Whether you haven't yet started preparing for a draft, or are knee-deep in research, or are celebrating/lamenting your picks, I want to share a basic draft strategy that should be applied every time. It takes about 30 minutes to do this research--and to keep things moving, I've already pulled the data together for PPR leagues.
Whatever your league's scoring rules are, there should be an easy way to assemble a rank-ordered list of 2016's top 10 fantasy scorers. In PPR, four of these guys were QBs, while RBs and WRs were each represented by three players. Of course, this doesn't mean we rush to draft a the second- or third-best QB in the first round. QBs accounted for 46% of the top 25 fantasy scorers in each of the past five seasons. Their points should be placed in their own category, unless your league has scoring rules that don't top-load that position.
After gathering the top 10 information (should take less than 10 seconds--20 for lazy people), move on to the top 11-25. In 2016, 60% of the players in this PPR grouping were QBs, while RBs and WRs accounted for 20% each. Then do the same for 26-50 and 51-100. Then do the same for the previous four years, helping to ensure that anomalies aren't mistaken for trends.
The primary purpose of all this is to assess where flex points are coming from. Are elite RBs more valuable than elite WRs? When is the right time to draft an elite or near-elite TE? Are there any kickers or DSTs worth grabbing in the first 100 picks?
I want to stress that this is not exhaustive research. We're not looking at positional scoring gaps between tiers. We're not analyzing injuries to determine whether, for example, TEs were underrepresented in the top 50 because elite and near-elite TEs have been exceptionally prone to injury in recent years, and that this trend could just as easily in 2017. This a skeletal representation of positional scoring breakdowns for those without the time to do heavy-duty research, as well as for those who want a starting point for deeper analytical dives.
The 2012-2016 numbers are pretty compelling in their consistency. In each of the four groupings, there have never been more RBs than WRs. In other words, a WR3 might be a more reliable draft pick than an RB2. The same goes for a WR5 vs. an RB3.
I've written before how RB1s are far more replaceable on the football field than WR1s, RB2s more than WR2s, and so on. RBs are more prone to demotion and are greater injury risks.. While it's true elite pass-catching backs like David Johnson and Le'Veon Bell might deserve to go #1 and #2 overall, and a more catch-friendly Ezekiel Elliott could be worth a first rounder, we're taking a risk in PPR when selecting a non-elite RB instead of a comparably valued wideout. These statistics--gathered and computed in about 30 minutes--give us added value. Is it perfect? Far from it. But it's a step in the right direction. Added together with other research, it's a building block for smart drafting.
Tomorrow I'll walk through how this research can be applied.
Whatever your league's scoring rules are, there should be an easy way to assemble a rank-ordered list of 2016's top 10 fantasy scorers. In PPR, four of these guys were QBs, while RBs and WRs were each represented by three players. Of course, this doesn't mean we rush to draft a the second- or third-best QB in the first round. QBs accounted for 46% of the top 25 fantasy scorers in each of the past five seasons. Their points should be placed in their own category, unless your league has scoring rules that don't top-load that position.
After gathering the top 10 information (should take less than 10 seconds--20 for lazy people), move on to the top 11-25. In 2016, 60% of the players in this PPR grouping were QBs, while RBs and WRs accounted for 20% each. Then do the same for 26-50 and 51-100. Then do the same for the previous four years, helping to ensure that anomalies aren't mistaken for trends.
The primary purpose of all this is to assess where flex points are coming from. Are elite RBs more valuable than elite WRs? When is the right time to draft an elite or near-elite TE? Are there any kickers or DSTs worth grabbing in the first 100 picks?
I want to stress that this is not exhaustive research. We're not looking at positional scoring gaps between tiers. We're not analyzing injuries to determine whether, for example, TEs were underrepresented in the top 50 because elite and near-elite TEs have been exceptionally prone to injury in recent years, and that this trend could just as easily in 2017. This a skeletal representation of positional scoring breakdowns for those without the time to do heavy-duty research, as well as for those who want a starting point for deeper analytical dives.
The 2012-2016 numbers are pretty compelling in their consistency. In each of the four groupings, there have never been more RBs than WRs. In other words, a WR3 might be a more reliable draft pick than an RB2. The same goes for a WR5 vs. an RB3.
I've written before how RB1s are far more replaceable on the football field than WR1s, RB2s more than WR2s, and so on. RBs are more prone to demotion and are greater injury risks.. While it's true elite pass-catching backs like David Johnson and Le'Veon Bell might deserve to go #1 and #2 overall, and a more catch-friendly Ezekiel Elliott could be worth a first rounder, we're taking a risk in PPR when selecting a non-elite RB instead of a comparably valued wideout. These statistics--gathered and computed in about 30 minutes--give us added value. Is it perfect? Far from it. But it's a step in the right direction. Added together with other research, it's a building block for smart drafting.
Tomorrow I'll walk through how this research can be applied.
