Saturday, September 10, 2016

Inside The Mind

The age-old adage "Those who can't do, teach" is not only untrue in many cases, but it's also something you don't want to be true in most situations.

Example A: Generally, I hope that cooks are being taught how to prepare food items like fish and eggs correctly, or my Saturdays at the local bar and grill suddenly could become much less appealing.

Example B: Personally, I would also hope that surgeons are being taught by people who know what they're doing and can do it.

Imagine: "I think that's the right vein, Jim, but just in case, let me go check Google."

Etc.

And of course, you don't want fantasy football advice from some guy who can't achieve some level of success. Experience is the best teacher, so we don't expect the first season of someone's fantasy football career to be full of perfect predictions. Nonetheless, at some point it becomes ridiculous to keep taking draft advice from that neighbor who always "goes with his gut" and comes out 8th in 8-person leagues each year. So, with all that being said, I'm going to be as candid as possible with my drafts and how my season is going. There are two main leagues I'll be focusing on this year: a former college-crowd 10-team Yahoo PPR league, and a workplace 12-team ESPN standard league.

First up, the Yahoo league.


Draft Breakdown:

Once again, this is a 10-team PPR league, with our draft held on September 4th.

In this league, here are the extra factors I had to consider while drafting:
1. Each catch equals .5 points for all positions
2. Touchdowns are worth 6 points for all positions
3. Completions add .1 points for the QB
4. There are two active FLEX spots, one only open to WR/RB, and one including WR/RB/TE

I had the 7th overall pick in this snake draft, so here are the results of each round.
1st: DeAndre Hopkins - WR
2nd: Ezekiel Elliott - RB
3rd: LeSean McCoy - RB
4th: Mike Evans - WR
5th: Doug Baldwin - WR
6th: Travis Kelce - TE
7th: Philip Rivers - QB
8th: Allen Hurns - WR
9th: Derrick Henry - RB
10th: Tyler Boyd - WR
11th: Terrance West - RB
12th: Martellus Bennett - TE
13th: Terrelle Pryor - WR
14th: Tyrod Taylor - QB
15th: Cincinnati - DEF
16th: Justin Tucker - K

I can't say I was happy with all my positions afterwards, especially at QB, but the more I've considered this one, the more content I am. As far as draft strategy goes, this league pays out such high dividends to WR's that some RB's dropped farther than anyone thought they would. As such, I walked in considering a Zero-RB strategy and walked out with two top RB's in the first three rounds.

Flexibility is key, guys: if I had stuck to my Zero-RB mindset, imagine the buyer's remorse! Ezekiel Elliott at #14? LeSean McCoy at #27? I never could have predicted that. And I was fortunate enough to have Mike Evans drop all the way into the 4th round, giving me a solid #2 WR.

I might not be Marlon Brando, but I sure felt like Sky Masterson with Lady Luck on my side.

The next few rounds went somewhat as expected: I had contingencies, more contingencies, and contingencies for my contingencies, so not much was surprising at that point. I kept trying to grab WR's with high ceilings and progressively lower floors as the draft went on, and that seemed to be relatively successful. Hopkins has a high floor, Evans is slightly lower, Baldwin is slightly lower than that, etc. Rivers as my starting QB will be fine for the majority of the season, and Kelce as my top TE is fine as well: he's not Gronk or Reed, but he's not quite as injury-prone either.

The last few rounds felt like the crapshoot they are. My only goal was to walk out of them with the highest possible ceilings and not worry about if they crap out in the end. Boyd likely has a higher floor and ceiling than most late-round picks (considering Eifert's injury and the lack of other capable or veteran wideouts), so I had no hesitation there. West was looking like the starter for the Ravens' backfield until Forsett was re-signed and the dreaded "rotation" became imminent, so I opted to drop him and pick up Alfred Morris as a handcuff to Elliott: that feels like an even better decision since ESPN reported that Morris will have a role in the Cowboys offense as well.


Due to Gronk's high injury rate, Bennett feels more like a steal than anything: there are already concerns, and the Pats haven't even played their first game!


Pryor is my definition of a late-round flyer. RG3 could have a rebound year with Pryor as his main target until Gordon returns, and Pryor may keep a large amount of targets even afterwards if he proves more reliable. Taylor already had some nice moments last year, and feels like a more reliable gamble (yes, we all see the irony there) than most other backup QB options.

Here's the ESPN league.


 Draft Breakdown:

This is a 12-team standard scoring league, with our draft held on September 1st.

In this league, there weren't extra scoring or playing factors I needed to consider, so this was much simpler to prepare for.

I had the 3rd overall pick in this snake draft, so here are the results of each round.
1st: Antonio Brown - WR
2nd: Brandon Marshall - WR
3rd: Keenan Allen - WR
4th: Jeremy Maclin - WR
5th: Matt Forte - RB
6th: Melvin Gordon - RB
7th: Chris Ivory - RB
8th: Blake Bortles - QB
9th: Martellus Bennett - TE
10th: Tyler Boyd - WR
11th: Spencer Ware - RB
12th: Jared Cook - TE
13th: Matt Ryan - QB
14th: Justin Tucker - K
15th: Vikings - DEF

This draft definitely had more of a Zero-RB vibe to it, which I feel a little up-in-the-air about. I'm not happy with Forte as my #1 RB or with Gordon as my #2 RB, but mostly it's the QB situation that scares me a bit.

Nonetheless, there are some great moments here. I LOVE Antonio Brown, especially with how limited the Steelers' other weapons are right now. He is going to pile on the targets.


Marshall is functionally a #1 receiver for fantasy purposes and Allen is a high-value #2, so the WR position is just stacked on this team. If my FLEX position ends up being Allen each week, I'll be a happy man. Either Allen or Maclin could serve as trade bait down the road if I want to try to improve another position's situation.

I hit the RB's hard after that four-round fling with the WR position, and what I got are basically three low-to-mid end RB2's. Forte should be the lead back for the Jets (maybe on a snap-count, though), Gordon is the lead back for the Chargers, and Ivory is the goal-line back for the Jags. If Gordon and the Chargers' O-line have improved even a little over the summer, he could be a great value. Similarly, if the Jags offense has improved as much as people want to believe, Ivory could get a multitude of opportunities to be the ultimate TD machine.

Bortles has a ton of upside due to his weapons, but we'll see if his accuracy can improve. It was pretty horrendous last year. I talked about Bennett and Boyd in the Yahoo section above, and you can see I double-downed on them here as well. Ware could turn out being one of the steals of the draft if Charles continues to struggle to come back from injury.

Cook could potentially blow up as well as the Packer's first real pass-catching TE in a while, and it's worth a flier at that point in the draft. I'm not happy about Ryan as my backup QB, but I strongly believe in having an experienced one on my bench at all times, so we'll see where that goes over the course of the season.

Let me know what you think: feel free to comment and tell me your thoughts!
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