First I
will start off by mentioning that not much has changed in to Average Draft
Positions (ADP) of the top 20. Some minor moves up or down, but nothing
significant. At the back of round 3/beginning of round 4, however we find
Michael Turner starting to slip a couple spots. I would expect this trend
to continue as everyone, including his own coaches, are telling us that he will
not be the focal point of that offense any longer. Vick has seen his
stock rising and is up 4 spots in ADP to 37 this week. A lot has been
said of Vick as great value in the back of the 4th round or
early 5th and he is seeing a bump accordingly. When I
broke down the QB position myself this season I spoke of how I thought Vick was
the best value at QB: a guy that can perform as a top 5 QB with the price tag
of just top 10. Also the depth at QB allows you to feel more comfortable
about his risk of injury. Along with Vick, Maclin has also seen his stock
rise a total of 8 spots this week to an ADP of 51. Expect him to continue
to go higher along with his QB. Roy Helu has seen his stock fall back a
little with an ADP of 62 while Tim Hightower (after receiving great reviews
over the past week) has shot up over 20 spots in ADP in one week alone.
Expect him to continue to rise as well in coming weeks and the two RBs to get a
little closer in draft position. Of course with ol’ Shanny as the Redskins' coach
do you really care?
I have already walked through all of the different positions and
you can look back through prior posts to get my impressions, but moving forward
I will be focusing more on strategies for drafting at different starting
spots. Drafting from the 1 or 2 spot is much different than the 9 or 10
and you should know how your draft strategy could change drastically from one
end or the other. This is where the value of mock drafts and doing your
research (keep reading the Gator Blog) can help you increase your chances of not
getting lost on draft day. Drafting a player too early, expecting a
player to be waiting for you on the turn, etc. are all problems we run into no
matter how prepared you are, but getting a better understanding of how your
draft might shake out is imperative in my opinion.
I am basing the remainder of this article on aggregated ADP’s
from a number of different websites (get it…AGGREGATOR). I am also
basing drafts on standard league scoring and 10 team drafts. I play in 10
team, 12 team and PPR leagues myself, so I know this does not completely work
for everyone, but keeping with standard leagues for now because that is what
the majority of people play. I myself believe the auction draft to be far
superior in terms of strategy and enjoyment and the dynasty league format can
offer a whole new realm of possibilities to think about, but we will keep it
simple for now.
This week I am looking at drafting from the 1st or
2nd spot in a 10 team, re-draft league. Everyone knows
the names of the top 3 RBs and you can make a case for any one of
them. You also have the name of Rodgers to consider with the first or
second overall pick, but looking at mock drafts thus far, I highly suggest
choosing between Foster, McCoy or Ray Rice. RB is a shallow position this
year and you could quickly find yourself without a single RB you want to start
every week. If you take Rodgers with the 1 or 2 overall pick, your next
best available RB in rounds 2 and 3 would likely be Jamaal Charles. AP is
not even making it back to pick 19 currently (and I am not saying you would
even want him). Charles might come back to form and easily produce top 10
points this season, but he should be viewed as a high risk/high reward
prospect. Moving down the line, we arrive at Steven Jackson and Fred
Jackson falling later into the 3rd round. The other
problem is that the coveted TEs of Gronkowski and Graham should be gone by your
pick at the end of round 2 as well. Thus, taking Rodgers early in the first round
leaves you with Charles (not a horrible pick) as your 2nd pick and
desperately needing a WR with your 3rd pick. Megatron and
Fitz are long gone. The other problem is that if you draft from the 1st spot,
even Jamaal Charles might not be left so you could end up with the likes of
Rodgers, Andre Johnson and Steven Jackson. Take this into consideration:
Cam and Stafford are currently the first two picks in round 3 so I would rather
grab a top 3 RB, followed by Jamaal Charles and then Stafford or Cam in the 3rd round.
If you fail to draft a RB with your first 3 picks the best option waiting
for you at the end of round 4 is Frank Gore. He is followed by BGE and
Shonn Greene and I have already written in the past week how I will not be
drafting either Gore or Greene on any of my teams and do you really want the
Law Firm as your RB1?
If you grab 2 RBs and your QB with your first 3 picks, rounds 4
and 5 are looking good for you from a WR standpoint. Hakeem Nicks and Dez
are right on the cusp of still being there for you, but you definitely should
have choices: Jordy Nelson, Steve Smith, Colston, Miles Austin or even reaching
a little for Maclin. Coming back in rounds 6 and 7 then leaves you with
the possibility of drafting your RB3 in McGahee or choosing between other WRs
like Stevie Johnson, Kenny Britt or Antonio Brown and also grabbing your TE of either Finley or Aaron Hernandez. I would definitely recommend
the TE at the turn here and really depends on whether you want to solidify your
receivers or gain solid depth at the RB position. If McGahee looks to
remain the clear starter in Denver I would go with him here and look to fill up
the WR even more down the road. I’m thinking that from this point on
every RB taken will be on the bottom side of a share situation leaving you with
a queasy fog of uncertainty and doubt leading into every Sunday .
So at this point you could have 3 RBs, a top 5 QB and TE and two
solid WRs. In rounds 8 and 9 you can look to grab that 3rd WR
with guys like Reggie Wayne, Meachem or Denarius Moore and also grab either Ben
Tate (if you drafted Foster) or Peyton Hillis (if you drafted Charles).
Now you have backed up your 1st or 2nd round
pick and actually still given you a guy that will likely provide decent value
as a bye week fill-in even if the top dogs are still healthy, particularly in
Hillis’ case.
In rounds 10 and 11 Anquan Boldin is still waiting for you, your
backup QB of Cutler or Schaub or a flier RB pick like Leshoure, Blount or even
Toby Gerhart are available. If you want to wait on your backup QB until the 12th or
13th rounds, Palmer and Dalton are still hanging around and so
are other prospective RB picks like Daniel Thomas, Felix Jones or Tim
Hightower. Coming into the last 3 round go ahead and grab your defense
and kicker, but you can also grab a guy like Kevin Smith from Detroit or Shane
Vereen from New England. Maybe take a flier on a late round TE such as
Owen Daniels, Jared Cook or Celek.
It is still two months away from most drafts, but right now if I
were drafting from the 1st or 2nd spot in a
standard league draft my team would likely read as follows: Arian Foster,
Jamaal Charles, Matthew Stafford, Jordy Nelson, Colston, Finley, McGahee,
Denarius Moore, Ben Tate, Boldin, Gerhart, Dalton, Jones, Kevin Smith and
Defense/Kicker.
Check back next week as we move into the 3rd and 4th spots in drafts and see which players are climbing or sliding the draft boards.
Luke Wetta
Fantasy Football Aggregator
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