the most part prospects are all darts, but they definitely have differing chances of hitting the bullseye, and those chances plummet the deeper one gets into the NFL draft.
The baseline for relevance and xxtreme value fluctuation is much lower at RB. Many RBs can step into a situation and gain value. (These are obvious statements, I feel.) People will react to "Morris" in different ways and by claiming my opinions are like so silly and stuff, it's clear which side you're on.

STL is an emerging offense with a blackhole at

RB, and if presented a starting role little more than competence would be enough to cause Stacy to gain in value significantly. IMO that door is still open as long as DR and Pead look brutal. If you want to argue he could have just as easily (or more likely) been Ballard, that's

fine, it's all part of the spectrum of possibilities. It's a possibility for B{a,e}ll too and they were taken ahead of Gio and Austin and Nuk and Patterson by some people. Just looking at draft stock especially crosspositionally is very limiting. Opportunity can be blind to your draft stock. Those who drafted Stacy did not read the opportunity wrong.

If you are looking at the same players and evaluate them differently, I can appreciate your opinion on their skill level. I am just telling you how I read them, how I think that affected their

value dropping, and how it affected my strategy. I just don't agree that just because Woods was a high 2nd makes him more likely to be a bullseye. The NFL does not always care about finding top 36 WR with every pick they make at the position. They are not drafting for my fantasy team.

If Stevie goes down and Woods becomes great, I'll gladly eat crow. But not actual crow. I mean figuratively. This is not a crow eating bet, just an

expression.
The bolded is the significant disagreement that I have with you. There's is a pretty strong and direct correlation between draft position and future fantasy production that I'm not willing to ignore. A 2nd round WR is many times more likely to be fantasy relevant than a 5th round RB. I'd link the post laying out the numbers if I were at my desk as opposed to on my phone -- I think it was ZWK and as always with him it's well worth a look.

 
Coeur de Lion said:
The bolded is the significant disagreement that I have with you. There's is a pretty strong and direct correlation between draft position and future fantasy production that I'm not willing to ignore. A 2nd round WR is many times more likely to be fantasy relevant than a 5th round RB. I'd link the post laying out the numbers if I were at my desk as opposed to on my phone -- I think it was ZWK and as always with him it's well worth a look.
I agree with the mathematical calculation of probability. I disagree with the blind application of bare probability to noisy data sets.

 
Coeur de Lion said:
The bolded is the significant disagreement that I have with you. There's is a pretty strong and direct correlation between draft position and future fantasy production that I'm not willing to ignore. A 2nd round WR is many

times more likely to be fantasy relevant than a 5th round RB. I'd link the post laying out the numbers if I were at my desk as opposed to on my phone -- I think it was ZWK and as always with him it's well worth a look.
I agree with the mathematical calculation of probability. I disagree with the blind application of bare probability to noisy data sets.
Yeah, I have neither the time nor the ability to extensively and effectively scout and sort the dozens of fantasy prospects that enter the NFL every year, so the bare probability works well for me, until there's a reason to deviate (guy rockets up the depth chart in camp, looks great in preseason, positive buzz on this and other boards, whatever it may be). YMMV, but "the other dudes in that crappy rushing offense suck" doesn't qualify as a reason to get excited about a guy who is 95% likely to suck himself, IMO.

 
thriftyrocker said:
STL is an emerging offense with a blackhole at RB, and if presented a starting role little more than competence would be enough to cause Stacy to gain in value significantly. IMO that door is still open as long as DR and Pead look brutal. If you want to argue he could have just as easily (or more likely) been Ballard, that's fine, it's all part of the spectrum of possibilities. It's a possibility for B{a,e}ll too and they were taken ahead of Gio and Austin and Nuk and Patterson by some people. Just looking at draft stock especially crosspositionally is very limiting. Opportunity can be blind to your draft stock. Those who drafted Stacy did not read the opportunity wrong.
It goes back to what I said about good talent creating opportunities and bad talent wasting them. Stacy had a chance to get immediate PT for the Rams. So what? He was not talented enough to do anything with that chance. Opportunity only matters if the player has enough talent to capitalize. Even then, stopgap guys and fringe starters like Ballard don't last in the NFL and thus aren't much more than minor blips on the dynasty radar. If you look at the RBs who have multiple seasons of high carries, almost all of them are legitimate talents. So this idea that a good situation is going to turn a 5th round turd into a golden nugget doesn't have much grounding in reality.

I think it's a weak excuse that some owners use to justify making bad picks. They want to gamble on the instant payoff, so they tell themselves a nice story about how this average player with an immediate chance to shine is a better gamble than superior talents with cloudier immediate prospects. That kind of thinking is almost always the prelude to a bad pick. I was guilty of it myself thinking that Seattle would turn Chris Harper into a receptions machine. Many made similar bad picks with players like Johnathan Franklin and Zac Stacy. Even if guys like Woods and Wheaton aren't great prospects (and I don't think they are), they still have a better outlook than those dime-a-dozen RBs who will probably never start a game in the NFL. Even a low upside FF WR3-WR4 is worth more than a guy who will be out of the league in a couple years.

 
Not trying to be argumentative or to restate things you already understand, but if that 1-in-20 was realistic, how much should that shake up your draft board? We're not swinging at pitches. Getting singles doesn't help the team, necessarily. If it was 1-in-20 that Stacy would be more productive than Woods/Hunter but if that 1-in-20 happened he would be way more productive than Woods/Hunter, then you have to take that 1-in-20 seriously.

I don't want to turn this into 3 pages on "swing for the fences" because I think it's more complicated than that. Justin Hunter is a swing for the fences pick. His upside is not what is questioned.

 
Even a low upside FF WR3-WR4 is worth more than a guy who will be out of the league in a couple years.
I disagree. My best teams have 4 or 5 stud WRs and about 25 RBs. It is personal preference, to some degree, but I feel that team makeup gives me the best best output and chance to be competitive all year. Shuffling Owens for Forsett for Todman, why not. Boring reliable WR4/5 types are fine for depth until you realize equivalent players are sitting on waivers even in 12x30 leagues.

 
Not trying to be argumentative or to restate things you already understand, but if that 1-in-20 was realistic, how much should that shake up your draft board? We're not swinging at pitches. Getting singles doesn't help the team, necessarily. If it was 1-in-20 that Stacy would be more productive than Woods/Hunter but if that 1-in-20 happened he would be way more productive than Woods/Hunter, then you have to take that 1-in-20 seriously.

I don't want to turn this into 3 pages on "swing for the fences" because I

think it's more complicated than that. Justin Hunter is a swing for the fences pick. His upside is not what is questioned.
Yeah, if he had a 5% chance at being Alfred Morris or Arian Foster I'd take him. But that's not the case. The 5% chance is for any fantasy relevance -- I think the threshold in question was a cumulative 50 points over baseline for a career. So 5% chance at Vick Ballardish production (if Ballard had stayed healthy and kept the job for a few years). The chances of true difference making production are much smaller, I'd guess way below 1%.

In this specific case, I disagree 100% about Stacy's upside. Under no reasonable circumstances did he have even the most remote chance at the type of production you're alluding to (Morris). Shanahan is a HOF level offensive mind with a long history of turning virtually any RB into fantasy gold for as long as he held the starting job. Same with the Houston gig that Foster flourished in -- Kubiak comes from the Shanahan system and made scrubs like Steve Slaton and Dom Davis into FF studs. The recent Rams were bad enough to make a borderline HOF talent like Steven Jackson into a FF mediocrity. Stacy's upside was Vick Ballard -- he wasn't going to catch passes with Pead and Richardson around, the Rams aren't running for 1600+, and they're not going to score a bunch of TDs on the ground.

 
Not trying to be argumentative or to restate things you already understand, but if that 1-in-20 was realistic, how much should that shake up your draft board? We're not swinging at pitches. Getting singles doesn't help the team, necessarily. If it was 1-in-20 that Stacy would be more productive than Woods/Hunter but if that 1-in-20 happened he would be way more productive than Woods/Hunter, then you have to take that 1-in-20 seriously.
There is a little bit of a grey area there. The fact that a RB/WR might have more upside in most formats than an equivalent QB/TE is one of the reasons why I would often be willing to reach a little bit for an inferior RB/WR over a QB/TE. You could extend that to say that a high upside WR deserves to be taken a little higher than an equivalent WR who's perceived as being more of a low ceiling type.

The big problem here is that it assumes that you know who is/isn't a high upside player. TY Hilton, a 5'9" 183 pound slot WR, was not thought to be a high upside player. Well, guess what? He might end up having the best career of any WR drafted last year. That is an example where situation did in fact elevate a player to unexpected heights, but more than anything it's an example of how we might not be as good at assessing upside as we think we are. There was absolutely nobody in the world who expected Rob Gronkowski to put up unprecedented ppg numbers. He was thought to be a solid prospect, but if you had lined him up against Montario Hardesty as a rookie and asked FF owners which player had more upside, they would've said Hardesty. Likewise, most would've said that Greg Little had more upside than Randall Cobb due to his height/weight/speed.

I actually agree with you to some extent. I do not think Robert Woods has a very high ceiling. I can't ever see him being much more than a weak WR2 or average WR3 in FF. Even so, a 30% chance at that kind of player is probably worth more than a 5% chance at Alfred Morris. And with those guys who become solid #2 NFL receivers, there's always some latent upside that a favorable situation will push their stats more towards the WR1 range even if their talent isn't that good (i.e. Decker, Stevie, Nelson). I know I just got done saying opportunity is overrated, but it's not quite that simple. A great player is going to produce regardless of his team (Andre, Calvin, Peterson). A terrible player is going to fail regardless of his team (Donald Brown, Brandon Jackson, Ronnie Hillman). Where situation matters most is with players who are good enough to hold down a starting job in the NFL, but who wouldn't necessarily dominate in any context. Guys like Nate Burleson, Mike Williams, Andre Roberts, and Golden Tate. Stick one of those guys in an awesome situation and he would be an every week FF starter.

So even if Woods projects as more of a FF WR2-WR3 in a favorable scenario, there's also a reasonable chance that he has more upside than that. All in all, it's hard to see why anyone would pass that up for a 95% chance at a bust. That's without even getting into a guy like Hunter, who is not only a superior prospect to a Franklin/Stacy, but who actually has some top shelf standout athletic traits to boot (along with one or two bad ones). In that case it's a very easy decision to go with the higher pick.

 
It's fair that HOU and WAS are special situations that deserve more attention. But Fisher was only with SJax for one season, and in the 2nd half of that season (post-injury) he averaged 16+ ppg in PPR. We can't hold SJax's struggles against Fisher. Fisher's success with RB isn't perfect. Chris Henry, Lendale White. But there was reason to like the situation. It is not necessarily RB hinterland.

 
Any thoughts on buying high on Gio? What RBs would it take to get him after a 2 TD week where he looked great but only had 9 touches?
I bought high and am rolling the dice. On a competitive team that was relying on Spiller, I traded Spiller for Gio and a future 1st rounder (currently in last place after 2 weeks, but who knows where the pick ends up).

 
The big problem here is that it assumes that you know who is/isn't a high upside player. TY Hilton, a 5'9" 183 pound slot WR, was not thought to be a high upside player.
Yeah, certainly everyone will guess wrong sometimes. We'll guess wrong about which top of 1st players work out, too. It's not a problem if you're willing to live with the consequences of guessing wrong.

 
It's fair that HOU and WAS are special situations that deserve more attention. But Fisher was only with SJax for one season, and in the 2nd half of that season (post-injury) he averaged 16+ ppg in PPR. We can't hold SJax's struggles against Fisher. Fisher's success with RB isn't perfect. Chris Henry, Lendale White. But there was reason to like the situation. It is not necessarily RB hinterland.
I like Fisher, but he's a defensive guy and the Rams are built around the pass. It'll take years to build the line to the point where a 2 down guy can have major FF relevance. With Jackson there they ran for 1700 yards and 5 TDs last year as a team -- and it's been like that for years there. It's a bad place for a RB, particularly a guy who can't be reasonably expected to catch a bunch of passes due to the strengths of the other players already in the fold.

 
Any thoughts on buying high on Gio? What RBs would it take to get him after a 2 TD week where he looked great but only had 9 touches?
Offered Charles, denied.
LOL.Stop trolling, nobody is that dumb.
Admittedly I asked for more than just Gio but the response is pretty clear that I'd have been denied straight up.

Trade Offer Rejected:

Kaunas Buckeyes gave up:

Charles, Jamaal KCC RB

Team name redacted gave up:

Bernard, Giovani CIN RB

Year 2014 Round 1 Draft Pick from ???

Year 2015 Round 3 Draft Pick from ???

Comments: Thanks for the offer but I have no interest in trading Gio, especially for an RB with just a couple years left. If anything I'd want Charles and a 1st round from you, not me giving the 1st rounder. :)
 
The bolded is the significant disagreement that I have with you. There's is a pretty strong and direct correlation between draft position and future fantasy production that I'm not willing to ignore. A 2nd round WR is many times more likely to be fantasy relevant than a 5th round RB. I'd link the post laying out the numbers if I were at my desk as opposed to on my phone -- I think it was ZWK and as always with him it's well worth a look.
I agree with the mathematical calculation of probability. I disagree with the blind application of bare probability to noisy data sets.
I do have to say, from a completely objective standpoint, probability is a myth. Someone might say that when you flip a coin, there's a 50% chance it comes up heads and a 50% chance it comes up tails. That's not true- if we knew the exact angle and velocity that the coin left your thumb, and the exact height of your hand, barometric pressure, wind resistance, and every other variable involved, we could calculate with absolute certainty which side the coin would land on. In reality, if all the variables set up so the coin will come up heads, then the coin has a 100% chance of coming up heads and a 0% chance of coming up tails.

When we say that there's a 50% chance the coin comes up heads, what we're really saying is that, given the information we have available to us, we should expect the coin to come up heads 50% of the time. In reality, by the time the coin is flipped it's already determined whether it's coming up heads or not, but we can only estimate probability based on the information available to us.

In the same respect, we could say "oh, there was only a 3% chance of Marques Colston ever being fantasy relevant!", but that would be wrong. Marques Colston was always going to be fantasy relevant. The universe had preordained this before Marques Colston ever set foot on an NFL football field. We simply didn't have the relevant information that would have let us know that ahead of time, so we had to fall back on the information we did have.

Similarly, 3 different guys can look at the same prospect and come up with different odds of him being relevant. The first guy might think he has a 33% chance, the second might think he has a 50% chance, and the third might think he has a 66% chance. In truth, all three are wrong- either the guy is going to become relevant or he's not. All three guys are just calculating the odds based on the information they have, and if they calculate correctly, then they should expect in the long run that the population will conform to their estimates. This doesn't change the fact that "probability" is a myth, a completely subjective human invention, and not an intrinsic state of reality.

So I'm all on board with the idea that probabilities are all just a function of what data you use. Still, in the end, I believe the NFL draft to be an efficient marketplace, and I remain skeptical of the ability of the individual to beat the market average in the long run. As a result, I tend to cleave pretty closely to draft position.

 
Yea, that's part of what makes rookie/dev stuff fun for me. There are objective odds if you treat every generic X round draft pick as a typical X round draft pick, but it's not actually random. In theory it's possible to know with 100% accuracy which players are going to hit and which are going to bust. That's where the poker or roulette analogy breaks down. FF odds don't work like that. To some extent, the cards are face up on the table. It's up to you to read them correctly. That's not an easy thing to do, but it's a fun challenge and I think there are plenty of owners in my leagues who can routinely hit on a higher % of their picks than they would by picking solely based on NFL draft position.

However, I think many owners overrate their own evaluation ability. I generally recommend using subjective analysis and opinions to differentiate between players within NFL draft tiers, but to avoid jumping across tiers based on your evaluations. In other words, I don't think it's a big mistake to favor a specific mid 3rd round NFL draft pick over a late 2nd round NFL draft pick at his same position, but I think it's usually a mistake to favor a 4th-5th round NFL draft pick over a 2nd or 3rd rounder. There might be specific cases where you can read the tea leaves correctly and make that call, but if you make a habit of constantly trying to outsmart the NFL draft process then it will catch up with you. Using draft position as a general anchor point while using individual preferences to differentiate within tiers will still net you a lot of "your guys" while also helping you steer clear of the really criminal reaches.

By and large, most owners already know this stuff. Rookie draft ADP tends to mirror the NFL draft ADP pretty closely, with most deviations mainly related to positional value (i.e. QBs and TEs slipping every year). However, every year there are a few dodgy picks that stand out as pretty risky mathematical gambles. Franklin/Stacy/Lattimore over Michael/Knile qualify in my book. There is a lot of gray area with prospect preference and knowing when to trust your gut and when to defer to the objective odds, but sometimes it's pretty black and white. When you are using a high rookie pick on a player that the NFL considers a longshot, you are probably setting yourself for a fall. I think those picks are pretty easy to avoid if you just take a step back and think about what you're doing.

Remove a few of the obvious grenades from your draft board every year and you should be able to net an above average # of good players in the long run.

 
Eh. Woods has 86 yards in two games. He's on pace for 688 yards, which would have been one of the best rookie seasons from last year's WR class. The only way you can view him as a disappointment right now is if you were expecting him to be Randy Moss. Nobody was expecting him to be Randy Moss.
I stated in the same post his career to date has been a best case scenario. Yes he won the starting job. Yes Manuel has looked good. Yes he actually got catches. Yes the retired backup called him a playmaker. Still, try to sell him for what you paid for him, and you will not get much interest. That is why I would say his value went down. He was an unexciting prospect and there has been little new reason for excitement. "Nobody was expecting him to be Randy Moss" is exactly the point. We expected him to be a boring #2 WR on a bad team, and that's your return. Congratulations on the top 60-80 WR you spent a 2nd round pick on.

I think part of the issue here is the time frame you're using to evaluate the rookie. If you're an itchy trigger finger stock market type who drafts based on whoever has the best chance to boom yesterday, I guess you might not be happy with how things are going for someone like Hunter or Woods.
I am not evaluating a rookie based on 3 months of his career, I'm projecting the possible arcs for his career and incorporating that into when I should try to buy him. Woods' possible career arcs are mediocre high volume target, medium term boring NFL WR2, and Robiskie. Stacy's possible career arcs are Morris, short term NFL RB2, and one year roster clog. Hunter's are late blooming stud (Sid Rice), deep threat we pretend is a good prospect (Ashley Lelie), or wasted athleticism. In none of those cases should I spend a mid 2nd on Woods. In none of those cases should I spend a early 2nd on Hunter. In one of those cases I should spend an early 2nd on Stacy. It didn't happen but so what. Appreciate the bet that was made, and stop pretending all bets are foolish.

The idea that you're better off playing the instant returns lottery with inferior fast yield prospects and then buying low on the slow yield long term guys later in their development doesn't consistently work in reality for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is because many owners recognize that players sometimes take years to develop and thus aren't going to freak out and sell low on their developmental guys.
You have to realize if the player you're drafting is scratch and win or long term growth or a checking account with interest. You have to appreciate when other owners in your league understand that, and adapt your trading style to what kind of an investor they are.

If you feel Justin Hunter won't see the field early and will struggle, why not try and anticipate the low point instead of paying sticker price. If it only works some of the time it's still probably a better strategy than neglecting that information all the time.
HAving trouble with the way you're approaching this. I think you have put an unreasonable and unsustainable expectation on rookie picks.

9 out of 10 rookies will never again draw the same value originally spent on them, and expecting more than a handful of picks to go UP in value is just plain silly. Rookie picks always fluctuate wildly in the first year...some actually spike ridiculously high before dropping precipitously...but 9 of 10 still drop. SO what????? We know this going in, and we hope to find 1 of the few who goes up and STAYS UP. I fail to see how that's any different than the waiver game you seem to be in favor of. Most of those guys have upsides no higher than Woods. The funny thing is, many of the waiver guys who end up working out long term get picked up and dropped a dozen times before someone finally holds on long enough to get that consistent WR3 return. One could easily argue that holding on to Woods, who is already giving flex value AND was a high pick.....makes a heck of a lot more sense. DOn't like it? Trade you rookies and play the wire.....if we all took the same approach things would be tougher for all of us!

CHEERS! :)

Luckily....we all get 2-4 new picks every year for free.

 
The bolded is the significant disagreement that I have with you. There's is a pretty strong and direct correlation between draft position and future fantasy production that I'm not willing to ignore. A 2nd round WR is many times more likely to be fantasy relevant than a 5th round RB. I'd link the post laying out the numbers if I were at my desk as opposed to on my phone -- I think it was ZWK and as always with him it's well worth a look.
I agree with the mathematical calculation of probability. I disagree with the blind application of bare probability to noisy data
How is it blind when said player is already providing returns 2 weeks in? When team-mates have already called him special?

In this case I think you have made yourself blind....more certain of your pre-draft thoughts than the NFL evaluation and results.

 
It is the blind application of probability when we remove the name from the draft slot and only assign a value based on the draft slot. If you want to add the name Woods to the draft slot, and if you evaluate him differently than I do, then feel free to draft accordingly. I am not going to hate on people who like Woods and think he could realistically be a fantasy WR2. That's your opinion and godspeed.

What upside challenged WRs from Rd 2-4 have broken out in the past 10 years? Steve Smith USC and TY Hilton might be it. Hilton isn't the perfect example but I'll give you it. What raw or project or headcase or all upside WRs from Rd 4+ have broken out? More than 2. I am contending we only care about break outs. We don't care about returns, WR4 value, little benefit over waiver replacement.

There are players I've missed out on because I just didn't believe the talent and never bought in. Including boring WR types. Amendola is probably a big one. That's fine, guessing wrong is part of the game. I would rather guess wrong than buy an index fund.

 
Who would you rather have in dynasty going forward: Ridley or miller?

Seems like a toss up to me...

In Ridley's favor is the better offense.

Their ages are a wash.

In Millers favor is that he's backed up by a guy who's basically droppable in Thomas, while Ridley has a talented (though currently injured) Vereen waiting in the wings.

Coin flip?

Thoughts?

 
hey guys- this may seem silly- but i seriously can't find the current rankings...

when i click the link it shows the rankings from christmas 2010

http://dynastyrankings.blogspot.com/search/label/Updated%20Positional%20Rankings

is there a current list posted? thanks in advance or the help
OP writes for NFL.com now and doesn't write about fantasy anymore except for twitter. If you're interested in previous seasons check Rotoworld, but expect nothing for current and future seasons.

 
Eh. Woods has 86 yards in two games. He's on pace for 688 yards, which would have been one of the best rookie seasons from last year's WR class. The only way you can view him as a disappointment right now is if you were expecting him to be Randy Moss. Nobody was expecting him to be Randy Moss.
I stated in the same post his career to date has been a best case scenario. Yes he won the starting job. Yes Manuel has looked good. Yes he actually got catches. Yes the retired backup called him a playmaker. Still, try to sell him for what you paid for him, and you will not get much interest. That is why I would say his value went down. He was an unexciting prospect and there has been little new reason for excitement. "Nobody was expecting him to be Randy Moss" is exactly the point. We expected him to be a boring #2 WR on a bad team, and that's your return. Congratulations on the top 60-80 WR you spent a 2nd round pick on.

I think part of the issue here is the time frame you're using to evaluate the rookie. If you're an itchy trigger finger stock market type who drafts based on whoever has the best chance to boom yesterday, I guess you might not be happy with how things are going for someone like Hunter or Woods.
I am not evaluating a rookie based on 3 months of his career, I'm projecting the possible arcs for his career and incorporating that into when I should try to buy him. Woods' possible career arcs are mediocre high volume target, medium term boring NFL WR2, and Robiskie. Stacy's possible career arcs are Morris, short term NFL RB2, and one year roster clog. Hunter's are late blooming stud (Sid Rice), deep threat we pretend is a good prospect (Ashley Lelie), or wasted athleticism. In none of those cases should I spend a mid 2nd on Woods. In none of those cases should I spend a early 2nd on Hunter. In one of those cases I should spend an early 2nd on Stacy. It didn't happen but so what. Appreciate the bet that was made, and stop pretending all bets are foolish.

The idea that you're better off playing the instant returns lottery with inferior fast yield prospects and then buying low on the slow yield long term guys later in their development doesn't consistently work in reality for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is because many owners recognize that players sometimes take years to develop and thus aren't going to freak out and sell low on their developmental guys.
You have to realize if the player you're drafting is scratch and win or long term growth or a checking account with interest. You have to appreciate when other owners in your league understand that, and adapt your trading style to what kind of an investor they are.

If you feel Justin Hunter won't see the field early and will struggle, why not try and anticipate the low point instead of paying sticker price. If it only works some of the time it's still probably a better strategy than neglecting that information all the time.
I'll admit I AM concerned about Hunter, but, to say he has three career arcs and two of them suck, is a false choice. I don't think you estimate his upside enough--he could be better than Sidney Rice.

His odds are looking up the past two weeks as well with Britt pretty much sucking azzzz and Wright being concussed should give Hunter an opportunity to show something.

 
EBF wrote: By and large, most owners already know this stuff. Rookie draft ADP tends to mirror the NFL draft ADP pretty closely, with most deviations mainly related to positional value (i.e. QBs and TEs slipping every year

I think this is an area that deserve discussion. How do you decide when the first round QB is worth more than the second or third round RB? And part of that determination I think will vary by your league set up and tendencies. In my league, QBs do not typically go in the first round--exceptions were Luck and RGIII (due to CAM the previous year). This year I got Manuel with the 2.11 pick and I see that as huge value. The year before I took Fleener with the 1.11 and that was a mistake--too early. Yet, as I look at the players taken after him, I have to go all the way to 2.09 and TY Hilton to find anyone who has performed much better, and no way anyone would have taken a late third round WR in the late first round.

There is a lot of luck to this game...

 
Who would you rather have in dynasty going forward: Ridley or miller?

Seems like a toss up to me...

In Ridley's favor is the better offense.

Their ages are a wash.

In Millers favor is that he's backed up by a guy who's basically droppable in Thomas, while Ridley has a talented (though currently injured) Vereen waiting in the wings.

Coin flip?

Thoughts?
I'd prefer Ridley by a pretty decent margin. He's shown something at the NFL level. Miller has not.

 
I'll admit I AM concerned about Hunter, but, to say he has three career arcs and two of them suck, is a false choice. I don't think you estimate his upside enough--he could be better than Sidney Rice.

His odds are looking up the past two weeks as well with Britt pretty much sucking azzzz and Wright being concussed should give Hunter an opportunity to show something.
The 3 career arcs are meant to portray the range of possibilities and a reasonable best, average, and worst case scenarios. Rice rookie-through-Favre is about the best I could imagine. If his career is better than Rice it is due to longevity not a high watermark in value/dominance. JMO, I liked Rice a lot better as a prospect but trying to be fair and reasonable, here. Prefer go get it WRs to speed/finesse. If Hunter leads the team in receiving over the 2nd half of the year and becomes a hype player I was dead wrong. Still under that scenario there was a nice buy low window right now where you can clearly get him for less than what was paid with lower upside players that are producing like Hartline, ESanders, Edelman. Definitely those deals were impossible in April/May.

 
Who would you rather have in dynasty going forward: Ridley or miller?

Seems like a toss up to me...

In Ridley's favor is the better offense.

Their ages are a wash.

In Millers favor is that he's backed up by a guy who's basically droppable in Thomas, while Ridley has a talented (though currently injured) Vereen waiting in the wings.

Coin flip?

Thoughts?
I'd prefer Ridley by a pretty decent margin. He's shown something at the NFL level. Miller has not.
I'd prefer Miller due to mileage and upside. In PPR I think it's an easy choice. In standard it's harder to give up on Ridley as guys with double digit TD upside are pretty rare, and Gronk coming back will open things up and make life not so miserable for pretty much the whole team. But I'd still move to Miller.

 
Who would you rather have in dynasty going forward: Ridley or miller?

Seems like a toss up to me...

In Ridley's favor is the better offense.

Their ages are a wash.

In Millers favor is that he's backed up by a guy who's basically droppable in Thomas, while Ridley has a talented (though currently injured) Vereen

waiting in the wings.

Coin flip?

Thoughts?
I'd prefer Ridley by a pretty decent margin. He's shown something at the NFL level. Miller has not.
I'd prefer Miller due to mileage and upside. In PPR I think it's an easy choice. In standard it's harder to give up on Ridley as guys with double digit TD upside are pretty rare, and Gronk coming back will open things up and make life not so miserable for pretty much the whole team. But I'd still move to Miller.
Gotta say I'm still scratching my head over the Miller love. I don't see it. At all. He was a mediocre prospect coming out, and has been below mediocre as a pro thus far -- when you can't put Daniel Thomas on the bench you're flat out not very good. Also I have to bring up the eyeball test (despite being a notorious eyeball test hater): the guy is fast, but has way below average lateral movement, and I'm pretty sure that the next NFL tackle he breaks will be the first. People fell in love with the opportunity obviously, but all the opportunity in the world can't make a COP back into a featured level talent. IMO Miller's upside is to be Tatum Bell except on a mediocre team and running behind a terrible offensive line. I can't believe Miller vs Ridley is even a question -- speaks to the power of hype.

 
Obviously you're an owner that values "upside." I prefer proven production. The Vereens, Millers, Stacys of the world don't blow my skirt up. YMMV.

 
I did trade Ridley++ for Wilson earlier in the year, so guilty as charged. I tend to hold on to elite RB a little too long whether it's Rice, Peterson, LT, Westbrook, whoever. But guys like Ridley I will give up on quickly if their value gets sufficiently high. I've been burned by it a few times, for sure, but have also had it work out. No right answer.

 
I did trade Ridley++ for Wilson earlier in the year, so guilty as charged. I tend to hold on to elite RB a little too long whether it's Rice, Peterson, LT, Westbrook, whoever. But guys like Ridley I will give up on quickly if their value gets sufficiently high. I've been burned by it a few times, for sure, but have also had it work out. No right answer.
I have Wilson in an entirely different class as opposed to those other guys -- 1st round pedigree, smart organization, lots of dynamic plays on ST show his NFL running ability. I'd take Wilson over Ridley myself unless I was in a window of contention and needed a RB2 right now. I have no doubts that the Giants can teach Wilson to pass block and hold onto the football -- the biggest obstacle for Wilson becoming a FF RB1 IMO is the dropoff of the Giants' o-line.

 
Who would you rather have in dynasty going forward: Ridley or miller?

Seems like a toss up to me...

In Ridley's favor is the better offense.

Their ages are a wash.

In Millers favor is that he's backed up by a guy who's basically droppable in Thomas, while Ridley has a talented (though currently injured) Vereen

waiting in the wings.

Coin flip?

Thoughts?
I'd prefer Ridley by a pretty decent margin. He's shown something at the NFL level. Miller has not.
I'd prefer Miller due to mileage and upside. In PPR I think it's an easy choice. In standard it's harder to give up on Ridley as guys with double digit TD upside are pretty rare, and Gronk coming back will open things up and make life not so miserable for pretty much the whole team. But I'd still move to Miller.
Gotta say I'm still scratching my head over the Miller love. I don't see it. At all. He was a mediocre prospect coming out, and has been below mediocre as a pro thus far -- when you can't put Daniel Thomas on the bench you're flat out not very good. Also I have to bring up the eyeball test (despite being a notorious eyeball test hater): the guy is fast, but has way below average lateral movement, and I'm pretty sure that the next NFL tackle he breaks will be the first. People fell in love with the opportunity obviously, but all the opportunity in the world can't make a COP back into a featured level talent. IMO Miller's upside is to be Tatum Bell except on a mediocre team and running behind a terrible offensive line. I can't believe Miller vs Ridley is even a question -- speaks to the power of hype.
I'm a fan of neither player but at least there's some future trade value in Miller if he has a big game or two. No one is paying much for Ridley.

 

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