Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
This year, I gave myself a birthday present - a 3-Pack of NFC Rotowire Online Championship entries. I write this not to share my teams, though I do believe I did pretty well with at least one of them; but to share the experience and things I learned while doing them, just in case anyone here is considering an entry or two.
Yes, they are high stakes leagues - it is not for the faint of heart. But that brings me to discovery #1:
One thing is for sure - it causes a lot of folks to reach. And honestly, that's discovery #2:
At the same time it allows those "boring" players to slide. I was able to get Lockett in the 9th, for example - he went in the 7th round in both my other drafts.
Another interesting thing to me was roster construction. I'd seen someone on YouTube call these "boomer drafts" - explaining that many of those who could afford the entry fee were of a certain age, and along with that have an old school draft mentality. I thought it was a funny comment, and filed it way. Sure enough, in all 3 drafts, there were teams that started off RB-RB, and in 2 of the 3, RB-RB-RB. While beauty is in the eye of the beholder, those rosters, IMO, aren't pretty. And the early RBs they took might or might not work out - taking Dalvin Cook & Derick Henry could be huge, but the odds of getting a full season out of them seems low. And in a points-based contest, reliability seems important, at least in my opinion.
And as mentioned earlier, the runs on WRs are early and often. So teams that started RB-RB-RB were deep in the weeds looking for WRs later.
Each of the leagues had different QB intensity. One league, mostly everyone waited - that was the league I took Josh Allen, something I never thought I'd do. But 4.03 he went a full round later than I'd seen him go, and he was clearly the best player on the board. In that same league, the 1.01 got completely screwed because they waited on a QB 1 round too long, and a run on backup QBs started right after them. They ended up with Winston (14th round), Matt Ryan (15th round) and Goff (17th round). They also had 9 RBs and 4 WR through 13 rounds after starting off JT -> Andrews. They went Dionte 3.12, Gabe Davis 4.01, Renfrow, DeVonta Smith, then Stephenson, Cook, Brian Robinson, Rashaad White, Nyheim Hines, Herbert - then finally took a 5th WR in Paris Campbell. They took a 6th in Ced Wilson in the 20th round (they took a D/ST in the 13th). Not a team I'd want, but hey - maybe it works out for them.
I don't mean to pick on that team, but man - the value they passed on to do what they did was tough to watch.
For my own rosters, I went in planning to do a VBD/hero RB build for all 3, but in one I ended up with a zero RB/BPA, and 1 hero RB (depending how you define that - I went WR-RB-BPA). The 3rd I went straight BPA, and ended up with 2 players I had no intentions of drafting but they both fell way too far in Monty (6th) and Sanders (9th). That was the earliest draft I did, and obviously things change from then to now with player news, preseason developments, etc. That said, that might be my deepest team, and in this points-based format, that could be a benefit. I won't really know how viable these teams are until the season plays out.
Anyway, just a few thoughts on NFC Rotowire Online Championship leagues, and my experience with them this year. I'm not sure how well I'll do - I think I have a decent chance to place in the $ in all 3, and I should be the favorite in the league I drafted on my birthday, where with every pick it felt like the entire draft just sort of fell to me. But then, I could also be looking at my teams like
Because they're tied into rotowire, they "grade" your draft. Interestingly my favorite draft where I started off with 4 straight WRs, they gave it a C+ (FBG rates it an A+), and my least favorite draft got an A- from rotowire. (FBG gave all 3 of my teams an A for whatever that's worth).
Has anyone here done one (or more) of these drafts? Are you planning on doing it this year? I'd be interested to hear about your experience with or approach to them, and whether it greatly differed from my own. Any insight you'd care to share that I may have missed would be appreciated - I'll likely do at least one next year, too. Hey, ya can’t take it with you.
Yes, they are high stakes leagues - it is not for the faint of heart. But that brings me to discovery #1:
- Just because someone can afford the NFC ROCL doesn't mean they're a shark. I fount the opposite to be true - some of these folks had no rhyme nor reason to their drafts. I'd say upwards of 50% of each league was flying blind or worse, had a list of "sleepers" that they confused with a draft ranking/ADP list. *ETA, and hey, maybe I’m the guppy. Always that possibility.
One thing is for sure - it causes a lot of folks to reach. And honestly, that's discovery #2:
- Reach, reach, reach, and reach some more! Any "buzzy" player - any player getting preseason love. Any player who's been even vaguely mentioned as a break-out candidate, or said to be "in the best shape of his career" during "best shape of his career" season will be taken not just a few picks early, but several rounds early.
- Of course this leaves non-buzzy / boring known commodities falling well past ADP.
- Runs, runs, and more runs. No one seems to mind being at the back end of a run. Lots of clock running to 1 second panic picks, and not a lot of good ones.
- Michael PIttman going 2.09 & 2.08, ahead of Mike Evans, Kelce, etc.
- ETN going 2.10, 2.08
- ARob middle of the 3rd
- PItts going 2.05, ahead of Kelce/Andrews
- Marquis Brown as an early 3rd round pick, twice
- Bateman in the early 4th
- Gabe Davis 4.11, 4.01 and 4.12
- Pierce going 11th round (1st draft 3 weeks back) 8th (last week) and 5th (last night). Preseason darlings get WAY too much love. I'm not saying Pierce won't justify the 5th round pick, but it kind of ruins any profit that could have been realized later on him since his ADP even for that day's drafts was 8th round. 7th would have been safe.
- Dozens of other examples of this but also worth noting D/ST going in the 13th round of a 20 round draft. All 3 drafts at least 2 teams did this.
At the same time it allows those "boring" players to slide. I was able to get Lockett in the 9th, for example - he went in the 7th round in both my other drafts.
Another interesting thing to me was roster construction. I'd seen someone on YouTube call these "boomer drafts" - explaining that many of those who could afford the entry fee were of a certain age, and along with that have an old school draft mentality. I thought it was a funny comment, and filed it way. Sure enough, in all 3 drafts, there were teams that started off RB-RB, and in 2 of the 3, RB-RB-RB. While beauty is in the eye of the beholder, those rosters, IMO, aren't pretty. And the early RBs they took might or might not work out - taking Dalvin Cook & Derick Henry could be huge, but the odds of getting a full season out of them seems low. And in a points-based contest, reliability seems important, at least in my opinion.
And as mentioned earlier, the runs on WRs are early and often. So teams that started RB-RB-RB were deep in the weeds looking for WRs later.
Each of the leagues had different QB intensity. One league, mostly everyone waited - that was the league I took Josh Allen, something I never thought I'd do. But 4.03 he went a full round later than I'd seen him go, and he was clearly the best player on the board. In that same league, the 1.01 got completely screwed because they waited on a QB 1 round too long, and a run on backup QBs started right after them. They ended up with Winston (14th round), Matt Ryan (15th round) and Goff (17th round). They also had 9 RBs and 4 WR through 13 rounds after starting off JT -> Andrews. They went Dionte 3.12, Gabe Davis 4.01, Renfrow, DeVonta Smith, then Stephenson, Cook, Brian Robinson, Rashaad White, Nyheim Hines, Herbert - then finally took a 5th WR in Paris Campbell. They took a 6th in Ced Wilson in the 20th round (they took a D/ST in the 13th). Not a team I'd want, but hey - maybe it works out for them.
I don't mean to pick on that team, but man - the value they passed on to do what they did was tough to watch.
For my own rosters, I went in planning to do a VBD/hero RB build for all 3, but in one I ended up with a zero RB/BPA, and 1 hero RB (depending how you define that - I went WR-RB-BPA). The 3rd I went straight BPA, and ended up with 2 players I had no intentions of drafting but they both fell way too far in Monty (6th) and Sanders (9th). That was the earliest draft I did, and obviously things change from then to now with player news, preseason developments, etc. That said, that might be my deepest team, and in this points-based format, that could be a benefit. I won't really know how viable these teams are until the season plays out.
Anyway, just a few thoughts on NFC Rotowire Online Championship leagues, and my experience with them this year. I'm not sure how well I'll do - I think I have a decent chance to place in the $ in all 3, and I should be the favorite in the league I drafted on my birthday, where with every pick it felt like the entire draft just sort of fell to me. But then, I could also be looking at my teams like
Because they're tied into rotowire, they "grade" your draft. Interestingly my favorite draft where I started off with 4 straight WRs, they gave it a C+ (FBG rates it an A+), and my least favorite draft got an A- from rotowire. (FBG gave all 3 of my teams an A for whatever that's worth).
Has anyone here done one (or more) of these drafts? Are you planning on doing it this year? I'd be interested to hear about your experience with or approach to them, and whether it greatly differed from my own. Any insight you'd care to share that I may have missed would be appreciated - I'll likely do at least one next year, too. Hey, ya can’t take it with you.
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