Fantasy Football 2014

when do we find out the draft order?

Also who do you all think will go first? PFM?
 
My first pick was autoed but I'm happy with my team. I picked KC's backup RB in round 24. If Jamaal Charles gets hurt, that could be possibly the best 24th round pick ever:p
 
Fantasy Teams: 3

Fantasy Drafts: .2 (said 0 before, remembered I gotta couple picks for the baseball team in)
 
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Draft went well... for future FF play let me recommend doing a mock draft so you can get your bearings before the real thing.

Self draft recap:

The strategy that I wanted to play going into the draft was draft receivers (4WR/1TE) in the first 4-5 rounds, pick up acceptable stopgaps at other positions, then get some IDP studs, fill the bench with prospects, then finally fill any remaining empty slots.

I used the Yahoo custom ranker to sort the first 160 or so players (8 rounds' worth: 8 offensive skill positions for 20 teams) based on how valuable I thought they were, strongly de-emphasizing any player with high injury risk (e.g. Foster, Gronkowski, Maclin). I made a strategic decision not to include kickers or D/ST, knowing the best ones would be picked off before I would take them. So I came into the draft knowing which were my top 160 players overall and which ones I would personally take, in which order, preparing to make small adjustments to priority during the draft as necessary.

Some of that plan worked, some of it didn't. I didn't end up grabbing even a single WR until round 4 due to the opportunities available when pick time came around.

Pick 1 (6th overall) - Jimmy Graham. There were four players I ranked higher and at the 6th overall pick he was the best on my list. Not at all the way I wanted to start but the math of our scoring system makes him the single most significant player in the game.

Pick 2 (35th) - Julius Thomas. By the time the picks got back to me, all the solid WR1s had been stripped dry. This is where my initial strategy blew all to hell, but I couldn't ignore the value of Thomas relative to what was left on the board. Thomas and Graham both represent high-probability WR1 numbers from the TE position, meaning I could play both at once (one in the flex) and they could sub for each other on bye weeks, making it so I didn't need to draft a backup prospect. Thomas was both the best player on the board and the most efficient pick I had.

Pick 3 (46th) - Matt Stafford. Four quarterbacks were already off the board and I knew that Stafford would not be available if I did not pull the trigger on him. This came at the painful sacrifice of having a respectable-though-not-elite WR1, but with another 30 picks in front of me and the potential for a hard QB run depleting all my alternate options, and being unsatisfied at QB all of last year, I bit the bullet.

Pick 4 (75th) - Marques Colston. WR options were depleting fast, WR is king in this league, and I had no one. Pulled him earlier than I would have liked but he was reasonably safe as the lead WR in NO's 5k/year offense.

Pick 5 (86th) - Brandin Cooks. Probably a reach, but I really like the upside and down at pick 86 there aren't many sure-things left. Left me with 2 Saints WRs, but I feel comfortable playing both at once.

Pick 6 (115th) - Bernard Pierce. Proven RB talent and high-upside spec plays were already mostly plundered by this time, but Pierce can serve as a stopgap RB1 for a couple of games at least (giving me time to act), with a chance to keep the job. This pick was to have someone in the RB slot who wouldn't outright lose games for me.

Pick 7 (126th) - Devonta Freeman. All solid vets now long gone, my only hope of filling my RB2 and WR3 slots was to start collecting a gaggle of prospects. At this point I made a distinction between who I wanted more than a stud IDP player and who I didn't.

Pick 8 (155th) - Lavonte David. Another 30 picks later there was no one left on the list. From here the idea was to pick up a bunch of dominating linebackers while others were filling bench slots with wire-replaceable talent. If you look at the quality of the offensive players going in round 8, IDP studs look like a better investment.

Picks 9-13: Paul Posluszny, Chandler Jones, Patrick Willis, Chad Greenway, DeMarcus Ware. This deep into the draft, the number of the pick isn't worth tracking anymore. Here is an embarassment of IDP riches that I cashed in on while others were picking kickers and team defenses and longshot bench players.

Picks 14-18: Cody Latimer, Ronnie Hillman, Lance Dunbar, Cole Beasley, Kenbrell Thompkins, Andre Holmes. Finally I fill my own bench with what was left over from others' pickings, as everyone else fills in their IDP slots from what I left over. This is a decent bench haul, exclusively focused on the positions where I'm weak (RB/WR) with a lot of upside potential to become every-week starters. If one of these guys becomes a WR2 or RB2 (comparable to guys being picked in rounds 3-5) it's a great return on my investment. And those that don't work out, well... I need a free bench slot for transactions, anyway.

Rest of picks - just filling in the rest. Not sure how Houston D/ST fell to me but I understand it is well-regarded. Kicker pick was a mistake, should have waited until last round. Didn't end up mattering because I got the 2 DB and 1 LB I needed to finish my roster in the last three rounds.




Looking at the other teams... seeing a very competitive field. Last year there were 3-4 teams that were just really really bad, and even the weakest teams by my analysis have enough to work with to be competive. A couple of the teams that DID start the way I wanted to (pull 3 or more top WRs to start the draft) look like the scariest opponents out there right now. Also interestingly, we have a Week 1 matchup that is a reprise of last year's championship!

Don't mind Yahoo's draft analysis - they panned several in-hindsight-very-strong drafts last year. I think they are working on ADP numbers for non-PPR when doing those analyses. With PPR the balance shifts a lot to receivers.
 
check out your team's draft recap. apparently i had the best draft

edit: also check the power rankings to see where you rank
 
I got a C. I do wonder if the program understands the concept of "20 teams." For instance, it said Cam Newton in Round 3 was the "least valuable pick" and that Reggie Wayne was a bad starting WR. I could see that being true with less players in the league but with 20 were those really bad picks?

Also, how bad is my WR core? Yahoo says its the worst in the league. How bad do you guys think it is?
 
I'm not overly enthused with my draft. On the plus side I have two top 10 RBs and am stacked pretty deep at WR with guys that at least get game time.

My QB choice is really going to hurt me I think. I took Colin Kaepernick at 96 because he was the best on the board going by Yahoo's rankings. Looking at him more closely, he's only projected to score like 20 points per game.
 
If Josh Gordon gets his suspension reduced, I'll have a WR corp of Gordon, Megatron, Garcon, and Andre Johnson with Da'Rick Rodgers (high upside) as my WR5.
 
Cam is only supposed to get 22 against a weak Bucs defense, maybe I did pick him too early... I wanted Sanford but lost him at the last minute:p
 
For all who are looking at the sad state of the TE slot in their rosters.... Julius Thomas is for trade, I'm looking for two RB2 or WR2 candidates in exchange, or one elite WR/RB. If you want Graham instead, I'll trade him as well at a slightly higher price.

I've also got a nice stable of elite linebackers who are on the table as sweeteners or stand-alone trade targets.
 
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