Analysis of Ziggy's Team

Article Written by Gordo

When it comes to drafting you have to come prepared.  The internet is full of great content that can help you get into gear for a successful draft and a winning season.  Take notes, create cheat sheets, adjust your player rankings, and practice practice practice!  Yes I said practice.  Every source that hosts fantasy football will have some form of a mock draft resource; they’re even on phone apps now.  Try drafting from different positions and with different strategies in mind.  This will give you a better perception of this year’s player pool, a better assessment of your risk tolerance, and just good old fashioned experience so you can choose the draft strategy you want to use.  To give you some insight into how all this works I’ve taken my friend Ziggy’s last mock draft and critiqued the results below.

1) RB Forte

2) RB Foster

3) WR Garcon

4) WR Hilton

5) RB Mathews

6) RB Ridley

7) WR Colston

8) TE Olsen

9) RB Freeman

10) QB Rivers

11) WR Stills

12) WR James Jones

13) RB Dunbar

14) TE Miller

15) RB Bryce Brown

Right off the bat you can tell that Ziggy went standard old school RB heavy.  Forte is a great 1st round pick for PPR because of his receiving ability as a RB, but getting Foster in the 2nd is fantastic and probably impossible in most leagues.  Foster stands to take a huge majority of the workload as the only viable back on the Texans now that Ben Tate has left town; don't be fooled by Andre Brown's presence.  Granted Foster's value isn't much different whether in PPR or standard scoring formats.  Forte is on a much improved Bears offense and gets a lot of help stretching the field from the dynamic duo of Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffery.  I might even draft him above the likes of Adrian Peterson in PPR leagues…might.

Ziggy's 3rd and 4th rounds concern me a little when I reviewed the full draft results.  I would argue that Vincent Jackson in the 3rd and DeSean jackson in the 4th would have higher ceilings than Garcon and Hilton.  But, to be fair, they also would have higher risks due to their big play persona.  I'll also confess that Ziggy was crying to me about these two picks when he made them and started saying how much he hated this draft.  But I'll explain how he compensated for this personal short coming later.  Bottom line, Ziggy goes for less risk the majority of the time while I’ve had a tendency to go with big play high risk/high reward players.  This game is all about risk assessment and risk management, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Moving right along, Mathews and Ridley are nice picks for the 5th and 6th.  Sometimes you can get a shot at Stafford around here which is also great but this kind of RB depth is amazing and hard to resist; you could stop drafting RBs already if you felt so inclined.  Mathews finally had a great year last season.  He stayed healthy, which kept him on the field with the ball in his hand, and is beginning to meet expectations.  I've seen Mathews going as early as 3rd and 4th rounds in a lot of my mock drafts.  Ridley is in a situation this season where he needs to prove his worth to the Patriots.  If he can keep the ball in his hands Belichick won't bench him as punishment and he can build up some confidence and momentum.  Ridley's risk level is almost a moot point as a 6th round pick especially because he would be Ziggy's 4th RB behind Forte, Foster and Mathews so I'd buy him at that price no problem.  I bet you, Ziggy considered grabbing Frank Gore over Ridley but saw the same risk assessment I did and went for Ridley.

Rounds 7 and 8 are pretty solid.  Colston is still the #1 WR for the Saints and Drew Brees throws the ball a lot.  I like this choice because it covers the risk concerns I have with Hilton.  If Ziggy had gone for someone else instead of Hilton he could have scooped up Reggie Wayne at this round as another good option.  Colston and Wayne are great players but near the end of their careers so production and injuries are becoming a little bit more of an issue.  So overall risk of the first three WRs drafted is fairly moderate; not very exciting but excitement doesn’t win FF, consistent production does.  Grabbing Greg Olsen in the 8th is a classic Ziggy move.  He loves this guy, and guys like him, for good reason.  He's pretty reliable as a TE and especially so this year since he is Cam Newton's only familiar face in the passing offense.  I expect Cam to rely on him to move the chains through the air when they need to get things done.  Also, I like how Ziggy seized the opportunity to grab Olsen who was still available after guys like Kyle Rudolph, Jordan Reed, and Dennis Pitta were scooped up, all of which I would normally choose AFTER Olsen in PPR format.

Rounds 9-15 are all about adding depth to your team, grabbing potential breakout players for the winning edge or as trading fodder to feed other manager's.  Here, Ziggy did a few things that most managers would never do or just don't do often enough.  He drafted a super late round starting QB with Rivers.  Rivers finished 6th in our league last year with almost 300 FPs and is hugely undervalued this year.  Even I grab Rivers in my mocks practically every time, I mean, why waste 5^th -7^th round picks on QBs that get out produced by a 9^th or 10^th round choice like Rivers or even Andy Dalton.  But until people wise up I’ll take that every time no problem.  

Ok, now, remember how I said earlier that, “…I'll explain how he compensated for this personal short coming later.”  Well as promised, Ziggy’s choices in grabbing Freeman, Dunbar, and Brown provide him depth, yes, but also a contingency plan.  Freeman backs up Steven Jackson, Dunbar backs up DeMarco Murray, and Bryce Brown is competing for work just behind Spiller and F-Jax.  All three players have a high probability of getting relevant playing time, and these three guys can all produce when they’re on the field.  That means Ziggy has some potential trade value right there.  Also, in a keeper league grabbing someone like Freeman in the later rounds means better value next year if he becomes the starter; which is likely the case for him in Atlanta.   F-Jax and Spiller are not exactly consistent so Bryce Brown could find his way to the front of the class when no one’s looking.  Well, enough about my man crush on Bryce Brown.

Ziggy’s decision to pick up Stills is an interesting one but only works in his favor since Colston is #1 and Stills is lining up as #2 WR for the Saints.  So, unless Brandin Cooks goes on a tear, Ziggy’s got a great shot with either guy; plus he’s always talking about how Stills and Brees had the highest QB-WR bromance or something.  Grabbing James Jones this late isn't bad, but I can tell Ziggy was hoping Jordan Matthews would fall to him.  Either way, Jones did well on a pass happy Packers team but now he's a 2nd stringer playing first fiddle and Andre Johnson's old QB Matt Schaub will be tossing him the ball.  Schaub was able to rack up some decent yardage over the years with a guy like Johnson so Jones could either end up on the waiver wire day 1 or find his way to the flex spot on a weekly basis.  As a 12th round pick and the 5th WR on the roster, why not. Haha, Heath Miller, cracks me up.  I almost always end up with Miller on my roster towards the end of the season.  He always produces at some level and is quite a sneaky FF option.  Big Ben loves to throw to this big guy in the clutch, plus Miller can score.

Lastly, I know you’ve said it to yourself at least once during this article, “He didn’t draft defense or a kicker…”  And I say in return, “Fuck defense and fuck kickers!”  Show me someone who claims to have won because of their D/ST and/or Kicker and I’ll show you an idiot who should be punched in the throat.  In our league we adjusted the Defense scoring just to make it palatable and would love to just toss out the kicker position altogether.  But, in all fairness, these two positions add to the complexities in managing a FF roster, ergo, we keep them so that we don’t just load up on RBs rounds 1-4.  Typically you can choose to stream defenses and kickers week-to-week and do just fine.