FF09 IDP League Draft

[snoopy369]

Ben, not that there are many more chargers worth picking (lol Chris Chambers lol), but you are failing tor realize something. One of the main reasons to play fantasy football, is to have a reason to root for players on Sunday in games not involving your favorite team(s). So if your team is entirely populated by your favorite team, you will have little reason to watch football on Sunday... Try picking players from other teams, so that you have a more interesting weekend.

[Ben Kenobi]

Ben, not that there are many more chargers worth picking (lol Chris Chambers lol), but you are failing tor realize something. One of the main reasons to play fantasy football, is to have a reason to root for players on Sunday in games not involving your favorite team(s). So if your team is entirely populated by your favorite team, you will have little reason to watch football on Sunday... Try picking players from other teams, so that you have a more interesting weekend.

I usually play pick'em, so I have an interest in every game.

The reason I've been picking Chargers is because:

1. Chargers are an awesome fantasy team.

2. They have a kick-ass schedule, 6 games against the AFC Worst.

3. I like them. For the same reason I picked Colston (Brees). I picked Hines Ward as he was my backup for Jackson. I got both so now I have a stable of WRs.

Sproles is a good player but I wasn't expecting Guynemer to pick him now, as he lacks a TE. I was hoping koya, or berz or Jrabbit would pick him instead.

Try picking players from other teams

Unless you've got my draft charts, you've seen less then half my starters.

[snoopy369]

It's just a general suggestion, Ben. You don't have to follow it. I would suggest that you're being quite a bit of a homer, though, but that's fine if it's what you enjoy. (And at least you're picking from a competent offensive team... thank god I'm a Bears fan, the last few years have cured me of being a homer nearly entirely.

[Ben Kenobi]

I would suggest that you're being quite a bit of a homer, though, but that's fine if it's what you enjoy.

Tomlinson in 12th, Rivers in 19th, Gates 42nd, VJackson 72nd. I don't think any of those picks were a reach.

Had Tomlinson been picked before me my draft would have looked very differently. Tomlinson fell down to me, so that made Rivers my second pick rather then going RB/RB as I had planned.

[Zopperoni]

Unless you've got my draft charts, you've seen less then half my starters.

Well, duh, you still have 5 more defenders, a kicker and a second RB to draft...

[Ben Kenobi]

Well of course. My list is full of studs like JWall, Cromartie, Stephen Cooper, Jammer etc, etc, etc. The all-chargers Defense!

[Flubber]

It obviously depends on who's playing. You don't have to stop the clock at all if it's a fairly international draft, though you might want to slightly lengthen the time you allow (say, 8 hours instead of 4). If it's nearly all north american, make sure your euro/asian/african folks leave lists

The last time in hockey we had one guy in asia and perhaps one or two in Europe. Our clock never stopped but we did give more then 4 hours IIRC. As someone else said, if lists are prepared it should be easy. hell even a general instruction to BAPAY position x excluding players y and z would be enough.

[Berzerker]

be back in about 2 hours max

[Flubber]

You wanna toss peanuts from the gallery, why don't you join us next time?

I probably will-- I have an increasing interest in football and the draft process and strategy looks more complex than hockey

This is my first poly draft, dude. I'm still trying to figure **** out.

Thats valid. But a hint -- next time try reading the rules again before going all preachy on a guy thats just doing his role. Once I read the BPAY rules they were actually pretty clear-- the only ambiguity was as to when a player might be bypassed for injury or suspension

[Flubber]

It's just a general suggestion, Ben. You don't have to follow it. I would suggest that you're being quite a bit of a homer, though, but that's fine if it's what you enjoy. (And at least you're picking from a competent offensive team... thank god I'm a Bears fan, the last few years have cured me of being a homer nearly entirely.

Wouldn't picking from disproporionately one team be a killer in a bye week

[Zopperoni]

It is, it's also sort of unfair because it gives someone else an easy win.

[-Jrabbit]

I'm happy Ben is playing. While we might consider his strategy ill-advised, at least he has a strategy. Draft choices are ultimately judged during the season via wins and losses, so I'll bite my tongue until we see how things play out. While I'm not happy to see someone (can't remember who) get an probable walkover win vs Ben in week 5, it's Ben's right to play as he wishes -- within the rules.

Ben has been present for his picks and, um, active in the discussion. We had our dust-up on Sunday, but that's behind us now. As long as he's engaged and actively trying to win, it's all good.


Flubber -- would love to see you join us next year! There are still some open teams over at FFZ (live online drafts) if you want to give it a shot this year.

[snoopy369]

Tomlinson in 12th, Rivers in 19th, Gates 42nd, VJackson 72nd. I don't think any of those picks were a reach.

Had Tomlinson been picked before me my draft would have looked very differently. Tomlinson fell down to me, so that made Rivers my second pick rather then going RB/RB as I had planned.

I think LT was fine, Rivers was early [he'd have been available with your third pick more than likely, as only Rodgers and Romo, both rated higher on most boards than Rivers, went in between, and even if you rate Rivers higher than them, it's not by that many picks], Gates was slightly early [TEs shouldn't go quite that early, and at worst you'd have Dallas Clark if not Tony Gonzalez at the next pair of picks], and VJax was a bit early [I'd rate about 5-6 receivers ahead of him that were still available]. It's not that any of your picks were really bad picks, and your team so far actually looks pretty competitive, but you could've made better picks at basically each spot. A little bit of added value goes a long way. You also don't have a #2 RB, which will hurt you a lot at this point because you're looking at your #2 RB likely being a backup NFL RB, which is not good. Replace Gates with a #2 RB at that point and VJax (or Hines Ward) with a TE and you're a lot better off.

But more to the point, and to answer Flubber, you have a problem with having all SD players in that you are up and down with the performance of the SD offense; if they score a ton of points you will do fine, but if they hit a road block they don't. It's a week-to-week league, and that means if SD plays a strong defense and let's say, wins 9-3 with 200 total yards, you're guaranteed to lose. True, if the win 42-30 with 600 total yards, you'll do well, but I think you'll end up being hurt more by the lows than helped by the highs from my past experience. It's for the same reason that you shouldn't take a QB and his #1 WR, if they're centerpieces of your team, unless the second one picked is a huge steal; they correlate too strongly together. You might actually be better off this way because you're a novice at this, but in general it's a bad strategy as opposed to diversification (not having more than a couple of players from one team), as you tend to be more competitive on the average. Winning 3 games by 50% (say, 150 to 75) and losing 3 games by 50% (say, 50 to 100) is only a .500 average, even though you're averaging 100 points and if you scored 100 points every week would have won 4 or 5 games.

[-Jrabbit]

I assume Spaced Cowboy was sent a PM...?

He has about 1.5 hr. left before BAPAY.

[snoopy369]

It is, it's also sort of unfair because it gives someone else an easy win.

I would not call it unfair, as it's certainly within the rules. Jaguar and I talked briefly about this the other day, and he made an interesting point. It could give you an advantage, iff you had a few solid picks on a team that had an easy matchup that week, but in general aren't good enough picks to be taken early (especially at QB). Even Kyle Orton can be successful against the Lions or the Rams, after all. So you end up being at least perhaps competitive that week, and being slightly better the other weeks where you have no players on bye. I don't think it's a winning strategy in general (for reasons including this), but if you assume you're not going to pick your first-run backups (your 6th and 7th WR/RB, your 2nd QB, etc.) better than average, and you assume you can select a good choice for 'sleeper team', then it's not out of the question that it might be a good all-or-nothing strategy. Its real weakness is the playoffs - it might help you get there, but you have to win once you're there, and it doesn't help there since nobody has bye weeks at 14+.