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Fantasyopolis

Building your fantasy sports team from the ground up.

Archives for September 2016

September 16, 2016 Leave a Comment

Take advantage of Week 1 fantasy football overreaction

One thing that I simply don’t get about the fantasy football expert community is that it can be kind of reactionary. After over a month of preseason analysis and tinkering of draft rankings, it takes just one week for them to change their minds. One week! So now A.J. Green jumps ahead of Odell Beckham Jr. in the wide receiver draft rankings? You would now consider getting Larry Fitzgerald and trade away a player like Dez Bryant? These kinds of reactionary opinions have started to annoy me quite a bit because the people making them should know better. It’s even worse when it happens at the beginning of a season. If Player X is so bad after four quarters of the season, why were you touting him for the past four weeks?

NFL Week 1 in the books

A lot of interesting revelations were made last week which confirmed, denied, or challenged preseason expectations. Some players were hurt, some shined brightly, and others fell flat. There’s a flurry of items to discuss as people try to process the games over the weekend and make adjustments for the coming weekend, but this doesn’t mean that predraft rankings should change at the top just yet.

Think of it this way: preseason rankings are based upon season-long projections. It’s a broad perspective. If a player is projected to get 160 points over the course of a season, the expectation is never that the player will score 10 points in 16 games. Instead, we expect that player might get 12 points in some games, maybe 8 in other games, possibly 18 in a game, and 3 or 4 in another. The point is that predraft rankings presume fluctuation on a weekly basis and take that all into account.

So why, then, would rankings significantly change after just one week? Injuries aside, there should be no significant rankings changes after the first week of the season based on player performance alone. Even if Dez Bryant catches only one pass in his first game, it really doesn’t matter. Something like that was bound to happen. In fact, deviation from the mean was expected to happen and was taken into account before the season began.

Use overreaction to build your roster

For fantasy purposes, the best way to capitalize on the post-Week 1 chaos is by holding relatively still. For the most part, you shouldn’t be making many waiver wire pickups just yet. You shouldn’t be worried about the performances of draft picks taken in your top six or seven rounds, and you shouldn’t be overly amazed by undrafted players who came out of the woodwork to perform well. Why not? Because the ink on the preseason rankings has barely dried. In order to get value from your picks, you need to let them perform to their expected levels.

As the season moves to Week 2, you may see a more chaotic environment if top players stumble two weeks in a row. Some managers in your league may begin to drop talented players because of poor performance, beginning with players drafted in the later rounds and progressing to players drafted in earlier rounds. The tolerance level for underperformance lowers each week, and this is your chance to pounce.

Remember, your roster is not completed at the end of draft day, but continues all season long. Look for those great values – whether it be through trade or claiming dropped players off waivers – who other people give up on. Look at their long-term performances and ignore the underwhelming performances of a few games at the beginning of the season.

Filed Under: Football Tagged With: Fantasy Experts, In-Season Strategy

September 9, 2016 Leave a Comment

Fantasy football snake draft review for a 16-team league

I have been part of a college friends league for the past seven or eight years and it’s the one football league in which I have the most invested emotionally. Most of the managers are of the casual type, but the size of the league makes it hard to actually win the whole thing. In addition, it’s a very shallow league with only two bench spots per team. This makes it aggravating and yet strategically exciting at the same time. I have only won the championship once, but last year I tore things up with an all-star team and a 12-2 regular season record before getting dropped in the first round of the playoffs. This year the league added two more teams which means talent is even harder to come by.

football-31334_640The league uses Fleaflicker, and old-school fantasy sports platform that I have come to realize utilizes somewhat absurd rankings and player projections. I realized that I could use that to my advantage by waiting on certain players I wanted on my team because I knew they would likely be available in later rounds. After all, fantasy managers typically follow the default draft rankings in whatever software platform they are using.

I did around half a dozen mock drafts in preparation until I settled on one strategy that seemed the most promising. I figured that I would take A.J. Green (FantasyPros overall rank #6) in the first round, then another wide receiver like Brandon Marshall (#15) or Alshon Jeffrey (#26) in the second round, before targeting a running back like Matt Forte (#46) or possibly Jeremy Langford (#44) in the third round. When doing my mock drafts, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Coby Fleener (#79) was still available on my turn, so my plan was to take him there.

The first few rounds

Of course, mock drafts only mildly predict what will happen in actual drafts, so when it came to real draft time, things went quite differently. First of all, I was thrilled when it came to my turn in the first rounds and lo and behold, who is still waiting to be picked, but Julio Jones (#2)? I’m not exactly sure how he managed to stay there, but he’s an upgrade over A.J. Green and could plausibly be the #1 non-QB player in all of fantasy this year.

With my second pick, I took Dez Bryant. I think the impact of Tony Romo‘s injury might be overestimated, and Bryant’s consistent history suggests that he can still play at a top level this year. Besides, with Romo’s potential return in Week 9, Bryant’s performance should only go up over the course of the season. The fact that Dallas has one of the easiest schedules for wide receivers only sweetens the pot.

Since Matt Forte was off the board when it came to my turn in Round 3, I instead went with Latavius Murray (#31), who had been passed over and was actually fifteen spots higher in the FantasyPros overall draft rankings. In Round 4, I took the one player that had slipped way too low on Fleaflicker’s draft rankings (somewhere around #67) – Jarvis Landry (#34). I was really targeting him with that pick and I would have kicked myself someone else had drafted him, but fortunately for me he was buried quite deep and not one else seemed to notice him there.

The later rounds

So far, my draft was proceeding better than I had hoped, but it was about to change. Going into the fifth round, there was a run on tight ends. Delanie Walker, Travic Kelce, and Gary Barnidge went off the board with three of the first four picks of the round. Then, Coby Fleener was taken. Not only can he potentially produce great numbers on the New Orleans offense, but the drop off in tight end production seems to begin right after him. Once Fleener was off the board I realized it was in a jam and had no clear-cut choice to make at tight end.

I decided I would wait on tight end and pick up someone like Julius Thomas (#15) in a later round, which I ended up doing in Round 11. So I switched gears and instead chose the Arizona defense (#2 in DST rankings). I know that conventional wisdom says to wait on defense, but in my particular league’s scoring settings, defenses are rewarded particularly well. In fact, top defenses in the league are comparable in points scored to the top flex players. In fact, in 2015 the Denver DST outscored the top wide receiver, Antonio Brown, by three points. Because of this, choosing Arizona was a prudent choice.

With the rest of my draft I filled in my remaining positions which included quarterback (Matthew Stafford in Round 6), bench spots (Melvin Gordon and Marvin Jones), and IDP spots. All indications point to Stafford having a tremendous year in his pass-happy offense, and the fact that Detroit faces the second-worst defenses against QBs persuaded me to pick him over a similarly good quarterback, Derek Carr (I would have chosen Carr had Stafford not been available). As for Gordon and Jones, well these two players were simply too good to pass up late in the draft. We’ll see soon enough whether or not they become legitimate weapons.

Assessing my draft

grandstand-987913_640In the beginning of the season, all players seem to have upside, and perhaps even crazy potential. The unknown can be tantalizing at times, but the first few week or two deflate these kinds of ideas and reality asserts itself once again. This attraction to potential leads me to pursue some of my players, particularly Julius Thomas and Matthew Stafford, but I really can’t tell for sure whether they’ll be as successful as I hope. But my other players – including my core of Jones, Bryant, Landry, and to some extent, Murray – give me more confidence that they will produce throughout the season.

In relation to the other teams in my league, I would say my team is highly competitive. I do have a few areas of concern that I may need to address, depending on the performance I see during the first few weeks. Can I upgrade my tight end? Will Murray be the productive workhorse that I hope he will be? Will Marvin Jones flourish or flounder with Detroit? And will this be Gordon’s year to break out?

I like to maximize the potential of each and every roster spot that I have so that I have as many top ten players at each position as I can. This will take some work, but as I already know, successful fantasy teams aren’t built in a (draft) day.

Filed Under: Football Tagged With: draft review, football draft, Hogan League, Snake Draft

September 6, 2016 Leave a Comment

Fantasy football auction draft review for a 12-team league

Tonight I completed an auction draft for a 12-team 1/2 ppr league. It’s a money league, so the stakes are higher than some of the other more casual drafts I have already been involved in this season. This is the first auction draft league for me this fantasy football season, as all my previous drafts were snake drafts. This league included roster spots for 1 QB, 3 WR, 2 RB, 1 TE, 1 FLEX, 1 K, 1 DEF, and six bench spots.

Here is an overview of my draft picks:

Budget $200
1. (3) Adrian Peterson (Min – RB) $49
2. (8) Dez Bryant (Dal – WR) $39
3. (13) Lamar Miller (Hou – RB) $52
4. (18) Sammy Watkins (Buf – WR) $28
5. (115) Ameer Abdullah (Det – RB) $7
6. (119) Matthew Stafford (Det – QB) $5
7. (128) Martellus Bennett (NE – TE) $2
8. (144) Steven Hauschka (Sea – K) $4
9. (151) Cincinnati (Cin – DEF) $1
10. (153) Derek Carr (Oak – QB) $5
11. (168) Dorial Green-Beckham (Phi – WR) $1
12. (174) Eric Ebron (Det – TE) $1
13. (175) Alfred Morris (Dal – RB) $3
14. (185) Karlos Williams (Buf – RB) $1
15. (189) Sam Bradford (Min – QB) $1
16. (191) Kenny Stills (Mia – WR) $1
Unused $0

The stars

This was a bit of a strange draft and it did not go the way I wanted it to go, but it turned out fairly well so far. Because certain players were not being bid high enough, I decided to strike. I was surprised and delighted to land Adrian Peterson for $49, particularly since the top two running backs went for $68 (David Johnson) and $61 (Todd Gurley) a few rounds later.

Later on, I decided to bid on Dez Bryant and landed him at $39. Although I am not huge on Bryant this season, particularly with Tony Romo out of the picture for the first nine weeks of the season, I think Bryant retains upside and value at that price. About 20 picks later, closely ranked receivers went for $39 (Allen Robinson) and $40 (Brandon Marshall). Honestly, I would have preferred either of those receivers to Bryant, but Bryant is still a satisfactory pick.

I grabbed my third pick, Lamar Miller, for $52. I was very pleased with this, particularly after the prices of the aforementioned running backs. My fourth pick was Sammy Watkins for $28. I was not planning on taking Watkins but took advantage of the opportunity when others stopped bidding. As the #15 wide receiver, I landed him for less than the #14 receiver (Keenan Allen, $33) and #16 receiver (T.Y. Hilton, $32). If Tyrod Taylor improves upon his rookie performance in Buffalo, Watkins could climb to the top of the receiver chart.

The scrubs

Because I originally did not want to target Watkins but a more expensive receiver, I ended up paying less for him and had more money left over after four picks than I was planning. My intent was to use the rest of my budget to draft Jarvis Landry, but another team exceeded my budget. Because it took a long time for Landry to come off the board, I was left searching the draft board for leftovers. Some of these guys aren’t “scrubs” per se, but they all went for under $10.

I drafted Ameer Abdullah, knowing that he faked people out last year (myself included) who thought that his upside was promising coming out of training camp. From what I hear, Abdullah is again poised to make some noise this season, so he could end up providing nice value as my flex option.

I drafted two quarterbacks of similar status – Matthew Stafford and Derek Carr. Both are on mediocre teams that have the potential to be terrific passing offenses. This presents me with two prime opportunities in fantasy football (high scoring, aerial games). From the beginning I had planned on targeting Stafford since I saw he was very low on Yahoo QB rankings, and I later drafted Carr just for insurance. I may end up playing the match-ups early in the season.

I should also point out that I drafted Alfred Morris for $3. I have been targeting him in different leagues this year because I am not convinced by the Ezekiel Elliot hype just yet. Although he has a great situation in Dallas, I suspect that if he starts to falter as a rookie, either through failure to produce yards or fumbling or off-field shenanigans, he may be watching as Morris gets in the driver’s seat. I don’t know how much patience Jerry Jones has with his players, even if they are top draft picks.

Weakness

My biggest weakness is in my third wide receiver, followed by tight end. I was trying to target Tyler Boyd at the end of the draft, but was unable to acquire him. I ended up getting Dorial Green-Beckham as more of a placeholder than anything else, so I will be looking for a replacement rather soon. I drafted two tight ends – Martellus Bennett and Eric Ebron – but I am not overly thrilled with either pick. I will probably drop one of them as new talent emerges on waivers.

My strategy going forward

I have solid players occupying six of my roster spots which includes two of the top five running backs and two of the top fifteen wide receivers in the league. I will definitely have to address at least one of the roster spots on my team, and probably more as the season progresses.

Despite what I consider a fairly strong draft, Yahoo has projected my team to score the second-fewest points in the league. I take those post-draft projections with a grain of salt for reasons I will explain some other time, but suffice it to say that I am fairly sure that my team will not rank near the bottom in points scored.

Overall this was a pretty good draft. It would have gone so much better had I landed Landry, but there’s nothing I can do about that now. On to Week 1!

Filed Under: Football Tagged With: 12 Strangers Fantasy League, auction draft, draft review

September 3, 2016 Leave a Comment

Last-minute tips for preparing for 2016 fantasy football snake drafts

This weekend and early next week are crunch time for fantasy football drafts for 2016. I find that drafting late in the preseason is better than drafting early since the flow of information is much better than it was three or four weeks earlier. When you are ready to draft, keep these tips in mind to maximize your return when participating in snake drafts.

Try out a mock draft, or two, or three

Doing mock snake drafts help you figure out which players are likely to be on the board when you pick in different rounds. Obviously, the actual draft will turn out differently than your mock drafts, but mock drafts can give you a sense of when you can potentially draft certain players. I think that most fantasy managers will generally follow the default rankings that are generated on your site, so you can pretty much tell who is going to be available at the end of round four, the beginning of round six, the middle of round eight, and so forth. If you play your cards right and practice drafting good teams in mock draft rooms, you’ll be several steps ahead of your competition when the real draft day comes.

Draft in a throwaway league

Fantasy football drafts are fun for everyone during the first two or three rounds. Then things get start to get ugly. As star players and household names fly off the board, it can become a challenge to find players that you want on your team. Maybe you start drafting studs from three years ago or dark-horse rookies because you didn’t do your homework and don’t know what else to do.

If you really want to excel in your drafts for leagues that matter (i.e. leagues with friends, family, or for prizes), you need to have already drafted in a real situation. Mock drafts are helpful with some strategy, but nothing cuts the nerves and forces you to learn player profiles like drafting in a real draft. In order to do this, you have to join a league just for the heck of it. The kind of league I’m talking about is a league with total strangers and one where there’s no money paid into the pot. Knowing that you are committing for a season to a team raises the stakes over that of a mock draft, and so the draft room will ensure that you quickly become familiar with players going in rounds six, seven, eight, nine, and so forth. Your draft in this “throwaway” league might not be the greatest, but at least you’ll be better prepared for later drafts in leagues that matter more.

Understand something about draft rankings

Everyone is going to be looking at rankings of some sort during the draft, whether these are on some third-party site or on the board that your draft room software uses. The curious thing about these rankings is that they can vary widely depending on whom provides them. For example, you can easily find discrepancies in rankings found on Yahoo, ESPN, and CBSSports, and sometimes these discrepancies are pretty big. This should tell you two things: first, that rankings are just opinions, and opinions differ from person to person. Take them with a grain of salt. Second, you can exploit these differences by trying to figure out if one site has draft rankings that are not widely accepted by others. But how do you know if one set of draft rankings is inferior to others?

The best way to figure this out is to take the collective wisdom from a group of opinion-leader experts and use that as your guide. Fortunately for us, that has already been done with the consensus draft rankings over at FantasyPros. The stock rankings are helpful in themselves, but you should go one step further by narrowing these down even more. This is really helpful when sorting based on position.

Let’s say you want to find the best middle-round running back to draft. After filtering the FantasyPros rankings to show RBs only, click on “Pick Experts”, then on the upper left choose “Top 10 RB Experts” that are listed under “2015 Draft Accuracy”. Click “Update”, and this will generate a rankings list which draws from the opinions of ten fantasy analysts who have had success in the past in evaluating running back talent. Now you can compare this list with the default draft rankings in your draft room to find the best player to draft at your needed position.

Your only strategy should be to use an adaptable strategy

Fantasy managers sometimes seem overly concerned with the order in which they draft positions for their team. Some people might think there is an optimal strategy in drafting WR-WR-WR with their first three picks, or maybe WR-RB-WR, or perhaps something else. Forget about all of that.

The way to draft is to start off picking the best player available and letting that player’s position guide you, but not rule you. So if you take a wide receiver for your first pick, you might ideally want to select a running back with your second pick. This will, after all, give you more flexibility in later rounds. However, if another great wide receiver falls to you with your second pick and he looks better than any available running back, take the wide out. If you have done your homework in advance (see the importance of mock drafts), you should have a few names of running backs that you can get in later rounds.

The bottom line is that you need to be able to adapt your strategy rather than letting a strategy stranglehold you.

Turn left when others are turning right

You will probably reach a point in the draft when no players look tempting. This can happen if there’s a run on a certain position which leaves you with “slim pickens” which don’t really excite you, and whom you may end up dropping at some point in the season anyway. Rather than waste a pick by following what other teams are doing, try drafting a quality player of a different position. For example, if you get to the fourth round and you don’t see any great options at receiver or running back, draft a tight end or quarterback. Conventional wisdom may say that this is too early to select these positions, but you can probably snag one of the top players at their respective positions (think Andrew Luck at QB, or Greg Olsen at TE) and thereby solidify that aspect of your team.

Stop thinking that your job is done after draft day

After you draft, you can sit and contemplate your roster with a look of love or of horror in your eyes, depending on how well you think you drafted. Stop doing that! While you may have positioned yourself well or poorly on Day 1, your job in creating your team is far from done. I can tell you from experience that even a major misstep on draft day can be overcome by carefully managing your team, dropping those who under perform, and pick up talent that propels your team to victory. On the flip side, even a well-drafted team can suffer from a few injuries to key players. Plan on keeping up with the waiver wire throughout the season, and realize that this is your true key to success.

There you have it – six tips to help guide you to a better fantasy football snake draft for 2016. No one said that the draft would be easy, but a little homework now goes a long way to help you over the next four months.

Filed Under: Football Tagged With: Draft Strategy, football draft

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