Fantasy Football Discussion Thread

[Al B. Sure!]

Is "top ten" the actual metric that you want to use to describe whether a player is good? Imran isn't going to be pleased that Flacco is "top-ten." That's a below-average starter right there. Meanwhile, he also took Steven Jackson who (oh no!) is only 14th. That means Jackson is absolutely a player that starts every single week, and I wish I had him.

Jaguar, check my latest edit of the above post and it shows the success rate at each position, measured by the liklihood that a player met or exceeded his draft position.

[Jaguar]

If we say that the 7th guy taken at each position ends up actually being the 15th, for example:

The 15th QB is going to rarely start, and even when he does, he won't provide much more value than the guy he starts over. The 15th ranked RB will start every week and provide a huge amount of value.

I would much rather take the 7th overall RB and have him turn out 15th (this is more or less what I considered with Mendenhall as my first-rounder instead of Peyton) than take the 7th overall QB and have him turn out 15th (that is singularly horrible.)

[Al B. Sure!]

Jaguar, my point is that while the gap between RB's is wider than the gap between WR's and QB's, RB is a significantly riskier position to draft as RB's are far less likely to meet or exceed their draft position.

In our case, only 2 of the top-10 RB's taken (Adrian Peterson and Frank Gore) met or exceeded their draft rank, compared to 5 of the top-10 QB's.

[Jaguar]

Meeting or exceeding one's draft rank isn't necessarily the absolute best metric for measuring risk.


2 of the top 5, and 3 of the top 10 QBs aren't worth starting in this league. In contrast, all of the first-round RBs are every-week starters.

[Al B. Sure!]

Fine. By that metric, it would be how many top-10 taken are in the top 14 in actual fantasy output since we're in a 14-team league. In that case:

7 of 10 RB's
7 of 10 WR's
7 of 10 QB's

[Jaguar]

Fine. By that metric, it would be how many top-10 taken are in the top 14 in actual fantasy output since we're in a 14-team league. In that case:

7 of 10 RB's
7 of 10 WR's
7 of 10 QB's

Wow, that's surprisingly perfect. Obviously the "top ten" metric was a little unfair to the RBs, since they did fill out 11, 12, 14, and 16.

But the other thing to remember is that even the 25th-ranked WR contributes some value to your team. In some ways it's almost fairer to look at whether RB/WRs place in the top 42 of RB/WR, because those should be the 42 starters in the league.

Obviously, neither metric really captures all the nuances that are going on when we play fantasy. The problem is not easily tractable no matter how good your math is or how much time you spend looking at it.

Do I think the QB/RB/WR market, as shown in the D/ST draft this year, is efficient in balancing positions? Probably not exactly. But there's no clear structural problem.

[Al B. Sure!]

Yet it is still very telling that the top 3 RB's taken are currently 6th, 7th, and 11th; the top 3 WR's taken are 13th, 14th, and 12th; yet the top 3 QB's taken are 1st, 3rd, and 2nd.

Despite 'startability' in a 14-team league, it's not a good thing that Ray Rice, for example, the 3rd RB taken, is 11th in production. That means there were 8 RB's out there that would have been a better selection for the 3rd RB off the board.

That's very important to note. That's why meeting or exceeding draft position is, I think, the better metric because it tells you what you left on the table.*

*to an extent. For example, AP outperformed his position but Arian Foster who has been better than AP was still on the board when AP was taken. That's why a comparison between draft rank and actual rank is even better.

[Al B. Sure!]

I guess the best metric would be one that answers "How many players were available that would have been a better pick at this point?"

Keep in mind that this does not address the fact that many of the better picks were later round picks that one could have had as well as a less valuable selection in the early rounds. Obviously, if the chance existed to have both, you would take the 'less than perfect' pick early knowing that he wouldn't be around later and grabbed the 'better than most 1st rounders though a late round selection' gems later. Hence, why, if you knew in advance what the Week 11 rankings were, you wouldn't pick Arian Foster with the #1 overall pick but would pick AP instead.

That's obvious but just want to make it clear for any readers.

So the ideal question would be "How many players were available (that would NOT have been available with a later round pick) that would have been a better pick at this point?"

So given that, let's look at the top 5 RB's:

1. Chris Johnson 6th
2. Maurice Jones-Drew 7th
3. Ray Rice 11th
4. Adrian Peterson 2nd
5. Frank Gore 5th

So 5 RB's would have been a better pick than CJ at #1 (Arian Foster, AP, Peyton Hillis, McCoy and Gore).

Only two of them would be off the board by the time of the #1 picker's next pick so the CJ-drafter could have potentially grabbed Foster, Hillis, or McCoy with the next pick or the one after that or so forth. Only Gore and AP would have been gone.

So, therefore, the better selection at #1 would've been AP or Gore, NOT Chris Johnson.

Similarly, MJD at #2 was outperformed by the same group plus CJ. But with CJ off the board, the #2 pick should have been AP or Gore, not MJD.

[SlowwHand]

It's so funny to look back at the draft and see where people went and how they rank in real life.

Here we go. The order they were drafted and their current fantasy points ranking.

RB's: (All of these went in the 1st round)
1. Chris Johnson 6th
2. Maurice Jones-Drew 7th
3. Ray Rice 11th (NOT EVEN TOP 10)
4. Adrian Peterson 2nd
5. Michael Turner 16th (NOT EVEN TOP 15!)
6. Rashard Mendenhall 12th (NOT EVEN TOP 10)
7. Steven Jackson 14th (NOT EVEN TOP 10)
8. Ryan Matthews 41st (HOLY **** )

So of the 8 RB's that went in the first round, only 3 are currently in the top-10 among RB's and only 1 is in the top-5.

(Note, only Ryan Matthews missed time to injury; 7 of the top 8 have played all their games and all but one of that healthy top 7 have been outside of the top-5 )

The master in training for speaking in hindsight strikes again. Are you a DP of Imran's?
6. Rashard Mendenhall 12th (NOT EVEN TOP 10)?
Surely I must be misunderstanding your phrasing.Who do you think kept the Steelers in contention while they waited for their QB to return from suspension?

[OzzyKP]

How's that for draft strategy? You know the top RB to the 10th or 14th RB is a huge drop-off so you want to grab one of the top RB's if you can but once the playing starts you get a situation like now where 3 of the top-5 RB's were late round picks or not even drafted.

So drafting RB's early is a crapshoot.

That was actually my draft strategy.

I noticed and drew lessons from the fact that last season I took Michael Turner in the first round who was eclipsed by my late round pick ups of Ray Rice and Ricky Williams. I concluded then that RBs are really a crapshoot. So I drafted "safe" picks early like a reliable QB (Brees) reliable WR (A. Johnson), a steady, non-risky RB (Benson) and a reliable TE (Clark). Then I took some fliers later on (LT). I shouldn't have tried the Ricky Williams train again, but.. whatever. While I drafted RBs later than most, I picked up more of them, hoping one would distinguish himself. I didn't make great RB picks (except for LT) but overall I think it is a sound strategy and I think I drafted very well. If I wasn't so bad at managing my team through the season and if Jag wasn't so miraculously perfect (and if Clark wasn't hurt), I'd be doing better than I am.

[SlowwHand]

In D/ST I shouldn't have gambled so much on rookies. Hindsight. Injuries, to both Best and Matthews screwed me. Oh, well. It could have worked out and I don't mind gambling with youth.

[Al B. Sure!]

So let's check it out then!

Draft Rank/Player/Actual Rank/How many better players were out there that wouldn't have been available with a later pick [long name ]

1. Chris Johnson 6th 2 (AP and Gore)
2. Maurice Jones-Drew 7th 2 (AP and Gore)
3. Ray Rice 11th 3 (AP and Gore)
4. Adrian Peterson 2nd 0 (best selection given position)
5. Frank Gore 5th 0 (best selection given position)
6. Michael Turner 16th 3 (Mendenhall, Steven Jackson, Charles)
7. Rashard Mendenhall 12th 1 (Charles)
8. Steven Jackson 14th 1 (Charles)
9. Ryan Matthews 41st 0 ( here's a flaw in this system; Sloww could have picked any of the 32 remaining better RB's here instead of this pick but as he was on the back-end, obviously no RB's were taken between this pick and his next pick)
Second Round:
10. DeAngelo Williams 45th 2 (Charles, Addai)


Help me, Jaguar. How can I mitigate this Slowwhand effect where the analysis gets warped by fewer picks between selections? Just looking to see if any better players were taken in the next 13 picks isn't quite right because picks weren't 14 spots away from each other; the spacing between picks varied with the rounds. Any ideas?

[OzzyKP]

Best was still a good pick, I was disappointed you got him from me. (but, if I recall, I picked LT that round, so good for me). You can't predict injuries... (Dallas Clark... grr)

[SlowwHand]

Rushing Yards Leaders - All Players

RK PLAYER TEAM ATT YDS YDS/A LONG 20+ TD YDS/G FUM 1DN
1 Arian Foster, RB HOU 194 1004 5.2 74 7 12 100.4 2 60
2 Adrian Peterson, RB MIN 211 980 4.6 80 6 7 98.0 0 50
3 Chris Johnson, RB TEN 216 968 4.5 76 9 9 96.8 2 40
4 Maurice Jones-Drew, RB JAC 209 878 4.2 24 5 4 87.8 2 53
5 Ahmad Bradshaw, RB NYG 185 867 4.7 45 10 5 86.7 6 45
6 Michael Turner, RB ATL 200 864 4.3 55 7 6 86.4 0 43
7 Jamaal Charles, RB KC 139 848 6.1 56 6 2 84.8 2 41
8 Steven Jackson, RB STL 203 811 4.0 42 3 3 81.1 0 41
Rashard Mendenhall, RB PIT 202 811 4.0 50 8 8 81.1 1 39
10 Frank Gore, RB SF 198 801 4.0 64 5 3 80.1 3 40

http://espn.go.com/nfl/statistics/player/_/stat/rushing/sort/rushingYards

Here were my IDP picks. Personally, I don't have a problem with it, in terms of "at the time", or even now.

Dallas Dwarf Tossers
View All
Round Pick Player Position
1. (10) Rashard Mendenhall RB
2. (15) Cedric Benson RB
3. (34) Anquan Boldin WR
4. (39) Matt Ryan QB
5. (58) Hines Ward WR
6. (63) Hakeem Nicks WR
7. (82) Ahmad Bradshaw RB


I've been screwed by people having their games of the year against me. Deviations has had nearly as big a problem.

[MRT144]

The master in training for speaking in hindsight strikes again. Are you a DP of Imran's?
6. Rashard Mendenhall 12th (NOT EVEN TOP 10)?
Surely I must be misunderstanding your phrasing.Who do you think kept the Steelers in contention while they waited for their QB to return from suspension?

So were playing this game called fantasy football, ever hear of it?