Darcimer

Nevermind, figured it out.. You can delete this. Thanks

The quick answer is NO, it is not alright to pick a Defense that early. However, there is nothing wrong with your numbers. You didn't post your offensive scoring, but it appears that they are pretty much in line with common performance leagues. I also have BAL and CHI in the first two rounds. But we all know that defensive teams are not going to be drafted until the at least the fifth round. Their ADP's are, like you said, seventh round. ( I assume that's for 14-team league) So here's a couple things you can do. You could first setup rosters to one starter DEF, and 0 backups, then recompile. This will drop BAL and CHI to end of third round, top of fourth. If that doesn't slide the defenses down enough for you, go ahead and try (.5) for starting defens. Try not to use the custom baselines if you don't know how to use them. I would stick to the compiler recommended, as the other baselines, while giving you a truer picture of value( like last starter drafted), it won't be as practical when it comes draft time. If you are still not happy with where the defenses are falling, in the "overall rankings/custom baselines" box, there is a yellow box under DEF called "baseline adjust factor*". Make this number lower, and the defenses will drop accordingly. You'll have to do a little trial and error, but it will give you a good reference point. A 14-team league is going to run thin at RB, so don't even think about taking a defense early unless you have your RB's wrapped up. I am not telling you that you shouldn't target a good DEF team, but remember what your goal is. You want to get the most value at every pick. BAL might have great value in the third round, but it will have even more value in the sixth or seventh, where they are likely to still be around. Exactly where you put them in your rankings is up to you.. But as a rule of thumb, especially if you want to target a good defense, try to line them up a few picks ahead of their ADP. If none of this works for you, just tick the "exclude positions from overall rankings" box in the setup in the "league variables" box. And use your gut. Good luck.. Todd A.

See bottom for link to where I saw the conditional formatting comment. Yeah that'll do the trick too.. If I add a column between B and C, then concatenate B to the new column, that won't mess up any macros or formulas? I'll give it a whirl. Although I must admit I am curious about your first comment about actually doing some valuations. That my take more time then either of us actually have right now.. Thanks!! http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/b...office.11).aspx Enhancements to Office Excel 2007 Excel 2007 provides several enhancements to conditional formatting. These include: * Three new visualizations: data bars, color scales, and icon sets that help you to explore large data sets, identify trends and exceptions, and quickly compare data. * A new user interface (UI) for adding, removing, and managing conditional formats. * Many new conditional formatting rules. * The ability to use more than three conditions. * The ability to test conditions in addition to "true" or "false." * Functionality specific to Microsoft PivotTables. * Functionality specific to tables.

I would like to separate DB's into cornerbacks and safeties, DL into DE and DT, and LB into ILB and OLB. I can do the work, but what is the best way to get the cheatsheets to break them out. I was thinking about maybe changing the "team" or "bye" to "CB" or "OLB" on the DB(or LB) tab. ( don't really need to know the team name) Would this work, or is there a better way to do this? Also, is there a possibility that we can add a few more colors? Maybe color scales or something? (Excel 2002, I see that Excel 2007 boasts more than 3 conditions). Thanks!! Todd A..

Yeah, I kinda got on a roll there for a minute... I hope it made sense, it's a pretty important concept if you play fantasy. I just felt obligated to spit it all out since it's taken me years to figure that out that exact answer. That variable baseline adjuster is almost a burden once you figure out how to use it and what it's telling you. Then you start searching for the "holy grail". Let me say that there really is no "perfect" baseline. The way I am doing it gives you a fairly good estimate on value tailored toward my league. But keep in mind, it will not get you your picks before the rest of the crowd. It's very close to the "compiler recommended" baseline, so I'd recommend that new users trust it. My suspicion is that camaro24 might have used a different baseline or he has more than one backup TE ( or maybe TE is included in the flex position). I'll also point out that the compiler is projecting Gates to have over 1,000 yards this year. Todd A

Yeah, post your scoring... But..... There is nothing wrong if Gates is ranked 5th overall, that's a pretty common sight. For example, in a PPR ( 1 point per reception) league, and everything else pretty normal ( i.e 4 pt passing TD, 6 pt TD,s 1 pt per 10 yds for RB and WR and TE, 1 pt per 20 yds passing yard) Gates could very well end up ranked 5th overall, depending on your baseline, the number of teams, and roster requirements. For example, in my 12 team league, we start 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE..etc... If you leave it on "compiler recommended", Gates will be 13th overall, but if you give TE's a scoring advantage ( say 1.5 or 2 points per 10 yds), this will drastically influence Gates' value. Another big factor is if you use only 2 WR's, ( or TE's are a bigger percentage of your lineup). A third big factor is if you adjust the baseline to "last starter drafted", Gates will be bumped all the way up to #4. The reason is this: VBD drafting is based on what a player's "VALUE" is, not fantasy points. Let's assume you have a 2 team draft, and 2 players on each team, one TE and one WR. Let's also assume you know exactly how many points each player will score this coming year. ( Bear with me..) A realistic example from last year: * WR Roy Williams - 255 * TE Antonio Gates - 217 * WR Terry Glenn - 212 * TE Jason Witten - 145 If you had the first pick, knowing ahead of time how many fantasy points each player would score, whom would you select? The correct answer is not Roy Williams, but Antonio Gates. Even though Williams scored more points, Gates was more valuable. He is more valubale, becaus eof how many MORE points he scored over his replacement would have scored ( in this case, Witten). In fact, whichever team had Gates was guaranteed to win this league. Gates plus either wide receiver outscored the opposing WR-TE pair. The reason is that Gates outscored Witten by a greater amount than Williams outscored Glenn. The point here is, when you have a super-stud like Manning or Gates, there comes a point in your draft where it just does not make sense, point-wise, to skip over the selection, UNLESS!!!!...... You know the draft tendencies of your league. If you know that no one in your league is going to draft a TE until the 5th round, then by all means, do not take Gates at 5, or 20, or even 29. By this point, Gates is certainly a steal by my scoring rules, but it's your league tendencies( read, "economics") that will determine what "price" (in terms of picks) Gates will fetch. If you wait too long, someone will beat you to him, and reap the rewards. Let's face it, most leagues are filled nowadays with people that have a relatively up-to-date cheatsheet. Your advantage will be that you KNOW when a player has fallen to a spot where is is now undervalued, and represents a huge value to you. After all, the point is to get the greatest value at every pick. If your projections are wrong, well, there isn't much we can do about that. There are alot of very smart people doing their best to give us their projections. You will never be able to draft a team without using some common sense. As for how you can use the compiler to your advantage, you can adjust your baseline to reflect what your league does. If you have access to your leagues past drafts, ( or you can use average ADP data from the compiler, ANTSports, or Mockdraftcentral). you can try this great exercise: First take the number of rounds in your draft. ( mine is 24). Take 2/3 of that number ( 16), and find out how many QB's were drafted by that round in your league. On the setup page of the compiler, there is an "overall rankings/custom baseline" box. Change the yellow "baseline adjust factor" until the "adjusted baseline rank" ( the line right below it) is equal to the # of QB's taken by round 16 (or 2/3's of the way through your draft). Do the same for RB's and all your positions, and then compile the cheatsheet. ( It doesn't matter what overall rankings method you use at this point, as long as the "adjusted baseline rank is showing the numbers you desire). This will probably address your Gates concern to a little extent. For me, it dropped Gates 5 spots to # 9. I also notice that Gates' ADP is 3.11, so I still won't draft him there. But honestly, if you did, I would have a hard time coming up with some concrete evidence that you made a mistake. The compiler is only telling you what values the players have and where he ranks when compared to other players at different positions. It's up to you to decide whether or not other factors warrant a shift up or down in where you "actually" draft them. You may very well still get Gates in the 3rd round, and land Peyton Manning AND Reggie Wayne before the spot that the compiler was telling you to take Gates. Personally, though, I won't be gunning for Gates, unless it's 4th round or later. But that's my league... Todd A.

Yeah, Tell me about it.. If these guys weren't my buddies<mumble>. I have been complaining for years.. We used to use one RB and one FB. With no points until 100 yds, all the points were pretty much TD's. Alstott was a monster then. I have poured over the stats the last few years, and concluded that you pretty much can't base any kind of scoring system on players that have career years. Sometimes they have a whole mess of them, like LT. There is usually going to be some player that sets the mark so high, that it can't be taken for granted that this level will be achieved every year. My point is that if you have a predominantly "scoring" based system for offensive players( ours has a bonus at 100 yards, or 300 passing yds), and a performance based system for IDP's ( see first post) simply giving the offensive players a bigger bonus does nothing to balance the offense and defense but actually make players like LT behemoths. You still have the majority of the league at sub-bonus for yardage, and thus 0 points. So every year I suggest to make the bonus at 50 yards for RB and WR( QB's seem to be fine at 300, IMO). The response I get is that "50 yards is not an NFL hallmark". In one sense I can see the argument. I notice quite often that a RB or WR will stay in a game, even in a blowout, if he is just short of 100, and once he goes over 100, generally gets some rest. If he is over 100 already and it's early, and it's a blowout, the next goal is 200, or the record, ( is it like 270 or so, Lewis against the Browns I think) But players that were already mentioned, like Westy, Bush, or Addai really aren't worth that much when they consistently get a split of pass yards and rush yards. A 150 total yards ( or a theoretical 199 yd) game is still a 0, unless he gets in the endzone. This is the crux of my question. How do you adapt to a scoring system that refuses to reward players that are consistently racking up yards, but not points. Here is an example: ( cherry picked to illustrate the problem) LT(benchmark) My league 248 The perfect huddle scoring system 460 Reggie Bush 63 vs 223 ( Notice half of LTs pts here, and 1/4 in my league) Addai 58 vs 208 WR's ( To illustrate how badly they score-compare to RB's above, Does LT really=4 Drivers?) T Owens 95 vs 283 D Driver 63 vs 269 Muhammed 45 vs 176 Now the catch: IDPs: LINK There are 30 LB's that will outscore the best WR and all but the 6 best RB's. SO back to my original question: How does this change your draft strategy knowing that: a ) the scoring system sucks, 4-6 players will score in the stratospehere ( hope you get one, I always seem to draft 11th) b ) Great QB's are out there, but not a ton of them. c ) LB's ( and safeties+DE's to a lesser extent) score the most points ( after QB's) but there are a ton of them. Kind of like kickers, there is no sense in drafting one early, even if they are the highest point scorers in the league, the value just doesn't demand it, but the IDP runs starts early, like the end of the 3rd, beginning of fourth rounds. I guess go with some kind of scarcity strategy and target those top 6 RB's, then change to QB's ( the dropoff for QB's bleeds fast but is fairly consistent) I'm going to read the VBD article again. LOL.. Todd

Good advice, I was thinking similarly. When ranking my players, I almost have to throw yardage out with the bathwater. If I just rank them by TD's, I'll get a truer picture of value. Of course the problem is that when dealing with such a small sample, an error of one or two makes a big difference. I am usually really good at digging up some gems that could be had in the later rounds, so I am not afraid to let the WR's slide to 5 or 6. I just have to live with the fact that I am not going to have a solid WR corps, but as you can see, scoring-wise, nobody will. The NFL does have some fluctuations every few years, I hope the trend is going to continue, because if it is suddenly a "WR Year", then I will be unprepared, but I don't see it happening. Too many teams are realizing what the Montana offense, or the Brady offense have shown, spreading the ball around and having seveal threats is the best way to crush a defense. Not so good for fantasy numbers, though. As for IDP's, there are a handful of DT's, read 3 or 4, that will have respectable tackle/sack numbers, but they still are the lowest scoring position on the field. Seeing as they are scarce ( factor in the 8 or so 3-4's ) and you really only have about 40+ starters. I generally draft these guys last and hope to land a decent one if free agency, but if I am going to somewhat punt the WR's, I need to put some thought into where I am going to spend those high draft picks. I will probably grab a stud DE, they are also somewhat scarce, or maybe an Inside LB ( we break them out), but safeties and OLB's are plentiful and high scoring. I won't land any Merrimans this way, so I need to think long and hard about the wisdom of the scarcity concept. Later Todd

OK, I have been in this league for years. The scoring has remained pretty much intact, but I just can't figure out how to weight each position. Scoring: ( There are alot of zero's every week) All TD's 6 100 yds Rushing 5/10 at 200 100 yds Rec'ing 5/10 at 200 300 yds Pass 5/10 at 400 TE's get 5 at 50, 10 at 100 IDP's 5 per sack 5 per INT 1 per tackle Roster requirments QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, TE, PK, DT, DE, ILB, OLB, CB, S I'll post the top 30 players from 2006 at the end of the post. As you can see, there is a premium on getting that top RB, but there are only a couple of them a year, and if you don't draw a high draft pick, I am a complete loss. Here are my past philosphies: The best year I had was when I just drafted the maximum amount of points on the board that I had a need for. I won some money that year, but I think I was just lucky. Then one year I tried the old zag when everybody zigs theory. I took Randy Moss that year, with the ninth overall pick. I was sure it was the right move. That was a long year. The last couple years I have been using common baselines with the compiler. While I have had moderate success with it, I think I am just not embracing the full power of what it's saying. This year I want to factor scarcity and depth. Here is a link to all last years stats: http://football29.myfantasyleague.com/2007...=48405&O=08 Here is what I am taking out of it so far: The top 3 QB's and RB's are generally equal in points, and also way up there, off the charts. But the dropoff, or point degredation, at each position is not equal. After the top 3, the RB's degrade at almost double the QB's. But there are more serviceable QB's than RB's, the quality of RB's really drops after 12 or 15 deep. The WR's are a joke.. Terrell Owens was the overall 115th ranked player in 2006. T.O. and Marvin were 1 and 2, but they scored around half as much as there respective QB's. The dropoff here is more slow and mild. After about 20 deep, they catch up to about equal with RB's. So what does this mean? Do you grab a Harrison early, or do you piece meal together a REC corpse later? Right now I think it's suicide to draft a REC in the first 4 rounds. To muddy the water even further, there are over 50 combined IDP's that will outscore the #1 REC, and all but the top 6 or 7 RB's. But since there are so many, when do you bite on an IDP? Basically, how would alter your draft strategy for this league? Thanks for reading.. Todd A. 2006 stats 1. 1. Tomlinson, Ladainian SDC RB 248 11 12 B 0 0 24 12 23 23 29 29 23 17 23 17 5 0 Free Agent 3 2. 2. Manning, Peyton IND QB 238 5 28 12 12 11 B 29 25 16 6 10 5 9 10 24 18 18 Free Agent 6 3. 3. Brees, Drew NOS QB 194 5 16 0 13 6 16 B 22 23 11 19 17 6 35 -1 6 0 Free Agent 7 4. 4. Bulger, Marc STL QB 178 0 6 11 25 12 22 B 17 11 -1 -1 5 14 22 0 29 6 Free Agent 7 5. 5. Johnson, Larry KCC RB 174 0 5 B 17 11 6 17 29 11 6 17 11 5 5 0 11 23 Free Agent 3 6. 6. Palmer, Carson CIN QB 170 0 15 22 0 B 6 12 12 4 28 17 17 6 9 0 10 12 Free Agent 5 7. 7. Brady, Tom NEP QB 151 11 5 11 11 12 B 12 28 -4 7 24 4 6 0 12 6 6 Free Agent 6 8. 8. Ryans, DeMeco HOU LB 146 12 5 9 7 B 11 5 6 13 6 6 13 24 8 8 6 7 Free Agent 5 9. 9. Fletcher-Baker, London BUF LB 143 15 7 4 8 6 11 11 B 22 8 9 6 3 13 6 4 10 Free Agent 8 10. 10. Gould, Robbie CHI PK 143 14 10 13 13 16 6 B 11 7 8 4 7 3 6 10 14 1 Free Agent 7 11. 11. Parker, Willie PIT RB 141 5 0 17 B 6 17 0 6 12 22 12 0 0 16 11 0 17 Free Agent 4 12. 12. Kaeding, Nate SDC PK 138 9 16 B 9 11 12 9 8 6 7 5 3 6 12 8 8 9 Free Agent 3 13. 13. Wilkins, Jeff STL PK 137 20 7 10 15 11 4 B 6 5 10 0 10 8 3 8 7 13 Free Agent 7 14. 14. Jackson, Steven STL RB 136 5 5 0 6 0 6 B 6 11 6 0 11 0 12 17 22 29 Free Agent 7 15. 15. Kitna, Jon DET QB 136 0 6 16 10 9 5 16 B 10 5 -1 5 8 3 -2 18 28 Free Agent 8 16. 16. Bailey, Champ DEN CB 135 9 6 0 B 8 9 7 3 17 9 3 6 11 2 13 11 21 Free Agent 4 17. 17. Rivers, Philip SDC QB 135 6 6 B 5 11 17 11 6 2 23 10 -1 6 12 -2 12 11 Free Agent 3 18. 18. McNabb, Donovan PHI QB 134 22 17 12 24 23 11 20 0 B 6 -1 Free Agent 9 19. 19. Merriman, Shawne SDC LB 134 21 5 B 7 2 11 7 20 16 14 2 19 10 Free Agent 3 20. 20. Vick, Michael ATL QB 134 12 16 0 4 B 5 22 18 4 4 6 5 12 -1 23 -2 6 Free Agent 5 21. 21. Wilson, Adrian ARI S 134 5 21 4 15 9 11 9 3 B 7 3 13 14 5 5 8 2 Free Agent 9 22. 22. Scott, Bart BAL LB 133 15 9 14 16 4 3 B 4 3 7 3 13 12 12 8 6 4 Free Agent 7 23. 23. Manning, Eli NYG QB 131 11 22 15 B 6 10 11 6 5 -2 4 4 12 18 -2 5 6 Free Agent 4 24. 24. Ware, Demarcus DAL LB 131 4 9 B 3 13 2 11 2 11 7 9 2 5 9 15 9 20 Free Agent 3 25. 25. Kampman, Aaron GBP DE 129 9 19 1 4 8 B 7 16 13 2 1 5 4 1 13 21 5 Free Agent 6 26. 26. Briggs, Lance CHI LB 128 14 5 5 9 9 13 B 6 4 9 6 7 11 9 7 9 5 Free Agent 7 27. 27. Taylor, Jason MIA DE 128 7 2 0 15 6 9 13 B 19 1 18 7 10 9 8 4 Free Agent 8 28. 28. Thomas, Adalius BAL LB 127 6 24 8 5 9 12 B 9 8 12 4 13 2 8 4 1 2 Free Agent 7 29. 29. Peterson, Julian SEA LB 126 9 11 1 5 B 14 18 15 9 4 2 4 7 8 6 2 11 Free Agent 5 30. 30. Edwards, Donnie SDC LB 125 8 3 B 10 4 5 8 9 10 13 4 6 12 7 14 5 7 Free Agent 3

Worked like a charm. Thanks!!

I tried to e-mail myself the draft order. So I cut and pasted the POS and Player name columns from the draft input sheet into a regular excel file and e-mailed it to myself from my laptop, so I can analyze it on my PC. But I think that the Buddy is locked, bacuse I can't paste it back into the Draft Buddy. Is there a way to paste the pos and names into the draft Buddy? Do I need a password? Thanks in advance... Todd A..

Well good luck with that. Hopefully the other teams will branch out soon, and you have some defensive aces up your sleeve. I am guessing you're light in the RB stable, and you will be able to grab something, because even with IDP, the I bet the RB's were running thin after 4 rounds, and you didn't pick again until the end of 5. When you say "terrible choices" did you mean you made bad choices, or the choices presented to you were awful ( or both)? And if you have Peyton, let me ask you, did you go WR for one of the first two? I am mocking my own first 6 rounds, and am having terrible luck whether I go RB/RB or RB/WR. I am convincing my self that 3 of my first 4 have to be RB. Any thoughts, strategy-wise, on how to handle 1RB/1WR/1TE/ "3 flex"? Do you think going with best available the whole way makes sense, or do you think you still need 2-3 serviceable backs? Good luck.. Todd A.

OK, Thanks... I have seen other draft tools with a mock feature, and, yes, the ADP doesn't work well. I was hoping to use custom rankings for the automatic picks. I don't know if it's intentional, but my league has sorta migrated to my way of thinking, and it has become more and more difficult to be creative while drafting, which means that their lists are usually very close to my list... Now that I am in the 12 slot, I need to be prepared. I see alot of quality and value there, but if you screw it up, it's a long wait before you can fix it, and will probably be too late..

Does anyone know if the draft buddy has a feature where you can automate certain teams/draft slots according to VBD or ADP? Thanks. Todd A.

Mike, You make some great points, and answered my question very well..Of particular interest to me is the fact that Mike's projections are not of the canned variety. It's great to see somebody have some backbone and put their money where their mouth is.. You brought forth a great example with Chad Johnson last year. As a returning customer, I remember vividly how Chad was in all my leagues because FFtoday had him ranked higher than most "cheatsheets" and certainly higher than his ADP. Without pouring through the stats, I bet the projections were damn near close to his actual stats. And who would have believed it, with the QB situation in Cinci last year. Anyway, I am going to keep taking Barlow, Steve Smith, Rod Smith, Westbrook, K Jones and Gates because, frankly, I trust Mike's information more than mine. I'm not going to have guys like Winslow, T Owens, Faulk, even Culpepper, because, simply stated, they are overrated. Of course I've scoured everything I can find about these guys, but does anyone, besides Mike, really have time to do that for 200 players? As far as the accuracy of the projections go, I'm in agreement with you. Barring injuries, which is everybody's problem, how far off could they be? Certain situational events could create a huge deviation, ( i.e J Lewis, Pittman, the Miami QB, even Ricky Williams, Hambrick) but if I (we) shy away from them, which Mike has kind have done for us, and not blindly draft a team, I will be giving some serious weight to FFtoday's numbers when it comes my turn at the draft. I guess I'm not used to having all my teams look the same. ( I'm in 3) But because there are some eye-catching stats, probably one or 2 high quality players at every position, you're going to find yourself biting on these guys in rounds you're not used to taking stabs in. ( I guess it's hard to say Steve Smith is a stab, or Barlow, but it's hard to break the habit of grabbing your Owens', Mcnabb's, and Vick's, we all like to have those names on our rosters to make us feel good about ourselves <duck>). It's more like I need a vote of confidence that I'm doing the right thing and will be okay, because if one player busts, I bust that position in 3 leagues. That's not usually a concern when it's your 3rd wideout or kicker. But I am finding myself taking Hines Ward over Terrel Owens, and Kevan Barlow over Jamal Lewis in the first 3 rounds. I'm taking a QB in the 1Oth round and am finding guys like Garcia, Brady, and Brooks available in 12 man leagues. I'm watching Kellen Winslow(#7) go in rounds 3-5, only to pick up Gates(#3) in the 8-9th, in the mean time I have a total of 7 or 8 combined RB's and WR's without sacrificing a Def or TE--Kickers suck. ( I know part of that is biased due to the scoring systems, but position by position, we all have the same names in a different order. ) If our list is more accurate, we are all going to be making a deposit in December... Todd PS Thanks for all the hard work...