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Light on the fantasy news today except that we’ve done a lot of hatin’ on Ochocinco over the years; but dude handled kicking duties for the Bengals tonight. Props. You may want to double check your league’s scoring system to make sure that WR get kicking points.
Meant to get to this earlier. The Roundtable joined a league with some all-star bloggers. Here’s how it shook out round-by-round with some notes about dudes who were still on the board at the time.
The draft was quick and professional. 10 teams, standard scoring (no PPR) QB, 2RB, 3WR, TE, K, D, 6 Bench.
First Round Ninth Pick
Steve Slayton: #7 RB on our rankings and the top guy left
Still on the Board: Chris Johnson, Brandon Jacobs, Frank Gore
Second Round Second Pick
Reggie Wayne: #7 WR in our rankings. Technically Anquan Boldin is #2 on our draft board, and he’ll likely score a ton of fantasy points; but we went with rock steady Reggie Wayne. Andre Johnson was there and would have drafted him instead, but we didn’t want to double up on Texans.
Still on the Board: Boldin, Johnson, Calvin Johnson
Third Round Ninth Pick
Marques Colston: #10 WR in our rankings. Kinda suprized he was still there. Figure he’s good for 1,200 yards and 8 TDs at least
Still on the Board: Wes Welker, Houshmandzadeh, TO, Brandon Marshall, Dwayne Bowe
Fourth Round Second Pick
Dwayne Bowe: #6 WR in our rankings. Went with Colston first because I didn’t think he’d get past Razzball’s two picks after us; turns out he wouldn’t have, found out later that Razz was going to take Colston if he got by the Roundtable.
Still on the Board: Wes Welker, Houshmandzadeh, TO, Brandon Marshall
Fifth Round Ninth Pick
Phil Rivers: #10 QB in our rankings. This is the only pick of the night I might regret. Rivers has a tough schedule and if I had it to do over again I might have gone another way.
Still on the board: Rodgers, McNabb, Romo
Sixth Round Second Pick
Pittsburgh D: The Roundtable was “that guy”. We went for Steelers D a full 23 picks before the next defense was selected and still without a #2 RB. Crazy? Like a fox, I say. Plenty of decent #2’s to come. I wanted the Steelers D I didn’t feel comfortable waiting until it was our turn again at the bottom of round seven. Draft tip: if somebody you want is still available, draft him.
Still on the Board: LenDale White, Dallas Clark, Reggie Bush
Seventh Round Ninth Pick
Greg Olsen: Haven’t gotten around to the TE rankings yet, but Olsen should be in the top five. Was pissed that Dallas Clark went in the middle of round six; but I like Olsen better than Owen Daniels who went earlier in round seven.
Still on the Board: Jon Stewart, Larry Johnson
Eight Round Second Pick
Cedric Benson: I don’t know why Ced’s not higher on people’s draft lists. Dude averaged 75 yards in 2008’s last eight games; calculates out to a 1,200 yard year. The Bengals historically don’t platoon RBs with Benson getting 83.5% of RB carries those last eight games. The TD number was low, but that’ll pick up. A steal I say, a steal. All this said I knew he’d be there late so I went after power WRs and Pitt D.
After that…
9th Round – Kevin Walter: Solid bye-week play. Wanted Torry Holt who went one pick earlier.
10th Round – Joseph Addai: With all these blogger experts there were few surprises; one was that Donald Brown went a full round higher that Addai.
11th Round – Garrett Hartley: Didn’t reach for a kicker like we did with the Defense; Gostkowski and Bironas went in the ninth.
12th Round - Earnest Graham: Another surprise to me; maybe we’re crazy, but he’s #10 on our running back draft board. He’ll get the bulk of the carries in T Bay.
13th Round – Jake Delhomme: Like how Delhomme is playing Washington on Rivers’ bye-week.
14th Round – Ryan Longwell: I like to draft two good kickers.
15th Round – Heath Miller: Kind of painted myself into a corner needing a back-up D and TE with the last pick. We’ll need a back-up TE before we’ll need the back-up D so we’ll likely drop Miller at some point.
So we’ll update the league as the year goes on. Big ups to the rest of the bloggers in the league. Check out their sites….
RotoScoop
Fighting Chance Fantasy
Rookie Blitz
Fantasy Depth Chart
The Fantasy Man
Fantasy Phenoms
Big Troph
Fantasy Football Calculator
And league commish…
Razzball
8/18/2009
If you’ve heard of the Curse of the 370, you know it’s a theory that if a running back gets 370 or more carries in a season he (or she, technically) is due for diminished fantasy numbers the following season. Michael Turner was the only RB with more than 370 carries in 2008. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is hip and apparently so are the Falcons. There are dudes out there that aren’t the biggest believers; but there’s got to be something to it. There’s a similar statistic among Baseball Sabermetricians called Pitcher Abuse Points which says that dudes (chicks?) shouldn’t throw more that 105-115 pitches in a game. Surely more sophisticated sites than this have done more detailed analysis but here’s the fate of the last three dudes to get 370 carries…
Larry Johnson: 2006, 410 carries. 2007 IR with a bad foot after 8 games
Shaun Alexander: 2005, 370 carries. 2006, broke foot in week 3 but also was on the cover of Madden 07
Curtis Martin: 2004, 371 carries. 2005, went on IR week 13 and never played again
Our thoughts on future fantasy dudes out of the 2009 draft
Detroit Lions
#1 Matthew Stafford, QB
#20 Brandon Pettigrew, TE
What the local guys say
The Lions will never change because so many fools still root for them. Dude’s were buying Stafford gear 45 minutes into the draft. (Detroit Free Press)
Some in the Detroit media are Stafford haters; and really hate Pettigrew. Mitch Albom is wishy-washy.
Fantasy Impact
For every rookie QB that makes good right away, ten stink. The Lions stink; don’t have much of an offensive line to protect their $78 million investment and didn’t use their second #1 on a lineman even though C’s Alex Mack, Eric Wood and G Michael Oher were still on the board. Someone in your league will take Stafford as their #2 QB, and he might be worth a shot if you’re in a keeper league. In a seasonal league, there just too many negatives (21 years-old, bad line, he’s a Lion) to count on this guy out of the gate.
Pettigrew’s another story. While the Lions had needs at just about every other position, Pettigrew should be a solid pro. Lion OC Scott Linehan will use the TE; Randy McMichael 60/582/5 in 2005, Jermaine Wiggins 71/705/4 in 2004, Jim Kleinsasser 46/401/4 in 2003, Kleinsasser & Byron Chamberland a combined 71/782/1 in 2002. If you figure Pettigrew for a 60/600/5 he would be a borderline TE starter for you in 2009.
New York Jets
#5 Mark Sanchez, QB
What the local guys say
Don’t get me started on the New York media. As to be expected Sanchez is the best thing since sliced bread. (NY Daily News, Daily News again, NY Post)
Fantasy Impact
Unlike the Lions, the Jets have a decent line and solid running game to support a rookie QB. Without anybody in his way (see the Roundtable’s “ Kellen Clements sucks” post from 4/18), Sanchez has the inside track to start game one We’ll watch the situation as training camp moves along, but on the high side Sanchez could duplicate Matt Ryan’s numbers from last year and be a bottom end #1 fantasy QB.
Oakland Raiders
#7 Darrius Hayward-Bay, WR
What the local guys say
Sounds like the Raiders had man-love for Hayward-Bay’s 40 time (Oakland Tribune, Sacramento Bee).
Fantasy Impact
This pick will go down as one of the biggest non-Lion WR draft blunders if Michael Crabtree works out for the 49ers. But Hayward-Bay, Crabtree or any other rookie WR would have had a bad time in Oakland this season. Their leading wide receiver last year was Johnnie Lee Higgins with 22/366/4. You can either look at that as the Raiders really needed a WR or that the Raiders stink so bad that it doesn’t matter. The wild card here is Jeff Garcia; if he takes over for JaMarcus Russell at some point, Hayward-Bay might get a little more action. Bottom line: There will be a lot better places to go, I would consider Hayward-Bay to be less valuable than a bye-week replacement.
San Francisco 49ers
#10 Michael Crabtree, WR
What the local guys say
We’ll use the term “man-love” one last time. (San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee)
Fantasy Impact
Over the last three seasons, here’s what the top few WR’s taken in the draft have done their rookie years…
Santonio Holmes 49/824/2, Chad Jackson 13/152/3, Sinorice Moss 5/25/0, Greg Jennings 45/632/3, Calvin Johnson 48/756/4, Ted Ginn 34/420/2, Dwayne Bowe 70/995/5, Robert Meacham zero-point-zero, Craig Davis 20/188/1, Anthony Gonzalez 37/576/3, Donnie Avery 53/674/3, Devin Thomas 15/120/0.
The best of the bunch, Bowe’s season, would have ranked as a low #2 WR in our 2008 final rankings. Any reason to think Crabtree will pass that? Not this year. I like the direction Singletary’s taking the team and Shaun Hill proved to the Roundtable that he’s a serviceable manage-the-game type QB. In a keeper-type league, Crabtree should be picked much higher, but for 2009, figure him to be the twenty-fifth to thirtieth WR on the board.
Denver Broncos
#12 Knowshon Moreno, RB
#141 Tom Brandstater, QB
What the local guys say
Reaction about Moreno is mixed. (Denver Post-pro, Denver Post-con)
Fantasy Impact
As we talked about last week, Denver has a bunch of RBs in the stable highlighted by FA signings Correll Buckhalter and Lamont Jordan. Gotta figure that Moreno will be better than both these guys and will get 60-65% of the running back work. Moreno can catch the ball, but throwing to the regular RB is not in new HC Josh McDaniels’s playbook. Kevin Faulk filled that role while McDaniels’s ran the Pats offence; we’d look for J.J. Arrington to take that place with Denver. Moreno should work out to 200 carries, 800 yards and up to 7 TD, but with minimal pass catching opportunities; figure a bottom #2, top #3 fantasy RB.
What catches my eye is this fifth round pick of Tom Brandstater. With suck Kyle Orton slated to start the season, don’t sleep on Brandstater to get some time at the end of the season and compete for the job in 2010.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
#17 Josh Freeman, QB
What the local guys say
This is new HC Raheem Morris’s guy having known him since they were both at Kansas State in 2006. Overall, reaction is mixed as many felt that the Bucs needed defense.
Fantasy Impact
Tampa Bay has Byron Leftwich, Brian Griese and Luke McCown on the roster all ready. Serviceable and not a situation like the Jets or the Lions where you have to get the first rounder in the game as soon as possible. I’d figure Freeman to hold the clipboard for a year and be a factor to start in 2010.
Philadelphia Eagles
#19 Jeremy Maclin, WR
#53 LeSean McCoy, RB
What the local guys say
Philly fans booed the Donavan McNabb pick in 1999 so we don’t put a lot of stock in what they think. The press says Maclin should be a solid WR and will help the return game. Running Back was a need area for the Eagles and they scored with McCoy being there at #53.
Fantasy Impact
The Eagles historically spread the ball around too much to make any WR very valuable on a fantasy roster. Even with a hand full of really good games, #1 Philadelphia WR DeSean Jackson was still the Roundtable’s thirty-sixth rated WR last year, borderline #3/bye-weeker. No reason to think that Maclin will be any more than that; maybe a slight bump if your league gives points for return yards/TDs.
Figure that LeSean McCoy will have exactly the same fantasy value as Correll Buckhalter; 600 yards from scrimmage, a handful of TDs. Not a fantasy starter but a good guy to have around when Brian Westbrook gets hurt. The upside for McCoy is that Brian Westbrook hits the RB expiration date of 30 years-old on September 2. Will be worth a late rounder, especially if you have Westbrook.
Minnesota Vikings
#22 Percy Harvin, WR
What the local guys say
Harvin’s selection got a “standing ovation”. (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
Fantasy Impact
Early reaction is that Harvin will take on a slash-type role. Maybe a couple of carries, a couple of receptions, a couple of returns, but no fantasy value.
Indianapolis Colts
#27 Donald Brown, RB
What the local guys say
Sounds like they like the pick; a “wake-up” call for Joseph Addai and a solid player to use in a RB rotation. (Indianapolis Star)
Fantasy Impact
Prudence will tell you that Brown will be the 33% half of the now-standard 67/33 running back carry split that most teams are using. Addai is still the right side of 30, but after some injuries last year, the door is open for Brown to become the #1 guy. Should be there late in your fantasy draft and will defiantly be worth a shot.
New York Giants
#29 Hakeem Nicks
#85 Ramses Barden
What the local guys say
Giants filled a need grabbing two big WRs. (Newsday)
Fantasy Impact
We’ve talked about rookie WRs. If anything the two will cut into Domenik Hixon and Steve Smith’s PT, making all much less valuable fantasy options.
Tennessee Titans
#30 Kenny Britt
What the local guys say
Good pick, fills a need. (Tennessean)
Fantasy Impact
Will likely emerge as the third WR. Justin McCareins in the same spot last year went for 30/412/0; he probably won’t be on our draft board.
Arizona Cardinals
#31 Beanie Wells, RB
What the local guys say
Arizona fans applauded. (Arizona Republic)
Fantasy Impact
First impression is that Wells will eventually emerge as the #1 RB. Tim Hightower didn’t impress when given the shot at the end of the season; you wouldn’t draft another RB #1 if you thought Hightower could carry the load. But this RB situation will be one to watch in August, and a risk if you draft real early, you'll want to stay away. If Wells doesn’t impress during camp or has injury issues, look for Arizona to grab a free agent before the season starts.
Cleveland Browns
#36 Brian Robiskie, WR
#50 Mohamed Massaquoi, WR
What the local guys say
Face painting? At the draft party?
Fantasy Impact
If picking two receivers doesn’t tell you that the Browns really want Braylon Edwards out of the picture, what will? Risky maneuver to get rid of Edwards at this point though. With Winslow gone and Dante Stallworth likely gone too, Cleveland’s WR corps stands to be Syndric Steptoe and two rookies. This will shake out as training camp wears on, but it’s too early to make any calls on the Browns WR situation until the Edwards thing is squared away.
Miami Dolphans
#44 Pat White, Slash
What the local guys say
You’re going to see a lot of the Wildcat offence. (Miami Herald)
Fantasy Impact
What position White is eligible for? If he becomes the 10-snap-a-game wildcat guy, you have to say he’s a quarterback. In that case, he won’t have much fantasy value at all; at the same time taking stats away from incumbent Chad Pennington and heir-apparent Chad Hennie. If you have a flex-position in your league and the fantasy overlords at Yahoo-ESPN-CBSSports make him eligible, White might be useful in that spot. Figure that he’ll get enough action to be as valuable as the #3 WR or RB that usually takes that place. Either way, fantasy owners won’t know wazzup; I’d guess we’re not going to see much of the Wildcat in the pre-season, we didn’t last year. Parcells will save those surprises for when the games count. If you’re a risk taker with your team, I’d take White late rather than that sixth WR or fifth RB if your rosters go that deep.
Other Things
New Orleans didn’t take a running back; they must be happy with Pierre Thomas. Kansas City didn’t take one until the seventh round; they must not be trading Larry Johnson
All teams mentioned in the Anquan Boldin/Braylon Edwards trade discussion took a WR pretty high except for the Ravens. Hmmmm.
So there’s this story where the Browns are looking to draft Jeremy Maclin and trade Braylon Edwards to the Giants. Edwards lead the league in drops with 16. Is that number all that bad? Dwayne Bowe dropped 13, Brandon Marshall dropped 12 in just 15 games.
I say Edwards did the best he could with the suck Browns quarterbacks last fall. These dudes threw the ball to Edwards 138 times last year, 55 catches, 16 drops and 67 balls that weren’t close. Edwards only caught 39.8% of the passes thrown in this direction; Cleveland teammates didn’t fare any better. Josh Cribbs caught 28.5% Donte Stallworth 37.8% Syndric Steptoe 47.5%.
Compare that to Drew Brees’s WR corps; Lance Moore 65.9%, Marques Colston 52.8%, Devrey Henderson 56.1%, Robert Meachem 60.0%.
Don’t let Edwards case of the drops keep him off your team. Like most fantasy WRs, he’s only as good as his quarterback. A change of scenery may be what Edwards needs to drop the drop label.
4/9/2009
We like to examine what a new Offensive Coordinator is up to. Check out Seattle’s new OC Greg Knapp’s resume.
2001 San Francisco
#2 in League Rushing
Garrison Hearst and Kevan Barlow split carries 66/33 for 1,718 yards
2002 San Francisco
#6 in League Rushing
Garrison Hearst and Kevan Barlow split carries 60/40 for 1,647 yards
2003 San Francisco
#5 in League Rushing
Garrison Hearst and Kevan Barlow split carries 47/53 for 1,792 yards
2004 Atlanta
#1 in League Rushing
Warrick Dunn and T.J. Duckett split running back carries 72/28 for 1,615 yards. Vick rushes for another 902.
2005 Atlanta
#1 in League Rushing
Warrick Dunn and T.J. Duckett split running back carries 70/30 for 1,796 yards. Vick rushes for another 597.
2006 Atlanta
#1 in League Rushing
Warrick Dunn and Jerious Norwood split running back carries 74/26 for 1,773 yards. Vick rushes for another 1,039.
2007 Oakland
#6 in League Rushing
Justin Fargus, LaMont Jordan and Dominic Rhodes split running back carries 50/33/17 for 1,860 yards
2008 Oakland
#10 in League Rushing
Justin Fargus, Darren McFadden and Mike Bush split running back carries 52/27/21 for 1,773 yards
Even Oakland managed to have top running game with Knapp calling the shots. Keep this in mind and watch for news about Julius Jones who would be in line to get the fantasy benefit and 66%+ of the carries.
2/14/2009
We got a lot of questions during the offseason. Here are some answers.
What is the Roundtable and why is it here?
Fantasy Football Roundtable was born in the summer of 2008. The mission is to provide three services to the fantasy football playa…
1) Draft Preparation
The Roundtable provides rankings, news and opinion to help you get your team ready and dominate your draft. We update darn near daily during the pre-season with takes on who to draft, reviews of pre-season games and some basic draft strategy.
2) News updates and interpretation and laughs
During the season, you’ll see darn near daily updates on the news of fantasy football and football goings on in general. The aim is to be an alternate source of information pulling stories from local papers. The local flavor gets missed often in the national media. Local writers can be a day or two ahead of a story which can make the difference in your league.
The Roundtable will also cover the lighter side of things; we broke the Kansas City rookies dancing with seniors story last year and uncovered that DeAngelo Williams is really into paintball.
Fantasy Football is played for completion & profit but mainly for fun and we never lose sight of that.
3) Who should you start?
Start ‘Em Sit ‘Em is the most popular page on the site and this becomes the Roundtable’s main focus in during the season.
The general guide lines are that we don’t recommend “Start” on anyone that starts for 70-75% of owners and don’t recommend “Sit” for dudes that start on less than 35% of squads. We’ll break that rule from time to time if conditions warrant, but we’ll call that out.
Big difference between the Roundtable and other sites is that we grade the previous week’s Start ‘Em Sit ‘Em performance and post it the following week for all to see. We also update a yearly scorecard. Pulled a C+ on the starts & a C on the sits in 2008. We’ll take it, better than our college grades.
We also publish weekly player rankings. The rankings are generated with a secret computer formula that is pretty accurate in picking up a player’s relative value to other dudes. Don’t know whether to start Vincent Jackson or Hines Ward. You’ll find the answers in the player rankings.
Why does the Roundtable look like it was put together by a third grader?
Most of the other homemade blogs use Wordpress or other blog software. We keeps it real at the Roundtable and use this simple design to set ourselves apart and focus on the writing and the opinion.
What the hell do you know about fantasy football anyway?
Yours truly has been playing fantasy football since the pre-internet era; back when you had to add stats up from the Monday morning paper. We’ve seen it all, twice.
But really we don’t know more than anybody else. The fact is that nobody knows anything about fantasy football. Some people have blogs or are on ESPN, but it’s all pretty much guess work, the Roundtable works to make the most educated guesses.
How do I know the Roundtable is giving it to me strait?
The Roundtable is headquartered in Detroit. Since we do not have an NFL team here, we channel our energy on the Fantasy game without any home town bias. The Roundtable may from time to time call out if a statement is made about one of our players. We’ll say right here that we own Steven Jackson and Ben Roethlisberger in a keeper league.
The Roundtable is awesome, how do I link it to my blog?
Send us a note (info [at] fantasyfootballroundtable.com) if you want to trade links, you’ll find our partners in crime under the “Bloggers” heading. We’ll trade links with just about any other Fantasy Football site.
Do you have an RSS feed or email blast?
No. We’re not the type to write 300 words about our opinions. We take daily news stories, make a few comments and move on. If you want to follow the Roundtable you have to do it the old fashion way; bookmark us and check us out when you’re goofing off at work.
That said, you can email the Roundtable with any Start ‘Em Sit ‘Em situations or general questions.
You've got a lot of links here, what's the deal?
We feel that’s the best way to tell the story and quote our sources. We never link to any NSFW content.
June 29, 2008
So I've started a Fantasy Football website.
I've been a fantasy player since you had to wait for Monday morning papers and tabulate stats on your own.
I've won championships. I've finished in last. I've made great draft picks. I've made one's that would make you laugh and made me cry.
But if there's one thing that I've learned is that Fantasy "Experts" on the pay sites and on TV don't know anything more that I do.
What I've found is that nothing beats your own research and experience. So the goal of this site is to share the tools I use and reach out to other playaz for their insights.
Here's the funny part. This is my first shot at running a web site. At least for the first few weeks, Fantasy Football Roundtable might be as much a reality show about putting a site together as it is a blog about fantasy football.
So to start, you'll see on the right that I posted links to the local sports pages to all 32 NFL teams. I've found that the local guys are a good place to start.
On the left you'll see a link to the forum & email. I'll add other links, information and such as we go on. Bookmark FantasyFootballRoundtable.Com, come back occaionally and check the progress.