WEEKLY DRAFT TRENDS AND STRATEGIES FROM FFGATOR
This is week 3 of my series detailing 2012 draft trends and
strategies. The previous two weeks we
looked at both the RB and WR positions.
Plenty will continue to change as we have already seen even over the
last 2 weeks. Ryan Matthews has now
jumped to the number 4 spot in drafts and I assume the news of MJD’s holdout
will continue to drop him in the coming weeks.
I myself will likely stay away from Chris Johnson part deux as MJD is on
a bad team, has a lot of tread on the tires and now is holding out. Another interesting trend happening is the
fall of Roddy White. I wrote last week
that Roddy was a prime suspect for a WR being overvalued come draft day. Mock drafters are already seeing the same
signs and Roddy has slipped from ADP of 24th to 29th to
34th in the last 3 weeks alone.
This week his running mate Julio Jones actually comes in one spot ahead
of White. Roddy may actually find
himself a draft value in the 4th round by the time fantasy drafts
take place.
This week I am going to look more at the TE position, and
the first thing that comes to everyone’s mind is Rob Gronkowski. Only Calvin Johnson outscored Gronk from a
receiving position last year and currently only Calvin and Fitz are being
drafted ahead of the newly paid TE.
Gronkowski is currently being drafted 18th overall, but has
been picked as high as 6th in recent weeks. It is highly unlikely anyone will let
Gronkowski fall past the 2nd round, so if you want to build your
team upon him you will need to act fast.
There have already been a couple of articles on the Analysis tab at www.ffgator.com detailing why Gronk’s 18
total TDs likely won’t be happening again, so you very well could be
overpaying. Coming in 2 spots behind
Gronk currently is Jimmy Graham. Graham
was the 6th best in terms of fantasy points as a receiving target and I highly
doubt that Jordy Nelson and Victor Cruz outscore him this year. Graham will leave the board almost
immediately after Gronk and again is unlikely to fall out of the 2nd
round.
After the top two TEs come off the board you will likely be
able to wait until the next run comes some 3 or 4 rounds later. Antonio Gates is coming off a disappointing
year because of the foot injury, but despite missing 5 of 16 games he still
finished as the 7th best TE in standard leagues. With VJax gone it is a question of whether he
will be better because of more targets or worse because he will be doubled
constantly. Coming off the board in
round 6 currently though with an ADP of 54 seems like good value. Most early pre-season rankings have Gates
behind the likes of Davis, Finley, Witten and Hernandez, but mock drafters
right now still remember the stud of the past.
Davis currently has an ADP of 63 and coming off in the 7th
round of 10 team leagues followed by Finley, Hernandez and Witten within the
next 10 picks. If you owned Finley last
year you likely wanted your draft pick back. One monster week 3 and then mostly duds until
the playoffs rolled around. Finley
finished 5th overall at the TE position and with all his struggles
last year it would be hard to see him falling any further this year. The surprising name in this group though is
Hernandez. He finished 3rd
last year at the TE spot and will likely continue to be the less covered TE in
New England. As mock drafts continue I assume
the likes of Finley and Hernandez will move up the board but right now they
pose solid value in the 6th and 7th rounds.
Looking a little
deeper Tony Gonzalez currently holds and ADP of 117. This seems way too low seeing that he was the
4th best TE and the word out of Atlanta is that this team is going
to throw more. Gonzalez has a lot of
years in the game and 2010 was a dud, but getting Gonzalez as the 10th
TE taken seems like great value. Another
TE that could be a late round value is Brandon Pettigrew. His ADP is right at 100 and while he did
finish last year at the 11th best TE, he finished 2nd in
targets and 3rd in receptions by a TE. He only caught 5 of Stafford’s 41 TDs last
year and with defenses likely continuing to scheme for Megatron a few more TDs
could easily be coming his way. If you
are in a PPR league in particular, Pettigrew makes all the sense in the world. Fred Davis is linked to rookie RG3 and Tamme
is another interesting name moving to Denver with pal Peyton.
The TE position breaks down pretty easy overall with Gronk
and Jimmy coming off the board in the first 2 rounds. You can then wait for the next wave of Gates,
Finely, Hernandez, Davis or Witten 3 to 4 rounds later. If you have a preference from this group you
should likely jump earlier as a positional run in the draft will start as soon
as one drops. If you feel the value of
these 5 are all about the same though you likely will not miss out on one of
them. Later round solid picks in Gonzalez, Pettigrew
and even Tamme will round out the first 10.
Guys like Daniels, Gresham and Celek are falling into the last rounds of
a draft and all still have potential to be top 10 if not top 7 TEs by the end
of the year. In standard leagues only 20
points separated the 5th best TE from the 12th, so having
one additional point per game likely will not be the difference in your
season. If you do not want to go with
the top 2, I would suggest sitting back and taking care of trickier spots like
RB and WR first.
Luke Wetta
Fantasy Football Aggregator
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