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does this change depending on the league? in 12 team leagues with smaller starting lineups, for example QRRWWWT, I'll favor upside. In larger leagues with more starters, for example QRWWWTFF I'll put more emphasis on safer players. Sure you need some upside still, but if all 7 non QB starters are very good players, you'll generally win more often than a few studs and more busts. At least that's my experience in larger leagues.
Not to focus too much on borderline rosterable players, but I would rank Swoope higher for similar reasons. Project ATH TE who will see the field a lot given Indy's offense, and the fact that it's Indy would make him valuable if he can carve out a role. I would rather roster Swoope than most players outside of the top 25. His VOA last year was insanely high, but I don't put too much faith in that because it was inflated by a few deep throws that connected. I don't have confidence in him really (boom/bust) but on paper it seems like he should be worth more.
No Witten has never averaged 12 yards a catch and scoring has been minimum but he's never been asked to do so. He's always been surrounded by some of the top athletes in the NFL who were asked to perform. Witten has always performed at an elite level when called to do so during a game. He was never asked to do so year end and year out not because he's incapable but because his teammates were. Besides it's way to early to assume that Henry will continue to perform the way he did his rookie year. Honestly I love his game but let's see him do it when opponents are focused on him now that he's made his presence known and when Gates is gone.bostonfred said:
If a league is TE premium (1.5 PPR for TE and 1.0 or less for other positions) and it has a flex spot then that does increase the value of solid TEs. I have Hunter Henry ahead of the rookies in that format, and possibly also ahead of Eifert (who is older, more injury-prone, and heavy on TDs relative to receptions). (I am actually in a league like this, and own Henry there.)-OZ- said:
Good call. He should probably be up near Hodges, Butt, and DeValve.thriftyrocker said:
I got Henry in 4 of 7 rookie drafts last year. It was less because I thought he was a great prospect and more because the rest of the class was trash, I thought he would be solid, and he had a relatively low ADP. Here is my writeup of him from a year ago:
I was leaning more towards the Kyle Rudolph end of that spectrum going into last year, but after seeing him in an NFL uniform I'm leaning more towards the Witten end. I like his rookie highlights and think he looked a bit more athletic/explosive than I expected.
On the down side, I don't see many plays in that highlight video where Henry is beating man coverage. There are a lot of defensive breakdowns, and plays where SD schemes to get him open with a rub or a fake WR screen, and plays where he found a soft spot in the zone. I count 5 plays where he beat a man one-on-one (at 0:32, 1:15, 2:10, 3:43, and 3:50 - the one at 2:10 is my favorite), and all 5 were against a LB. Contrast that with, say, Travis Kelce, who made a lot more plays against man coverage including against DBs.
You're probably right that Derby should be higher, as the favorite to be Denver's top receiving TE. I don't see much in particular to like about him, but sometimes guys like Barnidge and Brate emerge. And looking it up, I see that Denver have a new OC in Mike McCoy who is apparently TE-friendly so there's a decent chance that some Denver TE will have fantasy value.
For RBs over 30, I should probably be going mostly off of redraft rankings. Here is how FFCalculator has them ranked (averaging together their 1 ppr and 0 ppr ADP, since I'm doing 0.5 ppr):
If we look at ppg (min 8 games), and include Witten's 2016 playoff game, then in 2016 I have Witten as TE16 in 1 ppr, TE16 in 0.5 ppr, and TE19 in 0 ppr. In 2015 he was TE13 in 1 ppr, TE16 in 0.5 ppr, and TE17 in 0 ppr. In 2014 he was TE10 in 1 ppr, TE10 in 0.5 ppr, and TE11 in 0 ppr. Gates finished ahead of him in all 3 years and all 3 formats. Zach Miller's 2016 season was better than any of Witten's last 3 seasons.
I don't know if "special" is the right word here but I had him ranked about equal to Austin Hooper after the 2015 season. Had he entered the draft then he probably would have been taken in the top 3 rounds. He probably would have gone around the same this year if not for his injury. The injury is cause to bump him down some but the guy is arguably the 2nd most/best complete TE from this year's draft (to Howard) - which granted doesn't always equal ff value and he shouldn't go where this year's big 5 are drafted (in ff) as he lacks their explosiveness, but he will be on the field and serve a valuable role for the Broncos short range passing game. When watching him play over the past few years he reminded me of Witten in Tennessee. He won the Mackey award last year (and the ozzie newsome in 15) because of the same traits he'll bring to the Broncos.
Witten is one of the few TE who does not regularly miss games, so that calculation will disadvantage him somewhat.
He seems like a solid all around prospect (like Witten) but the outlook is longer and the upside more limited imo.
With Graham & D Thomas, I wouldn't say that I'm writing them off. It's more that they're old enough (Thomas turning 30 this year, Graham turning 31) so that I can look at what they did last year and what they seem likely to do this year, and guess that most likely all they have left is another 2-3 years of something like that. Hence WR28 and TE13.
I think that Julius Thomas was never that good of a TE - he was mostly just a product of Peyton Manning (much like Jacob Tamme, who had 67/631/4 in 10 games in 2010 after Dallas Clark went down). Thomas had 1 big year with Manning, 1 year with Manning where he scored a lot of touchdowns but was otherwise mediocre, and a couple mediocre years in Jacksonville. He is still at the top of tier 7 because maybe I'm wrong.
ppg is more relevant than season-long totals because I'm not going to take 0's when Eric Ebron misses 3 games, instead I'll start (say) Charles Clay for 3 weeks. And 13 weeks of Ebron plus 3 of Clay is better than 16 of Witten, even though Witten finished ahead of either of them in the season-long totals.
I was never high on Robert Woods, and he went to one of the worst passing attacks in the NFL, but here are two players after 4 years
Good comparison. A 4-year stretch of production like Sanders 2015-16 is pretty valuable. It's not a home run, but there are probably only about 25 WRs in the NFL who will wind up giving you more value than that.
I understand doing this for head to head match ups, although you are being generous as far as your ability to know when those players will miss games. It isn't as clear as you make it sound.
Well I believe I got this one right. Elliot is not only the #1 dynasty RB in most startups right now he is going #1 overall in startups in a lot of leagues over the stud WR's.
clap clap clap
I was recently looking back through my first set of rankings in this thread (WR, TE, QB, RB) and it definitely is sobering. Both how big the gap is between reality and rankings, and how few players ended up having much fantasy value. I went through and made a list of the players that I underrated the most (which I'll put at the end of this post). I wanted to also make a list of the players that I overrated the most, but that list would've included most of the players in my rankings - there's not much point in making an "overrated" list which includes 9 of the 10 WRs who I had ranked in the 10s.
I am honored, really. You put a lot of time and effort into your rankings and I just piggy back off them and add a comment here and there.
× 100
We've all had our share of hits and misses (though you've had more of both than most, since you make more calls on players).
Just calling it like I see it.I am honored, really. You put a lot of time and effort into your rankings and I just piggy back off them and add a comment here and there.
The fact you went back and linked some old posts is a great compliment.
I was already having a good day and this made it even better.
I think you might be overdoing it with the guys like Shaheen and Jonnu. I would include Everett too but don't want to focus on him. Project TEs are pretty low value. There are a couple historic TE drafts in recent memory - Gronk/Graham/Hern and then Eifert/Ertz/Reed - and the only 1st rounder in the pack was Eifert, but I don't think most drafts are like that. I think most project TE see the waiver wire by November in a majority of leagues, even deep ones. Teams will start dropping Shaheen to get back Zach Miller because points. Although probably the main point here is outside of the top 15 (Fantasypros' consensus dynasty top 15), TE is a bunch of junk. Most of the guys you're listing in tier 5 on are easily bypassable and not really indicative of talent. It's likely there's a couple guys who will finish high in PPG this year we're not even thinking about, Xavier Grimble or Niles Paul or Ben Watson just to name a few guys with an outside chance, because TE for the most part is a low talent position where a yeoman with decent hands can land in a good position. Conventional wisdom has been to only value the elite TE, and I don't see that changing, and accordingly would only really value the 3 great rookies.
Gronk was drafted with pick 42 and became fantasy relevant as a rookie (where "fantasy relevant" means at least a high-end TE2). Graham was drafted with pick 95 and became fantasy relevant in his 2nd season. Pitta was drafted with pick 11 and became fantasy relevant in his 3rd season (he did not have as good a career, but injuries are a significant chunk of the reason for that). Hernandez was drafted with pick 113 and became fantasy relevant as a rookie (though he fell in the draft due to well-justified character concerns). Eifert was drafted with pick 21 and became fantasy relevant in his 3rd season (after spending his 2nd season on IR). Ertz was drafted with pick 35 and became fantasy relevant in his 2nd season. Kelce was drafted with pick 63 and became fantasy relevant in his 2nd season. Reed was drafted with pick 85 and became fantasy relevant as a rookie. Henry was drafted with pick 35 and became fantasy relevant as a rookie. (Though with some of these guys it still remains to be seen how good they will turn out to be.)
Really don't agree with any of this. You must be in leagues with really short benches because this sounds more like redraft. Usually I have a TE1 in every league and I'm not worried about getting Miller to sit on the bench. TE2s have very little value in most leagues and you can get them for nothing. And more than any position TEs can come out of nowhere, draft position isn't nearly as important.
If only he would have been idiot proof as well he could have been a great one.
Totally depends on the league but that's a reason I prefer playing in leagues where you can flex a TE, preferably with enhanced ppr. In those leagues TE actually hold value.
Talk about fall from grace.......Hill #5 RB last year to this year being worth ?
Wow this stands out huge for me looking back at this. I never really followed this thread much over the years as you can assume based on all the comments I have had from the past but this one shocks me. This is about the only place I seen Watkins rated over Evans going into last year but not only that the margin is huge. I did a few startups last year and Evans went before Watkins in both barely but ahead of him in both. The divide a year later now seems ginormous. Evans is now a top 5 dyno player overall and Watkins is at the brink.
In my 1 non PPR league I have been trying to deal Ebron all off-season and the most I was offered was a mid 3rd round pick this year. The reason is he had only 1 TD last year and most people who want to buy someone off you they want to buy on the cheap so all I hear about is that 1 TD he scored last year I can't even get a 2nd rounder for him. Painful since I took him at #8 overall in 2014 over some guy named Beckham.
I've been in 14x30 and 12x35 leagues where guys like Vance McDonald, Gavin Escobar, and Troy Niklas going back to Jared Cook were dropped during their first year or two. Sometimes as soon as September. While you may be in a deeper league, I don't think much deeper.voiceofunreason said:
I'd give a 2nd readily.
