Just made my final pick in the draft.
This draft was interesting. The competition included four PFF IDP guys, who seem to err on the side of their player ratings in their writing, Bloom and Schauf, who are very strong drafters and number of other IDP writers who I haven't drafted with much, if at all. The scoring system looks balanced on the surface (4:1 sack-to-tackle ratio), but the 3 pt TFL bonus morphed it into an interesting big play system -- one that will have tons of weekly variance. And there are extremely short benches -- 15 man rosters and 10 man starting lineup.
Plan was to draft five rounds with a BPA approach within tiers and then decide to either (a) continue to push relative value or (b) load up on LB and DE with a big play lean, but hopefully do a little of both. In short, that meant I'd draft a second DT, CB or SF only if they were a strong bet to be a top ten player in a number of weeks.
I nearly chose to try a "shoot the moon" strategy, in which I would draft only players with a chance at a 20 pt week in more than a handful of weeks. The variance will be there anyway, and it's going to be extremely hard to beat a team that puts up 3-4 20 pt weeks out of 10 starters no matter how poorly the rest of the lineup fared. Had a better OLB than Woodley/Hali/etc made it to my late second round pick, I might have tried it.
Here's the roster and my general thoughts. I commented on each player specifically (except Kampman, who I predrafted) during the draft, which you can see on the draft page if you're coming to this thread late.
DT Jason Jones (6)
I really like Jones in this setup. If he gets snaps at DE and 3-tech DT, he could be huge. But he's injury prone and I should've backed him up with Sedrick Ellis or Tommy Kelly or Richard Seymour in the 11th round. I think Brandon Flowers is a good fit and I have a decently long list of strong DT2 prospects yet to be rostered, but I might regret that decision.
DE Justin Tuck (7)
DE Cliff Avril (9)
DE Ray Edwards (9)
DE Aaron Kampman (9)
DE Greg Hardy (9)
In June, and usually late August too, I'm drafting BPA. Four players with a W9 bye isn't ideal, but none of the four are slam dunks and two of them could be on other teams come September. If they're all playing well, they'll be excellent trade bait and I'll have until Week 6 (when I'll have to find at least two starters off the wire) to figure it out.
LB Desmond Bishop (8)
LB LaMarr Woodley (11)
LB DJ Williams (6)
LB David Hawthorne (6)
LB Shaun Phillips (6)
LB Pat Angerer (11)
This group doesn't look sexy, but the scoring system devalues non-rush OLBs. A steady six tackles per week earns you just one more point a week than a so-so five tackles per week. This group needs to keep me in games and occasionally throw up a 15-20 point week. There is risk in this group, but enough upside that three of them should settle in as decent plays.
CB Antoine Winfield (9)
CB Brandon Flowers (6)
I think it's exceedingly difficult to project big play matchups at cornerback, so I wanted a couple of solid tacklers with big play capability. I expect to add a third corner (or replace a starter) relatively early in the season and there are always lots of candidates that should fit the bill. Hopefully Flowers puts together a 65-5-15 season and keeps me from regretting passing on the second DT.
S Roman Harper (11)
Adding a second safety never made sense. The top of my second tier went pretty early and I just missed on Bell and Polamalu as my SF2. I would've taken Bethea, and probably should've despite his shared bye with Harper, but there are still 6-10 guys with SF2+ upside on the board and nearly 30 safeties already rostered. Should be no problem to get one later.
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