SDMB Fantasy Football DYNASTY League: Year 12

The Game Room
1

Hall of Champions:
2019 Champion: Hamlet
2018 Champion: Ellis Dee
2017 Champion: VarlosZ
2016 Champion: SenorBeef (Exploding Pancakes)
2015 Champion: VarlosZ
2014 Champion: Stringer (We Do HGH)
2013 Champion: VarlosZ
2012 Champion: Hamlet (CuteWiddleBunny)
2011 Champion: SenorBeef (Exploding Pancakes)
2010 Champion: Stringer (We Do HGH)
2009 Champion: Really Not All That Bright

Points Leaders by Year (including Weeks 15-16)
2019: Hamlet: 2190.75
2018: Hamlet: 2204.75
2017: RNATB: 2095.71
2016: Petey: 2018.97
2015: VarlosZ: 2183.64
2014: Stringer: 2177.27
2013: SenorBeef: 2132.81
2012: Stringer: 2095.83
2011: Stringer: 2229.75
2010: Stringer: 2167.03
2009: Hamlet: 2207.00

2019 Final Results:

  1. Moridwon (Hamlet)
  2. Nine Inch Neils (RNATB)
  3. JB’s Gusterrhoids (Justin Bailey)
  4. Isotopes (Petey)
  5. HungryHungryHaruspex (Jules Andre)
  6. The Great Old Ones (Ol’Gaffer)
  7. No Use For A Name (Retrovertigo)
  8. Warner’s Brothers (dalej42)
  9. New York Fanboys (Ellis Dee)
  10. Exploding Pancakes (SenorBeef)
  11. Overly Sentimental (Overly Sentimental)
  12. Ides of Martz (Omniscient)

2020 Draft Order:
1.01 - Ides of Martz
1.02 - Warner’s Brothers (from: Overly Sentimental)
1.03 - Exploding Pancakes
1.04 - New York Fanboys
1.05 - HungryHungryHaruspex
1.06 - The Great Old Ones
1.07 - No Use For A Name
1.08 - Warner’s Brothers
1.09 - Isotopes
1.10 - Warner’s Brothers (from: JB’s Gusterrhoids)
1.11 - Nine Inch Neils
1.12 - Moridwon

2.01 - Ides of Martz
2.02 - Overly Sentimental
2.03 - Exploding Pancakes
2.04 - New York Fanboys
2.05 - HungryHungryHaruspex
2.06 - The Great Old Ones
2.07 - No Use For A Name
2.08 - Warner’s Brothers
2.09 - Isotopes
2.10 - JB’s Gusterrhoids
2.11 - Nine Inch Neils
2.12 - Moridwon

3.01 - Ides of Martz
3.02 - Warner’s Brothers (from: Overly Sentimental)
3.03 - Exploding Pancakes
3.04 - New York Fanboys
3.05 - HungryHungryHaruspex
3.06 - The Great Old Ones
3.07 - No Use For A Name
3.08 - Warner’s Brothers
3.09 - Isotopes
3.10 - JB’s Gusterrhoids
3.11 - Nine Inch Neils
3.12 - Moridwon

Important draft/trade information:
• Overly Sentimental must cut enough players to earn at least 3 picks in order to send Dale his 1st and 3rd
• Justin Bailey must cut enough players to earn at least 1 pick in order to send Dale his 1st
• Dale will end up sending 3 “last picks” to balance the above trades. This means he needs to cut enough players to end up with at least 3 picks to earn slots in the first round, plus 3 more cuts to send balancing picks. These last picks are sent in the order they were pledged, so Overly Sentimental will get Dale’s last pick and his penultimate pick, then Justin Bailey will get Dale’s antepenultimate pick.

League dates:
Obviously, things are subject to change pretty quickly with the pandemic and potential for skipped weeks. Normally, we would delay the draft until after the 3rd preseason week so that everyone has as much information as possible; however, there is no reason to do that with no preseason games. Still, in the interest of allowing us all ample time to get into the swing of the season, I think we should stick with the same relative timing.

Last season we were all mostly terrible at getting our picks in on time, and the draft took 10-11 days. Using that as a guide, we get the following schedule:

Final roster cuts: 12:00p ET Sunday, Aug. 30th
2020 Dynasty rookie draft opening day: 12:01p ET Sunday, Aug. 30th
Seriously, get your picks in on time because we have to be finished by: 11:59p Wednesday, Sept. 9th
NFL opening day: Thursday, Sept. 10th

2

As we sit here now, it looks likely that the college football season will be canceled this year. No idea what this is going to do to the potential crop of rookies for next season. It’ll definitely make long term planning different and could affect the trade market in this league this year with future draft picks.

Last year I was informed of my departmental layoff around the time of this draft. How I wish that had been the only bad thing since this time last year!

3

Thanks for being on top of this Jules! It should prove to be an interesting year.

4

Thanks Jules for the thread. I’ve not been on the boards since the switchover because the new interface annoys me, but I really need to get the ball rolling on fantasy leagues this year.

Anyway, I’m gonna propose that we create a one year rule to expand the IR slots because of the unusual situation we’re going to be in. I don’t want people having to drop players they want to keep because of unexpected COVID cases rendering their players invalid. So I think we should bump up IR slots to, say, 6 this year to prevent that from happening.

We could impose additional restrictions beyond that, like you can’t use more than X slots for people who aren’t COVID-related outs, but I don’t think that’ll really be necessary. I don’t think people will abuse the system, and they’re going to have to cut players at the beginning of next year anyway to get their rosters lower.

This depends on yahoo making covid-outs IR-eligible. If not, we’ll have to come up with some sort of other rules (like we can drop covid positive players and pick them back up without interference) to achieve the same effect.

5

I’m fine with increasing the IR slots, we’ve done that in my baseball keeper leagues. And, of course, so many players on a football roster aren’t relevant to fantasy. A left tackle out for Covid won’t affect fantasy.

6

I do think we should increase the IR slots. Not sure what the right number is, but 2-3 sounds good.

7

Some other things we need to finalize are the PAT penalty, which we seemed to vote to change from -2 to -1 last season, but it was never implemented. There was also some concern about continuing to give the 5th place finisher (the winner of the consolation bowl) the 5th draft pick. This was raised but never actually voted on.

8

Yeah, I think either we go entirely playoffs determine draft order or not. The difference between 4th and 5th isn’t usually wide enough where there is a big difference in teams, but the order can swing the 5th place team down quite a bit.

I get the reason is to help ensure competitiveness and avoid tanking, but what all this method does is once I know I’m not a playoff team there is no benefit not being dead last.

9

I read a bit about the new NFL rules for dealing with rosters in light of Covid.
They’ve expanded the practice squad to 16, included 6 veterans, and allowed teams to promote a player to the active roster if some other player is out with Covid. They’ve allowed teams to bring back as many players as they like from IR designated to return (as long as it was at least 3 weeks and after September 6th). Most importantly, the Covid/Reserve list will allow teams to reactivate players once they’re medically cleared (there’s a whole bunch of protocols to go through for that).

I would be shocked if yahoo didn’t include Covid IR spots for fantasy football. But if they don’t, I’m all for expanding our own.

I kinda like the idea of rewarding a consolation bowl winner with a higher draft pick the following year. But I can also see how, since most owners are pretty invested in the league, there is no longer a need to spur on owners late in the season.

10

Well this is all different looking.

I have my doubts this season will happen without an early shutdown, but I guess we’ll see what happens.

I’m in favor of expanding IR slots, and I also think an earlier draft start would be good, but if no one else wants to do that, I’m OK with that too.

11

Sorry, I was offline when this thread was posted due to Isaias (5 days without power or running water, 2 more days after that without cable or internet.)

Increased IR slots feels like a no-brainer, I vote yes. And agreed that even if yahoo doesn’t auto-support it we can just go with a gentlemen’s agreement and have the commish swap rosters around to handle it as needed. (Shouldn’t be a ton of it I hope.)

I suspect this draft may go faster, what with activities outside the home (or office now?) limited due to the pandemic. Most of our problems last year were from traveling and/or moving, if I recall correctly, so those issues hopefully will be much less this year.

12

Yup, and also my job loss. I’m getting up to speed again, but once we’re up and going, I expect to be able to draft quickly. I’m still not an early riser.

13

One idea I’ve had recently is to do a retrospective on our previous years. Everyone says it takes three years to evaluate a draft, so maybe the same period of time will allow us to evaluate our dynasty drafts. Let’s see what interesting information is buried in our 2017 season.

ROUND ONE
1.01 Jules - Leonard Fournette, RB, Jax
1.02 Retro - Dalvin Cook, RB, Min
1.03 Jules - Joe Mixon, RB, Cin
1.04 Ellis - Christian McCaffrey, RB, CAR
1.05 Beef - Corey Davis, WR, TEN
1.06 RNATB - Kareem Hunt, RB, KC
1.07 Hamlet - Mike Williams, WR, LA Chargers
1.08 Omni - Mitchell Trubisky, QB, CHI
1.09 Petey - Marshawn Lynch, RB, Oak
1.10 Stringer - John Ross, WR, CIN
1.11 Varlos - Alvin Kamara, RB, NO
1.12 Justin - Zay Jones, WR, BUF

This was the first of two seasons where I moved up to 1.01. I remember salivating over CMC’s game film as he was playing at Stanford and promising myself I would do anything I could to draft him. At the time, I was using the first version of my rookie rating algorithm which valued Fournette so much higher than everyone else that I became blinded to it. I should have stuck to my gut and taken CMC, and I regret it now. I remember thinking that Ron Rivera and Carolina would never use him properly because their offensive scheme was so boring and unimaginative. I just completely blew it, and Ellis Dee was lucky enough to benefit and got a championship out of it.

I don’t know if this is interesting to anyone else, but missing on CMC the way I did was the reason I was so aggressive to move up for Saquon the year after. I recognized a generational talent and didn’t let him slip that time (although he was significantly better than his peers in value that year).

SenorBeef was coming off of a championship the year before, and getting the consensus top WR this season was a horrifying thought for the league. Davis has been just on this side of a bust, but there are a lot of signs that point to him just being screwed by that franchise. For example, he had by far the highest percentage of uncatchable targets in the league in 2019. He needs a change of scenery, badly.

RNATB didn’t want Kareem Hunt, but ended up getting some incredible seasons out of him. You don’t get credit for getting lucky being “forced” to take someone you hate when it works out in hindsight.

The Mitchell Trubisky pick was a disaster, much like his pick in the real NFL draft. At the time, the pick was questionable in light of who was selected after (Watson and Mahomes). The debate about who is a better prospect that took over the league thread was a bad omen for what was to come.

Stringer whiffed badly, which is probably what led him to ditch the league by the start of the next season. Varlos made a point to mention how much he hated picking Kamara, so he gets little credit for backing into that fortune.

Best pick: It would have been Kamara had it been deliberate, but instead it was CMC
Worst pick: Mitchell Trubisky. Ross is a close second, but WR as a position is not a reach at this spot in our draft the way that a QB typically is.

ROUND TWO
2.01 Jules - Marlon Mack, RB, IND
2.02 Retro - OJ Howard, TE, TB
2.03 Jules - Evan Engram, TE, NYG
2.04 Ellis - David Njoku, TE, CLE
2.05 Beef - Samaje Perine, RB, WAS
2.06 RNATB - D’Onta Foreman, RB, HOU
2.07 Hamlet - Darren McFadden, RB, DAL
2.08 Omni - Tarik Cohen, RB, CHI
2.09 Petey - JuJu Smith-Schuster, WR, PIT
2.10 Stringer - Jamaal Williams, RB, GB
2.11 RNATB - Chris Godwin, WR, TB
2.12 Varlos - Deshaun Watson, QB, HOU

It was important to me to get that second rounder because I liked Mack’s explosive film so much. He developed some bad habits that led me to later trade him for Amari Cooper, but that was a good pick. I was thrilled that Retro picked Howard, because I liked Engram so much more, and that has pretty much been proven to have been right.

Perine and Foreman were two of the four RBs taken at this range that had poor-to-awful physical traits, and neither ended up being anything. These 2nd to 3rd round RBs with poor physical grades don’t tend to pan out, it seems. Cohen was a reach, but a pretty good pick all things considered. There’s still meat on that bone, but 2019 was a major concern.

The last quarter of this round was a murderer’s row of good picks, with the exception of yet another Stringer whiff. There are franchise foundations taken here, it’s just a shame that Petey traded Juju away for scraps.

Best pick: Chris Godwin
Worst pick: D’Onta Foreman

THIRD ROUND
3.01 dale - Joe Williams, RB, SF
3.02 Retro - Curtis Samuel, WR, CAR
3.03 dale - James Conner, RB, PIT
3.04 Ellis - Carlos Henderson, WR, DEN
3.05 Beef - DeShone Kizer, QB, CLE
3.06 Justin - Aaron Jones, RB, GB
3.07 Hamlet - Patrick Mahomes, QB, KC
3.08 Omni - Kenny Golladay, WR, DET
3.09 Petey - Cooper Kupp, WR, LAR
3.10 Stringer - Tawan Taylor, WR, TEN
3.11 Retro - Dede Westbrook, WR, JAX
3.12 Ellis - Adam Shaheen, TE, CHI

Joe Williams got some crazy hype right before this draft, and I thought dale got a steal there. It turns out it was a mirage.

Curtis Samuel stands out as yet another overly hyped fantasy darling that has yet to do anything with his potential, but at least he is still in the league. Conner was an exceptionally savvy pick considering dale got a top-6 finish out of him the next season.

Beef had a big choice to make between Kizer and Mahomes, and he elaborated on it in a really interesting pair of posts. It is an unfortunate miss, but a defensible one this late in the draft.

Look at those next four picks. Aaron Jones was last year’s #2 RB. Hamlet got lucky backing into Mahomes as the 4th QB taken, but you can’t beat that value. Golladay is a back end #1 WR, but that was an incredible pick. Remarkably, Golladay was the most hyped “sleeper” heading into the draft that season, and he lasted to the 3rd! (Had I not traded my third, he would have been my pick at 3.03) Cooper Kupp was also a fantastic pick. He didn’t get nearly enough sleeper hype.

Stringer strikes out with another whiff. He had by far the worst draft this year. RIP

Best pick: Kenny Golladay
Worst pick: Carlos Henderson

THE REST:
4.01 dale - Matt Breida, RB, SF
4.02* Varlos - RB Danny Woodhead, BAL
4.03 Jules - Chris Carson, RB, SEA
4.04 Ellis - ArDarius Stewart, WR, NYJ
4.05 Varlos - ???
4.06 Justin - Wayne Gallman, NYG, RB
4.07 Hamlet - Brian Hoyer, QB, SF
4.08 Omni - Mike Glennon, QB, CHI
4.10 Stringer - Jacksonville DST

5.01 dale - Buffalo, DST
5.03 Jules - Mack Hollins, WR, PHI
5.04 Ellis - Josh Reynolds, WR, LAR
5.07 Hamlet - Kerwynn Williams, RB, ARI
5.08 Omni - Chris Conley, WR, KC
5.11 Varlos - ???

6.01 Jules - Paul Richardson, WR, Sea
6.03 dale - Wil Lutz, K, NO
6.07 Hamlet - Gerald Everett, TE, LAR

Chris Carson was an astoundingly good pick, if I may say so. I am such an idiot for trading him for homer trash. Breida still has value as the second half of a time share, which is still good for a 4th after this much time. As Mr. Irrelevant, Gerald Everett still has value, which is a pretty good pick.

14

Want to know who had the best draft? Who had the worst? For fun, let’s assign each pick their current dynasty ADP, then weight it by round since it is easier to get a first round pick right than a third. We’ll then average those to see who had the best draft.

Rules: We'll start by multiplying 1st round picks' ADP by 5. A bad pick here is meant to be as crippling as it is to your franchise. 2nd rounders are multiplied by 3, 3rds by 1 (no weight), and finally ADP is multiplied by 0.5 for any players after the 3rd round that are still in the league. Players who are unlisted in ADP after the three years, but who are still in the league, get an ADP of 250 (this is to keep consistency with old ADP info I found which caps at 250). But, if the player was out of the league entirely, they get penalized with an ADP of 350, even if they retired (this is dynasty, and only getting 3 years out of a pick is pretty terrible value). However, anyone drafted in the 4th or later who is out of the league counts as a no-pick since they are generally dart throws, and I don't want to penalize teams who have more picks. Essentially, these late picks can only help your average ADP. Kickers and defenses drafted will be counted as no picks.

Here’s what we end up with:

  1. Varlos - 104. Interestingly enough, Varlos only made two picks, then halfway through the draft he disappeared and never posted on the Dope again. I’m not sure I should count him, because he also lost two picks after he died, or got abducted by aliens or pirates or drug runners. I’m making an executive decision that the lost picks cancel out the picks he made, and we move on. RIP

  2. Dale - 161.33 (Gets the benefit of not having a 1st or 2nd)

  3. Jules - 170.50 (GOAT)

  4. Retro - 195.75 (Great first pick, no duds)

  5. Ellis - 267.10 (Drafted the top overall, which always helps)

  6. Hamlet - 391.75 (2nd rounder being out of the league hurts)

  7. RNATB - 483.33 (Godwin among the best picks made this draft)

  8. Omni - 515.33 (Trubisky pick really hurts, but not the draft’s worst pick)

  9. Petey - 608.33 (Based on these rules, Lynch being retired makes this the worst pick of the draft. Otherwise, had Petey drafted Kamara instead, this would be the best draft in the history of the league)

  10. Beef - 613.33 (Beef was ranked last until I realzied Samaje Perine is actually still in the league as of this moment)

  11. Stringer - 633.33 (Surprised this isn’t the worst, but only one of his shitty picks is technically out of the league)

  12. Justin - 642 (A quirk of this system is that having only late picks gives you absurdly good grades if you hit any. But taking an early pick and missing badly will basically doom your entire draft)

I found historical dynasty ADP rankings back to 2015, so I was able to generate results for our drafts from 2012. I’ll do some more of these as we go on for the older seasons.

15

Thanks for the analysis, I always love that. The draft grading system is cool, I’d definitely be interested in previous years. (Whenever you have time, and if you want, I know stuff like that takes work).

In retrospect picking Kizer over Mahomes was one of my, and the leagues, all time dumb moves. But I had no QB behind Rodgers at all and there wasn’t really anything worthwhile on the waiver wire, so I was running without a backup QB for Rodgers who was getting hurt on the regular. Mahomes wasn’t going to be a starter for at least a year, so picking him would’ve necessitated that I draft yet another QB or relied on waiver wire scraps if Rodgers went down. Of course it’s a trivial pick in hindsight, but obviously no one thought Mahomes would end up being the #1 dynasty QB by far or he’d have gone earlier.

16

Justin - 642 (A quirk of this system is that having only late picks gives you absurdly good grades if you hit any. But taking an early pick and missing badly will basically doom your entire draft)

I know Zay Jones was a bust, but I didn’t think he was this bad of a bust. He was slightly ahead of JuJu as the best WR on the board at the time, but yeah, that was a bad mistake that took me years to correct.

17

This seems like a quick, fun diversion. And while I disagree that Kenny Golladay was a better pick than Mahomes, I loved the take on the 2016 draft. So I’ll give this a go and take the previous year’s draft. Since I can’t seem to find the Year 8 thread on this new site (why is it missing?), the formatting may be a bit messy. But here’s what happened in 2016:

Round 1

  1. Ezekiel Elliott RetroVertigo

  2. Laquon Treadwell Isotopes

  3. Kenneth Dixon New York Fan…

  4. Derrick Henry HungryHungry…

  5. Corey Coleman We Do HGH

  6. Tyler Boyd Nine Inch Neils

  7. Tajae Sharpe Ides of Martz

  8. Josh Doctson Varlos’ Zzzzzzz

  9. Sterling Shepard New York Fan…

  10. Michael Thomas CuteWiddleBu…

  11. Dak Prescott Warner’s Bro…

  12. Jared Goff Varlos’ Zzzzzzz

Best Pick: Michael Thomas. Not to toot my own horn, but getting Thomas at 10 and after so many other WR’s were taken, was incredible value. And while Zeke is a stud to be sure, that’s what you expect from the first pick.

Worst Pick: Poor Laquon Treadwell.

Overall: I was surprised just how few gamechangers there were in this draft. Zeke and Thomas are studs and, after a horribly slow start, Derrick Henry may join them. But nobody else has made a huge impact on the game. Compared to the next year, with CMC, Cook, Kamara, and maybe, if you squint, Mixon and Fournette, that’s slim pickings in the first round.

Round 2

  1. C.J. Prosise Varlos’ Zzzzzzz

  2. Devontae Booker Isotopes

  3. Will Fuller V RetroVertigo

  4. Paul Perkins JB’s Gusterroids

  5. DeAndre Washington Nine Inch Neils

  6. Hunter Henry HungryHungry

  7. Chris Hogan Ides of Martz

  8. Keith Marshall RetroVertigo

  9. Trey Burton Warner’s Brothers

  10. Vance McDonald CuteWiddleBu…

  11. Tyler Higbee Warner’s Brothers

  12. Tyler Ervin Warner’s Brothers

Best Pick: Your guess is as good as mine. Will Fuller, most likely, because he has put up huge games on occasion and will try to be a WR #1 this year. But he’s boom or bust and often injured. And while there’s some potential (Hunter Henry, Tyler Higbee), it’s more slim pickings.

Worst Pick: Tempting to say Keith Marshall (I actually had to google him to remember who the hell he was), but a lot of his problems were due to injury. So I’ll give it to CJ Prosise, who never even got to solid 3rd down back status.

Overall: Wow, there is a lot of uglyness in this round. Again, comparing it to the next year, it’s clear how poorly this draft class has done.

Round 3

  1. Paxton Lynch Nine Inch Neils

  2. Carson Wentz Isotopes

  3. Christian Hackenberg New York Fan…

  4. Jordan Howard HungryHungry…

  5. Robert Griffin III HungryHungry…

  6. Leonte Carroo Varlos’ Zzzzzzz

  7. Braxton Miller Ides of Martz

  8. Malcolm Mitchell We Do HGH

  9. Austin Hooper JB’s Gusterr…

  11. Kenyan Drake Exploding Pa…

  12. Pharoh Cooper Varlos’ Zzzzzzz

Best Pick: If we ignore injuries, Carson Wentz can be very good statistically. Jordan Howard had some good years in there too and isn’t done. Hooper is a nice surprise. But, currently, Kenyan Drake is the most valuable of these players. Tough call.

Worst Pick: Christian Hackenberg. I will never understand how anyone who watched him play thought he’d ever make it in the NFL.

Overall: It’s fascinating to me how owners handle the kind of players in this round. How long do you hold onto a player hoping they finally become relevant? Drake and Hooper took awhile to be relevant, and they may not stay that way for long. When is the right time to give up on players you draft?

Round 4

  1. Jonathan Williams Exploding Pa…

  2. Wendell Smallwood Isotopes

  3. Daniel Lasco II New York Fan…

  4. Rob Kelley Exploding Pa…

  6. Jared Cook Exploding Pa…

  7. Dwayne Washington Ides of Martz

  8. Will Tye We Do HGH

  9. Jaelen Strong RetroVertigo

  10. …

  11. Virgil Green HungryHungry…

  12. Rashard Higgins Varlos’ Zzzzzzz

Best Pick: Jared Cook. He’s the only guy who likely was a starter for awhile.

Worst Pick: It’s really not fair to say, because we’re at the lottery part of the draft where you just take a chance. Nobody can be blamed for a bad pick here.

Overall: Again, a huge lack of relevant talent rears its ugly head again.

The rest:

Round 5

Richard Rodgers Isotopes

Robby Anderson Varlos’ Zzzzzzz

Kenny Britt JB’s Gusterr…

D.J. Foster Ides of Martz

Kenjon Barner HungryHungry…

Eli Rogers HungryHungry…

Round 6

Larry Donnell Ides of Martz

Alex Collins HungryHungry…

Benny Cunningham We Do HGH

Round 7

Chicago Ides of Martz

Anquan Boldin Warner’s Bro…

Round 8

Ronnie Hillman Ides of Martz

Best Pick: A special kudo to Omni for having to do a complete rebuild of a team almost completely devoid of talent. At least the Chicago D had a good couple years. But Robby Anderson gets my vote. Another player that its taken awhile to become relevant and he may not last long, but not bad for the 5th round.

Worst Pick: There are no worst picks here. Although Anquan Boldin probably should have had a walker when he played that year.

Overall: This draft was a complete dud. There are only a handful of players who have been truly relevant so far, and most of these players have been dropped for awhile. There is still some potential out there, but, by and large, this draft could be written off.

18

I’m not sure how to handle multiple replies, so I’ll just do a new post for each. Sorry if it starts to look like spam.

Zay Jones is still in the league, but he’s essentially undrafted at this point. I do projections on about 120-130 WRs each season, and he doesn’t make the cut, so… I can’t imagine he is in the league next season.

It wasn’t a bad pick at the time. I remember liking him a fair bit, but he was my 7th WR that season.

19

Hamlet
And while I disagree that Kenny Golladay was a better pick than Mahomes, I loved the take on the 2016 draft.

Glad you’ve enjoyed it! These things are fun for me to do, but I always fear that other people skip over it and are bored by it. This league is much better when everyone is contributing and posting, so I figured I would throw some new stuff in.

Golladay is generally considered more valuable by way of playing a more valuable position, and he typically goes before Mahomes in dynasty drafts. Plus, at the time you mentioned how were also stuck between Mahomes and Kizer and were thankful Beef made the decision for you a couple picks before. That’s what I meant by backing into the pick. I would give a higher grade to someone reaching for a player by a round over picking the same caliber of player a round later because they were forced into it by the choices of the managers around them. These two factors make Golladay a better pick, in my eyes.

Hamlet
Best Pick: Michael Thomas. Not to toot my own horn, but getting Thomas at 10 and after so many other WR’s were taken, was incredible value. And while Zeke is a stud to be sure, that’s what you expect from the first pick.
…
Overall: I was surprised just how few gamechangers there were in this draft. Zeke and Thomas are studs and, after a horribly slow start, Derrick Henry may join them. But nobody else has made a huge impact on the game. Compared to the next year, with CMC, Cook, Kamara, and maybe, if you squint, Mixon and Fournette, that’s slim pickings in the first round.

I agree about the Michael Thomas pick, even for a 1st rounder that is outstanding. However, that was the chalk pick as every other WR left on the board was drafted far behind him at the time. It is easier to get a pick right when you have no other options.

Your comment about Mixon reminds me how little respect he seems to get, even when he is highly rated. Fournette ended up not working for me, and he may end up being just this side of a bust. But Mixon has been outstanding. Even on a dumpster fire of a team, in the last two years he has finished as the RB9 (winning the AFC rushing title), and RB12. Both of those finishes were with by far the worst offensive line in the league, and perhaps the worst talent around him.

Hamlet
Overall: It’s fascinating to me how owners handle the kind of players in this round. How long do you hold onto a player hoping they finally become relevant? Drake and Hooper took awhile to be relevant, and they may not stay that way for long. When is the right time to give up on players you draft?

This is probably the thing I am the worst at in dynasty, so I can’t offer any insight. All the players I’ve dropped since joining the league, either by choice or being forced into it to fill a starting lineup, could probably fill a competitive fantasy roster.

20

Since Hamlet provided some analysis for the 2016 draft, I’ll post my draft grades using the grading system I developed for the 2017 draft.

As we saw, the 2016 draft was a complete mess, and it was actually difficult to avoid the myriad landmines that were being drafted to manage a decent score. The grades my system came up with are pretty interesting. As a reminder, these grades are based on 2019 dynasty draft ADP (three seasons after the players were drafted), here’s how the results turned out from the 2016 draft:

1. SenorBeef - 86.67: This is a great example of how not having any early round picks in this grading system prevents you from getting a really bad score, but you still have to make the most of your late picks. Beef nailed Drake in the 3rd, and even though he whiffed on a couple round 4 picks, the bad ones don’t hurt your score since they weren’t expected to do anything anyway. Plus, two of his late picks are still in the league and that helped his score. While I think my system might need to be tweaked a little so that these later picks aren’t so good for your score, it actually makes sense. Not having a 1st or 2nd round pick and coming out of the draft with a RB2 and a startable TE is pretty outstanding.

2. Jules - 195.50: GOAT. Overlooking how good of a pick Alex Collins was is criminal. He was RB19 that year, and was an every week start RB2 for the first half of 2018 before he got hurt. That was a 6th round pick! He’s out of the league now, so I don’t get any credit for him in my score, but that’s a bug of the grading system. I should probably rework it to count fantasy finishes over the 3 years after the draft, come to think of it. But that seems like a more difficult thing to do. Maybe for a future project.

3. Hamlet - 214.50: This is a really, really good score for having a 1st and 2nd round pick, and even more astoundingly, not having late picks to boost your score.

4. RetroVertigo - 433.67: You can see the discrepancy in the grades between the top 3 and the middle of the pack. For reference, I found dynasty ADP info to grade our drafts all the way back to 2012, and the average draft grade is 478.9.

5. Justin - 453.50: I did not realize that Paul Perkins was in the league in 2019, since he was undrafted in dynasty drafts and didn’t play in 2018. But I guess he was. This is why I like looking at these drafts 3 years out, because Perkins was a decent value at the time he was drafted, and I remember thinking he would be a good trade target for a season or two. But after three years, he had no value whatsoever.

6. RNATB - 465.00: I like that my grading system often mirrors the eye test for a draft. This is about an average score, and looking at this draft, it’s an average draft. The 1st round pick (Tyler Boyd) is a valuable starting WR, but not a star. His 2nd round pick (DeAndre Washington) is still in the league, but is only a handcuff with a hint of upside. His 3rd round pick (Hipster Fuccboi Paxton Lynch) is out of the league. I would say that is about average, and the grading system reflects that.

7. Varlos RIP - 528.33: The scores being this high at rank 7 is a really strong indication of just how bad this draft was, and how many landmines there were. When your draft comes down to whether Goff or Robby Anderson were your best pick, that is rough.

8. Dale - 557.80: Dale reached far for Dak, but that picked has worked out well. Higbee might have some value this season, but last year at draft time, he was basically undrafted. With this draft three years in the rearview, this haul was Dak and trash.

9. Petey - 690.33: This is pretty interesting. I would consider Laquon Treadwell one of the worst dynasty draft picks of the decade, and this draft doesn’t even rate as the worst. Not only that, but it isn’t in the bottom 25%!

10. Omni - 783.33: Omni was at 11 before I double-checked and Tajae Sharpe is actually still playing. He had some major hype going into 2016’s draft, so I understand reaching for him. At the time, it was a defensible pick. But he’s on the short list as the post child for ignoring preseason and training camp hype.

11. Stringer - 800.00: Corey Coleman is as big a draft bust as we’ve had in recent memory, which seemed impossible at the time. For such a bad draft grade, this could have been worse had Stringer made a 2nd round pick, which he would have inevitably whiffed on. Considering that Stringer is a 2x champion in this league, and a 4x points leader, he finished 2nd to last in his draft grade in 2017 and 2016. And in 2015 he drafted a defense in the 3rd and some chump in the 5th that probably never made a roster. So, zero qualifying picks! He also had an 11th place finish in 2013. Over the entire graded history, Stringer has the second worst draft grade of any owner, which is bizarre considering his success in this league. As shitty as it was to leave the league, I kinda miss how he single-handedly brought down the skill level of our drafts.

12. Ellis Dee - 851.67: Kenneth Dixon in the 1st ended up being about as bad as it could get. He technically got signed very late in 2019, but was injured and didn’t make a team at the start of the season. So he got the worst possible 1st round draft grade of a player not in the league after 3 years. Sterling Shepard saves this from being the worst draft in my graded history.

Overall, 2016’s average draft grade was the worst of any season from 2012 to 2017. I would bet money that 2018 to 2020 will grade higher three years out from those drafts, too. Think for a moment that we are essentially drafting from a small pool of the same players. If we had done this draft a hundred times in 2016 instead of once, the same 95% of players would get picked each time. They may go to different teams, but the pool of players wouldn’t change much. Since each player would essentially go around the same place, the grade for each pick/player wouldn’t change much. This year’s average grade is a pretty strong confirmation that this was the worst season to draft that we’ve had in a long time.