smallish league draft strategies for the newb

[Cooner]

howdy all, long time baseball poster and player, first time football poster. I believe this belongs here since it's on strategy, not a particular player to draft, but I apologize if my judgement is off.

so I'm involved in a friendly 8 team league that drafts soon, and I've been thinking about my draft strategy. In the past (one other league), I went with RB/RB/WR in the first three rounds, and I doubt that will change. However, this league is a little different scoring and size wise to what I've done before, so I was wondering what y'all thought as far as general draft strategy.

8 teams, playing 2 x RB, 1 x QB, 3 x WR, 1 x TE, K, DEF, 2xD.

scoring is standard, except 1 pnt for 20 yds rush/recieve, 1 pnt for 50 yds pass, still 6 for TDs, i.e. TD heavy

My thoughts-

8 teams means one of the 8 star RBs (Priest, LT2, Green, Alexander, Portis, Deuce, Edge, Jamal in that order- Deuce drops a bit thanks to low TD production) for everyone, though I can hope to get a late pick and have someone take Randy/Peyton in the first round.

The way I see it, there are at least 8-9 QBs who are very solid, so no one should get stuck with a really bad QB if they're paying attention. Does that mean that I should wait on a QB til late, ignoring the (likely) run of Manning, Culpepper, McNabb, Vick, Hasselbeck, etc, knowing that I can still end up with a Green or McNair?

Is TGonz worth an early (3rd rnd) pick thanks to the fact that he will likely get twice as many TDs as anyone else? Last time I waited til later to grab a TE and was happy with 3-5 TDs since yard totals were similar, but TGonz gets a ton of TDs compared to anyone else.

Are there any players who should be bumped up a bit from the usual rankings thanks to high TD production?

Any other general thoughts for a smaller league? Does it change draft strategy at all, knowing that the talent pool is less diluted?

Thank you for your thoughts....

[Buckychudd]

It does change the strategy.....you still want to take those elite RBs the early first round, however RBs become less scarce in smaller leagues, and therefore less important.

In smaller leagues I would advise to shoot for a stud at all positions, i.e. after the elite RBs go try for a top 3 WR (seeing as you are in a 3 WR league), after they go shoot for a top 3 QB, after they go shoot for a top 3 TE.....before coming back and getting your #2 RB.

In smaller leagues usually the guy with the most players in the top 3 by position wins.....

[mikey]

You'll also read a lot in here about guys like Brandon Lloyd and Darius Watts and the next Matt Riley (that's a baseball reference for you baseball posters). While I think some of those guys are worth a flyer in late rounds, in bigger leagues, you don't necessarily have to extend yourself and take a risk on some reaches. Many of them will remain in the FA pool.

(I still like targeting Brandon Lloyd, even in a smaller league).

[Cooner]

thanks for the advice gentlemen- i've noticed that in a small baseball league you can afford to do as many two or more for one trades as possible, since quality depth isn't as important when there are quality guys on the waiver wire if you need to fill in for a short-term injury. Seems that holds here as well, and since top 3 guys are almost always unavailable in trades, while 2nd tier guys are, bucky's advice makes sense.

any other thoughts?