A strategy for next year

[bdrotoronto]

There were three teams in our league (12-team, competitive) that tried that kind of thing this year, none of them have turned into dominators.

One team took Bulger and Holt, that team is awful (2-8) and in dead last.

The defending champ took Manning and Harrison with the #'s 12 and 13 picks. Manning has single-handedly carried his team to 6-4 and in the playoff race, but Harrison has really done very little for him for such a high pick, when I'm sure he would have rather had a guy like Terrell Owens or Cory Dillon, say, both of whom were were available. Even Reggie Wayne or Brandon Stokley would've been better than Harrison.

A third team went RB's (Alexander, Martin) early and then grabbed Favre and Walker with mid-round picks. Those two have had some excellent games together. That team is 4-6, but that's really just due to misfortune of being the team with the most points scored against. On paper, it should've been a playoff team, certainly by far the best of the three mentioned here.

[Estarr01]

Your list of disappointing RB's included Mcallistar (injury) and Tomlinson (injury) both of whom had injuries, this type of thing can happen to any top WR or QB therefore the disappointing season can be chalked up to nothing more than sh*t happens. This will also happen to WR, look at Moss and Holt is having a disappointing season.

With respect to your late round RB's, no one expected Barber to be this good and most avoided him in fear The Great Dayne. Many people picked Brown to have a good season, but it looks as if injuries could destroy the rest of that and Pittman has had to sit out the first 4 games and has only had 3 good games. Once you start hoping on the waiver wire to produce you next great back your team will be in a bad place.

I agree that the top 3 QB's should be moved up the list, but I'm not sold on the idea of grabbing a QB/WR combo early on. Imagine if TO got injured, how good would McNabb become, would he revert back to the McNabb that started last year horribly or would be be the McNabb of two years ago, either way would you want to rest your season on one combo of players?

Personally the only change to my strategy will that I will be more willing to draft a top QB earlier, but as far as abstaining from RB's early on that is a little harde for me to swallow. I might get proven wrong in time, but until then I'm going to have to stay with my system.

[eaglesrule]

i think this strategy seems to work best when you get a discount on the receiver in question, like if you stumbled into farve and walker, or manning, wayne. when you can get the receiver cheap, so you don't lose the opportunity cost of the stud rb.l

[crimsonrebel]

Heres my input. I'm in a 16 team league, and I drafted RBs in rounds 1-3 ( i can start anywhere from 1-3 per week). I didn't take a QB till round 6 (Leftwitch) and I have the best record in the league. I think the QB/wr combo can work, but this year it would have only worked for PHI, INDY, or MN. And theres no guarantee that both the WR and QB will fall to you no matter what size the league is. The 2 people who took QB/wr combos are both in last place in their division. Granted they did it with the jets and cleveland, so its not the same. Interestingly enough, the guy who took manning and TO in rounds 1/2 is doing very well. I think thats a far better approach. It offsets a bad week or a bye week.

[jwbseven]

It's a strategy I'm absolutely going to use next year.While lose/one lose/lose both sounds devastating,it's not nearly as bad as you might think.Figure you can get C.Brown and Tiki later so your backs were covered.Pick up Droughns off the wire(any one draft this guy?no way)and your gold.Now,Moss goes down,C-Pep sucks and your out right?Wrong.How many guys drafted Brees?Or to a lesser extent Leftwich(in larger leagues I'm sure),but you get my point.That's why you draft backups,and work the wire.

thats a way of looking at it

[Free Bagel]

It's a strategy I'm absolutely going to use next year.While lose/one lose/lose both sounds devastating,it's not nearly as bad as you might think.Figure you can get C.Brown and Tiki later so your backs were covered.Pick up Droughns off the wire(any one draft this guy?no way)and your gold.Now,Moss goes down,C-Pep sucks and your out right?Wrong.How many guys drafted Brees?Or to a lesser extent Leftwich(in larger leagues I'm sure),but you get my point.That's why you draft backups,and work the wire.

You could literally flip this paragraph around backwards and it would make the arguement for the other side.

You make the point that you could've drafted a few of the RB's late and picked one up off the WW to couple with your highly picked QB, and then not two sentences later you bring up QB's that you could've picked up off the wire. So, using your very own arguement, couldn't you also have taken those QB's off the WW/late in the draft to couple with you're highly drafted RB? Heh.
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[INKcogKNEEdough]

it is actually good to see a good amount of people thinking this way. Hopefully, that trend will continue and the value of running backs can come back to earth a little bit.


INK

[matmat]

I don't get it.
Why would you EVER go into the draft with a pre-determined draft order. (3xRB or 1RB, 1QB, 1WR)... In my view in the first few rounds you should just take the best available players, or, rather, the highest value players (compared to others available at their positions).

[Sixxgunn]

It's a strategy I'm absolutely going to use next year.While lose/one lose/lose both sounds devastating,it's not nearly as bad as you might think.Figure you can get C.Brown and Tiki later so your backs were covered.Pick up Droughns off the wire(any one draft this guy?no way)and your gold.Now,Moss goes down,C-Pep sucks and your out right?Wrong.How many guys drafted Brees?Or to a lesser extent Leftwich(in larger leagues I'm sure),but you get my point.That's why you draft backups,and work the wire.

You could literally flip this paragraph around backwards and it would make the arguement for the other side.

You make the point that you could've drafted a few of the RB's late and picked one up off the WW to couple with your highly picked QB, and then not two sentences later you bring up QB's that you could've picked up off the wire. So, using your very own arguement, couldn't you also have taken those QB's off the WW/late in the draft to couple with you're highly drafted RB? Heh.
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It doesn't work the same though.The running backs are the mediocre group,with only a few top QB's.Brees is a pleasant surprise,but I assure you I am not going to win a championship with him,and I have Brown,Taylor and Duece in my backfield.If I took Manning 1st instead of Deuce,I could still have found Tiki,T.Jones or a half dozen backups that played this year to make up my backfield.

[MadScott]

Here would be my only worry with this strategy, who's to say what position is going to be the most productive in a given season? Last year it seemed like there was a slew of great WRs that were dominating and tearing up scoring, a few RBs that were good and QBs were all pretty level. This year, the QBs seem to be the ones tearing it up, several RBs are producing pretty evenly and WRs seems to be somewhat down.

I think if you were to gamble with Culpepper/Moss or McNabb/TO in the 1st 2 rds., it could really be a high risk/reward scenario. Outside of these duos, I think you would be really gambling. You are placing your faith firmly in the fact though that there's going to be emerging RBs as the year goes along though.