Jimmy Graham in the bottom of the first round? (1 Viewer)

[Mr. Irrelevant]

How high would you take graham if catches for a te are 1.5?

Asking everyone

Obviously it depends on the lineups and scoring rules. Is it full PPR for other positions? If so, that mitigates the advantage to some extent.

FWIW, FBG's own SSL leagues use 1PPR for RB/WR and 1.5PPR for TE's and a 1/2/3/1/1/1 best-ball lineup. In all four of this spring's SSL drafts, Graham went either 1.7 or 1.8.

 

[ebsteelers]

How high would you take graham if catches for a te are 1.5?

Asking everyone

Obviously it depends on the lineups and scoring rules. Is it full PPR for other positions? If so, that mitigates the advantage to some extent.

FWIW, FBG's own SSL leagues use 1PPR for RB/WR and 1.5PPR for TE's and a 1/2/3/1/1/1 best-ball lineup. In all four of this spring's SSL drafts, Graham went either 1.7 or 1.8.

Using the fbgpc rules 1.5 for te...1 for everyone else.... double flex rb/wr/te

1 qb 2rb 2 wr 1 te 1 k 1 defense double flex rb wr te

 

[buddhacwru]

How about in 2 QB leagues that are PPR, where do you guys rank Graham?

 

[Mr. Irrelevant]

How high would you take graham if catches for a te are 1.5?

Asking everyone

Obviously it depends on the lineups and scoring rules. Is it full PPR for other positions? If so, that mitigates the advantage to some extent.

FWIW, FBG's own SSL leagues use 1PPR for RB/WR and 1.5PPR for TE's and a 1/2/3/1/1/1 best-ball lineup. In all four of this spring's SSL drafts, Graham went either 1.7 or 1.8.

Using the fbgpc rules 1.5 for te...1 for everyone else.... double flex rb/wr/te

1 qb 2rb 2 wr 1 te 1 k 1 defense double flex rb wr te

Fair value for Graham here would be early 2nd round IMO. Even in a 1.5 TE PPR league, the ability to start up to 4 RB's makes the top-end RB's (plus the top pass-catching RBs such as Rice and Sproles) way more valuable than they would be otherwise.

 

[Hoss Style]

To those who don't think there is much drop off, (Fantasy Focus stat) if you remove Gronk, Graham has outscored the next TE by 30% over the past two seasons. Compare that to other positions where the top guy is outscoring number 2 by 2-3%. So when you look at his VBD, you have to factor in that he is killing the field, not just your base line guy.

---Not sure what the exact numbers were but you get the point. Just food for thought.

Sure, there's a drop off, but it is enough to give up a first round pick and sacrifice your RB pick? Maybe. In a very vanilla league, we can look at the FBG projections and see there's a 37 point difference at the end of season scoring. Divide that by how many games you have - say 13 or so. 37 / 13 = under 3 points a game. What you have to think about is do you lose more than that 3 points at the RB position if you go this way? I'm not sure, depends on how the draft goes.

In a more complex scoring league, the points may even be less of a percentage.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea to go Graham early, all I'm saying is be careful with it. There's some very good value in later rounds (like Witten) that may make more sense than drafting Graham early and losing big time by passing on a RB.

 

[Long Ball Larry]

To those who don't think there is much drop off, (Fantasy Focus stat) if you remove Gronk, Graham has outscored the next TE by 30% over the past two seasons. Compare that to other positions where the top guy is outscoring number 2 by 2-3%. So when you look at his VBD, you have to factor in that he is killing the field, not just your base line guy.

---Not sure what the exact numbers were but you get the point. Just food for thought.

Sure, there's a drop off, but it is enough to give up a first round pick and sacrifice your RB pick? Maybe. In a very vanilla league, we can look at the FBG projections and see there's a 37 point difference at the end of season scoring. Divide that by how many games you have - say 13 or so. 37 / 13 = under 3 points a game. What you have to think about is do you lose more than that 3 points at the RB position if you go this way? I'm not sure, depends on how the draft goes.

In a more complex scoring league, the points may even be less of a percentage.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea to go Graham early, all I'm saying is be careful with it. There's some very good value in later rounds (like Witten) that may make more sense than drafting Graham early and losing big time by passing on a RB.

Why do you run the status on the TE, but then not on the RB to get a true comparison, rather than some gut feeling? What is the 37 point differential that you are talking about, exactly?

In VBD points, I have Graham as number 8. I really didn't want to take Graham this year, but the more I run the numbers, mock and come up with reasonable scenarios, I keep getting the best outcomes when taking Graham. Now, as has been mentioned, it does depend on draft position. I have number 2 in a 10-team league (non-PPR). The ADP's that I see suggest, that he will still be there at 19, and I am now almost positive that I will take him there.

I do agree that Davis, Witten and Gonzo provide some value, but they seem to be going around 50. If I had a later pick and thought I could get 1 in the 6th, I would probably do that.

 

[Hoss Style]

To those who don't think there is much drop off, (Fantasy Focus stat) if you remove Gronk, Graham has outscored the next TE by 30% over the past two seasons. Compare that to other positions where the top guy is outscoring number 2 by 2-3%. So when you look at his VBD, you have to factor in that he is killing the field, not just your base line guy.

---Not sure what the exact numbers were but you get the point. Just food for thought.

Sure, there's a drop off, but it is enough to give up a first round pick and sacrifice your RB pick? Maybe. In a very vanilla league, we can look at the FBG projections and see there's a 37 point difference at the end of season scoring. Divide that by how many games you have - say 13 or so. 37 / 13 = under 3 points a game. What you have to think about is do you lose more than that 3 points at the RB position if you go this way? I'm not sure, depends on how the draft goes.

In a more complex scoring league, the points may even be less of a percentage.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea to go Graham early, all I'm saying is be careful with it. There's some very good value in later rounds (like Witten) that may make more sense than drafting Graham early and losing big time by passing on a RB.

Why do you run the status on the TE, but then not on the RB to get a true comparison, rather than some gut feeling? What is the 37 point differential that you are talking about, exactly?

In VBD points, I have Graham as number 8. I really didn't want to take Graham this year, but the more I run the numbers, mock and come up with reasonable scenarios, I keep getting the best outcomes when taking Graham. Now, as has been mentioned, it does depend on draft position. I have number 2 in a 10-team league (non-PPR). The ADP's that I see suggest, that he will still be there at 19, and I am now almost positive that I will take him there.

I do agree that Davis, Witten and Gonzo provide some value, but they seem to be going around 50. If I had a later pick and thought I could get 1 in the 6th, I would probably do that.

Yeah, I could have gone deeper into the numbers. Maybe I should have. I just ran them on the TE since this post is about a fairly specific area where the OP is wanting to take Graham.

I simply was making the point that depending on how the rest of the draft has gone (and where your exact pick is) then I'd probably wait for value later. I'd have to see how the draft played out, where I picked and the scoring system to really decide though. It wasn't a "gut feeling". I'm just saying that, in my opinion, there's value later in TEs, depending on how the drafts going, and that depending on your scoring that it might not be worth a first round pick.

I'm not sure if calculating the numbers for all possible options would have really helped make the point any clearer - and I didn't think the time to do it would be worth it. So I didn't. Sorry.

*Edited* to add that you ask what the 37 point difference is - if you read the thread I quoted it's talking about the spread between the #1 and #2 TE. I quoted that post and was continuing that thought. You also are talking about a non-PPR League in your post. My post is about his position in a PPR League since that's what the OP asked about.

 

[Koya]

How about in 2 QB leagues that are PPR, where do you guys rank Graham?

Generally mid 2nd to mid third from what I've seen. While you need to worry about the 2nd QB making it more risky to take Graham early, it's also tougher to take Gronk because he still seems to go in the 6th, which is like the fourth in many 1 QB leagues, denying you either the last group of startable QBs or a much needed RB. So it's more of a graham or wait Scenario IMO.I actually took graham late 2nd (12 team 2 qb) as I knew that my early 3rd he'd likely be gone and other top players had to drop because of a huge run on QBs (top 12 gone before end of 2nd, top 15 gone by 3.2). In my case Dez Bryant was mine in the third - QB was Roeths, top RBs gone too.

So, my RB depth took a hit but I also didn't have to choose between Graham and a top QB.