So I slapped together a team the day before the deadline and I'm still alive, and this is my first year in the contest, but I've become more and more fascinated with this whole thing every week. When I put together my roster I just assumed a 20 player roster with higher priced players would be better, what I ended up with was 22, but it's clear now that 24 players is the way to go. Here's what I've got:
QB - Matt Schaub - 20
QB - David Garrard - 18
RB - Kevin Smith - 30
RB - Darren McFadden - 29
RB - Ray Rice - 21
RB - Ahmad Bradshaw - 8
RB - Edgerrin James - 1
WR - Greg Jennings - 32
WR - Marques Colston - 28
WR - Vincent Jackson - 21
WR - Percy Harvin - 5
WR - Hakeem Nicks - 4
WR - Robert Meachem - 3
WR - Deon Butler - 2
WR - Josh Cribbs - 1
TE - Greg Olsen - 15
TE - Martellus Bennett - 4
PK - Josh Brown - 1
PK - Olindo Mare - 1
PK - Jason Hanson - 1
TD - Green Bay Packers - 3
TD - Seattle Seahawks - 2
It seems like I hit on a few good things and a few bad things inadvertently. 3 $1 kickers is the way to go with the current roster limit of 24. I have used each of my kickers at least once, and my weekly scores from the position are: 11, 10, 19, 7, 13, 11. Only one week with less than 10 points. Getting a third $2 defense (49ers) would've been good because I've had two weeks with less than 10 points there. also, 2 QBs is simply too risky. if one gets injured and the other has his bye, that would likely knock me out. Also I could've done better at the TE position, a 3rd option would cover me because Martellus hasn't done jack.
So with a 24 limit this would be the ideal set up IMO:
3 QBs, TEs, Kickers, and Defenses. That leaves 12 spots for RBs and WRs. You could go frugal with the Kickers and Defense, spending $9 or $10 on all 6, plus another $19 or $20 on 3 TEs (Shockey, Celek, VD, Heap, Finley, etc). For QBs, is $50 too much to spend on 3 decent options? Schaub, Eli, and Flacco looks like a solid group. That leaves $171 to spend on 12 RBs and WRs.
So here's my question: If they opened the roster size up to anything, where would the sweet spot be?
Starting from the bottom up, there are only 11 $1 kickers. What would be the ideal number? My guess is 5 with all different bye weeks. That way you have at least 4 every week, and you would be likely to get 12+ points every week from the position.
There are 13 defenses worth $1 or $2. This involves some more skill because you have to identify who will be decent, but you could've landed Saints, Broncos, and Bengals for $1 each, plus 49ers, Falcons and Seahawks for $2 each. Again, what's the ideal number? I think it's 5 here with different bye weeks also. So 5 kickers plus 5 defense = $5 + $7 = $12.
At TE, there are lots of options that cost less than $10. But here i'm not sure it's better to carry more than 3. would you really need more than Shockey, Celek, and Finley? Chris Baker had that blow up in week 1 but hasn't done anything since, so if you could divine that I guess he's a good $1 option. The next best option is Todd Heap for $5. So 3 for $19, or 4 for $24? I'll say 4.
For QBs, no one below Flacco looks worth much to me. Flacco+Eli+Schaub is $50.Thus, $12 + $24 + $50 leaves you with $164 to spend on WRs and RBs. Here is where you can have a field day picking all those low priced guys who put up some stud games.
What do you think of this set up so far given an unlimited roster size? And where can you go from here with RBs and WRs?