whoopdido Posted December 7, 2004 Share Posted December 7, 2004 (edited) Do any of you know if there is a good program out there than can help me make the best draft choices? Maybe I'm too pessimistic but I'm already looking to next year. Unless Alexander scores 5 touchdowns in the 4th quarter I'll finish the season 5-8 and will most likely lose in the first round of the playoffs. I thought I had a pretty decent team starting out but most of the guys that I thought would perform well turned out to be duds. This was my first year in fantasy and I admit that I went into the draft pretty unprepared. Is there a program that can be updated with current information that can recommend good draft choices given certain situations such as when each player gets drafted? I've looked around a little bit and found a program called PEDS and downloaded the demo. I don't know if it's because it only allowed a 5 round draft, but I did a mock draft and simply clicked on "recommended pick" each time and some of the recommendations were pretty funky. For example for one of the teams it recommend that the team draft Tony Gonzalez in the 1st round, Jeff Wilkins in the 2nd and the St. Louis defense in the 3rd round. Are there any good programs out there? Thanks. Edited December 7, 2004 by whoopdido Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phat Rugby Posted December 7, 2004 Share Posted December 7, 2004 I have never used a program. Cheat sheets are free and give you an idea of who to draft. I also have used the Madden football games, I swear. I get the latest version, make the recent roster moves and injuries, then I simulate a season. I do this 10-15 times and record the stat leaders for each catagory. It has been a very good way to draft. It cannot tell you if a player will be out for the season, so It didn't do much for me this year, but did give me some nice late round additions (Clayton, Caldwell-inj, TJones). Works for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pzarvell Posted December 7, 2004 Share Posted December 7, 2004 No there aren't any good programs out there. I've used the service you mentioned (complete version) for about 5 years now. I like their commissioner service and it works great for our league. With the full service there is a ton of useful information available at your fingertips - but as to who to draft.... let's put it this way. The two programmers that wrote, marketted, and sold the software combined don't have the years experience I have - doesn't make them any better or worse... just another opinion. Sorry but we are on our own. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whoopdido Posted December 7, 2004 Author Share Posted December 7, 2004 Yeah, cheat sheets work. I used them this year and just wrote down a list of the top guys at each position. Because of my inexperience, though, I didn't go deep enough and by the 7th or 8th round just about all of the names I had written down had been picked so I kinda had to scramble. Oh well live and learn I guess. What I was looking for was a computer program I could have with me during the draft and I could enter in each owner's pick and the program could recommend a pick for me for each round taking into consideration who's still out there and what my team still needs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whoopdido Posted December 7, 2004 Author Share Posted December 7, 2004 No there aren't any good programs out there. I've used the service you mentioned (complete version) for about 5 years now. I like their commissioner service and it works great for our league. With the full service there is a ton of useful information available at your fingertips - but as to who to draft.... let's put it this way. The two programmers that wrote, marketted, and sold the software combined don't have the years experience I have - doesn't make them any better or worse... just another opinion. Sorry but we are on our own. 596821[/snapback] Oops, I must have been typing while you made your post Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pzarvell Posted December 7, 2004 Share Posted December 7, 2004 Oops, I must have been typing while you made your post 596834[/snapback] I understand you want an edge up. If this is your first year then just realize you will be ten times more prepared next year on your own. It's the nature (obsession) of the game. Instead of looking at individual players - look more into complete draft strategies for the big day. With experience, you will be fine. I'm also 5-8. I had a great draft (and a bad season to back it up!) Just remember... it's all in good fun so put down the gun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whoopdido Posted December 7, 2004 Author Share Posted December 7, 2004 Ha ha. I think I'm glad I didn't have a gun near me a couple times this year. Especially the 2 weeks in a row I lost by a combined 3 points. It sucks when going into Monday Night David Givens only needs to get 5 yards for me to win and he ends up catching 1 pass for 3 yards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ropeman Posted December 7, 2004 Share Posted December 7, 2004 Cheat sheets work very well along with due diligence. I don't think a computer program would be really beneficial because most of the stats you're looking at are computed on websites like this. Here are my humble recommendations. 1. Identify the top 100 players out of your league this year (each scoring scheme makes each league a little different). Tier them out for this year end of season and compare them with pre-season rankings. Look for qualities of those players who did considerably better than what was predicted (Offense, QB, game calling, unique situations) this will help you find some diamonds next year and avoid picking up one year wonders. 2. Tiers, Tiers, Tiers they're very helpful in preparing your draft. 3. Look at your draft... did you keep most of your players or dump them? Why did you dump the ones you did? Did you dump too early? Did you wait too long to pick-up a player? 4. Look at how the winning coaches managed their teams. How did their coaching differ from yours (risk taking, playing match-ups, trades, etc). This is my fifth year playing FF and my strongest year ever (10-3 second place, thir place points). My first year I got really lucky and led my conference all season long but lost in the first round because I didn't manage my team at all, just got lucky. This year I was more active as a coach than I had been before which helped me stay in second place. I took some risks early that yielded good results (Brees, Clayton, Stokely and then used Clayton and Stokely to fix some holes in the Offense). I'll most likely lose in the playoffs because another coach traded to get McNabb early in the season and he's just killing everyone but I'm very satisfied with the results. Good luck next year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phat Rugby Posted December 7, 2004 Share Posted December 7, 2004 Drafts are so hard because you cannot predict who will do well and not get injured. I thought I had a strong draft, consisdering the last pick, but most of my drafted starters did little. My first four picks were Barlow (2 good weeks .. dud), Moss (injured most of year), Martin (stud), SSmith (injured week 1). Your best bet is taking your top 100 list in and having a player by position list for the later rounds. I still am a true believer of the Madden Football rankings. That game comes close on many players attributes and how the rest of the team does (Portis was not a stud when I simulated him at the beginning of the year). It still comes down to luck. We had a guy simply pick the top rated available regardless of position (sportsline rankings) and he is #2 in our league. No thought, just picks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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