I got a chance to do an FFPC Main Event draft last night on the Ship Chasing YouTube channel, and we’ll be back again tonight and also Friday night, at 10 p.m. ET both nights, to draft two more teams. Tonight’s guest is Shawn Siegele, so whether you’re a Stealing Bananas or a Ship Chasing fan, you should come hang out with us.
I’ve gotten some questions about documenting the changes I make to the rankings/tiers, and I haven’t done a great job of that documentation, but it will definitely be a goal of my next project — positional targets and fades — to mention the players I’ve moved around on the most, or see differently than I may have in recent weeks. We’re reacting to news all the time, and I’ve harped all offseason we need to be fluid because of how wild the 2022 offseason was.
On the flip side, rather than documenting every change or having rankings for multiple scoring systems, my goal has been to prioritize flexibility with my rankings at all costs. I just made quite a few changes last night during my draft, where I’m moving players up and down within the tiers as I’m stress testing who I would actually draft, and I’ll do that again tonight and tomorrow. I don’t want to be held back implementing those changes by needing to find time to document them or transfer the adjustments over to other scoring systems.
As of now, I have drafts on seven of the next nine nights, and I just seem to add more drafts every day. Anything that feels like a roadblock to keeping my rankings up-to-the-minute based on what I’m seeing that day is something I’m going to avoid, with the goal being that if anyone checks the rankings on the day of their own draft, they are as close to how I’d draft that day as possible. This is the thinking, at least, and like I said I’ll still try to discuss guys I’ve vaguely warmed or cooled on in the upcoming tiers columns, and again in future pieces as we approach Week 1.
From a practicality perspective, I also can’t make rankings the only thing I’m doing. I tweeted yesterday about how I don’t have a Draft Kit here, but by subscribing for $8/month you are getting a lot of Draft Kit-type stuff. In response, a friend in the industry quickly pulled together some of the stuff I’ve done into a PDF that looks incredibly official, and sent it over to me. It’s awesome, and I’d love to make it available to paying subs as my unofficial Draft Kit for this year, but what was hilarious was to see the sheer length of it.
The 7 Pillars draft strategy post I wrote was 10 PDF pages. The team-by-team Offseason Stealing Signals writeups were 60+, or close to two pages per team (with the bullet point indenting cheating things a bit). The Superflex draft breakdown I did last Saturday was another 10+ pages, and the description of how I use Rankings and Projections was about five, with my Rankings and Projections tacked on the end. It looks like a real Draft Kit, but it’s more than 100 pages long(!), and it doesn’t even have everything I’ve written in the past month or so, not by quite a bit. But I mean, how cool is this?
(Screenshot is the bottom of the cover page and top of the next page, if that isn’t obvious.)
If you’ve read all that, congrats. I’m not sure how you did it. But don’t fret, there’s tons more coming.
I do realize the sheer volume of stuff I’ve written means most of you aren’t reading through all of it, but my goal is to hit this stuff every direction so you guys get the content you’re looking for. As for making the PDF available, I’m not sure how to get it to you guys quite yet because I don’t see a way to link a downloadable document like this PDF through Substack’s system, but I’ll get something figured out as I imagine some of you might want to have a look at the full thing.
Anyway, here are some thoughts on how I’m approaching some key names in the rankings.
I’m not sure if I’ll even rank Deshaun Watson, and I won’t make major changes to Browns players, other than moving David Bell up a bit as a potential late-season play. Watson’s out 11 games plus the bye, meaning his debut is Week 13, so you’re holding a roster spot for a guy for 12 weeks on the hope he returns and is immediately effective, at a position that is replaceable. The part about him being immediately effective is key, as I doubt he’ll be a clear start Week 13, and if he is at all rusty, it will be tough to start him in December games at Cincinnati and then two in Weeks 15 and 16 in Cleveland.
The way I approach someone like George Pickens as a clear riser is dependent on my expectations prior to the positive news. I was high on Pickens and have argued he was more of a concern for Chase Claypool than Diontae Johnson; as Pickens has shown well enough in camp to believe he could be ready early in the season and perhaps supplant Claypool sooner, I’ve now moved Pickens ahead of Claypool straight up. Some of that is because Pickens’ profile is strong and always carried high-end outcomes that were likely better than what Claypool’s high-end outcomes might be at this point in his career, but certainly there are scenarios where both are playing in three-wide sets and I’m not saying Claypool is undraftable. At this point, Pickens is just the better upside play.