Good to see you all back! For those of you who haven’t yet read my first installment, check it out here. In this installment, I’ll try to shed some light on which of my specific roster builds did the best and worst. Finally, we will close with some of my highest rostered players (whether good or bad outcome).
I should clarify what I mean by “roster build” before moving on to the next part in my reflection. I’m referring to how many players I rostered at each position. At Draft.com, you have 18 players to form your roster with. My thoughts going into the season was that I’d want to load up at RB and WR, and draft enough QB/TE to ensure the squads wouldn’t tank because of injury or bye week problems.
In each build, I had between two and four QBs, five and seven RBs, six and eight WRs, two and three TEs. Let’s take a look at how many of these builds ended up in the money!
(GIANT DISCLAIMER REGARDING SAMPLE SIZE ISSUES- Having only played 30 entries, some of the following builds will only have a few data points, so don’t take as gospel.)
As you can see from above, my most profitable configurations included six WRs, six RBs, three QBs, and three TEs(3/6/6/3). In total, that combo was “in the money” 80% of the time (four out of five entries placed, and one in fifth place), and first place 20% of the time (one out of five). Too bad I didn’t have a crystal ball, because most of my entries were 3/5/7/3, which accounted for a 41% place rate and 11.76% first place rate (both just below my overall marks).
My least successful builds listed above had only one data point each, so it’s hard to take any real stock in them, but the builds I found most interesting were the 2QB and 2TE builds. Both tended to place either very well, or very poorly. While 2QB builds performed badly compared to my overall place rate, it did have a first-place finisher. Again, small sample size caveat applies, but I looked into the specific examples of 2QB builds, and they either contained two QBs who stayed healthy most of the year and crushed the competition with the additional draft equity I was able to put into other spots, or they crashed and burned because of the occasional to many zeroes I had to endure due to injury to the thin position. My assumption going in was that having two at any position would be a high-variance play. This assumption has all but been proven.
I know you all are waiting to hear what players I drafted on the most squads! I’m only going to give you my top three at each position-
QBs:
Andy Dalton (19%)
I gravitated to Dalton as a low-end QB2 or QB3 selection in the later rounds of drafts. I thought for sure he would outperform his ADP, but maybe not by a whole lot. The average finish for squads with him was 4.67th place, representing a better than average result.
Kyler Murray (19%)
I was a big Kyler fan going into last season, and would often take him as an “early” QB option for me. Often you could get him in the middle rounds, and I thought the upside of a dual-threat QB in a pass-happy offense would be too much to pass on. Teams with him finished 7.6th place on average, below average results to be sure. The price was probably a little too high still to pay off on ADP.
Lamar Jackson (16%)
Do I even need to type much here? Dual-threat upside who somehow provided value almost entirely with his improvement as a passer. His teams’ average finish of 4.4th place was among one of my best single players on teams.
RBs:
Derrius Guice (26%)
Swing and a miss. Of course, it’s hard to say what this might have been without injury, but that seems to be the theme of his short career so far. Teams with him finished 5.6th place on average. Very average results with him. His price wasn’t high enough to tank my efforts.
Damien Harris (23%)
Another miss obviously, but his price was dirt cheap, so it helps the cause. The thought process was based on “Take the cheapest Patriot RB”, and it didn’t work out this time. Team that he was on finished 5.1th place, so just above average result.
Miles Sanders (23%)
League winner! Not so much in the case of my rosters. I put too high of expectations on the rookie and picking him as my RB2 in a lot of squads, which made his first 11 weeks of not much production too much to overcome by the time he started to smash. I imagine in squads where he was a third option, they’d have done very well. Teams with Sanders finished 6.1th place on average, a little below average result.
WRs:
Juju Smith-Schuster (32%)
Pour one out for my biggest planted flag of 2019. It was a lost season in many regards for Juju. He dealt with backup QBs and injury all season. I probably overexposed myself to Juju and wonder if I kept to my initial principles how much better I would have done. Teams with Juju averaged a 5.7th place finish, so just barely below average. This is kind of surprising based on his relatively high cost. I think if I had any more invested in him it really would have tanked his average result.
Albert Wilson (26%)
My most popular 17th or 18th round pick for sure. The game against the vaunted Chicago defense in 2018 in which he broke ankles, physics, etc. left a strong impression on me. I thought that given lack of target competition plus his dynamism would have spelled big upside. Teams with Wilson averaged a finish of 6th place. Shouldn’t be a surprise that such a low leverage pick wouldn’t have tanked the average result much at all.
Michael Thomas (23%)
I loved Thomas at his value this past year. He just seemed like he had a higher floor of any of the top WRs that were taken in his range, and almost as high a ceiling. With a team average finish of 5.3th place, he finished just above average. One of the teams he was coupled with was probably my worst roster top to bottom. Just a giant pile of bad and injured apart from him. If you remove this result(just for fun) the average finish was 4th(among my best single players)
TEs:
Zach Ertz (26%)
I was a big fan of the “Big Three” TEs this past drafting season, as I thought they provided a WR1 value set that you could hide in round two or three at your TE position. I would say that my Ertz picks merely “held serve” as their average finish was 5.3rd, barely above average result.
Tyler Eifert (26%)
Sad trombone noise. He was a low-cost option, but just entirely injured as usual. Teams with him finished well below average, finishing at 7.9th place on average.
Travis Kelce (19%)
Another “Big three” TE that held serve value-wise. Kelce is a beast, and predictably so. His teams’ average finish of 5.7th place was right around the mean.
Thank you all for taking the time to read my work. Hit me up on Twitter @DFF_Mike2 and let’s talk about why I’m probably wrong!
