Draft Capital

[wickerkat1212]

So, what does the draft capital mean to you?

QB—do they have to go in the first round? And if so, how high?
RB—typically we get 1 or 2 in the 1st. So how deep will you go, 2nd and 3rd rounds?
WR—We'll get a lot in the first (six last year) but studies say 2nd round hits almost as much. So, 1st or 2nd round only?
TE—Are you looking for the first round only or deeper?

So do you have a cutoff for each position?
How much do you value the exact spot?
Will you just not take a WR taken at 2nd overall over one taken 7th in the NFL draft?
In the 4th round of your rookie draft do you ignore draft capital or does it still help order your last pick?

Just curious about what draft capital rules you have.

Thanks. Obviously, it's a long off-season. LOL

[wickerkat1212]

https://www.thefantasyfootballers.com/a ... roduction/

[wickerkat1212]

No comments? Dumb question? Has this horse been beaten to death? 71 views, no comments. Ouch.

[YouMightDieTryin]

It's the offseason. We have Gabe Davis and other sensitive issues to talk about.

Most of this is talked about in the viewtopic.php?f=5&t=219515 thread if you sift through it enough. Or DD's WR thread. viewtopic.php?f=5&t=230911

RB's will really be skewed this year judging by the saturation of talent this year + the league depreciating RBs in general. Teams just don't spend draft capital on RBs like they used to. You're going to find some gems that might get taken in the 4th-5th round. And there's going to be some rocks that never get their shot either. Research is going to be key. And even then it's going to be a game of chance.
QBs will still be the typical 1st rounders.
WR - refer to DD's threads.
TE- May skew like RBs this year. Projected to have many go in the 1st/2nd round this draft. Doesn't mean they'll hit.

[Bronco Billy]

Almost nothing IMO. I’ve stated this plenty of times before and still believe it - once players are assigned to teams all that matters is performance on the field. Coaches play the best players. It’s how they achieve success snd keep their jobs. Now if you want to make an argument that the best players more often have higher draft capital, well that just makes sense given how invested teams are in researching to try to draft the best players. But once the pads go on, the best players will rise to the top regardless of whether they were a high first rounder or an UDFA, and that’s the time to really be paying attention and trying to get information before your leaguemates do.

[wickerkat1212]

It's the offseason. We have Gabe Davis and other sensitive issues to talk about.

Most of this is talked about in the viewtopic.php?f=5&t=219515 thread if you sift through it enough. Or DD's WR thread. viewtopic.php?f=5&t=230911

RB's will really be skewed this year judging by the saturation of talent this year + the league depreciating RBs in general. Teams just don't spend draft capital on RBs like they used to. You're going to find some gems that might get taken in the 4th-5th round. And there's going to be some rocks that never get their shot either. Research is going to be key. And even then it's going to be a game of chance.
QBs will still be the typical 1st rounders.
WR - refer to DD's threads.
TE- May skew like RBs this year. Projected to have many go in the 1st/2nd round this draft. Doesn't mean they'll hit.

Thanks. I'm in both of those other threads. Was just curious how people felt, and what rules/rounds they target.

[Bronco Billy]

It's the offseason. We have Gabe Davis and other sensitive issues to talk about.

Most of this is talked about in the viewtopic.php?f=5&t=219515 thread if you sift through it enough. Or DD's WR thread. viewtopic.php?f=5&t=230911

RB's will really be skewed this year judging by the saturation of talent this year + the league depreciating RBs in general. Teams just don't spend draft capital on RBs like they used to. You're going to find some gems that might get taken in the 4th-5th round. And there's going to be some rocks that never get their shot either. Research is going to be key. And even then it's going to be a game of chance.
QBs will still be the typical 1st rounders.
WR - refer to DD's threads.
TE- May skew like RBs this year. Projected to have many go in the 1st/2nd round this draft. Doesn't mean they'll hit.

Thanks. I'm in both of those other threads. Was just curious how people felt, and what rules/rounds they target.

If I’m drafting in the 1st round of our FF draft, I’m going with a high draft pick (for obvious reasons). After the first round, It’s a fairly normal thing for me to draft players who I think will translate better in the NFL and be more successful even though there are more highly NFL drafted players at that position still on our board.

[Paul717]

Where a player got drafted is definitely an important data point for me. "Draft Spot" is its own column in my Tiers spreadsheet. Essentially, it is how I sort my Position Tiers. From there I'll layer in:

- PFF Rank if I'm ambitious
- Rookie Scouting Portfolio (RSP) Ranks, both PRE and POST Draft (though I get many on this forum aren't fans)
- Notes and notable threads from this site (as I recognize many or most of you are better at this than I !)
- Notable outliers. For example, I can't stress enough how much I wanted to STAY AWAY from Velus Jones Jr., because he literally played 6 years in college; despite the Bears picking him at 71 overall in the third round.

I'll admit my process needs tweaking. I was admittedly swayed too much by the (low-ish) draft capital of guys like Isiah Pacheco and even Tyler Allgeier. These guys were both available to me at 2.05 (21 overall) this year and I passed in favor of David Bell. Ouch.

To answer some of the OP specific questions:

QB—do they have to go in the first round? And if so, how high? I rarely want to touch a QB taken outside of Round 1. One recent exception was when I grabbed Davis Mills as a sort of Watson handcuff. Otherwise...pass for me. I'm just not good enough to pick out some gems.

RB—typically we get 1 or 2 in the 1st. So how deep will you go, 2nd and 3rd rounds? See above, clearly there are gems deeper! Though again, I'm not always great at picking them. I'll rely a lot here on Preseason work and tools like PFF and this forum.

WR—We'll get a lot in the first (six last year) but studies say 2nd round hits almost as much. So, 1st or 2nd round only? So if I'm going deeper than Rounds 1 or 2, there better have been some solid College Production and a relatively early (ish) breakout age. Again, I thought David Bell ticked some of those boxes; but he may have been a whiff.

TE—Are you looking for the first round only or deeper? Other than late round fliers, I can easily count on 1 hand the number of TEs I've taken early; as in rounds 1-3 of my draft. I just don't have the patience. I mean...Vernon Davis, Hockenson,...that's about it for me over the years! I think there is more value in trying to wrestle someone away for cheap after their rookie year. For example, someone traded me Kmet as basically a "throw in" and I was very grateful.

[Mjvb5]

My quick thoughts, I tend to break it down into tiers. Ideal(very strong positive correlation), good, average, poor.
Qb- top 10(almost always assures 2 years of opportunity), round 1(almost always 1 year opportunity), round 2( potential later), round 3 or on( list of rd3+ QBs currently as projected long term options- Russ, Dak, Kirk, Brady, geno. Roughly a 10% hit rate last I checked)

Rb- rd1,rd2-mid rd3, late rd3-rd4(almost all day 3 hitsare round 4), Rd 5 on

Wr-top 16, pick 17-rd2, rd3, day 3(poor hit rate on day 3 wrs

Te- it's a legitimate crapshoot

Draft capital helps but it's more of a within these tiers, I don't have the data on hand but these brackets have correlation to success rate last I check which was 22

[Cameron Giles]

TE is the only position where success rates seem to be close to a crapshoot based on draft capital

[wickerkat1212]

Thanks guys, great details here.

[Mjvb5]

TE is the only position where success rates seem to be close to a crapshoot based on draft capital

X2 obviously higher is better but there's not ranges that I have seen discernable from research. Imo a lot of it is probably from the incredibly small sample size that exists of high end yearly options just adds a massive degree of variance

[Cameron Giles]

TE is the only position where success rates seem to be close to a crapshoot based on draft capital

X2 obviously higher is better but there's not ranges that I have seen discernable from research. Imo a lot of it is probably from the incredibly small sample size that exists of high end yearly options just adds a massive degree of variance

Plus, it's a difficult to position to master because of the blocking element that comes with it for inline players. We've seen 5th/6th year breakouts out of it.

[MacDaddy123]

Personally, I am not really sure how much draft capital matters.
I mean I know that it will get a player more chances, but in the end, we have seen 1st round picks flop, and late round picks succeed.

Fantasy community tends to lean on NFL to do the do the actual evaluations, but we have seen late round studs and 1st round flops on every team now.

In general, I do look at draft capital, but I have no hard fast rules as far as how it extrapolates to the fantasy community.
Usually the community will try to mix NFL draft capital with their own leagues scoring secret sauce.
Sometimes successfully, sometimes failing, just like in the NFL.

I still recall being on the clock in the 2020 rookie draft, 1 QB league, pick 1.07.
I was struggling between Jerry Jeudy and Justin Jefferson, finally I picked the wrong JJ, Jeudy.
Then I sat there in shock as I watched other teams pick Tee Higgins, Jalen Reagor, and Michael Pittman all over Justin Jefferson.
Jefferson went at the 1.12.

Was I wrong for trusting the NFL draft capital, Jeudy over Jefferson?
Were others wrong for ignoring NFL draft capital, and taking Pittman and Higgins over Jefferson?

Trust NFL draft capital?
Don't trust NFL draft capital?

In the end, it's a damn crap-shoot, don't over-think it.

[Cameron Giles]

Just remember that possibility does not equal probability. Yes, it's obviously possible that a player drafted in the 1st round will have a worse career than a player drafted in the 5th round, but it's not probable.

The hit rates of RBs, WRs, and QBs are very strongly tied to draft pedigree.

The other point is that the more you're willing to invest in something, the longer you'll give it to see it pan out.

If a team invests a 6th round pick into an RB, who cares? It wouldn't stop them from using a 1st or a 2nd on an RB the next year. And when they do, that player will have more chances to prove themselves. They won't give up after a year or replace them after a year. Draft pedigree matters because you want players who teams want to give the biggest opportunities to, have more of a vested interest in seeing succeed, and they are viewed as the most promising of the however many hundreds of players are draft eligible.

It doesn't mean you should never draft anyone with poor draft pedigree, but just be mindful of how far you're willing to go to make sure you get them.