Post things you learned to make u better for next year..

[RJV]

Play in leagues where the other owners are intoxicated with the "wr/wr" draft approach ...

This is a good strategy if your drafting on the tail end of a 10-12 team draft. Have done this for the past several years, ranging from the #8-#12 spot and have made it to the championship game 85% of the time and won it 3 times. With a lot of RBBC, value for a very good RB is common. Example Ray Rice, Ronnie Brown, J. Stew, etc..

 

I won my league this year doing this and drafted #11 in a 12 teamer PPR. My 1st 6 picks are as follows:

1. AJ

2. Wayne

3. Romo

4. Grant

5. Ray Rice

6. C. Benson

 

So I does work and ppl mocking this strategy are close minded. Now as I have stated several times, this is a good strategy if you are drafting later. From #1-#7 go for a RB but at #7 or #8 start thinking on taking a Elite WR.

Edited December 30, 2009 by RJV

[Big Country]

This is a good strategy if your drafting on the tail end of a 10-12 team draft. Have done this for the past several years, ranging from the #8-#12 spot and have made it to the championship game 85% of the time and won it 3 times. With a lot of RBBC, value for a very good RB is common. Example Ray Rice, Ronnie Brown, J. Stew, etc..

 

I won my league this year doing this and drafted #11 in a 12 teamer PPR. My 1st 6 picks are as follows:

1. AJ

2. Wayne

3. Romo

4. Grant

5. Ray Rice

6. C. Benson

 

So I does work and ppl mocking this strategy are close minded. Now as I have stated several times, this is a good strategy if you are drafting later. From #1-#7 go for a RB but at #7 or #8 start thinking on taking a Elite WR.

 

 

And if you had gone with Calvin Johnson and/or Greg Jennings as one/both of those first two WRs and rather than finding 2 of the few RBs that performed well above expectation, had instead drafted Willie Parker, Darren McFadden, Larry Johnson, Derrick Ward or Lendale White, all with similar ADPs as Rice and benson heading into the season, how would you feel about the strategy?

[Big Country]

As teams that use RBBC's becomes a bit more clear at draft time, I might load up on stud WR's in rounds 2 thru 4 and then go after two RB's from the same NFL team in round 5 and 8, say. Your comment about predictions has little meaning, because that is what we do every time we draft. What I am suggesting here is projecting an NFL TEAM's total RB points shared between 2 RB's.

 

Do we not already project for each RB on a team (to an extent). As far as I know, we still, in most leagues, draft individual players, so while there is merit to projecting team totals, you still break those down to individual projections to come up with your rankings, do you not? Assuming you do, then the comment about projections is very relevant, as it is those projections that determines our rankings, and when we take factors that do not affect our rankings (such as drafting a WR because I have the QB, or in this case drafting an RB because I have the other half of the RBBC), and take a player that we project to do less than another because of it, we have made a strategical error.

 

Yes, after the fact and looking at the actual results after the season we can see that it was beneficial to have both Brown and Williams, but, as I said, if heading in to your draft, you had Bradshaw ahead of Williams in your projections, and when your pick came up, you elected to take Williams over Bradshaw solely because you had drafted Brown, you have made a strategic error. If the goal is to score the most points, why would you pick a player that you do not project to be the higher scoring player at the position?

 

Again, I will reiterate, I am not saying it is bad to have two RBs from the same team. I am only saying it is bad strategy to target the two players if it means you are forgoing selecting RBs that you have projected to do better in order to get both of the RBs from the same team.

 

This approach would be more difficult in offensive player only leagues, but it's doable in full IDP leagues, where RB's drop even more. It also requires that a flex is allowed. How high will Hightower and Wells go next year? Not a bad duo to flex. You can draft them late, and basically have the AZ RB's for the year. If one goes down, you have the additional benefit of the handcuff.

 

I went this way in an IDP redrfat league and won it. Gore early, Rice in the 4th, MaGahee in like the 10th, and R Bown in the third (took Wayne in the second), R Williams around the 10th. It was golden. This was not my strategy going in, but given the way it worked out, I beleive that in some leagues, it is a viable strategy. I think it would be much more difficult to make work in offensive player only leagues. That 2nd RB might not drop far enough to make it work.

 

Again, so long as McGahee and Williams were the highest rated RBs on your board at that time, no issue. If you skipped over RBs that you projected to do better solely for this, then it was a strategic mistake that paid off.

 

My point is, is it better to have two RB's from different NFL teams that are in a full blown RBBC or is it better to have both RB's from the same team in a full blown RBBC? In a flex league, where you can start 3 RB's? This doesn't mean you have to start both RB's every week... but if the matchup is right, and they two RB's face a very poor run D... you start both. You can flex to a WR on a bad matchup week as well.

 

RBBC is taking over the NFL, and I think a little outside the box thinking is in order now.

 

I think it is irrelevant if the RBs you select are on the same team or different teams. So long as the RB that you select is the highest rated RB on your board when a pick that you decide to go RB with comes up, then you are following sound logic. When you start throwing your projections out the window based on the player you drafted earlier, you are making a mistake.

 

 

One point I do semi-agree with though is the handcuff aspect, however, for that to really be a benefit, the non-injured RB would have to have enough increased production along with whomever on your bench fills in to the starting lineup that would be at least equal to what you were getting from the two RBs in the RBBC.

Edited December 31, 2009 by Big Country

[RJV]

And if you had gone with Calvin Johnson and/or Greg Jennings as one/both of those first two WRs and rather than finding 2 of the few RBs that performed well above expectation, had instead drafted Willie Parker, Darren McFadden, Larry Johnson, Derrick Ward or Lendale White, all with similar ADPs as Rice and benson heading into the season, how would you feel about the strategy?

Isn't this the whole idea and basis of FF?? A lot of luck involved? Now Big lets look into your statement here, sure if you drafted Jennings and CJ 1st and 2nd you were screwed if you went WR WR, but doesn't this hold true as well if someone went Forte and Slaton for the RB RB theory??

Edited December 31, 2009 by RJV

[CaptainHook]

+1

 

You can't +1 yourself. Can you?

 

[louisc9999]

Something else I've learned... Be patient. I dropped Jamaal Charles in one league when KC looked like it was going nowhere earlier this year. But someone else in my main local dropped Jermichael Finley right before he blew up vs. the Vikings in week 6. Beanie Wells owners know what I'm talking about. Getting impatient is probably the worst sin you can commit in fantasy football. You drop guys you shouldn't and you make trades you shouldn't.

 

This is something I tell myself EVERY friggin' year and every year I ignore it.

 

Last year, I picked up DWill, he had a so-so game on my bench, and then I dropped him for the next 'hot' WW pickup. The next week he went off - in someone else's lineup.

 

This year, it was Harrison. I dropped him for Chris Jennings after Week 15 and we all know what happened after that - 67 points that were NOT in my lineup during the playoff weeks.

[Cunning Runt]

My advice is to stock your roster with RBs who may not be the starter at the beginning of the year but you have a good feeling about if they did get the chance and moreso, you feel that they WILL get that chance. And taking it a step further and along the "patience" line, keep these guys on your bench for that 2nd half of the season and the fantasy playoffs. Obviously you may have to change on the fly if injuries occur or you really need that roster spot for something else.

 

Some examples are Jamaal Charles, Jerome Harrison, Beanie Wells, and Michael Bush. I had drafted James Davis, Bernard Scott, Ladell Betts, Jerome Harrison, and Jamaal Charles as roster fillers. Traded for Beanie early in the season and waited until the playoffs to start him. Won the league with him and Harrison starting for me.

 

Another strategy I use is to drop a kicker during our waiver processing to get an extra player horded during waivers, then right before drop/adds end for the week, drop someone else and grab the best available kicker so no one else has time to grab who you just dropped.

[BeeR]

Don't waste time w/dipsh**s who can't be bothered to get off their fat a$$es and give input on league setup till last second, if at all (and then complain about it afterwards). Ditto for paying at the last second (unless you know them REALLY well and trust them). If I can't get in a league and have everything decided and paid for by about 4th of July at latest, hell w/it.

Edited December 31, 2009 by BeeR

[Henry Muto]

I think I learned I hate week 17 as my championship game. I have been doing this gig for 20 years now and never has it affected me like this year. I really thought long and hard about changing my league from 14 weeks regular season to 13 but didn't pull the trigger and now I feel the pain this week of trying to come up with a line up in all 3 leagues. I swear it has never been this bad with so many teams sitting players. For 20 years I have been using week 17 and never seen a year like this. I don't think teams rested players as much back in the 90s or something becasue I never remember it as this much of an issue.

 

Going to be a look off season and going to have to look in the mirror a lot if I end up losing these games based on having to sit my best players.

 

Been on my mind all week and I can't shake that feeling.

[Rovers]

Do we not already project for each RB on a team (to an extent). As far as I know, we still, in most leagues, draft individual players, so while there is merit to projecting team totals, you still break those down to individual projections to come up with your rankings, do you not? Assuming you do, then the comment about projections is very relevant, as it is those projections that determines our rankings, and when we take factors that do not affect our rankings (such as drafting a WR because I have the QB, or in this case drafting an RB because I have the other half of the RBBC), and take a player that we project to do less than another because of it, we have made a strategical error.

 

Yes, after the fact and looking at the actual results after the season we can see that it was beneficial to have both Brown and Williams, but, as I said, if heading in to your draft, you had Bradshaw ahead of Williams in your projections, and when your pick came up, you elected to take Williams over Bradshaw solely because you had drafted Brown, you have made a strategic error. If the goal is to score the most points, why would you pick a player that you do not project to be the higher scoring player at the position?

 

Again, I will reiterate, I am not saying it is bad to have two RBs from the same team. I am only saying it is bad strategy to target the two players if it means you are forgoing selecting RBs that you have projected to do better in order to get both of the RBs from the same team.

 

 

 

Again, so long as McGahee and Williams were the highest rated RBs on your board at that time, no issue. If you skipped over RBs that you projected to do better solely for this, then it was a strategic mistake that paid off.

 

 

 

I think it is irrelevant if the RBs you select are on the same team or different teams. So long as the RB that you select is the highest rated RB on your board when a pick that you decide to go RB with comes up, then you are following sound logic. When you start throwing your projections out the window based on the player you drafted earlier, you are making a mistake.

 

 

One point I do semi-agree with though is the handcuff aspect, however, for that to really be a benefit, the non-injured RB would have to have enough increased production along with whomever on your bench fills in to the starting lineup that would be at least equal to what you were getting from the two RBs in the RBBC.

 

You are missing my point. RB's in a full blown RBBC(see Houston) are not going to be drafted in ther first 3 rounds. By that time, the rankings I might have from one RB in any RBBC to another is going to be minimal. Things can change, and will change by next year, but how much disparity would there be if you ranked say, Lynch/Jackson, Hightower/Wells, Jacobs/Bradshaw? They all land in my thrird tier. Would I rather have one from each pairing, or two on the same team? My answer is two from the same team.(given I have drafted a Gore or CJ or ADP already) We have repeatedly seen RBBC's change ball distribution from week to week change up quite a bit.

 

If one RB in an RBBC somehow finds himself in the doghouse, or out for a week, you have the other to start.These NFL coaches also like to "stick with the hot hand" in a game. Who knows which RB that might be from week to week? Sometimes you just don't know which RB in an RBBC may get the majority of touches in any given game. If you have 2 from different teams, and guess wrong you may get nothing... as opposed to starting two from the same team especially when facing a bad run defense, which is better? You are assured to get ALL of the FF points from the two RB's on the same team, and it doesn't matter how the HC doles out touches that week.

 

When talking about third tier RB's, which is how I rank all RBBC RB's I'd rather have two from the same team and be assured of all the FF points that offense will offer from RB's by starting both. My third tier is my third tier. I can't project those sorts of differences. I rank all my players in 4 tiers. If they are in the same tier, I have them ranked equally. So, it comes down to is it better to have two RBBC RB's from different teams, or from the same team. You want the Bills running game, or gamble on how many carries a Jacobs and Hightower get?

[T_bone65]

Victory pants, don't ever doubt them and find yourself a pair.

[No Quarter]

No matter how good your draft is, championships are won or lost on the waiver wire.

[NAUgrad]

My advice is to stock your roster with RBs who may not be the starter at the beginning of the year but you have a good feeling about if they did get the chance and moreso, you feel that they WILL get that chance. And taking it a step further and along the "patience" line, keep these guys on your bench for that 2nd half of the season and the fantasy playoffs. Obviously you may have to change on the fly if injuries occur or you really need that roster spot for something else.

 

Some examples are Jamaal Charles, Jerome Harrison, Beanie Wells, and Michael Bush. I had drafted James Davis, Bernard Scott, Ladell Betts, Jerome Harrison, and Jamaal Charles as roster fillers. Traded for Beanie early in the season and waited until the playoffs to start him. Won the league with him and Harrison starting for me.

 

Another strategy I use is to drop a kicker during our waiver processing to get an extra player horded during waivers, then right before drop/adds end for the week, drop someone else and grab the best available kicker so no one else has time to grab who you just dropped.

The RB strategy is an excellent idea. I do this every year, unfortunately I missed this year, but it usually provides strong results. This year I grabbed Brown from Indy and he did nothing for me. I also rated Benson and Rice higher than most for this year. Unfortunately it appears a couple of others had them just as high and I missed out on them.

[Big Country]

Depends on the QB and where you can get them at.

 

Look at this season. There are 9 QBs within 80 points of each other (based on Huddle Scoring). That's 5 points per game. Among those are the big 4 heading into the season (Rodgers, Manning, Brady and Brees), and also some of the more hyped, yet still able to get after the 6th and later guys like Schaub and Roethlisberger to name a few.

 

Conversely, there are only 4 Rbs within 80 points of the top, yet in most leagues you are required to start twice as many RBs. Three of these guys were consensus first round picks (Chris Johnson, ADP and MJD) and the other is Ray Rice, who was most definitely on the radar of Huddlers but not neccessarily the layperson, thus his ADP as the 22nd RB off the board.

 

The drops in scoring in the next tier are even more pronounced.

 

As for WRs, there are 23 WRs within 80 points of the #1 WR, with values like Miles Austin, Desean Jackson, Vincent Jackson (sorry DMD, had to do it) all within about 30 points of the #1 guy.

 

 

What I am getting at is, despite all the hype this preseason about the value of a stud WR and the need to grab a QB early, and to wait, wait wait on an RB, the stats thus far seem to indicate that it is still a lot easier to find value later on in the draft at QB and WR, while taking a higher number of shots at drafting an elite RB or 2 in the early rounds.

 

It also does indicate that taking an RB early is a risky proposition, but the payoff of getting one of those elite few early on tempered with the higher likelihood of finding QBs and WRs that perform closer to the levels of the QBs/WRs taken in the first 3 rounds, thus allowing you to spend even more picks on the few RBs with a higher likelihood of being an elite back seems to be a strategy with a much higher potential success rate than the flavor of the year of going with WRs and Qbs early and waiting much later on an RB.

 

 

Isn't this the whole idea and basis of FF?? A lot of luck involved? Now Big lets look into your statement here, sure if you drafted Jennings and CJ 1st and 2nd you were screwed if you went WR WR, but doesn't this hold true as well if someone went Forte and Slaton for the RB RB theory??

 

Then lets look at results. There are only 4 RBs within 5PPG of the top guy, 75% of whom were rated as 1st round picks. In other words, in a typical 12 team, start 2 RB league, only 1 in 6 (12.5%) of the starters are within 5 PPG of the top guys.

 

For QBs, there are 9 players within 5 PPG of the top guy, with many having ADPs well into the 7th/8th round, or, a very low percentage of the highest rated players at the position. And, in a typical 12 team, start 1 QB league, this is 3 in 4 (75%) of the starters at the position.

 

For WRs, there are 23 within 5 PPG, many of whom are available much later in the draft. In a 12 team start 2 WR league, this is 96% of the starters (in a start 3 WR league, this is 64%).

 

 

What it comes to is this... you are much more likely to hit on a later round WR or QB that will perform within 5 PPG of the top players than you are at RB, and on top of that, a very high percentage of the few RBs that do score within 5 PPG of the top guys are projected at the top of the position.

 

So, your odds are much greater at selecting one of the top rated RBs that performs as expected in the early part of the draft than it is you will select one of the few that performs way above expectation (yes, both are still a low probability based on this year's results), and your odds are much greater that you will get a QB and WRs that will perform within this same range in the latter parts of the draft.

 

Is there luck involved?.. sure. But you minimize the element of luck by studying the numbers and playing the odds, and, looking at these results and making the assumption (how large/small this assumption is is open to debate) that we will see a similar distribution in scoring next season, it is clear that we are most likely to assemble a team of players that are all scoring within 5PPG of the top player at the position by targeting the more highly rated RBs early in the draft and conversely going with the better odds of finding QBs and WRs that will keep us in that range for those positions later in the draft.

[Seahawks21]

1. Draft an elite QB. Most fantasy playoff teams end up having one. Do what it takes to get one.

 

2. RB is still king. If you have two top-10 backs, you are going to be competetive nearly every week. They tend to be much more consistent than WR's.

 

3. Draft one elite receiver, then let the rest slide. Every year there are a handful of Sims-Walker, Austin, Nicks, Burleson, Garcon, S. Rice types that you can get later or add via the WW. Many more startable WR's come through the WW than QB's or RB's.

 

4. Make sure you have a TE. Dallas Clark was probably my MVP. The one thing you cannot deal with is having a guy that will get 2 for 10 every so often, or to be playing WW matchups.

 

5. Take a defense in the second to last round, right before you take your kicker, and then, only take one who has good matchups the first few weeks. Play matchups all year long. I started 11 different defenses, and ended up 4th in defensive points out of 12.

 

6. Don't necessarily think that stud players will perform regardless of situation, and don't buy low if their situation isn't going to change. I wanted to buy Calvin Johnson, TO & TJ Houshmanzadeh low, all season long. I managed to bite my tongue because all of their situations were just so bad. So in the end I held onto Jennings, and he came up BIG when I needed him most.

[Chief Dick]

Victory pants, don't ever doubt them and find yourself a pair.

 

This is good advice.

[Chargerz]

Laurence Maroney is a fantasy-tease and lets me down at the most inopportune times. I will not have him on any of my rosters next year.