The Ghosts of Rookie Drafts Past: 2010

Jacob Feldman Posted On July 29, 2013

bryant As I mentioned yesterday, if you’ve ever seen or read any version of A Christmas Carol, you know all about the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future. In the world of traditional fantasy football, we only care about the present while the dynasty format adds in the future to the mix. It is rare we do or even should care about the past. After all, Adrian Peterson’s 2,000 plus rushing yards last season aren’t going to help you win any games this year.

There are a few instances where taking the time to look back at the past can be helpful. The first is when trying to establish patterns of behavior for players or teams. The second is to get a better handle on the value of a player and possibly getting a great deal on a breakout star before it happens. The third is to figure out your own tendencies, efficiencies and shortcomings when it comes to drafting players. The latter is the focus of this article and for the record it helps to look at the tendencies of your league members to help predict what they are going to do.

From time to time I like to take a retrospective look at my player values (especially rookie drafts) in order to help establish my own strengths and weakness when it comes to player evaluation. We started with the 2011 rookie draft since it is too early to fully evaluate the 2012 rookie class. I’m going to divide each draft up into tiers as well as list where each player was taken in most rookie drafts.

For the tiers, I’m going to use four categories: Studs, Stars, Starters and Backups. These are all in terms of fantasy leagues. To be a stud, they need to be someone that is selected in the first two rounds of a startup draft on a regular basis. Stars cover the players that would be taken in rounds three through five. Starters and backups are pretty self-explanatory in that they are the players that don’t fit the other two categories but would be starters in most fantasy teams or backups on most fantasy rosters. This was all done assuming a 12-team league. ADP was found using information from myfantasyleague.com

2010 Rookie Draft

Top Tier (Studs)

Dez Bryant, WR DAL – Top 3 pick

Demaryius Thomas, WR DEN – Middle First Round

CJ Spiller, RB BUF – Early First Round

Rob Gronkowski, TE NEP – Late Second or Early Third Round

Jimmy Graham, TE NOS – Third Round

Looking back on things, this was a great draft for studs with two top ten wide receivers as well, the top two tight ends in dynasty leagues right now AND a young stud running back. If you were to throw in Aaron Hernandez to the mix (I’ll be leaving him out entirely) it looked even better a few months ago. Bryant has turned into exactly what he was expected to be and Thomas came back from the injuries better than expected. As for the tight ends, they have shocked everyone. Graham was extremely raw and has developed better than anyone expected. Gronkowski had some injury concerns which are still continuing today, but he’s elite when he’s on the field. Spiller could be the best of the group and surpass everyone’s expectations this year if he seizes control of the Bills’ backfield. Even if he doesn’t become a top five running back, he’s still a stud.

Second Tier (Stars)

Eric Decker, WR DEN – Late Second or Early Third Round

The 2010 draft was a little bit of a boom or bust draft. It produced more studs than the 2011 draft, but then there was a pretty significant drop off. In fact, the only player who counts as a star but not a stud is Decker. He’s far surpassed all expectations that were put on him and anyone that drafted him late in the second round or early in the third round is very pleased with the choice that was made. The main reason he slid that far was due to the injury concerns people had with him coming out of college.

Third Tier (Starters)

Mike Williams, WR TB – Early Second Round

Sam Bradford, QB STL – Middle First Round

Dennis Pitta, TE BAL – Fourth Round

The third tier makes what I mentioned up above about this being a boom or bust draft even more true. Mike Williams slid in the draft due to some character issues with him quitting on his team in college. He had a great rookie season, then struggled a bit due to not working as hard as he could. He seems back on track now and could be a solid WR3 or even WR2 for years to come. Bradford might be a bit of a stretch to claim as a starter, but he is currently just outside QB1 range for ADP and I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Pitta might be the best player in this group and he has shown to be a solid part of the Ravens offense. Given their lack of wide receivers, I don’t see any reason it wouldn’t continue to be that way.

Fourth Tier (Backups)

Ryan Mathews, RB SD – Top 3 Pick

Ben Tate, RB HOU – Middle First Round

Golden Tate, WR SEA – Late First Round

Jermaine Gresham, TE CIN – Late First or Early Second Round

Brandon LaFell, WR CAR – Middle Second Round

Emmanuel Sanders, WR PIT – Late Second Round

Tony Moeaki, TE KC – Late Third Round

Ed Dickson, TE BAL – Late Third or Early Fourth Round

Chris Ivory, RB NYJ – Fourth Round

The 2010 draft was filled with disappointments. Ben Tate and especially Mathews were expected to be stars at the running back position. They were supposed to be the bell cow backs for their teams and top ten running backs for five or more years. Injuries have nearly killed the careers of both players and made them at best RB3s in the fantasy world. Tate could still emerge if Arian Foster goes down, but that means he needs to stay on the field. As for Mathews, this is his last chance. He needs to produce for 16 games or I think he may done.

The rest of this group is mostly made of up of players who just didn’t transition to the pro game for whatever reason. Some of them had injury issues but for most of them it was just an issue of never taking that next step to show what they can do in the pros. Most of them are currently fighting for playing time on their NFL team and are just barely on the fantasy radar at this point. If the training camp battles don’t go their way, they could also be done.

The exception to this might be Ivory and Sanders. Both are finally going to get their chance this year. I have my reservations about both of them, but the opportunity will be there and while the rest of the players on the list are on their way down, these two might be one tier higher this time next year.

Complete Misses So Far

Jahvid Best, RB DET – Top 3 Pick

Montario Hardesty, RB CLE – Middle First Round

Arrelious Benn, WR TB – Late First Round

Dexter McCluster, WR KC – Late First Round

Jimmy Clausen, QB CAR – Late First or Early Second Round

Toby Gerhart, RB MIN – Early Second Round

Jonathan Dwyer, RB PIT – Middle Second Round

Tim Tebow, QB DEN – Middle Second Round

Colt McCoy, QB CLE – Middle Second Round

Damian Williams, WR TEN – Late Second Round

James Starks, RB GB – Late Second Round

Mardy Gilyard, WR STL – Late Second Round

With half of the first two rounds in this group of “misses” and another fourth of the 2010 draft class in the backup tier, that means only about 25 percent of the picks in the first two rounds actually panned out. That’s a really bad year!

Some of the players on this list had brief flashes like Tebow, Starks and Best. However, injuries (or changing schemes in the case of Tebow) led to them belonging on the waiver wire at this point in time. As you look through this list with what we know now, it is tough to believe that some of these names went where they did. Most of them never really made any kind of impact in the NFL and the vast majority of them don’t have any hope of doing so this year or next. It’s kind of sad when you think about it.

The 2010 draft seemed to be an even bigger gamble than normal given the way that things turned out. It also was a bit more top heavy than normal, especially with three (four if you count Hernandez) of the top ten tight ends in the game coming from this draft. With that said, of the nine players from this class that became fantasy starters, just as many came from the first round (four) as came from the third and fourth rounds where teams are taking fliers on players. The general view on a whole lot of players was way off in 2010 and we missed a lot.

2011 Rookie Draft Reloaded (According to current startup ADP)

1.01 – CJ Spiller

1.02 – Dez Bryant

1.03 – Jimmy Graham

1.04 – Demaryius Thomas

1.05 – Rob Gronkowski

1.06 – Eric Decker

1.07 – Ryan Mathews

1.08 – Chris Ivory

1.09 – Dennis Pitta

1.10 – Ben Tate

1.11 – Mike Williams

1.12 – Sam Bradford

2.01 – Emmanuel Sanders

2.02 – Jermaine Gresham

2.03 – Brandon LaFell

2.04 – Golden Tate

2.05 – Montario Hardesty

2.06 – Jonathan Dwyer

2.07 – Dexter McCluster

2.08 – Toby Gerhardt

Imagine your thoughts back in 2010 if your rookie draft actually went like that. Turns out that is roughly how it should have gone based on today’s ADP. Stay tuned for a similar look tomorrow at the third and final year of our look back, as we look at the 2009 rookie class to see if these trends continue even that far back.

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Jacob Feldman

Honorary Contributor at Dynasty League Football

Jacob is a high school math teacher by day and a father at night. This doesn't leave too much time for sane thought, so occasionally words like "icky" will slip into his writing. It is all a part of the fun!