2013 Fantasy Football Guide in Memes

Back in the good ole' days, too much summer time was wasted channel to channel. I'm talking before you could just hit the "Guide" button on your remote and have access to all your channels and see what was playing when. If you misplaced your TV guide or didn't want to wait on the scrolling guide page, it was just *click* *click* *click*. That's what summer sports viewing is for non-baseball fans: *click* *click* *click*, trying to find the next repeat of "Saved By The Bell". Just waiting for football season to start. Thanks to this invention called The Internet, now summer downtime is spent online and too many hours, for someone like myself, going through memes. So while I wait for kickoff to the 2013 NFL Season, it's also time to start preparing for the Fantasy Football Season. The only logical thing to do then is to combine the 2 passions. Welcome to the 2013 Fantasy Football Guide in Memes

Let's start with some basic disclaimers:

A) All of the fantasy football writings for The Extra Period will be under the assumption that your league is a 10 team league with standard scoring since both the league size and scoring system are most popular.
Scoring: 6 Points for a a TD, 1 point for every 25 Passing yards, 1 point for every 10 Rush/Receiving yards.

Also we'll be working with the assumption that the following is your roster size since the league has become so pass-happy and 3 WR's is more accepted.
Roster Size. Starting: 1 Quarter Back (QB), 2 Running Backs (RB), 3 Wide Receivers (WR), 1 Tight End (TE), 1 Flex (RB/WR/TE), 1 Kicker (K), 1 Defence/Special Teams (D/ST).

2. This is just a guide of my theory to provide you with a plan for your drafts for the upcoming Fantasy Football season supported with some data. If you want The San Francisco 49ers defence badly, and draft them in Round 9 rather than the 2nd to last round. Go ahead, It's YOUR team. If there's a player you think I'm wrong on and want to take, then you take him when you feel. Fantasy Football is meant for YOU to have fun playing it, don't feel compelled to stick directly to this.

Thirdly. If you knew the future, you wouldn't be reading this. If I knew the future, I wouldn't be writing this. We'd both be flying around on our jet-packs parading from 1 of our private islands to the next waiting to pick up our next lottery winnings. But alas since we are not, let's come to an agreement that some of this is going to be off. Nobody knew Washington's 6th Round draft Pick Alfred Morris was going to be the #5 fantasy RB, and if you did - please I'd like to borrow your jet pack for a day. Injuries happen, players slump, and players break out... It's the nature of sports.

Finally... Yes I'm aware I listed the disclaimers A), 2. and Thirdly..... and if you didn't catch that.... made you look. 

Having said all that, here's The Extra Period 2013 Fantasy Football Guide in Memes:

Here's the reality of the QB position for fantasy. The NFL has turned into a passing league and 5,000 yards is no longer this crazy insurmountable total, plus the athletic evolution of the position with more running QB's means QB's in fantasy can be found at various parts of the draft. It's supply vs. demand. There were 11 QB's that outscored the #2 RB Arian Foster (Brees, Brady, Rodgers, Newton, Manning, Griffin, Ryan, Romo, Luck, Stafford, Wilson).

Tom Brady posted double digit fantasy points in every game last year. Very steady and reliable scoring. And yet wasn't the #1 QB at his position. Robert Griffin III missed 1 week, and had another week of only 3 points, and finished only 25 points behind Brady in total points or 1.6 points per week. RG3 was the #6 Fantasy QB last season. There is depth at QB so don't panic if Brady, Brees and Rodgers go off the board early and you feel a sudden panic to grab one.

Tony Romo, Andrew Luck and Matthew Stafford rounded out your Top 10 QB's last year, all 3 are currently going between picks 64-78 (7-8th Round). Here are the RB's going in that range: Le'Veon Bell, BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Ahmad Bradshaw, Rashard Mendenhall.

Or another way of looking at it: A rookie RB on a team with 3 RB's who each got 100 carries last year. A vet RB who's team felt compelled to use a 2nd round pick on a backup. A vet RB with a injury history who was released by his last team. And a RB who gets to go behind 1 of the worst offensive lines in football coming off a year in which he only had 51 carries due to an ACL injury. That's the polite way of saying, if you pick a QB early, this is what you'll be left staring at when you need your #2 and #3 RB's.

Lets breakdown the difference between Romo and Bradshaw since they played enough games to warrant a fair comparison and they both trail those respective groups in draft position right now.

While you might scoff and sneer at Tony Romo, he averaged 16.9 points last year, while Drew Brees (currently going 13th overall) finished atop the QB Rankings with 21.1 points... A difference of 4.2 fantasy points per week. Romo also only had 2 weeks in which he didn't post double digits. You are going to get consistent production from Romo with a later pick. Here's the difference though between a 1st round RB and Bradshaw. CJ Spiller averaged 12.4 points last year vs. Bradshaw's 8.9, leaving only a 3.5 point differential. But Spiller had 12 games in double digits and 1 9oint game (lets use 9 points as a benchmark for being average since if a RB got 20 carries for 90 yards that's really nothing to sneeze at). So he was must-start for 13 of the 16 weeks. The 3 other weeks he had points of 1, 2, and 4. Bradshaw had 7 games with double-digit scoring, and then 9 GAMES with 6 or less points. So while the scoring difference on the year between them was smaller than that of Romo vs. Brees, the consistency week to week lies in favour of spiller. And just 1 last reminder... Ahmad Bradshaw is currently going 1 round ahead of Tony Romo. Tony Romo is the 12th QB being drafted this year.

Welcome to 1 of them good problems to have. As I mildly detailed above, once you get out of the top 15 in running backs - things get kind of scary. Last thing you want is have Rounds 5-7 arrive and still need your #2 RB. Sure you might be loaded at WR with 2 of the 5 WR's that caught 100 passes, but 20 gained over 1000 yards. Only 6 RB's had 1400 yards of total offence (Rushing + Receiving). Consistency and volume is what we're after and you can start to see why I'm putting added emphasis on RB's this year. More importantly, consistency at the top end. It's back to Supply vs. Demand. 

Look at how unreliable RB was last year: Shonn Green finished as the #15 RB last year averaging 9.7 points per game. He had 9 GAMES in which he scored LESS THAN 7 fantasy points a game. Yet he finished in the top 20 for RB's... How? He had 1 game where he scored 34, and another that had 19. So 34% of his fantasy points on the year came from 2 weeks. You were essentially playing "Fantasy Whack-A-Mole" if you owned Greene last year. Also how that video got 78,000 views is beyond me but man I love the internet.

The RB position has become watered down in a sense thanks to numerous teams employing a Running Back By Committee (RBBC) system. But at the top end, it still looks ok. We don't want to get stuck in a situation where we have to rely on a player breaking out for 20+ points randomly. Textbook example of this is Frank Gore. He finished as the 10th RB last year and is going as the 14th RB drafted so far this year. Using Ahmad Bradshaw as a comparable again, Gore averaged 11.9 points a week. So 3 fantasy points a week more than Bradshaw. Gore also never had a 20 point fantasy week to over-inflate that 11.9 average, but he did manage to post 11 double digit fantasy weeks. So that's what we're targeting for RB's. Any QB or WR that your opponents draft early just means that a RB that can offer you consistency at a very inconsistent position got closer to sliding to you.

This goes with the same idea of de-valuing QB's and WR's because of the statistical depth those positions offer. We're trying to create advantages for your team that your opponents won't have by offering consistent points at positions rather than having to rely on random spikes in performance. With the lack of consistent RB's this year we want to target them early. And guess what position has even LESS top end consistency. Tight End!!!

Thanks to Aaron Hernandez trying to be his own character from "The Wire", Rob Gronkowski's 302nd surgery on his arm (estimated surgery count) along with a back surgery, and Heath Miller likely starting the year on the Physically Unable to Perform list, the TE crop is basically down to a few players. And Graham smoked them all by a substantial margin last year.  And guess what?! (I feel like this is turning into an infomercial: AND THERE'S MORE!) Jimmy Graham actually had a down year last season, and Sean Payton comes back this years as Head Coach for the Saints. AND HE WAS STILL THE NUMBER 1 TIGHT END  ending up 9 points better than Tony Gonzalez, who I'm down on this year (more on that in an upcoming feature), while playing 1 less game than Gonzalez. So while in a down year, once you get past Gronk and Gonzo, the drop off is substantial.

Tight End	Total Pts	Avg Pts/wk
Jimmy Graham	144	9.0
Rob Gronkowski	139	8.7
Tony Gonzalez	135	8.4
Heath Miller	125	7.8
Jason Witten	115	7.2
Greg Olsen	107	6.7
Dennis Pitta	103	6.4
Owen Daniels	100	6.3
Kyle Rudolph	99	6.2
Brandon Myers	97	6.1

That's the Top 10 TE's - I axed out Gronk because while EXTREMELY lethal, at this stage we just don't know what we're going to get from him with the injuries, and for where we want to draft Graham (coming up), Gronk is too risky, but could be worth it a bit later. Miller has been crossed out for the above stated reason. So Graham was already better than the rest of the pack by nearly 2 points per week, and I hate to keep bringing this up - but this wasn't just a bit of a down year maybe like 10 catches, 60 yards, 1 TD less than with Sean Payton around. Graham in 2011 had 99 catches, 1310 yards, and 11 TD's. Compared to 85 catches, 982 yards, 9 TD's. The difference between the 2 seasons is an extra 50 points. Even if you don't think he reaches the 2011 season, and split the difference between the 2 years, that's still an additional 25 points bringing him to 169 points and 10.5 points a game. Nearly 4 points a game better than the herd! The upside with Graham is huge when the group of Olsen, Pitta, Daniels are topping out around their current mark.

So the question becomes where to grab Graham. If you get a high pick and you snag a top 4 RB, there's really no problem taking Graham in the 2nd round. Say you're pick 3 in a snake draft, and its Round 2.. You have pick 18... What's the better play? Taking maybe the #4-5 WR in a really deep position? Grabbing Brees for your QB slot when we're trying to devalue QB? Or if you're lucky enough, the #15 RB is still hanging around... Why risk the 5 picks you're going to have to sit through till Round 3 to grab Graham. Take the elite player and build from strength. We want to differentiate yourself from the pack with consistent numbers at positions that don't feature it. At the latest I think the place to target Graham is Round 3.

Also as a corollary to this Tight End section, the reverse is if you aren't the lucky owner to grab yourself Jimmy Graham, or you just flat out don't want Graham, let the rest of the league burn picks on TE because its fraught with question marks. There are some nice upside plays, but really after Graham and Gronk, you're really just burning a pick and hoping you're swing hits... and if we're doing that, why not swing in the RB section in a position that has more value.

So while we're devaluing WR, we're not doing it to the same extent as QB. Fact remains you still need to start 3 and in a 10 team league, we don't want the #29 and #30 ranked WR's. But if we play it right we could end up with a great group to start each week.

Thanks to the scarcity of top end RB's, and the remarkable depth in WR. We could be sitting in Round 3 or 4 with our RB's taken care of, and now needing to fill out the WR's with a plethora of options available. We definitely want to secure at LEAST 2 of the top 20 and depending on what kind of #1 target we get that can determine how to attack the rest of our WR group. There's definitely some tiered levels in this WR Class. The elite feature Calvin Johnson (here and after known as MegaTron), Brandon Marshall, AJ Green and Dez Bryant. If you manage to secure 1 of those 4, thank your lucky stars and lets start building a dominant crew. But since we're trying to devalue the position the likelihood of landing the 4 elites is low. Ideally you snag 1 Top 10 WR and 1 Top 15 WR to leave yourself some margin of error for your upside picks later.

Here's a group of WR's all being drafted in the 4th round and beyond: Larry Fitzgerald, Wes Welker, Randall Cobb, Victor Cruz, Reggie Wayne, Jordy Nelson, Mike Wallace, Danny Amendola, Hakeem Nicks, Dwayne Bowe, Eric Decker, Steve Smith, Torrey Smith, James Jones.... the list goes on and on and on. You might miss out on MegaTron, but you can build a healthy stable of WR's to make up for it.

Now that we've laid out how to build the roster let's start looking at how it shapes up when you attack the draft. Just a reminder of what we're trying to do:

• Maximize Top End Talent at RB
• Leave drafting a QB till later
• If you can get Jimmy Graham at the right spot, get him, if not - wait on TE
• Get at least 2, if not more, solid WR's

So let's take on several different spots from the draft to see how we can draft. The players picked in the examples are close to their current average draft position to give you an idea who might be available depending on your draft slot.

Picks 1-3: You get a top 3 RB so you guarantee yourself production from 1 starter. You gotta get a solid one here because you don't want to end up looking between Steven Jackson, Matt Forte or if your lucky MJD slides to you as your #1 RB. They're better suited as #2 RB's. If you wanted to grab Graham at the back end of Round 2 to secure him, rather than risk waiting on him to come to you in Round 3, just as well. The difference between someone like Jackson/Forte could be negligible than Graham and the next TE not named Gronk. If you wanted to pass on Graham altogether, you have a variety of options. Dez Bryant, Brandon Marshall could still be lingering around in Round 2, or you can start to build with Demaryuis Thomas in Round 3. With your top 2 RB's locked up, by the time Round 4 comes around, you now want to start addressing your WR's. And there's still depth at the position to rattle off the next 2 rounds for your WR. Welker, Cobb, Cruz, Colston, Wayne. So here's a few different ways your team could look through 5 rounds:

QB: N/A RB: Marshawn Lynch (Round 1/R1), Stevan Ridley (R2) WR: Wes Welker (R4), Reggie Wayne (R5) TE: Jimmy Graham (R3)

QB: N/A RB: Arian Foster (R1), Maurice Jones Drew (R3), Montee Ball (R4) WR: Dez Bryant (R2), Mike Wallace (R5) TE: N/A

You look a little light at WR in the first model, but remember you took Jimmy Graham who gives you an advantage over every other TE in the league not named Gronk (and his health is sketchy at best), so you already get a 4 point margin of error since Graham is ahead of the game than the other TE's. In the 2nd model, you're set up beautifully. Your flex position is set with 3 RB's and you really don't need to address TE now because by Round 6, unless Gronk is still kicking around, there's no need to pick anyone until your roster is full and now you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO. And look at the WR's that could be around in Round 6 and beyond. Danny Amendola, Hakeem Nicks, Eric Decker, Antonio Brown. Over the next 3 Rounds you can fill out your QB spot with Matt Stafford, Tony Romo, Russell Wilson, Andrew Luck, giving you solid production from that QB position while now addressing upside RB's/WR's because your starters are filled. You won't be chasing necessary starter production at this stage in the draft.

What if you took a QB? Through 5 Rounds your team might look like:

QB: Tom Brady (R2) RB: Ray Rice (R1), David Wilson (R4) WR: Demaryuis Thomas (R3), Jordy Nelson (R5) TE: N/A

This is looking at it conservatively because Brady could find his way to you late in Round 2. If you wanted Brees or Rodgers in Round 1 or early Round 2, things begin to look even more grim. David Wilson is filled with question marks and you've made him your #2 RB based purely on upside. The WR position looks ok but you still need to find your 3rd starter soon because a WR run at this stage of the draft is inevitable, so while the league attacks that depth. your flex spot still needs to be address with the likes of Chris Ivory, Ryan Mathews, Le'Veon Bell. Or you're trying to find more WR's to fill out that flex spot, and then you're not leaving yourself any injury or flop protection at the RB Spot. Sure you could have grabbed someone like Maurice Jones-Drew in Round 3 to fill out your RB's but now you've left yourself with only Jordy Nelson to build your WR's on. Once you start to move away from getting 2 RB's and 2 WR's in the 1st 5 rounds, it stretches the roster down the road.

Picks 4-7: Again, premise is still the same. You want RB early to avoid risk of having to rely on spiked random production. Being in the middle of the draft opens up options for you in Round 2 and 3 depending how you want to set your roster up. It could mean you'll get an upgrade on the 2nd RB than listed above if you choose to start the draft with RB-RB, but it also could see you land a top 4 WR. This part of the draft maybe puts you out of range for Jimmy Graham in the 2nd Round since it might be a touch too high. Although if he wraps around into Round 3 for you could be prime position for you to pounce without having to over-pay.

QB: N/A RB: CJ Spiller (R1), Darren McFadden (R4), Reggie Bush (R5) WR: A.J. Green (R2), Percy Harvin (R3) TE: N/A

QB: N/A RB: Jamaal Charles (R1), Montee Ball (R4) WR: Dez Bryant (R2), Mike Wallace (R5) TE: Jimmy Graham (R3)

QB: N/A RB: Doug Martin (R1), Matt Forte (R2), Darren Sproles (R5) WR: Demaryuis Thomas (R3), Randall Cobb (R4), TE: N/A

If your hope is that Graham slides to you at 3, you probably want to spread out your positional drafting early on. Unlike above when picking between Picks 1-3, that way you can acquire elite talent at WR and not leave yourself thin at the other positions. McFadden slightly concerns me but if you can back it up quickly with more depth like Reggie Bush, it alleviates some risk. In all the above examples, we didn't take a RB in Round 3, so you could substitute Harvin for say MJD and then swap McFadden for Randall Cobb. Repeating myself from above, the middle of the draft allows you to try different avenues to build a pretty deep starting roster.

But what if you took QB?

QB: Aaron Rodgers (R1) RB: Steven Jackson (R2) WR: Roddy White (R3) Randall Cobb (R4) Jordy Nelson (R5) TE: N/A

Once you grab a QB early, especially as early as you would have to with Rodgers, you just wind up chasing the draft now and not building from strength. Could you have taken a RB in Round 4 instead of Cobb? Sure, but at that point you might as well start building up 1 position to acquire more trade pieces for the season to trade up in value for. Same theory applies for why not grab a RB like Eddie Lacy in Round 5 over Jordy Nelson. Lacy, while has some nice upside, comes with question marks whereas Nelson is more of a proven commodity. Taking talent away from the WR Pool from your competitors gives you more trade pieces to work with down the road to help your RB situation. Of course, you could always just trade Aaron Rodgers in the season to fix things, but why not just avoid drafting him now?

Picks 8-10: Just because you're picking late in draft, don't think you're already playing catch-up in your league. Your #1 RB might not be as good, but we can upgrade even more on other spots in your roster. This area almost definitely puts you out of range for Jimmy Graham in Round 2 though so let's look at only Graham-less options. But by doing that it gives us a myriad of options.

QB: N/A RB: Trent Richardson (R1), Alfred Morris (R2), Eddie Lacy (R5) WR: Roddy White (R3), Larry Fitzgerald (R4) TE: N/A

QB: N/A RB: LeSean McCoy (R2), Maurice Jones-Drew (R3) WR: MegaTron (R1), Larry Fitzgerald (R4), Mike Wallace (R5) TE: N/A

QB: RB: CJ Spiller (R1) Chris Johnson (R2) WR: Percy Harvin (R3) Randall Cobb (R4) Reggie Wayne (R5) TE: 

You might miss out on the elite potential, but you can acquire substantial depth when you pick at the back end of the draft. Of course, you can acquire elite talent if you were to go after MegaTron and you COULD even back it up by grabbing a 2nd elite WR, but since you're trying to build consistency at the RB position it really sets you back when you're relying on Frank Gore to give you #1 production.

1 more time lets look what happens if you grab a QB early:

QB: Drew Brees (R2) RB: Trent Richardson (R1), Chris Ivory (R5) WR: Andre Johnson (R3) Vincent Jackson (R4) TE: 

I can't be the only one that is frightened at the prospect of not only Chris Ivory as a #2 RB but also Andre Johnson as a #1 WR.... I'd rather watch a marathon of the 2nd season of "Jersey Shore" than have that scenario as my fantasy roster. Which is why we're taking the time to look at all this now because FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS WATCH JERSEY SHORE!

Now you have your starters. We've aimed for consistent production to fill out your starting lineup and now we have to populate the bench. I used Anquan Boldin as the measurement of this theory. There's nothing wrong with Anquan Boldin but he's exactly what he is. At this stage of his career he's not going to suddenly surprise you with some breakout season filled with 150 yards & 2 TD games. Sure he will plug along and grab you about 6 points a game, with maybe 1-2 games that reach 13. Great thanks for coming out Anquan. It's low end steady production that you're going to have a difficult time slotting into your starting lineup. More importantly, trouble trading. Nobody is excited when they acquire an Anquan Boldin. More importantly, nobody is going to want to trade for an Anquan Boldin. Not even as a throw-in piece. So why burn picks on players that you won't be able to use in any facet? 

At this stage of the draft we want to find players who are going to perform above expectations and challenge to enter the top 20 WR's. Sure you'll get a dud 3 point game out of T.Y. Hilton (he had 8 games less than 3 points last year), but you could also find yourself with several 15+ games (4 last year, all after week 9). Hilton is going close to a round after Boldin and put up 7 double digit games. Jeremy Maclin is going nearly 3 rounds after Boldin, and he had 4 games above 15 points. The point is, if you're not going to start a Boldin type, you might as well have a Hilton type to not start and hope he pops off  and emerges this year as a star to give you valuable trade bait. And why do you want to trade an emerging star? Because the newest piece on the mantle always looks shinier than the one that sat there before. Hilton might pop off, but if you could turn it into more reliable proven higher level production... well then isn't the best part of fantasy sports turning a quarter into a dollar?

And before you point out examples like Reggie Wayne from last year or Steve Smith from 2 years, just remember: Wayne went from Curtis Painter/Kerry Collins/Dan Orlovsky 1 season to Andrew Luck the next. Smith went from Jimmy Clausen/Matt Moore 1 season to Cam Newton in the next. I'll have more on who this year's bounce back WR's could be in another feature soon.

I know I know I know I know I know. Defences get points too, and even some score as much as MegaTron. But there's multiple factors at work here. There is just no reliability from the position. Not to mention that even if you wanted to draft the Chicago Bears early, you also will have to go against Aaron Rodgers twice a year, MegaTron twice a year, Adrian Peterson twice a year. So for 6 fantasy weeks, you have to play the #1QB, the #1WR and the #1RB. If you want to spend a 9th round pick on a defence that has to go up against that schedule rather than trying to acquire upside players that will break into the top 20's of their positions, go right ahead... But how about we let your opponents waste those picks. The Bears D/ST is currently going ahead of Mike Williams who finished as the #18 WR last season. Not to mention, week after week you can find the right match-up of a decent Defence playing a bad offence. It's a lot easier to find the D/ST to go against Blaine Gabbert than hang onto 1 D/ST all year and take the games with negative totals. So save drafting a D/ST till the 2nd to last round.

I'm not going to make a meme for Kickers because even writing this paragraph is spending too much time on kickers and really all drafts should be 1 round shorter than usual and just let owners pick up kickers in the waiver wire. 1.8 points. That's what you're fighting for when you take a kicker earlier than the last round. That's the difference between Blair Walsh (#1 Fantasy Kicker last year) and Dan Bailey (#10 Fantasy Kicker). You don't need a kicker any earlier than the last round.

Thanks for reading, be on the lookout for more features and good luck in your drafts. Now excuse me, I have 4 episodes of "Saved By The Bell' PVR'd.

Oh, and sorry if this guide gave you the urge to buy a "Shadazzle" now.

The Extra Period will have more fantasy football content in the near future. If you have questions/comments about your team/league that you want Bik to answer "Like" our facebook page and post them there. Also follow Bik on Twitter: @StretfordBik or The Extra Period @TheExtraPeriod.