AP Column: Targeting Elite QBs Is The Way To Go

BillyWaz · Post by **BillyWaz** » Sun May 15, 2011 3:01 am

Originally posted by Tom Kessenich:
What about the people who waited on QBs last season and took Kolb and Stafford? How'd that work out for them? Those were the 2 QB's I drafted in the Super, and I won $15,000.

My first 6 picks (the picks before I took Kolb in the 7th) were....

RB Adrian Peterson
TE Jermichael Finley
WR Hakeem Nicks
RB LeSean McCoy
WR Santana Moss
RB Jonathan Stewart

Obviously hitting on McCoy and Nicks was huge and I grabbed Manningham in the 11th. Finley was however pretty much a waste (never recovered at TE) and Jonathan Stewart was no great shakes.

I guess Michael Vick helped a bit too.

[ May 15, 2011, 09:06 AM: Message edited by: BillyWaz ]

Sandman62 · Post by **Sandman62** » Sun May 15, 2011 3:46 am

Billy, I'm pretty sure Moss was a good value for you too (WAY more value than the "other" Moss!).

Had Kolb not gotten hurt, your team, like most who got Vick, might've struggled quite a bit more.

As I said, Vick was an extreme exception in fantasy football. Top QBs hardly ever come off the wire. To anyone who rolled the dice that Vick would keep the job, you essentially hit the lottery. Some of us gambled [wrongly] that Vick would be back on the bench in a couple weeks and that we could make better use of 50-90% of our FAAB later in the season.

[ May 15, 2011, 09:48 AM: Message edited by: Sandman62 ]

King of Queens · Post by **King of Queens** » Sun May 15, 2011 7:56 am

Kolb and Stafford were the only two QBs to get injured in Week 1. If you had one (Kolb in particular) or both, there was a very good chance you went after Vick.

Owners expecting a similar situation to repeat in 2011 are sure to be disappointed.

King of Queens · Post by **King of Queens** » Sun May 15, 2011 7:59 am

Originally posted by Sandman62:
Some of us gambled [wrongly] that Vick would be back on the bench in a couple weeks and that we could make better use of 50-90% of our FAAB later in the season. An interesting aspect to this scenario is that Vick's price was kept down EXACTLY for the reason you gave. Even the owners who went "hard" after Vick only had to spend around $250 -- some even got him for less than $100.

Sandman62 · Post by **Sandman62** » Sun May 15, 2011 10:25 am

Too bad we can't see last year's teams or message board. I thought Vick did go for much more than that in many leagues. But you may be right Glenn that his average price might've been down there.

I'm not suggesting that the only reason some fantasy teams were good was because of Vick; but I do believe he surely helped some well-drafted teams over the top (a lot more than we'll likely EVER see a waiver wire QB help!

).

tommypickles · Post by **tommypickles** » Sun May 15, 2011 2:40 pm

mike i could be wrong, but i think vick went for between $400-$500 in our league. but even if the average is lower than that, i'm pretty sure we won't be seeing a qb like that on the ww again

Tom Kessenich · Post by **Tom Kessenich** » Mon May 16, 2011 2:29 am

Originally posted by King of Queens:
Kolb and Stafford were the only two QBs to get injured in Week 1. If you had one (Kolb in particular) or both, there was a very good chance you went after Vick.

Owners expecting a similar situation to repeat in 2011 are sure to be disappointed. I wouldn't expect a similar situation Glenn but I do think that if you wait on QBs you MUST hit on the right guy or else you're dead or struggling. That's where the risk comes in. A few years ago I waited on QBs and grabbed Roethlisberger and he was terrible. The next year I waited and grabbed Cutler and he was great in the first half and then went straight in the toilet (where he was joined by my QB2 - Joe Flacco).

I simply believe the drop-off in talent at QB is immense and unlike WRs (notably) and RBs you're less likely to find a quality starter on the WW as the season goes on. So grabbing a stud QB has value in my opinion. It's one less position to worry about when you're setting your lineup each week and the value of loading up with stud production at a premium position can be immense.

And given what I believe is the best depth at RB I've seen in years I think grabbing a top QB early has even more value. You can secure an elite talent and still get quality talent at RB in the third and/or fourth rounds.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Mon May 16, 2011 2:31 am

Originally posted by Sandman62:
Too bad we can't see last year's teams or message board. Just a heads up for all: We didn't lose anything from the NFFC Message Boards on the transfer from Fanball. You can still find all past posts by going to NFFC General Discussion and pulling down to "Show Topics From Last Year" or even Show All Topics. I looked for the Week 2 FAAB bids and unfortunately it doesn't look like we listed all of them in the Message Boards. I know it took a couple of weeks for Fanball to get that complete list set up for us and we never copied those bids onto the Message Boards. It's a shame because I wish we had those Vick bids to showcase here, but we didn't post them. Sorry.

I do think they were in the $400-$500 range. If you look at those Sept. 23-29th posts, the real Week 2 pickup was Brandon Jackson because Ryan Grant also got hurt in that game. There was no guarantee that Vick would hold onto that job all year long, so bids were somewhat guarded.

As for last year's teams and all of your Archived Teams, we are working on all of that now. The transfer of data from Fanball involving last year's teams is still taking some work to load, but we'll get them to you soon. Same with all of your past Archived Teams. We have the first six seasons from STATS because they ran the NFFC from 2004 to 2009, so look for those soon. Then we'll add 2010 and be good to go. We have everything loaded in the NFBC except for 2010 and hope to have that season loaded soon as well.

We have a lot of NFFC projects that we hope to have finished in June and once we have this all done we're not moving anywhere else going forward. Transferring all of this data back and forth has been a royal pain in the butt and now we're staying with STATS forever!!

Get used to this spot because we're never moving again.

Tom Kessenich · Post by **Tom Kessenich** » Mon May 16, 2011 2:48 am

Originally posted by Sandman62:
Yes, in hindsight, Vick was THE pickup of the year.I remember plenty of folks insisting Brandon Jackson was going to be the pickup of the year. That one didn't work out so well.

Sandman62 · Post by **Sandman62** » Mon May 16, 2011 4:37 am

Thanks for the info Greg. Will the search function be reindexed to be able to find posts older than 30 days too?

I found in some last-year threads that I'd posted that we bid $265 in our Online that we had Stafford & Kolb; Vick went for ~$400 though.

I would think that very few owners who followed Tom's practice of drafting stud QBs early felt the need to take the risk on Vick (while Kolb was still being touted as the starter). However, owners who waited to draft their QBs probably felt the reward could potentially outweigh the risk. We drafted Peyton Manning in round 2 of our Classic; no way we were blowing FAAB money on Vick.