How to "win" at TE this year (1 Viewer)

[Mystery Achiever]

Kneejerk is he favors the TE, but it is hard to tell from stats. He's only got 7 career starts, and one of those was a throw away game with a 3rd string OL.The two games he started in 2009 (Celek's good year), Celek got 8 catches for 100+ yards in both. Kolb also threw for over 300 yards in both.

With limited history, the issue is whether he favors his TE or favors his best bud and room-mate, Celek.

 

[Concept Coop]

One other thing you may consider is looking at Witten's PPG, because he remains healthy it actually hurts his PPG when compared to some of the other top TEs. Food for thought. It's not like you can't start another TE when/if Finley goes down for a few games.

The only player this would apply to is Antonio Gates. Witten scores more than Finley even when Finley is healthy. Over the last 4 years, even using PPG, Witten is behind only Gates, IIRC. Using total points, obviously WItten scores more. It would be interesting to see if Witten offers more VORP than Gates/replacement. But that is another thread and does nothing to suggest that Witten is not an elite TE option.

 

[LHUCKS]

One other thing you may consider is looking at Witten's PPG, because he remains healthy it actually hurts his PPG when compared to some of the other top TEs. Food for thought. It's not like you can't start another TE when/if Finley goes down for a few games.

The only player this would apply to is Antonio Gates. Witten scores more than Finley even when Finley is healthy. Over the last 4 years, even using PPG, Witten is behind only Gates, IIRC. Using total points, obviously WItten scores more. It would be interesting to see if Witten offers more VORP than Gates/replacement. But that is another thread and does nothing to suggest that Witten is not an elite TE option.

If you use recent data it narrows the perceived gap between Witten and other top TEs.

 

[sho nuff]

One other thing you may consider is looking at Witten's PPG, because he remains healthy it actually hurts his PPG when compared to some of the other top TEs. Food for thought. It's not like you can't start another TE when/if Finley goes down for a few games.

The only player this would apply to is Antonio Gates. Witten scores more than Finley even when Finley is healthy. Over the last 4 years, even using PPG, Witten is behind only Gates, IIRC. Using total points, obviously WItten scores more. It would be interesting to see if Witten offers more VORP than Gates/replacement. But that is another thread and does nothing to suggest that Witten is not an elite TE option.

If you use recent data it narrows the perceived gap between Witten and other top TEs.

So like one year where you take out what he did with Kitna is your recent data?

 

[LHUCKS]

Here are the top 12 non PPR fantasy seasons from the last two years:

NAME POS YR AGE EXP G REC RECYD YD/REC RECTD FANT PT 1 Vernon Davis te 2009 25 4 16 78 965 12.37 13 174.5 2 Dallas Clark te 2009 30 7 16 100 1106 11.06 10 171.7 3 Antonio Gates te 2009 29 7 16 79 1157 14.65 8 163.7 4 Jason Witten te 2010 28 8 16 94 1002 10.66 9 154.2 5 Brent Celek te 2009 24 3 16 76 971 12.78 8 145.1 6 Antonio Gates te 2010 30 8 10 50 782 15.64 10 138.2 7 Vernon Davis te 2010 26 5 16 56 914 16.32 7 133.4 8 Marcedes Lewis te 2010 26 5 16 58 700 12.07 10 130.0 9 Tony Gonzalez te 2009 33 13 16 83 867 10.45 6 122.7 10 Visanthe Shiancoe te 2009 29 7 16 56 566 10.11 11 122.6 11 Kellen Winslow te 2009 26 6 16 77 884 11.48 5 119.1 12 Jason Witten te 2009 27 7 16 94 1030 10.96 2 115.0
Notice that gates has the 6th best season, but in that year(2010) he only played 10 games.

This table is not a compelling argument to reach on Witten...oh, and look who pops up in at #11...our good buddy Mr. Winslow, who finished ahead of Witten in 2009.

 

[Concept Coop]

Here are the top 12 non PPR fantasy seasons from the last two years:

NAME POS YR AGE EXP G REC RECYD YD/REC RECTD FANT PT 1 Vernon Davis te 2009 25 4 16 78 965 12.37 13 174.5 2 Dallas Clark te 2009 30 7 16 100 1106 11.06 10 171.7 3 Antonio Gates te 2009 29 7 16 79 1157 14.65 8 163.7 4 Jason Witten te 2010 28 8 16 94 1002 10.66 9 154.2 5 Brent Celek te 2009 24 3 16 76 971 12.78 8 145.1 6 Antonio Gates te 2010 30 8 10 50 782 15.64 10 138.2 7 Vernon Davis te 2010 26 5 16 56 914 16.32 7 133.4 8 Marcedes Lewis te 2010 26 5 16 58 700 12.07 10 130.0 9 Tony Gonzalez te 2009 33 13 16 83 867 10.45 6 122.7 10 Visanthe Shiancoe te 2009 29 7 16 56 566 10.11 11 122.6 11 Kellen Winslow te 2009 26 6 16 77 884 11.48 5 119.1 12 Jason Witten te 2009 27 7 16 94 1030 10.96 2 115.0

Notice that gates has the 6th best season, but in that year(2010) he only played 10 games.This table is not a compelling argument to reach on Witten...oh, and look who pops up in at #11...our good buddy Mr. Winslow, who finished ahead of Witten in 2009.

If your argument is based on Non-PPR, you should state that - unless I missed it. In non-ppr, the TE spot takes a major value hit and you would be wise to wait longer than you would in a PPR league. Even usuing selective data:Witten is one of only 3 to be on your list twice and that is with his "down" season. He has 2 of the top 3 catch totals. Only one other player has a 90 catch season, and Witten does it regularly, even in a down year. He is the only player listed with two 1,000 yard seasons.

 

[Raider Nation]

The premise is this, if you miss out on Finley or Gates in 2011, wait on TE this year. The position is deep, and Winslow in particular is a value play.

This is called winning at TE in 2011.

Thank you for your time.

:schoolbus:

Kellen Winslow, 2011 to date.Week 1 - 6 / 66 / 0

Week 2 - 4 / 44 / 0

Week 3 - 2 / 20 / 0

Week 4 - 5 / 33 / 0

WINNING!

 

[Instinctive]

Well, I was going to wait to bump this thread with even more games behind us, but... I thought this guy was prophetic in his posts in this thread. Talk about dead-on.

How is 90+ for 1000+ underwhelming? That was Witten's 09...you're paying too much attention to TDs, which you can't accurately predict year-to-year.

TDs are not something you can predict. With Roy WIlliams gone (let's recall, he was WR2 worthy in Fantasy while Romo was in there) I think that Witten is once again right in the 90-1000 range.

That's some consistency. TDs are much too volatile to be projecting for...I'll take 80-900 from my TE if I gotta take one in the 5th round or so, and that's an underestimate on Witten.

If I'm going to wait on TE this year, I'm going after Jared Cook - EDIT: ( Man I wish I had said Gronkowski here!!!! oh well)

The Winslow prediction is interesting but, once again, you're relying on TDs (although Lewis is TD dependent too, a red flag for his potential and a possible reason to say last year was a fluke) to give him his points. This same conversation was had about Gates 1 or 2 (or perhaps 3, can't quite remember) years ago, when people said he wasn't going to be that great and he was on a decline because the previous season he hadn't scored in that amazing tier we were used to seeing from him. I may go look for the thread later, but the bottom line was that one side said his yardage correlated to more TDs, and his low number was an aberration based on luck. The most relevant comparative arguments are those of ERA and Batting Average in baseball: A pitcher's ERA can vary depending purely on luck. If he's pitching well, but batter's are getting lucky against him with an abnormally high batting average on balls in play, then his ERA is artificially higher than it should be - he's a candidate for a strong rest-of-season or next-season. On the same side, a batter could be getting unusually unlucky: he could have similar ground ball/fly ball/line drive rates to the rest of his career as a .300 hitter, but if he's getting unlucky he may only be batting, say, .270 - he's a candidate to bounce back just like the pitcher because while he may not start to get lucky, the numbers will probably balance out enough that he stops getting unlucky.

The same can be said for receivers in football. The TDs are too hard to predict. It's the same reason that Dwayne Bowe is a big candidate for regression this year. He's a nice bet for 75-1000+, but the chances that he scores 15 TDs again are practically zero. That being said, one could say that some players do seem to have an ability to find that end zone. TO, Moss, those guys always seemed to get theirs. But, oh wait, what's this?! TDs tend to correlate to yardage. Could it be that they simply had the receptions and yardage year in and year out that would say "I bet he scores around 10 TDs each season." I think it could! A guy like Andre Johnson is another case. He scores 8-9 TDs most every year. But back when he was hurt and played only 9 games...he also had 8 TDs in that half season. He was on pace for 15 or 16 - BECAUSE HE WAS LUCKY THAT YEAR. And he hasn't been that lucky again since. Same with Steve Smith - he had one really lucky 12 TD outlier season.

On the subject of Winslow, all of that would say that he is unlikely to reach double digit TDs..like your small sample would suggest. Not to mention the fact that Freeman last year has what is likely to be an unsustainable 6:1 TD:Int ratio, Benn should improve, Blount will be there all year and is likely to score more TDs (based on the fact that he had a low number last year for the yardage he accrued)...All of this points to Winslow not acheiving the numbers you predict. The receptions and yardage? I could see that. But 6-7 TDs is much more likely, in my mind. And say 2 of them are multi TD games? You're looking at two very nice weeks...2-3 good weeks, and a bunch of replaceable production. Witten, on the other hand, probably gets about 6-80 each week. That's startable at WR, much less at TE. EVen with 0 TDs on the season, I would prefer Witten on a weekly basis for his consistency.

Jason Witten's value comes from the fact that he's a solid bet for 90-1000 on a yearly basis with Romo. I am gonna say you're using a small sample size when you extrapolate 6 games out to a full year. Hell, a full season is a small sample size. Just because you use a variation of jury inoculation by saying "I know some people well say the sample is too small" doesn't mean that it isn't. Even then, those numbers are close enough to his typical 90-1000 that I'd be willing to bet that's about where he would have ended up had Romo continued to play without being hurt.

Like I said - I like my chances with Jared Cook later, but I wouldn't fault anyone taking Witten from about pick 50 on. In fact, now that I've done some extra research into him, I might actually change my strategy to targeting him in the late 4th/early 5th area. He's incredibly consistent. I did - it's working wonderfully

Like I said - I like my chances with Jared Cook later, but I wouldn't fault anyone taking Witten from about pick 50 on. In fact, now that I've done some extra research into him, I might actually change my strategy to targeting him in the late 4th/early 5th area. He's incredibly consistent.

This is how you make the playoffs but don't win. Arian Foster was going around the same spot as Witten last year.

Consistent, unspectacular picks often win you nothing.

I wish I had made a spectacular pick instead of taking Witten. He's only top 5 in non-ppr leagues while Winslow is...not even a starter in 2 TE leagues. Huh.Oh, and in PPR - Witten is ranked even higher.

 

[Raider Nation]

Ol' HUCKS means well and I sincerely think he intends to help people, but it always seems to turn into a big pile of poop.

Maybe things would go smoother if he didn't point out that he is "schooling" us in every thread...

 

[Instinctive]

Ol' HUCKS means well and I sincerely think he intends to help people, but it always seems to turn into a big pile of poop.Maybe things would go smoother if he didn't point out that he is "schooling" us in every thread...

Yeah - I feel like if he actually replied with his thoughts when people made an actual, well-founded argument against his position, he'd actual be a valuable contributor. It all gets lost in the "adore me, thanks!" replies to someone who agrees and the attempted quick wit at little snippets of posts that disagree with him. Some guys just don't get it, I suppose.

 

[Raider Nation]

BTW, thank GOD for Jimmy Graham! I'd like to buy him a or 20 in the French Quarter.

 

[Saint]

FWIW, I take Lhucks threads as a who to draft at times. I took Witten in the 3rd round of a 16-team PPR league and haven't looked back. In my scoring setup, Witten is ranked #3 @ 83 pts (behind Gronk and Graham) and Winslow is ranked #17 @ 41 pts.

 

[GreenNGold]

More like LOLHUCKS!

 

[sho nuff]

He was right to say wait on a TE...just picked the absolute wrong guy.

Daniels...Graham...Gronk...

 

[SacramentoBob]

He was right to say wait on a TE...just picked the absolute wrong guy.Daniels...Graham...Gronk...

 

[Instinctive]

He was right to say wait on a TE...just picked the absolute wrong guy.Daniels...Graham...Gronk...

I'll give you Gronk for sure and probably Daniels - he went 7th in all my leagues - but Graham went i the same place as Gates/Witten/Finley in every league I was in. No way he was a candidate for "waiting" on TE strategy.

 

[sho nuff]

He was right to say wait on a TE...just picked the absolute wrong guy.Daniels...Graham...Gronk...

I'll give you Gronk for sure and probably Daniels - he went 7th in all my leagues - but Graham went i the same place as Gates/Witten/Finley in every league I was in. No way he was a candidate for "waiting" on TE strategy.

Depends on the league and how much people really put stock into the preseason.I got him later than all but Gronk on that list as the 8th TE off the board in our league (Gates, Witten, Finley, Daniels, Davis, Winslow, Clark).

 

[Jayrod]

Ol' HUCKS means well and I sincerely think he intends to help people, but it always seems to turn into a big pile of poop.

And you would be dead wrong on the bolded part. His only goal is to stir the pot and get a reaction out of people.

 

[rickyg]

Im new to these boards, and I guess after reading this thread LHUCKS can appear to be smug, but I like that he sticks his neck out and makes calls. He might be wrong a lot, but so are most of us. So are all the experts. I would argue that there really are no experts at picking who the top players will be at any position in any given year (after the obvious tom brady's, arodg, and other models of consistency). It's a crapshoot in many cases. You have guys set up for all the success in the world and it just doesn't pan out. Jared Cook is a perfect example so far this year.

You have a TE friendly offense, monster talent in Cook, a coach and OC that talked up Cook like the next coming of christ in the preseason, claiming that he will be all over the field and an integral part of the offense this year, and a QB that is finding his WR's in stride. So why, until week 4, was Cook so underutilized?

Winslow's situation lent itself to this kind of positive thinking too. Had Winslow worked out thus far like gronk or graham everyone would be saying "good call".

 

[Instinctive]

Im new to these boards, and I guess after reading this thread LHUCKS can appear to be smug, but I like that he sticks his neck out and makes calls. He might be wrong a lot, but so are most of us. So are all the experts. I would argue that there really are no experts at picking who the top players will be at any position in any given year (after the obvious tom brady's, arodg, and other models of consistency). It's a crapshoot in many cases. You have guys set up for all the success in the world and it just doesn't pan out. Jared Cook is a perfect example so far this year. You have a TE friendly offense, monster talent in Cook, a coach and OC that talked up Cook like the next coming of christ in the preseason, claiming that he will be all over the field and an integral part of the offense this year, and a QB that is finding his WR's in stride. So why, until week 4, was Cook so underutilized? Winslow's situation lent itself to this kind of positive thinking too. Had Winslow worked out thus far like gronk or graham everyone would be saying "good call".

Except Winslow's situation didn't lend itself to these thoughts. There's a massive post on page one declaring exactly why, with facts and research done to back it up - that's the reason why LHUCKS stuff is dismissed: he gets an idea, makes a big arrogant schticky post out of it, and then just attempts to be witty instead of actually discussing why he thought something or responding to counterpoints. Like I said above, if he just laid out reasoning or had an actual debate about a guy he'd be incredibly useful - but he doesn't, so he really isn't. We just have to take over his threads and turn them into something other than the steaming pile of crap he consistently tries to turn them into.

 

[rickyg]

Im new to these boards, and I guess after reading this thread LHUCKS can appear to be smug, but I like that he sticks his neck out and makes calls. He might be wrong a lot, but so are most of us. So are all the experts. I would argue that there really are no experts at picking who the top players will be at any position in any given year (after the obvious tom brady's, arodg, and other models of consistency). It's a crapshoot in many cases. You have guys set up for all the success in the world and it just doesn't pan out. Jared Cook is a perfect example so far this year. You have a TE friendly offense, monster talent in Cook, a coach and OC that talked up Cook like the next coming of christ in the preseason, claiming that he will be all over the field and an integral part of the offense this year, and a QB that is finding his WR's in stride. So why, until week 4, was Cook so underutilized? Winslow's situation lent itself to this kind of positive thinking too. Had Winslow worked out thus far like gronk or graham everyone would be saying "good call".

Except Winslow's situation didn't lend itself to these thoughts. There's a massive post on page one declaring exactly why, with facts and research done to back it up - that's the reason why LHUCKS stuff is dismissed: he gets an idea, makes a big arrogant schticky post out of it, and then just attempts to be witty instead of actually discussing why he thought something or responding to counterpoints. Like I said above, if he just laid out reasoning or had an actual debate about a guy he'd be incredibly useful - but he doesn't, so he really isn't. We just have to take over his threads and turn them into something other than the steaming pile of crap he consistently tries to turn them into.

LOL ok fair enough.

 

[sho nuff]

Im new to these boards, and I guess after reading this thread LHUCKS can appear to be smug, but I like that he sticks his neck out and makes calls. He might be wrong a lot, but so are most of us. So are all the experts. I would argue that there really are no experts at picking who the top players will be at any position in any given year (after the obvious tom brady's, arodg, and other models of consistency). It's a crapshoot in many cases. You have guys set up for all the success in the world and it just doesn't pan out. Jared Cook is a perfect example so far this year. You have a TE friendly offense, monster talent in Cook, a coach and OC that talked up Cook like the next coming of christ in the preseason, claiming that he will be all over the field and an integral part of the offense this year, and a QB that is finding his WR's in stride. So why, until week 4, was Cook so underutilized? Winslow's situation lent itself to this kind of positive thinking too. Had Winslow worked out thus far like gronk or graham everyone would be saying "good call".

Except Winslow's situation didn't lend itself to these thoughts. There's a massive post on page one declaring exactly why, with facts and research done to back it up - that's the reason why LHUCKS stuff is dismissed: he gets an idea, makes a big arrogant schticky post out of it, and then just attempts to be witty instead of actually discussing why he thought something or responding to counterpoints. Like I said above, if he just laid out reasoning or had an actual debate about a guy he'd be incredibly useful - but he doesn't, so he really isn't. We just have to take over his threads and turn them into something other than the steaming pile of crap he consistently tries to turn them into.

See the Jennings thread for another great example of this.