Top 25 Rookies 2016 (1 Viewer)

[squistion]

I wouldn't mind seeing squistions or any one else's rankings for that matter.

I don't think it is courteous to sharp shoot other peoples rankings without offering a counter opinion of your own.

I disagree with a lot of  EBFs ranking here, but I respect him for sharing his ideas.

This is a weak draft class, so more difference of opinion for this draft is something I expected.

There was no sharp shooting or criticism about the rankings, just wanted to see a response to what I thought was a legitimate question that was asked by another poster.

 

[Biabreakable]

Don't BS us with your feigned curiosity. We are smarter than that you know?

 

[DexterDew]

I had Dixon as my #4 RB after the draft.  My RB rankings:

1. Elliot

2. Henry

3. Prosise

4. Dixon

5. Howard

6. Drake

7. Perkins

8. Washington

9. Booker

10. Collins

 

[ILUVBEER99]

And it was important to comment because???

the NFL draft is not perfect, but the 32 teams have more information and base their picks on that info and needs. RBs fell for some reason (lack of talent, talent at other positions, team needs, etc).  Knowing Dixon was dinged may be a reason the NFL dropped him, maybe not. It didn't effect my rankings.  Maybe the two people who are being called out feel different , who knows and who cares?

back to the topic at hand, it's tough to move anybody more than a spot or two before camp opens.... A couple backs got dinged and didn't participate in the full OTAs (prosise and drake ). Washington looked good with out pads. I think OTAs are about where a player is physically and getting a fundamental grasp of the playbook. 

You summed it up nicely.  I have no idea why Dixon dropped to the late 4th, but he did.  

 

[ILUVBEER99]

Common courtesy. He specifically asked for a response or for a clarification to what he asked earlier, and for whatever reason he was ignored. If you unequivocally state your opinion I don't think it is beyond the pale for someone to ask you to explain or defend it, but that is just my .

I couldn't respond with anything meaningful.  All i know is that he fell to the late 4th round in the NFL draft, it could have been for a lot of reasons.  There are tons of variables as to why someone falls in the draft, i'm not smart enough to know what ones dropped him.

 

[bostonfred]

This is a weak draft class

Is it?  Last year's top rookie rb was Gurley,  but Eliott isn't that far off in dynasty rankings.  Last year's number two was Gordon,  but is he really any better than Derrick Henry?  Last year had yeldon, Abdullah, tevin coleman, duke and ajayi, but what have any of them shown that makes them better than dixon, booker,  prosise, Howard and Perkins? 

I get that people are still high on Kevin white, Davante parker and perriman, but I'm not sure I prefer them to doctson/coleman/treadwell, and I like Shepard, Thomas, fuller, boyd and caroo better than dgb, agholar, dorsett, jaelen strong and funchess.  

Hunter Henry vs maxx Williams?  Give me Henry all day. 

Maybe the quarterbacks.  But this time last year Winston and mariotta were considered very weak qbs, and this year teams traded a boat load to get goff and wentz.  

Which means the real difference here is that amari Cooper has already shown stud potential.  And I'd take him first among the receivers in the combined classes.   But really,  the main difference between last year's "strong class" and this year's "weak class" looks like one guy who broke out, and we might see one of the guys this year break out every bit as much.   

Don't buy into the hype.  This is a better class than the consensus realizes. 

 

[Biabreakable]

Yes this is a weak draft class for skill players Fred. 

I wouldn't call 2015 strong, it was pretty much average. I think 2016 is below average, that is why I called it weak.

 

[bostonfred]

We'll see.  If I owned the entire 2015 first round except cooper, I would trade them for the entire first round in 2016 without hesitation.   If I owned Cooper too, I would probably take the 2015 draft.  I get that that's not the consensus opinion, but it shouldn't be far off.  What is Abdullah really worth right now?   Perriman?  

 

[EBF]

Most classes look worse after you've seen them play and most of the "maybes" have turned into "nos". Gordon was considered a better prospect than Henry by some distance based on draft slot. White was considered an elite prospect. Perriman, Agholor, and Parker had their fans. With the benefit of hindsight we've seen that the early returns on a lot of those guys have been disappointing, but that's only with the benefit of hindsight (which we don't yet have for the 2016 class).

I don't think there's any real argument that this isn't a weak class based on the objective data. I'll quote my own post from earlier in this thread.

I think it's objectively weak. Let's look at the number of skill players drafted in the top 100:


 


QB


RB


WR


TE


2016


7


4


9


3


2015


4


8


14


4


2014


5


8


15


7


2013


4


6


11


6


2012


7


8


15


3


2011


7


8


11


3


2010


4


7


13


5

The # of skill position prospects picked in the top 100 by year:

2016 - 23

2015 - 30

2014 - 35

2013 - 27

2012 - 33

2011 - 29

2010 - 29

Seems pretty clear that this is a light class based on how the NFL views them as draft commodities. It's especially damning that the only position that's relatively strong (QB) is of secondary importance in most FF formats. If you just look at RB and WR, the class looks even worse than it would if you look at it as a whole. This year we had a combined 13 players from WR/RB picked in the top 100. In 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2015 you had at least that many WRs alone (even totally excluding the RBs). That speaks volumes.

 

[Biabreakable]

I think Ameer may be undervalued right now. I like Booker more than him but I might prefer Ameer to DIxon. He is in the same tier as these guys for me.

Never liked Perriman or Agholor.

 

[bostonfred]

If your definition of a strong or weak draft class is the number of players drafted in the top 100 and you use a raw count of players drafted in the top 100 to prove how many players were drafted in the top 100, you will have successfully shown that fewer players were drafted in the top 100, but not shown whether this is a weak class for offensive talent.

This may be a strong class for defensive talent (it was) or a strong class for positions like qb, dl and db (it was) or the continuation of a trend where fewer teams are looking to spend early picks on running backs go later in the draft, which leads to more running backs sliding further (it probably was) or an indication that only a few teams were really looking for running back help (aside from indy, which team that needed running back depth failed to get some?), or an indication that there was uncertainty around a lot of these guys (there was).

I do think you can objectively say that this is an objectively slower draft class for skill positions in the 40.  There aren't a lot of the ideal size/speed monsters we've seen in a couple recent classes.   And that definitely played into guys getting drafted later.  

But I think Henry is a generational talent running a "slow" 4.5 that was actually blazing fast at 247.  I think a lot of teams don't know what to do with that.  Dixon ran 3 40s - one at 4.4x, one at 4.5x and one at 4.6x - while hampered by a bad hamstring. And while their 40 times aren't mind blowing,  Perkins is the most elusive back in the class, and Booker has power and an all around skillset.   The guys with good 40 times also had draft day blemishes that could turn out to be nothing.  Prosise would have gone earlier if he'd been a running back for more than one year. Marshall has great wheels and a decent pedigree but played with multiple studs.  

Would it be better not to make excuses for guys before they even take a snap?  Obviously.  

But I don't think this is an objectively worse group of talent.  I think there was objectively more uncertainty with some of these guys.  I think there were a lot of good but similar guys available and not as many buyers on the market as usual.   I think it was a strong draft class in other areas, especially defensive line.  I think it's a mistake to write this class off as weak because of where guys got drafted.  We'll see I guess. 

 

[squistion]

If your definition of a strong or weak draft class is the number of players drafted in the top 100 and you use a raw count of players drafted in the top 100 to prove how many players were drafted in the top 100, you will have successfully shown that fewer players were drafted in the top 100, but not shown whether this is a weak class for offensive talent.

This may be a strong class for defensive talent (it was) or a strong class for positions like qb, dl and db (it was) or the continuation of a trend where fewer teams are looking to spend early picks on running backs go later in the draft, which leads to more running backs sliding further (it probably was) or an indication that only a few teams were really looking for running back help (aside from indy, which team that needed running back depth failed to get some?), or an indication that there was uncertainty around a lot of these guys (there was). [...]

But I don't think this is an objectively worse group of talent.  I think there was objectively more uncertainty with some of these guys.  I think there were a lot of good but similar guys available and not as many buyers on the market as usual.   I think it was a strong draft class in other areas, especially defensive line.  I think it's a mistake to write this class off as weak because of where guys got drafted.  We'll see I guess. 

Some excellent points raised here.

 

[BigTex]

It is hard to guess why teams passed on players in favor of other players in the draft. There are so many different factors that go into a teams decision.

I recall Keenan Allen was pretty much universally considered the top WR prospect of his draft class. He had an injury that teams seemed concerned about and he wasn't drafted until the 3rd round because of it. I had him high in my rankings prior to that, but I dropped him down significantly to reflect the change in draft position which was much lower than I had expected prior to the draft, I thought Allen was a 1st round pick.

I regret dropping Allen as far as I did because of his drop in draft position. I am trying to learn from this, but I am still not sure what might be a good way to approach it.

Last year Jay Ajayi who I was very high on prior to the draft (as were many others) fell to the 5th round due to long term concerns about his knee possibly shortening his career. Incidentally this was the reasoning given by the Broncos for drafting Montee Ball ahead of Eddie Lacy, because they were worried about Lacy's long term health.

I want to stop here for a second and ask how much should a NFL downgrade a player on their draft board because of long term health concerns that might shorten the players career? A RB career is already shorter than most other positions. How important is it to a team that their RB be healthy on their second contract? When the team may or may not re-sign the player? Doesn't it seem kind of strange to be worried about the long term prospects of a RBs career?

Anyhow so I dropped Jay Ajayi pretty far in my rankings because of the lower expected draft position. At this time it looks like everything has fallen in his favor so I am right back to liking him about as much as I did before he fell so far in the draft.

This year I expected Devontae Booker to be drafted in the second round. It seems like a pattern with NFL teams to drop a player, even a very good player such as Allen or Lacy a round or two in the draft if they have some injury issues, which Booker did (does?) have.

I dropped Booker out of the 1st tier because of the lower than expected draft position. But I didn't drop him nearly as far as I did with Allen or Ajayi. In the case of Lacy I considered dropping him, but didn't really drop him much at all.

I would like to try to figure this out, so I could be more consistent in how far I drop players in my rankings because of scenarios like this.

Last year I drafted White, Parker and Ajayi because the other owners didn't want to draft them do to concerns. I already had Cooper and Gurley.

So I have 4 possibly 5 top 10 players out of 2015. This is how I view injured players that dropped in the draft. If a players drops a bit because of injury or "rumors" of an injury then it doesn't  affect my ranking. If they are not drafted at all or drafted round 6 or later I won't touch them. If a player has a high draft pedigree, dropped in the draft due to injury, still drafted respectfully and still might be out for the entire year then I see it as an investment in the next season and not the current season.

I saw White, Parker and Ajayi as an investment for 2016. They all stayed high on my draft board and I drafted them accordingly. This year I believe my patience will pay off and I'm going to wreck this league then thank them for passes on players that all draft niks saw as this best talent in the draft.

To answer the question, believe in your evaluation, theory, metrics, board, ect....and be patient. Look at the severity of the injury and how far player X fell in the NFL draft and determine your cut off and stick to it. 

Two cents

Tex

 

[Biabreakable]

I appreciate your point of view Tex.

The metric being affected here is draft position, and that is an important part of rookie player evaluation.

However I could just stick with the pre draft evaluation and ignore players being drafted later than expected because of injury concerns, as you suggest.

I do know draft position has some predictive value and more than any other metric one might use. So to ignore it does not seem right either. I do not like the results of dropping Keenan Allen and Jay Ajayi as far as I did.

The main guy from 2016 that falls under this category for me is Booker, who I have not dropped much for lower than expected draft position.

To be consistent I don't think I will be dropping players much for draft position moving forward. I feel like I burned myself dropping players I really liked, while I haven't regretted not dropping a player for the same reason yet.

 

[FreeBaGeL]

If the goal is to judge a draft class based on how strong it ends up being in practice 10 years from now then there is really no point in having any discussion about it as we won't know until then.  If the goal is to judge how strong a draft class was perceived to be for fantasy at the time of the draft then there is no doubt that 2016 was light years behind.

Top 100 players is a bit of an arbitrary measure but it's one of multitudes that show the same truth.  Fantasy relevant positions were drafted both higher and more frequently in prior years than in 2016 and it's not really close.

I haven't really heard any buzz about 2016 just being overwhelmingly rich at QB or defense to push those other positions down, and I don't buy the positional needs argument at all.  Kevin White, as the #2 WR in 2015's class was good enough for a team that only kinda sorta had a little bit of need at WR to draft him early.  Certainly not a need that compares to San Francisco or Tennessee's need at the position this year, yet they both passed on their choice of this year's WRs.  Even the Browns, who had an immense need and were the first to finally bite on one, traded down behind teams with a WR need multiple times because they knew that this year's WR prospects just weren't good enough for teams to take early.

RB isn't really any different.  Teams that had needs at RB that people had mocked picking a RB in the 1st or 2nd round passed on this year's RBs 4, 5, even 6 times before finally grabbing one late (or not grabbing one at all in the case of Indy).  Even Baltimore, who had a need there and finally ended up taking everyone's favorite Kenneth Dixon, passed on him 7 times, including passing on him three times in the 4th round alone, before finally pulling the trigger.  Had they not had a plethora of mid round picks they probably wouldn't even have bothered with him.

 

[ZWK]

Here is how I currently rank the fantasy first rounders from the past 2 classes (where the first rounders were picked out from these threads).

2015 RB Todd Gurley

2015 WR Amari Cooper
2016 RB Ezekiel Elliott

2015 WR DeVante Parker
2015 WR Kevin White
2016 WR Corey Coleman
2016 WR Josh Doctson

2016 WR Laquon Treadwell
2016 RB Derrick Henry
2015 RB Ameer Abdullah
2015 RB TJ Yeldon
2015 RB Melvin Gordon

2015 WR Phillip Dorsett
2016 WR Will Fuller
2016 WR Sterling Shepard
2016 WR Michael Thomas
2015 WR Dorial Green-Beckham
2015 WR Breshad Perriman

2016 RB C.J. Prosise
2015 RB Tevin Coleman
2016 RB Kenneth Dixon
2016 WR Tyler Boyd
2015 WR Nelson Agholor

2016 RB Devontae Booker

In total, I think the 2015 draft class accounts for about 60% of the fantasy value of these guys. The gap gets fairly small if you remove Cooper (or Gurley), but still with a pretty clear edge for the first round of 2015. And the 2nd round of 2015 is looking way better than the 2nd round of 2016 (it includes David Johnson, Duke, Ajayi, Mariota, Winston, Lockett, Funchess).

 

[bostonfred]

Even Baltimore, who had a need there and finally ended up taking everyone's favorite Kenneth Dixon, passed on him 7 times, including passing on him three times in the 4th round alone, before finally pulling the trigger.  Had they not had a plethora of mid round picks they probably wouldn't even have bothered with him.

Counter argument - they traded down repeatedly to get picks in what ozzie believed was the sweet spot of the draft, and while they took dixon first among rbs in the ensuing qb run, they also had relatively high grades on booker and perkins, who are similar backs that can run and catch well enough to feature in trestman's system.  

They clearly planned to take a running back with forsett getting old and buck getting benched for fumbling late last year.  They kept trading back but always had a pick soon if a rb run started.  Its what you would do in a ff draft.  Why is it so crazy to think its what ozzie did?

Starting when ozzie took dixon, 7 out of 21 picks went at running back.  Thats a crazy run.  Maybe a bunch of teams were waiting at the position to see who blinked first because they liked a lot of the guys about equal and it was a buyers market with only a few teams needing rb.

 

[bostonfred]

I haven't really heard any buzz about 2016 just being overwhelmingly rich at QB or defense

A couple teams traded up to take quarterbacks this year.  3 in the first round actually, with the two top picks going for massive compensation.  According to ebf, the 7 qbs taken in the first 100 picks is tied for the most in years.  

3 qbs, 7 offensive linemen, 7 defensive linemen and 7 defensive backs in the first round. 

If you didnt hear the hype about the defensive linemen in this years draft, dont take my word for it.  Look up articles from before the draft.  People were talking about guys who would normally go in the mid rounds going undrafted.  The defensive tackles in this draft were insanely deep and players like bosa who went third overall were highly coveted too. 23 defensive linemen in the first 100 picks, and thats not counting the outside linebacker/"edge" players.

Defensive backs were also strong and deep. 22 in the first 100 picks.  

And 17 of the first 100 picks were offensive linemen.

 

[Biabreakable]

2016 was an average draft overall. There were good players at other positions like you say Fred. It was just below average for skill players in FF.

I have seen much worse than this as far as that goes. There were a few years where there were not any good players for FF from that draft. It isn't that bad. It just isn't as good as the last couple years have been is all.

I like your Ozzie Newsome speculation. I could see the NFL owners perhaps doing exactly this.

Elways comments about how much they liked Booker do not match the way they drafted. However if they value the players at the positions they drafted that much higher than RB, it could make a bit more sense. They did get an interesting free safety in the 3rd round I have been meaning to look into. Part of it just may be playing a game of Chicken and waiting for the run before making a move.

Hard to say but fun to think about.

 

[Rhythmdoctor]

I think it's objectively weak. Let's look at the number of skill players drafted in the top 100:


 


QB


RB


WR


TE


2016


7


4


9


3


2015


4


8


14


4


2014


5


8


15


7


2013


4


6


11


6


2012


7


8


15


3


2011


7


8


11


3


2010


4


7


13


5

I think EBF's logic is spot on and the table above is strong supporting evidence, imo.  People like to argue in absolutes but I don't think any of us FF geeks believe in absolutes.  It goes without saying that there are outliers for any/every category.  

You can speculate that this was a very strong defensive class or you could argue that defensive philosophies are morphing and trying to adapt to progressive offensive philosophies.  This would cause teams to take more chances on that side of the ball. 

In hindsight, this draft will probably turn out to be a mixture of all.  Weak offensive class, combined with a somewhat strong defensive class with a lot of uncertainties either way.

 

[Biabreakable]

Here is a interesting article looking at the ADP for rookies over time as well as their affect on veteran player ADP.

On the 3rd page of this bust rates are calculated and the author has this to say:

Before we jump to running backs, I want to point out a trend you will see across all positions. If you look carefully at the hit rates in the first round versus the second, third and fourth, you may notice the earlier we draft players the more often they hit. This may be an obvious statement, but what is surprising is how amazing we are at making this come true.

In nearly every single instance, the higher the round/group of picks within a round, the higher the hit rate. For all the arguing and hand wringing over rookie rankings, as a group we get it remarkably right. So pat yourself on the back. You’ve earned it.

 

[BigTex]

Here is how I currently rank the fantasy first rounders from the past 2 classes (where the first rounders were picked out from these threads).

2015 RB Todd Gurley

2015 WR Amari Cooper
2016 RB Ezekiel Elliott

2015 WR DeVante Parker
2015 WR Kevin White
2016 WR Corey Coleman
2016 WR Josh Doctson

2016 WR Laquon Treadwell
2016 RB Derrick Henry
2015 RB Ameer Abdullah
2015 RB TJ Yeldon
2015 RB Melvin Gordon

2015 WR Phillip Dorsett
2016 WR Will Fuller
2016 WR Sterling Shepard
2016 WR Michael Thomas
2015 WR Dorial Green-Beckham
2015 WR Breshad Perriman

2016 RB C.J. Prosise
2015 RB Tevin Coleman
2016 RB Kenneth Dixon
2016 WR Tyler Boyd
2015 WR Nelson Agholor

2016 RB Devontae Booker

In total, I think the 2015 draft class accounts for about 60% of the fantasy value of these guys. The gap gets fairly small if you remove Cooper (or Gurley), but still with a pretty clear edge for the first round of 2015. And the 2nd round of 2015 is looking way better than the 2nd round of 2016 (it includes David Johnson, Duke, Ajayi, Mariota, Winston, Lockett, Funchess).

Where would you rank 2017 with this two classes?

Tex

 

[ZWK]

Here is how I currently rank the fantasy first rounders from the past 2 classes (where the first rounders were picked out from these threads).

2015 RB Todd Gurley

2015 WR Amari Cooper
2016 RB Ezekiel Elliott

2015 WR DeVante Parker
2015 WR Kevin White
2016 WR Corey Coleman
2016 WR Josh Doctson

2016 WR Laquon Treadwell
2016 RB Derrick Henry
2015 RB Ameer Abdullah
2015 RB TJ Yeldon
2015 RB Melvin Gordon

2015 WR Phillip Dorsett
2016 WR Will Fuller
2016 WR Sterling Shepard
2016 WR Michael Thomas
2015 WR Dorial Green-Beckham
2015 WR Breshad Perriman

2016 RB C.J. Prosise
2015 RB Tevin Coleman
2016 RB Kenneth Dixon
2016 WR Tyler Boyd
2015 WR Nelson Agholor

2016 RB Devontae Booker

In total, I think the 2015 draft class accounts for about 60% of the fantasy value of these guys. The gap gets fairly small if you remove Cooper (or Gurley), but still with a pretty clear edge for the first round of 2015. And the 2nd round of 2015 is looking way better than the 2nd round of 2016 (it includes David Johnson, Duke, Ajayi, Mariota, Winston, Lockett, Funchess).

Where would you rank 2017 with this two classes?

Tex

I don't have rankings of the 2017 class yet. I guess I'd put Fournette & Chubb right behind Elliott. Then JuJu Smith-Schuster, Royce Freeman, Dalvin Cook, Samaje Perine, and Christian McCaffrey somewhere within the next two tiers (Parker to Gordon). I haven't followed things closely enough to fill out the bottom half of the top 12, but I guess some of the other RBs mentioned here would probably go in there somewhere.

 

[Otis]

UPDATED ROOKIE RANKINGS?

 

[bostonfred]

UPDATED ROOKIE RANKINGS?

https://www.google.com/amp/www.canalstreetchronicles.com/platform/amp/2016/8/18/12535582/watch-saints-michael-thomas-makes-another-highlight-reel-catch?client=ms-android-verizon

 

[bostonfred]

Should learn some more this weekend but i still like henry coleman thomas and shepard a lot.  Would be happy with any of them, probably in that order for me.  Treadwell and doctson both very good especially if you can afford to wait, because you'll have to.  Dixon booker perkins and hunter henry still my next group.