Comments on: Fantasy Football RBs: The Final Big Board

By: Mack Tripper

Mack Tripper — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:16:22 +0000

Burleson had a good game, but sucks that he got hurt. I may pick up Courtney Taylor again. I dropped him right after picking him up a few days ago after someone in my league waived Jonathan Stewart. I’m also thinking about dropping Jason Campbell to pick up Cassel.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:01:57 +0000

I obviously didn’t read enough of this post and comments. I get it, its Graham.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:50:26 +0000

dedfischer, I’ve got a fantasy question. My league has a QB, RB, RB/WR, WR, WR, TE, D, K set-up. I’m not sure who to start at my flex RB/WR position. I am for sure starting Brees, AD, Ocho, and Andre Johnson. I’m trying to decide between Earnest Graham (who i’m leaning towards) or Pat Crayton, DeSean Jackson, Teddy Ginn, Jabar Gafney or LaMont Jordan (only b/c ESPN thinks he’s gonna have a huge week). I really appreciate any help.

By: dedfischer

dedfischer — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 23:53:13 +0000

Jacobs pick not looking too bad right now.

By: dedfischer

dedfischer — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:06:00 +0000

I am too. Since I took to effort to save it in an excel spreadsheet, it will be very easy to update and tweak. At a minimum, it kept from flipping through magazines and sportsline rankings trying to remember who did what and helped in my decisiveness. It actually took me less time to do this than in past seasons.

By: dedfischer

dedfischer — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:01:03 +0000

It was a live draft for a league I’ve been playing in for 10 years. All the players are pretty savvy drafters and I talked to another guy about his system that always heavy on RBs like me. He uses an good method that I plan on adding to this system next year, if he has a good season. It’s based on drafting RBs according to the OC. He’s big on Cam Cameron, who’s now at Baltimore, so McGahee was his big pick in Round 2. He took Romo in 1. The guy also picked Ronnie Brown last year (under Cameron) and that worked out well until injury. I’m going to look at this a little harder next year. I’ve used it for drafting WRs and TEs in the past with marginal success.

By: Vasherized

Vasherized — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:54:33 +0000

Warner isn’t a bad play now that he’s starting (particularly this week’s matchup) but you could have gotten him much later than the 5th round. He didn’t even get drafted in our league.

Curious to see how your formula ranks these backs at the end of the season. Barber will certainly finish a lot higher than he started with more carries this year. Even behind a solid OL, Ryan Grant comes back to earth this year without Favre IMO.

By: dedfischer

dedfischer — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:45:19 +0000

Regarding my last ranking system, I wanted a way to compare apples to apples when trying to decide the positional value of say a RB vs. WR at the flex. In an attempt to capture this, I took the FPS total for each player in 2007 (regardless of position, defense too) and divided that by the number of games played. I then multiplied this number by the consistency percentage from above and added the two together to get a power rating. I then used .25 point deductions/additions to this total based on the criteria above. Something just didn’t look right with Steven Jackson being ranked behind of Willie Parker. This system fixed that. It also dictated what position I picked in each round. My method was to simply fill out my starting lineup (excluding Def/K) in the first 7 rounds with the player who had the highest rating left on the board. Of course, I tried not to take a player who I thought might be available later. The top 10 players overall looked like this:
1. Tom Brady - 30.0 FPS/Game, 58.1 Power Rating
2. Tony Romo - 21.6, 37.8
3. LT - 18.1, 36.3
4. Westbrook - 17.5, 34.9
5. R. Moss - 17.6, 31.9
6. P. Manning - 21.0, 31.5
7. K. Warner - 19.2, 30.1
8. D. Brees - 19.1, 29.9
9. Roethlisberger - 19.1, 28.7
10. Favre - 19.3, 28.5
Now, obviously the only two QBs worth a first rounder were Brady and Romo, which they did. Manning went in the 2nd, and the other 3 QBs were gone by round 4 along with Palmer, D. Anderson, and someone else. Warner might have been available later, but I didn’t want to risk it and Garrard was actually ranked 8th in QBs ahead of D. Anderson and Hasselbeck.
The final top 15 of RBs looked like this:
1. LT - 18.1, 36.3
2. Westbrook - 17.5, 34.9
3. Peterson - 15.4, 25.1
4. Addai - 14.7, 24.4
5. J. Lewis - 13.7, 22.6
6. E. Graham - 13.1, 22.1
7. R. Grant - 12.6, 21.9
8. B. Jacobs - 12.7, 21.0
9. Portis - 12.9, 20.9
10. S. Jackson - 12.5, 20.9
11. M. Lynch - 12.3, 20.3
12. W. McGahee - 11.3, 19.7
13. M. Barber - 11.5, 17.3
14. W. Parker - 10.7, 16.6
15. F. Gore - 10.5, 15.7
Obviously, I hope these are accurate because I was pretty pleased coming out with 3 backs in the top 8. I doubt it plays out that way, but I might get 3 in the top 15, which I’ve won leagues before by doing.

By: dedfischer

dedfischer — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:20:58 +0000

Oh yeah, my draft on Sunday in my big money league went like this (I picked 6 out of 12):
1. Addai, RB
2. A. Johnson, WR
3. J. Lewis, RB
4. B. Jacobs, RB
5. K. Warner, QB (don’t laugh, he’s just behind Tony Romo in 3rd as the starter last year)
6. L. Coles, WR
7. T. Gonzalez, TE
8. D. Garrard, QB
9. D. Bowe, WR
10. D. Mason, WR
11. R. Williams, RB
12. T. Scheffler, TE
13. Bucs Defense
14. Packers Defense
15. Mason Crosby, K

By: Vasherized

Vasherized — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:16:00 +0000

I came to the same conclusion despite White’s poor history against Jax. I probably won’t need many points out of the flex position because I’m also starting Westbrook, Fitzgerald, Edge, Calvin Johnson … all good matchups.

Mason gets a lot of looks and Cincy has an average secondary, easy call there. When Marshall gets back that lineup in league 2 will be pretty salty.