Mailbag — Pick 2, best ball, and more on rookie QBs

Plus some thoughts on targeting youth upside in your build

Yesterday’s draft strategy post got a ton of great responses, and I appreciate all the support that came through. I wrote it fairly fast, and when I re-read it later there were definitely some things that could have been cleaned up, but I think it covered almost all of the really useful stuff you need to have in mind to crush your drafts this year.

A couple really important notes I touched on but didn’t say as directly as I could have is how we should be striving for upside with nearly every pick, and how the earlier concepts of projected volume and role versus things like talent and uncertainty — and how ADP values all those relative ideas — really push us toward a willingness to target youth options in redraft to accomplish those goals. It’s certainly OK to build around stable veterans at good prices some of the time, but the floor-to-ceiling profiles at cost are very often better options for the younger, more unproven players in nearly every draft range. I’d say I’m most likely to take veterans at TE, while I’m comfortable doing the same at QB but also am very interested in the values we can get on the dual threat rookie QBs late. And then RB is the position at which I’m least likely to value veteran production, with WR somewhere in the middle — if you read and agreed with the piece, you’re going to take a lot of WRs, and it’s fine to take some veteran bets in there, but this is also a position where you really need a good amount of youth upside in your build somewhere.

I also got a couple of good questions to the post that I gave lengthier answers to in the comment section, but wanted to throw into a mailbag here.

From Andy:

I'm really torn on how to approach the #2 pick in my upcoming draft. The funny thing is, before even knowing that ZeroRb was a strategy, I would frequently take a committee approach to the RB position, getting points cheaply from guys like DeAngelo Williams or James Connor (drafting Bell's backup was extremely lucrative for a few years there!), in favor of loading up at WR and the other spots. (I LOVE drafting from the end of round 1.) The one exception I've always made is for a top-three pick, defaulting to RB because of the legendary upside arguments. This year, though, I don't love any RBs that high outside of McCaffrey. I *like* Dalvin Cook, but the receiving wasn't really there in a way you'd want last year and I could see some TD regression, plus injury concerns. It's tough. Part of me really wants to just grab Adams, Hill, or Diggs, and go from there.

…

Raising the difficulty of the equation is that I'm in a 12-team PPR league where the most WRs one can start is three (including the flex); multiple flexes and/or a 3 WR base would make for an easier call. It's tricky! About the only thing I'm sure about is that I want either Waller or Kittle at 2/3, and that I will hammer WR through about rounds 6-7.

My thoughts:

If I can only start three WRs, I'm probably just biting the bullet and taking Cook. He did come out well above all the other non-CMC RBs in my projections and I do think his workload is very secure and he's an efficient player. It's really just fading injury I think, and that's a pretty big concern for him, but I'd still make sure to be very strong at WR and I like that elite TE call in a shallower starting lineup league. If you build well after Cook, you might still have life even if Cook misses time, if your TE is great and you take enough stabs at WR and hit on some of the top options there in the middle rounds, like this year's Diggs or whoever.

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From Brecken:

Would this strategy change much in a Best Ball format? I’d expect you’d still want to emphasize WRs in the early and middle rounds, but you’d still want a solid amount of RBs on the bench to maximize the chance of two of them actually hitting from week to week, no? Especially since you’re not finding Robinsons or Gaskins on waiver wires in that format. Do the “safe” pass-catching backs have more value in that format to prop up the floor in those slots, since you don’t get to take advantage of new information during the season to find backs that suddenly gain value?

My thoughts, geared more for anyone not deep into best ball:

Best ball is a whole different game and there's some incredible content on it (I’d push you toward Mike Leone’s work at Establish the Run and the great stuff RotoViz has done not just this year but in years past) but a lot of what's been shown this offseason has driven smart drafters away from RBs. Many employ the one anchor RB or modified Zero RB, there's a hyperfragility strategy where you start with several RBs but then you're just done for the draft, and you really load up on WRs and take advantage of the weekly volatility of scoring at that position in the best ball format to capture all the highs and none of the lows. And then Zero RB has also had good success rates. But broadly, I think most of the work is showing too much RB capital to be a structural loss — that you have to just make your bets at RB and assume them to be right, not try to build in redundancy, since you're already a longshot at the start of the draft.

Pass-catching backs are, interestingly enough, more volatile week to week than other RBs, because (much like WRs) their volume comes on targets but those targets can come in bunches, especially for these backs who see their roles expand in negative game scripts when teams trail. In other words, when you go look at game logs, pass-catching backs will have 8-catch games some weeks and be great for best ball and then not actually have a very safe floor the next week when the team wins by two scores and they lean on their other "rushing" RBs and the pass-catcher only has 1-2 catches and a couple carries. At RB, it's the rush attempts that guarantee a safe floor, so guys like Gus Edwards are pretty stable floor guys, whereas the pass-catchers are volatile. And that volatility does make them more valuable in best ball where you don't have to pick and choose when their offense might trail and use them a bunch.

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Andy again, with a good follow-up:

I have tacit (!) trigger points in mind for the QBs, where if, say, one of Mahomes/Allen/Jackson/Murray is there at the 4/5, I might pull the trigger. Otherwise, I'm just looking for falling values, like Brady/Tannehill/rookie QB in round 9 or after. One strategy I'm considering is grabbing one of the aforementioned "proven" QB options, and then possibly dipping back to grab whichever rookie falls farthest, prioritizing someone like Fields, who I think can be had relatively late in my league. Don't love rostering two QBs, so we'll see what happens in the draft room!

My thoughts:

If I was going to go Fields, and if he can be had late there's a real argument for him, then I'd just take some nobody with a decent early schedule like Cousins or Darnold to get me through the first weeks. I don't think you need anything more proven than that because once a guy like Fields is starting, you're playing him, and if it all goes wrong you can always stream QB in almost any one-QB league. So he'd be your bet there, and I think that's the smart way to play most casual leagues this year. The early QBs are great but they come with opportunity cost and you can build a really great roster and still have that rushing ability as a strong floor at QB with plenty of upside if someone like Fields or Lance really hits.