Three 2013 NFL Fantasy Draft Observations

In a world of fantasy gurus and Top 10 lists, I’m looking to bring something to the fantasy discussion beyond simply quoting predictions and point averages. In the past week, I've completed five fantasy drafts ranging from cash-based live drafts to an experimental auction/FAAB format and have seen some trends that I find interesting.

1.       People freaking out over running backs

I haven’t seen a single draft list that didn't start with at least five or six RBs, and a few have had only one or two non-RBs listed in the top 15. I personally drafted a RB with each one of my initial picks (including paying $41 for Stevan Ridley in auction format) because some serious values at WR and TE were coming in the second and third rounds. You almost can’t draft any other position because of the available talent in the later rounds at FLEX/QB/WHATEVER and the dearth of talent at RB beyond the first 15 picks.

However, people seemed to keep leaving sure-fire studs on the board in lieu of drafting the next best RB. In my humble opinion, this was a total freak-out move. I’m sorry, but you can’t tell me that the historically volatile Mike Shanahan backfield forerunner (PUN INTENDED) Alfred Morris is going to be a better contributor ON AVERAGE than an elite WR available at the same position. Same thing goes with most second-tier RB1s.

 In one league, I was able to bracket picks at the end/beginning of a draft like this:

First Pick (#1 overall) – Adrian Peterson (Who’s more deserving than AD? Doug Martin? Beast Mode? Arian Foster? Get real.)

Second Pick (#16 overall) – A.J. Green, WR of awesome talent.

Third Pick (#17 overall) – Jimmy Graham, #1 TE by leaps and bounds and any other cliché distance .

A.J. Green is an absolute beast, and Jimmy Graham THIS YEAR at #17? Keep reading, please.

2.        Here’s why that was an absolute steal: TE is the position with the biggest drop-off from elite talent to mediocre talent.

I’ll just say it again, so those who bargain-shopped their TE slot can feel even worse about their draft:

TE is the position with the biggest drop-off from elite talent to mediocre talent.

Don’t believe me? I planned to go into this further in another article, so I’m just going to be quick here. I would say with confidence that Jimmy Graham is a much larger upgrade than the next available TE, and after that, the difference is even more severe. Here’s the skinny:

Jimmy Graham’s projected points in 2013 (according to Yahoo!):               179

Rob Gronkowski’s projected points in 2013:                                              158

The next best (T. Gonzalez, J. Witten, V. Davis):                                         140, 134, 119

Gronk is slated to score about the same amount of points per game as Graham, but probably won’t start in a full role and would be an obvious roster hole for at least the first week. After that, we’re looking at three players that will likely score at a much lower rate. Those players are getting you approximately 70% or less of the weekly production that one of the two elites would give you.

For comparison, here’s the top five RBs and their respective projections:

Peterson                                                                                                     266

Foster                                                                                                         254        

Spiller, Martin, Charles                                                                                239, 237, 229

Obviously, Peterson and Foster are safe picks (barring injury) and the next three are pretty close to each other in terms of projected points. The drop-off after the top five is pretty negligible, however. You have to go all the way down to the #15 RB (Frank Gore at this point in history) to get to a point of 70% production.

This doesn’t mean that Jimmy Graham in the first round of a 10-team league was a steal, either. Running backs that project up to 90% of the production of the OVERALL BEST PLAYER AVAILABLE are still draft-able late in the first or early in the second rounds. Taking Graham this early would take you out of the top running backs AND at least one #1 WR, and there’s no guarantee he wouldn’t have been available in the second or third round. In hindsight, I would have taken him third round every single time.

3.       Auctions are 156 times better than snake drafts.

I have started an auction league every year since reading a Bill Simmons mailbag entry about auction superiority. Quite simply, it kicks ass. Instead of having to watch the same troupe of first round picks, each fantasy manager gets to nominate a player and then bid an imaginary (or real) amount of money depending on a ton of criteria. The bidding wars and strategy involved with such wide-open auctioning are constant; the second-guessing and well-wishing after the draft are even worse than before. I’m not here to explain the rules, but I can tell you first hand that everyone goes crazy for an auction once they try it. It’s even more addictive than telling your normal friends about meaningless fantasy stats! I recommend doing this with your boring-ass work league as soon as possible.

I noticed a bunch of other things, but some of those are either covered by ESPN or other professional writers. I’m available for discussion about 14/6 of 24/7 in a week at @it_is_elliott on Twitter or in real life somewhere in Chapel Hill, NC. Any angry rants or questions are welcome in the comments section.