Why would you rank them through 56 people...? In a 12 team league I would assuming 3 QB's per team giving that 36 QB's owned.
Clearly you don't like Eli Manning and love these younger QB's like Osweiler, Mallett, Dixon, that have been "sitting" behind elite QB's for years. Seems like you're putting A LOT of faith in these guys putting them that high, above consistent starters like Schaub and even Alex Smith.
Some people have deeper leagues. When making my lists, I basically added names until I reached my pain point and cried uncle. It'd be hard to have intelligent opinions on any more players than this. It's hard enough to have halfway-intelligent opinions even on this many- when doing my speed rankings, there were guys who I couldn't recall fast enough and I'll admit sometimes I just said "well, I'm getting vaguely positive-ish feelings about this name, so while I can't immediately recall who he plays for, I'll just sort of stick him here". Hopefully as I continue grinding out rankings, I'll start to form firmer opinions on those guys, so my blitzkrieg rankings match up with my thought out rankings at the bottom of the list as well as they do at the top. As for Manning... he's only once in his career finished higher than 12th in ppg (a 7th place finish in 2011). He's a guy who has historically gotten his owners killed if they ever have to start him. He's a top-notch backup, but if you're starting him more than 2-4 times a year, you're in trouble.
As for the backups... when you're looking at low-end qb2s or qb3s, upside is the name of the game. You can get a crappy starter at any time as a throw-in, so why value them highly? How much value did Matt Cassel or Alex Smith provide their fantasy owners over the last few years? If a guy has no shot at the top 12, I don't care about him. I'd much rather roster a very talented, high-upside backup than a crappy, "what you see is what you get" type starter. I've been pretty consistent about this, which has led in the past to me overrating guys like Josh Johnson, Chad Henne, and Joe Webb. Of course, at qb20-30 valuations, you can afford to have some swings and misses- you aren't out much value. And this philosophy has also led to some ridiculous steals- Michael Vick in the 30th round of a startup and Colin Kaepernick in the 22nd, to name two. Guys like Aaron Rodgers, Philip Rivers, Matt Schaub, and Russell Wilson were once nothing more than high-upside backups, too. Like I said, the prices are cheap enough where one hit can offset a half dozen misses and then some, and you're far more likely to get outrageous steals by rostering very highly regarded backups than proven duds like Kolb or Fitzpatrick who happen to have lucked into a starting job. And hey, even schlubs like Kolb and Fitzpatrick were once backups who later saw modest value bumps once they won their own starting jobs.
When you said "2 sets of dynasty rankings" I assumed you meant 1 for "win now" and 1 for "rebuilding".
He did say "
I approached two people with a relatively similar dynasty outlook". Then again, it almost looks like it was one guy doing two sets of rankings maybe a week apart.
Yeah, the jig is up, I did both sets of rankings using two radically different methodologies. I was hoping they'd turn out a bit more... different, but it is what it is. Basically, for one set I did my standard rankings thing- pore over every name, dig up 4 years worth of back stats, examine draft position, compare everyone in an elaborate head-to-head before deciding who I liked better, the whole nine yards. For the other set, I wrote all the names on index cards, shuffled them up, set an egg timer for 3 minutes, and produced a blitzkrieg ranking. The only rules were I wasn't allowed to hesitate and think, and once I put a name down I couldn't pick it back up or move it. It was actually surprisingly stressful.
I was hoping to use the two sets of rankings to illustrate my own unconscious biases, and I was hoping everyone would weigh in on those biases and give me an idea of where I'm over thinking (where my blitzkrieg rankings outperform my traditional ones) and where I need to guard better against my biases. For instance, I could tell from this exercise that apparently I secretly hate Jermaine Gresham, and also that my unconscious mind doesn't like the swing-for-the-fences types nearly as much as my conscious mind.
So, anyway, now that the cat's out of the bag, anyone else have any thoughts to add on the rankings? One set or both sets?
Which of the two rankings did you do first? If you did your standard one first, it may have had more influence on the second.
I thought of that- anchoring bias says that I'm going to unconsciously prefer to keep players where I had them. I did the blitzkrieg rankings first, wrote them down, then shuffled the cards and put them away for a day or two before coming back for the real rankings, which were a multi-day process (to try to prevent a certain environment or mood from influencing too much).
Nice rankings. I'm curious why DHB is so low in both sets of rankings? Do you not believe in his talent? It seems like he is in a nice situation.
I don't believe in his talent. Best case scenario is he gets to do a Devery Henderson impersonation for a year and then find himself back on the market.
Mendenhall is about 15-20 spots too low, but that's to be expected.
I am tempted to say that Peterson is extremely overrated right now. Certainly a lot of the variables are working against him. He's got the whole career year/recency bias thing going for him. And he's pretty old by RB standards. I also think it's possible that he was on PEDs last year. Even so, he's Adrian Peterson. Rare talent. My compromise is this: he might be worth RB3 prices if you plan to draft and hold, but just realize that his trade value will fall by the minute and you'll be stuck with him for better or worse.
Pretty harsh ratings for Mike Williams. He's no superstar, but no worse than Decker/Torrey/A Brown/Maclin/Danario in my eyes. Actually better than some of those guys.
Michael Floyd is too low on both lists, especially the left one. No reason to put him below the likes of Jenkins, Jeffery, Hill, V Brown, Broyles, Sanders, and Quick.
Mendenhall is getting a year splitting time in the worst rushing offense in the league, then back on the market. Thanks, but no thanks. I thought a lot about the Peterson ranking. At the end of the day, you know I'm not as big on factoring anticipated trade value as highly in my rankings, so I figured what you did- if you hold Peterson until the wheels fall off, he'll reward you. It helps that there's a huge dearth of young RB talent. McCoy is the only other guy in the conversation under 26. After that, what, Rice? Charles? Spiller? Peterson's only two years older, will be more productive per year, and I'd bet on him playing to an older age than those guys, anyway.
I'll agree that Williams is a comparable talent to Decker/Torrey/Brown/Maclin, but I like all of those guys' situations a lot more. Danario is a lot more talented, although obviously risky. At a time where the top-tier WR talent is so good, though, I give a little bump to guys like Danario and Britt who are risky as can be, but are two of the rare people outside of the top tier capable of producing at those levels.
We've discussed Floyd before. He was a better prospect than those guys, but he's stuck in a nightmare situation with no path to viability. The guys you mentioned are all in situations where they could conceivably provide immediate returns, and at the worst case, we'll find out a lot about them this year. Floyd could potentially be a roster albatross that you have to carry for years before you finally find out if he's any good.
