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I agree with you. When planning for your draft or auction, I think you should assume that you’ll make a lot of waiver moves, and that the last running back or wide receiver could change every week or two until you find somebody you like. In the vast majority of fantasy leagues, I think, Miles Austin and Jamaal Charles were grabbed off the waiver wire last year. That’s why, in an auction, you want to be sure to have some $1 players at the tail end of your roster. Accept the reality that you will be wrong on some guys. You don’t want a roster where everybody carries a salary of $8 or more. It’s just not realistic. Same thing in a draft. A 14th-round draft choice has only limited value. It makes a lot of sense to trade away that choice if you want to move up a half a round in the 7th to select a player you really like.

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As mentioned in the previous letter, there’s a point in the draft where you’re just fishing. Bernard Scott of the Bengals, for example, is a promising backup. If Cedric Benson misses any games, Scott will be a good fill in. I would like to have Scott on my team. But I wouldn’t, in an auction, pay more than $1 for him. That’s because there are a bunch of other similar players, and I’m confident that some of them will go for only $1 (or not be selected at all). Javon Ringer, Toby Gerhart, Larry Johnson, Correll Buckhalter. So let’s do that at each position. Let’s identify the worst player at each position that you think is worth paying more than the $1 minimum. In a typical 12-team league, we’re talking about maybe the 15th quarterback, the 30th running back, the 25th-35th wide receiver (depending on whether you’re starting two or three), the 10th tight end, the 3rd kicker and the 4th defense. Now we can calculate auction values (and also a decent overall list for those not in a salary cap league). The stat forecast for the best $1 player at each position becomes the baseline. At quarterback, for example, maybe that Donovan McNabb. Maybe he projects to produce 266 fantasy points in your league. But because that’s a crowded position, you just can’t see paying more than $1 for him. His value, though, helps determine the actual value of the players above him. If you’ve got Tom Brady at 320 points, his new value becomes 54 (320 minus 266). We do this at each position and with every player. Rashard Mendenhall comes in ahead of Brady not because he’s going to produce more overall points. Mendenhall is at only 202 fantasy points. But the baseline at running back is 130 points. So Mendenhall’s 72 “bang” number beats Brady’s 54. After we’ve done this for every player (among those worth more than minimum), we can figure his down-to-the-penny value. Suppose we’re in a 10-team league, with each team spending $100 on 20 players. So a total of $1,000 will be spent, and $800 of that is actually in play (since every player must receive a $1 minimum bid). Of your 200 players, maybe 140 will go for more than $1 minimum. Add up the “bang” numbers for each of those guys. Maybe you get a number like 3,423 total fantasy points. Then divide $800 by 3,423 and you get about 23 cents per fantasy point. So a guy like Mendenhall, with a bang number of 72, would be worth $17.56 (that’s .23 times 72, plus the $1 to get the ball rolling). Brady would be worth $13.42 (.23 times 54, plus $1). That’s how we generate our overall list. On our standard cheat sheets, where many readers aren’t in salary cap leagues, we strip away the dollar figures to make it more user-friendly.

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A:

I think it’s a below-average fit for Owens. If you drafted him a month ago, figuring he’d latch on somewhere, I think you were hoping for something better. (With the ideal situation involving the Chargers bringing him in to replace Vincent Jackson.) I don’t see Owens putting up difference-maker stats. I think it hurts Ochocinco, Cedric Benson and Jermaine Gresham, and I think it makes Bryant undraftable. In my eyes, it helps Carson Palmer. He’s not up there with Drew Brees and Peyton Manning, but I’d be comfortable riding with him as my starting quarterback in a fantasy league. I don’t see Owens affecting the performance of the Cincinnati defense. This issue is explored in more depth in the update that will be sent out on Monday morning.

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In a PPR format, I love selecting wide receivers who are slam dunks to catch 85-plus passes and 8-plus touchdowns. It’s great to build around on those guys. But that’s trumped in this league by the double-quarterback rule. That makes the franchise quarterback solid gold real estate. According to my rough estimations, 12 of the first 19 picks overall should be quarterbacks. Only then do you start getting into the great receivers like Calvin Johnson and Roddy White. Romo would be the No. 3 overall player on my board. If he’s available, he would definitely be the player I would select with the 12th pick of the draft.

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For the first pick, I’d select one of the rookie runners. Spiller, Mathews or Best. Not a lot of difference between those three. As I outlined in the magazine, Best actually did a better job of breaking long runs in college than Spiller. Dez Bryant likely would be No. 4. The final two spots, I think, will fluctuate based on how things develop in camp. Can Ben Tate or Montario Hardesty show us anything in the preseason games? (Hardesty fits well into your roster). Is Arian Foster of Houston available? He might be in the mix. Kevin Kolb looks solid, so he has value with the 6th pick, but you already have Rivers at quarterback. You tossed out “Bush” as a possibility, but I wasn’t sure if you meant Reggie or Michael. If it’s a PPR format, Bush would make a lot of sense.

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