How to Recover From or Avoid 1st Round RB Busts?

[maxhyde]

I tend to spend less capital on RB's during the draft if at all possible. Id rather pick up some buy low guys or load up on the RB's in the 2nd and 3rd rounds and trade them when they see a spike in value.
However it is just a crap shoot for RB's and for my money it is easier and cheaper loading up on more less solid options than fewer solid guys. Now is the time to be buying the Woodhead's and Gore's for those hot young "stud" rookies you picked up in the 2nd/3rd round. Some may turn out and you may end up losing value but history has told us most will not amount to much

[DLF3000]

If you do have a reasonably competitive team, my best advice is to go into the draft focusing on only 1 or 2 key positions at most and really hitting those positions hard. If you're looking for that future RB1 or 2, don't be afraid to go RB with your first 3 or 4 picks and hope one of them pans out. If 2 of my draft picks are still on my roster at the beginning of next season and I feel reasonably good about them, I consider that a successful draft.

That's pretty cool, might have to try this too. Usually I like to pick a balance of positions, but I see how this approach might pan out.

Of course, I need to get back to the level of being "good" again!

But yeah, sometimes you're just 1 RB, 1 WR or 1 whatever away. So shotgun those guys! Pretty cool approach.

[DLF3000]

Talent over situation. Mack & Perine are fantastic players & each offer upside. But Kamara was firmly ranked higher by many. Kamara could be a special 3-down back or valuable ppr back. But many people see path to playing time more valuable. This decision to me depends on your roster depth & team needs.

Just seems like talent over situation works out the least for RBs. They're just so excruciatingly volatile. And uh, I'm pretty sick of that!

More than any other position, seems huge "talents" bust while some buried guys you never heard of put up unexpectedly good numbers.

Sometimes I wonder if it's just a supply/demand thing at RB, but it's more complex than that I'm sure. The game and RB position has changed quite a bit the past 10-15 years.

[M-Dub]

The only sure-fire way to avoid drafting a RB bust is to not draft a RB.

Short of that, all you can do is minimize the risk as best you can by avoiding players with red flags (e.g. Mixon).

Except ALL rookie RBs have red flags. Fournette can't catch passes. Cook had a terrible combine. CMC is too small and plays for a team that historically has not utilized their RBs in the passing game.

At least Mixon's red flag has nothing to do with his ability as a football player. To each his own, but I'd much rather take a chance on a great football player with character concerns than a great character guy with football concerns.

[Kcarr]

I would agree you can avoid rb busts by drafting other positions but if we are taking Yeldon for an example who else would that have been? Wrs in that area were agholor, DGB, and perriman. Who among them are you way happier with than Yeldon? Most people wouldn't take a qb or te that high and if you went te it would have been Maxx williams, once again not a lot better. There were some who had Jameis up in that area and that would have been the only pick significantly better than going rb here.

Some may say you are better trading for vets. If you were looking to improve your rbs by doing that let's look back for similar adp and see who we could have targeted.

Forte and Hyde were a little higher but maybe on them, after that lamar miller, Mark Ingram, arian foster, and go Bernard. There is some production there if you were a contender so could improve but also you have some guys there that aren't worth a lot more now than yeldon.

Going wr it is a little better, Emmanuel sanders, golden tate, m bryant, adams, Landry, Floyd, Edelman, maclin. There are some hits there, though ones most consider unexciting other than Landry and adams who you would have been kicking yourself for a year ago. There are also some busts there with Floyd, depending on how you look at bryant and possibly only getting one decent year from Maclin.

At TE the only one close was Julius Thomas, which how would you feel about that? Probably not a lot different than yeldon.

At qb there were good options with Wilson a few cam but then that assumes you can get a team to give their starting qb here most likely.

Those options are a lot safer but I don't see a heaping pile of league winners there of the caliber you could hit if that rookie hits. That is the trade off. Giving that mid 1st for a vet is safe but you likely won't change the course of your team. Making the pick is risky, regardless of position, but you could hit big. If you are a contender needing some mid level production to help you add a couple wins or if you have studs but need depth the vets are likely the way to go. If you either are rebuilding and need a game changer or have depth and can take chances rookies are likely your best bet as there will be some there who hit big.

[Dynasty DeLorean]

A lot of ppl were drafting Yeldon ahead of Parker, so that's one player. I personally had DJ and Winston ranked higher than Yeldon. You also have he option of trading up, trading back, trading for a player or a future 1st. Tevin Coleman was also within that range who I liked more.Nobody was forced to draft Yeldon.

[DLF3000]

You also have he option of trading up, trading back, trading for a player or a future 1st.

Trading the pick isn't always an option - especially if it's in that weird sport where the tiers break down.

So in some cases, no one wants your crappy mid-round 1st. (That's what happened with me!)

In others, you might get lucky and have a serial trader you can work with. But even they have their limits.

Aside from that, the last couple of posts really highlight that the odds are you'll choose a bust over a good player. Damnable rookies!

[Dynasty DeLorean]

If I can't trade the pick then I just reach like crazy for a guy I actually like.

[Vcize]

The best way to maximize any rookie pick is usually to trade them for proven players. Mizzelle's ADP showed a history of the past five draft classes and the majority of players taken in the Top 25 never saw their value become higher than it was when they were selected. Otherwise, you're going to end up selling for less very soon. Yeldon had a Top-5 round ADP, so everyone should definitely think of the possibility that a player they're selecting is peaking in value on draft day.

It's easier said than done, because each first round pick won't equal the trade value of a quality veteran or a young player who's already flashed. But, if you can't swap them straight up, you should package them.

This is only looking at one side of the coin though. It's easy to look at the mid 1st round picks and their hit rate, but assuming a "proven" player is going to work out is just as dangerous. You have to look at them too.

Here are the "proven" players within 5 spots (plus or minus) of ADP to Yeldon in startup drafts in 2015 (Yeldon's rookie year). These are presumably the type of proven players you would have been able to get in return that year.

Golden Tate
Arian Foster
Gio Bernard
Cam Newton
Michael Floyd

So yeah, not exactly a murderer's row of guys that would be leading your team to the promised land right now. It's worth considering that, while a majority of mid-1st round rookie picks are at their highest value at the time they're picked, a majority of those "proven" guys you'd be trading for are also at their peak value right then. In this case, all 5 of these guys have had their value go down (in most cases significantly) since then.

And that's eliminating a lot of the upside as well. Getting a solid borderline WR2/WR3 like Golden Tate (best case scenario in this case) is nice when the alternative is Yeldon. Not so nice if the alternative were trading away the pick that ended up being Le'Veon Bell. Getting a nice piece like Tate is helpful, but it's not going to make or break your team (and again, as we can see, it's far from a guarantee that your "proven" player is going to end up actually being a useful piece). Landing the next Le'Veon or OBJ is.

[Vcize]

The only sure-fire way to avoid drafting a RB bust is to not draft a RB.

Short of that, all you can do is minimize the risk as best you can by avoiding players with red flags (e.g. Mixon).

Except ALL rookie RBs have red flags. Fournette can't catch passes. Cook had a terrible combine. CMC is too small and plays for a team that historically has not utilized their RBs in the passing game.

At least Mixon's red flag has nothing to do with his ability as a football player. To each his own, but I'd much rather take a chance on a great football player with character concerns than a great character guy with football concerns.

Mixon has red flags as a player just like the rest of them, they just got overshadowed by the off the field stuff. If "the punch" had never happened he certainly would have been a higher pick, but he also would have been dissected a lot more strictly as a player and we'd all be talking about his faults there instead of being distracted by the off the field stuff.

[akbfrosty]

People love to harp on that 2014 class for ruining expectations, but if you really look along ADP (mizelle) lines (if you can buy into that as a reference point), what did they actually do to rookie value? For my money, the only rookie class that has been overvalued has been 2015. You had 10 players in the top 60 in that class, 16 in the top 100 of ADP. 2016 you had 6 in the top 60, 11ish in the top 100. This year for May, you have 6 in the top 60, 13 in the top 100.

The real question, though, is whether or not it's actually demonstrably beneficial to trade out of the rookies and into the vets...I took a hilariously small sample size of August ADP 30-49 (I'm at work...maybe I'll increase the scope). It wasn't a good look for the vets...10 dropped in ADP by greater than 10 spots. 3 stayed within 10 spots of their ADP. 2 rose, and the rest were rookies or 2nd year players. You got 2 WR1 out of 8 from the vets...everything else was WR 3 or worse, most were worse. 1 top 6 QB performance out of 3. and 1 RB 1 performance out of 3. 1 for 1 in TE1 performances though! So they were hardly a sure thing in this area, but again super small sample, needs more looking into.

I haven't fully parsed this out either, but I'm pretty sure, in general (not this year, though), most players' peaks are their 2nd year as opposed to their rookie year.

[DLF3000]

If I can't trade the pick then I just reach like crazy for a guy I actually like.

Hmm... I could try this too I guess.

I always thought it was a bad idea and bad value... but if you've exhausted all the other "better" options, maybe that is the best last choice instead of taking the "best value" guy.

[Cameron Giles]

The best way to maximize any rookie pick is usually to trade them for proven players. Mizzelle's ADP showed a history of the past five draft classes and the majority of players taken in the Top 25 never saw their value become higher than it was when they were selected. Otherwise, you're going to end up selling for less very soon. Yeldon had a Top-5 round ADP, so everyone should definitely think of the possibility that a player they're selecting is peaking in value on draft day.

It's easier said than done, because each first round pick won't equal the trade value of a quality veteran or a young player who's already flashed. But, if you can't swap them straight up, you should package them.

This is only looking at one side of the coin though. It's easy to look at the mid 1st round picks and their hit rate, but assuming a "proven" player is going to work out is just as dangerous. You have to look at them too.

Here are the "proven" players within 5 spots (plus or minus) of ADP to Yeldon in startup drafts in 2015 (Yeldon's rookie year). These are presumably the type of proven players you would have been able to get in return that year.

Golden Tate
Arian Foster
Gio Bernard
Cam Newton
Michael Floyd

So yeah, not exactly a murderer's row of guys that would be leading your team to the promised land right now. It's worth considering that, while a majority of mid-1st round rookie picks are at their highest value at the time they're picked, a majority of those "proven" guys you'd be trading for are also at their peak value right then. In this case, all 5 of these guys have had their value go down (in most cases significantly) since then.

And that's eliminating a lot of the upside as well. Getting a solid borderline WR2/WR3 like Golden Tate (best case scenario in this case) is nice when the alternative is Yeldon. Not so nice if the alternative were trading away the pick that ended up being Le'Veon Bell. Getting a nice piece like Tate is helpful, but it's not going to make or break your team (and again, as we can see, it's far from a guarantee that your "proven" player is going to end up actually being a useful piece). Landing the next Le'Veon or OBJ is.

I mentioned that you can still package that pick with other assets to improve somewhere else. You're not just limited to a swap. Even then, you're still not limited to those five players to make a deal.

Getting a piece like Tate gives you a floor of players who aren't worthless and can contribute to a winning team. I won't blame anyone for dreaming big with each pick they have and hoping they get the next Jerry Rice or something. But, the easy and efficient answer to this thread is going to be to trade your pick every time. The odds of a veteran or a player on the rise working out for you are always going to be much higher.

[drbuttermaker]

At least Mixon's red flag has nothing to do with his ability as a football player. To each his own, but I'd much rather take a chance on a great football player with character concerns than a great character guy with football concerns.

If your strategy is accepting such a high risk, more power to you, but the topic at hand is how to avoid first round busts. A person trying to do that does not draft Joe Mixon.

[Littlemcgee222]

Not sure how you evaluate RBs when drafting rookies. But a huge mistake that I've seen happen a lot, is that owners watch these "highlight" tapes and fall in love with these guys. Do some research, go to draftbreakdown.com and watch some of the games (I try to find their best game, worst game, and an average game). There's a lot of information out there with workout metrics, podcasts and draft profiles. 1st round busts are inevitable essentially, it's going to happen, Also try to have a back up plan. Luckily for me. The guy that drafted fournette loves to handcuff his rbs for some reason so he's been offering 2nd round picks for them combined, it sucks but I'll take it, just hoping yeldon gets cut first and put into a better situation lol.
Good luck!