o No One Dared to Take a TE in the First Round: Even though it was a 14-team draft, no one took the plunge into drafting Rob Gronkowski or
Jimmy Graham in the first round. As the fantasy football season nears, I am intrigued by how early the first two tight ends go off the board. How many
people will treat them like #1 or 2 WR options with TE eligibility?
o Fantasy Running Back by Committee: BREAKING NEWS: THE RUNNING BACK POOL IS VERY SHALLOW. Seriously though, it is. Even though I have
said multiple times that I don't trust many of the running backs after the first four (Arian Foster, Ray Rice, LeSean McCoy, and Maurice Jones-Drew), I
loaded up on running backs in the early parts of the draft (6 of my first 7 picks).
o If You Think I'm Crazy... Think again. Well, at least this time. Overall, 70 running backs were taken in this draft, which had 210 total
picks. Luckily for me, it was easy to calculate that one out of every three picks throughout the draft was a running back. How is this possible? The
maximum amount of running back starters in most leagues is three (2 starters and a flex). Why would the average roster carry five running backs when it
could get away with having three (2 starters and 1 bye week fill-in while utilizing the flex spot with either WR or TE)? Simple, because [expletive
deleted] happens. When the average roster has five running backs on it, suddenly drafting six in the first seven rounds doesn't seem too crazy. In a pretty
barren running back market, I tried to give myself the best chance of having 3 legitimate running back options every week. In the end, that's all you can
do, right?
o Will Robert Griffin III be This Year's Cam Newton? If you think so, do you draft him as your first QB so you can use your earlier round
picks on skill players? If you want him as your first QB, how early do you take him? This is another topic that will peak my interest as we get closer to
the fantasy football season.
o Value by Position: The way I calculate value by position is by looking at how long it takes to get to a player that scored 100 points
fewer than the top performing player at each position. The way I see it, 100 points over an entire season is hard to make up at other positions (a little
over a TD/game over a 16-game fantasy season). Here are the results using ESPN Standard League scoring from last season:
o QB: 5 (#1 Aaron Rodgers: 385 #6 Eli Manning: 273)
o RB: 6 (#1 Ray Rice: 283 #7 Adrian Peterson: 181)
o WR: 10 (#1 Calvin Johnson: 254 #11 Marques Colston/Hakeem Nicks: 154)
o TE: 2 (#1 Rob Gronkowski: 233 #3 Aaron Hernandez: 127)
o K: 30 (#1 David Akers: 182 #31 Josh Brown: 82)
o D/ST: 28 (#1 49ers: 169 #29 Raiders 67)
o What Does it Mean? Tight end is the most valuable position and Rob Gronkowski was the MVP last year. Moving forward, it all goes back to
my first point that nobody took a TE in the first round of the draft. However, will that continue?