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The Case for Jimmy Graham

The Case for Jimmy Graham

Hi all and welcome back to Market Fantasy. I have another quick post today, this time about Jimmy Graham. As most of you know, Jimmy Graham was traded during the offseason from the high octane passing game of the New Orleans Saints to the lower octane, run first offense of the Seattle Seahawks. Conventional wisdom among fantasy analysts is that Graham is basically headed to an offensive no man’s land, doomed to fall off the face of the fantasy Earth.

Let’s take a look at the numbers from last year to see what they say. Last year, the Saints passed for 4952 yards and 33 TDs. Pretty good. The Seahawks passed for 3492 yards and 20 TDs. Less good. Jimmy Graham had 889 receiving yards and 10 TDs. Seahawks TEs combined for 888 yards and 7TDs. I think it’s safe to assume this year that you can replace “Seahawks TEs” with Jimmy Graham. Looking at it this way, the numbers are almost identical. Sure, there’s a dropoff of 3 TDs or 18 fantasy points, but last year, Jimmy Graham was the #2 ranked TE by 28 points. So if Graham had the Seattle Seahawks TE load, he still would’ve been the #2 TE in fantasy football. Luke Wilson is a fine player, but he’s not going to cut into Jimmy Graham’s targets. The Seahawks got Graham to give their star QB the number one receiving threat he’s lacked all of these years. I don’t think it’s going out on a limb at all to assume that Graham can repeat last year’s numbers with the Saints or even eclipse them a little bit. Yes, the Saints threw a lot more last year, but they also spread the ball around quite a bit. Graham was the third leading receiver on the Saints last year. He would’ve lead the Seahawks in yards and TDs last year.

The bottom line is it’s silly to expect Graham to have a precipitous fall with the Seahawks. He’s still the second best TE in the game, and worth a third round pick or so. Seattle brought him in to help the offense. Yes, he might get more attention now, but it’s not like he was ignored with the Saints. Plus, he’s an uncoverable freak of nature. The yards and TDs will be there. The Seahawks traded for a dominant red zone threat. Can anyone think of a time they really needed a big, dominant red zone threat last year? Any time? Hmmm….

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!

You’re Killing Me! Index

You’re Killing Me Index

So this last weekend, the wife and I had a cookout and I was talking to a couple friends who read this blog. I got some good feedback, including that a lot of times my posts are simply too long. Looking back, yeah, that’s probably true. The good news is that I have a short post for today! Today, in keeping with the draft prep theme here, I’m introducing the “You’re Killing Me!” index. I’ve talked a lot so far about the importance of average weekly scoring consistency and how standard deviation can tell you a lot about that. While a high standard deviation points to a lot of scoring fluctuation, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. A high standard deviation can mean average weeks mixed in with great weeks.

What I want to do today is show some of the more universally drafted guys who killed their teams more often than not, but ended up with decent looking per game average numbers. To do this, I took the average weekly of a starting level player (Top 12 QB, Top 24 RB, Top 24 WR, Top 12 TE). Any player who scored 4 points less than the average starting level player in at least 8 weeks gets mentioned in the charts below. So if the average starting QB scored 22.7 points per week last year (they did), then guys who scored 18 or less at least 8 times are listed below. I tried to keep the list to guys who would be started in a lot of leagues and not list everyone.  So this isn’t very scientific and is super subjective, but it can give you second thoughts when thinking of drafting a guy just based on last year’s numbers alone. There’s a few thoughts with each position as well.

Thanks for reading everyone!

QB:

Player	Number of Weeks Below 18 Points
Alex Smith	10
Colin Kaepernick	9
Ryan Tannehill	8
Philip Rivers	8
Joe Flacco	8
Ryan Fitzpatrick	8
Andy Dalton	8

I know you’re not going to really rely on most of these guys, but I have advocated for Tannehill and Rivers a lot in this space. I still like them in a platoon for your team. People keep drafting Flacco and Dalton like they’re any good though. Please stop.

RB:

Player	Number of Weeks Below 8 Points
Shane Vereen	12
LeGarrette Blount	11
Chris Johnson	11
Trent Richardson	9
Reggie Bush	9
Frank Gore	8
Chris Ivory	8
Steven Jackson	8
Andre Williams	8
Terrance West	8

Not a lot to see here. If the only takeaway here is that Trent Richardson is bad and is not to be drafted this year, then that’s enough. Blount probably shows up because of the time in Pittsburgh where he wasn’t used much. The surprise to me was Vereen. He was more effective when Rashad Jennings went down, but he’s never going to have a big role on this team. Reggie Bush and Frank Gore are on new teams now, but I’m not really high on either.

WR:

Player	Number of Weeks Below 8 Points
Pierre Garcon	12.00
Markus Wheaton	12.00
Dwayne Bowe	12.00
Cordarrelle Patterson	12.00
Andre Johnson	11.00
Vincent Jackson	11.00
Larry Fitzgerald	11.00
Anquan Boldin	10.00
Kendall Wright	10.00
Kenny Stills	10.00
Keenan Allen	10.00
Jordan Matthews	9.00
Steve Smith	9.00
Sammy Watkins	9.00
Percy Harvin	9.00
Brandon Marshall	8.00
Eric Decker	8.00
Marques Colston	8.00

Percy Harvin is another guy I wish we’d all just move on from. He’s questionable half the time, and not very good when he does play. Patterson and Garcon were probably the biggest WR busts last year. I don’t really see Patterson picking it back up, but I’d be willing to gamble on Garcon as my third WR. Allen was another surprise bomb. He still got plenty of targets and picked it up at the end of the season. I’m giving him a mulligan for last year and will draft him as a WR2 confidently. Johnson and Fitzgerald had abysmal QB situations, but I don’t think either are starting caliber at this point, even Johnson in Indy. Both are more depth than anything. Marshall and Decker now have a QB (Fitzgerald) in the QB Killing Me list. This probably won’t go well for anyone.

TE:

Player	Number of Weeks Below 22.7 Points
Vernon Davis	11
Jared Cook	10
Owen Daniels	10
Charles Clay	9
Larry Donnell	8
Heath Miller	8
Zach Ertz	8
Jordan Cameron	8

I would say that it’s surprising to see Davis, Clay and Cameron on this list, but TE was so bad last year that nothing really surprises. I’m just surprised this list wasn’t bigger.

The Zero QB Drafting Strategy

So in my last post, I talked some about how the zero RB strategy of drafting was a bad idea and how important it is to get a balanced offense early on. Since I think it’s so important to load up on running backs, wide receivers and maybe an elite tight end early on – say the first five rounds or so – that leaves you waiting on a quarterback for a long time. It can be uncomfortable for sure to sit there in the draft room and load up on guys who you might no longer have a starting spot for on your roster while the elite QBs fly off the board. Have no fear! A quick look at the numbers shows that you can basically throw a dart and pick up a QB who can lead your team to victory.

There’s been a lot of talk about the explosion of the passing game in the NFL, and in 2014, QB production was a reflection of that. On a per game average, there were 16 QBs who averaged over 20 points, and another 5 who averaged over 19 points per game. That’s a lot of players considering most leagues only start 12 QBs total on a weekly basis.

So how were those numbers spread out? Within the QBs that finished over 20 points per game last year, there were basically three tiers. The top two, Andrew Luck and Aaron Rodgers averaged 26.6 and 25.3 points per week respectively. Remember to divide the pick number by 12 to see what round a guy went in.

Player	2014 PPG Average	2014 ADP (Pick Number)
Andrew Luck	26.6	34.54
Aaron Rodgers	25.30	14.61

After that, there were four QBs who averaged 23 points per game: 

Player	2014 PPG Average	2014 ADP (Pick Number)
Drew Brees	23.47	15.88
Peyton Manning	23.43	10.34
Russell Wilson	23.08	85.36
Ben Roethlisberger	23.04	121.63

Finally, there were 10 QBs who averaged between 20 and 21 points per game (when healthy) in 2014:

Player	2014 PPG Average	2014 ADP (Pick Number)
Matt Ryan	21.70	64.74
Cam Newton	21.45	67.06
Tony Romo	21.22	89.33
Jay Cutler	21.09	84.84
Eli Manning	20.98	152.36
Ryan Tannehill	20.93	143.94
Tom Brady	20.88	57.00
Carson Palmer	20.80	141.06
Philip Rivers	20.67	100.09
Mark Sanchez	20.07	Not Drafted

First of all, let’s take a look at the tiers and scoring. The top tier of Luck and Rodgers are two guys I’m not going to get in drafts this year. They’re going to cost an early second round pick at best and that’s just not something I’m willing to spend on a QB. Sure, you’re getting 2-3 points per game over the second tier, but you’re going to end up losing bigger on your second RB and WR. By spending a first or second round pick on a QB, you’re bumping your WR/RB picks back by a round. As we saw in an earlier post, RB and WR drop off fast. The second tier is interesting to me. Manning and Brees were both first and second round picks, and they generally didn’t disappoint. Look at Wilson and Big Ben, though. Wilson was a 7^th rounder and Ben was a 10^th rounder and they were right there in terms of per game scoring. The word is out in Wilson this year, but I bet Ben can still be had at a discount. He’s got a top 3 WR and exceptional pass catching RB to work with, among other up and coming weapons. The third tier is the most interesting to me. These guys were all (except Brady) 6^th round picks or later. By waiting, you really only lost a couple points per game over the second tier, while allowing yourself to pick up a ton of lottery tickets in the RB/WR/TE group. A great strategy for QBs is to pair a couple of guys from the third tier and play the matchups. Guys like Rivers, Palmer and Romo get no respect, but produce every single year. All three can be had after the 7^th round.

So to recap, there is really no harm in waiting a long time for QB. Get a couple after the first 7 rounds are done and mix and match them. Outside of the guys mentioned in this article, I really like Bradford and Bridgewater to have nice seasons late in drafts. Remember, the difference between getting a top flight RB or WR and a two second tier guys is about 4 points per game on average, and the difference between getting a top six QB and a 7-12 ranked QB is only 2 points per game. We need to maximize our weekly points as much as possible week in and week out. A difference of 2-3 points by waiting on QB can be the difference.

Thanks for reading!

Zero RB is a Bust

Zero RB is a Bad Strategy, but Zero QB?

Since we’re about to get into the heart of draft season soon, my first few articles this year will focus on draft strategies. One strategy that has gained popularity over the last couple years in the expert community is the idea of zero RB. There are a couple of variations on this theory, but the general idea is to not draft a running back in the first four rounds of a draft. The thinking behind this is that running backs are generally the most volatile position, and therefore harder to project. The last thing you want to do is draft two duds with your first two picks, thereby tanking your team. Instead, go the safer route and forego running backs for easier to project wide receivers. The two variations on zero RB say to either only draft WR with your first four picks or to draft any of QB-RB-TE with your first four picks.

Before we get into an analysis of why I believe zero RB is such a bad strategy, let’s just dismiss the first version outright. I’m not going to discuss it. In the vast majority of leagues, you start two WR and one FLEX that can be used as a WR. By drafting four WR, you are spending one of your top four picks on a bench spot, while you have an entire roster to fill. It’s such a bad idea, I can’t even comprehend how people get paid to talk about it. Don’t draft bench spots when you need EVERYTHING ELSE, ok? So now we’re left with the idea of drafting QB-WR-TE in the first four rounds and ignoring running backs. In theory, this doesn’t sound too bad, but let’s take a position by position look at what this would do to your team in terms of draft value.

We’ll start out with tight end. Last year, there were three TEs to average over 10 points per game. These were: Rob Gronkowski, Jimmy Graham and Julius Thomas. Antonio Gates averaged 9.6, so that’s close enough to 10. The three averaging over 10 points per game all were drafted in the first three rounds in 12 team leagues, while Gates could be had after the 10^th round. After Gronk, Jordan Cameron and Vernon Davis both went in the fifth round on average. Those two finished 20^th and 56^th among TE respectively at their positions. The rest of the top 12 in per game scoring average either went in the seventh round or later, with a lot being undrafted. So outside of the top three tight ends, if you spent one of your first four picks on a TE, you lost a ton of draft position value. This year, I can see the case for spending big on Gronk or Graham, but that’s it. Last year’s 12^th best TE in per game scoring (Jason Witten), averaged 6.3 points per game. There were 10 TEs to average between 6.3 and 5.3 points per game. You could basically throw a dart each week and get a TE to be at the bottom of the starter level in a 12 team league.

Next we’ll take a look at QB. Last year, there were five QB taken on average in the first four rounds of drafts: Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Andrew Luck and Matthew Stafford. On a per average scoring basis, this group actually did pretty well. All but Stafford finished in the top four per in per game scoring average. Stafford finished 20^th. The fifth highest scoring QB, Russell Wilson, was the 13^th QB off the board on average. The sixth highest QB in per game scoring, Ben Roethlisberger, was taken 17^th among QB on average. The top seven QBs averaged between 26.6 points per game and 23 points per game. The top seven include the six previously mentioned and Matt Ryan (a sixth round pick on average last year, had 21.7 points per game) rounding out the group. After the top seven, there were 12 QBs to average between 21.5 and 19.5 points per game. You could’ve grabbed a Ryan Tannehill (20.93 PPG, 19^thQB taken), Eli Manning (21.09 PPG, 22^nd QB taken). Heck, you could have gone with a tandem of Kirk Cousins (19.75 PPG, undrafted) and then Mark Sanchez (20.07 PPG, undrafted) after he took over. So far, we have two of the positions suggested to snap up early under the zero RB strategy that you can really wait on and not get hurt all that much.

Now we’re left to take a look at WR, the easiest group to predict according to zero RB folks. To make it easier to see, I’ll include a table for the top 12 WR in terms of ADP last year and how they fared on a points per game basis. To figure what round each player was taken, just divide the pick by 12. Dez was a 2^nd rounder, Alshon a third, so on.

Player	2014 Average Pick	2014 Points per game (WR Rank)
Calvin Johnson	6.47	11.97 (12th)
Demaryius Thomas	9.87	14.24 (5th)
Dez Bryant	13.03	14.25 (4th)
A.J. Green	13.5	12.75 (8th)
Julio Jones	16.57	13.03 (6th)
Brandon Marshall	17.15	9.25 (25th)
Jordy Nelson	23.11	14.37 (3rd)
Antonio Brown	23.99	15.88 (2nd)
Alshon Jeffery	25.02	11.03 (14th)
Randall Cobb	28.88	12.78 (7th)
Keenan Allen	35.26	7.31 (45th)
Pierre Garcon	42.13	5.82 (68th)

That’s actually not too bad in terms of value for your buck. There were a couple flame outs, but that’s to be expected. Calvin Johnson can be termed a disappointment as well since he was the first WR drafted, and barely made it to a WR1 status. Overall, 8 of 12, or 67% of the guys drafted to perform as a WR1 acted that way. So there were four disappointments - Johnson, Marshall, Allen and Garcon.

So those are the guys drafted to be WR1s by their owners. Since we start two WR, let’s take a look at how the next 12 in terms of ADP fared.

Player	2014 Average Pick	2014 Points per game (WR Rank)
Vincent Jackson	42.77	7.01 (48)
Victor Cruz	42.92	6.62 (53)
Andre Johnson	43.12	7.44 (42)
Larry Fitzgerald	43.9	6.46 (58)
Cordarrelle Patterson	46.15	4.44 (96)
Roddy White	49.53	9.58 (23)
Percy Harvin	51.41	6.19 (56)
Michael Crabtree	51.45	5.89 (67)
DeSean Jackson	55.37	10.24 (16)
Michael Floyd	56.26	8.59 (29)
TY Hilton	58.65	12.75 (9)
Julian Edelman	64.11	9.33 (24)

What we’re seeing is that this group is much more difficult to project it would seem. Out of this group, only 3 of the 12 (25%) were starter (top 24) worthy. Michael Floyd came close at 29. So starting with the 10^th WR chosen, we can see that there is really no guarantee on how a lot of those highly drafted WRs will perform. 13 of the 24 WR chosen to be starting WR on teams actually made it into the top 24. A little over half. All of these players were taken in the in the first six rounds, with everyone up to Patterson taken in the first four. So following the zero RB logic, 17 of these WR would’ve been drafted in the first four rounds, but only 9 of 17 (slightly over half) were starter worthy week in and week out.

On the flip side, out of the top 24 WR in per game scoring last year, these guys were drafted outside the first four rounds:

Player	2014 Average Pick	2014 Points per game (WR Rank)
Odell Beckham Jr	164.61	17.17 (1)
Emmanuel Sanders	71.33	12.42 (10)
Jeremy Maclin	70.87	12.05 (11)
Mike Evans	100.99	11.80 (13)
Martavis Bryant	Undrafted	10.41 (15)
Torrey Smith	66.56	10.19 (17)
Golden Tate	90.93	10.00 (18)
Brandon LaFell	Undrafted	9.90 (19)
Mike Wallace	80.64	9.85 (20)
DeAndre Hopkins	110.56	9.81 (21)
Kelvin Benjamin	104.88	9.67 (22)

That’s a pretty wide spread of draft outcomes. A few players like Sanders, Maclin and Smith were all drafted in the first six rounds, so that’s pretty close. The rest of the top 24 could be had very late in drafts or even the waiver wire.

So what does all this mean for RBs? Let’s do the same analysis for running backs that we did for wide receivers. Same rules apply as to the WR group. The 2014 top 12 RB ADP and per game performance look like this:

Player	2014 Average Pick	2014 Points per game (RB Rank)
LeSean McCoy	2.77	11.09 (16)
Jamaal Charles	3.55	14.47 (7)
Adrian Peterson	4.92	0 (Way down there)
Matt Forte	7.10	15.29 (5)
Eddie Lacy	9.00	14.66 (6)
Marshawn Lynch	15.33	16.83 (4)
Montee Ball	18.19	7.35 (39)
DeMarco Murray	18.9	19.01 (1)
Giovani Bernard	21.43	11.15 (15)
Doug Martin	25.96	6.16 (54)
Arian Foster	26.48	18.43 (2)
LeVeon Bell	27.63	17.97 (3)

What does this chart tell us? Out of the 12 guys drafted to be RB1, 8 of the 12 performed that way. There were four disappointments – McCoy, Peterson, Bernard and Martin. Three of those – Peterson, Ball and Martin – were complete flameouts. Overall, 8 of 12, or 67% of the guys drafted to perform as a RB1 acted that way. If that last sentence sounds familiar, it’s because I literally copied and pasted from the WR section above. WR is more predictable?

Now, let’s take a look at the guys drafted to be RB2

Player	2014 Average Pick	2014 Points per game (RB Rank)
Alfred Morris	33.81	10.68 (18)
Zac Stacy	34.69	5.59 (60)
Andre Ellington	34.83	11.29 (14)
Reggie Bush	39.02	6.09 (57)
CJ Spiller	44.47	5.38 (64)
Shane Vereen	51.22	7.11 (44)
Ryan Mathews	54.34	9.62 (23)
Toby Gerhart	58.16	4.51 (72)
Rashad Jennings	62.32	10.05 (21)
Frank Gore	63.61	9.46 (26)
Ray Rice	63.92	0 (Yikes)
Ben Tate	65.13	7.90 (34)

This is where the higher drafted RBs start to fall off. Of the 12 drafted to be RB2, only 4 performed that way. Frank Gore came close at #26. However, if you remember, only 3 of the WR drafted to be WR2 performed that way. Of the 24 RBs taken to be a starting caliber RB, 13 of 24 achieved this. Sound familiar?  Out of the RBs taken through the first four rounds (up through Spiller), 10 of 17 were starting caliber. Remember, 9 of 17 WR chosen in the first four rounds remained starter worthy. The flip side of the zero RB theory is that you can get starting RBs after the first four rounds, no problem. As we’ve seen, this simply isn’t true. You would only be able to get half of the starting caliber RBs after round 6. A couple of the top performing RB, like CJ Anderson and Justin Forsett were likely waiver wire pickups.

Which leads me to my next point about zero RB – you’re left to fight for the most in demand position in fantasy football with the rest of the league. The point here is you still need an RB in the first two rounds or you are seriously at a disadvantage at the position. Look at guys like CJ Anderson and Tre Mason. When did they get the start? For Anderson it was week 10 and for Mason it was week 6.  Even Forsett was a surprise in week 1. So now we’re saying that you’ll be fine playing the waivers with the hardest position to get on waivers for 10 weeks while you stare at 3 high draft pick WR on your bench who you can’t start because of lineup restrictions? You can’t just make a trade or pick up the next hot thing on waivers. These things don’t exist in a vacuum. There are other people in your league I’m guessing.

One more thing I want to take a look at is how many points WR and RB score per game on average. The top 12 per game scoring WR scored an average of 13.64 points per week. The next 12 per game scoring WR scored an average of 10.15 points per week. The top 12 scoring RBs scored an average of 14.96 points per week, while the next 12 scoring RBs scored 10.27. In both cases the RB number is higher than the WR number.

In conclusion, what we’ve found is that not only are RBs at least as predictable as WRs, but they also outscore WRs on average. That doesn’t go very far to support the fact that you can ignore RBs and you’ll be fine. What you need to do is get one WR and one RB in the first two rounds. After that, I would grab at least one more RB in the third and the fourth round grab the best WR or RB available.  It’s important to have balance at these positions to have a well balanced team. Otherwise you’re staring at an uphill battle at one of the game’s most important positions.

Next, we’ll take a look at the zero QB part of this study. Thanks for reading!