Fantasy Football:Are You Building A Team with Common Sense?
Posted by Ray Tannock on Aug 25, 2009 in Fantasy Football
In the Fantasy world there are two realms: The technical realm and the basement realm
The technical realm is self-explanatory. The managers and writers in this realm are the cream of the crop. They posses more charts and crunched numbers than your resident accountant, they are armed with a myriad of acronyms that, to most, seem foreign, and they know more about every single player in the NFL than half the coaches walking the sidelines; unheralded in their craft to say the least.
Then there is the basement realm.
I say basement because most of the people in this realm are fairly new, or not as technical as the others. They aspire to one day be a member of the elite, they scour the internet—page upon, upon page— endlessly looking for that one tidbit of information that will put their team over the top. But the climb out of the basement is a difficult and very steep one; one that takes time and patience.
For those of you who are new to Fantasy; do not fret. Things aren’t as daunting as they seem, you can make Fantasy as complex or as easy as you want depending on how you do things, and what you think will work for you.
Drafting:
OK, we can get into the every two day updates on ADPs and the ever changing player rankings and all that fun stuff—and grant it— it does hold relevance, but when you’re just starting out or still relatively new, the best way to get things rolling is simply using your common sense—the rest will eventually come.
When you build your team, there are some things to take into consideration; how balanced will your team will be is a big one.
Here is an example of a roster on Yahoo I saw last year:
| Startrers: |
| QB Drew Brees |
| WR Plaxico Burress |
| WR Greg Jennings |
| WR Terrell Owens |
| RB Chris Johnson |
| RB Jonathan Stewart |
| TE Randy McMichael |
| K John Kasay |
| DEF Minnesota |
Pretty good initial roster to the untrained manager, but a further look into things can reveal some potential problems. Notice one of the starting RB (Jonathan Stewart) was a rookie while the primary backup was Earnest Graham. The problem here is that a rookie is always a crap shoot, you never know what he is gonna do— if anything at all— and how much playing time he will get. In addition, you also should have a competent backup just in case something does happen. In this case, Stewart battled injuries and lack of time while Graham underachieved which spelled disaster for this manager. Another problem is scheduling. Notice the two defenses are Minnesota and Dallas. Both of these teams had a bye in week eight; this was never addressed before the season got under way nor was it attended to during the season; knowing your teams’ schedule ahead of time goes a long way.
The TE situation is also a problem, McMichael is a speedy guy but not really all that great; certainly not known for garnering points while Shiancoe falls under the same category—no balance what-so-ever. Needless to say this team did not even come close to the playoffs.
| Bench: |
| QB J.T. O’Sullivan |
| RB Earnest Graham |
| TE Visanthe Shiancoe |
| WR Nate Washington |
| WR Miles Austin |
| DEF Dallas |
Another topic I want to touch is player names and the amount of focus new managers put on them instead of thinking outside the box.
A lot of times, I notice new managers almost always go for big name players rather than thinking things through. They go after guys like Owens, Ocho Cinco, Marvin Harrison, Burress, and let’s say Randy Moss, but big names don’t always mean Fantasy studs, in fact more often than not, this is true.
Let’s compare:
Season stats translate into points in Fantasy so let’s compare those “big boys” to the actual “big boys” of last year:
Big Name Starters Starters:
| Terrell Owens 14th overall NFC 1,052yds 10 TD |
| Plaxico Burress 55th overall NFC 454yds (injured) 4 TD |
| Ocho Cinco 33rd overall AFC 540yds 4 TD |
| Marvin Harrison 21st overall AFC 636yds 5 TD |
| Randy Moss 15th overall AFC 1,008yds 11 TD |
| Total Average 738yrds avg. 6.8 TD |
The big named players here were never top ten receivers and managers who drafted them with hopes that the name alone would garner points obviously found heavy disappointment.
The Actual Big Name Starters of Last Year:
| Andre Johnson 1st overall AFC 1,575yds 8 TD |
| Larry Fitzgerald 1st overall NFC 1,431yds 12 TD |
| Anquan Boldin 2nd overall NFC 1,038yds 11 TD* |
| Roddy White 3rd overall NFC 1,382yds 7 TD |
| Brandon Marshall 3rd overall AFC 1,265yds 6 TD |
| Total Average 1339.56yds avg. 8.8 TD |
*Even with the exception that Boldin missed four games you can see a vast difference in performance. The point being is simple: Drafting a guy just because of a name doesn’t mean anything, and with a bit of research into the player’s history, and a good look at their schedules, one may have realized the more popular players were probably not the best choices.
"Only 10 TDs?"
The moral of the story for those of you just getting into the Fantasy world is do your homework, take the hype, the talk, and rankings with a grain of salt, build a team that focuses on talent AND balance, and use your head.
And it doesn’t hurt to also read this and all the other columns here on Top Fantasy :)
Good luck to everyone this year, and I hope this helps those of you who may be new to this exciting world!
Bravo! Excellent point about backups being dependable especially with a rookie as your other option. It’s all about consistency.
You said it man, thanks! Being consistent is getting more and more important every year.
So, so true. I remember my first couple of seasons. I bought every fantasy football mag, read every column, and it certainly helped me build my own manner of discerning talent, but I discovered the “big” experts at places like ESPN and Yahoo, catered only to the big names, and really knew very little about the practicality of fantasy sports. It’s sites like these with writers who have really been in the fantasy trenches so to speak, who offer useful insight.
Great article.
Thank You very much! I agree with you, most of the bigger site are self-oriented so to say and give very little in return. Without siteslike these there would be a lot of confusion.
Ray
This article is bogus. Looking at the team he mentioned there is no way that player “did not come close to the playoffs.” This player had the best QB by far in Brees, and probably his leagues best WR combination. Plaxico Burress, although an idiot was a top five WR until he shot himself. Owens was this team’s WORST receiver with over 1000 yards and double digit touchdowns. Johnson was a rookie, sure, but did he not top 1300 yards last year (maybe even more)? Jonathon Stewart was a backup but he also was good for 900 yards and plenty of TDs…as the team’s worst skill position player. His arguments about TE is dumb considering Shiancoe was the best TE in the entire league not in the elite group of Gonzalez, Gates, Clark, and Witten…and he probably got him at incredible draft value while those four TEs were probably gone by the 5-6 round. The bye week argument? I’m sorry I draft the best team I can and worry about bye weeks later its not that difficult a problem to fix.
His argument about drafting big names make sense until you look at where these big names finished two years ago. What? Moss and Owens were 1-2 respectivly? Burress was easily top 10. Why the hell not would I not want to draft these guys high. Moss had the single greatest season in history for a WR. In fact, Larry Fitzgerald, the best WR last year, would have been the FOURTH best WR two years ago behind Braylon Edwards. I agree with the premise of this article, but how its presented is stupid and idiotic.
The article isn’t bogus and I am not sure on your approach of word usage like dumb, stupid, and idiotic. I hear your side which is great, but I still stand by my own. Two years ago those guys were the cream of the crop, and the article was supposed to show why you just don’t bandwagon, and jump on those players, even though everyone, a lot of times, do. The TE situation wasn’t dumb either. Neither TE was ranked in the top twenty before drafting time that I found, and Shiancoe is not the guy I would reccomend as having a backup if your primary goes down (which McMichael did after week 4 ) 576 yards and 7 TDs isn’t even top 10, but again that’s just my opinion.
I would also rather have ALL my problems ( the ones that I can see ) fixed ahead of time….not wait and worry about bye weeks later. Your Fantasy team is a TEAM would you wait and deal with a QB or a Running back “later” if they had the same bye, I hope not. Again, it was to inform the newer people that after the draft is
OVER then you address any glaring problems you may have so you don’t have to wait until the last minute.
That approach is simply lazy and unrewarding in the end.
Like I said two years ago is only part of the story, the part that everyone looks at and the part the usually gets folks in trouble the year LATER. Balance, and being responsible along with using common sense makes the best Fantasy managers winners year in and year out.
But thanks for your insight, even if your choice of words are a bit goofy ;)
Apologies for the word choice that post was designed to get a response, and the best way to do that is with over the top words. I will be more civilized this time around:
First, in response to your TE argument about Shaincoe’s 600 yards and 7 TDs not even being top 10: As a TE, these are great numbers in fantasy football. The TE position gets its points in TDs and 7 TDs was tied for 3rd in the league amongst TEs. After the big four which I mentioned would you rather 860 yards and 1 TD (Danials), 850 yards and 1 TD (Cooley) 630 yards and 5 TDs (Carlson)….in standard scoring leagues Siancoe was 5th best overall.
Second, in response to your argument about not bandwagoning on big name WRs: if you advocated not jumping on the Moss, Owens, Burress bandwagon because they were the cream of the crop two years ago, does that mean you advise against drafting Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, and Andre Johnson this year, since these are now the “big name players that everyone drafts early?” I agree to a certain extent that just because a player has a big year one year doesn’t mean he will repeat the next year (possible candidate this year include Thomas Jones, Michael Turner, Brandan Marshall, etc), but you certainly can’t assume that just because the player is a big name player that he is overvalued.
Finally the bye week argument: This is more a player by player thing but personally the first thing I do after a draft is drop all backups that are not RB or WR (perhaps QB if my QB is not a reliable starter) and fill those spots with breakout candidates. When I need to fill a bye week slot I simply drop one of the breakout candidates that didn’t pan out (there are always one or two) and pick up a player with a good match-up that week to fill the bye week. It’s worked for me so I will continue doing it. It also allows me to trade from depth: no one wants to trade for a back-up TE, but get a player with a lot of upside and you can swing nice trades. For example this year I turned Reggie Bush, Terrell Owens, Desean Jackson, Devin Hester, and Jericho Cotchery into Thomas Jones Roddy White and Margues Colston (through multiple trades). Depth can kill in trades.
Hey sorry for the delayed response.
I’ll start with the WRs. As I said in the post, I think homework is the key and I would advise staying away from Calvin Johnson, in respect to making him a high pick. I can’t see the Lions doing much in the passing game this year since the O-Line is still very much undecided and not showing much promise in camp in terms of change. Can Johnson eventually put up numbers? Sure. But perhaps this year (in my opinion) this really isn’t the year; especially considering the myriad of options out there. Andre Johnson is a hard one too. The majority of the time the Texans were playing come-from behind games, and Johnson…( so many Johnsons isn’t there ) could either be another stud or he may not. My thinking is, the Texans will be much more balanced this year, anbd even if Shaub goes down I believe Orvlosky will be a very fine backup since that seems to be the sway. But if the Texans get better on offense, then the ball should be spread around which could hurt Johnson a bit….very difficult read on him so far. Larry Fitzgerald I think is a very fine pick for two reasons: One he has great compliment on the other side of the field and he is just now starting to come into his own so the train is rolling right now…I would say jump on now, perhaps NEXT year he may not be that effective but of course way to far away to tell.
The TE argument was probably not explained as best as I could have so my apologies there. What I was getting at was McMichael wasn’t a very good option from the get go. Most of the talk coming out of Minnesota last year was Shiancoe being put back into a more blocking role, which meant the two guys…initially…seemed like a poor choice ( Mc Michael was no matter ) $ of Shiancoes TDs came early on then by Week ten he tanked a bit ( at least for four games) and had it not been for the game against Atlanta he would have been on par with Cooley…who, might I add, was such a dissapointment to me I really thought he was gonna be big last year. But knowing what teams could utilize the TE more than normal is also a good way to research prior to drafting. For example: The Raiders and the Jets have installed a more two TE friendly system and the benefits could be big for a group of guys that may not be known as well as some others.
The final thing about the bye week was more to just highlight the fact that two defenses had the same bye and nothing was ever done,; we all know the defenses are just as integral. But YOUR approach is very interesting. I normally don’t do a lot of trading early on, but I like the idea you have and I have never tried that approach. I DO like the turn over of players and can see what your talking about in regard to trading the way you do it. One question: How did ya wind up getting White? I’ll assume you traded Owens for him perhaps?
I’m glad I initially responded ( although I would have anyway regardless of the inital approach ) I like you viewpoint and opinions and I may even try your approach with one of my teams.
Thanks for keeping up with the feed Ted, I look foward to future back-and-forth debates with you!
I will start with Calvin Johnson: I can’t see how anyone would consider not drafting him. Last year he was good for 1330 yards and 12 Touchdowns (third best in standard scoring leagues)…with 5 different quarterbacks. I think that should be proof enough that he can produce despite the rest of the team was hopeless. This year he will be the beneficiary of more stability at QB plus he is entering his third year, which a traditionally a breakout year for WR (if breaking out is possible). The Lions have nowhere to go but up. I understand the Andre Johnson argument but 1500 yards is hard to turn away from. He may not have a great 2nd WR to draw away coverage but he has Steve Slaton to keep men in the box and at least keep defenses honest.
As for the trades I have made (I only have the one team but we had to pay to enter the league so there aren’t any non serious players in the league) this is what I have done. I traded Reggie Bush, T.O, and Desean Jackson for Brandon Jacobs and Roddy White. After that I turned and dealt Jacobs Hester and Cotchery for Thomas Jones (I have Leon Washington as some sort of handcuff) and Marquis Colston. As of now my team is Brady (drafted early second round), Jones, McFadden (early 4th), Randy Moss (late first), White, Colston, Shiancoe, who cares at kicker, and Dolphins with Leon Washington, Julius Jones, Fred Taylor, Nate Washington, and Josh Morgan on the bench. My hopes are one or two pan out in case of injury/bye weeks and the others will be recycled through waivers during by weeks. It’s a stratagy that has worked for me in the past: obviously i get killed if I have a bust or an injury but I think too many people draft scared and miss out on good talent because of that.
And I agree I enjoy these debates