Ray_T

I agree My policy is to try to be the person who Starts a run on a position. in position 9, 10, or 11, I'd actually take Peyton Manning if hes available. I think the dropoff from Manning to the next best QB is larger than the dropoff from your RB Taken #9 overall to the RB taken at #15 overall. and at #10 or #11 it makes even more sense to take him. However I dont think I'd take him any earlier than #8 overall. if manning isnt available at #9 (i'd say its a 50/50 chance in most leagues) I'd go RB/WR (or WR/RB) I havnt done the math to see if it's likely that you would benefit taking a WR at #9. It may work for you.... And if it starts a run on WR's you may still have a very good RB at #15. this is where knowing your league is important. Certain guys have tendencies. for example, in my keeper league (2 QB's & 3 WR's start)there are 3 guys who have a bias towards WR's. We keep 3, and they usually keep 2 Wr's and a RB or one RB and 2 WR's. if they keep only 1 WR they usually take one with their first pick. one guy is biased towards QB's keeps 2 QB's most years, and if he only keeps one, he will usually draft one with his first pick. I take these things into account when I plan my draft and try to get value in whatever I take.

well, you guys gotta remember, Grossman is basically still a rookie. he's started all of 3 NFL games (maybe less) in his career(mostly due to injury). I think you guys still gotta give him some time to grow into the role. There will still be growing pains, but I think he'll be fine. he was without some big players in the Offense in this exhibition game, so you gotta expect he wont look as good. dont panic, he'll be okay so long as he doesnt get injured again.

What he said. McGahee is better. but hes in a crappy offense on a crappy team. he runs against teams that stack the box against him. Jackson wont have that problem.

seems okay, but I'd take my starting QB before taking my 3rd string RB. assuming no injuries, the third string RB only affects your numbers on a bye week. a better starting QB affects your numbers every week. otherwise the plan seems fine.

as another note: in our league the commish has sole discretion. however if he gets complaints from enough guys (at least 3) he will open a discussion in our email thread. we've never had an issue. 3 trades were veto'd (one was made while both guys were drunk) and noone has ever had a major issue. If you go rejecting every trade out there, it makes it hard for a person to rebuild a team cuz half the trades are vetoed. some trades are not 100% fair, and that's life. NFL GM's make poor trades too. You gotta allow for mistakes. if someone were trading cadillac for Ernest Wilford, I'd veto that. but Cadillac for Westbrook? they are projected very close to each other in the fantasy mags in terms of predicted production. Neither is top 5 and both are top 15 players in keeper leagues. I'd say it's just a matter of preference more than anything. I have a buddy who has westbrook and he wouldnt trade him for cadillac. and if I had cadillac I wouldnt trade him for westbrook. so in the end, who cares.

that is retarded. the trade is reasonably fair. In fact I'm not even sure who is supposed to be getting ripped off here. I'd prefer cadillac, because of his youth. However, you are sending one premium player for another with a third player being involved as a throw-in. I wouldnt say this is grossly unfair.

well, I dont fully know what this is all about but here is a situation that may make you guys think about it. the Year that Priest holmes got hurt, I had a stacked team. We expanded and I knew I couldnt keep everyone. Priest was hurt and at the time looked like his career may be over. I didnt keep him. I kept Tomlinson and McNabb instead. draft day (one hour before the draft) I traded priest holmes for a first and a 2nd round pick and I gave up my 6th and 8th round picks. the league later that day decided that allowing this was not really in the best interest of the league to allow someone to trade a player you werent keeping, but since there was no rule preventing it, we voted and created a rule. but we still allowed the trade to go through. I benefited from it, and had a strong team that year finishing #1 but as luck would have it, I had injuries and lost in the playoffs. the new rule took effect effective the end of the season and read something like this: Once the trade deadline comes, rosters are frozen from trades until the end of the season. At this point ONLY Declared Keepers may be traded. If you choose to make an offseason trade prior to declaring keepers (there is a date where we need to declare them), any player you acquire via trade MUST be used as a keeper. what this means is, if I traded Tomlinson today and our keeper deadline is next week, the player(s) I acquire for him MUST be used as keepers. either way, the trade wasnt vetoed but we learned our lesson and made sure it didnt happen again. if they would have Vetoed the trade, I probably would have grumbled a bit, but I wouldnt have quit or threatened to quit. As for the guy who is threatening to quit. Threats are stupid. either you quit or you dont. but dont hold it over everyones head as a threat. That's why so many are choked about it here. to those who are in the league: if he walks away, you find someone else to play in your league. It's not like we've ever had problems replacing people who quit in some of our other fantasy leagues. there's usually a waiting list of people waiting for a spot to open up so they can join. But remember, if you dont take the right steps when making rule changes, you're gonna have things like this happen. I dont know if the above situation I described helps you guys come to a conclusion or not, but here is some more info for you guys. If there is no parity in the league, you dont need to throw all keepers back in the pool. While it is possible that this may be the only solution if the parity is that horrible, there are other options. 1) reduce the number of keepers that you can keep at the end of this season. If you currently keep 5, drop it to 3 or 2. and have this rule take effect for the next draft (not this one) I would think that everyone has at least 1 top end player worthy of keeping. then the pool of good players that one can rebuild with is larger. our league keeps 3, and for a team ravaged by injuries/retirement it probably takes an average GM 2 years to rebuild unless he really picks up some amazing free agents or drafts well. if it takes longer, he's probably screwing up his drafts or making bad roster moves. To Me, This is acceptable. 2) put in a rule to prevent offseason trades other than keepers. 3) Remember: regardless of what you do for rules, there will never be complete parity in the league, because some people just dont know as much about football as others. Just cuz one team is winning doesnt mean the league needs to be turned upside down. (unless that team exploits a loophole to gain an advantage) 4) Remember also: last place means #1 draft pick overall. if you cant put your team on the right track with a #1 pick overall, you probably dont deserve to be there. Do your homework and draft smart. 5) Veto excessively stupid or unfair trades to prevent this sort of thing in the future. 6) quit whining. this league was presumably created so you guys can have fun, watch some games together over beers and give each other a hard time about their teams. If you're in it to make money you should pay to get in some big online draft with people you dont know or care about. These are supposed to be your buddies. Treat them as Friends. then everyone is happy (I hope)

I'd only be concerned if hes not dressed for the final pre-season game. they'll probably play him half of that game, and then let him rest. for the amount of work he gets come regular season they dont need to tire him out. he will be fine.

well, hes totally right. the third QB is extremely important in this type of league because he will start 2 of your games (bye weeks) and maybe a couple more if a player gets hurt. and if it's late, its not a bad move to have a 4th quarterback either. generally by week 1 or 2 every quarterback who is a starter (regardles of job security)will be picked up off of waivers and one or two backups will be in peoples possession.

well, this seems to be a problem with almost every league I've ever been in. someone wants to change a rule, and someone inevitably gets screwed. what I think is fair: rule changes in mid season should be avoided at all costs, but sometimes this is unavoidable if there is a serious enough issue. if you have to pass a rule mid season or at the start of the season for the current year, it should pass by more than a 2/3 vote(minimum). (ie. 7 out of 10 or 8 out of 12) rule changes that totally change things in a major way should be voted on like normal, but take effect the following season. so for example, if a rule was changed that affects keepers, we vote on it at this draft with the intention to implement it for the next season. so things stay as is for this year and people have adequate notice and can plan for the future. to change what you can do with keepers on 2 or 3 months notice isnt fair to a lot of guys. some are big enough men to take the hit for the good of the league, but I'd say that lots are not. and the bottom line is.... the league has to be accomodate all of its members. the fact that this guy is being difficult could be due to various reasons. if hes just whining because his team wont be as good, you should dump him. he'll always be this way and guys like this destroy the morale of the league. if hes pissed because of the way it was done, that is another matter. I quit a fantasy hockey league a couple of years ago because they kept changing rules in midseason and/or with very little notice to allow teams to plan for the change. In this case, the change helped my team and it woulda looked as though I'd have a good chance to win, but I didnt like the way this (and other past changes) were done and I was really fed up with it. if something like this is the case, hes a good member standing up for a cause he believes in and its a good thing hes making this an issue. in this case it just sounds like hes whining because his team was hurt by the change.... but I dont know the whole story so I wont say more.

in a ten team league it's iffy. but in a 12 team league I'd say hes worth a 4th round pick. Hes the best receiver in detroit and will get as many throws as any #1 receiver out there. Keep him

agreed. keep clayton. I figure hes no worse than branch (assuming both players are healthy and in the lineup) and branch may not play. branch is a bit overrated too. he had one good playoff and one good regular season. Other than that, he hasnt had numbers worthy of being a fantasy starter. Clayton had one good season also. and he is still young. more upside in him anyhow.

Bush is only worth taking that high in a keeper league or a dynasty league. this year he will be an adequate backup RB but not a starter (due to shared time with McAllister) that could change by mid season, but there is no guarantee that this is the case. as you said this is a redraft league, I'd consider him in round 3.

I'd go with Ronnie brown or reggie bush. bush has better long term potential in a PPR league, but brown helps you more today.

I agree with you with one exception: if 11 RB's go off the board, you should take Manning and one of the above RB's (Brown, cadillac, westbrook, or mcgahee) if 10 RB's and manning go off the board (most likely) then I agree 1 RB and 1 WR. if less than 10 RB's are off the board, I'd consider going with RB for both of your first two picks.

well, I think this is a situation where the team has to make a decision. they did a major cleanup after the big scandal a while back, and they may still be on the war path to bring in character guys into the organization. they may let him go (or trade him) to send a message. and if that's the case, I wouldnt be surprised to see it happen. he has some value(agreed not a ton of value based on the past incidents) if they try to trade him, so I doubt they'd outright cut him. but with this vikings team I wouldnt be totally surprised if they did let him go.

I've heard good things about gore. lots of guys are high on lendale white too. but I would say do your research before picking one of them up.

I would say that depending on your competition, here is what to expect: drafting #12, I would say between 8 and 10 of the top RB's will be off the board. 1 QB (Manning) is pretty much guaranteed to go sometime in round 1 and there is a fair chance that another QB will be taken and possibly an elite WR (doubtful but you never know) usually there will be one idiot who will take a player who noone has on their draft board for round 1. (lets assume priest homes for arguements sake) I'd expect you could probably get cadillac or ronnie brown and I think you'd be dumb not to take either of them. Same with westbrook. and if any two of the above players is available, take both (even if you dont want them, you can trade them for a player(s) that you want later) top WR's should be taken in round 3-4

hey, bolden fitz is a deadly combo (especially when playing a weak pass defense), but what happens when your team plays one of the premier pass defenses in the league or when your team gets a bye? You'd be sacraficing a week in the schedule for the bye and possibly another week when the two face a tough defense. (I figure there are 3 or 4 in the league that would cause this scenario, but only one or two that they would play this year) I have 2 WR's from the same team (willford and matt jones in Jax) but that is with the thought that one of the two will emerge to be my #3 guy. (totally different situation) your #1 and #2 would be out on the bye week and you can never replace that kinda talent. and also, replacing 2 players same position for the same week is no easy task. I'd trade bolden for a comparable WR on another team to lessen your risk. take your time making the deal. if you are in a hurry to make a deal that's when you make bad deals. and if no good offers come up, wait until they both have monster games and then try to shop one of them.

Agreed. in a 10 team league, starting 2 QB's means there are 20 starters, and 10 backups. well there are 32 NFL teams. probably 30 of which have QB's that have secured the starting job (if we are lucky) unlike RB's. QB's who dont start wont get you any points at all unless there is an injury or the starter is yanked for some reason. There really isnt a QB by committee out there that works. so dont get caught without a good #3 QB. Personally, I keep 4 QB's on my roster so that I have the depth and if other teams QB's go down I can trade one away at more than market value.(it also messes up other teams... there are teams in my league with 2 starters and no good backup because a couple of us took 4 QB's at the draft table) once you have all your starters filled out (RB, WR, and QB) make sure you get a third QB before most of the rest of your league get theirs and after that if you can get any QB that appears to have the starting job locked up, then take him without hesitation. That is the main difference in 2 QB leagues. you can still pickup RB's in a RB by committee situation the day of your game, but QB's are completely another story.

I'm in the same type of league. I guess it depends on what's available. picking late in the second round, some of the players I'd look for would be RB's Ronnie Brown Cadillac Williams Reggie Bush QB's Eli Manning Donovan McNabb (basically any of the top 3 QB's on the board other than these two) WR's TO Chad Johnson Steve Smith (basically the top 3 or 4 receivers on the board) Now many of you will say 'most of these guys wont be available' and you will be right. but I'd bet at least one or two of them will be available because every team has their own preferences and some people make stupid picks. I'd expect the top 10-12 RB's to be taken off the board by the time you draft again. if the top 3 QB's are available or Ronnie brown or Cadillac is available I'd go with one of them with my #2 pick. or Chad Johnson. hes a major stud WR for years to come. but if you pick a WR or QB, you Should take a RB with your next pick. bottom line, in a keeper draft, the young players hold more value in the first couple (keeper) picks. keep this in mind when picking your team. bearing that in mind, I'd take LT over SA in the first round(due to age) however, you also gotta take what the draft gives you. good luck

I agree. NO VETO. I'd say green is the better talent at QB, but Bulger is younger, has better receivers and is in a more pass oriented offense. so I'd say that's more or less a wash. As far as the RB's go, Brown is not quite as good(I expect less yards this season, but not a lot less) but Brown has more upside and could possibly have a big breakout year. I'd say its pretty close too. while the trade isnt 100% even, not many trades are. I've seen a lot worse trades go through. and if this is a keeper league then I'd say the guy getting Ronnie brown will make out like a bandit 1 or 2 years from now. I think it's more likely that whoever wants to veto has sour grapes cuz they wanted one of the players involved and they're pissed they couldnt get him. ----------------- I also agree that vetos should ONLY be used if it looks like collusion. (thus, you look at the situation and determine if the trade makes sense) Example: a team in rebuilding mode(finished last this year) has Shaun Alexander and no other good players. He drafts Reggie bush with his #1 pick and maybe he trades Alexander to a contender for Ronnie brown. Collusion? No The trade makes sense because hes trading today's stud for tomorrow's stud and building for the future. while I wouldnt be keen on it because he could have done better... I wouldnt veto the deal. Why? Alexander has a couple more good years left and Brown is on the rise. (possibly one of the big 3 RB's 2 years from now) and the tandem of brown and reggie bush would keep his team competitive for years to come. in that case, I would not vote to veto either because the trade at least makes some sense to both teams. and to me, that is where I draw the line. if you can see the logic, then you should not veto. Even if the trade is a little lopsided. so what if one team is playing to win this year, and the other team plays for next year? this stuff happens in real life, and should be allowed in the league as well.

well, I drafted both jones and wilford in the hope that one of them grows into the #1 role in Jax. I expect the season will start with receiving by committee with all 3 of their WR's getting roughly equal play. then I expect a pecking order will develop (hopefully by the end of game 3) at that point, we'll know who can play. My expectation is that wilford has the inside line on the #1 job but jones will overtake him. but that's just speculation on my part.

Are you certain that Rod Smith is the #1 guy still? given his age, and dropping production I think this is a legitimate question.

10 team league. starting 2 QB 2 RB 3 WR 1 TE 1 Defense 1 kicker RB Tomlinson Julius Jones Reggie Bush QB Donovan McNabb Kurt Warner John Kitna Alex Smith WR Reggie Wayne Andre Johnson Ernest Willford Matt Jones Michael Clayton TE Gonzalez Kicker Reed Defense Tampa Bay Of note: I have received various offers for Reggie Bush, and wouldnt mind an opinion of what I should be asking (although I am considering making no trade at all) 3 keepers allowed at the end of every season.