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AintNoStoppinMeNow

I am Now A Firm Believer in Zero RB Theory

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I always thought with workhorse RB's becoming a thing of the past that getting a stud RB in the first three rounds was a must. Never again and I think losing Le'Veon Bell this week was what finally turned the corner for me.

 

Look at the consensus rankings for top RB's this week. The #1 and #2 guys in Gurley and Freeman were mid and late round picks respectively. Just below them is a late round handcuff in DWill. Look a little further down the list and we have guys that went completely undrafted in Dion Lewis and Jeremy Langford. Want another top 10 option this week? We have Doug Martin who had a middle round ADP. What about a guy like Ronnie Hillman who is now the 1A in Denver and was taken MUCH later than consensus 2nd rounder CJA. Other top options this week include guys like Ivory, McFadden and Gio Bernard. Sitting on bye and performing well are CJ?K and Charcandrick West, who were late round picks or completely undrafted. Even a guy named Thomas Rawls helped me win two games this year.

 

As far as the top RB's? Bell and Charles are out for the year. Who knows how long Forte is out? After the first few weeks of the seasons you could've bought low on the likes of CJA and Lamar Miller if you wanted to. You can buy low (maybe even pick up off WW) right now with Eddie Lacy if you chose to.

 

New draft strategy will be to load up on stud WRs and an elite TE then load up on RB's late while drafting two upside QBs and hoping one of them works out.

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This has been an unusually bad year for stud RBs.

 

But remember, for every Ivory, Murray, Gurley, etc, there's an Alfred Morris, Joseph Randle, Ameer Abdullah, Andre Ellington, etc.

 

The "studs" this year have been all around hit & miss. Luck has been awful, Aaron Rodgers average. Dez hurt, Antonio Brown inconsistent (though not his fault), Odell Beckham inconsistent, Demaryius average, Cobb below average and inconsistent, etc.

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Only 2 elite TEs, but last year was a lot of injuries, off-field problems , and players under producing. Then you combine RBBC and it makes a mess. By the way, QBs are also getting squirrely. A lot of bottom feeders before the season out-performing the top as of mid-way through.

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First off - your lead is a terrible example. The combo of LBell and Dwill have been, and remain, true RB1 status. If you drafted LBell, DWill was worth more and you should have gone the extra ADP round up to get him. Especially since DWill was filling a void that you had for the first two weeks.

 

Secondly, Gurley's a bad example because his ADP had a lot to do with his injury. People were factoring his unavailability for several weeks. Several players who many thought would have high ppg's were discounted because people thought they were not going to be available to later in the season - TGurley, AFoster, MBryant, TBrady, AGates, etc. Happens at every position, and is not unique to RB.

 

Third, it depends on what you would have done with your early picks. QB? Luck or Rodgers - the people that drafted them aren't so happy.

WR? ABrown is okay, might heat up. Dez was a semi-wasted pick. Cobb is stuttering. You would have been better served waiting to the third round and grabbing DHopkins. And there have been waiver wire pickups like Diggs or Snead, maybe JJones, that have outperformed TY Hilton or A Johnson.

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There are now many ways to win at fantasy. To me it mostly depends on draft position and what your league tendencies are. If your league mates still insist in RB-RB, zero RB is more viable. If they mix it up and others emoy zero RB it loses its effectiveness.

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Before the season I had these WRs pegged for first 2 rounds.

 

Brown, Beckham, AJ Green, D.Thomas, C. Johnson, A.Jeffery, Cobb, Dez, and Julio jones.

7 out of 9 healthy, if you went RB,RB you must be REALLL lucky

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I don't have the data but my feeling is that it's a year to year proposition.

In a year like this the zero RB strategy was better. I don't necessarily think that it might be the case again next year.

That's just the nature of an unpredictable game with lots of variance. You have to be able to adapt quickly.

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WR WR is the only way. RB was a minefield in rnd 1-2 like iv never seen. Completely worthless. Waiting on guys like Lat and Doug and getting Julio/ODB early was the only way.

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Best Available Player.

 

Always.

 

This. In retrospect it might seem like zero rb would be a good idea unless you went with players like Rodgers, Luck, Megatron, Dez, Cobb, Jimmy Graham and etc. I know a lot of people don't like to handcuff but I'm a believer of getting a quality back in a solid system like Bell, Charles and Ingram and then make sure to have the next guy up always on your roster.

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I think the answer is what many people have been doing the past few years, which is value stud RBs over stud WRs but don't reach for less than studly RBs

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I think the answer is what many people have been doing the past few years, which is value stud RBs over stud WRs but don't reach for less than studly RBs

I get what your saying but almost all those stud rbs busted or got hurt. By stud I mean the big 5 AP, Lacy, Charles, Bell, Lynch. Next tier being CJ, Hill, Murray, Mcoy also a trap. So I just dunno. Next year i might have Gurley, Freeman and Bell as my only rbs in the first rnd. Charles wont be the same after acl, Lacy will rebound this year and finish top 7 then trick people again next year so hes out. Lynch will be too old.

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My drafts tend to look like this:

Value, Value, Value, Value, Value, Value, Value, etc. with the slightest bias for positional need.

 

I've always felt like all of the draft strategies were too dogmatic and really designed to give beginners a method, writer's a story, and everyone else some food for thought.

Anyone who looked at J. Hill or Murray near the same pick as Demaryius/A.J./Julio/Dez and passed on one of the wideouts was taking a serious risk regardless of zero RB or not.

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Jesus, it doesn't matter what you pick, it matters WHO you pick. Seasons ebb and flow. Yesterday's bust is tomorrows stud.

 

Calvin started slow.

Jordy blew out a knee in preseason but after some drafts

Cobb has been underwhelming

Dez got hurt

Antonio Brown suffered with Ben out

Alshon Jeffrey was out

Cooks has been a disappointment

Jordan Matthews has been a bigger disappointment

 

That's 8 of the top 15 preseason WR's right there.

 

At QB, who would have predicted that Palmer and Dalton would rank as high as they do, and that Tyrod Taylor and Blake Bortles would be top 10 guys in Points Per game. Romo, Roethlisberger injuries. Rodgers, Peyton and Brees underperforming (until lately). Every top 10 list at every position has been turned on it's head.

 

Bottom line is NOBODY KNOWS NOTHING!!! It's educated guessing and luck...there is no system that works better other than to take the best player and hope he stays healthy.

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Again, it's mostly luck...there is no system that works better other than take the best player and hope he stays healthy.

Pretty much. Draft some guys that play football within reasonable adp expectations, and hope they arbitrarily score more each week than your opponents. Then Hope that equals playoffs in wich you then play a few more completely arbitrary and completely luck based games. Hopefully you dont lose 147-148 or 61-65, but either could easily happen.

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I get what your saying but almost all those stud rbs busted or got hurt. By stud I mean the big 5 AP, Lacy, Charles, Bell, Lynch. Next tier being CJ, Hill, Murray, Mcoy also a trap. So I just dunno. Next year i might have Gurley, Freeman and Bell as my only rbs in the first rnd. Charles wont be the same after acl, Lacy will rebound this year and finish top 7 then trick people again next year so hes out. Lynch will be too old.

The biggest problem in fantasy football is what I like to call ADP peer pressure. If I thought Gurley was the best college RB I had ever seen and was a shoe-in in the NFL and took him in the first round with initial pick, I'd get run out of the room by calls of "reach" and laughter. We get tricked into playing by ADP and not standing out by stepping out of the "order" established by the industry experts.

 

I commished one season where we had a guy bail on draft day and we ended up with 11 teams. I looked at the scheduling and it was totally screwed, even double headers wouldn't fix it So I proposed creating a "ghost" team. I used only waiver wire players that were available after the draft had taken place. Every week I filled that team with players I thought would do OK. I was judicious with my waiver plays and maintained my waiver order pretty well. The team ended up 5-8, which isn't great but I finished ahead of 5 teams and it got better as the season went on. Most of the moves I made were after waivers ran when players open FA. I named the team "Bye Weak" and it started out pretty rough, but after the first few weeks it was a competitive team and at one point like weeks 8-10 "Bye Weak" won 3 straight.

 

It proved to me that what I knew on draft day wasn't all that important because nobody has ANY idea of what will happen. It drove home the point that the part that ISN'T luck, being informed and agile on the WW, might be more important than drafting well. Every Sunday before the games started I looked ahead at the next week and tried to gamble on 1 player coming back from injury, 1 new signing, 1 hunch...just trying to be ahead. I saved 1 roster spot for that guy and held onto him a couple of weeks to see (like Brandon LaFell this year). I also stocked up on the oversights of others, grabbing the backup RB behind a stud who people had handcuffed. Paid off a few weeks when the start went down and I had his "heir" already on my roster.

 

People in the league got pissed that they were losing to a team of scrubs. Had I gotten 1 more key win during the season I could have made the playoffs with the scrubs, although i'm kind of glad I didn't because it would have made some people really mad.

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The biggest problem in fantasy football is what I like to call ADP peer pressure. If I thought Gurley was the best college RB I had ever seen and was a shoe-in in the NFL and took him in the first round with initial pick, I'd get run out of the room by calls of "reach" and laughter. We get tricked into playing by ADP and not standing out by stepping out of the "order" established by the industry experts.

 

I could not agree more. Its the single most toxic and ruining part of the draft. If you took Leveon Bell last year in rnd 1 they wouldnt have even finished the draft. They would have just spent the entire afternoon laughing at you and throwing rotten vegetables at you telling you how he was second fiddle to Blount. If you took Gurley first overall this year, id genuinely fear for your life. You might have just been killed on the spot, beaten to death. Lets not even start on if you took Hopkins over any of the holy top 7 wrs. We would dedicate an entire section of the forum just for ridiculing you and laughing at you for being so stupid.

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Sure, if you have the ability to see the future.

I just use a risk mitigation approach and pray I get some picks right. Pick lower risk positions higher then load up on RBs in high volume in the middle rounds. My first RB drafted this year was Ameer in rnd 4 lol. I currently have the most points scored from the RB position from getting Doug, Freeman, hillman, Mathews and some others I dont even remember. I loaded up on bums and got lucky with a few. Coud have taken Lat Murray over Ameer and been ever better.

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Definitely gronk first round

And Barnidge based on that logic

 

Check the stats

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The top 4 teams in my league are 1-4 in WR point differential. I'm #1 in RB point differential (by a wide margin) and I'm currently sitting outside the playoff bubble. :thumbsdown:

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Best Available Player.

 

Always.

 

Absolutely. So much this. Always zag.

 

Something else in regards to strategy (Zero RB, et al.) – while I've never been a big mock draft guy, learning how to draft from the different positions is critical. Being able to dictate a position run from the corners or avoid one in the middle picks can make your draft. In particular if you're drafting live among friends.

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It's all about flexibility and thinking of your feet. I hate going into a draft with some rigid strategy in mind.

 

I mock it up for a few weeks leading up to my draft and then let my gut take over.

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I did zero RB in 2008. Larry Fitzgerald, Braylon Edwards and Megatron. But it was Chris Johnson that put me over the top. Edwards was a supreme bust. Did it again last year, Julio, Dez and A Bryant. But it was Gronk that made the difference. I feel in my experience you have to hit big on a middle or late round pick at RB or TE for it to work.

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I've never seen zero RB ever work... This years zero RB team is in 2nd to last place. But by being in close to last they have picked up CJ1K,West,Langford. So many there is hope..

 

I'm sure you can say zero RB would have worked this year after the fact... If you did it last year you would have missed Murray and

Leveon...

 

Solid drafts tend to get you to the playoffs and good WW moves can win you the championship. But then again Luck is the ultimate factor.

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You can't predict injuries. Plus while healthy Charles probably won his owner several games.

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You can't base a theory on a single piece of luck. There aren't many excuses for not having D. Williams, the best handcuff in fantasy, if you had Bell.

 

Above all, you want to draft the combination of players that will give you the largest combined point per game advantage. This requires you to be super comfortable with all the players and to be able to think several moves ahead, which is why mock drafts are so key. Whether the best combination of players starts out as RB-RB, RB-WR, WR-WR etc. is going to vary based on the talent depth that year, your draft position, what you believe your opponents' picks are going to be, etc., but if you're not thinking about how to mathematically maximize your point per game advantage with every decision you make during the draft, you have no idea what you're doing, and I have a hard time believing people with rigid, simplistic strategies really understand what's going on.

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You can't base a theory on a single piece of luck. There aren't many excuses for not having D. Williams, the best handcuff in fantasy, if you had Bell.

 

Above all, you want to draft the combination of players that will give you the largest combined point per game advantage. This requires you to be super comfortable with all the players and to be able to think several moves ahead, which is why mock drafts are so key. Whether the best combination of players starts out as RB-RB, RB-WR, WR-WR etc. is going to vary based on the talent depth that year, your draft position, what you believe your opponents' picks are going to be, etc., but if you're not thinking about how to mathematically maximize your point per game advantage with every decision you make during the draft, you have no idea what you're doing, and I have a hard time believing people with rigid, simplistic strategies really understand what's going on.

DWill is the "best handcuff"? This statement is wrong on so many levels that Gurley and Freeman owners might find it in their hearts to give you a reach around.....but I doubt it.

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I would say that with the current landscape of RBs the true 3 down workhorse stud getting goal line carries on a decent team and also a surefire bet to get his job back if injured is even more valuable than ever before. Right now the only guy that fits that description and isn't injured or old is Gurley. He's the only RB I would draft early and I would take him at #1 overall. After that it's going to be Gronk followed by WR1's. After that it would depend on which RBs were still out there and if I didn't like any of them would go after WR2's and the Olsens/Kelces/Gates of the world.

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Handcuffs work a small percentage of time. Most times they clog up a roster space all year.

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DWill is the "best handcuff"? This statement is wrong on so many levels that Gurley and Adams owners might find it in their hearts to give you a reach around.....but I doubt it.

So you're trying to say that I said DWill is currently a handcuff? He was the best handcuff until Bell got injured. He was the number 1 fantasy RB when he started the first 2 games with Bell out and it was always clear he'd be a workhorse if Bell got injured. Who did you have over Williams. Tell me.

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Handcuffs work a small percentage of time. Most times they clog up a roster space all year.

First half of the season there were only 2 or 3 handcuffs I would've used. I very hesitantly gambled to drop D. Williams for R. Hillman week 7 to see what he would do for a couple weeks/to try to trade him planning to pick Deangelo back up soon :/ After byes, I'd say there becomes ~8 must-roster handcuffs who are guys you think are one injury away from leaping to solid RB2 status or better.

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The reality here is that guys like Devonta Freeman, DeAngelo Williams, Darren McFadden and Charcandrick West are probably going to drive teams to championships. Nobody saw that coming. But in the case of Bell and Charles, I'd be willing to bet that most of their owners were doing pretty well before the injury, and would be doing great if those guys weren't gone. It's not about what you pick, it's about WHO you pick. I've made it a point the last 2 years to try to avoid "old" guys or high mileage guys because as the season goes on, they get hurt more or get less efficient.

 

You can all try and convince people that you're experts at fantasy football, but you're not going to do much of anything with any team if you don't have a fair amount of luck, particularly when it comes to players health. The NFL is changing, it's become a passing league and most teams have a specialty back that they use in passing downs/situations. Since teams don't run as much on 1st and 2nd down, there are a lot more passing situations than their used to be. Also keep in mind that it will shift in the coming weeks as weather worsens and passing becomes more difficult. Eddie Lacy, Marshawn Lynch, Jeremy Hill, Adrian Peterson...all those guys who "underperformed" may have more chances. Lamar Miller was HUGE bust, until Miami realized "hey, maybe we should get him the ball 20x a game" and suddenly he's not a bust anymore.

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Lamar could still bust honestly. 2 monster games against pathetic competition and we're crowning him "unbusted" or whatever you want to call it. I had him as a 3rd and traded assets for Charcandrick because I haven't forgotten just how much Miller has let me down the last 3 years. Insurance never hurts :thumbsup:

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Pretty Sure that Gurley, Barring injury could go #1 consensus next year, and fornette might go 2nd. I wouldn't mind one of those guys over Julio or brown or whomever

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Pretty Sure that Gurley, Barring injury could go #1 consensus next year, and fornette might go 2nd. I wouldn't mind one of those guys over Julio or brown or whomever

Who? You cant mean Forsette, he wouldnt be in consideration for a high pick.

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No fournette at LSU. Best RB prospect since ADP

Nice, ill look into him. But generally even the most hyped of rookies dont go that high. Back end of the 1st is the usual highest landing spot for a hyped rookie in an assumed clear workhorse role. See Ryan Mathews.

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