Anatomy of a Startup, The Draft

mikereardon

anatomy

This is the third instalment detailing (and I do mean detailing) my recent startup draft in the Dynasty Football World Championship, a contest style dynasty league put on by FFToolBox in partnership with Dynasty League Football. If you haven’t read the previous articles, please check out the first one here.

Just to review where we left off, here was my roster entering into round six:

1.10 = LeSean McCoy RBPHI
3.10 = DeMarco Murray RB DAL
4.06 = Maurice Jones-Drew RB JAX
2.03 = Rob Gronkowski TE NE

At the conclusion of the previous installment of this series, I had just moved out of the fifth round and as result of trade and some others, I was holding four picks in the next two rounds: 6.03, 6.09, 7.04, 7.07. Obviously, I had my work cut out for me. Never in a million years would I have guessed I’d come out of the first five rounds with a third running back before a single wide receiver, but that’s how the draft fell on my board.

Round Six (Pt. 1)

By the time I got on the clock at 6.03, one of my two remaining top tier quarterbacks, Tom Brady, was gone. I was surprised to see him taken by a competitor who had already spend a third round pick on Colin Kaepernick. That left Peyton Manning, the epitome of a short-term player, as my last top tier quarterback. I considered him strongly at 6.03, but ultimately decided to gamble and let the falling knife pass me by one more time, opting instead to finally address the wide receiver position. At the top of my board was Manning’s new partner in crime, Wes Welker, and he’s who I added to my team.

The sixth round is late enough to start strongly taking age and the competitive “window” of your growing team into consideration. The Maurice Jones-Drew pick in the fourth round meant I was looking to field a competitive team right away, so I felt Welker was consistent with the direction my team was going. The other player I considered who was lower on my list was Tavon Austin, but in the end I decided to stick with my board and team window. Austin, clearly, is the better “asset,” but I think some dynasty owners get too caught up in “asset-building” and lose their way in the vagueries of the word “value.” When I draft a team, I’m looking to put together a competitive, dynamic roster, not build an investment portfolio (more on that later).

So I added Welker as my first receiver and began crossing fingers, licking rabbits’ feet, and praying to the fantasy gods that Manning dropped to me at 6.09. It wasn’t until much later, after the draft in fact, that I learned that you don’t have to actually lick the rabbit foot. Just owning it is enough. Who knew?

Round Six (Pt. 2)

Manning fell, but it was a near thing. Tony Romo actually went at 6.05, causing me to perspire a little bit. I gleefully took the Denver quarterback at 6.09, and breathed a sigh of relief. One of my pre-draft goals was to wait on quarterback, but still get the cheapest top tier quarterback I could. By getting Manning as the twelfth quarterback drafted, I’d definitely accomplished that goal.

If there was any lingering doubt about the time horizon of my team, it was gone. While I will never completely abandon thoughts and consideration of the future, and long-term viability, I had now fully committed to making serious championship runs in the next two years.

20/20

I don’t regret the Welker/Manning picks at all. They were a declaration of a team direction as much as anything, and I think having clarity with respect to what your team’s priorities are is extremely important. Now the remaining challenge was to fill out my depth chart at wide receiver, and compliment my starters with some youth and long-term upside.

Round Seven

In round seven, I feel that I furthered both of those goals. I took Danny Amendola at 7.04 and Justin Blackmon just a couple of picks later at 7.09. Adding two young, high upside wide receivers at this point in the draft, especially considering my team’s makeup and needs, really felt like a home run at this point.

Now obviously, both of these players are still available because they have flaws. Blackmon’s value was clearly pushed down by his four game suspension and general knuckleheadedness (yep, that’s a word) and Amendola should probably go ahead and legally change his middle name to “If He Can Stay Healthy.”

That said, these are the kinds of factors that make a player a great “buy low” candidate. I’m definitely in the minority on this issue, but I am not entirely convinced Amendola deserves the dreaded “prone” label. His bigger injuries (fractured clavicle, dislocated elbow) have been more fluky in nature than anything else. I’ve always been a fan of his play in St. Louis, and I think the Patriots are going to have to heavily rely on Amendola for obvious reasons.

As for Blackmon’s four game suspension, well, it’s a four game suspension. I’m not worried about that at all. What is worrisome is the prospect that he might be just a total bonehead, and that longer suspensions may be in the cards for him down the line. There’s also his quarterback situation, which I expect to change one way or another after this season. Without those issues, Blackmon would be a borderline top 20 receiver in my opinion, so acquiring him in the late seventh round was too good to pass up.

20/20

After a somewhat disappointing start to the draft, I felt pretty good after seven rounds. I now had a quarterback and three wide receivers (two of them young) in place to go with Gronkowski and the running backs I took in the earlier rounds. My lineup still needed rounding out, and I was definitely leaning a little older than I’d like, but those team “chemistry” issues could be addressed moving forward.

I feel the core of my team was built in the first seven rounds, so for the sake of brevity, I’m going to speed us a long a little.

Rounds 8 – 13

8.10 Shane Vereen, RB NE

Keep in mind this draft began in May, so getting Vereen this late (he was the RB36 in this draft) will probably not be possible in start-ups going on right now. That fact alone tells me Vereen was a good pick, although even that the time I was ecstatic to get him this late. I believe Vereen is an explosive talent, and that he will have plenty of opportunity to produce this year, even if he is still giving up the majority of the early downs to Stevan Ridley. At the time I thought I was taking a guy who’s floor was a slightly better Danny Woodhead and a Darren Sproles type upside. With Hernandez gone, I think that floor is probably even a little higher.

9.04 Steve Smith, WR CAR

This is a pick that is highly team dependent. Since I’d already declared myself a “win now” team with taking some older players earlier, Steve Smith fits right in with the short-term plan. There’s also the fact that Blackmon is going to miss the first four games, which leaves a substantial hole that needs to be covered. If I had ended up skewing younger, Smith would probably be off my board entirely.

11.07 Ryan Tannehill, QB MIA

There probably wasn’t a pick in this draft I felt better about than Ryan Tannehill here. As soon as I took Manning back in the sixth round, I knew that I would need a young “heir apparent” waiting in the wings. Tannehill was the top of my list (he is the top ranked “Upsider” in my Role-based Rankings). I was without a tenth round pick because of trades made earlier in the draft, and actually spent much of that round trying to trade back in to grab Tannehill. However, he ended up falling further than I imagined, and I was able to get him here, as the sixteenth quarterback drafted. I now felt like I had excellent time horizon coverage at the quarterback position between him and Manning.

12.03 Ryan Williams, RB ARI

Williams is a nice target for a late-round reclamation project. He may never end up shaking the injury bug, but if he can, I like his natural ability enough to believe that he could at least play himself into a timeshare in Arizona in 2013, and possibly more in the future.

13.06 Stephen Hill, WR NYJ

Another target of mine in many leagues. Hill was extremely raw coming into the league last year, not unlike Demaryius Thomas. He has excellent physical tools, but was always going to take some time to refine his game. Injuries, a disappointing rookie campaign, and Mark Sanchez have all combined to suppress Hill’s price, and I’ve been buying him up wherever I can.

20/20

I probably would undo the Steve Smith pick if I had a do-over today. There were some quality, younger wide receivers still on the board that I would rather have, but at the time, I felt pressure to get a known commodity into my starting line-up because of Blackmon’s suspension.

Speaking broadly, after about round nine or ten (maybe even a little earlier), I skew heavily towards swinging for the fence. Try not to take players who are destined to be only backups, there will always be guys like that on the waiver wire. Take some shots in the later rounds, it is the cheapest, least risky time to do so.

Rounds 14-20

14.03 Owen Daniels, TE HOU

The story about Gronkowski’s back broke right around this time (I’d only known about his arm issues, which did not concern me), so I pulled the trigger on the best starting option available at the tight end position. Daniels should be a low-end TE1 option for whatever amount of time I’m without Gronkowski, which is a steep drop-off, but that’s part of the deal with the devil you make when you take Gronk.

15.06 Travis Kelce, TE KC

Despite what it might look like, Kelce was someone I wanted to grab all along, and would have done so regardless of the Gronkowski situation. I’m not sure what I can count on from Kelce in his rookie season, but this pick was more about layering in some long-term upside into what is mostly an older roster.

15.10 Quinton Patton, WR SF

It was not long after this draft that Crabtree went down, so Patton is a fortuitous pick in that sense. Still, like Kelce, this pick was about adding some young lottery tickets at the bottom of my roster. I’m not expecting a lot from Patton in 2013.

17.06 Golden Tate, WR SEA

Tate is an intriguing deep sleeper. He has improved on his totals each of the three years he’s been in the league, and had a very solid 2012 campaign. I’m not positive what his role will be in the offense with Harvin there now, but I am sure that he will have one. Whether or not that yields fantasy-worthy numbers is an open question, but I’m happy to find out at the cost of a seventeenth round pick.

17.10 Josh Boyce, WR NE

Boyce is another favorite deep sleeper of mine. You can talk yourself into any one of the receivers (or tight ends) on the New England roster, and I guess I’ve talked myself into Boyce. Probably the best part of his value as a fantasy proposition is his price; he was the seventy-seventh receiver taken in this draft, which was about 22 spots behind Aaron Dobson. No one feels very confident about who will emerge as the second WR target behind Amendola, so taking the cheapest player with a chance seems like a good strategy. Boyce has excellent timed deep speed, and is a thick, strong player. There’s almost no predicting who will work out in the NE system, which has a large dose of option routes that rely on excellent quarterback/receiver chemistry to function, but Boyce seems as good a bet as Dobson.

19.10 Malcom Floyd, WR SD

Floyd had some decent production in San Diego last year as the top receiver there, so I thought he might be worth a roster spot as a spot starter. In all likelihood, however, he’ll be dropped for a kicker at some point.

20.03 Pittsburgh DST

“Oh crap, I have to take a defense still.” This is the correct strategy with team defenses in a dynasty startup.

So my final roster looks like this (it has not changed since the conclusion of the draft):

Peyton Manning (6.09)

Ryan Tannehill (11.07)

LeSean McCoy (1.10)

DeMarco Murray (3.10)

Maurice Jones-Drew (4.06)

Shane Vereen (8.10)

Ryan Williams (12.03)

Wes Welker (6.03)

Danny Amendola (7.04)

Justin Blackmon (7.07)

Steve Smith (9.04)

Stephen Hill (13.06)

Quinton Patton (15.10)

Golden Tate (17.06)

Josh Boyce (17.10)

Malcom Floyd (19.10)

Rob Gronkowski (2.03)

Owen Daniels (14.03)

Travis Kelce (15.06)

Pittsburgh DST (20.03)

Overall, I’m very happy. I feel that I’ve struck a nice balance between “right now” and the future, and I think I should be a playoff team in 2013, assuming Gronkowski doesn’t miss too much time.

I’ll have some closing thoughts about this team specifically and dynasty startup approach generally in the final instalment of this series. In the mean time, if you have any questions/comments/insults, please leave them here or hit me up on twitter (@mjreardon).