Ian Allan answers your mailbag questions. In this edition. Juggling the lesser running back options in the back half of the first round. Auction values for $100 leagues. Superflex rankings. How to handle drauctions. And valuing players differently in smaller leagues.
Question 1
A question regarding RBs in the standard scoring system. Chubb, Walker, and Pacheco are all rated in the top 10. However, the rb summary on each is not glowing or supports the high ranking. Do I still use the projections as the final source? Also, if CMC, Ekeler, Chase, Jefferson and Kelce are drafted, who would you most likely select in position 6 and 7.
Jim Venettis (Farmington, MI)
It's tricky in the second half of the first round this year. I had the 12th pick in an ongoing slow-crawl draft, and I didn’t really care for it. I was hoping Kelce or Cooper Kupp might make it there (it’s a PPR format), but no dice. Josh Jacobs, Saquon Barkley, Derrick Henry and Jonathan Taylor made it to the end of the round, but I wasn’t excited about those guys. With Jacobs and Barkley, you’re taking on contract issues. Henry is an older back playing for a bad team. With Taylor, the Colts might have a rookie quarterback who’s scoring a lot of the rushing touchdowns on his own.
With wide receivers, Tyreek Hill and CeeDee Lamb were gone, so the best options were Davante Adams, Stefon Diggs, Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jaylen Waddle. I went back and forth on these picks – RB-RB, WR-RB or WR-WR. In this league, you start 3 WRs, and there’s also a flex. I decided to go with a pair of wide receivers, figuring that a couple of running backs I am higher on will be available with my next four picks.
Question 2
Where can I find information on how people run Drauctions? Is a five-round Drauction followed by draft typical? I'm sure I've read about them on Fantasy Index but not finding easily here nor out while googling.
Dwight Dummer (Warren, OR)
I think five is the right number. If you go with only three players, I think you’ll run into issues where multiple owners think it makes sense to spend almost their entire payroll on one player. If there were a running back who looked like to put up 2,000-plus yards and 20 touchdowns, for example, multiple owners would want to go the route of spending $98 of their $100 payroll on that player, rounding out their roster with two more players at the minimum (at worst, they’d have their No. 1 player, along with the 35th and 36th players on their boards). With five players, I think it would be only once in a blue moon that an owner would opt to spend the max on one player.
In a drauction (a combination of a draft and auction), a 1 thru 12 nominating order would be agreed upon. When an owner is on the clock, he’s required to open the bidding on a player. The league would cycle through that order until all 12 teams each had rosters with five players. At that point, a new 1 thru 12 order would be created. The owner with the most remaining money would pick first in each round (in the case of a tie, the owner who purchased his five players first would select earlier).
The theory behind drauctions is that they are simpler and easier than a full auction, while giving owners control over the key players on their roster. They are faster than a full auction, and with less of the late-game sniping (“I hadn’t even thought about Skyy Moore, but if Joe is bidding $1 for him, then I’ll bid $2”).
Question 3
In my auction league last year, with 9 active and 4 bench (and with only 10 teams), I found that I had a lot of turnover of my bench. Is it more valuable to grab a solid quarterback and two top-tier players (e.g. McCaffrey and Jefferson) and then fill the rest of your roster with low-cost picks who will get replaced with unexpected standouts and injury-elevated replacements? Or is it better to only buy one top-tier player and look for middle-round discounts for most of your active roster? (Separately, I noticed the magazine includes points per game and RBBC indicators, neither of which show up in the point total drafting sheets online. Is it possible to get that data added to the online version, maybe in the Excel download?)
Aaron Vander Vorst (West Fargo, ND)
This is a great point, and a reminder that leagues are different. Not only different scoring systems, but different roster sizes, which can be just as important. I’m in some 12-team leagues with 20- and 22-man rosters. In those competitions, you’re looking to land guys in the middle rounds who’ll be contributors – safer tends to be better. But in a league like yours, with barely half as many players rostered, it makes more sense to take more chances, trying to latch onto the key breakout players. It’s fine to miss on middle- and late-round picks, because most of those guys are going to wind up getting cut anyway. In your league, there’s always serviceable-type players available on the waiver wire.
In answer to your second question, see the Excel download. You’ll find the information there. That file includes extensive use of the RBBC and 3WR designation. It includes three different tabs. The first shows per-game stat projections. The second shows expected totals for the remaining games. The third shows expected totals if player was to be used in a starting role for all 17 games.
Question 4
Been a reader (and therefore a winner) since the pre-website days. Do you have Superflex rankings hidden somewhere I can't find? Thought you would have added that (or at least an overview of how Superflex would change your top 30-50) by now.
Chris Hudson (defending champ, Who's Your Daddy League) (Madisonville, LA)
We’re aware that Superflex leagues are growing in popularity. To see our rankings for that format, click on the blue “Your Stuff” box in the upper right portion of the screen, then the most updated version of the “CHEAT SHEET CUSTOM RANKINGS AND AUCTION VALUES” that you see. You’ll see rankings links for close to 20 different scoring systems, including “Superflex (12 teams, PPR)” and “Superflex (12 teams, standard)”. If you want to customize the supply-demand parameters, make a copy of that league by clicking on the “Create a new custom scoring system” link and dragging down to one of the Superflex options. Once inside, click on the auction variables; that’s where you can adjust the supply-demand variables.
Question 5
What defenses have the easiest schedule to start the first several weeks of the season?
Henry Brooks (Tampa, FL)
I ran a defensive strength of schedule article on Sunday. I trust you saw that. It showed the lay of the land for the full season. If we take those same offensive projections (which I estimated last week, considering how offenses and quarterbacks have played in the past) we can get some sense of which defenses might be helped by scheduling early in the season.
Looking at just the first six games for each team, defenses projecting to face the leakiest offenses include the Bengals, Eagles, Saints, Commanders and 49ers. Defenses facing offenses that tend to allow fewer sacks and takeaways include the Patriots, Jets, Panthers and Chargers.
| DEFENSIVE STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE (G 1-6) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Int | Fum | Sack | F Pts |
| Cincinnati | 5.0 | 3.5 | 16.3 | 33.3 |
| Philadelphia | 5.0 | 3.3 | 14.9 | 31.6 |
| New Orleans | 4.9 | 3.4 | 14.6 | 31.3 |
| Washington | 4.6 | 3.4 | 15.0 | 31.1 |
| San Francisco | 4.7 | 3.3 | 15.1 | 31.0 |
| Seattle | 4.8 | 3.3 | 14.8 | 30.9 |
| LA Rams | 4.7 | 3.3 | 15.0 | 30.8 |
| Baltimore | 4.6 | 3.2 | 15.2 | 30.7 |
| Arizona | 4.7 | 3.2 | 14.6 | 30.5 |
| Pittsburgh | 4.8 | 3.2 | 14.5 | 30.5 |
| Cleveland | 4.7 | 3.2 | 14.6 | 30.4 |
| Indianapolis | 4.6 | 3.5 | 14.0 | 30.3 |
| Chicago | 4.7 | 3.2 | 14.0 | 29.9 |
| Dallas | 4.6 | 3.3 | 14.2 | 29.9 |
| Tennessee | 4.6 | 3.1 | 14.5 | 29.9 |
| Jacksonville | 4.8 | 3.5 | 12.9 | 29.6 |
| Detroit | 4.7 | 3.3 | 13.5 | 29.6 |
| Denver | 4.7 | 3.3 | 13.4 | 29.3 |
| NY Giants | 4.8 | 3.3 | 13.2 | 29.3 |
| Minnesota | 4.5 | 3.3 | 13.8 | 29.3 |
| Buffalo | 4.5 | 3.3 | 13.5 | 29.3 |
| Miami | 4.5 | 3.2 | 13.8 | 29.2 |
| Houston | 4.5 | 3.3 | 13.5 | 29.1 |
| Atlanta | 4.6 | 3.3 | 13.4 | 29.0 |
| Tampa Bay | 4.4 | 3.1 | 14.1 | 29.0 |
| Green Bay | 4.4 | 3.1 | 13.8 | 28.8 |
| Kansas City | 4.2 | 3.1 | 13.8 | 28.4 |
| Las Vegas | 4.4 | 3.1 | 13.1 | 28.2 |
| LA Chargers | 4.6 | 3.2 | 12.6 | 28.1 |
| Carolina | 4.4 | 3.0 | 12.9 | 27.8 |
| NY Jets | 4.2 | 3.1 | 12.5 | 27.2 |
| New England | 4.3 | 3.0 | 12.6 | 27.2 |
Question 6
How would you properly scale down auction values from a $200 to $100 budget? It can’t just be a matter of cutting everything in half. Even when I pull up my league’s custom Auction Value Cheat Sheet the using the Index program, the top RBs and WRs are much lower than what players are actually drafted for in our league (ex. someone drafting Christian McCaffery for $35-40 when the Cheat Sheet says $25). Can you finally scratch this annoying itch?
Bryan Teegardin (Rochester, NY)
How would you properly scale down auction values from a $200 to $100 budget? It can’t just be a matter of cutting everything in half. Even when I pull up my league’s custom Auction Value Cheat Sheet the using the Index program, the top RBs and WRs are much lower than what players are actually drafted for in our league (ex. someone drafting Christian McCaffery for $35-40 when the Cheat Sheet says $25). Can you finally scratch this annoying itch?
You have an advantage over typical readers in that you’ve been in auctions before. You should know what a $1 player is. Pull out the auction results from previous seasons, counting up how many go at each position before it’s first-come, first-serve (with players going for $1).
For my own auctions, I first settle on the order of players at each position. I’m taking A before B before C before D, etc. Then I scroll down the list at each position until I get to a player that I either wouldn’t pay more than $1.00 for, or that I’m pretty sure I can get for $1.00. At quarterback, that might be Goff, Love or Carr. Do that for every position. By definition, all selected players lower than those guys need to be worth $1.00.
We use a value-based system. The dollar values of the better players are determined by how much better they are than the baseline player at their position (using our projections). In a general sense, what’s probably happening in your league is that owners are overpaying for those top players. The dollar values are suggesting that if you instead focus on more of an all-for-one approach, buying more of the players between 20th and 60th on the overall board, you’ll wind up with less star talent but more overall production.
If you want to be more competitive bidding for the top 10 players, then change the baselines. At quarterback, for example, instead of making #18 Jordan Love your $1 quarterback, making #12 Geno Smith your $1.00 guy. That will reallocating all of the money that was going to be spent on quarterbacks 12-17 into the top 11 guys, increasing their values. (That approach, of course, also changes a bunch of players who are actually worth $2-4 into guys who’ll go for the $1 minimum).
Question 7
As you say in the magazine, this is a terrible year for running backs. Where’s the value in the early rounds? McCaffrey and Ekeler are the only backs who interest me in the first round. If both are gone, I’m going receiver. Hell, I may even take a QB. Nothing I hate worse than drafting an underwhelming player higher than you want just because you need a body at his position. This feels like the year to draft a bunch of running backs in the middle and late rounds and hope you hit on a couple.
Paul Owers (Boynton Beach, FL)
It's tough. I was faced with this issue in the ongoing Fanex draft, picking last in the first round. There wasn’t really a running back there that I was excited about. With it being a PPR league, I ended up going with a pair of wide receivers. I thought some about Patrick Mahomes, but I’m thinking there will be better quarterback values coming up. That is, if you look at the receiver you can take at 1.12 and combine him with QB you might take at 3.12 or 5.12, I think the combined production will be higher than the combination of Mahomes and the receiver you might get at 3.12 and 5.12.