F13 Fantasy Football 2014

[MuffinMan]

Forgot about the draft, never even set any rankings. It went about as well as expected.

[shiznitz]

I put Maclin on my trading block.  Looking for a WR/TE/RB of equal value.

I understand it might be a bit early since we just drafted. I took him 5th (58th).  I admit that was probably a round or two early.

[Phildo]

FYI, I could still use a few more bodies for my Yahoo league.

[Mithas]

When is the draft? I might be interested.

[Phildo]

Tuesday night.  It's awkward, but it's when everyone in the initial group could draft.

[Mithas]

I can probably make that work. I'll be alone with my daughter, but TVs were designed to be a babysitter right?

[Phildo]

Might as well just drop the link publicly.  Join here: https://yho.com/nfl?l=1089873&k=7e48a97f893eb49c

[Yegolev]

I've sent this to my wife and she has expressed some interest, but she is under a lot of pressure at her company so we shall see if she signs up.

We will both have another draft starting at 9pm that night but I figure after two hours I'll either have a solid foundation or preemptively lost the season.  Besides, last year I drafted both Aaron Hernandez and Michael Turner, and managed to not come in last.  This year should be better on all fronts.

[Phildo]

Last year, I had Ray Rice and David Wilson.  It was not a good year.

E: Yeg, I think your wife wins if she plays.  She's totally playing it cool right now, isn't she?

[Phildo]

We need one more person to get up to ten for tomorrow.  Any last minute takers?

[WayAbvPar]

Was about to jump in and checked the draft time...I am still in the office then 

[Phildo]

Ah, sorry.  It's the only time I really had all week.

[Flood]

Was about to jump in and checked the draft time...I am still in the office then 

I'm gonna draft FROM the office!  (Should go really well.  Not.)

[MrHat]

Let's proceed to the draft discussion.  I am not trying to pick on anyone, but just sharing my opinion.

Best Draft: Roosters
I really like the strength of the core with Charles, Foster and Luck.  Patterson should be solid but that pick and injury to Foster are the big risks.  There are always several young WRs that the pro fantasy guys love that don't live up.

Worst Draft: Ex-Presidents
The autopicker fucked you.  Not a surprise. You have a ton of SF players and got a kicker in the 8th round.

Attack Monkies also looks strong but I think Doug Martin is a total bust so I could not give him Best Draft.

Best Autopicker: The Invalids
Major WR power on this team with Bryant and Green. RB is a shit show but that is a workable problem when injuries start happening.  I think RGIII has a good year as well so while the picker drafted him higher than necessary, it should work out ok.

For my team, I usually refuse to take RB first unless they are high PPR players like the top three, but I felt I would still get a strong QB if I let that position slip into round 2.  I picked Maclin too early for his value but if I didn;t grab more WRs then, I would have to depend on stretches.  I was shocked that I had a good crop of back up RBs to choose from at the end.

Here's the fantasypros.com Expert Consensus Ranking (ECR) analysis of the main F13 draft:

[Cyrrex]

Erm, can someone do that for the JV draft?

[Paelos]

I like those rankings!

[lamaros]

About to do a NFL draft and have no idea at all what to do, any tips appreciated!

[WayAbvPar]

Any idea what draft position you have? That will make a big difference for your early strategy.

[El Gallo]

Here's the fantasypros.com Expert Consensus Ranking (ECR) analysis of the main F13 draft:

Filthy fucking lies!

[lamaros]

I assume I'm 6th of 6.

[Cyrrex]

The key to having a good fantasy draft is to specifically avoid doing exactly what everyone else does.  The best way I can explain this is that all the experts list the Running Backs as the top fantasy selections (and technically that might be true), but when everyone else uses the same strategy and goes after the RB position first...they fuck themselves.  And then you swoop in and take the best WR and/or the best QB early in the draft with your 6th pick.  They end up with two great RBs, one of which who will guaranteed sprain his vagina at some point in the year.  The other may end up having a shit year.  That's the thing about drafting RBs.  They may end up being fantasy gold, but figuring out WHICH ONE will be gold is almost impossible.

Put it another way.  Jamaal Charles is rated as a better fantasy pick than Peyton Manning on pretty much every board ever.  I would still take Manning first.  He is as close to a sure thing as there is.  Better to have Manning and (for example) someone like Doug Martin as your RB, then have to end up with Jamaal Charles and Joe Flacco.  Because Manning will tear shit up, and Martin might.  Jamaal might tear shit up, and Flacco won't.

Also, being one of the last picks is not at all a bad thing.  You can almost guarantee yourself a top QB (while everyone else drafts RBs), and then you get a top WR with your next pick.  No reason to take an RB with your second pick, IMO, because now everyone else on your board is scrambling to land a QB or WR, so you will still have options for RB by the time your third pick comes around...the same dude you would have picked with your second pick might still be on the board 10 picks later.


Edit:  I probably made this sound too much like a sure-fire way to succeed, which is never the case with this stuff.  Just try to pick up a few guys that are generally very stable high point earners.  Beyond that, it is about making some guesses and taking a few risks.  I always try to take some risky players with hopes that one or two of them really pay off. 

[lamaros]

Thanks for the advice. Didn't matter in the end as I was busy at work and got an auto picked side.

[Phildo]

Last year, I drafted RBs with my first four picks and two of them were Ray Rice and David Wilson.  The year was a total bust.  This year, in one league I punted on RBs and my top two guys are now Trent Richardson and Chris Johnson.  Huge roll of the dice with both of them.  The strategy that's always worked best for me is to take the best available guy and maintain a balanced roster.

[Cyrrex]

But then, what did you get for your first couple of guys?

[K9]

Put it another way.  Jamaal Charles is rated as a better fantasy pick than Peyton Manning on pretty much every board ever.  I would still take Manning first.  He is as close to a sure thing as there is.  Better to have Manning and (for example) someone like Doug Martin as your RB, then have to end up with Jamaal Charles and Joe Flacco.  Because Manning will tear shit up, and Martin might.  Jamaal might tear shit up, and Flacco won't.

This isn't really a fair comparison though, since Joe Flacco is a far worse consensus pick relative to PFM than Doug Martin is to Jamaal Charles

e.g. Typical consensus pick values for your four players are:

Jamaal Charles ~2
Peyton Manning ~9
Doug Martin ~25
Joe Flacco ~166

The reason everyone dogpiles on the top 6 or so RBs is that there is a significant drop-off in production past that point (or thereabouts). You can say the same about Peyton Manning as Jimmy Graham or Megatron. All these players are so far ahead of others at their position. The difference is that past the elite players the drop-off in production varies a lot between position. Having a QB like Matt Ryan (~69) as your #1 is not going to be substantially better or worse in terms of points than Tom Brady or Nick Foles, your QB is always going to put up the most points on your team. By the end of the season, bar injuries and such, each of these QBs is likely to be within 20 points of each other. Conversely, the difference between having someone like Marshawn Lynch and Doug Martin could be 30-50 points.

It's all about value. You shouldn't blindly draft RBs top, since players like Jimmy Graham,  PFM, Megatron, Demaryius Thomas, and Drew Brees are exponentially better than the next best player (fantasy-wise), but you shouldn't overlook the fact that the fantasy production of RBs is heavily concentrated at the top, whereas it is more spread for other positions.

[shiznitz]

The bottom line on draft day is that you really only get 2 chances to grab a top 5ish player at any position.  You do not want to screw up those chances by mindlessly committing to a particular roster position.  If the field is grabbing RBs, then you can go QB/WR.  If the field is grabbing WRs, then go QB/RB.  

In the f13 league, I was late in the draft (10/12) , but the field before me had taken RBs, WRs and QBs so I went for a good core: Lynch and Rodgers. In my other league I was 9/10 and I went WR, WR because the only non RBs taken were Manning and Megatron and I did not want Rodgers in both leagues.  I took Bryant first when I could have had Brees but I thought Brees would be there 2 pick later when the snake turned back to me.  He wasn't, but Demaryius was so I went with another WR without concern.  I fucked up later but that is not relevant here.

[MrHat]

Pretty sure my buddy and I just had the best auction draft ever:

12 Man PPR keeper (morris, demaryius, ellington):



Currently dropping Big Ben for Gordon off the wire since its a keeper league.

[Cyrrex]

Put it another way.  Jamaal Charles is rated as a better fantasy pick than Peyton Manning on pretty much every board ever.  I would still take Manning first.  He is as close to a sure thing as there is.  Better to have Manning and (for example) someone like Doug Martin as your RB, then have to end up with Jamaal Charles and Joe Flacco.  Because Manning will tear shit up, and Martin might.  Jamaal might tear shit up, and Flacco won't.

This isn't really a fair comparison though, since Joe Flacco is a far worse consensus pick relative to PFM than Doug Martin is to Jamaal Charles

e.g. Typical consensus pick values for your four players are:

Jamaal Charles ~2
Peyton Manning ~9
Doug Martin ~25
Joe Flacco ~166

The reason everyone dogpiles on the top 6 or so RBs is that there is a significant drop-off in production past that point (or thereabouts). You can say the same about Peyton Manning as Jimmy Graham or Megatron. All these players are so far ahead of others at their position. The difference is that past the elite players the drop-off in production varies a lot between position. Having a QB like Matt Ryan (~69) as your #1 is not going to be substantially better or worse in terms of points than Tom Brady or Nick Foles, your QB is always going to put up the most points on your team. By the end of the season, bar injuries and such, each of these QBs is likely to be within 20 points of each other. Conversely, the difference between having someone like Marshawn Lynch and Doug Martin could be 30-50 points.

It's all about value. You shouldn't blindly draft RBs top, since players like Jimmy Graham,  PFM, Megatron, Demaryius Thomas, and Drew Brees are exponentially better than the next best player (fantasy-wise), but you shouldn't overlook the fact that the fantasy production of RBs is heavily concentrated at the top, whereas it is more spread for other positions.

And yet, year after year, people end up with Joe Flacco (or similiar) as their starting QB.  That is the whole point.  It was not supposed to be a fair comparison...the whole idea is to make sure you don't end up in that situation.

[WayAbvPar]

If you have multiple top 5 RBs/WRs, you can do just fine with Flacco or any other 3rd tier QB. Hoping I can make some noise with the Red Rifle myself this year.

[Yegolev]

The bottom line on draft day is that you really only get 2 chances to grab a top 5ish player at any position.  You do not want to screw up those chances by mindlessly committing to a particular roster position.  If the field is grabbing RBs, then you can go QB/WR.  If the field is grabbing WRs, then go QB/RB.

I admit that I've only drafted thrice, but I've played a lot of other games and this seems to be true.  There are runs on positions as well, which got me in a little trouble since I was reacting instead of proacting.  I started off well in one league by grabbing Megatron right off (I was 2nd) but before I could seal up a RB the mob started grabbing QBs and I wanted Brees.  Oh well, I got Brady, but it threw off my plan.  The best pick is one that the rest of your league doesn't notice.

[shiznitz]

Rodgers underperformed by the same amount Lynch overperformed for me so I am still biting my nails this week.

[Yegolev]

I'm less worried about DoubleCheck against teams that are not Seattle.  But I'm thinking I should have grabbed Wilson.  Season's young, though.

[HaemishM]

I was sweating bullets in the main f13 league because Brady popped up with an injury. For him to appear on the Pats injury report with their history of hiding injuries just made me nervous as shit about starting him, and my backup is Russell Wilson. So I had to choose - do I start Wilson or Brady with the possibility that Brady gives me no points? So I started Wilson.

23 points later and I'm happy with that decision. Not quite so happy with the decision to start Rodgers over Rivers - Rodgers really shit the bed fantasy wise, and even though Rivers is playing Arizona (a good D), he'll likely do better than Rodgers did. Also, /sadf at Lacy going down with a concussion. I drafted him in both leagues.

[Rasix]

You know Brady is on the Pat's injury list ever single week, right? They've been doing that for years now.  Did they go with shoulder or knee this time?

[HaemishM]

Calf injury. Fuck it, Wilson got me 23 points, which was about 5 more than I was expecting.