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As avid Fantasy Football owners, these are articles about our research, perspectives, and opinions on all things Fantasy Football. Hopefully they will provide insight for you in your leagues!

THE 2015 YEAR IN REVIEW

“There is no spoon.”

--  The Matrix

I guess.  I see what that creepy little bald-headed kid is trying to convey to Neo.  Technically, the spoon is just a digitized program that exists within the construct of The Matrix, I get it.  Now, if Agent Smith were to take said spoon and jam it up Neo’s ass, well . . . let’s not question the realness of that spoon (the mind apparently makes it real).  Actually, the better question is how that kid’s mother explains her daycare choice to his grandparents:

“So, Sally, where’s little Timmy spending his Tuesdays and Thursdays?”

“Honestly, I don’t even think the facility has a name, Mom.  It’s this old lady’s apartment in some crappy neighborhood on the south side of Chicago where they sit around and practice bending spoons with their minds.  Anyway, it gives me some free time to do my hair, get some grocery shopping done, and tackle a few chores around the house.”

Welcome back to The Bums Will Always Lose, where technically Tim Hightower didn’t score 36 points in Week 16; but, within the construct of fantasy football, I’m guessing the 36 points felt pretty real to my opponent in the Super Bowl.  A lot of firsts in my world in 2015:  it was my daughter’s first birthday in August; I started my first website; and after over a decade, I won my first Super Bowl in my original league, “Broke and Stupid.”  I would argue that this league gets harder every season.  All the owners in Broke and Stupid are doing their homework, and there just aren’t any easy outs.  In the first article I ever posted on The Bums Will Always Lose, I chronicled my first whiff of true success in the league, notching my first Super Bowl appearance.  To follow up the 2014 season with an actual championship seemed highly unlikely.

I don’t believe I have to tell anyone how strange the 2015 fantasy football season turned out to be.  Hell, even going into the draft, it was difficult to predict some of the most basic mainstays of marquis players.  Arian Foster was going to miss 2-4 weeks right off the bat, Jordy Nelson was out, LeSean McCoy was on a new team, DeMarco Murray was on a new team, Jimmy Graham was on a new team, Julius Thomas was on a new team, Peyton Manning had a new coaching staff and was a year older, Mike Evans and Vincent Jackson had a new quarterback, Victor Cruz was in limbo but not on the PUP, Andre Johnson was on a new team, Jeremy Maclin, Frank Gore, LeVeon Bell, Brandon Marshall, the return of Adrian Peterson, etc.  It was such a nebulous cluster to sift through, and to make matters worse, I was dealing with a toddler who was very demanding of my attention and was quite distracting.  In order to set my draft board, I probably needed a month to get a proper ranking of my player values going into the 2015 year.  I ended up with 3 days to prepare; and when I say 3 days, I’m talking about roughly 8 hours of actual time to try to assess the field.

On to the draft:

Team Name:  Glenn Guglia

Format:  PPR scoring, 16-man roster, QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, RB/WR/TE FLEX, TE, DST, K; snake draft

#10  Calvin Johnson – MISS.  This is a really hard situation to describe.  So I had Megatron ranked as my 8^th overall player and Odell Beckham as my 2^nd-highest player on my board behind Antonio Brown.  There was a big game of chicken going on here.  Calvin and Beckham were both available, but I knew that the name recognition of Megatron would never give me a shot at him again at the top of the 2^nd round.  However, Odell Beckham was the clear choice, yet there is always a concern for me about a player without a great track record; one good season can be an enticing road to disappointment.  After a year where Calvin Johnson toughed out an injury-plagued 2014 showing, the Lions’ wide receiver managed 71 receptions, 1,077 receiving yards, and 8 touchdowns over 13 games (projected 2014 numbers over 16 games:  87/1,326/10).  I thought perhaps the emergence of Golden Tate had set the table for Megatron to break out and be a top 5 player again while Tate drew additional attention from secondaries; Calvin turned out to be more like a mid-level WR2.   I played this draft pick with Calvin Johnson in the 1^st round close to the vest, though, and waited to see how it would pan out over the next 4 picks.

#15  Odell Beckham, Jr. – HIT.  A great example of when you think everyone else is smoking crack, but you’re just drinking some beers; sobriety can be relative.  Granted, Beckham’s rookie season was a limited sample size, but the guy came into the NFL in 2014 and just tore it up.  91 receptions, 1,305 receiving yards, and 12 touchdowns over a 12-game span in his first season (projected 2014 numbers over 16 games:  121/1,740/16).  There was some legitimate concern that Victor Cruz would come back and detract from Beckham’s targets, but taking Odell at the top of the 2^nd round was just way too much value here to worry about that risk.

#34  Aaron Rodgers – MISS.  Alright, well this got weird in a hurry.  I despise taking quarterbacks so early in a seasonal draft.  But I got stuck in that stupid “No Man’s Land” scenario, and there just wasn’t anything on the board really worth taking at this point.  I think there was a popular belief that the 2 most attractive quarterbacks going into the 2015 fantasy football draft were Andrew Luck and Aaron Rodgers.  While I don’t cave into public opinion, it did appear that Luck and Rodgers were likely to have the most productive years in 2015.  Obviously, the loss of Jordy Nelson was going to have somewhat of an impact on Aaron Rodgers’ production, but it seemed logical that Randall Cobb, Davanta Adams, and perhaps even Richard Rodgers would pick up the slack.  Luck was off the board and I wasn’t in love with any of the values at RB/WR/TE at #34, so Aaron Rodgers became my selection; and eeked out a mid-low QB1 season.

#39  Julian Edelman – HIT.  Oh, for the love of . . . as much as I may despise taking a quarterback early, I really despise going through the first 4 rounds without taking a running back.  In a PPR format, Edelman was the clear value play.  After a 2014 performance where he posted 92 catches, 1,066 yards from scrimmage, and 4 touchdowns over 14 games (projected 2014 numbers over 16 games:  105/1,218/5), Edelman had a 2^nd-round grade on my board.  It looked like I was going with the full-on aerial attack now, most likely with a 3-wide set every week.  My task going forward was to try to figure out a run attack.

#58  Giovanni Bernard – HIT.  Um, this might be a little bit of a stretch to qualify Gio as a “HIT,” but it was fairly good value at this point in the draft.  For the first 11 weeks, Gio was actually performing as a low-end RB1; but by the end of 2015, Bernard had finished with more of a mid-RB2 campaign over the course of the season.  I had Gio ranked as my #11 running back, so to see him follow up my prediction with lackluster production over the entirety of the year seemed disappointing; but considering where I took Gio, it was still good value to get a mid-RB2 at the bottom of the 5^th round.  In 2014, Giovanni Bernard racked up 43 receptions, 1,029 yards from scrimmage, and 7 total touchdowns over 13 games (projected 2014 numbers over 16 games:  53/1,266/9).  I understand that Jeremy Hill was the heir apparent to take over the reigns as the lead back in Cincinnati; I factored in that Bernard would take a slight ding in his production, but I found it hard to believe that Gio would suddenly become obsolete.

#63  Joique Bell – MISS.  Blech.  Whatever.  There’s an old adage in football that if you have 2 quarterbacks, you have 0.  While I find that saying illogical, I would like to promote a new adage:  if you have 3 running backs, you have 0.  I think it’s hilarious when you hear head coaches try to spin a 3-running back scenario with soundbites like, “they all bring something different to the table.”  No they don’t; they all suck, which is why you’re scrambling to figure out who gets the touches.  No head coach wants to use a committee approach.  Every head coach wants their best 11 players on the field.  Whether it’s Belichick with Dillon and then going after Maroney (actually, I think Belichick also wanted Vereen to be that guy, but drafted Ridley right behind Vereen just in case); Jeff Fisher taking Todd Gurley after Tre Mason’s 2014 campaign; Sean Payton going after Mark Ingram when there were other team needs to be addressed; or Mike McCarthy and Eddie Lacy.  Every head coach wants a bell cow (I left out the Ditka/Ricky Williams marriage, but it’s a great photo if you’ve never seen it).  Anyway, Joique looked like he had the possibility to continue on in the role of a poor man’s Fred Jackson.  Bell put up 34 receptions, 1,182 yards from scrimmage, and 8 total touchdowns over 15 games in 2014 (projected 2014 numbers over 16 games:  36/1,261/9).  It’s nothing to sneeze at, and the addition of Ameer Abdullah was difficult to predict what kind of impact he could have on Joique’s season.  As it turned out, Bell got lost in the “three-headed monster” approach, and Joique would not have his typical return to fantasy relevance.

#82  Tre Mason – MISS.  I strangely like this pick.  I wrote about the Rams’ running back situation a year ago and the turnstile that appears to be the norm in the backfield of St. Louis.  That being said, my point of emphasis was not to take a running back with that franchise too early; more of a “buyer beware” approach where investing a high draft pick could cost you dearly.  With Todd Gurley looking to miss about 2 weeks at the beginning of the season, I felt there were at least a couple of valid starts I could get out of Mason right out of the gate; if Gurley really turned out to be the truth, maybe Mason would get relegated to spot-substitutions and 3^rd-down duties.  Per usual, everything was more of a disaster than expected.  Mason sucked at the beginning, and Benny Cunningham appeared to be more of the situational pass-catching back.  The reality turned out to be that neither Cunningham nor Mason were really effective fantasy options in 2015; in fact, no one, not even Gurley, was ever fully utilized out of the backfield as a receiver (Cunningham led the way with a 26/250/0 line catching passes).  Following a promising rookie campaign in 2014 where Tre posted up numbers of 16 receptions, 913 yards from the line of scrimmage, and 5 total touchdowns over 12 games (projected 2014 numbers over 16 games:  21/1,217/7), this was a fairly good gamble in the 7^th round.  There is absolutely no telling how Jeff Fisher will decide where he goes with his running backs; he may have benched Gurley for a year just to teach him a lesson.  It wasn’t a terrible decision to try to find a potential “diamond in the rough” candidate at this point in the draft, but it never panned out.

#87  Roddy White – MISS.  Sweet.  Nailed it.  I mean, what could Kyle Shanahan possibly do wrong?  It’s not like he didn’t get the most out of Gary Barnidge and Travis Benjamin in Cleveland a year ago . . . There are actually football minds whom I believe to be very sharp and analytical, and somehow also think Kyle Shanahan is a young genius.  I’m not going to break down the entirety of how absurd that opinion is in this write-up on Roddy White, but let’s just say Roddy found himself on the back of a milk carton in 2015.  Coming off of a season where White had a very respectable year in 2014 with a performance of 80 receptions, 921 yards receiving, and 7 touchdowns over 14 games (projected 2014 numbers over 16 games:  91/1,053/8), it looked like Roddy still had something left in the tank at the tender age of 33 going into 2015.  Boo.  A man who was knocking on the door of the “Hall of Very Good” just didn’t get me the numbers I wanted.  Thanks, Kyle.

#106  Victor Cruz – MISS.  This was a little hard to predict.  There wasn’t a ton of value on the board at any position, and the idea that maybe Cruz could at least regain his 2013 output of 73 catches for 998 yards and 4 touchdowns over a 14-game span (projected 2013 numbers over 16 games:  83/1,141/5) seemed somewhat appealing.  I wasn’t deluding myself into completely believing there would be a resurgence of his Pro Bowl performance back in 2012, but there was a hint that maybe Cruz could find his way back into fantasy prominence.  He wasn’t on the PUP list and was only 28 years old, so . . . maybe Tom Coughlin should have been fired for not even being able to evaluate the fact that his former #1 wide receiver was going to miss the entire season.

#111  Delanie Walker – HIT.  Please let me wash these “MISSES” off of me!  Delanie turned out to be awesome value in the 10^th round.  There’s nothing I remotely respect about the Tennessee offense except Delanie Walker.  You can throw in names like Kendall Wright and Dorial Green-Beckham, but ultimately it boils down to Delanie as the man you want to hitch your wagon to in fantasy football if you take anyone at all off of that squad.  I love these stories of guys who get disrespected and finally resurface to be monsters on the field later on in their careers.  After racking up 63 catches for 890 yards and 4 touchdowns over 15 games (projected 2014 numbers over 16 games:  67/949/4), this appeared to be good value.   Throw in a rookie quarterback who may have to check down a lot to his safety blanket, Walker looked like a player worth taking late in the draft.

#130  Doug Baldwin – HIT.  Well, I’m clearly going with the aerial assault at this point.  I really didn’t like this pick.  My board looked terrible, as most of my players I would have targeted here were gone.  I couldn’t find a 4^th running back of any value to save my life in the 11^th round of the draft.  Go big or go home.  Doug Baldwin had shown me enough to think that he was worth a grab here.  66 receptions, 825 yards, and 3 touchdowns over 16 games in his 2014 campaign did not excite me.  Actually, it kind of hurt me a little to stash this guy for his first 8 weeks, where he averaged 3.875 receptions, 43.125 yards, and 0.250 touchdowns per game.  These weren’t atrocious numbers, but Baldwin was a receiver that would have been barely rosterable on my team if not for the fact that Roddy White was a phantom and Victor Cruz still hadn’t seen the field.  Coming out of the bye, Baldwin and Russell Wilson had found a new chemistry, and my late-round pick just exploded down the stretch.  Over the next 7 games, the Seahawks’ receiver averaged 6.000 receptions, 96.857 receiving yards, and a whopping 1.714 touchdowns per game.  Sometimes patience pays off.

#135  Charles Clay – HIT.  This is somewhat relative.  Similar to Giovanni Bernard’s early performance as an RB1, Clay was at the top of his class and was a TE1 for the bulk of the first half of the season.  Likewise, as injuries began to pile up, Charles Clay began to fade down the stretch.  This wasn’t a homerun, but the value here in the 12^th round was good enough for me to qualify this pick as a “HIT.”  Clay had caught 58 passes for 605 yards and 3 touchdowns in 2014 over 14 games (projected 2014 numbers over 16 games:  66/691/3).  Nothing to get crazy about, and Clay was transitioning from Miami to Buffalo.  However, with the amount of money the Bills paid out to get their new tight end brought on an air of an expanded role, especially with the insertion of Tyrod Taylor as their new starting quarterback who may have to hit quick on the short passes early and often.  The stars were aligned for an opportunity of a breakout season for Clay, but the reality was that Charles Clay is still just Charles Clay in terms of fantasy output.

#154  Jameis Winston – MISS.  So be it.  I’ve had limited success in this area in terms of taking fliers on rookie quarterbacks; I grabbed Andrew Luck late when he first entered into the NFL, and he turned out to be a low-end QB1 right away.  Winston looked like he had the table set for him to put up numbers, and my analysis wasn’t pathetic.  His weapons were Mike Evans, Vincent Jackson, Austin Sefarian-Jenkins, and perhaps a rejuvenated Doug Martin in the backfield.  It’s difficult to delve too much further into this selection, however Winston was playing in seemingly one of the weakest divisions in football where a 7-8-1 record won the NFC South in 2014.  It might be a bit harsh to qualify this pick as a “MISS” considering Winston threw for over 4,000 yards and 22 touchdowns (1 more touchdown than Matt Ryan), but his 15 interceptions hurt.  He only got sacked 27 times and rushed for 213 yards for 6 more touchdowns on the ground.  So maybe I’m being a jerk to call Winston a “MISS” when I think about it; the fact that I was able to snag Derek Carr off the waiver wire made Winston an easy add/drop situation, and I never looked back.

DST, DST, K – Who cares.

So what was the method to my madness?  It’s a little difficult to piece together the rationale in hindsight.  The running backs in this draft were an island of misfits.  In fact, I only had 3 running backs that even qualified for a 1^st-round grade on my board; #4 and #5 were Eddie Lacy and Jamaal Charles, if that tells you anything.  My theory as the draft played out was to secure as many blue chip pieces as possible, and then fill in the gaps with waiver wire moves as they presented themselves over the course of the season.  Whether it was Thomas Rawls early on in the year, or Tim Hightower and Karlos Williams down the stretch, there really wasn’t any reason to invest in running backs throughout the draft.  I hate the plug-and-play approach to the running back position, but there just wasn’t anything out there during the draft process that would necessitate burning a high draft pick on any of the ground-pounders available.

The important thing to do here was focus.  I couldn’t get concerned with the scary concept of a weak ass running back class as an unfortunate truth to my draft approach; the value just wasn’t there.  Rarely have I ever approached a draft with such reckless abandon, but my board was giving me a strange draw.  Once in a while, a fantasy football owner has to look at the draft in the simplest way possible:  which players will put up the most points on any given week.  Sure, one can skew the notion that certain positions are more valued than others, and therefore demand a higher grade.  However, while this theory has some merit, often times we can’t see the forest through the trees.  Sometimes we just need to grab the players that will produce.

So, hooray for me.  I finished as the 2 seed and knocked off the 1 seed in the Super Bowl with a little help from my friends i.e. some decent waiver wire pick-ups and solid spot starts.  I think there's a message that goes along with success:  figure out how to get better going forward.  I need to prove it to myself that I know what I’m doing.  It’s not about the money (albeit nice) or the bragging rights (albeit nice); it’s about getting back to work and seeing whether or not I can do it again.  The test isn’t really about you against the field, but it’s about you versus you, and how the approach can be perfected moving toward the next championship.  The joy is faint and fleeting.  I need to figure out what I did wrong and correct it.

THE GREAT DEBATE – PART III

Brien West is the Senior Writer for:

thebumswillalwayslose.com

“Oh, no, sir

I must say you’re wrong

I must disagree

Oh, no, sir

I must say you’re wrong

Won’t you listen to me?”

[Yeah, it probably concerns my wife a little that I’ve been listening to “Goodbye Horses” over and over again in the basement to type up my intro:  “It’s RESEARCH; go to bed, Mehgan!”]

I’m excited about this article.  This, in my opinion, is the hardest problem we all face as fantasy football owners when it comes down to draft day.  When the bullets are flying, when every pick before you reshapes the landscape, when you’re staring down the clock trying to decide your next choice, that’s when it gets real.  You’re scrambling around, crossing names off of sheets, and reviewing the blur of your previous picks to figure out which player to take next.  The imminent fear of misstepping and losing sight of your game plan starts to enter into your mind.  It’s part of the exhilaration of draft day.

However, it raises the point:  when do you reach on certain positions?  In other words, how long can you really wait to take your first running back?  Where do you prioritize your selection at tight end?  Is it worth considering taking a wide receiver, even if that’s not the best player on your board?  And since quarterbacks typically average the most fantasy points per game, does it make more sense to take one early to lock down that assurance?

You’ll notice I left out defense/special teams and kickers for the sake of this discussion.  The reason for omitting them from the conversation is that it’s so rare for a D/ST to emerge as a coveted draft pick.  I do remember one year when I wanted the San Francisco defense bad enough to take it in the 9^th round, but there was also this young, up-and-coming defense in Seattle that looked like it had the potential to take the NFL by storm.  I had San Francisco 1A and Seattle 1B.  I selected the wrong one, but San Francisco didn’t embarrass me.  It did teach me that D/ST’s are unpredictable, especially when going into draft day.  I would strongly suggest avoiding D/ST too early.

I’ll interject with a fun conversation I had with my friend as I was on my way to drop him off at the train station the other day.  He said to just take the best player available, and if you have to make a trade along the way, then you have the pieces to move if you’re left in that predicament.  As much as I like the overall sentiment of his statement, I don’t know if I’d be so bold to totally disregard setting your roster according to what you think would be a winnable product without a trade.  I don’t want to rely on the kindness, or perhaps even the gullibility, of others to achieve my end game.  I want to attack the draft on my own without the variable of another owner not communicating about a trade, asking way too much in return via trade, or just knowing that I can actually assemble my own roster correctly.

So I’m not in the mood to want any other fantasy football owner’s help.  I want to craft my own utopia on “West Island” and go from there.  If you draft your team in the right way, prioritizing your selections in the right manner during the process of draft day, then there really isn’t any need to go out on a fishing expedition to try to solidify your line-up.  Put everything into place and realize that your analysis is what got you where you wanted to be; barking up trees can be a fun back-and-forth, but it can also leave you looking like my neighbor’s Cocker Spaniel.

We’ll begin with the quarterback position.  This is probably the most tempting one to reach on, considering the fact that quarterbacks tend to put up the most points.  In 2014, I felt this was one of the easiest positions to let slide in the draft.  The depth appeared to be so obvious that reaching on a quarterback would leave you looking foolish for grabbing one so early.  Going into 2015, things are starting to look a little tighter.  My co-founder, James Austin, introduced me to the word “peloton.”  It’s getting difficult to determine the second tier that could be defined as the peloton in this fantasy season looking ahead.  One year ago, I felt the top class was fairly clear-cut; I had my top eight guys whom I thought were somewhat interchangeable on some level, without too much of a drop-off to necessitate a reach at any stage.  This could still hold true, but realize the landscape has changed as we approach 2015.  Rodgers and Luck will probably be elevated, despite the recent Nelson injury.  Peyton may drop off a bit as he gets a year older with a new coaching staff; Matt Ryan is a mystery, depending on how that offense unfolds; Stafford had a step back, but looks like he might be getting the surrounding cast in place; Cam doesn’t have his #1 wide receiver, although I guess he can rely on his legs and Greg Olsen; Wilson is somewhat of an enigma, but now has Graham; Brees lost Graham and Stills, but has Colston and Cooks; Romo lost his run game in all likelihood, however Dez is locked up, with Terrance Williams and Witten to provide options; Brady is suspended for four games as far as we can tell; Roethlisberger missing Le’Veon Bell for two games leaves him in a strange place (a plus or a minus?).  Then you’re staring down the likes of Eli, Cutler, and Rivers; it’s probably not the end of the world to end up with one these three aforementioned candidates, but you might be holding your breath every week.

Unfortunately, I have really crappy analysis on this debate about when to reach on quarterbacks.  I think if you get stuck in “No Man’s Land” (a term I came up with when you don’t really love any of the position players on the board and feel forced to make a rash decision), pull the trigger on a QB1.  Sure, you could prioritize Luck or Rodgers if you feel like that’s really going to make your team better, but I would tread lightly with any anxiousness in that it may make you miss out on an opportunity to draft a solid position player with some legitimate upside that won’t be around later.  I don’t think there will be a huge gap from Rodgers to Luck to Roethlisberger to Romo.  That being said, there is potentially a shrinking market from the top of the QB1 list down to the bottom of the QB1 list in 2015, which is why there could be some emphasis this year for grabbing an upper echelon QB.  Just be really careful.

On to the running backs, who happen to be my oldest nemesis when trying to evaluate reaching on certain positions.  The love/hate relationship I have for RB1’s runs deep, as they can not only flame out, but they also have an allure about them that may not be accurate to assessing the best player available.  Do the homework, do your math, and see where it places you.  Hey, if you have to start a bunch of bad ass wide receivers, an amazing quarterback, and a tight end that will flip the script on your opponents, I can see where you’re going with such a philosophy to skip over the RB1 early in the draft.  My problem with running backs is that they are very hard to find and the talent level can dry up quickly.  I think you can only ignore them for so long.  Last year, I took Matt Forte over Demaryius Thomas at the #3 overall pick.  Whether or not that was the right pick to make is debatable, but I felt better knowing that I had shored up the RB1 spot.  It would be very tough to wait until the 5^th or 6^th round to take your first running back in a draft.  I think you can reach a little with this position, but you have to keep a number in mind.  I wouldn’t go so far as to reach four spots down for a running back, but I think you can entertain two spots down.  Despite the fact that drafting an RB1 is enticing in round one or round two, exercise a little bit of patience and don’t get frazzled by the possibility of not taking a running back right away.

Tight end has now become an interesting dilemma for fantasy owners.  Once upon a time, there may have been the occasional tight end taken in the first three rounds; a Tony Gonzalez, a Dallas Clark, a Jason Witten, an Antonio Gates, or recently a Jimmy Graham.  I feel 2013 really hit the reset button in many ways when analyzing the importance of drafting a tight end early.  The dominance of Julius Thomas, Gronkowski, Jordan Cameron, and Jimmy Graham started moving the needle where possibly four tight ends were going to be valued in the first three rounds.  I think the 2013 season can probably be chalked up as a bit of quirkiness, in that there’s really no need to get the yips about taking a tight end too early.  I saw Greg Olsen outperform Jordan Cameron and Julius Thomas in my PPR league last year.  I saw Martellus Bennett and Travis Kelce produce admirably last season.  The shake-up is so immense in 2015 with the tight end position that I think a sense of trepidation should be held close to the heart.  In other words, despite the fact that we all probably would like to have Gronk as fantasy owners, I’d hesitate to reach at the tight end position and just follow your draft board.

Wide receivers is another group where there appears to be no necessity to reach.  The reason why not to reach here is fairly simple:  there are just too many out there.  If you stick to your board, one will immediately fall into your lap in rounds 1-4.  So many people will reach on quarterbacks or running backs that a wide receiver with higher value will be available as you progress through the draft.  There really isn’t a genuine reason I can think of to advise a fantasy football owner to go out of their way to go after a wide receiver; just take one when it’s the best player available on your board.  We can talk about the cadre of running backs who can be selected, considering a somewhat overblown perception of “committee situations” or simply 3^rd-down back contributors.  We can also talk about “two tight end sets” and the possibility of finding extra value in picking up a late player at the tight end position.  There are still two things undeniable in the NFL that has been tried and true even as we move forward into the current era of fantasy football:  there will be one quarterback in every offensive formation, and unless a team is going jumbo package, there will be the same two wide receivers on every formation.  Just to boil it down further, there are basically 64 receivers to consider drafting every fantasy year (two wide receivers for 32 teams; 2 x 32 = 64).  I would not casually dismiss this number.  No, not all 64 wide receivers will be good, just as not all 32 quarterbacks or 32 running backs or 32 tight ends will be worth rostering (D/ST’s and kickers and so on).  The point is that especially with the emergence of the third wide receiver becoming even more integral for certain offenses, wide receiver is just never a position to reach on with such a depth of talent at that position.

So what we’re trying to determine is when and where to take certain players ultimately.  There was once a pervasive thought in fantasy football that because quarterbacks usually score the most points, that was clearly the primary position to prioritize and quarterbacks often went first overall when drafting.  Then we saw a shift to RB1 as the best choice with the #1 overall pick as the scarcity at this position became evidently clear.  And then a modern trend emerged with the consideration of even a tight end as your first option in the first round.  It’s been a long and funky road for those of us who have been in the game as long as I have.

My advice, for what it’s worth (apparently free, since I’m not charging anyone to read this), is to strategize your philosophy around your own beliefs.  Everything is organic in a fantasy football draft, but the sole purpose to play in a league is to win.  Try to make sure you’re weighing your options appropriately while paying attention to needs.  My approach when evaluating my board is to kick out my position players into one pool because they put up points in the same scoring system (RB/WR/TE).  After that, I tier my quarterbacks the way I see fit to make sure I get someone that I like.  I really wish I could get excited about D/ST’s, but I just can’t think of a team that makes me so excited that I want to take one before the 14^th round this year in a 16-round draft; I’ll play the match-ups.  Eventually what we’re all looking to do is put up the most points possible, so don’t lose sight of the goal.

Oh, and if you take a kicker before the last round, you’re dead to me as a fantasy football owner.

THE GREAT DEBATE – PART II

Brien West is the Senior Writer for:

thebumswillalwayslose.com

“Baby, even the losers

Get lucky sometimes

Even the losers

Keep a little bit of pride

You get lucky sometimes”

I’ve never really paid a lot of attention to the rest of the lyrics of this song, but I’m fairly sure Tom Petty was talking about fantasy football.  Which is brilliant, since Damn the Torpedoes came out in 1979, so Petty was way ahead of the curve.  The losers do get lucky sometimes.

I was reminiscing the other day with a friend of mine about one of the greatest anomalies ever in the history of fantasy football.  Some joker in our league took Tony Romo in the 1^st round, Terrell Owens in the 2^nd round, Witten in the 3^rd round, and Nick Folk in the 4^th round, all of this back in the 2007 season.  In all fairness, I think the guy actually made a shrewd move and snaked Marion Barber in the 5^th round if memory serves, but I believe this Cowboys fan got 5 players out of Dallas in the first 5 rounds.  What’s worse?  This freaking joker ended up winning the league with that terrible, terrible draft strategy.  As insane as it was to think the fantasy player had the wherewithal to know that Marion the Barbarian was going to break out and perform the way he did (keeping in mind Julius Jones led the Cowboys in rushing the year before), who the hell drafts a freaking kicker in the 4^th round and wins?!  I’ll accept that there’s a certain level of witchcraft involved with fantasy football, but that is flat out selling your soul to the devil to pull off a maneuver like that.

I’ve won three seasonal Super Bowls, made one more appearance, all of this since 2009 (I’ve also notched 2 more dynasty Super Bowl wins, lost a couple of close ones); but, despite the fact that I may have had some success in my three leagues, I’ve never quite encountered the dumb luck I witnessed with a cheeseball going Cowboys crazy back in 2007.  That is an all-timer.  However, it does bring me to my topic of choice for this article:  “combo-ing.”

If you’re not familiar with the term “combo-ing,” it’s the idea that you can pair up a quarterback with a wide receiver (sometimes a tight end) so that you can combine potential yardage and touchdown output.  So for instance, the Cowboys fan who made all those draft picks in ridiculous succession ended up with Romo, Owens, and Witten in a relatively magical season for that Dallas offense.  Is there an advantage to such a strategy?  I’ll try to reduce the logic down even further with this approach of combo-ing:  essentially the concept is that if your WR1 or TE1 receives a touchdown pass from your QB1, and if they’re on the same team, you’re now getting “twice the points” since they both scored on a play during a game.

I’ll admit I’ve walked into this goofy trap once before, somewhat unintentionally.  I got caught in a bad “No Man’s Land” scenario where I took Tom Brady at the end of the first round, then swooped around near the top of the second round for Wes Welker in a PPR league; late in the third round, Rob Gronkowski was still on the table, and I really didn’t have a choice but to take Gronk at that point for the sake of sheer value.  I don’t want to make it sound like I was pigeonholed, as I was pretty excited to have the Patriots’ offensive attack through the air.  But my dear friend, Robert Cowin, immediately pointed out to me that it was a dangerous gamble to attach so much to one linchpin.  Rob has been a beacon of insight since I started playing fantasy football and his foresight was spot on as usual.

Have you ever had that horrible feeling when someone warns you about something and you calmly thumb your nose at the idea with the belief that maybe you knew what was best?  It’s that glacial effect that scares you more and more as it carefully creeps up on you when a friend makes a casual comment like:

“Well, I hope that works out for you.”

You diseased little bastard.  Yeah, I guess that’s a possible problem, but . . . dammit.  Rob turned out to be right.  It wasn’t a train wreck of an experiment.  Gronk went down and the Patriots’ offense suffered so much more than I imagined it would without “Smash!”  Brady and Welker continued to have some value, but they weren’t anywhere near their projected stats going forward.  It didn’t help that a couple of guys on my roster like Ahmad Bradshaw and Jonathan Stewart both got injured that season, two players I was counting on to contribute.

The fact of the matter is that combo-ing is not a good strategy when entering the draft.  If it just so happens that you are taking the best player on the board and it naturally occurs that your best quarterback and best receiver chosen end up on the same squad, then so be it; there’s nothing you can do at that point.  But, to go out of your way to lock up a combo is ludicrous when it comes to the practicality of building a good roster in seasonal fantasy football.

Again, I’ll start out with the most obvious problem one would be facing by intentionally combo-ing, and that is that you’ve locked your QB1 and WR1 (or TE1) into having the same bye.  It’s not an impossible fade, but the odds of your team winning that week drop dramatically.  Purposefully trying to deprive your team a decent chance of racking up an extra win is a foolhardy strategy.  In a 13-game season, one win can be the difference between making the playoffs and not making the playoffs.  However, let’s even say that you’re deft and know how to draft well, work the waivers; a win could still be the difference between a first-week bye in the playoffs, or having to face an extra opponent in the postseason.  The combo can potentially create an uphill battle.

Let’s move on to the second problem with this situation of combo-ing, and that’s the fact the performances of your QB1 and your WR1/TE1 are inherently interlinked.  We’ll start with the initial scenario that your QB1 or your WR1/TE1 get injured over the course of the season.  The immediate impact on the other player(s) in the combo will most likely be felt in a fairly dramatic fashion.  The risk of a relative catastrophe is built in instantly, as one domino could fall which would impede the production of one player or the other; basically, both players will likely now suffer in a rather swift manner (i.e. one player that went down with an injury is no longer relevant, and the other one can’t perform the same way as hoped because the first player is no longer on the football field).  For example, your WR1 and your QB1 are on the same team.  Your WR1 goes down, and now not only are you out a WR1, but your QB1 will struggle to put up the projected numbers you imagined going into the draft; if your QB1 goes down, your WR1 will generally fail to produce the way you had hoped going into the season if you combo-ed them.

But there is also a third issue that may arise in this logic of combo-ing, and it just might be that your QB1 had a bad week.  Maybe the pass rush was too much for your quarterback to handle, or maybe your quarterback faced a particularly ferocious pass defense.  You’ve now run out of opportunities from a fantasy scoring standpoint.  Your WR1/TE1 that has been combo-ed with your QB1 may flame out if your QB1 can’t overcome a tough defensive opponent.  Now it’s all tied in and there’s nothing you can do about it as a fantasy football owner that week.  It’s a little different than a WR1 or a TE1 getting double-covered; often times, a good QB1 will still find ways to put up numbers even without their favorite target.  However, if the QB1 gets iced in the combo, all parties will typically face a mediocre statistical week.

So a tough week here, a bye week there, and your combo is possibly costing you 2 wins.  In a highly competitive league, you’re facing down the difference between an 8-5 record and a 6-7 record.  One of these results will net you a playoff spot, the other will probably have you cursing for 24 hours, wondering how you could be so stupid to let your season slip through your fingers.  It’s alright.  I’ve muttered around the house on multiple occasions, so it happens to all of us.

Wait, I almost forgot!  I haven’t even touched on the premise that you can be “getting twice the points” if you combo your players!  This is such a mathematical illusion that it’s borderline hilarious.  It’s factually correct in a vacuum, but you’re not seeing the forest through the trees.  It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.  I’ll try to explain this better:

“Hey, Stafford just completed a touchdown pass to Megatron, and I’ve got ‘em both on my fantasy team, so I get 2 TD’s!!”

“Cool!  Aaron Rodgers just completed a touchdown pass to Jordy Nelson, and Tony Romo just completed a touchdown pass to Dez Bryant!  I have Nelson and Romo, so I get 2 TD’s!”

It so doesn’t matter if you score points on one possession with two players on one team, or if you score points on two separate possessions with players on two separate teams.  It’s cute if your combo gives you the thrill of an instant boost on a Sunday afternoon game, but it’s just the gambler in you talking.  Your goal as a fantasy owner is to put up the most points every week, which may not be the end result if you entangle two players in a specific equation.

I’ll try to drive this point home for my audience if anyone still isn’t understanding why intentionally combo-ing doesn’t make a lot a of sense.  You combo:  your QB1 goes off for 250 yards and 2 TD’s, and your WR1 goes off for 100 yards and 1 TD, and they play for the same team.  I don’t combo:  my QB1 goes off for 250 yards and 2 TD’s, and my WR1 goes off for 100 yards and 1 TD, but they play for different teams.  We both put up the same points that week between the two positions, however I’m not facing the same risks and interdependency as you may be as the season goes on.

There’s no shame in falling into a combo situation if your board dictates the best player available happens to be on the same team roster.  Certainly take the guy that you think will produce the most points as that is absolutely the name of the fantasy football game.  Just try not to outsmart yourself with the concept that you’re somehow gaining an edge by combo-ing, when in fact, you’re more likely than not putting yourself in an imposition to have a successful fantasy football season.

The next article will be the most wide open for discussion as far as I’m concerned because I think it’s the most debatable in all of fantasy football.  It’s the question that haunts us all as fantasy football owners when we sit down and draft.  So, exactly when do you reach on a player?

THE GREAT DEBATE – PART I:

Brien West is the Senior Writer for:

thebumswillalwayslose.com

“Pardon me for saying this, but you seem defensive.”

“I’m not being defensive.  You’re the one who’s being defensive.  Why is it always the other person who’s being defensive?  Have you ever asked yourself that?  Why don’t you ask yourself that?”

--60 Minutes: Minkman Toys from Saturday Night Live

The debate has begun, gentlemen and gentlewomen.  Let’s discuss the concept of “handcuffing.”  This is a strangely widespread practice by many in the industry of fantasy football theory.  For those of you who may not be familiar with the term, “handcuffing” is the idea where you draft the back-up running back to a current running back already drafted on your roster.  So herein lies the question:  when you’re handcuffing a player, are you really just handcuffing yourself?

My standpoint is that handcuffing is a logical fallacy in seasonal leagues.  I’ll deconstruct the philosophy fully to explain why it’s wasting a potentially valuable pick late in the draft.  Generally speaking, a handcuff is going to be the fourth running back a fantasy football owner takes off the board to insure that if one of the top running backs get injured, a productive back-up is ready to fill the shoes.

Let’s start with the most obvious:  your RB4 and RB1 are going to instantly have the same bye week, assuming that’s who you’re trying to handcuff.  Personally, as a fantasy football owner, I tend to pay only slight attention to bye-week problems when I’m drafting; I want the best players according to my board, and it’s as simple as that.  However, I wouldn’t intentionally try to create additional complications by explicitly setting up a situation where I might end up short-handed one week.  Now you’ve instantly eliminated the option of starting your RB4 when your RB1 is on a bye; your handcuff can’t even be used as a bye-week replacement for your RB1, so you’ve now guaranteed to limit your choices in a pinch.

Your RB4 can only excel if one of your own players goes down if he’s a handcuff.  Let me say that again:  you will get little to no value from your fantasy draft pick unless one of your own players gets injured.  Basically, you’re praying for one of your top running backs to get hurt, just so you can show everyone how smart you are for taking this handcuff in the later rounds.  That’s a dangerous game of karma.

First of all, it rarely works out that you would be foolish enough to draft an excellent running back so early that you deem him to be injury-prone.  Are you really so concerned that Marshawn and LesSean and Charles are missing significant time?  Forte is going to cost you the season if you don’t take . . . hell, whoever his back-up is these days, as a handcuff?  Pick your top-flight players right.

Second, don’t expect the replacement to jump right in and produce at the same level.  More often than not, the back-up running back is a back-up for a reason i.e. they’re usually not quite as good, no matter the system.  Ryan Torain and Reuben Droughns are not going to be Alfred Morris and Terrell Davis, respective to those franchises.  It’s not quite the “plug-and-play” world some of us believe we live in.  Talent actually does matter.

To piggyback on this concept of supporting your RB1 with your RB4, how do you know it’s not your RB2 that goes down with an injury?  “Well . . . at least I’ve got my handcuff for my RB1, so . . .”  Okay, but it’s not paying you dividends while the matter at hand is to fill the void.  Maybe your RB4 could have emerged as a contributor if you drafted correctly, and you don’t intentionally hamstring the pick by creating a ceiling that can only be attained if a certain player on your own roster doesn’t play.  Here’s what I’m getting at:  draft the best running back available for your 4^th running back.  No one can predict injury.  It’s a baseless concept.  “I’ll draft my RB1’s backup.”  Are you now going to draft your RB2’s back-up as well?

And who even knows if the guy you’ve got penciled in as your RB1 isn’t really going to turn out to be your RB2, and your RB2 isn’t going to turn out to be your RB1?  It happens.  A quick example how this may occur:  in 2014, you took McCoy in the first round and then went with Arian Foster in the second or third round.  Arian Foster clearly outperformed Lesean McCoy in fantasy scoring.  Would you have burned a late draft pick on Chris Polk to try to shore things up for the upcoming season because you thought McCoy was going to be your RB1?  Sproles has “stand alone” value, but is he the answer?  Or maybe you should have gone Blue . . . ?  Even if you were trying to handcuff, you might be left with the wrong solution if you think you’re backing up your RB1 and actually backing up your RB2.

Let’s also explore the idea that you may not be taking the right back-up.  Things change on the depth chart with a significant amount of regularity.  I’ll give you a good example of a situation where one might think the second running back was clear, and then got turned on its ear.  The Cleveland Browns apparently were going to roll with Ben Tate as their starter in 2014 and Terrence West was going to be the back-up.  However, Isaiah Crowell emerged as the one who got mixed in down the line.  The reality, as it played out in 2014, was Tate became a non-factor and the rest of the situation turned into a train wreck.  I’ll do you one better:  someone takes Adrian Peterson in the 1^st round, and grabs Jerick McKinnon late as a handcuff.  That’s fantastic, since AP was suspended after one game, right?  Except there was this guy named Matt Asiata who kept vulturing touchdowns, taking away some passes on occasion.  Point being, how does one truly know who the back-up is even going to be come draft day?  Sometimes it looks like there is a clear answer and then it backfires when you expect the handcuff you drafted to step in and produce, should the opportunity ever arise.

So basically the common belief among mass media and clever folk is to burn a pick between the 9^th and 12^th round on a handcuff.  Fundamentally, I can’t support this notion.  I can’t hang the hopes on a guy who couldn’t win the starting position for a reason, and then bank on him if/when something happens.  It’s not a good enough argument for me.  Many fantasy owners have seen 9^th-round, 10^th-round, 11^th-round, even 12^th-round picks flourish.  There is the possibility of finding a Justin Forsett late.  There is the possibility of finding an Odell Beckham, or a Kelvin Benjamin, or even a Mike Evans late in the draft.  Do you really spend that pick on Christine Michael or Carlos Hyde?  I almost hit a homerun with Bernard Pierce in the 9^th round as I explained in my second article (I really would have hit one if I were a genius and took Forsett in the 9^th round instead).  I grabbed Anquan Boldin in the 10^th round.  These aren’t throw-away picks.  They may often be boom-or-bust selections later on in the draft, but that’s just it:  don’t blow the pick on a player who has little chance of helping your team unless someone on your own roster gets hurt.

I will defy every reader of this article to tell me their great “handcuff” story in a seasonal league, because I’m guessing I’ll get crickets.  It’s such a rarity.  Maybe someone took Ben Tate to handcuff Arian Foster back in 2011 and got a high level of production from that scenario.  There might be other examples, but it’s really the only one I can think of off the top of my head in the last 5 years.

In my two seasonal leagues, we have 16 roster spaces.  That’s 16 rounds of drafting to find key components to help you win a championship.  Typically, two are used on QB, two on D/ST, one on kicker, and perhaps another two on tight ends.  That leaves 9 spots available for running back and wide receiver.  You’re going to miss on some of those picks.  Don’t compound the problem by taking a player whose only upside is for you to have an injury.  Build a better mousetrap.  Try to find a draft pick who can help you regardless of circumstance.

THE 2014 YEAR IN REVIEW - (PART IV)

 David Whitman is a Guest Writer for:

thebumswillalwayslose.com

[Editor's Note: David Whitman has been a writer, radio personality, promoter, and fantasy sports enthusiast for quite some time.  As a friend, now a competitor of mine in one of my two seasonal fantasy football leagues, I’m thrilled he’s added an article to this discussion about The 2014 Year In Review.  This piece would be in reference to our half-PPR draft that I’ve covered in my second and third fantasy football articles]

 I approached the draft without a board of rankings, other than what Yahoo had to offer.  I had just finished the draft for a PPR/IDP league two night earlier.  I got home from work around 7pm and began combing through the websites I used to put together the targeted players I wanted to select.  I was definitely winging-it for this draft, that’s for sure.  Luckily for me I wound up with the last pick which bought me a little time for me to keep researching my draft.  Yeah, definitely, winging it - sans beer, too.  Oh, boy.

In a Fantasy Football draft, once you make the draft choice, that’s it.  There is no turning back and no do-overs.  It’s like a kicker being called in the waning seconds of a game to boot the winning field goal.  You either make it or you don’t.  So let’s check out my first dozen or so picks from 2014 and see where I split the uprights and where I, umm, shanked it.

12-AJ Green –SHANK - Wideouts are really important in this league and he’s one of the best, despite having a mediocre QB tossing the pigskin to him.  All of a sudden Megatron, Demaryius, and Dez are off the board at 9, 10, and 11.  Damn!  I better pick him now because by the time my next choices at 36-37 come around I’ll be lacking a WR1 which in this league you don’t want to do.

After grabbing 98 of 178 targets in 2013 with the 5^th highest points at WR in the league Green caught only 69 of 116 targets.  A toe injury played a big role in his decline.  He hurt his right big toe during the season opener, missed three full games, most of another, and was limited in his first few games back because the toe wasn't fully healed.  When healthy he played up to a high level but the injury and the week to week uncertainty of whether he’d play contributed to my missing the playoffs.

Hindsight is 20/20:

Glad I didn’t take:  Brandon Marshall (18)

Wish I’d selected:  Antonio Brown (21), Julio Jones (22)

13-Drew Brees-SHANK - He slipped a tad in ’13, especially on the road, but with a healthy Jimmy Graham, new weapons like rookie Brandin Cooks he should be fighting it out with old man Manning for top QB1 honors I thought.  Only his lofty status as one of the top three QBs in the game makes the 2014 season a MISS.  He still finished 4^th in QB points but this comes after being 2^nd in 2013 and #1 in 2012.  But two of the QBs ahead of him Luck and Rodgers were still on the board when I selected Brees.

Hindsight is 20/20

Glad I didn’t take:  None

Wish I’d selected:  Aaron Rodgers (17), Andrew Luck (62)

36-Shane Vereen-SHANK - A multi-functional back is important in this league because it’s only partial PPR; RBs don’t get points for carries, only yards and TDs, but they do get points for receptions, though. Vereen should grab bunches of Brady passes.   I gave up on Vereen quick, maybe a little too quick.  He still finished as the 22^nd ranked RB (only two spots behind Gore) but I took him at least two rounds too early.  You can’t trust a Belichik back; he’s too unpredictable with his RB usage.  Lesson learned.

Hindsight is 20/20

Glad I didn’t take:  CJ Spiller (47), Ryan Matthews (38)

Wish I’d selected:  Joiquie Bell (51)

37-Keenan Allen-SHANK - A very solid WR2 with WR1 ceiling.  I really thought he was in for a monster season instead he was outscored by Eddie “Freakin’” Royal.  He seemed to have trouble running routes and getting open early in the season.  Things did improve as the year went on but, still, he didn’t break 100 in-game receiving yards till late November.  I wasted a lot of weeks waiting on the inner high-end WR2 to emerge from a middle of the road WR3.  I’m still waiting.

Hindsight is 20/20

Glad I didn’t take:  Victor Cruz (43), Pierre Garcon (46)

Wish I’d selected:  Julian Edelman (52), Emmanuel Sanders (56)

60-Frank Gore-SHANK - He was the last workhouse back left on the board.  He should be good for 1,000 and 6-8 scores at least.  He succeeded in going over a grand in rushing (1,106), but found the end zone only 4 times, including a brutal 11-game run where Gore scored just once.  In this league you want your RB1 racking up receptions,  lighting up the end zone like a pinball machine, or hitting triple figures on a fairly regular basis; otherwise, he’s a bust.  Gore went two months between 100-yard games at one point.  ‘Nuff said.  I’m sorry, but two dominating performances at the end of the season just doesn’t cut it.

20/20 is Hindsight

Glad I didn’t take:  Ray Rice (65), Pierre Thomas (69)

Wish I’d selected:  Fred Jackson (78), Jeremy Hill (97)

61-Marques Colston –SHANK - After a fairly strong finish in ’13, I saw him as a definite bounce-back candidate who should haul in a ton of Brees passes and be a solid WR3 with high-end WR2 upside.  Instead, Colston’s slide to mediocrity continued into 2014.  He had one TD reception over the first nine weeks and just two games all season with over 100 yards receiving.  He did haul in TD passes in four of the final six games, but by that time he was long gone from my roster.

20/20 is Hindsight

Glad I didn’t take:  Michael Crabtree (66), Wes Welker (67)

Wish I’d selected: TY Hilton (68), Jeremy Maclin (82)

84-Golden Tate –SPLITS THE UPRIGHT - Did I forget to mention that WR was important in this league?  You need a stable of them and Tate broke through the gates like fine thoroughbred.  He was helped by Calvin Johnson injuries, but even with Megatron on the field, Tate was a favorite target of Lions’ QB Matt Stafford.

20/20 is Hindsight

Glad I didn’t take:  Brandin Cooks (75),

Wish I’d selected:  aside from Odell Beckham, none

85-Carlos Hyde-SHANK - handcuff for Frank Gore; if father time catches up to Gore, at least I have his successor.  That was my thinking behind drafting Hyde.  But Hyde really wasn’t much of a factor, unlike Jeremy Hill who took charge of the Bengals’ backfield - and was selected 12 picks later. With Hill I would’ve made the playoffs.  Deep regrets here on this one.

20/20 is Hindsight

Glad I didn’t take:  MJ Drew (89)

Wish I’d selected:  Jeremy Hill (97)

108-Zach Ertz-SHANK - I thought he was a steal when I drafted him, instead I got fleeced.  It seemed that he would become a large part of the Eagles’ offense heading into ’15, but instead he was more of a third or fourth option.  Sure he grabbed 58 passes, but only three for scores-he had four scores on 36 receptions his rookie year of 2013.

20/20 is Hindsight

Glad I didn’t take:  Steven Jackson (111)

Wish I’d selected:  Darren Sproles (113)

109-Davonta Freeman-SHANK - I really “screwed the pooch” on this one.  Freeman ran for less than 250 yards (Ingram ran for more than that weeks 4-5 combined).  A wasted 10^th-round pick – ‘nuff said.

20/20 is Hindsight

Glad I didn’t take:  Hakeem Nicks (120)

Wish I’d selected:  Lamar Miller (110), Mark Ingram (116)

143-Steven Hauschka-IT’S GOOD - A kicker to wrap up round 11?  Why not.  At this point I felt that my starting offense was in place so I select one of the premier placekickers in the game.  I didn’t realize the shaky house of cards I had spent the previous 10 rounds building.  I’m changing this to a MISS.

20/20 is Hindsight

Glad I didn’t take:  Dwayne Bowe (148), Jarrett Boykin (150)

Wish I’d selected:  LeGarrette Blount (154)

144-Kansas City D-SHANK - I thought the Chiefs would have a dominant D in 2014.  I was dead wrong.  It’s really best to stream D’s in this league.  A wasted pick even though D’s were popular picks in this round.

20/20 is Hindsight

Glad I didn’t take:  Denver D (146), Riley Cooper (151)

Wish I’d selected:  Houston D (149)

Let’s hope I score some more points in the upcoming 2015 draft.

THE 2014 YEAR IN REVIEW – PART III

Brien West is the Senior Writer for:

thebumswillalwayslose.com

This will be the 3^rd and final installment of The 2014 Year In Review.  A trilogy, if you will.

I can already hear my friend, Chris Colvert:  “A trilogy?  Really?  This site is so f***ing cliché.”

Yeah, well, I was going to drag it out into five articles, but I figured I’d wrap up this topic so we can get on to some other interesting articles about philosophy and strategy.

As De La Soul once preached, 3 is the magic number.  Applying this theory to fantasy football, the first 3 rounds of the draft are crucial in setting the tone for your team’s construction and your chances of success heading into the season.  It’s not too dissimilar to an NFL general manager, who should really be hoping to get at least two of his first 3 picks right in the NFL draft; but, if you can hit on all 3, the building blocks will be set in place and you won’t have to scramble as much on the waiver wire.

So let’s look back at my second seasonal league’s results versus my draft board.  I’ve already touched on 3 players who underperformed for me in my own selections over my two seasonal drafts, namely Wes Welker, Bishop Sankey, and Pierre Garcon.  Let’s also look at how I avoided players who I thought would be colossal mistakes as draft picks if taken at the wrong place.  An educated person can always be in the wrong when analyzing certain situations, but a skilled fantasy football player should also be able to navigate through draft picks you shouldn’t even entertain early on.  I’ll put out six players who were drafted in the first 3 rounds who had no business being taken where they were taken; but I will throw out 3 more notable choices that I think I was able to catch in my breakdowns that proved to be spot on when it came to attacking the draft.   “Brien, that’s six players, and then 3 notables?”  Yup.  6 + 3 = 9, which is 3 squared . . . forget it.  It still works with my theme, here.

PICKS I DODGED (the numbers on the left are where the players were actually drafted):

#4  Adrian Peterson – This seems a little unfair for me to criticize.  Certainly I’m not clairvoyant enough to predict the man would be suspended for 15 games.  That being said, I think this was a huge reach with the #4 pick.  Strangely, I saw an article on CBSSports stating the contrary, where #4 was the perfect place to be in the draft because you could possibly get an Adrian Peterson there if it played out that way.  I found the article somewhat trite and arbitrary, but I guess we all have our own opinions (shhh . . . my opinions were based on math).  As a former owner of AP in 2013, I know firsthand that Peterson was a little bit of a letdown.  He performed nicely, but wasn’t quite the dominating presence one would hope for.  102.6 yards from the line of scrimmage, 2.071 receptions, and 0.7857 TD’s were his weekly intake as a running back in that 2013 season.  They’re damn good numbers, but not worthy of the #4 pick in a half-PPR format.  I had taken Forte off the board as the #3 overall, so maybe there was a hint of desperation for an RB1.  That being said, there were so many other good players that would have made more sense here that it simply doesn’t justify this pick.  I had Peterson as my #15 ranked player, and perhaps if I was an owner sitting at #12, I’d go out on a limb and make the grab.  #4 was way too early according to my board.

#15  Doug Martin – Wow.  This was crazy according to my rakings.  I get the gamble, but not here.  I had a late fifth-round grade on Martin, which means I wouldn’t even be looking for value on this guy until the sixth round at the earliest.  Doug Martin had a great rookie campaign, rushing for 1,454 yards for 11 TD’s, and catching 49 passes for another 472 yards and 1 more TD.  However, in his sophomore season, Martin kind of fell back down to earth:  87 yards per game from the line of scrimmage, 2 receptions per game, and scored only 1 TD in his 6 games before his season came to an end due to injury.  But, not only was there a regime change in Tampa going into 2014, they also drafted Charles Simms in the 3^rd round, and Bobby Rainey performed somewhat well in the 2013 season for the Bucs; this just added more question marks surrounding Martin and his situation.  Coming off of an injury and then expecting those rookie numbers to resurface was fool’s gold.  And I know the guy that made this pick, whom I really respect as a fantasy football player and a fantasy football mind; but this seemed way out of left field for an owner who typically tends to have his finger on the pulse of the draft.

#23  Andre Ellington – Mmmm.  This is a little too far off of my pre-draft rankings.  I had him at #39, so this is beyond my realm of consideration.  Ellington flashed some in 2013, showing all of us he’s capable of being a change-of-pace back.  He’s no Jerious Norwood, but his 5.5 yards per carry were enticing enough to contemplate taking him at some point in the draft, provided his body could withstand the punishment of being an every-down back.  The possibility of a healthy Jonathan Cooper returning and contributing at guard might have added some allure to Ellington producing.  There just wasn’t a good enough reason, with zero track record to speak of, that would qualify this selection so early.  If Ellington was still lingering around in the fourth round of the fantasy football draft, I might have pulled the trigger.  The end of the second round was a tad overreaching in my opinion, and I don’t think the owner probably felt too happy about making this pick in hindsight.

#30  Rashad Jennings – Oh, my.  Rashad was looking nice going into the 2014 draft around the seventh round at best.  I had him ranked as a mid-late sixth-round grade, so I think it was a massive stretch taking Jennings in the middle of the 3^rd round.  Again, this might be overly critical, as Jennings came out of the gate with some average games and then exploded in Week 3 for 176 rushing yards and a TD.  He racked up one more good performance when he broke the 100-yard mark from the line of scrimmage against Dallas later on in the year, however Jennings was of little consequence for the bulk of the season.   I generally don’t place a ton of blame on a guy who got injured, but this valuation made no sense from the get-go; certainly not at that asking price.  There wasn’t even a really good book to pull from to determine whether or not Rashad could play at a high enough level to impact fantasy football.  He had backed up Maurice Jones-Drew for years in Jacksonville, and then Jennings went on to have his one okay season in Oakland (where he put up 1,025 yards from the line of scrimmage and totaled 6 TD’s over 15 games), and then entered into the New York Giants organization.  The presence of Andre Williams was going to constantly haunt Jennings, no matter what head coach Tom Coughlin thinks of rookies.  This is just way too early for my tastes.

#31  Toby Gerhart – Wait.  Wait, wait, wait.  You’re telling me, a white running back, out of Stanford, can’t perform behind Jacksonville’s offensive line?!  You’ve got to be kidding me.  I’ll never understand the hype about Gerhart “getting his chance.”  I don’t mean to get racial or stereotype, but I looked at this situation as maybe a Big-10 running back who runs a 4.6 40-yard dash, trying to perform behind a bad offensive line (I see you over there, Beanie Wells.)  At best, I thought Gerhart might put up MJD numbers from 2013, which wouldn’t qualify a mid-3^rd round pick:  1,117 yards from scrimmage, 5 TD’s, and 43 receptions over 15 games.  In other words, why in the world would a running back come into Jacksonville and produce in 2014?  A rookie quarterback, a corps of rookie wide receivers with the one veteran being an injury-prone Cecil Shorts leading the charge . . . a shaky O line . . . It just wasn’t there for the taking in terms of fantasy value with that offense.  I had Gerhart as a late fifth-round value, so I certainly didn’t have this guy on my radar in the 3^rd.    Maybe I would have rolled the dice on him in the sixth round, but no way in hell would I have drafted him so soon.  Can I drop a “Great White Hype” on Gerhart, or do I have to wait another season?  I feel fairly safe on tagging him with that title right about now-ish.

#34  Zac Stacy – This one is a little weird.  You’ve got to start reading between the lines.  Even at his optimal value, Stacy was no more than a late fourth-round pick, probably a fifth if you were trying to capitalize.  Over his 14 games in 2013, Zac put up 973 yards rushing, 141 yards receiving on 26 receptions, and totaled 8 TD’s with the lone lost fumble.   They’re decent numbers, but we’ll take some history into account.  Isaiah Pead was a second-round pick in the NFL draft, and got passed over for Daryl Richardson (hell, Pead got passed over for Benny Cunningham in 2014, but that’s neither here nor there.)  Daryl Richardson got passed over for Zac.  Tre Mason is only a 3^rd-down back?  Well, tell Jeff Fisher that, as Mason seized the role as the primary focus for the Rams’ rushing attack.  Bring in Todd Gurley as a 2015 first-round pick, and there’s no telling where the shift may go as we enter this season.  I don’t want any part of the St. Louis running back situation in the upcoming draft so long as I can help it.  The job is up for grabs, and whoever wins will probably be productive; you just never know exactly who that will be.  So taking Stacy as a late 3^rd-rounder in 2014, with his 2013 numbers and his uncertain predicament, was too rich for me.

Now that I’ve gotten done slicing and dicing some of my opponents’ picks, I’ll touch on a few other assessments that I think played out in a very foreseeable way.  At least I played them right, which is often more than what we can say for a lot of our judgments on a daily basis.  I wouldn’t say potholes are merely evident, as we’ll all step in a few along the way during our fantasy drafts; but the recognition of the possibility of mishaps should be clear as we continue on in our approach to do the best we can as people who subject ourselves to this annual process:

3 NOTABLES:

Alshon over Marshall – This ranking bothered me, but the math dictated bumping Alshon over Marshall.  It kind of made sense, and it kind of didn’t.  I mean, how can you conceivably put Alshon Jeffrey over Brandon Marshall?  Marshall is a stud who can switch teams and still put up bad ass numbers, regardless of the system or the quarterback.  Denver, Miami, Chicago; who cares.  Marshall was the better fantasy receiver in 2013, but I had a feeling Alshon would project out slightly better.  We’re talking about only five spots (I had Alshon at #8, Marshall at #13), but the right call would have been Alshon according to what I saw statistically.  That’s a difficult pull for a lot of fantasy owners to make, but Alshon actually looked like the logical choice on paper.

Andre Johnson – I’m a Texans fan, and it hurt me to do this to Andre Johnson.  But fantasy football is a cruel mistress, and you can’t take sides.   I didn’t think it would be a great year for Andre from a statistical standpoint; however, a decent fantasy year was probably in the works.  A.J. was pissed off in 2013, sucked it up (a little; he didn’t want to be too diva) for 2014, but it never seemed like he cared about getting on the same page with the new quarterback, the new head coach, and working into the new system.  It wasn’t a bad fantasy season for Andre in the grand scheme of things, which I expected.  He ended up posting a solid 936 yards receiving with 85 receptions, but reeled in a meager 3 TD’s.  I had a 7^th-round grade on him; that means I probably wouldn’t have touched Andre until the 12^th round or later.  He got drafted in the middle of the fourth round in our league.  Good luck in Indy, Andre.  I hope you know how to tackle plodders.  Otherwise, you’re not getting much farther in your Super Bowl pursuit than you did in Houston.

C.J. Spiller – Can we just stop it?  I can’t believe Spiller’s name will continue to perpetuate in fantasy discussions going into 2015.  He’s a damn bust.  I don’t even remember if he was on my 2014 board . . . fine, he had a high 8^th-round grade, which means I probably wouldn’t have even drafted Spiller.  Leave it alone, all of you.  It’s a sad attempt at a bye week replacement.  I’d take Theo Riddick at this point as a fantasy football owner before burning a roster spot on the likes of Spiller.  Do what you will, but I haven’t seen a player so McFadden-ish since, well, Darren McFadden.

So, to review, 3 rules that should be applied whenever setting up your draft approach:

1)    Even if you strike out once in a while with your rankings, stick to your valuations after developing careful analysis about each player.

2)    Make sure that you avoid players who may get overdrafted, and be wary of certain players who may get overhyped going into the season.

3)    Call your parents once a week.  (What?  They really appreciate that kind of crap.  Plus, it’s good karma, which every fantasy football owner needs.)

Repeating the same thing over and over again is either a learning process or insanity; it just depends on the results.  Now that The 2014 Year In Review has been drubbed out and concluded, it’s time to get on to some real fun.  It’s an intellectual foray into what should and should not be considered when entertaining common, mainstream advice.  The series will be called The Great Debate, which I’ll start off in my next article with “handcuffing.”

THE 2014 YEAR IN REVIEW – PART II

Brien West is the Senior Writer for:

thebumwillalwayslose.com

“’Polar bear fell on me.’”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“’Polar bear fell on me.’  That’s it, that’s how you should end your movie.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.  Are you sure you don’t want to add anything else in there?”

“Nope.  Just end it with a fat guy saying ‘polar bear fell on me,’ and then everyone smiles and walks away free.  Perhaps you could cut out with some music and the main character playing around in a pond, or something.  It will be your 'Casablanca.'”

“Huh.  On second thought, I’m kind of warming up to this idea.”

[By the way, if you’ve never seen Road House, I’ll post a great summary of the film at the end of the article]

So how is the script of Road House pertinent to fantasy football?  Well, I’m sure David Lee Henry who wrote Road House couldn’t have just rolled out of bed one morning and cranked out such excellence.  I mean, with all the levels of plot complexity and witty banter in Road House, it must have taken years to get that screenplay refined and perfected.  I’m sure Henry had to bounce a few ideas off of people, do a lot more research, tweak that, adjust this, etc.  I’m guessing brilliance like Road House takes a lot of time and effort, along with multiple renditions that finally resulted in a finished product.  Or maybe he just got drunk one night and wrote it on a stack of bar napkins, but, whatever.

As for me, I had to get back to the lab for my second seasonal draft.  My original board had a lot of rankings right, but my draft board as a whole needed some honing.  I think there was still a lingering sense of buyer’s remorse after drafting Jimmy Graham so high in my first go-around, and I felt my strategy had to incorporate a little more fantasy acumen to achieve a better outcome.  This would be the draft that ended up ultimately winning my first seasonal Super Bowl in 4 years; and the draft went a little strange, but as calculated as it possibly could be under the circumstances.

Team Name:  Mayor Stubbs

Format:  half-PPR scoring, 16-man roster, QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, RB/WR/TE FLEX, TE, DST, K; snake draft

#3  Matt Forte – HIT.  This was a little bit of a reach according to my board.  I had Forte ranked as the 3^rd best player in a PPR format, but ranked 5^th in half-PPR.  Technically, I was supposed to go with Demaryius Thomas whom I had ranked at #3.  But this gets tricky, and I’m hoping to write a few articles about when to reach on certain positions.  I decided to go with a running back here because the position is always at a premium, and I felt like if I locked one up early, I wouldn’t have to worry about my RB1 going forward.

#22  Julio Jones – HIT.  Really.  Huh.  This was a no-brainer.  I know I expressed some minor concerns about Julio and his foot issues in my previous article, but the guy is just a monster.  Even though it was only a 5-game sample size in 2013, Julio was averaging 8.2 catches per game, 116 yards per game receiving, and caught 2 touchdowns (extrapolating that TD total out, that’s 6-7 touchdowns over a 16-game season; he ended up with 6 TD’s in 15 games for the 2014 season).  In half-PPR, I had Julio ranked as my #6 overall player and my #3 wide receiver.  I just stuck to my board, and it got me terrific value late in the 2^nd round.

#27  Arian Foster – HIT.  This was one of those players who I went back and reworked his numbers for this upcoming draft.  Originally, I only had a 4^th-round grade for Foster.  He had come off of a pretty miserable 2013 campaign, and I wasn’t really sure what to make of his production going forward, especially under a new coaching staff and the loss of a starting left guard.  But then it dawned on me:  what else does that Texans offense really have to rely upon?  Ben Tate was gone, they didn’t draft or sign a running back of any consequence, and the passing attack was probably going to be a little dicey with Ryan Fitzpatrick pulling the trigger.  I went back to my draft board and adjusted my projections.  Without getting too crazy and overestimating Foster’s numbers going into 2014, he was now my #8 running back and my #16 player overall.  Definitely a good pick-up here, and Foster was the best player available to me on my board.

#46  Pierre Garcon – MISS.  Ug.  And so it goes.  There isn’t a whole lot more I can add after what I wrote in my first article about Garcon, but it stings even more since I picked him one round earlier in this draft than previously.  And this is a half-PPR format, not a full-PPR format like the other league, so Garcon had even less value for me.  Oh, well.  The #28 ranked player on my board, and the highest ranked player remaining on my board at this point, turned out to be a bust.

#51  Joique Bell – HIT.  This was actually a very interesting situation.  I had Fred Jackson, Michael Crabtree, and Joique Bell all bunched up together and all still available.  Fred Jackson continues to defy “Father Time” and seems to produce, despite his age; Michael Crabtree is a damn good receiver, but oft-injured; and Joique seemed to be on the rise in Detroit.  It was kind of a difficult decision to make here, but I went with Joique.  He quietly put up 1,197 yards from the line of scrimmage, 8 TD’s, and caught 53 passes in 2013.  Not only did I think Reggie Bush would fall off a little and Joique would get a slight increase in his workload, but there is always the injury factor with Bush; hence, Joique could get even more work if/when Bush went down.  It turned out to be a good choice, as Joique became a mid-high RB2 over the course of the season, and was a regular starter in my FLEX spot.

#70  Philip Rivers – MISS.  Well, if there’s anything one can take away from fantasy football drafts, they are most certainly organic.  Quarterbacks were flying off the board, and Rivers, who I was able to nab in the 13^th round in my previous draft, became a much earlier pick for me this time around.  He was one of the 8 QB’s I was targeting in 2014, and I don’t really have a ton of complaints about what I got out of him.  Rivers was great when healthy, but battled injury toward the end of the season, which really dropped his production.  The fact of the matter is I overdrafted him in the 6^th.  Jay Cutler ended up going in the 7^th, Ben Roethlisberger in the 11^th, Ryan Tannehill in the 14^th, and Eli Manning went undrafted; all of these 4 QB’s outperformed Rivers over the course of the year in terms of points per game.  But, Philip was a mid-low QB1 most of the season and put up a whopping 30+ points for me in the Super Bowl, so I hesitate to call him a “miss;” however, the 6^th round was a little too early.

#75  Jason Witten – MISS.  Stupid computer.  My freaking computer froze up and I ended up autodrafting Witten.  The players still on my board that I would have taken here were Fred Jackson or Jeremy Maclin.  I know people seem to dismiss Fred Jackson, but all he has done is put up solid fantasy numbers every year since 2009 (with the exception of his 2012 season); I understand Fred gets older every year, but he keeps producing.  However, Maclin would have been my pick, as I had already drafted 3 RB’s that I thought were going to be good enough to ride.  Maclin was ranked as my #35 overall player, and he fell to the wayside here, as I was unable to snatch him up.  I could say Witten was a “blessing in disguise,” but that really isn’t true.  He rounded out the bottom of the TE1’s, and started for me in the 2014 Super Bowl victory, however his production over the course of the season did not necessitate this pick.  Witten wasn’t a horror show, and I may have taken him a round later if available, but it burns me in part that the selection was an overdraft due to a computer error.

#94  Jordan Reed – MISS.  Great.  19 spots later and I’m still on tilt after the autodraft of Witten.  This was a really poor move by me on multiple levels.  First of all, I screwed up my projections on Reed and had him ranked above Witten and Greg Olsen; I should have had it Witten, Olsen, and then Reed going into 2014.  Second, there was no reason to take another TE here; it was total overkill.  Third, even with my screwy projections, I still only had Reed ranked slightly higher than Witten to begin with, so it wasn’t like I was getting a huge upgrade over my initial gaffe from the previous round.  This was just a bad, reflex reaction that wasn’t based on my board or any legitimate rationale.

#99  Bernard Pierce – MISS.  I like this pick.  No, I mean I still like this pick looking back at it; I felt like it was a smart decision at the time, and I would make the same mistake twice.  There really weren’t a ton of other RB’s available, and it appeared that Pierce was going to win the starting job in Gary Kubiak’s offense.  And by Week 2 of the 2014 season, it looked like I may have hit a homerun here, as Pierce carried the ball 22 times for 96 yards and added a reception for another 7 yards.  But by Week 7, Justin Forsett emerged to be more than just a change-of-pace, third-down back, and became the every-down runner for Baltimore.  I have no regrets about making this selection in the 9^th round, and it was actually average value according to my own draft board.  The fact of the matter is that Pierce had a good Week 2 and then basically faded into oblivion the other 15 weeks.

#118  Anquan Boldin – HIT.  Here’s another one of those players that people just always seem to let slip past them.  He is the Antonio Gates of wide receivers, as in people continue to discredit what these players can contribute from a fantasy standpoint.  I had a 4^th-round grade on Boldin, so this seemed to be great value for me so late in the draft.  Anquan put up 85 receptions, 1,179 yards receiving, and 7 TD’s in 2013.  Sure, there was a chance that a healthy return of Michael Crabtree could cut into Boldin’s numbers, but Crabtree could also suffer another injury (which has proven to be the track record more often than not).  I unintentionally played a little bit of “chicken” waiting this long to draft my 3^rd WR, but I got a player here that is extremely solid.  My 10^th-round pick would eventually start for me alongside Julio Jones for my Super Bowl win.

#123  Detroit – MISS.  What the . . . no, not again!!  My computer froze, again?!  I ended up autodrafting Detroit’s D/ST.  I don’t want to talk about it.  At this point, I probably would have taken Tavon Austin, or something; I honestly can’t remember what player I was looking at before my second laptop snafu.  It’s not like I have anything against Detroit’s D/ST, it just wasn’t my choice, and I’ll break down later how my draft probably would have looked if it hadn’t been for these two freaking autodrafts.

#142  Tavon Austin – MISS.  Why doesn’t anyone want Tavon Austin?  Oh, yeah.  I outlined this in my first article, where apparently I was the only person who had any value on Tavon Austin.  It’s a 12^th-round pick, so I don’t mind swinging and missing.  But doubling down on Tavon Austin by drafting him in two leagues feels dirty to me for some reason.

#147  Chicago – MISS.  No, I actually did make this pick.  I really didn’t love any of the players remaining on the board, as you’ll see with my next two choices.  I guess I should have my head checked for thinking that the Chicago D/ST was going to have a good year.  The Bears’ general manager, Phil Emery, had added a few pieces to the defense in the 2012 and 2013 drafts, and then went all out on the defensive side of the ball in 2014 with Kyle Fuller, Will Sutton, Ego Ferguson, and Brock Vereen with the first 4 picks.  Chicago was pretty good with their starting CB’s in Tillman and Jennings, and just added more to the equation.  They had also signed Jared Allen and Lamarr Houston to get additional help on the defensive line.  Yes, I realize the Bears have to play the Packers and the Lions twice a year, but that also means that they play 12 games against other teams.  Regardless, it just turned out to be a terrible pick for me.

#166  Jake Locker – MISS.  I was looking to grab a QB2.  There really wasn’t anything out there, so I didn’t think I had much to lose.  Locker is probably more athletic than most people realize, capable of scrambling on occasion.  In 2012 and 2013, he averaged over 20 yards per game with his legs, which is nothing sensational; but, it’s an extra 2+ fantasy points a game, so there’s a little bit of a bump with his rushing ability (3 TD’s on the ground over that time span, for whatever that’s worth).  The pick really didn’t have to do with running, though; it looked like if there was ever a chance for Locker to succeed, it was in 2014.  Kendall Wright, Justin Hunter, Nate Washington, and Delanie Walker were his receiving corps.  Newly acquired Bishop Sankey and Taylor Lewan provided an opportunity for a good ground game, maybe even some help in pass protection.  If Locker couldn’t get it done with that cast around him, then the book should be closed on him as an NFL QB.  I’m shutting the back cover now . . . bust.

#171  Andre Holmes – MISS.  I don’t know.  I guess Holmes was a miss.  It was a 15^th-round flier.  I dropped him pretty quickly during the 2014 season, picked him up again, and then dropped him again.  It’s tough to say the expectation was ever all that high to begin with, and it’s not like Holmes had a horrible season; he came close to a 50-catch, 700-yard campaign, adding on 4 TD’s.  Holmes will be a player I keep my eye on going forward, but 2014 was certainly not his breakout year.

So this went much better as a draft on the whole.  I kind of got screwed over by my computer, and I most definitely made some bad decisions that had nothing to do with my personal draft board.  I’m not complaining as the winner of a Super Bowl, but my draft could have gone differently.  Despite the “how and why” of the draft results, every single player I started in the Super Bowl were players I drafted (DST and K notwithstanding):

Philip Rivers

Matt Forte

Arian Foster

Julio Jones

Anquan Boldin

Jason Witten

Joique Bell

It was a good draft for me, and what’s weird is that it should have been superb if not for a couple of bad mishaps.  The Jordan Reed projection, the autodrafting, and the panic that set in with some of my choices while I was on tilt, were all negative contributors to my yield after hours of research and analysis.  Just to play a little revisionist history, without being ridiculous about it, this is how the draft probably would have gone for me with my updated draft board going into these 2014 selections; minus the obvious mistakes that occurred with the computer complications and the statistical overestimation of Reed:

Matt Forte

Julio Jones

Arian Foster

Pierre Garcon

Joique Bell

Philip Rivers

Jeremy Maclin

Greg Olsen

Bernard Pierce

Anquan Boldin

Charles Clay

Tavon Austin

Jake Locker

DST, DST, K

You’re never going to get it right every time.  But with informed decisions, more often than not, success will ensue.  If nothing else, it looks like I might be on the right track drawing up draft boards.  In my next article, I’m going to dissect how no amount of math can predict the future perfectly, but some careful analysis may also clue you in on players to stay away from; if you’re going to be wrong, do it for the right reasons.

Promised Road House summary:  http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/road-house-1989

The Year in Review 2014 - Part I                                                                                

Brien West is the Senior Writer for:

www.thebumswillalwayslose.com

Hi, kids.  Do you like violence?

Want to see me stick nine-inch nails through each one of my eyelids?

Want to copy me and do exactly like I did?

Pick Wes Welker in the 3^rd round and watch your draft suffer an utter free fall until it regained traction in the 8^th round?

Welcome to my first article.  I figured I would start it off with a lot of the same words as Eminem did on his first album and see if it would land me tens of millions of dollars.  Maybe get some porn stars in my videos, end up in rehab . . . y’know, famous.  The sky’s the limit with that kind of intro.

I started doing fantasy sports about 25 years ago when I got into a rotisserie basketball league.  That lasted about a year or so until I realized I was starting to get more interested in other vices.  However, about 12 years ago when I was with my first wife, I decided I would try my hand at the fun form of gambling known as fantasy football.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, joining a group of friends from work and dipping my toe back into the pool of fantasy sports.  I never thought that after a decade I would still be playing in that same league, now surrounded by a denizen of cutthroats for relatively high stakes.

My initiation was outlined with scrambling for the likes of Greg Jones, Heath Evans, and Ricky Proehl my first season.  5 years in, I think I made a couple of playoff appearances, but nothing to brag about.  In 2007, I joined a second seasonal league in law school with a bunch of bright and ambitious young men and women who were really fun to play against.  I ended up racking back-to-back championships in 2009 and 2010.  And then everything soured.

I couldn’t gain ground in my original league.  I couldn’t crack the playoffs in my newer league after winning two consecutive Super Bowls .  Not only did I miss the playoffs in both leagues annually, I may have rocked a DFL one season.  Hell, I may have even gone runner-up to DFL another year.  These were dark days.  It was back to the drawing board.

I decided I would take this past season’s draft just a little more seriously.  I finally did my own draft board.  I had done one in a rough format going into 2013, based solely on name recognition and flat theory.  So in 2014, I actually did an Excel sheet with a little bit of math applied.  I made it to 2 Super Bowls; won one, lost the other.  Let’s see how it went.  I’ll begin with the draft that got me off to an ignominious start:

Team Name:  Glenn Guglia

Format:  PPR scoring, 16-man roster, QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, RB/WR FLEX, TE, DST, K; snake draft

#8  Jimmy Graham – MISS.  Right out of the gate, I’m already betraying myself and my board.  After all the work and research I did, I’m stuck in a “No Man’s Land” scenario, where I’m not really liking any of my options.  Julio Jones would have been my pick according to my board, but he battled some foot issues in 2013.  If I was going to go running back, it would have been DeMarco Murray here, since he was my #4 ranked RB, #12 player overall.  But DeMarco had also failed to play a full season in 3 years in the league, so it seemed like a little too big of a reach 4 spots down to grab him.  And then there is always the option of just grabbing a really good QB, the first one off the board, and not worrying about it later in the draft.  Ultimately, I decided to go with Jimmy Graham.  He was my #10 player on my board, so I reached a little.  But if anyone remembers 2013, Jimmy Graham just used to win games for fantasy owners on a weekly basis.  In today’s era of fantasy football, it seemed very important to lock up either Graham, Gronk, or Julius, so I accomplished that mission.  In hindsight, I really don’t think TE is a position you should ever reach for (even a little), and I should have stuck to my board and taken Julio Jones.  It’s hard to call Graham a “miss,” but I overdrafted him.

#17  DeMarco Murray – HIT.  Well, go figure.  The player I was entertaining at #8 was still on the board for me at #17.  I don’t fully understand why people fell asleep on DeMarco Murray.  Admittedly, he’s had a bad track record of staying on the field for a full 16, but it’s not like he’s Darren McFadden.  In the 13 games he played in 2013, he was a stud.  Add into that that the Cowboys spent another first-round pick on an offensive lineman (their third O line pick in the last 4 years), and the table looked like it was being set for DeMarco to have a good season.  Also, Terrance Williams was likely to take another step in his development, making the passing attack even more potent than in 2013, taking even more pressure off of DeMarco.  And, no, I didn’t anticipate DeMarco would ever handle the kind of workload he took on in 2014, but I thought he’d be a bad ass if kept healthy.

#32  Wes Welker – MISS.  Monkey . . . loving . . . hooker . . .  This went bad.  With the departure of Eric Decker, it didn’t seem like the Broncos really had a player to fill that void going into 2014.  Andre Caldwell was probably going to get the nod as the veteran, perhaps with Cody Latimer (Denver’s 2014 2^nd-round pick) eventually surpassing Caldwell on the depth chart.  The Emmanuel Sanders signing seemed strange to me at the time.  Although the skill sets of Welker and Sanders aren’t identical, there appeared to be enough duplication where Sanders wouldn’t have an immediate impact without an injury to Welker (an injury being completely foreseeable, given Welker’s recent past).  I projected a slight uptick in the production of Welker, Demaryius, and Julius with the absence of Decker.  I guess I got one of those players right.  The player I drafted was not the one.  Maybe Welker’s off-the-field issues going into Week 1, where he claimed his MDMA was cut with amphetamines – which was a brilliant defense for failing a drug test, since the “A” in MDMA stands for “amphetamine” – the 2-game suspension off the bat may have disappointed the coaching staff and ultimately lessened Welker’s usage.  I failed to realize that Sanders would absorb not only the loss of Decker, but tacked on additional production from the loss of faith in Welker, and Julius catching for 300 yards less than he did in 2013.  I was just hoping for 12-15 games out of Welker, given the fact that he’s been prone to miss time; be careful what you wish for, as Welker ended up playing in 14 games.  What makes this miss even worse is that I had Welker ranked #16 and Cobb #17, and I went with Welker while both of them were still on the board.

#41  Bishop Sankey – MISS.  This was an interesting one.  Although Sankey may not have been the highest ranked player on my draft board, I had him ranked at #37 and thought he was a decent gamble in the fourth round.  As the first RB taken in the NFL draft, a highly-touted talent who went in the second round, it seemed that his floor was about that of what Chris Johnson had done in 2013.  As much as a lot of us fantasy owners like to clown “CJ2K,” he actually didn’t have a horrible 2013 season:  in 16 games, Chris Johnson had 1,422 yards from the line of scrimmage, reeled in 42 passes, and scored 10 TD’s on the ground and through the air combined.  I think many fantasy people disliked Chris Johnson over the years, either because he never repeated his 2009 performance or because they may have overdrafted him on more than one occasion; regardless, it’s not that he hasn’t put up solid fantasy numbers.  If someone could get that kind of return on a 4^th-round pick, it’s good value.  Then, factoring in the investment the Titans had made in their O line throughout 2013 and 2014, it looked like Sankey had it lined up for him to succeed, and probably exceed Chris Johnson’s numbers from the last few years.  I mean, it’s not like Ken Whisenhunt was going to try to force Shonn Greene out there . . . right?

#56  Pierre Garcon – MISS.  Just a fantastic 2013 season for Garcon, where he posted 113 receptions, 1,346 yards, 5 TD’s, and lost his only fumble.  Enter DeSean Jackson and Jay Gruden.  How much was really going to change?  Well, it had been reported that DeSean was going to fill the “A.J. Green” role in the new Washington offense.  Even if that were to be the case, DeSean is not A.J.  But let’ go ahead and pretend that DeSean went for 56 receptions, 1,169 yards, and 6 TD’s in 2014 (numbers I pulled out of thin air).  Would that mean Garcon couldn’t still be in store for 90-100 catches, 1,100-1,200 yards, and 7-8 TD’s?  Keep in mind, Marvin Jones had a very nice season with 712 yards and 10 TD’s as a second-year receiver in Jay Gruden’s offense in 2013, as the #2 wide receiver in that Bengals offense.  Garcon, who was my #19 ranked player, turned out to be barely a WR4.

#65  Danny Woodhead – MISS.  Weird.  This seemed like a really good value in the 6^th round.  Woodhead had amassed 1,034 yards from the line of scrimmage in 2013, a combined 8 TD’s between catching and rushing, and added 76 receptions (4.75 points per game in PPR for those receptions alone); doing it all with a healthy Ryan Matthews.  The odds of Ryan Matthews going down again are always good, and it looked like it was going according to plan when Matthews went out after the September 14^th game against Seattle.  The problem was Woodhead sucked for the first 2 weeks and then got hurt in the third week after Matthews went down.  I had Woodhead ranked as my #49 player going into 2014, and it just didn’t work out.

#80  Kendall Wright – MISS.  Although only racking up 2 TD’s in 2013, Kendall Wright was still able to post numbers like 94 receptions and 1,079 receiving yards.  Going into his “magical” third season as a wide receiver (typically when one sees a wide receiver reach their true potential in the NFL), this appeared to be very good value in the 7^th round of the fantasy draft.  With Justin Hunter presumably taking another step in his development, Nate Washington lining up opposite Hunter, Delanie Walker demanding attention from defenses, a healthy Jake Locker, an offensive line with apparent improvements, and a possible run game being bolstered with the addition of Bishop Sankey, my #42 ranked player in Kendall Wright looked like a great pick at this point in the draft.  Unfortunately, he turned into another WR4 for me.

#89  Tom Brady – HIT.  Yes!  I love it when a plan comes together!  I had 8 QB’s on my board that I was targeting going into the 2014 draft, and Brady was one of them.  I didn’t squander an early pick on a quality QB (although I may have squandered several on RB’s and WR’s in hindsight . . .), but I got a difference-maker in the 8^th round.  In all fairness, Tom Brady didn’t look like Tom Brady through his first 4 games, so I can understand a level of hesitation to pick him too early in fantasy drafts.  It certainly took Brady some time to develop his chemistry with newly acquired Brandon LaFell, and Rob Gronkowski looked like he may have to knock some rust off after missing a significant amount of time in 2013.  However, Brady was able to find his groove after the first month and became a key piece to my fantasy roster, and ultimately my Super Bowl run.  A legitimate QB1 in the 8^th round was outstanding value here.

#104  Greg Olsen – HIT.  Heh.  So this pick was kind of a mistake, but a blessing in disguise.  I was under the impression that the flex was going to be a “super flex” (RB/WR/TE) as opposed to just an RB/WR flex.  That’s fine.  I’m not going to point the blame at anyone, Chris Colvert, but there was something amiss in our communication i.e. you told me it was going to be a super flex.  Nonetheless, Greg Olsen was fantastic value here in the 9^th round.  I had a 5^th round grade on him, so I may have “hate-drafted” him anyway (for those of you who don’t know what “hate-drafting” is, I should have an article soon about the strategy of “hate-drafting”).  With the somewhat rocky season Jimmy Graham ended up having, Olsen paid dividends, and was one of the better picks I made in the draft.

#113  Brian Hartline – MISS.  The 6’2” receiver had only totaled 6 receiving TD’s in his first 4 years in the NFL, but looked like he was starting to find the end zone slightly more as he posted 4 receiving TD’s in 2013.  Tack on 76 receptions and 1,016 yards, and Hartline appeared to be emerging as a fairly solid player in PPR formats.  I had a 6^th-round grade on Hartline, so it seemed like good value here in the 10^th round, but I never had high hopes to the extent that he was going to be a late homerun hit.  I thought he’d be a WR4/FLEX play in a pinch or an injury/bye-week replacement.  Instead, I whacked him early in the fantasy season as Jarvis Landry was making it evidently clear that he had surpassed Hartline in terms of a “target favorite” for Ryan Tannehill.

#128  Tavon Austin – MISS.  I . . . I don’t know where I went wrong on this one.  I’ll have to go back and check my formulas, because I had Tavon Austin ranked as my #64 player.  I guess I thought Tavon was going to make a relatively big jump from year 1 to year 2 as a receiver.  Look, it was basically a shot in the dark as my fifth wide receiver after taking on Welker, Garcon, Wright, and Hartline.  But my board was telling me Tavon was the best value available and I fired on it.  A young wide receiver who was going to theoretically have Sam Bradford back, and Tavon Austin also got work out of the backfield in 2013, even scoring a rushing TD.  In the 11^th round, I’m not expecting much, but Tavon fell well short of the season I believed he could have had.

#137  DeAngelo Williams – MISS.  I hated this pick (and myself) as soon as I made it.  What the hell was I thinking?  I’ve seen the DeAngelo show the last couple of years, and I knew Carolina’s offensive line was in shambles.  There wasn’t even much of a passing game going into the 2014 season to speak of, with maybe the hopes that Greg Olsen and Kelvin Benjamin could provide somewhat reasonable options for Cam Newton; seemingly not the kind of air assault to prevent defenses from putting 8 in the box.  But this is really the stage of a fantasy draft where you’re looking to swing for the fences on an unproven player, as opposed to a proven veteran who can’t keep up anymore.  I’m guessing it’s probably hard for everyone to fathom what happened with DeAngelo on my roster:  I dropped him for an unproven player with upside.  Just a wasted pick.

#152  Philip Rivers – HIT.  Ruh?  Um . . . okay . . .  This was another one of the 8 QB’s I was targeting going into the draft.  It seemed like overkill a bit, but I needed a backup QB.  I mean, value fell into my lap here, so it may have felt somewhat redundant; however, it’s the kind of value one looks for late in a draft.  Rivers was coming off of a very good season, and it seemed logical that Keenan Allen and the rest of the receiving corps were going to continue to provide Philip with legitimate options.   Hell, if nothing else, I wanted to “hate-draft” Philip Rivers at this point.  It was very odd to me that a QB who posted 32 TD’s to 11 INT’s with only 1 fumble lost back in 2013 would last this long.  Get ‘em?  Got ‘em?  Good.

DST, DST, K – I’ll spare you.  Who cares.

So, how did I make it to the Super Bowl with only 4 hits in the first 13 rounds, especially in a highly competitive fantasy football league?  Scramble, scramble . . . scramble; I became a waiver wire whore.  Well, that’s not exactly the full explanation of my success, but I was able to hit on a few players at the right time with a few of my pick-ups.  Whether it was Eddie Royal and Andre Holmes early in the season, Mike Evans and Reuben Randle in the middle of the season, or Latavius Murray and Jonathan Stewart down the stretch, I found some very usable pieces to fill out my roster.

But here’s the real reason why I was able to get it done:  I was dominant at 3 positions in my QB, my TE, and my RB1.  I’m not condoning this as a strategy going forward for anyone, but I was getting 70-85 points on the reg out of those 3 positions.  I understand I labeled Jimmy Graham as a “MISS,” but the reality is he averaged the second most points per game among any TE, so he had a very positive impact (I called him a “MISS” because I overdrafted him, not because he didn’t produce).  And when Jimmy Graham was injured or wasn’t producing, I could plug in the #3 TE in points per game with Greg Olsen on my roster.  When Tom Brady got off to a slow start, I went with Philip Rivers who had a great beginning of the season; when Tom Brady finally started to round into midseason form, I put Brady back into the line-up.  Of course, we all know what kind of season DeMarco Murray had, so it goes without saying he was a mainstay week in and week out.

But let’s take the low end of that aforementioned range at 70 points per week out of my QB, TE, and RB1, and let’s add maybe another combined 15 points out of my DST and kicker on a weekly basis (70 + 15 = 85).  So there were still 4 positions left to produce (my RB2, WR1, WR2, and FLEX), and let’s say I get another 20 points combined out of any of those 3 positions with my crew of flunkies who were prone to posting single-digit performances.  That takes me up to 105 points (70 + 15 + 20 = 105).  All I needed was one of those 4 guys between my RB2, WR1, WR2, and FLEX to post a 17-20 point week.  I just wanted one flare out of those 4 positions.  Even if you take the low end of that range at 17 and add it to the 105 combined from everyone else, I’m putting up 122 a week conservatively.  And that was really kind of my floor going forward around the middle of the season.  Whether it was Garcon, Eddie Royal, Andre Holmes, Mike Evans, Reuben Randle, Latavius Murray, or Jonathan Stewart, I found guys to start with some boom potential.   Over the 13-game regular season, my team averaged 126 points per game, and that was with me getting off to a crappy start, inserting guys like Welker and Sankey on a fairly routine basis before I wised up; Brady the first 3 weeks when he was absolutely worthless.

The year in review based on this first go around turned out to be particularly interesting for me.  My draft board clearly had to be tweaked and reworked a little, and in my next article I’ll show how my second bout with the process went much better.  But this first draft could have ended up a lot differently if I had just made a couple of smarter decisions and made some minor corrections to my board.  I’m not going to beat myself up over Sankey, or Garcon, or Woodhead, or even Kendall Wright.  Where I really misstepped was taking Jimmy Graham over Julio Jones, and taking Wes Welker over Randall Cobb, because I betrayed my own board (going back and looking at my spreadsheet, I probably should have had Cobb flip-flopped with Welker at the 16/17 spots, but that’s kind of an analytical debate for another day).  Despite the misses everyone is due to make during a fantasy football draft, the possibility of trotting out a line-up of Julio, DeMarco, Cobb, Brady, Greg Olsen, and Rivers as my back-up QB, would have been by far my preference to launch my 2014 season.  I’m not complaining about making it to the Super Bowl, and I’m not saying if I had drafted differently it would have won me a championship; and I’m not trying to go with the “woulda, coulda, shoulda” vacuum where hindsight is always 20/20.  What I am saying is that I stubbed my toe with this first attempt out the door, and there were some fortuitous add/drops and skillful sit/starts that helped me navigate my way into the postseason and beyond.   I think there were some valuable lessons to learn that can be applied going forward.