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That was a fun read, thanks for doing it! It was my first draft in a couple years (all four leagues I was in last year were auction), and it was super nice to have something fantasy-related to text all my friends about. Thanks Beer and thanks Leperflesh!
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Jun 20, 2017 16:07
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The Glennophant Man/Sataere QBs: B+ Mariota and Tannehill are both solid, if not superstar choices. Mariota may even improve this year, as a young QB with new weapons is wont to do, while Tannehill is a known quanitity unlikely to regress. Sataere backs these two guys up with Mike Glennon, a man who may or may not keep his job at the helm of the Bears, given what that team spent on their QB in the draft (lol), so I like that pick a lot less. But at least early in the season it's some insurance against dire injuries etc., so it's better than only going with two QBs, so I'm fine with it. I'd have upgraded this grade to an A if Sataere had picked a QB with a bit more star power than Mariota as his QB1. RBs: C+ I might be being a little harsh here, but... this is a worrying RB crew for a few reasons. Doug Martin will start the season suspended for three games, and Tampa Bay has some quality backups with Sims, Jaquizz, a fullback, and even Peyton Barber looked good when he played last year. Jordan Howard is a Bear; he's a really really good sophomore RB with a chance at being top five in the league, but he's still a Bear, and if his team is behind all the time and pushing the passing game as a consequence, that could cost him a lot of touches. I still like the pick as a high-upside solid-floor pick. Then there's Isiah Crowell and Jonathan Stewart as starting RBs who should provide a reasonable floor at the position, but with less upside potential. What I don't like is that that's just four guys, and Dion Lewis is a really questionable fifth pick: he's possibly only third on the Pats roster, only has six touchdowns in four years, has never broken 300 rushing yards, and just isn't as good as the Patriots' 1 and 2 guys, Gillislee and White. So, we have four decent to strong RBs, one wasted pick with Lewis, and they're all week 9 and 11 byes, making for two dangerous points weeks. If this crew had a better fifth guy, or a sixth RB, and both were not on byes weeks 11/9, I'd upgrade it a lot, probably to a B+ on the strength of Howard and Martin. WRs: A Jordy Nelson, Jarvis Landry, Kelvin Benjamin, and Stefon Diggs are all solid, respectable choices for WR. Nelson is a star veteran player easily fitting into that much needed WR1 position, and the other three are all in good enough situations that they should routinely produce WR1/2 numbers. There's two gambles with John Brown and Jeremey Maclin; Brown has a tricky hammy and is not guaranteed to play through a season, although he's been living with Carson Palmer so there's some comittment there. And Maclin just landed with the Ravens, which maybe is good for him, or maybe not, who knows? Brown has the same by week as Nelson which is fine since he's just a gamble, while Landry and Benjamin sharing a bye is the only reason this isn't an A+. All told I love this set: six WRs, every one of which is either a star, a solid choice, or a real upside pick, and no question mark rookies. Very nice. TEs: A Greg Olsen is perenially a top-3 TE, and there's no reason to think that will change. Fiedorowicz isn't going to be the safety blanket for the league's worst starting QB this year, but he's still a checkdown target for Savage and/or the rookie in Houston, so that's fine. And Zach Miller is an underwhelming but reliable TE target in Chicago, another team with QB problems that often translates to TE checkdowns. And there's no bye week overlap. This is what you want in your TE crew: a star, and two boring but reliable performers. D/STs: B None of these Ds is a superstar defense (the chiefs are rated high, but I don't put them in the top grade with the Texans/Seahawks/Broncos), which is why this isn't an A grade, but there's three, they don't share bye weeks, and that's enough ensurance to basically guarantee a positive score almost every week. (Chiefs week 10 bye, the Giants play the 49ers and the Bears play the Packers; probably the Giants provide a decent score.) Going with that third D with the Bears raises an eyebrow given the minor hole at RB, but my feeling is that the RB situation needed someone other than Lewis, rather than necessarily a sixth RB taken from the D/ST slot, probably. So, this is just a B. OVERALL GRADE: A- Overall I like this team, mostly. Weeks 11 and 9 could be down weeks. It has reasonable crews at QB and D/ST, strong setups at WR and TE, a high-variance RB set that might or might not work out, and so I'd say a solid shot at a top-3 finish with winning not out of the question, although a couple other teams are I think higher favorites. I question two of the picks (Lewis and the Bears), but otherwise Sataere should be fairly pleased.
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Jun 20, 2017 22:08
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please don't hate me  Not Forums User Wayne Gretsky/Timp  QBs: B Man. Why is mitchell Trubisky here? OK back up a sec: here we have three very very reasonable choices at QB. The pundits seem to expect Dak to regress this year, but that's not at all a given, and there's nothing in Dallas' lineup to force that to happen. Cam Newton could easily have an up year and anyway probably is a solid floor, Joe Flacco is a fairly safe fill-in with upside potential, and let's face it: both men have led teams to the superbowl. So I love these three guys at QB. But as funny as it might seem, Trubisky is such a wasted pick: he might not play at all, and if he does, it's still the Bears. I'll go out on a limb and say it's a near-certainty that Trub will not contribute a single fantasy point to this team this year. So an otherwise A crew gets downgraded to a sad trombone B. RBs: C LOL wow. OK, Murray is a star pick, no question. But then, oh, yeesh. Where do I even start? OK All Day Peterson could finish in the top three, if he's at 100% form. But come on, he's old, and the Saints aren't exactly a run-first offense, and they have Mark Ingram who will probably keep the #1 slot. Maybe AP becomes a passing down player? I don't know, but that's the point, it's a big gamble question mark pick. Which brings us to exactly the same deal with Jamaal Charles, only even more so. The most efficient RB in the modern era maybe comes back to his old form and blows the world away in Denver, but the more likely story is that his knees are permanently wrecked and he'll never play again. Or possibly he'll play two agonizingly good games before blowing out a knee agian and ending his career. Or perhaps he'll be used cautiously and sparingly, flashing brilliance but never being allowed to build up some points. It's a total gamble that is fine for your sixth RB pick, same as AP. But. Who else is here? OK Jeremy Hill will play, but as always, he's in a committee. And the remaining two guys are rookies: Fournette and McNichols. McNichols does not rate to break out of special teams play this year, given the other pieces in place in TB, and Fournette despite his fourth overall pick spot is still on a team with TJ Yeldon and Chris Ivory. Maybe he is the next Zeke Elliot, or maybe he's a rookie who will be held back and developed. It's a gamble. And that's the story of this RB crew. One really solid star player in Murray, one RBBC JAG in Hill, and four gambles. This RB crew could soar, or it could specactularly crash and burn, and I don't feel like I can guess which. So... I guess it's a strategy? I'll call this a C, but really it's both an A and an F. WRs: C Man, I sure wish this team had a sixth wide receiver. In this format you really should have six, and the wasted fourth QB pick is hitting the team hardest right here. Brown is of course a superstar, and I can't fault Golden Tate either. I've got the same problem with Meredith as I have with all Bears: that team is a trainwreck right now, so despite the talent, I can't call Meredith a safe pick. Perriman's spot on the Ravens is still a bit unclear since they grabbed Maclin and are reportedly trying to sign Eric Decker too: for now he has to be regarded as a second-year WR who might not exceed his 2016 numbers of 500 yards and three TDs. And Laquon Treadwell is probably at best a handcuff for Stefon Diggs; his first year consists of a single 15 yard catch so he's a wild gamble with I think very little potential to break out into big numbers. So basically on a solid, safe team, he'd be an okayish seventh WR pick, but on this team, I hate him. He is absolutely not good enough to be the fifth WR behind Breshad Perriman on a five-WR roster. Brown and Tate are carrying this crew, and that probably won't be good enough. Should I point out three of these five guys have week 9 byes? Tate and Perriman are it that week, and Detroit is playing the Packers. It could be like a six point week at the WR slot. D: TEs: B Jimmy Graham is a solid option, while old man Gates has apparently not retired somehow, so he'll pesumably still catch a few balls. Austin Hooper is a reasonable backup guy to slot in: he's a sophomore TE on a high-powered offense, so he's slated to progress, albeit he could also not work out. Even here, though, it's yet another gamble player on a team with way too many gambles; if Gates gets hurt, he'll surely retire, Hooper might or might not work out as the guy in Atlanta, leaving Graham as the only safe pick. I'm being generous with a B. D/STs: B The vikings are a solid, good D/ST, while the Falcons rate somewhere in the middle of the pack; a reasonable backup. Unfortunately, the Vikes are on bye week 9, along with four other important players on Timp's team (plus Trubisky). It's just one more place where that wasted pick could have shored things up; a third D/ST, even a low-tier one, provides some insurance. Still, I can't knock this roster spot too badly. It's OK. OVERALL GRADE: C I hate this team. But, I can't grade it lower than a C, because it's partly just a bias against the apparent strategy of "gamble at every opportunity." That could work out! Imagine if Jamaal Charles and Adrian Peterson are both reborn as dominating players, Cam Newton is great again, Antonio Gates plays out a whole season, Cameron Meredith carries the Bears, and Laquon Treadwell explodes into stardom? This team could win it all. Except come on, all of those things are unlikely individually, so this scenario is a real long-shot collectively. Plus you can't just tank one or two weeks and hope to win the season. This team rates to finish at or near the bottom of the list on week 9, and my bet is a bottom-six finish to the year, potentially bottom 3. Sorry.
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Jun 20, 2017 22:39
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Leperflesh posted:please don't hate me Yeah, I almost gave you a heads up before you got to my team so you'd know, but Trubisky was an auto pick that I didn't get to in time. That would have probably been a 3rd DST or possibly a WR if there was one on the board that I liked. But I agree that this team is very boom/bust. That strategy has won me one of these slow drafts before, and what the hell, it's do or die, right? Nothing to lose so I might as well go big. Especially since it's so early. I tend to replace legit research and predictions with wild brand name recognition in these stages. And lastly, in regards to your grades and overall analysis, I'll simply leave you with my favorite response to any FF criticism: We'll just have to wait and see, now won't we? 
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Jun 20, 2017 23:03
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Indeed! Like I said in the beginning, nobody should take my grades too seriously. I'm calling it how I see it, but I'm no football smarty smartpants guy, I'm just a guy. Oh God What Happened To my Eye?/Beer4TheBeerGod  QBs: B+ Brees is always great, right? Well, he's getting old, but hasn't shown any sign of falling off a cliff yet, and he still has weapons. Stafford is a great second QB choice, he's still in his prime and has shown that even without Megatron he can turn in good weeks. Together they're a reasonable QB roster... but I would have liked to see a third man here, as a safety net. Even a guy like an Alex Smith, not guaranteed to finish the season, would provide a floor that is probably there at least for bye weeks 5 and 7. RBs: B+ Carols Hyde is still fantastic. The niners are still rebuilding, but I like him on a Kyle Shanahabanana offense even better than last year. Mark Ingram is still the man in New Orleans: ok maybe AP takes some of his work, but maybe not. No-Longer-Quite-As-Fat Lacy in Seattle is another reasonable choice... he'll play. And C.J. Anderson should "regress upwards" in Denver, assuming he stays healthy. So there's a core of decently good players here all of whom at least have the opportunity to shine, although none of them are guarantees. Backing them up is C-mike, who is now a Colt, and Terrance West, probably still getting a solid share of the Ravens' runs. I'm OK with them too, as fifth ans sixth picks, and I'm OK with going six deep given the lack of a sure thing 100% can't lose RB on the roster. I'll knock the crew down a tiny bit due to two bye week overlaps, the most important in week 5 when both CJ and Ingram are off, while Hyde's 49ers play the Colts and Lacy's Seahawks play the the Rams; reasonable matchups for both men, so it should be OK. But mostly I'm not totally in love with these RBs due to the minor question marks among even the top four guys. WRs: A- Amari Cooper, Demaryius Thomas, and Mike Evans all on the same team? Holy moly. I love it. And those three guys don't share bye weeks, so this is a WR crew that can dominate just from its top three guys. Backing them up are some good options with Quincy Enunwa and Devin Funchess, although they both share the week 11 bye with Evans. I'm knocking this crew though with the in my opinion completely unnecessary seventh WR with John Ross, a rookie Bengal. OK, he's a first round pick, yes. But he's also coming off shoulder surgery, and it's not like he's going to eclipse AJ Green or Brandon LaFell in his rookie year. On a normal fantasy team, I'd like him as a stash: in dynasty I'd love him. But set against the superstar top three, I actually have to knock down this grade slightly for the pick. This guy should have been a third QB or D/ST. TEs: B Kyle Rudolph is a fine pick. Jesse James is a fine backup guy to take. Except, woops, same bye week! So I guess Gerald Everett exists to fill in week 9; the Rams play the Giants that week. But Everett is a rookie, a Ram, and did I mention he's a rookie? I can't credit this pick as being worthwhile, not even in round 17. C.J. Fiedorowicz and Charles Clay were both still available, among others. D/STs: C The rams and the chargers? Two middle of the pack defenses that have not recently stood out, and the Rams D/ST has the added problem of maybe being on the field more than they should unless the new coaches can create substantial improvement on the Rams' O. With a third middle-of-the-pack D/ST, this would be an alright crew worthy of a B grade: with a really good D/ST, it could have earned an A. But this is a low-effort afterthought couple of picks, and they're not going to contribute to a run at a win for the season. OVERALL GRADE: B+ I feel like this team was nearly great. It's got a crazy-good core of WRs and a star QB, plus a decent selection of other good players. But I think Beer overly discounted D/STs, miscalculated with Gerald Everett and John Ross, and is missing important insurance at QB, D/ST, and maybe TE. A solid top-six team that needs to dodge any bad luck at two or three positions to contend for the championship.
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Jun 20, 2017 23:05
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Mitchell Trbibooooo.../Coronaball QBs: B- Big Ben is a solid, reliable QB1 pick, and Andy Dalton is a great pick for #2. Where my eyebrows are raising painfully is the DeShone Kizer selection. He's officially behind Cody Kessler, and ahead of Brock Lobstweiler, but it's June. Who the gently caress knows? As a safe backup he's obviously totally inappropriate, so I have to view him instead as an upside gamble. But... really, what's the big upside? Suppose he wins the starting job by week 1. Now what? It's still the cleveland browns! This team needs a lot of work, it's not just a winning team waiting for the right rookie quarterback to drive it to the playoffs. With a guaranteed-starting backup behind Roethlisberger and Dalton, I'd give it an A. With a low-upside gamble, it's a B-. RBs: C+ I'll say right off the bat, a lot of folks think Melvin Gordon is undervalued, and I agree. He's a star RB and I expect more big scores out of him again this year. So he's a great anchor to an RB crew. LeGarrette Blount is another solid choice; we haven't seen exactly how he'll be used in Philly, but he'll surely get used. And finally, Ty Montgomery is a big deal guy, if he's rated as both a WR and RB again this year. Otherwise, he's maybe the lead back in probably a committee in Green Bay, which still holds value, but not as much. Unfortunately, this is the point that this seven-man RB crew falls off a goddamn cliff. Rex Burkhead and Jaquizz Rodgers are at best RB3s in a committee, and at worst, glued to the bench for significant portions of the season. And Marlon Mack and Christian McCaffrey are rookies, albeit very different ones. McCaffrey at least has a shot at a lead role, although the Panthers are very unlikely to turn him into a bellcow his rookie year; the best you can say for Mack is that he's probably going to make the team. Put it all together and what we have here is two really solid guys, one decent dude, and too many gambles, question marks, and fourth stringers. Gordon and Burkhead share a bye week, as do Rodgers/McCaffrey/Mack, but since Mack and Rodgers may be bench warmers, I can discount the week 11 issue. WRs: B+ I don't hate these guys. Hill, Crowder, and Hopkins are all excellent receivers who are only held back by their situations - specifically, their quarterbacks. I think on balance, Crowder is the most reliable among them, and then Hill, while Nuk may or may not have a passer who can get the ball into his vicinity. I'm OK with the questions there, because there's three other good to middling choices on this roster; Taylor Gabriel has a role, albeit not a leading one, in Atlanta. Similarly, Marvin Jones I think is secure in the #2 role in Detroit. Paul Richardson is the outsider - I think he makes the team, but he's not guaranteed a significant role. Taken together I think this is a solid WR set, with no wasted picks. Maybe add Ty Montgomery to the list. My first real criticism then is that I don't see any of them as superstars - there's no Antonio Brown/Julio Jones/Mark Evans kind of guy who is likely to throw up several huge games a year. And secondly, there's two shared bye weeks - week 5 and 7 - that add a little risk. TEs: C+ Eric Ebron is not a great leading TE. He's OK, but I don't think his role is such that he turns in big games much during the season. The backups here are the big problem, though. Jared Cook is possibly fine, since he tends to have two big games each year, but the rest of the time he is a garbage man and I think the Raiders might not put up with that. And OJ Howard is a bigger gamble: he's a first round TE pick, and expected to both block and catch, but cameron brate could definitely keep his starting role and in any case as previously discussed, rookie TEs rarely do much in fantasy. Overall my problem here is spending three picks at TE but not winding up with reliable points at the position. D/STs: D+ The broncos are great. But where's the second D/ST? This is a guaranteed goosegg week 5, and no D/ST consistently performs, period. Not even the vaunted Broncos. Given how good Denver is, a second pick of even a middling D/ST would have pushed this from a D to a B+ or A- kind of grade, but without it, it's just a real big problem. OVERALL GRADE: B- Roethlisburger, Melvin Gordon, and three good WRs aren't enough to put a fantasy team into contention. They're good, and there's some quality backups particularly at WR, but there are too many poor picks on this team for it to really shine. DeShone Kizer and Marlon Mack are just errors, OJ Howard and Paul Richardson are gambles unlikely to pay off, there are a few too many bye week duplicates, and D/ST is a serious problem. This team is pretty much a textbook "will finish in the middle of the pack" roster, with very little chance at a top three finish, albeit no disastrous choices that should plunge it to the bottom either.
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Jun 20, 2017 23:33
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Vietcongos/Vietcampo QBs: B Kirk Cousins is fine as a QB1 pick; maybe not the absolute top tier, but he's doing very well, and barring a sudden change in contract negotiations, in a prove-it year. As a backup QB, Tyrod Taylor is just OK; he has upside, perhaps, but is unlikely to suddenly shine bright. The lack of a third QB is a minor problem, though; week 5, Vietcampo is stuck with Taylor vs. the Bengals, and week 6, Cousins vs. the 49ers... so that's one not great matchup and one great matchup, probably. I'd still have liked to see either a better QB2, or a third guy, or both. RBs: C Shady is a great anchor for an RB corps, but the rest of this crew ranges from an OK guy in a RBBC (James White) to a high-upside gamble (Marshawn Lynch) to a bunch of low-upside gambles (all the rest). Williams can be seen as a McCoy handcuff, I guess. Woodhead is a career backup who will presumably do the same with the Ravens, or maybe earn a regular rotational spot... so another RBBC. And Donnell Pumphrey is a rookie who will likely make the team, but could wind up doing nothing but special teams. All told I'm really worried about this roster; at best, it's two regular performers and two acceptable but lower-usage backups. At worst, it's one solid guy and a lot of bad weeks. WRs: B+ There's a lot of solid picks here. I like Adams, Pryor, Thomas, and Fitz as veteran high-performers who should perform highly again this year. Mike Wallace and Marquise Lee also have opportunities, which make them good WR4-5 picks. I'm not too sure about the Zay Jones pick, but only because I don't know him; he's a rookie 2nd round pick in Buffalo, so he has opportunity, but is unlikely to be a superstar rookie; if Watkins' foot doesn't get better, he could be a huge bargain pick though, so that's cool. What knocks this crew down is the lack of a clear superstar top-five kind of guy, added to some problems with bye weeks. Week 8 in particular is a gamble, and there are two guys out week 5 as well. Still, this is a satisfying set of WRs with no weak spots. TEs: B Eifert and Fleener are perfectly fine guys to own at tight end. They both have solid records, remain in good situations, and have few question marks. Highly questionable is the pick of Jake Butt as a third guy, though: amusing name aside, he's very unlikely to matter, and he shares a bye week with Fleener to boot. I'm OK with taking a third TE, and even OK with a flyer, but Butt is coming off of surgery and not even guaranteed to make the team. Virgil Green isn't even owned, and no surprise given his performance in recent years, so why would you want the guy three spots behind him on the roster chart? Grab a third QB or a D/ST not on week 10 bye instead. D/STs: C Neither the Eagles nor the Ravens have an overwhelming D/ST, and they share a week 10 bye. If you're just taking middle-road fill-in D/STs, doubling up on the bye is a serious mistake. Even without that, there's not much of a chance of more than two or three big games all year from these two, although at least you're unlikely to get negative scores much. OVERALL GRADE: B- An underwhelming team destined to finish in the middle of the pack. There are some strong players at WR and QB, and the TE position is reasonably covered, but weaknesses at RB and D/ST are problems. I feel like with the exception of Pumphrey and Butt, this was more of a "take safe guys" kind of team; I'd rather see two or three high-upside gambles instead of low-upside joke picks.
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Jun 21, 2017 00:38
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Gerald Everett is a rookie, but so was Jordan Reed. And Evertt's head coach was Reed's former TE coach and then offensive coordinator. In round 17 I really like his upside. The Rams and Chargers were drafted based on talent. I'm not worried too much about the position, but I really like how the teams themselves are made. I would've felt much better with my draft had I grabbed a third DST instead of Michael. Oh well.
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Jun 21, 2017 00:57
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You know i didn't even realize both my DST's had the same bye until after the draft, haha. When i took them both back to back i could've swore one of them was bye week 9 but i think that was the team right above one of them. By that point all the top tier DSTs were already gone from the run and with the Eagles, they aren't top tier or anything but they produce in fantasy, consistently ending up like top 5 the last couple years in points. Basically though my team is gonna be carried by my squad of WR2's whenever Shady and Beast both get injured. Thanks for the write ups, great reading.
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Jun 21, 2017 01:12
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Zeke's Freeks/Varg QBs: A- Manning and Rivers are solid if not amazing choices at QB; both are likely to have a few bad games, but both are capable of a few big games too. Siemian is exactly the kind of guy I like to see as a third QB option: he's the favorite in Denver, albeit a gamble, because he could lose his job to Paxton Lynch potentially, but if he does keep that job, he's surrounded by talent and great coaches who could have him playing big games by the end of the season. And if he isn't the guy, well, Manning and Rivers by themselves are a reasonably safe floor. RBs: B+ This feels like "Zeke Elliot, plus some guys" to me, and that's not ideal. Obviously Zeke is tremendous, although some argue he's due to regress a bit in his second year. What's worrying is identifying a clear, solid RB2. Arguably that's supposed to be Mike Gillislee, but realistically he's in an RBBC with James White and Dion Lewis. And maybe Bolden or Burkhead. I expect Gillislee to have a few standout games, but I can't credit a new england RB as being an all-season starter. Ware, Duke Johnson, and Vereen are all likely to see the field, but very unlikely to win a bellcow role or even in Vereen and Johnson's cases be the starter. Johnson is behind Crowell, Ware is just ahead of West, and Vereen is a passing-down guy behind Paul Perkins. Joe Williams rounds out the pack as a dark horse candidate: the buzz is that Shanahan demanded him, but I see Hyde as impossible to bench and Hightower as a proven quality RB2/3 kind of guy, so more likely Williams is in development for next year (Hyde will be a free agent) rather than an immediate slot into first team play. OK for the RB6. WRs: B+ Another solid but unspectacular set of players who can be relied upon not to suck as a group, but lacking one big superstar to drive big wins. Thielen, Arob, Edelman, and Beasley are all solid proven performers on teams where they should be heavily utilized. Brandon Marshall is now a Giant, which might be good for him, but he's in a crowded receiving corps with no certainty as to how he'll be used. I don't mind him but I think his upside potential is limited. The guys who seem like they don't belong are Eric Decker, whose situation is very unclear on a new team - he'll compete with Rishard Matthews, Corey Davis, Tajae Sharpe, Taywan Taylor, Harry Douglas maybe, Delanie Walker, and DeMarco Murray for targets. That's OK for a late round flyer pick, but Varg took Decker in the fifth round, and I think that's a reach. Consider WRs that went soon after included Emmanuel Sanders, Tyreek Hill, Larry Fitzgerald, and Corey Coleman. The other guy is Rams third-round pick Cooper Kupp, who is slated to be the slot receiver on that offense, being thrown to by Jared Goff probably. A gamble, but OK for a 19th round pick! The three week 8 and two week 9 bye weeks are a minor problem. TEs: B Delanie Walker is really quite good, albeit not a top five guy, and Julius Thomas ought to do better this year and serve as a reasonable TE2. I think a third TE instead of the superfluous sventh WR would have been a better choice. D/STs: C The steelers are a middle of the pack defense, and the dolphins are significantly further down in the pack. If you're going to only take two D/STs, I think you're obliged to take a really good one as your top pick; relying on the steelers and dolphins is not a great plan. OVERALL GRADE: B This is a good team. But I just don't love it at any position. None of the positions are horribly weak, but none of them impress me as league-leading either. I expect this team to finish well, but it'll need a fair bit of luck to break the top three, and with some bad luck it could be a bottom-six finisher. Overall it's too safe, lacking in high-upside lottery tickets, and relying too much on Zeke Elliot to carry the day.
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Jun 21, 2017 01:19
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Final thoughts: I wrote these and posted them as I finished each one, so they're probably not consistent across the board. In particular I suspect I called for like eight teams to finish in the top six. I probably didn't adequately distinguish the middling teams. I'm guessing that with a couple of exceptions, all of the teams are pretty decent with at least some shot at a top-three finish, and even the worst teams aren't embarrassingly awful. That goes to show that goon FF people are pretty well informed and not stupid. Beer4TheBeerGod posted:Gerald Everett is a rookie, but so was Jordan Reed. And Evertt's head coach was Reed's former TE coach and then offensive coordinator. In round 17 I really like his upside. Another thing I didn't do consistently is look at where people drafted guys. In a few cases I was like "who is this gamble?" and checked and saw it was a very late round pick, and then stated that that was OK, but I undoubtedly missed some places where I should have given credit - or penalized - for value picks and reaches. Doing this writeup I think helped me prep for the next slow draft, too. A lot of players I had to look up on rotoworld and then revise my opinion as I was writing. VietCampo posted:You know i didn't even realize both my DST's had the same bye until after the draft, haha. Fantasypros [url=https://www.fantasypros.com/nfl/rankings/dst-cheatsheets.php]puts the Eagles at the top of "tier 4," 15th out of 32 - e.g, not great but not terrible - in their D/ST 2017 rankings. I relied on that table for my D/ST opinions, mostly.
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Jun 21, 2017 01:26
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Leperflesh posted:The Glennophant Man/Sataere On QB, there was a run before Mariota dropped to me, which sucked hard, so I doubled down to protect myself. As for Glennon, I think he's starting the year. John Fox will want a veteran. I feel he's a good hedge. For RB, I pretty much agree with you on it being scary thin. Dion Lewis is a guy I like with a decent PPR floor. Stewart was value. Crowell is good, but I'm not completely sold. Martin scares me, but his value was too good. Howard is the only guy I'm comfortable with. I think he has a high floor and high ceiling. I don't think it's homerism either. I saw him last year and he's just good. My WR depth is why my RB and QB depth sucks  TE is fine. Zach Miller Is A TE1 when healthy. I will enjoy the five games I get from him. He's a glorified receiver. DEF I disagree. KC has been top five consistently and with ST touchdowns and Tyreek Hill, I feel comfortable with them. Giants DEF is stacked and I feel they provide a good balance. I wanted a third DEF because DEF is really inconsistent year to year. I'm just betting on Vic Fangio. It's a swing for the fences lottery pick. EDIT: I think you are pretty on point. Just laying out my logic Sataere fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Jun 21, 2017 |
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Jun 21, 2017 02:58
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Yeah it's useful to hear your thinking regardless, and I don't think we're strongly disagreeing either.
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Jun 21, 2017 05:16
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Leperflesh posted:Mitchell Trbibooooo.../Coronaball I agree with some of this (the Kizer pick should have been a 2nd defense and my TE are average at best) but I think you undersold my RB and oversold my WR. I think my WR as a group are weaker for a best ball, whereas my RB are stronger. Gordon and Blount are always candidates for multi-TD blowup games. Montgomery is not part of a committee, he's basically an unquestioned starter as things stand today. Burkhead might be a starting RB for the best team in the NFL. (or he might a zero, admittedly) I think you even undersold Marlon Mack; he's likely going to be the direct backup for a 34 year old RB. On the other hand, I hate my WR. There are no confirmed superstars, as you said. Hopkins would be one with even average QB play, but we can't assume that from a rookie QB. Crowder would be better in a regular league., he's more of a PPR accumulator guy. Hill obviously has big potential, but we have a small sample size and Andy Reid silliness to deal with. The rest are just dudes. edit: but thank you for looking at it. That's the entire point of this exercise, is to flesh out how guys should be valued
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Jun 21, 2017 06:14
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Leperflesh posted:Dream of Crabtree-Fournett-Cation/Drunk Nerds Leperflesh posted:The Glennophant Man/Sataere Leperflesh posted:Fantasy Fartball/Tiptoes I think my only real regret was taking Sanders in the 5th over Martavis Bryant. I could've taken a bigger swing if I knew I could've targeted D-Jax and Tyrell later but I wasn't expecting to get them where I did.
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Jun 21, 2017 08:05
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I'm glad you guys seem to like my draft. I'm going to get into my process a bit on why my team looks the way it does. This is my first slow draft, but I find that it is very similar in format to the Cheating for Charity league and I treated my approach as such. The nice thing about the beer league is that it isn't as important that you have the top tier players at their position. Having boom/bust guys balanced with floor guys can really allow for tons of big scores. I think this de-emphasizes the quarterback position even more than it already is. Because all you need is a couple second level tier players to provide points. Three starting quarterbacks is optimal, because you give yourself the best opportunity for someone to hit, while providing a safety net at floor. I use that same approach for defense and tight end. With defense, I think having three options is important also, because defense can provide a decent chunk of points on a weekly basis if you get the top one. The problem is defense is hard to predict from year to year. KC has Toub and Hill, so I feel they add a special teams element and they've been good. NYG has so much talent, especially across their front line. Chicago has invested a ton of capital into their front seven and have one of the best defensive coordinators, so they are a nice upside pick. And once again, I just need one of three to gave a big week on a given week. For TE, I just wanted a guy who has been consistently good and guys to back him up that see targets and are clear number ones. Running back and wide receiver were interesting. My running back depth suffered because I tended to draft for floor instead of ceiling. In my first eight picks, I only took Howard in the first and Crowell in the first. I wanted more running backs early, but the quality of receiver talent trumped it. And frankly, half the running backs are going to miss significant time. In best ball, I'd rather my talent be on the receiving side. My roster composition was deliberate, although I would have preferred one more running back. But hedging injuries is very important to success, in my opinion. Sataere fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Jun 21, 2017 |
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Jun 21, 2017 21:02
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Good read Sataere My strategy was simple, as this was my first best ball draft (odd, seeing as how I've played in multiple leagues for 17 years, now). I just wanted to go best player available until the well ran dry, then utilize the advantages provided by best ball to shore up my weaknesses. So I got Bell/Ajayi/Brady/Gronk, then I tried to patch over my WR hole by getting 7 guys with oddly high upside. I worry my RBs are too thin once Bell/Ajayi get injured. I'd have to look at whose available, but I think I would like to have picked another solid RB in the 5th instead of Martavis Bryant. At the time, I didn't foresee that I would nail that WR crew, so I wanted to get some WRs right away. Drunk Nerds fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Jun 21, 2017 |
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Jun 21, 2017 22:55
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I think your thinking is pretty well aligned with mine. In this format I favor minimum 3 at any position. I've done slow draft two years running already, so this is the third year, and what I keep finding is that injuries are random enough that you just can't count on two guys to stay healthy and if you lose one, you're simply out of the running, period. This is my 2016 slow draft I roster: http://www54.myfantasyleague.com/2016/options?L=52094&O=07&F=0005 Early in the summer it seemed like Jared Goff was sure to be the Rams starter; that was wrong, and it cost me. Going with just two kickers was also horrible, although my luck there was kind of insane; not many starting NFL kickers wind up not on a team halfway through the season. Only having two D/STs also seemed like a weakness, even with two pretty decent ones. And Bruce Miller was a very late round half-joking pick that was supposed to be a lottery ticket, but it was dumb to take a 4th TE with not much upside. That drove home for me that there just aren't enough draft positions available to be goofing around with any of them; a longshot lottery ticket needs to have a big upside potential to be worth it, and it should also be in a position where you could use the points - I already had three TEs. Marshawn Lynch was... well, on the exact day I drafted him there was still some questions, becuase he hadn't signed his retirement papers for no explained reason, and I thought... wow, maybe he's not done? Turns out I was right! Just a season early. All told I just had too many gambles on that team. I had some bad luck too, but you have to assume you'll have some bad luck, and make sure you can weather it. I did that with my WRs (Doctson never got healthy enough to play really, but Landry/Nelson/Sanders kept the position alive) but failed with my RBs (Murray and sometimes Powell wasn't enough to make points every week). I did it at QB (Goff was a disaster but I had two very solid guys with Rodgers and Palmer so I was OK) but failed at kicker. Etc. That team finished 8th, averaging 121 points per week, while the winning team (VietCongo's) averaged 142. I don't know if I could have found 21 points a week from fixing the holes at K and RB, but I could have finished a lot higher. Here is my 2016 slow draft II roster: http://www71.myfantasyleague.com/2016/options?L=58011&O=07&F=0005 It's a similar story. A failed gamble on Jared Goff (for gently caress's sake why did I draft him twice), hosed by Blair Walsh (ughhhh), a lack of depth at K and D/ST, and bad luck with a couple guys (Ben Watson, Khiry Robinson, Josh Doctson). Eight wideouts was clearly too many. Six RBs I think was OK, I had decent peformances from the top ones so losing Khiry didn't hurt as much. Same deal with Mariota + Palmer compensating for the lack of Goff. Jordon Cameron was a mistake, too. I feel like this draft was better than the one I talked about above, and the results bear that out: I averaged 132 points per week, but in a league where the winner managed 147, so a similar finish. It's worth looking at the two winning teams in those leagues. Here's VietCongo's winning roster for 2016/1: http://www54.myfantasyleague.com/2016/options?L=52094&O=07&F=0006 Surprising me here, he only has 2 each of QB, K, and D/ST, concentrating depth at WR and RB. I think the keys are: Zeke, Luck, Crabtree, and the Texans, plus good luck with injuries and few gambles on rookies. But there's still some washouts and zeros, and obviously Zeke was a gamble on a rookie, so... yeah, this team kind of makes a mockery of my analysis so far in this thread. Here's the 2016/2 roster: http://www71.myfantasyleague.com/2016/options?L=58011&O=07&F=0012 Hmmmmm. I may need to rethink things. e. Big picks here were DeMarco Murray in the 5th round, because a lot of people were down on him after his lovely 2015 season; Jordy Nelson coming back from injury to have a monster year as a 2nd round pick; Jameis Winston having a monster year as a 11th round pick; and the Buccaneers in the 24th round. I think the key to winning the league is just drafting incredible values, maybe. e2. Also lol both kickers had the same bye week so I guess going goosegg on kicker points week 8 doesn't mean poo poo fantasy football is dumb Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Jun 21, 2017 |
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Jun 21, 2017 23:06
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I think I'm a B+  but yeah my teams always kinda turn out that way, relatively safer picks of guys I know will get ample time on the field and opportunities to do things.. I'm not a boom/bust picker 
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Jun 21, 2017 23:54
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Boy I did a really bad job on this one
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Sep 19, 2017 05:55
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timp posted:Boy I did a really bad job on this one Same. I drafted Patrick Mahomes.
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Sep 19, 2017 14:54
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Trevor Siemian is my best pick so far 
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Sep 19, 2017 16:01
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I went from 115.5 last week to the weekly high score of 161 this week, largely on the strength of Carson Wentz, Jalen Richard, Jason Witten, and the Cincinnati Bengals D. and Matt Forte... ...and Jack Doyle? I uh, don't think I'll be repeating that performance soon. I've got two busts so far: Latavius Murray, the odd man out in Minnesota, and Mike Williams, who hasn't returned from injury. That's actually not bad compared to last year when I think I started the season with multiple players on free agency, and went half the season without a starting kicker.
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Sep 19, 2017 17:12
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My team, Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks Dicks, is on a tear with Gurley and Deshaun
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Oct 5, 2017 15:10
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I (Anvil of Crom) bounce between fantastic and horrible weeks. Top score week 2, bottom scores weeks 3 and 4. Stop getting injured you bastards 
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Oct 5, 2017 16:06
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Leperflesh posted:I (Anvil of Crom) bounce between fantastic and horrible weeks. Top score week 2, bottom scores weeks 3 and 4. Stop getting injured you bastards I've mostly been down this season, but a couple weeks ago I was the points leader like, out of nowhere. The Best Ball aspect really does change everything about how you need to think about assembling a team, and nevermind the fact that we all drafted like 4 months before the season started. Had a bit of fun browsing through this page today: https://www51.myfantasyleague.com/2017/weekly?L=60657&W=6
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Nov 2, 2017 15:18
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Hah, I just did that yesterday myself. Was thinking of doing a mid-season writeup based on the preseason writeups I did, see how well I predicted success etc. Would anyone care about that?
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Nov 2, 2017 20:17
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Leperflesh posted:Hah, I just did that yesterday myself. Was thinking of doing a mid-season writeup based on the preseason writeups I did, see how well I predicted success etc. Yeah I'd be into it!
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Nov 2, 2017 20:51
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Alright. I'm gonna quote previous reviews so I can comment on them. Starting again with my own roster:  Leperflesh posted:Anvil of Crom/Leperflesh New rating: B I have to downgrade my grade here, because the worst thing that could happen totally happened and I'll be getting zilch at QB in week 10. On the other hand, I picked well for my QBs: Wentz and Carr have ensured that I've gotten solid points at QB most every week, even with Rodgers out: even with Carr being hurt and having poor outings weeks 3-6, Wentz filled in nicely, and his 32 points in week 7 were delicious. quote:RBs: C+ Y...yeah, maybe even a C+ was too nice. Lamar Miller's 89 on the season is pretty crap: 7 teams in our league have at least one RB who has more than 100 points on the season (and Drunk Nerds' team has two), so topping out at 89 is well below average. Fat Rob, Latavius Murray, and until very recently Matt Forte have been mostly busts, and the Forte/Richard pair are performing as backups - Richard scored high in week 2, and Forte has put up 10+ points three times, but otherwise has been a bencher. I can be hopeful that based on last night's Jets game maybe Forte will become more of a standout player rest of season, and Kelley got a TD last week, but my floor on RB points per week is way lower than it should be. This was undoubtedly the cost of going so hard on QB early in the draft. quote:WRs: B C- Ughhh. I really can't be faulted for thinking Julio Jones would be a superstar, right? But this year he's just not, despite winding up counting for starter points every week other than his bye for me, which is itself an indictment of the rest of my WR bench. In fact the giant value on the team is Crabtree (who I have been totally right about compared to Cooper except up till week 8), and Mohamed Sanu was also a good value, starting every time he hasn't been on bye or hurt. Kenny Stills might have been better with Tannehill, but was only supposed to be an occasionally good player. Mike Williams missed 5 games from injury and has not been used since. Randall Cobb was useful weeks 1, 2, and 4, but has seemingly faded into uselessness since, and taking a 3.5 point contribution from him in week 6 really hurts. quote:TEs: C- C- Only one other team in our league has two TEs that put up 60+ points on the season (Beer's wife, with Engram and Ertz). Is that good? Consider Doyle's 68 and Witten's 63 both include bye weeks, too. Essentially they've been trading off as starters: Witten has gotten me 14.5, 20, 10, and 13 points in starting weeks, while Doyle has contributed 11, 2(!), 4.5, 14.5, and 24. And meanwhile, my mistake with Njoku has still earned me 8, 2, and 11.4 points in weeks 3,4, and 5. Overall I think some solid choices at TE have helped to rescue me in weeks when my RBs and WRs were awful, but... that's not the ideal situation, and Njoku remains on balance a huge mistake. I should have skipped Njoku at the spot I drafted him in favor of more WR or RB depth. quote:D/STs: B+ B+? Solid. 96, 99, and 90 points from these crews. The Patriots as the third-runner put up a starting points value just once - their 16-point game against the Jets in week 6 - but that represents the absolute floor for my D/ST position all year. Without them, I'd have had a 0, due to doubling up on the bye week. Then again, my analysis was pretty wrong - it's the Pats who have been the also-ran so far. If I'd taken a crew with a different bye week instead of the Bengals or the Cowboys, I might have been able to squeeze out 16+ every week on only two D/STs, which would have allowed for better depth at other positions. I think it's too early to tell if my three-D/ST strategy was stupid or good. quote:OVERALL GRADE: B C+ It's not my fault Rodgers died, but I've probably had below average to average injury rates (carr, crabtree, miller, forte, and sanu were all significant players who missed some time, but only Rodgers hit IR). My RB picks are the team's weak point, and Julio was the wrong star to pick... the Falcons in general are a much worse team without Shanahan, and that was a potentially predictable regression. I'm currently in fifth position in the league standings, but that's 74 points behind the leader, with no exciting prospects on my roster that could break out at any moment and start making up that gap. 2nd place is not far behind 1st, so really at this point I'm hoping to climb to third place by the end of the season, but easily able to slide back to 6th or worse.
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Nov 3, 2017 23:37
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Beer's Wife: Leperflesh posted:I'm just going in alphabetical order here, so... apologies in advance to Beer's Wife, I'm not trying to pick on you. But your team is... not great. LOL I was so wrong. Beer's Wife is sitting third in the league, 26 points ahead of 4th place. Her team is... not not great. quote:Beer's Wife A- Nowhere was I more wrong than here, at QB. I mean... should we credit Beer's Wife for knowing that Alex Smith would have the best season of his career? Or guessing that Jared Goff was going to leap forward from "massive draft bust" to "serviceable QB on a team actually seriously contending for a division championship"? gently caress I don't know, but that's what happened, so we can only guess as to whether this was sheer luck or sheer skill. It's worth noting as well that she took her first QB, Winston, in the 6th round, and got Smith in the 14th and Goff in the 15th. So the huge story here isn't so much picking Smith/Goff as winners, but getting them at tremendously cheap draft value. quote:RBs: C B The story here is that despite Darren Sproles and Dalvin Cook languishing on IR, and none of her RBs breaking 80 points on the season, every single one of her RBs has contributed points to her season score. Some have been quite low, but the point is that while there's no superstar - only one other team in the league has no RBs contributing 80+ points so far - she also has very few goose eggs on the list. As for my assessment: I was right about Cook, wildly wrong about Kamara (becuase the saints are stupid and misused AP, or I'm stupid in thinking AP could be used by the Saints, I'm not sure which), and generally not totally wrong about the list having no big star. But I missed that a crew of serviceable RBs is a viable strategy in this format, because any guy who can get 40 yards or a TD has a chance to contribute points and that's better than getting zero points. quote:WRs: A- A- Hm. Well, I typed the above assuming, as most people did, that Andy Luck was going to actually play this year, which was totally wrong. Hilton has still contributed points, but A.J. Green was the big star: his 97 points make him the third-highest-scoring owned WR in our league. The other story here is Chris Godwin sucking: he was indeed a garbage pick, only contributing to starting points once on the season (and that was a 0.5 in week 7, yuck). His best outing was 5.5 points week 3, but has otherwise failed to garner more than half a point in any given week, and that is not looking to change. Probably the best thing about the crew behind Green is that they're all playing and contributing. Shepard has been hurt, but is now probably the top target for Eli Manning when he comes back, possibly this week vs. the Rams. He put up a good score in week 3, too. Parker is hamstrung by Miami's situation, and has spent four weeks being injured, but he put up solid scores weeks 2-4 and could do so again. Hilton had big scores against the garbage defenses of the Browns and Niners and is not facing another sweetheart matchup, so the prospects for his future contributions are poor. But Allen Hurns and Keenan Allen are both solid near every week starters for this team, putting up startable points most weeks with regularly useful target numbers. All told I think I got my predictions about right: barring injuries I had the players fairly well pegged, and feel right about Godwin. quote:TEs: D A Here I think is the biggest area where I totally hosed it up. My Njoku pick was a big mistake, therefore Engram was also a big mistake, right? Well, Will Tye isn't a Giant any more, and with half their receiving corps injured, Engram's opportunity has been huge... and he's made the most of it. He's started for Beer's Wife four times, contributing at least 9 points and as many as 16.5, largely on the basis of three TDs and a ton of first downs. He had 12 targets in week 7 and should continue to get tremendous opportunity moving forward. The other story here is Zack Ertz, who is TE1 in our league with seven more points than Travis Kelce thorugh week 8. His season floor is 10.5 points and 5 targets, better than the ceiling on several other owner's TE corps. With a starter like that, who needs a backup? Well, Engram's been able to fill in as a FLEX option for Beer's Wife due to Ertz' incredible reliability. And the decision to only have two TEs has yet to backfire, although we'll see as the season progresses. quote:D/STs: B B Yup. I was completely right here: the seahawks and bills have been fine, turning in over 100 points each on the season, but taking a 0 on week 6 hurt. Turn Chris Godwin into a non-week-6-bye D/ST and this team maybe gets another 8+ points closer to second place in the standings. There are four other teams with at least two 100+ point D/STs, so ensuring you get a good score every week remains a priority for staying at the top of the charts, particularly given the late rounds that D/STs are available. The top unowned D/ST, the Detroit Lions, put up 18 points in week 6... and the Saints put up 33! The worst option, the Jets, put up 8: the others are the Skins 9, the browns 13, the colts 9, the titans 11, even the niners put up 9 points: the point is, pick any D/ST rated as next on the list and you likely had a solid score here, possibly a big one. quote:OVERALL GRADE: C B+/A- This team's monster WR crew was not such a monster, but having good bench depth at RB, a fantastic pair of picks at TE, and a solid and highly useful QB corps puts this team into championship contention, at least through week 8. Injuries could be costly, though: if Alex Smith or AJ Green go down, things look really bad, and Zach Ertz really needs to stay healthy, too. Call this a B+ if getting Smith and Goff was just luck of the random draw of QBs available in late rounds, or an A- if those were carefully-thought-out value picks.
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Nov 4, 2017 00:15
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oh dear god don't redo mine F-
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Nov 4, 2017 00:16
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Look this hurts me as much as it hurts you wait no that's not right, uh... right got it listen babe, it's not you, it's me hmm Let me work on my lame excuse for why I'm still gonna do a writeup on you
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Nov 4, 2017 04:37
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Corn Elder Thing/VEritek83: Before I get into the details, I just have to note that this is a beat up team. That is some lousy dang luck and it's obviously had a big impact on the team's success. Still, Corn Elder Thing is sitting last in the league with just 864 points, and yet I rated the team an A- originally. Is it entirely down to injuries, or was I way off base as well? Leperflesh posted:Corn Elder Thing/Veritek83 B- Well. I was sort of right about Wilson; 161 points on the year is solid. Unfortuantely, the backups here turned out to be worse than expected. Bortles is still pushing 100, and that's not terrible for your QB2, but it's also not good enough: only three other teams are lacking a 100+ point QB2 on the roster, and as we'll see, all three had either at least one really poor QB choice, at least one QB on IR for the whole season, or both. Where this team's QB picks really failed was with Bryan Hoyer, and while I saw Hoyer as a bad QB, I didn't guess that he'd wind up benched by week 6. Beathard was not a diamond in the rough, as I suspected, but he still got playtime, because Hoyer was crap. But Wilson! And the Jags have found a way to win games, but it's through restraining Bortles and having a functional running game and an exciting, dynamic, top-of-the-league defense. Bort just isn't being cut loose to funsling it all over the place any more, and understandably so, but that's costing Corn Elder Thing some points. Wilson slotted in as the QB even in poor weeks like week 1 (10 points) and week 2 (14 points). He's doing great now, though, so assuming he stays healthy, 20+ per game rest of season is certainly possible. quote:RBs: B+ D. OK, yes, nobody could have predicted that DJ would die and lose most or all of a season. But I totally called it on the danger of having all your eggs in one DJ-sized basket. Rawls, Sims, Dixon, Conner, all useless backups. OK Dixon is also on IR, for the whole season, but he was gonna miss 4 games anyway and the Ravens don't need him. Coleman is the points leader, but Freeman is not hurt and so his upside is limited. Basically this team took a shot in its heart, and that's just bad luck... but it had very very little to back up its one superstar RB, and that's a drafting mistake. I think I had the analysis right, but the grade wrong: riding your season on one guy is just a bad idea in this format. quote:WRs: B B Man, I think I absolutely nailed this analysis! I'm really quite pleased with myself. Key points I got wrong: Baldwin is not "upwardly regressing" towards 10 TDs, and in fact is on pace for just 4 for the year. But he's getting the yards and the targets and is the top WR on this roster. Alshon is the #2: he's clicked with Wentz and is getting 2-4 catches most games, and has three TDs on the season. Pierre Garcon has gotten volume short passing yards from a garbage QB situation but zero TDs, and now he's headed to IR so he's done for the year. Matthews is getting three to six catches per game, but has only found the end zone once, and is not going to break out and become a key wideout on that team. Mitchell and White are non-contributors on IR. As before, you can't fault Veritek for not predicting season-killing injuries, but this WR corps' three key guys are not cutting the mustard on their own, and the upside-gamble guys aren't really working out. This is a B for effort, and a C- for results, just from bad luck. quote:TEs: B C-. Reed has predictably missed two games and will miss a third this week. The surprise is that it's not concussion, but... the unfortunate bigger surprise is that Hunter Henry is not having a standout year, and the key problem is that Veritek really needed a third tight end to pick up the slack. A good one. Especially given the best-ball + flex format, with his injuries at RB and WR the game has slotted in both of his TEs in all but two weeks, and yes, that includes week 8 when Jordan Reed got 0.5 points. A tenth-round TE beats a useless or injured lottery ticket WR/RB that never worked out, it turns out. If reed's injury woes continue, this grade probably goes down further to like a D. quote:D/STs: B A- Welp I'm pleased to say I got this one wrong, on one count. I got the Panthers right: they're a fine pick, but not a guarantee, ranging between back-to-back 20+ point weeks 7-8, and back-to-back terrible games with 1 and 7 points respectively in weeks 3 and 4. But the Jags! Oh my goodness, the Jags. OK, yes, a 2 point game in week 2, but five of their 7 games so far this season have been 19 or more, and three have been 30 or more points! Fantastic. With a team like the Jags, the Panthers serve as a fine backup, and no need for a third D/ST. Maybe they'll have simultaneous bad matches later in the season for some reason or another, but I can't really find too much fault here, especailly since one thing this team really needs is more depth at the skill positions. quote:OVERALL GRADE: A- C+ Boy howdy did I get this wrong. It's interesting: I think I correctly identified several of this team's key flaws, but then dismissed them because of the stars at key positions. The horribly unlucky injuries to the star RB and three other players hurt, but they hurt so very much because this team's strength at three positions was paper-thin. And key drafting errors in taking Hoyer, Conner, and Rawls became much more important once the injuries piled up. I'm still awarding a C+, because I think if DJ hadn't got hurt, this team would still be in the middle of the pack, as I'd suggested. But I was wrong about that being "more or less guaranteed" because I failed to account for the injury risk. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Nov 8, 2017 |
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Nov 4, 2017 05:12
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Dicks Dicks Dicks [etc.] by Risquebarber is a doomed team. He's sitting in fifth place in the standings, which is a solid showing, especially once we consider some brutal injuries; but now he's hosed and will likely end the season in the bottom three. Let's take a look! Leperflesh posted:DICKS DICKS DICKS etc./Risquebarber D+ Yup. Boy was that Deshaun Watson an amazing pick, huh? Yes indeedy, and his 183 points on the season leads all QBs in our league. But I had this dead right anyway: Mahomes isn't going to play, and Luck was a losing lottery ticket. Risquebarber spent three picks on one starting QB, and that guy is now dead and he will be getting zilch for the rest of the season at the key QB position. Even without the season-ending injury, Watson had a bye week that yeilded 0 for QB, and a bad week 1 of only 9 points, too. He'd undoubtedly have had one or two more poor games ROS. In this format you absolutely need at least two functional QBs in order to pile up points weekly, and Risque didn't secure a guaranteed-starting QB2. That's going to turn out to be a season-destroying mistake. quote:RBs: C C+ I'm upgrading my grade because what I viewed as a gamble turned out to be a solid RB1 choice in Gurley. He's the only player other than Deshaun on this team who has accumulated over 100 points on the season, and his 146 is very very good; only Kareem Hunt has more, at 150, and the third guy in the league is Zeke at 141, with Leveon Bell running up in 4th place. That's a hell of a company to be in the mix with, and there's no signs Gurley is going to fall out of their mix. Pretty much the rest of my analysis was spot on, though, and I'm holding the grade at a C+ as a result. Bilal Powell has been a backup but still useful, particularly his week 4 huge game, but also contributing 9 points on two games and a handful on a few others. Prosise didn't work out, Foreman is being used but is just a backup, Booker is in the same arena, and Theo Riddick is Just A Guy, slightly more useful than those dudes but not as useful as backup Bilal Powell. Todd Gurley may have survived where other stars on this team did not, but we see here the same principle as I've discussed previously for this and other teams: one star followed by a roster of nothing but backups is highly vulnerable to injury and just doesn't cut it, particularly for positions where you need 2-3 players per week to have good games. quote:WRs: B B I'm not gonna downgrade the grade here just because ODB and Corey Coleman both died. I was pretty much spot on with the rest of the guys: Cooks has been a great contributor, Lockett has been Lockett, Doctson did nothing weeks 1-2 but has been worked into the mix and a couple of TDs have made him periodically a starter, and while Corey Davis did not pan out, JuJu Smith-Schuster totally did. This week, Cooks and Smith-Schuster are both on bye, though, so that's gonna hurt. Dicks Dicks Dicks is only 13 points behind me in the standings, sitting at the middle of the league in position 6, but this week I expect he'll be falling back due to WRs in addition to falling back due to QBs. quote:TEs: B B Yup. Kelce is still Kelce, Clay has been a useful backup, and Shaheen is a wasted pick who will not contribute. Gates would have been a better option, although Tye is now unemployed and so that would have been an even worse pick, lol. You know who else got drafted after Shaheen? Mike Glennon. And a bunch of D/STs were available, too. quote:D/STs: C D. Oh, hey, I was totally wrong: the cardinals are not a "very good defense," they're a mediocre defense. Woops! They've had two 3-point games, and their high on the season was 18, in week 2 against the dog-rear end colts. Going with just one defense was a bad plan: making it the Cards was worse. quote:OVERALL GRADE: C C- I think I pretty much nailed it on this one. If both Beckham and Watson hadn't been hurt, a finish in maybe fourth place was attainable: but without a QB2, D/ST2, poor performers behind Gurley and Beckham, and too many wasted picks, this team still could not have contended. That said, I'm very sympathetic to the losses here, and honestly there was a chance that Alex Smith plays like Alex Smith and Mahomes gets rolled out, Andy Luck is fully healed and starts by game 3, Josh Doctson has the standout rookie year he was expected to have if he hadn't been hurt last year, and everything comes up roses, this could have flipped the script and seemed like a genius play. Right? Ehhh, no, life is too cruel. Sorry, Risquebarber.
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Nov 4, 2017 05:44
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Geez, these take a while. I'mma take a break, get to more of them maybe tomorrow. I do hope I haven't offended anyone: I'm trying to be honest and intend my analysis to be helpful both to myself and to everyone in the thread.
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Nov 4, 2017 05:46
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Dooo meeeee. My RBs are garbage.
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Nov 4, 2017 08:22
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It's easier for me to do them in the same order as last time: alphabetically. But I'll get to you! Next up we have Drunk Nerds and his team, Dream of Crabtree-Fournett-Cation  Leperflesh posted:
B I was sort of right about these guys, except that I failed to note that with only two QBs, if either one gets hurt, your position is suddenly quite thin. Also, while Brady remains a top-tier QB, the cracks are showing: a steady 16 to 18 fantasy points per game the last four games, but this week Brady is on bye, and with Palmer out on IR, Drunk Nerds takes a goose-egg this week instead of the juicy week 9 matchup the Cardinals have against the 49ers. Brady is amazing at staying healthy himself, but in the long run, Drunk Nerds is going to miss the occasional fill-in his QB2 was providing (Palmer was started weeks 1 and 6). A third QB - even a bad one - would probably have been worthwhile. quote:RBs: A- A- Well, I was sure wrong about Ajayi, but I was also wildly wrong about Kareem Hunt! They balance out, because Ajayi and to a lesser extent Washington are providing useful depth, while Perkins and Williams are wasted picks. But Nerds drafted very very well anyway: a guaranteed performer with Bell, a couple of useable RB2/3 type guys, and a gamble that paid off bigtime with Hunt, who Drunk Nerds drafted in the 11th round. What an incredible bargain! So the - on the A- is due to taking Paul Perkins or Jamaal Williams over a third QB. quote:WRs: B+ B- Well, I was right that there's no solid star at WR1, but (perhaps like Drunk Nerds) I largely overestimated the value of most of the guys here. Will Fuller is the standout: despite starting the season injured, he's come back since week 4 with a floor of 13 points and a ceiling of 26.5 just last week against a traditionally stingy pass defense at Seattle. Ted Ginn is close behind him on points for the year, but that's spread across seven games: in reality he's good but not a star. Snead is a total bust, Bryant has been eclipsed by JuJu, and Moncrief and Matthews are both hamstrung by low targets and poor QB play. JJ Nelson has had three 10+ point games so he's contributing, but his ceiling is 5 receptions and his floor is zero catches on one target (week 6). Basically, Drunk Nerds took a few chances, and while one is paying off, several others are disappointments. With effectively five to six WRs getting targets every week, he should still get enough random good scores to fill out a roster and stay in good shape with weekly scores, but he's only going to occasionally dominate when Will Fuller has a big day backed up by a couple random big days from other guys. quote:TEs: A- B+ Yeup. Gronk is Gronk, Allen has zero value until Gronk is hurt, and Higbee's questionable value turned out to be... questionable. He had one good game of 11 points in week 5, but Drunk Nerds wound up taking a 5.5 point contribution in week 4 and a 2.5 point score in week 7 as well, as Higbee got slotted into a FLEX spot ahead of his worst performers at WR and RB. And this again highlights something I personally missed when evaluating TEs in the pre-season: good TE depth improves your last FLEX slot by some possibly-significant margin, while bad or nonexistent TE depth like we see here can be a liability. If Gronk goes down, Allen will fill in, but will not actually be Gronk, he'll be a regular TE and Drunk Nerds will be exposed. That said, Gronk has only missed one game, and if he stays healthy, the mandatory TE slot will stay solid. So I can't downgrade this position all that much. quote:D/STs: B B-. Packers and Texans are OK to decent, but neither team has broken 100 points on the season, and while Drunk Nerds has been getting great points between the two of them, they're both likely to suffer from poor QB play leaving them on the field and getting scored against more, rest-of-season. So the problem here is that I was wrong: a third D/ST would have been a good idea. I can't fault the picks themselves, but yeah, maybe instead of Willie Snead or Paul Perkins, a third D/ST? quote:OVERALL GRADE: A B+. On balance, I still like this team, but a few vulnerabilities have shown up in lack of depth at a couple positions. Will Fuller probably isn't going to sustain top-WR numbers with Deshaun dead, Palmer's dead, and Gronk is always a risky guy to rely on. On the other hand, Brady, Bell, Kareem, Gronk, and a slew of quite decent second-level players could sustain this team rest of season, too. Currently sitting in second place, my bet is that Drunk Nerds winds up finishing somewhere between 3rd and 5th on the year, but a championship is not totally out of the question, and a finish at the bottom of the league is very unlikely.
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Nov 5, 2017 04:20
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Tiptoes and his team Fantasy Fartball are up next! He's currently right in the middle of the pack, 7th in overall standings.  Leperflesh posted:Fantasy Fartball/Tiptoes B-. LOL, all that was predicted, has come to pass. Matt Ryan has regressed; still OK, with 111 points on the season and a respectable floor of 13 fantasy points so far. Sam Bradford was actually fine to play game 1, so that sort of seemed like it was working out, but now he's dead. He might come back late in the season, but nobody knows for sure. Keenum or Bridgewater may wind up finishing out the season. And... hey, Garoppolo got traded!!! To the Niners. And he's not starting this week, although he'll be suited up. Even if he winds up heading up the Niners from week 10, he'll at best be a poor substitute, so Tiptoes is still pinning all his hopes and dreams on Matt Ryan. That could mean points every week from now on, but it's unlikely to mean Tiptoes can climb to the top of the league on the backs of his QB roster. quote:RBs: B B+ I pretty much nailed a lot of these assessments, although in some cases my "less likely scenario" is the thing that happened. Mixon is the #1 (but the Bengals suck); Latavius sucks and McKinnon is now the guy; Chris Thompson had a big start to the year but has regressed to merely a solid RB2 type guy since week 6 with good pass usage helping out with the low numbers of rushing attempts in most games; and Freeman is great while Gore is fading but still a solid RB2/3 type guy who can still contribute. Tiptoes gets credit for being better at knowing these picks than I was, and only Perine has turned into a probable-bust. I'm particularly impressed that he's getting good RB numbers from just six RBs, a tactic that if he'd carried through to the WR slot would have given him the option for badly-needed depth at TE and D/ST. quote:WRs: A- B- Yikes. I can't claim to have been smarter than Tiptoes here, because I honestly thought Dez, DeSean, and Sanders were a fantastic three-man WR crew to top this list. They are the leading scorers, but in Sander's case that's only just barely. What I missed here was: Dallas is leaning harder on RB play than in years past, DeSean is playing for Tampa Bay where Mike Evans hoovers up like 80% of the targets and Brate gets another 15% (or something like that), and the quarterback play in Denver is atrocious. OK, Sanders got hurt and missed the last two games, but he's only scored touchdowns once this season (a pair in week 2). His 15 targets in week 3 resulted in just 75 yards on 7 catches, which is... yuck. Especailly in this league's scoring where you really want deeper catches to get those first-down points. Similarly, Sammy Watkins had a huge game week 3 and has otherwise been all but invisible. And it's the same story with Tyrell Williams: a big game in week 4, but otherwise an also-ran, especially since week 5. The good news is, I was wrong about Robert Woods: this is a weaker team, so he's not a waste of a roster slot: he's started five times, and handed in respectable FLEX-slot points when they're badly in need. Then again, Curtis Samuel has not had an opportunity, with just 14 targets and six catches for the season; but perhaps with K-Benj being traded away, he'll see more playtime? In any case, the big problem here is spending seven draft picks on wideouts and not having a single one that could break 75 points, halfway through the season. The good thing is, there's enough solid mid-floor WRs on the roster to sustain reasonable scoring week-to-week. I don't think any of these guys are in for a huge breakout late in the season, though, and that's discouraging when you're in seventh place. quote:TEs: B B I still agree pretty much with my assessment here. I may have slightly overestimated Bennett's usage, but also underestimated Brate's; it balances out. Tiptoes has gotten 4 starts from Benett and six from Brate, but man, a third pass-catching TE would help here. Not nearly as much as a useful QB3, but it'd help. quote:D/STs: B C These turned out to be two mediocre picks. If you pick mediocre D/STs, you need three of them. See for example week 7, where Tiptoes had to settle for just 7 points in this slot, from the Bucs at the Bills. quote:OVERALL GRADE: B+ B-. I overestimated the WR crew, and the predicted woes at QB have come to pass. The TE and D/ST crews are just OK, and not going to sustain the drive up in the ranks that this team needs. Tiptoes projects to finish the season right in the middle. Both he and I overestimated what Ryan, Dez, and Freeman would do for the team, and that took away the upside potential he was relying on.
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Nov 5, 2017 04:52
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OK, now we have Sataere's team, The Glennophant Man, sitting at eighth place in the league.  Leperflesh posted:The Glennophant Man/Sataere B- Welp. One of the key drawbacks of slow drafting so ridiculously early in the summer is that we can't predict which quarterback will die before week 1. Sataere is just unlucky to have taken Tanny as his QB2 and gotten nothing for him. On the other hand, Mariota is, as predicted, not a big star QB, and similarly, Glennon sucked and could not hold off a first-round rookie. Even if Tannehill was still healthy, this team would only be getting B-grade quarterback play week to week; there's just no high-ceiling player helping to propel the team to league-dominating scores. quote:RBs: C+ C+ I was exactly right here. Doug Martin may catch up as he gets more games done, but his scores the last two games are not encouraging. He has yet to break 100 all-purpose yards in a game, and only has two touchdowns. Jordan Howard is a great running back being sucked down into the muck of being on a terrible offense run by an idiot. Week 3 shows his ceiling (30.5 points on 166 all-purpose yards and two touchdowns) but week 2 shows his floor (0 points on 9 attempts for 7 yards and no catches on one target). He's a great RB anyone would want on their team, but he's not putting up the seasonal numbers you need for your RB1 in this format. All the other RBs are contributing, there's no total busts here, but there's also no lottery tickets or rising stars who are going to propel this team out of mediocrity, either. Jordan Howard plus four OK RBs was never going to win a season. quote:WRs: A B Oops. OK, let's be fair: Maclin, Brown and Diggs have all missed time from injuries. Landry's quarterback died in the preseason. Nelson's QB died a couple weeks ago. K-Benj's QB died in a superbowl around two years ago and has never been himself since. John Brown's QB is dead! Stefon Diggs' QB died! K-Benj is a Bill! Aaaagh! There's just no way Sataere could have predicted the full degree to which his WR corps would get hosed over this year. That said, I can't in good conscience continue giving this crew an A, can I? When Jarvis Landry is leading the pack with only 80 points on the season, and Jordy Nelson is unlikely to repeat his two 20+ point weeks (weeks 3 and 4)? 57.5 of Stefon Diggs' points come from two games. Jeremy Maclin when healthy is still a Raven. I dunno, man, this seemed like such a good WR crew, but now, it's just a bunch of very good wide receivers struggling in bad situations. Maybe a little of this was predictable, albeit not by me. But like, by someone much better than me at fantasy football? quote:TEs: A [Incomplete] Oh man, yeesh. Olsen died week 2, but might be back in a few weeks. Fiedorowicz died week 1, and if he comes back, it'll be on a team no longer helmed by the most exciting and dynamic rookie QB this year. And Zach Miller is hurt, on bye, and has been inconsistent in Chicago. I can't in good conscience even give a grade, here. We cannot know if these TEs would have held up as an A-quality crew or not: it's just impossible to judge. I'm giving an Incomplete, Sataere, you can get your tuition back minus an administrative fee and try again next semester. quote:D/STs: B A Congratulations, I wildly underestimated the Bears defense this year. With two 100+ defenses on the roster, plus the Giants for occasional fill-in work (see: 28 points in week 6) this is just about as good of a D/ST crew as you can ask for. There's no + after the A only because a few defenses are doing a bit better, most notably the Ravens and the Jags, but being in the mix with the quite good D/STs like the Bills, Seahawks, Eagles, and Panthers is fine, especially when you roster two of them. quote:OVERALL GRADE: A- B? Hard to grade. This is one of the teams that got hammered by injuries: it's not as visible, since only three are showing as on IR, but the entire wide receiver crew has suffered from their own injuries plus the widespread deaths of their respective quarterbacks. Without those injuries, I think this team is in contention, although maybe not quite as strong as I had thought; with them, it's out of contention, lacking anything left on the roster that could result in a breakout. Mike Glennon was a big mistake, and the team needed an upside lottery ticket at RB. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Nov 5, 2017 |
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Nov 5, 2017 05:23
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Next up is Timp and his team Not Forums User Wayne Gretsky, sitting at tenth and only 8 points ahead of 11th position.  Leperflesh posted:please don't hate me B. I was dead on with this analysis. Trub has been playing since week 5, but has not started for Timp yet, and very likely won't. Dak and Cam have been fine individually and excellent as a tandem. The team's weekly floor has been 14 points, while Flacco's ceiling on the season is 16: he hasn't contributed yet, but definitely could at some point, particularly if one of the other guys gets hurt. This team could potentially have gotten away with just Prescott and Newton: the Flacco pick is defensible for depth/emergency fill-in, the Trubisky pick was a silly waste. Even so, Dak & Cam is good enough to sustain a solid B. quote:RBs: C C The schroedinger's box has been opened, and now the A/F uncertainty has collapsed into the sureness of a C grade. OK, yes, Fournette turned out to be an A+ pick, excellent! And DeMarco Murray has had a couple of good games, although as a star pick he's sucking. It turns out the usage for Charles is "used cautiously and sparingly, flashing brilliance but never being allowed to build up some points." AP has gone from invisible in New Orleans to huge in week 6 vs. the Bucs in Arizona; but then horrible week 7 at the rams. He'll probably wind up being an OK RB2/3 through the rest of the season, barring injury. Jeremy Hill is the odd man out in Cincinnati and will not be useful unless Mixon or Gio dies. and Jeremy McNichols is not a football player. The thing is, with Fournette as a clear RB1, and Murray + Peterson maybe being decent to good RB2s rest-of-season, you still have nowhere near enough depth here. McNichols was an 18th round pick, but RBs picked after him include DeAndre Washington, Jacquizz Rodgers, and Jerick McKinnon, so useable guys were available. quote:WRs: C C We'll have to see how Tate does against the Packers this week, but otherwise, everything that was predicted has come to pass, plus Meredith died before the season started. Which, yeah, you can't predict that, but you can predict that at least someone might die, and that's why you need depth at every position. This team has Antonio Brown, and with Golden Tate that's good enough for a C all by itself. But that's it, there's no depth worth owning past the #3 guy, who died. quote:TEs: B C+ I was being generous. Gates is still alive, Graham still gets decent usage, Hooper scored touchdowns weeks 1 and 8 and got 5 targets for 50 yards in week 4. But there's no TE1 here, Gates shouldn't be owned, Atlanta is struggling, and Jimmy Graham's best years are far behind him. Three TEs is good, but one of them should be a good TE. quote:D/STs: B B Yeah. I was dead on here. The team is OK at D/ST. A third pick would have been good. The Vikings with 112 are outside the top 10 D/STs in our scoring, but only just barely. The Falcons have contributed two scores on the year to this team, and will give a third score at the Panthers this week. Meh. quote:OVERALL GRADE: C C A C is a passing grade, and with a little bit better luck, this would be a passing team. But not a winning one. Fournette, Newton, Prescott, and Antonio Brown were excellent picks. But Trubisky, Hill, McNichols, Perriman, Treadwell, and Gates were all big mistakes. AP would have been a big mistake if he hadn't been so useless as to get traded to a team that desperately needed his kind of play. Charles was probably a mistake. Meredith might have been a good pick, but we won't know. On balance, this team is likely to finish somewhere near the bottom three, with the potential to climb up into the middle tiers if Adrian Peterson goes ham and all the remaining stars remain healthy.
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Nov 5, 2017 06:02
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