In the grand scheme, draft position really doesn't matter. From wherever you land, just select players that don't suck and you'll do just fine.
...and make sure to draft this years Larry Johnson and Steve Smith in the 5th and 6th rounds.
Depending on the scoring system the owners that draft early in the first could have as much as 100 point advantage on the guys that draft late in the round if things play out. That's a pretty decent advantage when you consider the talent level of remaing players levels off pretty quick beyond a handful of uber studs.Keen drafting, health, and luck can minimize the disadvantage, but IMO drafting late makes a small mountain to climb to get back to even. Of course, it works both ways that if those early studs get hurt than that team loses its advantage . . .
If you really know your stuff it shouldn't matter where you draft from, but I do think the early round drafters hold a slight advantage.
Every year I hear this and every year it's based on the faulty premise that the order guys are selected is the same as their end of season rankings. Sorry, that just never happens.I'm too lazy/busy personally, but what needs to be done is to match up a solid pre-draft ranking list (say FBG or better yet some sort of ranking compilation), and then track those player's EOY points vs draft position. For example, when people do their calculations they say well, Alexander ended up #1, so we'll assume he was the #1 pick and give X points to the "#1 slot". Wrong. Last year's #1 was probably LT, so give the "#1 slot" LT's points.
If you only do that for one year you might get some odd results, but if you do it for 5 years or so, it should tell you if there is a significant advantage to drafting early (or late for that matter). I suspect there isn't.
It always cracks me up when I see these extremely complicated drafting orders to compensate for the "unfairness" of serpentine. Some very smart guys are making a very simple mistake.