August 14th DC Auction Team Analysis
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:49 am
We did our second DC Auction last night and I thought I would post our team and discuss our strategy going into the auction. We feel good about our team and I'll explain why a little bit later.
Quarterbacks - budget $20 for 3
Rex Grossman $8
Matt Hasselback $10
Jeff Garcia $5
We overshot our budget here by $3 but didn't expect to get Hasselback this low. Even BigBen went for $12. We definitely targeted Grossman because he is so hit or miss. Inconsistency is great in this format as long as the upside for a huge game is there. A QB who throws for 200 with 1 TD every week is not a good option in this format.
Running Back - budget $85 for 3
Our goal was 3 decent running backs with the 3rd having some upside. We were looking at $45/$25/$15.
Laurence Maroney $37
Duece McAllister $23
Adrian Peterson $20
Maroney represents nice upside as does Peterson. Duece should be very steady. We had no desire to spend the necessary dollars for a top tier back so we were very happy to beat our budget for our top 3 backs by $5. Later we added Anthony Thomas for $4. Our biggest disappointment was not having enough money to back up Maroney late in the draft. Morris went for more than we could spend.
Wide Receiver - budget $60 for 6
Randy Moss $17
Greg Jennings $9
Donte Stallworth $6
DJ Hackett $11
Joe Horn $6
Kevin Curtis $9
Anthony Gonzalez $4
Amani Toomer $3
Mark Bradley $2
We got our top 6 guys for $57 beating our budget by $3. We were targeting deep threat/big play receivers $7-$14 range. Moss represented a good value based on upside, Stallworth just went cheap, Hackett and Curtis were guys we wanted going into the auction, and Horn was just a good value. This is a terrible group for a standard league but should work together very well for this format. Typically a top 50 WR will have 4-6 very good scoring weeks. Since a top wideout costs $35 and will have 10-11 good scoring weeks, we feel the depth more than compensates for the upper end quality.
Tight End - $20 for 2
$10 Tony Gonzalez
$10 Todd Heap
This ended up working out very well as other tight ends later went for more than these 2. By having these 2 guys we will lead the league in points at TE plus if both have great weeks the points will roll over to the flex position. We also added Michael Gaines for bye week depth for $1.
Kicker - budget $6 for 2
Rian Lindell $2
David Akers $2
Mike Nugent $2
Our goal was 3 of the mid level kickers for $6 total and that worked out perfect.
Defense - budget $6 for 3
St. Louis $2
Houston $2
Philadelphia $3
Atlanta $2
We had a couple extra dollars so picked up Philadelphia because their bye weeks opponents work very well with the other teams. Atlanta was a last pickup just because there wasn't anybody left at RB we were that interested in. This group should put up very nice numbers for us almost every week and we got all of the for the price of Baltimore. Statistically the 4th defense should add 26 points to our total points this year and we couldn't find another player that we thought would contribute that amount that late in the auction.
Several teams are very strong while a couple others are very weak. Our goal was to have some consistency at RB and high upside players who might be inconsistent at WR. When pre-planning for the auction we did end up with completely different running backs than we expected but we still feel good about it. We steered clear of the backup running backs because they rarely contribute unless there is an injury and we wanted to put money into receivers that would defintely contribute. (I bet Mark Bradley will play into our scoring 3-4 games this year.)
I'm always open for critique but since this format is fairly new there really isn't much to go by from past auctions. We'll see how it works.
Wayne
Quarterbacks - budget $20 for 3
Rex Grossman $8
Matt Hasselback $10
Jeff Garcia $5
We overshot our budget here by $3 but didn't expect to get Hasselback this low. Even BigBen went for $12. We definitely targeted Grossman because he is so hit or miss. Inconsistency is great in this format as long as the upside for a huge game is there. A QB who throws for 200 with 1 TD every week is not a good option in this format.
Running Back - budget $85 for 3
Our goal was 3 decent running backs with the 3rd having some upside. We were looking at $45/$25/$15.
Laurence Maroney $37
Duece McAllister $23
Adrian Peterson $20
Maroney represents nice upside as does Peterson. Duece should be very steady. We had no desire to spend the necessary dollars for a top tier back so we were very happy to beat our budget for our top 3 backs by $5. Later we added Anthony Thomas for $4. Our biggest disappointment was not having enough money to back up Maroney late in the draft. Morris went for more than we could spend.
Wide Receiver - budget $60 for 6
Randy Moss $17
Greg Jennings $9
Donte Stallworth $6
DJ Hackett $11
Joe Horn $6
Kevin Curtis $9
Anthony Gonzalez $4
Amani Toomer $3
Mark Bradley $2
We got our top 6 guys for $57 beating our budget by $3. We were targeting deep threat/big play receivers $7-$14 range. Moss represented a good value based on upside, Stallworth just went cheap, Hackett and Curtis were guys we wanted going into the auction, and Horn was just a good value. This is a terrible group for a standard league but should work together very well for this format. Typically a top 50 WR will have 4-6 very good scoring weeks. Since a top wideout costs $35 and will have 10-11 good scoring weeks, we feel the depth more than compensates for the upper end quality.
Tight End - $20 for 2
$10 Tony Gonzalez
$10 Todd Heap
This ended up working out very well as other tight ends later went for more than these 2. By having these 2 guys we will lead the league in points at TE plus if both have great weeks the points will roll over to the flex position. We also added Michael Gaines for bye week depth for $1.
Kicker - budget $6 for 2
Rian Lindell $2
David Akers $2
Mike Nugent $2
Our goal was 3 of the mid level kickers for $6 total and that worked out perfect.
Defense - budget $6 for 3
St. Louis $2
Houston $2
Philadelphia $3
Atlanta $2
We had a couple extra dollars so picked up Philadelphia because their bye weeks opponents work very well with the other teams. Atlanta was a last pickup just because there wasn't anybody left at RB we were that interested in. This group should put up very nice numbers for us almost every week and we got all of the for the price of Baltimore. Statistically the 4th defense should add 26 points to our total points this year and we couldn't find another player that we thought would contribute that amount that late in the auction.
Several teams are very strong while a couple others are very weak. Our goal was to have some consistency at RB and high upside players who might be inconsistent at WR. When pre-planning for the auction we did end up with completely different running backs than we expected but we still feel good about it. We steered clear of the backup running backs because they rarely contribute unless there is an injury and we wanted to put money into receivers that would defintely contribute. (I bet Mark Bradley will play into our scoring 3-4 games this year.)
I'm always open for critique but since this format is fairly new there really isn't much to go by from past auctions. We'll see how it works.
Wayne