So What Draft Spot WAS The Sweet Spot In 2015?

[Greg Ambrosius]

We spent the last 5+ months trying to figure out where the sweet spot was in this year's draft order and I'm not sure we ever really figured it out. Or did we? I'm curious and want to hear your feedback on this subject.

I started following the KDS selections early on for two reasons: 1) I wanted to see if most people were setting their KDS selections and understood everything involved with KDS/3RR. And 2) I wanted to see the trends and follow if they were changing as the drafting season went on.

My early thoughts were that 9 to 10 people in most of the early drafts spent the time to set KDS. We saw 2 to 3 teams in early DCs leave their KDS as 1-12. It began to change after that, but it's inevitable that you always get one or two people who will keep it at 1-12. But early on you saw a lot of people changing it to 12-1.

The early trend was definitely to be at the back of our 12-team drafts. Then as we got to July you saw more teams going with 10, 12, 11, 9-1 or closer to that form. Then after the Jordy Nelson injury you saw more teams starting with 8 or 9 as their first KDS. And you saw more teams creeping toward the middle, with 6 as a hot spot. And before we left for live drafts, we saw several Online Championship leagues with up to 8 owners getting their top preference as everyone had a different view of the ideal sweet spot. But even then, picks 1, 2, 3 and 4 were not desired.

After the Thursday Night Game, however, that all changed. We ran the 12-Team Ultimate League draft spot selection process on Friday afternoon at the draft table. The first two owners chose 1 and 2. The third owner took 12 and the fourth owner took 3. So 1, 2, 3, and 12 were the desired spots of the first four owners. Gronk did not go to any of those top 3 teams as he went 7th overall in this league.

The Platinum League also picked the draft spots at the table and once again the top three selections were 1, 2 and 3. I was surprised by that, but starting out with Antonio Brown and Julio Jones made sense. Gronk went 8th in this league.

So the early draft spots are doing the best right now as the top teams in the Platinum, Diamond and Ultimate Leagues all drafted in the Top 4 and all took Julio Jones. Was the Top 4 the sweet spot on Draft Day in 2015? Did the middle still feel like the best spot to you? Are you still glad that you drafted at the back of the draft order?

Let me know what you thought now that the drafts are over. It's just fun discussion and maybe it becomes informative for others. It sure seemed like things changed throughout the 5+ months of drafting, or am I wrong? Give us your feedback and what draft spot you eventually settled into liking. Thanks all.

[wiljiro]

11 or 12 -

Gronk on way up - and a stud RB/WR on way back -

That left you right at the top of round three..... 3 of top 25 with Gronk -

I think a lot of people had same thought, because I had KDS count backward on every draft and only got my magic number twice....

Wiljiro

[David U Kennedy]

I wanted to pick right in the middle (5-8). Start my draft with Julio, Lacy, or Dez then grab best value next 2 rounds. Luck and Rodgers were my usual 2nd round guys. Roughly 75% of my teams look real strong and should contend. White, Fitzgerald, and Marshall were my mid round targets and look like nice values. I punted on TE and took Reed, Walker or Rudolph in the later rounds. It all looks good for now.