Early Season NFFC Draft Results

[CALI CARTEL]

The funny thing is, I think the real travesty is him taking Eli that early, not so much him taking the 2nd QB early.

Romo went 14 picks later
Rivers went 16 picks later
Ryan went 19 picks later
Peyton went 20 picks later
Griffin went 34 picks later

IMO, Eli is not a significant, full round upgrade over any of these guys, especially with a difficult schedule this year and Super Bowl hangover.

If you really wanted to go with a mid-tier #2 QB, should've waited until the 4th-5th and took one of these guys, then at least you could've taken someone else in the 3rd (SJax, Bradshaw, FJackson, or any of a number of solid WR that would've been an upgrade over Lloyd).

[Sandman62]

Okay i pretty much get what you're saying sandman but i would STILL rather have a guy at a different position that fails or succeeds instead of taking a second qb in 3 rounds who might fail or succeed, but hey that's just me.

I hear ya. But early-round QBs are MUCH more reliable than RB or WR (or even TE lately, with injuries).

[Sandman62]

The funny thing is, I think the real travesty is him taking Eli that early, not so much him taking the 2nd QB early.

Romo went 14 picks later
Rivers went 16 picks later
Ryan went 19 picks later
Peyton went 20 picks later
Griffin went 34 picks later

IMO, Eli is not a significant, full round upgrade over any of these guys, especially with a difficult schedule this year and Super Bowl hangover.

If you really wanted to go with a mid-tier #2 QB, should've waited until the 4th-5th and took one of these guys, then at least you could've taken someone else in the 3rd (SJax, Bradshaw, FJackson, or any of a number of solid WR that would've been an upgrade over Lloyd).

While I agree with you, beauty's in the eye of the beholder. If he thinks Eli's a round better than those others, so be it. Thank him for taking him that early if he's in our draft and move on.

[DonnyG.]

Okay i pretty much get what you're saying sandman but i would STILL rather have a guy at a different position that fails or succeeds instead of taking a second qb in 3 rounds who might fail or succeed, but hey that's just me.

I hear ya. But early-round QBs are MUCH more reliable than RB or WR (or even TE lately, with injuries).

I hear ya but if you're going to play the injury card i'm not sure that you're altogether correct here. Where's the data to show qb injuries vs rb, wr or te injuries over, say the last 5 years? Uh-oh.

[Sandman62]

I'm not playing an injury card; I only mentioned injuries in the context of pointing out that TEs have been more predictable in fantasy football too, except for the past few years where Gates, Clark and some other top ones have been hurt.

It's well known that QBs don't tend to lay eggs as often as position players. Conversely, top QBs don't come from mid-late rounds anywhere near as often; Vick was an exception. In the last several years, I can only recall Big Ben and Warner. Feel free to hunt down the data for this yourself; I don't need to, nor do I think most others here need that data. It's pretty common knowledge.

[David U Kennedy]

Dont forget B Favre his first year with the Vikes.

[David U Kennedy]

Oh Cam and Stafford last year also. Kordell Stewart, J Delhome, T Green, Erik Kramer, too name sum old school QB late round gems. Cutler and Romo their second years.

[Sandman62]

Yes, of course you can go back and find late-round QB gems over the years. Are you seriously suggesting that happens as often as RB and WR?

[CALI CARTEL]

Yes, of course you can go back and find late-round QB gems over the years. Are you seriously suggesting that happens as often as RB and WR?

Percentage wise, I bet it's a lot closer than you are giving it credit for.

There's 2 QB's per NFL team that are likely to have an opportunity to produce
But there's 3-5 RB's and 4-6 WR's that get opportunities per NFL

So you are looking at about a 5:1 ratio of RB/WR's to QB's, of course there's gonna be a lot more late round RB/WR's show up each year, but there needs to be 5 of those for each QB to be about the same ratio.

[Sandman62]

CAUTION! NUMBERS OVERLOAD APPROACHING!!!

IMO, it's less about how many play each position in the NFL, and more about how many do we start in NFFC lineups (1 QB, and 6 position players, usually comprised of 2-3 RBs and 3-4 WRs). So we're really only concerned with the top 14 QBs, yet 2-3x that many at both RB and WR. And really, I'm not talking about just finding a barely starting caliber QB in mid-late rounds vs. RB/WR; I'm talking about the bonafide STUDS that come out of those positions. IOW, top caliber players, not just starters. So really, we can focus on probably just the top 8-10 QBs, and maybe the top-20 RBs and WRs.

Here are some QB stats:

2009:
Proj. Rank Actual Rank Player Points
5 1 Rodgers 455
2 2 Brees 428
1 3 PManning 406
9 4 Schaub 404
? 5 Favre 402
7 6 Romo 388
3 7 Brady 385
6 8 Rivers 383
? 9 Roethlisberger 380
? 10 EManning 356
10 11 Cutler 343
4 12 Warner 331
8 13 McNabb 326
? 14 Campbell 316
*** Of the top 8 finishers, 7 of them were projected to be top-9.

2010:
Proj. Rank Actual Rank Player Points
3 1 PManning 418
4 2 Brady 416
1 3 Rodgers 413
7 4 Rivers 408
2 5 Brees 407
? 6 Vick 393
7 EManning 368
12 8 Ryan 356
6 9 Schaub 353
? 10 Freeman 353
13 11 Palmer 340
11 12 Flacco 336
? 13 Cassel 323
? 14 Garrard 318
*** This was Vick's year and most would agree that we'll hardly ever see a preseason backup QB finish that high. Still, of the top-9 finishers, 2/3 (6) were preseason top-7.

2011:
Proj. Rank Actual Rank Player Points
3 1 Brees 549
1 2 Rodgers 540
4 3 Brady 511
12 4 Stafford 489
? 5 Newton 468
11 6 EManning 408
7 7 Romo 393
9 8 Ryan 388
6 9 Rivers 378
? 10 Sanchez 350
? 11 Fitzpatrick 332
2 12 Vick 320
10 13 Roethlisberger 318
13 14 Flacco 298
*** Again, of the top-9 finishers, 2/3 (6) were projected top-9.

IMO, that says that top QBs are pretty darned reliable and that the chance of landing a top QB in the mid-late rounds is pretty slim.

Now let's look at RBs and WRs...

2011 RBs:
ADP Actual PLAYER
6 1 LeSean McCoy
2 2 Ray Rice
4 3 Arian Foster
10 4 Matt Forte
9 5 Maurice Jones-Drew
28 6 Fred Jackson
1 7 Adrian Peterson
46 8 Darren Sproles
31 9 Marshawn Lynch
14 10 Michael Turner
19 11 Ryan Mathews
3 12 Chris Johnson
41 13 Michael Bush
24 14 Beanie Wells
11 15 Frank Gore
26 16 Reggie Bush
12 17 Steven Jackson
32 18 Mike Tolbert
52 19 DeMarco Murray
20 20 Shonn Greene
*** 8 of 20 (40%) weren't projected top-20.
4 of the top 10 (40%) weren't projected top-10

2011 WRs:
ADP Actual PLAYER
13 1 Wes Welker
2 2 Calvin Johnson
7 3 Greg Jennings
98 4 Victor Cruz
8 5 Mike Wallace
35 6 Steve Smith
46 7 Jordy Nelson
3 8 Roddy White
6 9 Vincent Jackson
4 10 Larry Fitzgerald
22 11 Percy Harvin
5 12 Hakeem Nicks
34 13 A.J. Green
33 14 Pierre Garcon
12 15 Brandon Marshall
11 16 Dwayne Bowe
18 17 Stevie Johnson
14 18 Dez Bryant
78 19 Nate Washington
FA 20 Laurent Robinson
*** 8 of 20 (40%) weren't projected top-20.
4 of the top 10 (40%) weren't projected top-10

2010 RBs:
ADP Actual PLAYER
22 1 Arian Foster
64 2 Peyton Hillis
16 3 LeSean McCoy
2 4 Adrian Peterson
37 5 Darren McFadden
12 6 Jamaal Charles
1 7 Chris Johnson
4 8 Ray Rice
3 9 Maurice Jones-Drew
18 10 Matt Forte
26 11 Ahmad Bradshaw
9 12 Rashard Mendenhall
6 13 Steven Jackson
7 14 Michael Turner
38 15 LaDainian Tomlinson
5 16 Frank Gore
90 17 BenJarvus Green-Ellis
15 18 Cedric Benson
23 19 Knowshon Moreno
83 20 Mike Tolbert
*** 8 of 20 (40%) weren't projected top-20.
6 of the top 10 (60%) weren't projected top-10

2010 WRs:
ADP Actual PLAYER
5 1 Roddy White
103 2 Brandon Lloyd
19 3 Dwayne Bowe
4 4 Calvin Johnson
9 5 Greg Jennings
3 6 Reggie Wayne
1 7 Andre Johnson
18 8 Hakeem Nicks
105 9 Steve Johnson
29 10 Mike Wallace
24 11 Jeremy Maclin
10 12 Marques Colston
27 13 Terrell Owens
28 14 Santana Moss
7 15 Miles Austin
15 16 Wes Welker
41 17 Mike Williams
6 18 Larry Fitzgerald
11 19 DeSean Jackson
8 20 Brandon Marshall
*** 7 of 20 (35%) weren't projected top-20.
5 of the top 10 (50%) weren't projected top-10

It sure seems to me that RBs and WRs are less predictable/reliable than QBs?