Draft Diary 2004: Strategy

i am bill parcells. when your team sucks as badly as mine will this year, you have to rebuild, and have a good plan to do it. i've always wanted to be in the position to completely rebuild. it would be nice to have some assets to trade but if i'm gonna play like an expansion team, i might as well become a promising expansion team. this year i look to draft stars in the making. no name guys who will become names after i'm done with them. in previous years i liked to stock up on older veteran WRs who could put up a few numbers but had no real trade value or keeper value (keyshawn johnson anyone?). i liked to have two or three of these guys on my roster so that i could cash in on their consistency as my third WR. this year, it's boom or bust. i'm passing over all players that may still have a year or two left but have no more upside. keyshawn, joey galloway, marcus robinson, jerome bettis, tyrone wheatley, david boston, charlie garner, marshall faulk, amani toomer, see ya later suckas. these players could all have explosive years this year but i don't care. i want youth youth and more youth.

taking a page from the NBA, i will be drafting based purely on potential. this means rookies, two year men and guys on the rise. this is a high risk strategy. but the rewards could be great. at the end of the season, i'm hoping to mine one good young RB and two young WRs. not too hard of a task. i've done it before, the only difference this year is that i'll have to play these players as they grow, as opposed to sit them on the bench. i want the next steve smith, the next domanick davis. the problem with this strategy is that even if a young guy has a good game or a good season, you never know what might happen the next year. hello plaxico burress and william green. these guys had excellent freshman/sophmore seasons but then tailed off after one good year, and now nobody likes'em.

the easiest way to identify potential stars is to see who has opportunities to play. young RBs who are suddenly in charge of their destinies (thomas jones, tj duckett, michael bennett, rudi johnson). they have been handed the starting job and all they need to do is produce to become a stud. rookie RBs make the transition to the pros the easiest. what's the difference between running against college teams and pro teams? sometimes, not much. there is always one rookie RB who explodes and immediately alters the fantasy landscape. marshall faulk, edgerrin james, ladainian thomas and clinton portis all came in as rookies and set their worth. so first round backs are always promising. this year we have julius jones in dallas, kevin jones in detroit and possibly tatum bell in denver and steven jackson in st louis. these guys will be drafted based purely on their opportunity and potential.

the other way to identify potential franchise RBs is to grab backups to the stars. an injury to an aging back will open the door for your guy to step through. some guys are buried on the depth chart and can't get no playing time but have the skills to make it big. maybe deshaun foster, willis mcgahee, lamont jordan, najeh davenport, labrandon toefield and larry johnson fit this profile. but when will they get a chance? kevan barlow finally got out from underneath the shadow of garrison hearst, let's see what he can do with it.

finding quality young WRs is much tougher. i've decided on a new strategy this year. i'm going to stick all the names of young WRs i like into a hat and draft them at random. because young WRs often come out of nowhere, what's the point in trying to logic out who should be the next great thing? david terrell, peter warrick, jj stokes. great college players but busts or semi-busts as pros. why bother? i'm going to just look up random names on the depth charts of teams and go from there. it's very scientific this year, as you can tell.

young QBs are a dime a dozen so i won't even bother researching those. byron leftwich, david carr, carson palmer are all the same to me till they do something. and then i'll just grab one when i can. nobody knows which QBs will be good, you have just a good a chance going with the random no names as the stars. will eli manning, eli manning or ben roethlisberger become good pros? history says at least one of them will fail miserably. it's more efficient to wait for the kurt warners, trent greens and jeff garcias of the world to emerge and then draft them.

so this year my draft strategy will be towards the future. lose now, win later. if i'm gonna lose, i'm gonna go down in flames and come out of it next season rising from the ashes. or maybe i'll strike it rich and be good this year AND next year.

Wide Receivers and Why I Love'em

i love the way you shake your hips and activate like a wideout. i have a fondness for WRs. they're so pretty. all limbs and speed. most WRs run forty yard dashes in about 4.3-4.4 seconds. a normal human might run it in about six seconds. QBs may be the star and RBs the rock but WRs are sexy. they are the prima donnas of the football field. without them your team has no chance of dropping sixty yard bombs into the endzone, with them, you might lose your mind trying to keep them happy. i've always had a fondness for WRs ever since i got into andre rison and michael haynes on my madden 1994. they were unbeatable, i was unbeatable.

so now when i play fantasy, i want my WRs and i always keep my roster stocked with potential stars. the problem with WRs is that they are very volatile. they are inconsistent at best and the days of sterling sharp and his two touchdown per game averages are over. the best WRs nowadays can touch those numbers but outside of randy moss, no WR is that consistent. even the best WR in the game, marvin harrison, was invisible for the first four games of the 2003 season. but when WRs get hot, they get red hot. 10 receptions, 180 yards, 3 TDs. booyah. seeing a WR you own, on sportscenter, streaking down the sideline into the promised land might be the best feeling ever.

WRs are also highly inconsistent from season to season. a stellar WR needs a good QB and a good running game. it's too easy to shutdown a WR when they are no other offensive options. another thing that a star WR needs is a good wingman on the other side, keeping the defenses honest. the best WRs in history always had a dependable wingman. lynn swann and john stallworth. jerry rice and john taylor. michel irvin and alvin harper (um, sorta). usually the super stud is a slower possession type and the wingman is a speed type who can stretch the field. in fantasy terms, this difference is not accounted for. but i like to pretend that i'm building a real NFL team, so i draft possession types and speed types. possession receivers tend to be more dependable but speed types get the long bombs (while disappearing for stretches of games at a time).

still, regardless of which WRs you like, it all still comes down to the numbers they can produce. the best possible scenario for a WR owner is to have a lone great receiver on a team to whom the QB looks every time. terrell owens with the niners was such a receiver. the niners had no other bodies to throw to so they had to give it to TO twelve times a game. this produces huge numbers. also, teams that are out of the game by the first quarter often produce great receiving numbers simply because they have to throw so much to play catch up (e.g. anquan boldin with the arizona cardinals). watching the end of a blowout is always nail biting as you see the winning team play prevent defense while conceding huge chunks of receiving yardage to your opposing team's WR. a few trips down the field and the WR who had 3 receptions and 30 yards suddenly has seven and 120. scary stuff.

WRs flame out week by week and season by season. the rule of thumb is that rookie WRs always suck, and year three is when a young WR should find his legs. most rookie WRs have trouble with the physical play of the NFL and so need a few years to adjust. on average, there is probably only one or two rookie WRs worth drafting on numbers alone (many more are worth drafting if in a keeper league however). there are always a few superstar caliber WRs who emerge from season to season, but the question of which ones are flash in the pans cannot be answered. so beware WR buyer, it's a guessing game.

Quarterback Sneak

heading into our supplemental email draft -- starts this monday, runs seven rounds -- i have my strategy set. my team is in complete disarray and i have needs at every position. my two RBs (barber, dillon) are shaky and old. my WRs (horn, burress, lelie) were underachievers last year and while somewhat young, not scary enough for me. in short, i'm heading into the season with nothing. so what's the plan?

let's talk economics first. it's obvious that the best pick at any round or any time is the player that will bring the most value. even if you don't necessarily need him, you should take the best player available. i'm a big believer in this strategy. trades and waiver wire pickups can fill your holes, but you can never have enough emerging players. so the first thing you need to look for is value. the whole reason i traded away michael vick in the first place was that i don't believe in having a top flight quarterback. there are maybe three quarterbacks who are franchise quarterbacks, who are so good that they deserve to go in the first or second rounds. those three are arguably peyton manning, michael vick and daunte culpepper. in a ten team league that starts only one QB per week, it's easy to have a very good starting QB, even if you don't draft one until the late rounds.

a quick look at cnnsi's top QBs reveals that even if you got the ten best QB available, you would have drafted brett favre -- who led the NFL in touchdowns last year with 32, not bad eh? even if some teams double up on QBs early, you still have players like tom brady, aaron brooks, jeff garcia, rich gannon and joey harrington to choose from. the only way to get screwed with this strategy is if every team in your league starts to double up QB spots and you get left with some crap. last year, we tried to do this to somebody but it turned out that they still got a semi-decent QB. sure it's nice to have a bonafide star as your QB but i don't find trying to platoon QBs around. this can hurt you however because if you don't make the right call on a particular QB each week, you take a big hit on the scoreboard.

having said that, quality QBs are plentiful and i avoid filling that position until i absolutely have to.

The Rules

fantasy football rules, the way i think they should be done. i've played fantasy for some years and after some refinement, i've settled on some basic rules that i think make for the best league.

rosters. i think a starting roster of eight guys is best. 1 QB, 1 RB, 2 WR/TE, 1 WR/TE/RB, 1 K, 1 DEF. i don't believe in making TE a mandatory position. it sucks to have to mine for some guy who will get you three catches and fifty yards just so you can start him. there aren't enough quality TEs out there, why bother? i prefer making WR/TE one position. also, the so called "flex" position (WR/TE/RB) is important i think. i love having the option of a run and shoot offense: 1 RB, 4 WR/TE.

in our keeper league, the first season, roger won using the run and shoot; with a stable of WRs and marshall faulk as his lone back. i love this idea, but it's impossible to pull off since you need virtually the best RB in the game and three great WRs. the old "red gun" offense of the early nineties falcons made me feel like the run and shoot is just the best thing in the world.

as for reserves, i feel like the lowest number of bench players the better. i hate having guys sit on the bench while they could be on the waiver wire. i prefer 4 bench spots in a 10 team league, with no bye weeks. this allows for some depth but you need to also play who you own. i don't see the point of having six guys on the bench who aren't available to the general public. this does cut down on prospecting but i would rather have short rosters than deep ones that allow owners to hoard players.

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scoring. the scoring system we use is linked on the right. basically it's the same as most systems you might see. a few additions over the years. adding "receptions" for points. this is mainly to help WRs. WRs as a group have gotten less dependable over the years and it sucks to have a star WR not get any points for a huge game with 10 receptions but only fifty or seventy yards. awarding one point per two receptions (rounded down, always rounded down) gives WRs some consistency. of course, RBs benefit from this too but in general, most RBs won't be getting more than 3-4 receptions a game.

i also believe that throwing touchdowns should only be four points. this has been a bone of contention in my keeper league (we award six points per TD) and if i ran things, i would set the points awarded for a throwing TD at four. why? i feel like most QBs in this league throw about two TDs on average a game. a RB or WR who gets 17-20 TDs a year is having a record setting year. a QB who throws 17-20 is only doing average. why reward the QB for having a mediocre year? it has been argued that giving QBs 6pts per is fine since all QBs will be throwing around the same amount. but i think that given how hard it is to get 3 TDs a game for a WR/RB, and how much easier it is for QB, it's not fair to reward them the same. this is just a preference really. i could argue it both ways but i really don't like making QBs that much better than other players. a QB who throws a ridiculous number of TDs (30+) is going to be artificially much more valuable from a total points standpoint.

also, we have a +1 point bonus for rushing/receiving/passing TDs over 50 yards. this should probably be eliminated but it takes into account the mental devastation that a big scoring play can make. so when you see your RB break one off for 67 yards into the endzone you can scream out "score! six points plus one!" unless of course, you're not a fantasy geek and you just say "that was nice..."

as much as i'd like to play individual defensive players, it's just not worth it. i don't think the defensive statistics accurately portray a players impact on the real game. a team with a crap d line and linebackers will have a safety rack up tackles, making him seem like a "star" when he really isn't. i do love the idea of having to balance offense and defensive players but that's something more hardcore for down the road. for now, i'd stick to team defenses. it's important to me that team D can't get more than single digit points on a normal basis. some Ds are so good that they can be near MVP-caliber players for a team. the buccaneers of a few years ago got so many sacks, INTs and TDs that they were practically a 20-pt per game player. i also like the idea of rewarding a few points for yards and points against, just something to give Ds some consistency.

The season begins...

tihs year i'm playing in two fantasy football leagues, one keeper league (hosted by cbs sportsline) and another at yahoo. i traditionally play in three or four leagues but i face a major rebuilding job in my keeper league so i thought i'd better concentrate my energies on the two leagues i'm most invested in.

keeper league. this is year four of our keeper league. we've played with virtually the same guys (ten owners) for five years and we have owners located in san francisco, new york, los angeles, san diego and the far east. the great thing about fantasy football is that each year, the top 50% of players change. there are some surefire stars year in and year out but due to injuries and plain luck, flash in the pans are common and stars emerge from obscurity. i won the league two years ago on the arm of michael vick and the receiving of marvin harrison. last year i traded away vick, harrison and ahman green for rickey williams, drew bledsoe and joe horn. worst trade ever? probably. i went from champ to chump, racking up enough wins to place me second to last in the league. this year my team looks even worse than it did last year. my five keepers are tiki barber, corey dillon, plaxico burress, joe horn and ashley lelie. rickey's retirement killed my hopes of making a huge comeback. on with the rebuilding.

san diego league. last year we started playing a local league with all my friends from san diego. only about three owners had ever played fantasy before and half the owners couldn't tell you how many players were on a football field but everyone was enthusiastic. i ended up drafting for my friend who took the championship and my "expertise" took me to out of playoff status. so much for fantasy experience winning the day. this year i'm taking a no holds barred approach and am out for blood. we've expanded to ten owners and it looks like everyone is excited to play again. no way i'm losing out to some newbie this year. no way.

i love the free cost of yahoo's fantasy leagues but the system is wack. i hate having to carry extra men for bye weeks. i think they should carry over scores like we do in the keeper league. it makes it much more exciting. why should your stars sit just b/c it's a bye week? some might say it eliminates some strategy but i hate having 15 roster spots for eight starting players. usually i play in two or three yahoo leagues but it just gets too confusing.