So what really happens when you go Jimmy Graham at 1.08? (1 Viewer)

[VikingFrog]

I just posted this as a question as the previous post landed. I was also considering Graham as a flex and then also grabbing Gronk in the 4th after RB/WR in 2/3.

I would suggest the 4th. I got it in my head that I wanted Gronk as my flex and panicked that someone would take him between my 3.10 pick and my 4.3.

I think I would have liked my team more if I had waited and I'm still fairly certain he would have been there at 4.3.

3.11 - Doug Martin

3.12 - Toby Gerhardt

4.1 - Ryan Matthews

4.2 - Randall Cobb

Guess it depends on how much you like Spiller, but he was about the only thing left for my RB1 that I even remotely liked.

 

[LOCO]

12 team, standard scoring, 2 rb, 2 wr, 1 te

graham

dez

cobb

luck

chris johnson

frank gore

maclin

hyde

ingram

benjamin

rg3

stewart

qb - very solid

rb - between chris johnson, gore/hyde, ingram, stewart i think it can be ok

wr - feels solid

te - super

so i think going graham can work out. just need to get lucky with rbs.

 

[Labrynth]

12 team PPR, 7th pick

QB: Drew Brees

RB: Arian Foster, Shane Vareen, Pierre Thomas, Steven Jackson, Devonta Freeman, Benny Cunningham

WR: Cordarelle Patterson, Emmanual Sanders, Terrance Williams, Justin Hunter, Jordan Matthews

TE: Jimmy Graham

DEF: NE

K: IND

Amazed I got Foster in the third. I think I am stacked at QB, RB, and TE, with WR being a little questionable.

 

[joey]

had the 11th pick in a 12 team, non-ppr, 1QB/2RB/2WR/1TE/1flex/1K/1D and Graham made it down to me so I went for it:

1. (11) Jimmy Graham (NO - TE)

2. (14) Dez Bryant (Dal - WR)

3. (35) Andre Ellington (Ari - RB)

4. (38) Frank Gore (SF - RB)

5. (59) Ray Rice (Bal - RB)

6. (62) Matthew Stafford (Det - QB)

7. (83) Mike Wallace (Mia - WR)

8. (86) Stevan Ridley (NE - RB)

9. (107) Seattle (Sea - DEF)

10. (110) Brandin Cooks (NO - WR)

11. (131) Devonta Freeman (Atl - RB)

12. (134) James White (NE - RB)

13. (155) Stephen Gostkowski (NE - K)

14. (158) Jordan Matthews (Phi - WR)

Since I also went earlier on QB than I usually would've, I decided to only go with 1 QB (as well as only 1 TE, K and DST).

I also decided to go for the top D early (I don't usually do that either) to also try to make up for playing from behind at the RB position.

The only bye week wrangling I did was then I noticed that my QB, TE and D all had different byes, so I made sure to pick a K that

was also different from the 3 of those players so I only need to cycle a single player to cover all of those 4 bye weeks.

Finally, I went with lots of upside with my final picks hoping to hit a homerun on some young RB/WR.

any opinions on this team?

eta: I also tried to swing for the fences and take Josh Gordon at 10.02 but he went the pick before me.

eta#2: I'm also a firm believer in not drafting a backup WR early at all since I always seem to find someone serviceable on waivers if one of my late upside picks doesn't pan out.

 

[cvnpoka]

Take him and then a stud WR. There are a lot of good Running Backs slipping late this year. Few WR studs, grab them early and often.

ya this has been my experience too. everyone else has said the opposite but i dont see it. when i can grab joique, woodhead, fjax, pierre, gore, pierce at pickes 6-10 then it makes a lot of sense to pass on ellington, spiller, vereen, stacy for fitz, andre, roddy, cruz, allen or whoever there.

 

[DA RAIDERS]

I said it in the other graham thread. Follow up your graham pick with one of the big three QBs and those two guys alone will win you weeks all by themselves. Get lucky in a few other spots and your team is a championship contender. It happens every year in my league. Some guy take a qb early and everyone looks at his rb depleted team and laugh. Meanwhile he wins the most games in your league and you scratch your head. Take graham and a stud wr or stud qb in the first two rounds. Get lucky on a rb and thats really all you need.

This is what I did. 12 team league full of maroons though, grain of salt. I've won 2 of the last 3 years. Graham

Rodgers

Gio fell

Leveon had just gotten arrested

White

M Floyd

Colston

J bell

And I got clay in the 12 the and very stoked about that I will play him in the te slot and graham at the flex.

Eta: all tds 6 points

 

[VikingFrog]

I said it in the other graham thread. Follow up your graham pick with one of the big three QBs and those two guys alone will win you weeks all by themselves. Get lucky in a few other spots and your team is a championship contender. It happens every year in my league. Some guy take a qb early and everyone looks at his rb depleted team and laugh. Meanwhile he wins the most games in your league and you scratch your head. Take graham and a stud wr or stud qb in the first two rounds. Get lucky on a rb and thats really all you need.

This is what I did. 12 team league full of maroons though, grain of salt. I've won 2 of the last 3 years. Graham

Rodgers

Gio fell

Leveon had just gotten arrested

White

M Floyd

Colston

J bell

And I got clay in the 12 the and very stoked about that I will play him in the te slot and graham at the flex

My plan was to hopefully see graham fall and then snag a big 3 qb. Manning, Brees and Rodgers went before I even picked Graham. He may not have fallen if they hadn't, but qbs were flying in my draft.

 

[DA RAIDERS]

I said it in the other graham thread. Follow up your graham pick with one of the big three QBs and those two guys alone will win you weeks all by themselves. Get lucky in a few other spots and your team is a championship contender. It happens every year in my league. Some guy take a qb early and everyone looks at his rb depleted team and laugh. Meanwhile he wins the most games in your league and you scratch your head. Take graham and a stud wr or stud qb in the first two rounds. Get lucky on a rb and thats really all you need.

This is what I did. 12 team league full of maroons though, grain of salt. I've won 2 of the last 3 years. Graham

Rodgers

Gio fell

Leveon had just gotten arrested

White

M Floyd

Colston

J bell

And I got clay in the 12 the and very stoked about that I will play him in the te slot and graham at the flex

My plan was to hopefully see graham fall and then snag a big 3 qb. Manning, Brees and Rodgers went before I even picked Graham. He may not have fallen if they hadn't, but qbs were flying in my draft.

Dez went right before I picked Rodgers or I would have taken him and this team would look very different with the qb in the 6-9th rounds

 

[cvnpoka]

I took him in two drafts yesterday. I royally screwed up one of them by not paying enough attention, so I'll just post the other one: (12 team standard)

The RB's are scary because I went for WR's after having already taken Graham. I did stack 5 RB's on the bench, hopefully between then and Rice I can come up with an RB2BC AND Mathews can stay healthy. lulz. My FAAB budget is ready.

QB: Foles

RB: Mathews, Rice

WR: Julio, Allen

TE: Graham

Flex: Crabtree

DEF: NE

K: SEA

BN: DeAngelo Williams, Ingram, Bradshaw, CJ Anderson, Bryce Brown, Brian Hartline

I don't see a thing wrong with those RBs. If I'd gone JG/Julio/Allen to start off I'd be praying for a starting RB combo like you got.

Having said that, I don't like the concept of Graham in the first in a standard scoring league. In PPR, all day long ... but in standard scoring the VBD that even a guy like Graham will most likely give you over the #11-15 TEs is very unlikely to justify the use of a first-rounder IMO.

i think his standard scoring vbd is actually higher

 

[Leonidas]

problem is, seemingly everyone is going to do the same thing with snagging Graham in rnd 1.it's almost better value to take bpa there, and wait for Rudolph to fall a couple of rounds: he's poised to be the #3 TE this season, IMO..

BPA at 8 is probably Graham.

Exactly

Yeah, I'm still kind of surprised I did it...but the top 4 RB's, Lacy, Calvin, and Demaryius were gone. I have a very hard time separating Green/Dez/Marshall/Julio so I hate taking the first of that group when Graham (IMO) clearly separates himself from the other TE's (tied highest ceiling, highest floor, IMO)...and I still got one of those 4 WR's (Julio) in the second.

 

[buddhacwru]

Didn't Graham have a partially torn plantar fascia last year? Any medical concerns with him. I am leaning towards taking him in some drafts.

 

[GoBirds]

Wasnt planning on this but ended up taking him at 9. Then followed with AJ Green, L Bell, Gerhart, Rice, Cruz, Sankey before going QB.

 

[SameSongNDance]

You win your league.

 

[FreeBaGeL]

On paper you will think you have a weak spot in the flex or 3rd WR or 2nd RB or whatever it may be because you compare your team to someone else who has less "weak spots" because you don't consider Kyle Rudolph or whoever they get at tight end a weak spot. But this is all so irrelevant because two weeks into the year you will be starting diferent players anyway. Get as may difference makers a you can and figure the rest out later.

This is well put. When plugging things into the data dominator with Dodds' projections in a 2wr+flex league Graham's VBD value blows the WRs out of the water (it puts him slightly behind the RBs like Ball in non-ppr, but obviously there is a lot of risk with the RBs). However, I think there are two things being overlooked here.

1) Gronk is often available in the 3rd and I think he's going to score nearly stride for stride with Graham. In fact, I think people are forgetting that when he plays, Gronk generally actually outscores Graham. The downgrade at WR/RB looks much larger to me between rounds 1 and 3 than it does between Graham and Gronk. However, there is no guarantee that Gronk will be available late 3rd (and in fact I'd say it's less than 50/50) so holding out for him is a risk.

2) This is the big one, but Graham is actually a very risky pick. People see him as a safe pick because he'll put up good numbers, but neglect to factor in that the cut-off line for what makes him a bust is well within his reach. People are factoring in that he'll score like a top 5 WR from the TE position without considering that doing so is far from a given. Two years ago Graham put up 900/9 which, while solid numbers for a TE, would be a colossal bust in the 1st round. Someone will get Jason Witten in the 9th round and get similar numbers from their TE. There is risk here. I could see Graham "only" putting up 900/9 but I don't think that's likely at all out of guys like DT, Dez, or AJ Green.

 

[Lord Fantasy]

12-team, non-PPR, drafting 10th:

Graham

Dez

C. Patterson

R. Jennings

Gore

Lamar Miller

MJD

Brady

J. Hunter

M. Evans

K. Stills

Patriots Defense

T. Kelce

C. Latimer

B. Cunningham

John Brown

Pittsburgh Kicker

 

[jvdesigns2002]

I have to say that going Graham in the first round really forces you to focus on catching up in the other positions in the mid-latter rounds. My first draft was on Thursday and I play in a 12 team standard league--but with 6 point passing touchdowns

our weekly roster requirements are: 1 qb, 2 rb, 2 wr, 1 te, 1 rb/wr/te, 1 kicker, 1 defense. Here's how my team turned out with me getting the 11th pick--regular snake draft.

Qbs: Drew Brees, Big Ben

rbs: Zac stacy, shane vereen, fred jackson, steven jackson, jeremy hill, jonathan stewart, benny cunningham

wr's: Victor cruz, jeremy maclin, dwayne bowe, kenny britt, andrew hawkins

te: Jimmy Graham, Kyle Rudolph

Kicker: matt bryant

defense-jets--but I generally stream

As you can see--my team looks relatively weak at wr and rb. In a 6pt passing td league--I have to hope that the brees to graham connection makes up for the points I left at wr/rb. Rudolph will most likely be my flex player--and I'm not too sure about that either. In any case--I'm not too sure about my team. I think that if I had a chance to go back in time--I might rather prefer to have dez/demaryious on my team than graham--looking at my roster.

 

[Archer]

After 21 rounds this is what my team looked like taking Graham at 1.6.

Newton, Eli, Manziel

Stacy, Gore, Ingram, Stewart, K. Robinson, Cunningham

A. Brown, AJ, Harvin, Benjamin, Steve Smith, Wheaton

Graham, Reed

Bryant, Parkey

Cardinals, Bucs

Have 1 more pick to go...not really sure how I feel about this team. There are definitely pros and cons to going TE in round one.

 

[shadyridr]

Took him at 1.07 ahead of lacy. Wasnt expecting lacy to be there and had a whole draft planned around him. Glad I did cuz ball slipped to the second and I jumped. Id much rather have graham and ball than lacy and brown.

 

[FreeBaGeL]

Took him at 1.07 ahead of lacy. Wasnt expecting lacy to be there and had a whole draft planned around him. Glad I did cuz ball slipped to the second and I jumped. Id much rather have graham and ball than lacy and brown.

PPR? I've done like 1000 mocks and Ball has never slipped back to me at 2.04, much less 2.06. Don't think you can count on getting Ball in the 2nd.

 

[shadyridr]

Took him at 1.07 ahead of lacy. Wasnt expecting lacy to be there and had a whole draft planned around him. Glad I did cuz ball slipped to the second and I jumped. Id much rather have graham and ball than lacy and brown.

PPR? I've done like 1000 mocks and Ball has never slipped back to me at 2.04, much less 2.06. Don't think you can count on getting Ball in the 2nd.

agreed i was stunned too. .5 ppr. All 3 top qbs went before him and so did zac stacy for some odd reason

 

[DukeBroadway]

Seeing how the rest of the draft shook out I wish I would have gone with a WR in round one in the 10 spot 12teamer. I could have gotten Gronk in the 4th. Would have allowed me to go with 3 straight WR... Anyways I couldnt resist Graham.

qb 2rb 2we 1rb/wr flex te k d .5ppr

Cutler

Jennings, C.Johnson, MJD, Ingram

Bryant, K.Allen, Benjamin, Bowe, Boykins, T.Austin

Graham, Kelce

Santos

Texans D

I think I would have preferred...Bryant, Marshall, Allen, Gronk. Oh well.

 

[TenTimes]

Had #10 in a 12 team non-ppr today and took Graham. Here's my team (QB,2RB,2WR,Flex(RB/WR/TE),K,D/ST,5BN):

QB: Robert Griffin III

RB: C.J. Spiller, Joique Bell, Stevan Ridley, Knowshon Moreno, Jonathan Stewart, Ahmad Bradshaw

WR: A.J. Green, Michael Floyd, Brandin Cooks, Josh Gordon

TE: Jimmy Graham, Rob Gronkowski

PK: Steve Hauschka

TD:

Quarterbacks flew off the board. I'm not a huge fan of RG3 and was targeting Cutler, but he went right before my pick and couldn't risk another run on QBs.

Not a ton of depth and no real workohorse backs, but my ability to start Graham and Gronk seems like an advantage. I may have gotten too fancy, but we just switched to adding TE into our flex the opportunity arose to have both Graham and Gronk, so I took Gronk at the end of the third.

Also ended up with RG3 from 10th in a 10 teamer non-ppr 1QB/2RB/2WR/1TE/1RBorWR/1K/1D 6 bench

Our drafts are pretty similar except I went RB 2nd round, you went WR.

QB: RG3,

RB: Eddie Lacy, Andre Ellington

WR: Randall Cobb, Roddy White

TE: Jimmy Graham

RB/WR: CJ Spiller

Don't like it (even with Eddie Lacy falling to me, should probably have been Monte Ball). I feel below average everywhere except TE. Wish I would have grabbed the best RB/WR instead of Graham and taken a 2nd tier TE in the 4th round.

 

[Maelstrom]

I had the 8 pick in a 12 team league that starts a few DF players as well. I made a mistake or two, I'm not fond of Morris but he seemed like BPA in the 2nd. Gerhart in the 4th I really wanted another RB, but I should have just taken Gronk, he went a few picks later (we can flex a TE). The PK taken in the 16th was a mistake, ran outta time on the draft clock (Yahoo, 45sec). But I still got who I hope is a decent backup TE, figure if Gates still shows that he has it by the time Graham's bye comes up I can pick up another TE for that week. Screwed if Graham gets hurt though.

1. (8) Jimmy Graham (NO - TE)
2. (17) Alfred Morris (Was - RB)
3. (32) Randall Cobb (GB - WR)
4. (41) Toby Gerhart (Jax - RB)
5. (56) Rashad Jennings (NYG - RB)
6. (65) Nick Foles (Phi - QB)
7. (80) Mike Wallace (Mia - WR)
8. (89) Luke Kuechly (Car - LB)
9. (104) Eric Decker (NYJ - WR)
10. (113) Harrison Smith (Min - S)
11. (128) Mike Evans (TB - WR)
12. (137) Robert Griffin III (Was - QB)
13. (152) Mychal Kendricks (Phi - LB)
14. (161) Perry Riley Jr. (Was - LB)
15. (176) Lawrence Timmons (Pit - LB)
16. (185) Matt Prater (Den - K)
17. (200) Ladarius Green (SD - TE)
18. (209) Chicago (Chi - DEF)

 

[shadyridr]

Had #10 in a 12 team non-ppr today and took Graham. Here's my team (QB,2RB,2WR,Flex(RB/WR/TE),K,D/ST,5BN):

QB: Robert Griffin III

RB: C.J. Spiller, Joique Bell, Stevan Ridley, Knowshon Moreno, Jonathan Stewart, Ahmad Bradshaw

WR: A.J. Green, Michael Floyd, Brandin Cooks, Josh Gordon

TE: Jimmy Graham, Rob Gronkowski

PK: Steve Hauschka

TD:

Quarterbacks flew off the board. I'm not a huge fan of RG3 and was targeting Cutler, but he went right before my pick and couldn't risk another run on QBs.

Not a ton of depth and no real workohorse backs, but my ability to start Graham and Gronk seems like an advantage. I may have gotten too fancy, but we just switched to adding TE into our flex the opportunity arose to have both Graham and Gronk, so I took Gronk at the end of the third.

Also ended up with RG3 from 10th in a 10 teamer non-ppr 1QB/2RB/2WR/1TE/1RBorWR/1K/1D 6 bench

Our drafts are pretty similar except I went RB 2nd round, you went WR.

QB: RG3,

RB: Eddie Lacy, Andre Ellington

WR: Randall Cobb, Roddy White

TE: Jimmy Graham

RB/WR: CJ Spiller

Don't like it (even with Eddie Lacy falling to me, should probably have been Monte Ball). I feel below average everywhere except TE. Wish I would have grabbed the best RB/WR instead of Graham and taken a 2nd tier TE in the 4th round.

it feels below avg but its not. Someone posted earlier. While your starting graham someone else is starting rudolph or ertz. There teams look more complete but youre ignoring the advantage graham provides over ertz

 

[DA RAIDERS]

rolled the dice with him again ppt eta this was from the 10 hole

graham

bmarsh

r bush

vjax

r mathews

djax

k wright

rivers

shorts

knowshon

dmc

rb are weak

 

[jvdesigns2002]

Had #10 in a 12 team non-ppr today and took Graham. Here's my team (QB,2RB,2WR,Flex(RB/WR/TE),K,D/ST,5BN):

QB: Robert Griffin IIIRB: C.J. Spiller, Joique Bell, Stevan Ridley, Knowshon Moreno, Jonathan Stewart, Ahmad BradshawWR: A.J. Green, Michael Floyd, Brandin Cooks, Josh GordonTE: Jimmy Graham, Rob GronkowskiPK: Steve HauschkaTD:

Quarterbacks flew off the board. I'm not a huge fan of RG3 and was targeting Cutler, but he went right before my pick and couldn't risk another run on QBs.

Not a ton of depth and no real workohorse backs, but my ability to start Graham and Gronk seems like an advantage. I may have gotten too fancy, but we just switched to adding TE into our flex the opportunity arose to have both Graham and Gronk, so I took Gronk at the end of the third.

Also ended up with RG3 from 10th in a 10 teamer non-ppr 1QB/2RB/2WR/1TE/1RBorWR/1K/1D 6 bench

Our drafts are pretty similar except I went RB 2nd round, you went WR.

QB: RG3,

RB: Eddie Lacy, Andre Ellington

WR: Randall Cobb, Roddy White

TE: Jimmy Graham

RB/WR: CJ Spiller

Don't like it (even with Eddie Lacy falling to me, should probably have been Monte Ball). I feel below average everywhere except TE. Wish I would have grabbed the best RB/WR instead of Graham and taken a 2nd tier TE in the 4th round.

it feels below avg but its not. Someone posted earlier. While your starting graham someone else is starting rudolph or ertz. There teams look more complete but youre ignoring the advantage graham provides over ertz

I can't help but to agree with this assessment. In fact, I don't see it appearing as below average at all. Lacy and Ellington is a fantastic set of rb's--Id say you most likely have a weekly point advantage there. Your wr's are also solid--in fact--I expect Roddy to have a solid bounce back season. Graham of course gives you a very solid weekly advantage. Spiller is a solid upside flex--but I'm guessing you have some bench guys that you can use there as well. As long as RG3 is a top 8-10 fantasy qb--I can totally see this team being a contender.