Preference Draft Strategy

Ben E Lou · 12-24-2006, 07:49 AM

I did a good bit of testing prior to the Super League preference draft, and I know that at least one league (the OSFL) has a number of new-to-FOF people, and will be doing a preference draft in the next couple of weeks, so I thought I'd share some of what I've learned (or think I've learned). Some of this may be confusing, some might be a bit controversial or counter-intuitive, and some may even appear to contradict itself at times, because some things just depend on personal preferences. Feel free to ask for clarification on any of this stuff. This post is written with MP primarily in mind, although the general principles all apply to SP as well, with one key difference, which will be pointed out when I get there. (I also hope that sharing some of these principles doesn't come back to bite me like a big dog. WOOF!)

POSITION EMPHASIS

Quote:

Originally Posted by FOF2K7 Help File

Use the Position Emphasis fields to set your team's emphasis on each position group when drafting. Use the lock buttons to lock a value in place while you move the other slider bars.

These values are balanced in relation to how the average professional team values players at each position. So, if you set Kickers to 55 and Quarterbacks to 50, you will not be drafting a top kicker ahead of a top quarterback. We promise.

From what I've seen, position emphasis is the area of pref drafts that is most often misunderstood, and even brings cries of "it is broken" from some. I can assure you that it is not broken, and really works quite well as intended. Even when drafting against humans, I've now twice gotten pretty much exactly the type of team I was expecting and look for. A few info bits:

1. To emphasize a particular position more than normal, move the slider to the right.
Yes, this may seem elementary to some, but a certain Maassluis-dwelling experienced FOFer was still struggling a bit with this concept as recently as a few days ago.

Think of the Position Emphasis sliders as a number line: the farther to the right you move a slider, the more emphasis is placed on that position.

2. Pay attention to the help file: the sliders are MODIFIERS to drafting strategy, NOT absolutes.
This is the part where people really seem to get confused, and even claim that the feature doesn't work properly. The best way I know to describe this it seems that every player in the draft pool is given a value, and each position group has a different constant that multiplies the importance of that given position. (For those who used gstelmack's Draft Analyzer for FOF2K4, think of the positional constants in it.) Maybe a QB's ratings are multiplied by, say, 1.25, a safety's by, say, .85, or whatever. Obviously, I don't know the exacts here. However, what I can say with near-certainty is that what happens is that the baseline constants for each position are modified by the slider settings. In other words, if a QB starts with a 1.25, and you set the slider up to 9, maybe that translates to 1.4 or so. Please understand this point, though: pushing a slider high for a given position does NOT assure that that position will be drafted in the first or second round of the preference draft, especially if you push other positions high as well. That's the point that gets missed a LOT. Let me give you an example from the draft pool of a test league:

Let's say that you set your sliders with QBs as the highest-emphasis position, at 75, and DL second-highest, at 70, and got the draft pool above. You get pretty lucky, and get the #3 overall pick. However, QB Orlando Foley goes with the #1 overall, and the second-best QB, (who is rated 74/74) gets picked #2. It's your pick. The best QB left is A.J. Mattison, rated 69/69, and in his 13th season, and the AI has to choose between him versus a 93/93 DT, or a 90/90 DE. From what I can tell, the calculation (leaving out the modifiers for youth, loyalty and whatnot for now) is going to look something like this:

A.J.Mattisondraftrating= 69*(QBmodifierconstant*75*modifieremphasisconstant)
KennethWaltersdraftrating=93*(DTmodifierconstant*70*modifieremphasisconstant)

The second variable, called modifieremphasisconstant for these purposes, is the number that globally defines how much the impact the sliders have.

If the equations confuse you, don't worry about it, the bottom line is this: if you have your DL value high, and QB only a little higher, you're getting Kenneth Walters in the first round, not A.J. Mattison.

Now, after the first round is where it gets REALLY interesting (and where people really get pissed off because they don't understand what is going on). In this particular draft pool, there are only 8 QBs with current ratings above 50, and only three others outside that list with high future potential. It is VERY reasonable to assume that by the time your pick comes up in the second round, all 11 of the better QBs will already be gone. Let's assume that you had the forethought to go after some receivers to help your hoped-for stud QB, and set that slider up to 60. There are 11 WRs rated 60 or better current, in this pool, and also WRs rated 59/82, 54/76, 54/80, 51/70, 53/69, 45/76 and 50/70. Point being, odds are pretty good that one of those 18 guys WILL be available when your 2nd-round pick comes up (and that the top 11 QBs are all gone). The AI is then facing the decision of drafting the next-best QB, 48/48 K.C Tayoun, or a WR with ratings in the 60s or 70s. There's a decent chance that it takes the WR in that instance, and then the QB pool gets thinned even more. The bottom line of this train of thought is this: if you absolutely want to get a player at a certain position early in the draft, then emphasize that position MUCH more highly than any other, but doing so is a VERY risky and pretty bad strategy, imho. Because you don't know where you're going to pick, or how thin the pool will be at a given position, your best bet is to emphasize all position groups that are important to you, and let the chips fall where they may.

3. If you choose the right settings elsewhere, you can easily get away with going quite low on some positions.

When doing a preference draft, it is crucial to remember that the ratings are distributed logarithmically. There are a whole bunch of guys out there rated from the upper 30s to low 50s who can be decent starters. Don't think that if you set the DL down to 20 that you'll be starting a bunch of 20/20 players. If you want to build your team a particular way, say with very good linebackers and DBs, and can stomach a mediocre DL, then my advice would be to go 0-75-75 on those three settings (and borrow some additional points for your LBs and DBs from the kickers and from somewhere on offense), as opposed to 40-55-55 or something like that. The former will usually get you what you're after. The latter makes it too dependent on who is available when it comes your time to pick.

4. Make sure to think through what position groups need other position groups to do well in order to function well.

A stud QB won't perform like a stud without decent receivers. If you're gonna emphasize one, then emphasize the other.
The best DB's in the world will struggle without a decent pass rush.
A solid DL doesn't do you much good if your LBs and secondary suck.

ADDITIONAL TRAITS

RESERVES<<<>>>STARTERS

Quote: