fantasy football 15/16 thread

[ric]

i have an early conundrum for dynasty draft. so i tanked last season to secure the #1 pick this season
i will draft todd gurley with the first overall pick.
i also have pick #4 because i traded for it.
so do i draft #4 nelson agholor to maintain my virtual monopoly on eagles players?
or do i draft #4 tj yeldon who has already claimed the #1 rb spot on the jax depth chart?
or do i draft #4 marcus mariota and roll the dice so that no one else gets him?

for whatever primary considerations you may be having here are some secondary considerations;
1) i have bortles and allen robinson so getting yeldon is a perfect fit for my qb wr rb set up
2) i have almost every eagle except demarco murray which fits my team setup
3a) if mariota pops; sweet; if mariota sucks then 50% chance he lands in philly in a few years anyway
3b) but the way chip and oregon are moving is (from what i have seen) they want to move in a direction to pass more but obv mariota in philly even a couple years from now is good statistology no dizzle and if mariota sucks in tennessee there is always trade possibility

if i miss out on two of the guys i will obv be drafting tevin coleman i mean thats obvious that dude is slated to statistically dominate shit in the coming few years as long as its not some quad headed bullshit over there

but the big question here is what is my order of priority?

[alpha]

Draft players that will be good at fantasy football. That's it.

[wheels]

And stop cramming every Eagle you can find onto your roster

[ric]

everyone hates what im doing in re the team thing but im showing success since ive been experimenting with it so im not gonna stop evolving it

especially since if team 1 has a few stat ballers and i have a monopoly on team 1s stat ballers that squeezes out my competitions ability to find quality players especially when they are playing teams like the nyg the skins the cowboys

[wheels]

On Sunday, the Eagles rack up 30 offensive points, 400 total yards, and a defensive touchdown. Your ability to score is limited to that stat pool. Your best case scenario is that your fantasy football team, which is made up entirely of Eagles, accounts for all of it.

My team has players from 9 different teams. Each team puts up the exact same stat line as the Eagles. Again, my best case scenario is that my players score all of those points. Except my team is pulling from a much bigger stat pool. Hundreds of points, thousands of yards, etc. They won't account for all of those stats, but it's entirely possible that all of my players have 100 yards and 2 touchdowns.

In order for your team to do that, the Eagles would need to score 100 points on 900 yards.

[capable_keL]

wheels conceptualizes the winning strategy

[alpha]

everyone hates what im doing in re the team thing but im showing success since ive been experimenting with it so im not gonna stop evolving it

especially since if team 1 has a few stat ballers and i have a monopoly on team 1s stat ballers that squeezes out my competitions ability to find quality players especially when they are playing teams like the nyg the skins the cowboys

the problem with this second statement is that you assume there is a limited number of good fantasy players and that it correlates to real life offenses. Dez Bryant will probably be a better fantasy player than anyone on the eagles. Even Murray. You need to take off your real world bias and look at it strictly in fantasy terms. Who gets me points and who's gonna be good for more than one season. I can guarantee with the strategy you outlined in the first post you'll be in last place again.
Out of curiousity who would be in your top 10 or 5 for fantasy ric?

[ric]

@bros
first off here is what I've gotten using this strategy. my memory is weak and I may be missing a year after season #1 but this is how I remember it right now....

season #1. out of playoffs did texans schaub foster Johnson daniels combo the year after their best offensive year together assuming they'd bust out or have similar year. they didn't they got worse (the passing game got way worse) and I played the game suboptimally so I missed out on the playoffs.

season #2. chips first year. barely out of playoffs in one league but 2nd place with even more hardcore eagles strategy in another league with ppr points (I picked up foles and after a couple weeks played him and picked up Riley Cooper and played him) and the only reason I didn't champ up was because I picked the wrong te in the finals and literally any other choice would've been fine. Vick shady djax. drafted shady at 10 cause everybody was scared talking college offense garbage. we all saw what happened Vick didn't get it. foles did better statistically after a minute. shady dominated that year. had promising first couple games though that indicates just exactly how fucked nfl defenses would be if Vick could've fit better and why I personally think mariota was worth most any remotely reasonable trade. and I would have utterly dominated if only Vick could stop throwing interceptions and done even a halfway decent job in that offense. and really the fact that I almost made playoffs in my regular league even though the eagles had such huge issues is in my mind a testament to how much better this strategy is (see the section below).

season #3. last year. different sets. regular league went to semi finals after rough start that I actually predicted at draft because doing shit like this way is more reliable and predictable among other things. lost to biggest regular season dominator but almost won to get into finals. in dynasty league would've been like .500 like the other teams but intentionally tanked 4/5 games into the season to secure the #1 thinking the eagles would pay for mariota. and in another new league I champed up after an atrocious auto draft partly because i was able to team up a little bit but I totally forgot what I did and who I had because I don't really care about this league. in regular league went chargers rb + wr + te. in first season of dynasty league ended up with the following. 3 Jax 4 chi 3 sd (I didn't draft gates for dynasty) and a mix of dudes I thought were gonna be sweet and nobody else did like Ingram tre mason and Lamarr Miller. ended up with Eli and Jennings in the middle of the year but missed out on Beckham by one waiver spot. also missed Andre Williams.

re the strategy
it is important to notice that the way I treat the strategy at this point is not just to go out and grab a team with your first picks. part of the skill is to pick premiums and build off what you can get on or off their teams and at some level it's about what you can/not live with/out

the security of access considering the size of your bench is what matters. it's about picking the right players to play and shedding/benching the ones that don't make sense. if Mariota would've worked out guarantee the eagles get more dangerous. so he hasn't yet worked out. no big. I'm not worried about it. right now Im experimenting by going balls out eagles but the principle of having one teams key offensive players makes a lot of sense to me in a sport where guessing the game plan and execution for each individual and their corollary defenders in each individual game is so difficult inside the framework of choosing one player over another based on their abilities and matchups. I mean will teams shore up their weakness or play to their strength or come out of nowhere is one such consideration for figuring the fantasy potential. then there are people who don't play matchup and I'm half way in and halfway out of that boat because ignoring it has backfired on me too many times (going both ways) in unsatisfying ways and really especially in the early season it's so difficult to figure how teams are gonna defend x or do x or what they've dropped and what they're gonna keep. and it is for that reason why at least having the qb+primary rb is my ultimate recommendation right now and I've also got the key wrs too because these guys will usually get theirs (but sometimes wrs productivity is too diffuse) look at Allen Robinson. if dudes leg can stay unbroken hell be a key piece of that offense but guess who wants Allen robinson: fucking nobody but he was actually the most important player in that offense last season and his stats reflected consistent involvement which is dope for a rookie. but let us continue with an apropos discussion of team strategy: you got a rob bortles (who is better than most people/writers think) and then grab yeldon especially with a new oc who purportedly wants to "take the pressure off" bortles and you got the jags 3 key pieces who will probably score more than their fair share of the teams tds and yds and also be the most predictable people all on a team no one will look at once and assuming no injuries they will probably get their yds and tds. just period. but nobody is looking at it like that at all because name branding is honestly the most popular way people do things. but the fact is there's only so many trons and even tron is beholden to coaching and strategy. so is Dez Bryant for that matter. and that's one of the great things about the jags. the need to constantly be scoring points and or maintaining possession is key to what they're doing. at least what they ought to be doing.

an important thing here is that nfl teams are actually pretty similar in stats for the most part if you break it down by preferences (ie the way they run their offense such that a given position player in a given role will consistently produce along xyz stat line).

now some people will say 'that's the jags blah blah blah' but the principal applies and works for most every team. now some teams are gonna rotate 6 fucking rbs and that's obv problematic for maintaining consistency for each rb but that's partly why having the backups and playing them is fine especially in a league that is really starting to zone run real hard and especially considering the occasionally problematic by week. in fact I would bet that running the ball right now is priority #1 for most teams in the league because all that dogma about how passing is supposedly better is being thrown out the window for the dependability versatility and economic benefits of the zone run game. teams aren't interested in finding the next andrew luck and they're better off for it and with the team concept you can sort of wrangle the better part of the statistical chaos created by the diffusion in both the run game and the passing game. ty Hilton had 6 100 yd games last year he had 10 games at or below 80. he had 6 games scoring td that counted. and that is your #1 fantasy problem right there. consistency. and why did he have those big games and why did he have those little games? because the way they use him is mostly some sort of deep read and double move guy and how predictable is it that he will get the ball as individual? it's not really practical. I mean who saw his mediocre stat performance against nyg but assumed hed get 220 on Houston? and thus is the true genius of getting the rb + wr + qb. because at some level the stat is going to happen and you want somebody involved.

let me put it this way. I haven't seen a real quality argument against this setup that doesn't also apply to any other player as chosen as individual. of course the downside is your whole team can get shut out by a good d and that is the real problem but if you're multi teamed up or at least have a good insurance policy this will not only not be a big issue it's fairly predictable

re my top 5

i don't really do that especially because 2/3 of my current leagues scoring system is different and qb heavy and apparently doesn't translate and the other league I don't really care about that much. ie the Russell Wilson pick everyone on this board and real life hated actually was fine pick because he ended up being a top 5-10 scoring player in our league

but I will give you a list of players that most everyone underrated last year and/or may or may not be noticed this year because all these so called experts are hindsight messiahs. fucking Santa clauses. all of them. get these guys either as serviceable backups or to focus on getting other premiums first come around back because they will produce above their expected value.

you already know I like the nyg and they are building defense over there right now too
1 tannehill/miller/stills/landry
2 car d especially since NEor will suck
3 Allen robinson Jax like I said if dude stays healthy hell dominate
4 Sankey ten because theyll use option game and teams will key on mariota and give it up to sankey on the basic stuff
5 dmc/Randle dal rbs

and let me say for rookies you are talking about the following underrated dudes probably this season if maybe they show up later on. this is sort of in order
1 tevin Coleman atl rb
2 yeldon Jax rb
3 s Coates pit wr
4 funchess car wr believe it or not he is #3 on chart right now prolly cause they are committed to the big body thing
5 J strong Hou wr is #4 on 4/5 strong chart right now and you know obrien would make him earn it and his competition for #2 is weak
6 it's also worth noting perriman has been fluctuating on the bal chart but currently occupies a starting spot next to steve smith
7 javorous Allen is the future in bal whether it's this season is another question

[ric]

a note regarding the eagles fantasy potential...

this offense even with less than mediocre qb play (downright awful for sanchize) last season and long bouts of general ineffectiveness achieved the following
total plays; rk 1
total yds; rk 5
yards per play; rk 11
1st downs; rk 8
pss yds; rk 6
rsh yds; rk 9
pss tds; rk 12
rsh tds; rk 7

not only that but they were down to 3rd and 4th string oline last year. they had a couple game period where every starting oline was below 2nd string.

maclin is gone. agholor is in. matthews is getting better. ertz is getting better. cooper is hanging in there and slowly improving. celek is playing well but not getting the stats.

and look at that dst. in my league last year they got 2nd place in fantasy d pts and they almost doubled the 15th team. i mean that isnt exactly something to scoff at.

now compare those offensive numbers to a year where like the year previous they still had turmoil at qb but had better than mark sanchize to run the show except vick at his very worst...
total plays; rk 13
total yds; rk 2 (the broncos had just under 7500 yds that year)
yards per play; rk 1-t
1st downs; rk 17 (explosive)
pss yds; rk 9
rsh yds; rk 1
pss tds; rk 5
rsh tds; rk 2 (ap had godly year)

@wheels

On Sunday, the Eagles rack up 30 offensive points, 400 total yards, and a defensive touchdown. Your ability to score is limited to that stat pool. Your best case scenario is that your fantasy football team, which is made up entirely of Eagles, accounts for all of it.

My team has players from 9 different teams. Each team puts up the exact same stat line as the Eagles. Again, my best case scenario is that my players score all of those points. Except my team is pulling from a much bigger stat pool. Hundreds of points, thousands of yards, etc. They won't account for all of those stats, but it's entirely possible that all of my players have 100 yards and 2 touchdowns.

In order for your team to do that, the Eagles would need to score 100 points on 900 yards.

-first of all my team is not entirely comprised of eagles. premiums get first priority as explained above.
-secondly youre a bit wrong about the expected gain because even despite shitty qb play they still get about 20% more yds than the middle rk teams and adjusting a little bit taking out two shitty games (against the seahawks d and new cowboys d) a sanchize led offense still accounted for over 400 total yds per game which is well over 20% above the 14th ranked teams avg (the dolphins who actually got better at their shit and only made 380+ yds 5 times in all of last season - sanchize eagles did it 5 times in 8/9 games....sanchize eagles...in a period of transition...with garbage oline)
-thirdly the number of plays run gives them an extra two games worth of stats per year per player compared to other teams assuming diffusion
-fourthly the biggest fantasy problem with the eagles is what ill call diffusion concentration. i mean its obv when they get the 3 rbs but now that they have 3-4 wrs 2 tes AND 3 rbs. its a fucking problem. and thats part of the experiment is learning how to deal in a league where diffusion is slowly becoming the rule (and in this sense im well ahead of the curve (see the ingram prediction; the forsett prediction which took time but ultimately beared out)). but also; having the access to the players is good in the sense that injuries basically automatically mean more stat production per player.
-fifthly the diffusion concentration means that for the eagles (assuming players like cooper do have significant statistical impact which may end up being wrong....) youre right in the sense that your fantasy players may in any given game have a higher ceiling as a whole. but not every team is beholden to that. and the key is guessing which players on which teams are not. such as the jags maybe with the new qb/wr/rb combo. if you rolled with say tannehill miller and mike wallace as your 2nd tier players (which you could have easily done) youd have predictable returns on a per game basis and mike wallace finished tied for 9th with wr tds and you could have easily gotten him after your premiums. lamar miller was 10th in yds. tannehill was 11th in yds had 27 tds and only 12 ints. thats your second second string right there and its statistically predictable and nobody gave a fuck about them last year and theyre not going to this year either. but they will (or ought to) the year after because the dolphins are doing what the eagles are doing with a bit less diffusion and they are getting better at it.
-sixthly if you are drafting an entire team of premiums obviously either you dont need any help or you are in a weak/shallow league. so dont bother listening. but the avg joe is not getting a team stacked full of premiums. what the avg joe needs help with is trying to get players who they CAN get and who will produce expected returns. the key here is expectability. you grab your premiums where you can and everybody will but the other shit is honestly mere guesswork especially if youre playing in a league with head to head weekly games.
-seventhly the predictability can assist even a seasoned player who comes against a tough choice of players to play in a shallow league
-eighthly in deep league predictability and point synergy (double points, points which would otherwise not be had) can mean the difference between w/l in a heartbeat

and for what its worth sanchize actually statistically did better than foles in some ways they just couldnt stick the ball in the fucking endzone and they couldnt drive consistently and they turned the goddamn ball over. a lot of that is probably on sanchize and what his presence amounts to.

[wheels]

I'll admit I might be underthinking this, but I'm also pretty sure you're overthinking it. Let's play head to head this year and see what's what

[ric]

@wheels
for what it's worth I'm drafting up a post talking about direct comparisons between regular vs team strategy

[wheels]

I'm honestly looking forward to reading it.

You have the opportunity to punt a week if you draft around byes, which is something I always wanted to try

[ric]

@wheels
word

it just seems like the goal of a fantasy strategy is really to take the guesswork out. that's why the premium designation exists in the first place; these are players you can count on. it just seems like people havent fully extended the strategy and they haven't changed their strategy to fit with the conditions of the game

anyway post forthcoming....

[ric]

I've been meaning to do put up a direct comparison and I will but these past couple weeks I'm working 50hrs+ each week with one day off. so I'll be in here hopefully shortly

[unclebengi]

I'm seeking out some more online $ leagues this year. I've done well w/ the Yahoo pro leagues in the past, but I've never liked the 10 team/no flex format they offer.

Luckily it seems that there's more options than there's been in the past. Apexfantasyleagues.com looks like the best bet. 12 team PPR leagues w/ a flex w/ either snake or auction drafts. They have multiple price entry points and is the best site I've found yet.

Myfantasyleague.com also has $ leagues that are done by email draft (8 hrs per pick) where you can either enter leagues where your drafted team is your final team and your weekly results come from your roster high scores at each position or more traditional add/drop leagues. I've entered in one, but it's taking a while for the league to fill (the drafts themselves can take a couple weeks) so I'll probably focus more on the Apex leagues.

Anyone else tried out any of these types of $ season long leagues?

[unclebengi]

After looking into the Apex one a little more it's too pricey for their payouts. You don't even make half of your buy in back if you get 3rd place in a 12 person league. The MFL one has a better payout and the longer form draft seems interesting, I just need the league I'm in to fill up so we can get the thing going.

I'll probably go back to the Yahoo ones for the most part, even though the structure sucks the 90% payout is hard to pass up.

[wheels]

I'm picking #1 again in my 10 team redraft.

I've fucked this up so many times I will consider all options or just do whatever ric says

[unclebengi]

Le'Veon is an easy 1st pick for me. Even w/ the two games missed he was so good on a game to game basis last year and I see no reason to believe there will be a decline. I like AP a lot too, maybe about the same in a non PPR league.

I got the 7th pick in this MFL long form draft. So far I have Gronk, Luck, Lamar Miller, Keenan Allen, and Maclin. It was tough to pull the trigger on Luck 2nd round after not taking a RB or WR round one, but I think he's a great value in the 2nd and now I can focus strictly on WR/RB for the next several picks. Really liking the format though, plan on joining another MFL as the payouts are almost as good as Yahoo's and the league structure is preferable.

[wheels]

Should mention it's 10-team non PPR, a little weighted towards QB but not enough to reach. Bonuses for rushing/receiving over 100 yards

If Bell missing 20-25% of the regular fantasy season doesn't bother you at all maybe it should bother me less than it does

[unclebengi]

Couple reasons why it doesn't bother me much. One is I just have such confidence in my ability to make the fantasy playoffs, even if I drop a couple games early, which makes Le'Veon much more appealing because he's the guy I want in the fantasy playoffs. Two is because it's a suspension and not an injury, he'll be able to hit the ground running week 3. If you draft someone like Arian, you can believe the 4-6 week return timetable, but even if he's playing in 4-6 weeks it doesn't mean he'll be 100%.

In a non PPR league I'd consider AP, but I think I'd still lean Le'Veon. Also the fact it's a 10 team league would help me with the decision too, better chance of having better backup options to ride out the first two weeks than you would have in a 12 person league.

[wheels]

I really wanted to just stream RB2, which I guess I could still do but it feels like I'm punting the entire position for 2 weeks if I take Bell.

No thought on taking Charles? His ADP is like 1.2 most places

[unclebengi]

With the Chiefs wanting to get Kelce more involved and adding a dynamic wideout like Maclin, they have more legit mouths to feed on O than they've had in a while. They've also mentioned wanting to monitor Charles' workloads even after he had his smallest workload in a while last year. They have a capable, experienced backup in Knile Davis. Having better weapons should make their offense more effective overall, but those incredible seasons Charles had a couple years ago were a result of him being the end all be all for KC. I think you can expect him to duplicate his #'s from last year, which were great, but I think Bell and AP offer considerably more upside. For me Charles, Lacy, and Lynch are great options to fall back on at 3-4-5 and you could argue they're all safer than Le'Veon and AP, but I want the upside.

[ric]

total yardage wise last year Charles took a huge hit. not only kelce maclin but deanthony thomas became a real part of the offense and is #1 on his piece of the depth chart as #2 wr and they started motioning him into two back sets with Charles. everybody is up on him but I think they're flat wrong and I think they've misunderstood the direction the Chiefs are going.

Luck is my #1 qb. people havent yet realized that all his stats last year came during the fantasy season. the last two games of the real season last year they just ran those games out and guy passed for like 150/game to the backups.

I'll be back tonight with aforementioned team strategy comparisons

[VideoKilledThe]

Keep 4:

Brees 61
Antonio Brown 13
Odell Becks 10
Jeremy Hill 10
Justin Forsett 11
CJ Anderson 10

It's an auction league, and the budget is 300, 1/2 ppr.

[alpha]

Middle 4

[VideoKilledThe]

Why no CJ? Broncos are going to score a ton, more than Bengals or Ravens, and Kubiak is talking "bellcow"

[alpha]

I think your 3 rbs are interchangeable. Just feel like CJ wont get as many catches in a ppr setting. But really you could just pull 2 names out of a hat and call it day out of those 3.

[unclebengi]

Yeah, I agree w/ the other 3, but I'd take CJ over Forsett. Pretty close though

[alpha]

year 4 in Dwights Keeper league

Keeping:
Luck (costs me a 4th this year)
Jeffrey(8th)

can't decide to keep Forte(1st). Feels like he's worth the pick but I can just keep another wr and go rb rounds 1 and 2. My other keeper choices at wr would be VJax (2nd) or Kenny Stills (13th) or Martellus Bennet at 12th value

[VideoKilledThe]

ameer abdullah!!!