Fantasy Football Draft - Who should I choose?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I saw another FF thread in IMHO, and this one is kind of poll-ish, so here we go:

My league is 12 teams, and we can each designate one keeper that takes the place of our first round pick. There is no limit to how long a player can be kept. I don’t have anybody worth keeping (Tiki was my main back last year), but I do have the 2nd overall pick this year.

Here are the players that may be available to me:

Larry Johnson/Steven Jackson - They wound up on the same roster last year. I’m nearly certain the owner will be keeping Steven Jackson, leaving LJ up for grabs.

Shaun Alexander - He would be kept, but his owner was kicked out of the league for inactivity.

Frank Gore/Joseph Addai - Also on the same roster last year. This owner traded LJ for TJ Houshmandzadeh last year, so there’s no telling who he’ll keep.

For the sake of simplicity, I’m gonna assume Jackson and Gore will be kept. I’ll probably be looking at Addai and Alexander with my second pick, but this guy with the first pick is also kind of a wild card, so I should probably examine all the possibilities.

So, who should I choose between Addai and Alexander?

Johnson and Addai?

Johnson and Alexander?

Relevant Scoring:
Touchdown = 6 points
Rushing = 1 point for every 10 yds
Receiving = 1 point for every 20 yds
Lost Fumbles = -2 points
No points for receptions

Got any of your own FF conundrums? Go nuts.

2

IMO, Addai is poised for a breakout year. With all of the weapons Indy has, he won’t be the primary TD scorer but he’ll get his share. Alexander should have another productive year. Johnson scares me because of the sheer number of carries he had last year. But he’s the best talent of the 3. So…

Addai over Alexander
Johnson over Alexander
Addai of Johnson (because KC will be playing catchup a lot and INdy will have a lot of late leads)

Good luck!

3

That’s pretty much what I’ve been thinking, plus there’s the added benefit that Addai is young, and I can potentially keep him for several more years. Alexander is going to be 31 by the time the season begins, and LJ is going to be the sole producer in an offense for which he carried the ball 400+ times last season. Cripes, now I’m just parroting the blurbs from all these FF sites.

Anyway, if I had my choice of any RB (excepting LaDainian Tomlinson), it’d probably be a toss-up between Gore and Addai. What I’m looking for is some downside. Are there any reasons why I should pick LJ or SA?

4

Well, again, Johnson is probably the 2nd best back in the league, so that’s a good reason to take him. :stuck_out_tongue:

Alexander will be playing on a contender, and like Addai, playing with late leads often. But RBs generally hit a wall at 30.

Is Mulroney not an option?

5

You mean Laurence Maroney? Yeah, he looks to be in a similar situation as Addai. I never really looked at him that much. You’d think with Corey Dillon out of the picture, Maroney would be getting more hype. Interesting. Too bad it’s a snake draft, or else I’d probably have a pretty good shot at taking him as my 2nd RB.

6

Yeah, I think everyone is Irish… :stuck_out_tongue:

Without Dillon he’s the feature back on the Super Bowl favorite…

7

Maroney at 2nd overall is to high for him IMO. Since you play in a keeper league I would look at Addai for sure. I wouldn’t overlook Bush or Westbrook either, but since it isn’t PPR addai may be your best bet. I would put both westbrook and bush above alexander in a keeper. However your keeper league seems like it could be a little volatile and usually in those sort of situations you want to try to win this year as there might not be a next year.

8

Well last year was the first year, and my brother (the commish) wants to weed out non-participants if he can. The guy that got booted made zero add/drops, one trade (he traded away Steven Jackson for the injured Alexander in a shady-ass deal with his roommate, who probably nagged him to do it), and didn’t contribute anything else to the league (e.g. trash talk). I feel confident this league will be around for a while. And besides, I won the whole thing last year. That’ll cover my buy-in for a few more years. :smiley:

9

My keeper league runs a bit differently than yours, we can keep up to two players but we have to lose the draft pick 2 places higher than where the players were drafted the previous year. Luckily, I drafted Addai in the 10th round last year and I’ll be keeping him for an 8th round draft pick.

Addai could be a top 3 running back this season… or a top 10… or…who knows? I don’t see anyone that he’ll be sharing time with so he should be productive as long as he stays healthy. Gore may be as good, if the player holding both of them decides to keep Addai instead. Alexander scares me some, but when I pick in my league (6th) if he’s available I’ll probably take him. LJ will be gone by the time I pick, but he scares me too. 416 carries, or so, last year was an awful lot, and I’m unsure on how that offense will work with whoever they decide to use at QB.

10

I’d still take Alexander. I like Addai, and I think he’ll do well, but Alexander isn’t that far removed from his last super beefy season. Now, I migh tbe stupid, I think you mentioned that this is a keeper league. I’d hafta look at what you’ve got for the rest of your team, especially with regards to running backs.

So if you have your pick from these people, I’d take whoever loses the Larry Johnson/Steven Jackson lottery. You’ll be very happy either way. Don’t you DARE take Addai or Alexander over either of those two.

11

Steven Jackson is a no-brainer to me, but, as Who_me? said, Larry Johnson is pretty scary. His offense isn’t much different from the Browns’ offense. Would you take the Cleveland Browns’ running back? Maybe someone can explain to me how the Chiefs’ offense is gonna be alright this season.

I can have one keeper, so I’ll be building around this first pick of mine, hopefully for the next several years. That means Alexander is out. Although, that also means that LJ’s situation could improve in future years. He is still young.

In all likelihood, the guy ahead of me will be making my decision for me. Best case scenario, Steven Jackson miraculously drops to me. Worst case, he picks LJ and I take Addai, or vice versa. It’s nearly a toss-up between those two.

12

Well, it looks like the Chefs (great googily-moogily) named Damon Huard their starter. That makes Larry Johnson more serviceable immediately. I was under the impression they were gonna go with their 2nd year QB. Now I feel bad about comparing them to the Browns’ offense.

13

Ah, the Snickers commercial that lives forever in infamy…I’m glad I’m not the only one that references it.
You didn’t know Huard was going to start? Yeah, Croyle was getting talked up, but it was “common” knowledge that Huard was going to get it.
I say “common”, because you’d have heard the hype from the mainstream sources, but the less traditional, and usually more accurate, sources were saying the opposite.

14

Am I missing something? *Damon Huard * is giving you confidence in the Chief’s offense?? I don’t doubt he may be better at this point than Croyle, but still, it’s Damon Huard.

15

Yeah. Damon Huard ran the Chiefs offense pretty nicely last year. My only question with the Chiefs’ offense is with their line. I’ve never been a fan of their receivers, but they’ce managed to perform well.

16

There’s a good chance that the Cleveland offense will outperform the KC offense this year. Last year we were stuck with one of the worst offensive coordinators in modern football - who stayed with us an extra half year because coach catfish is gutless and wouldn’t get rid of his buddy. The lack of talent at O-line and QB didn’t help, but the offense was crippled by being badly designed in the first place.

Rob Chudzinski is the new guy, who ran the great Miami (college) offenses of the early 2000s and has been tight ends coach/assistant offensive coordinator of the Charges since. Bad first and second string QB mistakes have held the offense back score wise, but Cleveland still is #4 overall in yards per game in the preseason, topped only SD, DET, and ARI.

It’s mostly going to come down to when Quinn starts during the season. Everyone is so convinced that if you throw a rookie QB in, you’ll “ruin him” because NFL-level competitors are so weak mentally that if they get sacked once they’ll cry for their mommy and retire. But Quinn in the preseason, even after a holdout, is proving himself to be the best QB on the team. He’s only faced first 3rd/4th, and then 2nd stringers, but he can only excel in the situations he’s given, and he has.

In his first game, admittedly in garbage time against 3rd/4th stringers, if you exclude spikes during a 2 minute drill from being incomplete passes, Quinn went 13/16 for 155 yards, 2 TD, 0 int. In a much more meaningful scenario, last night against the Broncos in the third (most serious) preseason game, with a tied score, and a mix of first and second stringers in, he went 7-11 for 81, 1 TD, 0 int. Actually, he did better than that, because he threw a 30 yard +/- TD pass that the refs miscalled and because our coach refuses to ever win a challenge, he didn’t throw the flag. Some people think he didn’t do it in order to make Quinn look worse - they’ve already decided that he’s not going to start the season, even though “the best QB will be the starter”, and he doesn’t want fan backlash based on how good Quinn was looking. So if you factor that in (and it’s not a “if only the receiver caught it” hypothetical - it was a legitimate, complete touchdown pass that was ruled out of bounds), it was more like 8-11, 111 yards, 2 TD, 0 int.

They also signed the best guard in free agency to replace a big gaping hole at left guard, drafted the best tackle (hopefully elite but I have my doubts), and have star receivers recovered more from serious injuries. I’m biased, but there will be significant improvement. If I remember this thread, at the end of the year I’ll compare yards/game from either team and gloat as appropriate :stuck_out_tongue:

Edit: Oh, right, and to answer the original question, I’d probably take LJ. LJ scares me - bad offense, potentially overworked, lost a good (but declining) guard, but it’s hard to argue with the production that he’s constantly putting out. I expect him to decline, but to still be a consistent producer. But he’s still a more proven fantasy producer than Addai or Gore.

17

39, it turns out. So 8-11 for 120, 2 TD, 0 int.

Yeah, I know it’s preseason, but for a kid who held out to already be looking so prepared is impressive. I didn’t completely buy into the hype when we drafted him, but “most NFL-ready QB in years” is looking good.

It definitely wasn’t garbage time - 3rd quarter of the third preseason game in which the starters usually play 2.5-3 quarters, in which Denver had something to prove after getting their ass kicked pretty hard all preseason.

He’ll probably start in week 6 at the bye week, depending on how bad the QB performance is up until that point, so I guess we’ll see.

And to clarify my response to the OP - of course take Jackson if he’s available. I agree with the “take whoever is available between SJ/LH” sentiment.

18

I still have Gore pencilled in for a lesser year than everyone has him pegged for.

19

Gore most likely won’t match his yardage totals, but his touchdowns may go up. Then again, he already has a fumbling problem IIRC and he had a broken hand recently, so they might not trust him with goal line carries.

Addai and Maurice-Jones Drew (both of which I had on my team last year… quick, let’s establish keeper rules) are hard to judge quantities for me. Addai will probably be more consistent not having to share the load, but MJD is just flat out talented and had an amazingly efficient year. I wouldn’t expect him to keep up the same carry per TD ratio, but he might get more carries as Fred Taylor gets older/hurt.

I don’t know where to put Addai. It’s a prolific offense, and Edge was a very good but not great (at least in his last few years) fantasy producer. There might just be too much talent to go around. How he’ll handle the bigger load, how much their offense will revolve around him, etc. are unanswered.

This year’s #1 and #2 picks seem pretty clear, but 3 through 10 is pretty confusing. Where LJ/SA/Gore/Addai/others should rank is really hard to place.

20

Keep in consideration that Labrandon Toefield is back and healthy. He’s a goalline vulture. I don’t see Jones-Drew having the same year he had last year either.

Pick 3 is where everything goes downhill, but if you flip a coin and get Larry Johnson or Shaun Alexander, you can’t be pissed with that. To me, those two are picks 3 and 4. After that, you’re looking at Addai, Maroney, etc.