All 2010 Fantasy Football Articles | 2010 Position Rankings

Ah, the kicker. This is always the last part of our annual preview that I write because, honestly, it’s the last thing I’m thinking about on draft day. In most leagues, it doesn’t matter who your kicker is, as long as he’s decent. And if you don’t find a decent kicker on draft day, you’ll surely have an opportunity to pick one up as the season wears on.

I generally look for two things when selecting a kicker:

1. He kicks for a team with a good offense.
In each of the last three seasons, six of the top 10 fantasy kickers played for teams that finished in the top 10 in yards per game. More yards generally means more opportunities for the kicker, be it field goals or extra points. Moreover, 23/30 (77%) of the top 10 kickers over the same span have been on teams that finished in the top 15 in yards per game.

In the last three years, only three teams have had a kicker make the top 10 every season: Tennessee (4th, 4th, 2nd), New England (9th, 1st, 7th) and Green Bay (6th, 10th, 1st). Of those three, only the Patriots and the Packers made the top 10 in each season in yards per game. Tennessee was 12th in 2009, 21st in 2008 and 21st in 2007. For whatever reason, Tennessee’s strong running game coupled with a quality kicker (Rob Bironas) leads to a lot of made field goals.

Four teams — Philadelphia, Minnesota, New York Giants and Denver — have had a kicker make the top 10 in each of the last two years.

2. He kicks indoors or in a warm weather city, especially in the fantasy playoffs.
Looking at the aforementioned list of teams with consistent kicking success, nice weather has nothing to do with it. New England, Green Bay, Philadelphia, New York and Denver are hostile in December, while Tennessee is pretty iffy.

This is just a personal preference. I have been willing to give up a few points during the season if it means my kicker has nice weather to kick in during the fantasy playoffs. I don’t want to be looking at a goose egg when my guy has to go out into below freezing weather and a 32 MPH crosswind.

But, thinking about it a little more, if it comes to that — why not just change kickers? There are always guys out there on the waiver wire with good matchups, so if you have Mason Crosby and he’s about to kick in terrible weather, you have options. Looking ahead, I’m going to put more of an onus on #1 than on #2.

The most important rule to remember on draft day is that you don’t want to draft your kicker too early. A good rule of thumb is to wait until 8-10 kickers are already off the board before scooping up the best of what’s left. I’d rather use those 12th, 13th and 14th round picks on a few RB or WR flyers, the last part of my QBBC or the start of my DTBC.

With that in mind, here are a few players going in round 15 or later that look to be good values on draft day. ADP data from Antsports.com.

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All 2010 Fantasy Football Articles | 2010 Position Rankings

The tight end position is often overlooked in fantasy football, but in leagues that award a point per reception, a stud TE can be quite valuable indeed. Over the past decade or so, NFL offensive coordinators have increasingly built game plans around their talented tight ends. It used to be that the position was meant to block in the running game and catch the occasional pass or two. But, more and more, the tight end has become a spot for a big playmaker with soft hands who can block a little.

The position isn’t nearly as deep as QB, but since many fantasy owners don’t consider taking a tight end until the fourth or fifth round, value is often found in the middle rounds. A vast majority of championship teams will get at least average production from the position, so no matter your strategy, you have to find a decent TE somewhere in your draft if you hope to be hoisting the trophy at the end of the season.

Here are a few TEs I’ll be targeting this season along with the round in which each player becomes a good value.

Antonio Gates in the 4th
With Vincent Jackson prepared for a long holdout, Gates will get a ton of targets from Phillip Rivers. It appears that his foot injury is behind him, so he’s in line for another Top 4 year. Gates is as consistent as they come.

Dallas Clark in the 5th
Clark was a stud last season, but with Anthony Gonzalez back and the continued development of Pierre Garcon and Austin Collie, one wonders if he can post 100 catches again. His previous high was 77, so the gut says ‘no.’ Still, even if he takes a 20% cut in production, that still would have been good enough to be TE3 in ’09.

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All 2010 Fantasy Football Articles | 2010 Position Rankings

Are wideouts the new running backs? Not quite, but they continue to gain importance as more and more leagues make rules changes that enhance the value of the position. How do you know if you’re in one of these leagues? If your rules only require one starting RB spot and has a flex position, or if it awards one point per reception, you can start thinking about drafting a WR in the middle of the first round.

As I noted in the RB preview, there is a pretty sizable drop off after the first five or six running backs this season, so as soon as Chris Johnson, Adrian Peterson, Maurice Jones-Drew and Ray Rice are off the board, it’s time to consider going with a wideout. Frank Gore and Steven Jackson are justifiable picks at #5 or #6, but Andre Johnson is also worth consideration. And I’d rather have Larry Fizgerald than any of the RBs in the next tier (Michael Turner, Rashard Mendenhall, DeAngelo Williams, etc.).

If you’re in a league that does NOT require two starting RBs, and you’re drafting in the back half of round one, it makes a lot of sense to zag when everyone else is zigging, by grabbing a stud WR. You could even draft a second wideout early in the 2nd and wait to nab your first RB late in the third, when guys like Pierre Thomas, Chris Wells and Joseph Addai are still likely to be available. You could end up with Fitzgerald, Reggie Wayne and Thomas as your core, and that’s a group that is projected (by Footballguys) to outscore a Turner/Mendenhall/S. Rice core by almost 100 fantasy points over the course of the season (assuming a high-performance, PPR league).

If you’re drafting in the first half of the first round and want to grab a stud RB early, don’t be afraid to go WR with your next pick, as there will be plenty of RB talent available early in the third round, and given the relative depth in rounds 2 and 3, you won’t be losing many points by letting Ryan Grant, Jamaal Charles or Knowshon Moreno go. Somebody comparable will be there in the 3rd.

Even if you load up on WR talent early, it’s always nice to be able to pluck a good WR out of the pack in the middle rounds. Here are a few players that are going in the 6th-10th rounds that should outperform their current average draft positions. (Note: All ADP data is from Antsports.)

Hines Ward (6.01)
It’s almost August, so that must mean I’m writing about Hines Ward as a value fantasy wideout. Sure, he’s 34, but over the last two seasons he has averaged 88-1105-6.5. He was WR14 last season and WR15 the year before, so why is he being drafted WR23? It’s not just his age — he’s going to be without Ben Roethlisberger for the first six games. But Byron Leftwich can hold down the fort, right? If he stays healthy, Ward should have another top 20 fantasy season.

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All 2010 Fantasy Football Articles | 2010 Position Rankings

Generally speaking, the running back position is the backbone of any good fantasy football team. But more and more, leagues have tried to de-emphasize the position by changing lineup requirements (i.e. one RB and a flex instead of two RB) or adding a point per reception, which increases the important of workhorse WRs and TEs.

Looking at the list of consensus early round running backs, one thing is clear — there aren’t many so-called ‘studs’ this season. Chris Johnson, Adrian Peterson, Ray Rice and Maurice Jones-Drew are no-brainers, but after that there’s a drop off to a couple of would-be studs (Steven Jackson and Frank Gore) and an even bigger drop off to a deep tier of backs.

So it’s a good year to think about drafting a stud WR in the middle- to late-first round instead of taking the first of a big batch of very similar prospects. For example — in a PPR league, what are the chances that Pierre Thomas (ADP: 3.07) will outscore Michael Turner (1.09)? If both players stay healthy, I think the chances are pretty good. So therein lies the question: If you’re drafting 1.07, why take Turner when you are likely to have a shot at a similar back in the second or third round?

Here’s the answer — you don’t. I could see jumping on Gore/Jackson at 1.05/1.06, but after that, I’d much rather have Andre Johnson or Larry Fitzgerald (or even Randy Moss, Reggie Wayne or Miles Austin) than the top guy in the next group of RBs.

Look at it this way: Would you rather have Michael Turner and Brandon Marshall or Andre Johnson and Jamaal Charles? I’d rather have the latter.

In fact, this might be the year where I finally do the unthinkable and go WR-WR-WR in the first three rounds, gobbling up three of the top 12 or 13 wideouts and draft a couple of underrated RBs like Chris Wells (4.03), Cedric Benson (4.06), Matt Forte (4.10) or Joseph Addai (5.05) in the 4th and 5th rounds. Of course, you’d only want to pull this trick if your league allows you to start three wideouts.

With that in mind, here are a few backs who could be had in the third round or later that would make a nice addition to a lineup stacked with 2-3 stud wideouts. Who knows, maybe they’ll even outscore Michael Turner…

(Note: All ADP data is from Antsports for mocks drafting in July for a 12-team PPR league.)

Pierre Thomas (3.07)
Thomas was RB16 last year despite scoring just one fantasy point in the first two games due to a knee injury. That’s been his issue — staying healthy. But when he’s playing, he’s productive. And with Mike Bell gone, Thomas figures to get all of the goal line work. Even with Reggie Bush stealing catches, Thomas is very active in the passing game. If he stays healthy, he has a great shot to finish in the Top 10, and he has a couple of nice matchups in Week 14 and Week 16, during the fantasy playoffs.

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All 2010 Fantasy Football Articles | 2010 Position Rankings

Very few defenses are elite year to year, and performance can be tough to predict. One way to approach the position is to form a committee of two (or more) defenses that have favorable combined schedules but are being drafted in much later rounds than the so-called elite defenses. The idea is that a mediocre defense with a great matchup will provide approximately the same production as a great defense with a mediocre or bad matchup.

Clayton Gray of Footballguys.com does an excellent job of compiling the strength of schedule data, and he even writes his own DTBC column (though he calls it ‘TDBC’). However, I like to go a step further and add the impact of home and away games, as middling defenses have a tendency to score more fantasy points at home.

Last year, my top recommended combination was Green Bay and Dallas, which turned out well as both teams turned out to have Top 10 fantasy defenses. While I would have been better off just running the Packers out there every week, the duo’s recommended schedule netted 135 points (under a high performance scoring system), which were DT5-type numbers. My alternate recommendation, GB/ARI, netted 142 points, so DTBC does work.

Here’s how I identify the top DTBC combinations:

1. Use FBG’s SOS for DT9-DT28 along with David Dodds’ defensive projections to produce a week-by-week estimate for each defense.
I eliminated NYJ, MIN, GB, PHI, BAL, PIT, DAL and SF from the study because all eight defenses are being drafted by the 12th round, which is just too early to start a DTBC. Please note that I don’t use Dodds’ fantasy point projections, just the projections for points allowed, sacks, interceptions, fumbles and touchdowns scored. So the point totals won’t look the same.

2. Apply home/away adjustment.
With relation to a team’s mean performance, I found that middling defenses (DT6-DT25) scored 2.8% higher at home in 2009 and 8.6% higher in 2008. I took the average (5.7%) and applied a bonus to home games and a handicap to away games. The more home games, the better.

3. Run the numbers for the resulting 190 possible combinations to find the best DTBCs.
I also calculated the playoff averages for Weeks 14-16 (and just Weeks 15 & 16 for a two-week playoff system) as a tiebreaker.

So now I’m armed with a list of 190 possibilities sorted by total projected points. But numbers aren’t enough. I want a real-world perspective on this list. So I enlist the help of our NFL guru, Anthony Stalter, to give his thoughts on the defenses in question. After some discussion, we narrow the list of the best candidates to eight teams: SD, NO, NYG, CIN, MIA, CHI, NE and IND. When picking our DTBC, we shouldn’t stray from these eight teams.

Here are Anthony’s rankings along with his thoughts on each defense:

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All 2010 Fantasy Football Articles | 2010 Position Rankings

The quarterback position is important in fantasy football, just not as important as it is in real football. Unless you play in a league that requires two starting QBs, there is plenty of depth at the position which means you have plenty of options.

Strategy #1: Draft a stud.
This is the simplest way to approach the position. Sometime in the first three rounds, pick the best QB available. This year, it appears that there are seven QBs going in the first 36 picks: Aaron Rodgers (1.08), Drew Brees (1.09), Peyton Manning (2.04), Tom Brady (3.01), Tony Romo (3.09), Matt Schaub (3.11) and Philip Rivers (3.12). These guys have a few things in common: 1) they’re good, 2) they’re entrenched in good situations, and 3) they have good receivers to throw to.

One strategy is to set aside one of your first three picks for one these players. The upside is that you probably won’t have to worry about your QB position. You’ll run this guy out there every week and won’t have to make any decisions about whom to start. The downside is that you won’t be using one of your early round picks on another position, like RB and WR, that does not have as much depth as the QB position.

Strategy #2: Wait for value to emerge.
This approach doesn’t preclude taking a QB in the first few rounds, but it doesn’t mandate it either. You might wait until the late 2nd/early 3rd and see if Rodgers/Brees/Manning are still on the board. Or wait until the 4th or the 5th and see if one of the other four players are available. If it’s the latter, then you managed to get a 3rd round QB a round or two later, which allowed you to get a stud QB and use a 3rd round pick on that RB or WR you had your eye on.

The ‘wait for value’ approach could also stretch into the middle rounds as you wait for a well-priced QB. If that value never emerges, don’t fret, because you’re still well positioned for…

Strategy #3: Quarterback By Committee
I wrote a far more detailed post about this last week, but suffice to say, with the depth at the QB position, 2-3 middle- to late-round QBs with schedules that combine well (i.e. favorable matchups line up so there’s usually a good one every week) will form a QBBC that will perform at Top 5 levels at a fraction of the price.

My top recommendation this year is to grab Eli Manning (or Matt Ryan or Joe Flacco) in the 8th, and then Ben Roethlisberger in the 10th. For a three-man combo utilizing only late rounders, grab Big Ben in the 10th, Alex Smith in the 11th and David Garrard in the 12th.

The benefit to this strategy is that you won’t lose much at the QB spot and will be able to load up with tons of talent and depth at RB, WR and even TE in the early rounds. You’ll also have 2-3 capable signal callers on the roster to turn to if one gets injured. What do you do if Drew Brees goes down?

The downside? You can go into the season with a plan, but player and defensive performance may make picking a starter each week more of a chore than you’d like it to be. This is not necessarily the right strategy for an owner who wants a low-maintenance team.

Since I’ve already written extensively about the QBBC, and you don’t have to put much thought into picking a stud early in the draft, here are a few QBs that look like especially good values, even at their current average draft positions.

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