Random Fantasy Draft?

[mavfan21]

Anyone started a franchise this way? I was playing around just letting the CPU sim fantasy drafts the other day and the results were always pretty cool. Peyton on the Lions, Peterson on the Texans, etc. I like playing with different chise teams from time to time and this seems like a fun way to mix things up.

I might do the picks for the first round or two to get some players I really like but I'll sim the rest for balance.

My excuse for the draft will be a labor dispute disolved the league and a lottery and draft were used to repopulate the teams. I may start a blog to track the progress, create a new history.

[JaymeeAwesome]

Re: Random Fantasy Draft?

Come over to the Dynasty forums, there are a few "blogs" already doing that...including mine which is in my signature. I would love to read about another fantasy dynasty like my own....

[johnkorean]

Re: Random Fantasy Draft?

Just so you know, if you let the CPU sim the entire draft (without making any user picks), the draft order will always be the same (different teams, of course, depending on what pick they get). For example, I believe Manning will always be the 6th player chosen, no matter what team has the 6th pick.

You can find the complete order for the first 25 rounds written up by someone called moochieh on what I think is gamefaqs.com.

Note that the order will change once you start making user picks that aren't in line with the set order.

[Dianwei32]

Re: Random Fantasy Draft?

johnkorean is right, the order is always the same, but the list on gamefaqs is for the original rosters, so if you go by that you'll miss players that have gone up in their OVR rating and reach for players that went down. I usually shoot for pick 15-18 in the first round, that way tou get to pick towards the middle of every round, so you never miss out too much on players taken in any given round, but you also forgo some of the truly elite players.

What I would do is sim an entire fantasy draft and look for where the players you want are taken. Also, pay attention to patterns. For example, no HBs are drafted after Round 5 until Round 28. Round 3 is all DEs (except for 2-3 teams that drafted the elite DEs in rounds 1-2). Look for young, high potential players who can grow into their potential (i.e. have a lower OVR now). It takes some time, but it can really help you assemble a team of people that you want to use that will keep you interested for a long time.

Here are a few players I would look at:
QB Carson Palmer (taken early round 12): great QB, can progress to have all high 90's accuracy with a season with less than 12-15 INTs
HB Felix Jones (taken early round 28): Electrifying runner, and a steal in round 28, A potential
TE James Casey (taken late round 25): Great pass-catching TE, can run well after the catch, A potential
WR Jarett Dillard (taken round 26): Best Catching stat of any rookie, progresses well, a little slow, B potential
MLB Ray Lewis (taken late round 1): It's Ray Lewis... the guy's a beast, and you get to see his little dance at your home games. Sticks around for 3-4 years.

[johnkorean]

Re: Random Fantasy Draft?

I believe moochieh also has the first 25 rounds for the August-ish roster updates, but if there's been one since then, it won't be accurate.

I've been spending so much time preparing my fantasy draft that even after a month I haven't actually drafted. I keep going back on forth on what my strategy will be and how okay I am with knowing what the computer will be doing. For example, if I was actually a GM, I would almost certainly be taking a QB first. But I also know that there isn't really a QB run until, well, let's just say the QB run should occur a good 10 rounds earlier, in my opinion.

My current strategy has been to not use this information to my advantage and just go in with a preset idea of which positions I will be drafting when, based on average cap hit per position. So I'll be taking a QB round 1, WR round 2, CB round 3, etc. It won't be the optimum team I could get, but at this point I need to just make a decision and actually play the game.

[RedZoneD25]

Re: Random Fantasy Draft?

I did this a few hours ago, but I did every pick, every round by hand. To keep parity in the NFL, I made every team select the same position in the same round. Some teams have awful DTs, but sick DEs, vice versa....Every team is essentially balanced.

I only control FA from here on out, but it's fun. I'm watching all the Eagle games and simming the rest.

[JaymeeAwesome]

Re: Random Fantasy Draft?

I did this a few hours ago, but I did every pick, every round by hand. To keep parity in the NFL, I made every team select the same position in the same round. Some teams have awful DTs, but sick DEs, vice versa....Every team is essentially balanced.

I only control FA from here on out, but it's fun. I'm watching all the Eagle games and simming the rest.

Do some reporting on that and give us insight on how that worked out in the Dynasty forum, I would love to hear about it.

[MasterX1918]

Re: Random Fantasy Draft?

They're fun to do when your 'real' franchise gets stale. For instance me and my roommates run a fantasy franchise and it's interesting to see how the teams wind up. It's sort of frustrating because if you draft well, and draft young, your team can end up being completely dominant in a year or two since the computer isn't exactly savvy in the fantasy draft.

[DustinT]

Re: Random Fantasy Draft?

I did this a few hours ago, but I did every pick, every round by hand. To keep parity in the NFL, I made every team select the same position in the same round. Some teams have awful DTs, but sick DEs, vice versa....Every team is essentially balanced.

I only control FA from here on out, but it's fun. I'm watching all the Eagle games and simming the rest.

That had to take forever.

[JaymeeAwesome]

Re: Random Fantasy Draft?

Also doing a 32 team franchise draft the best way to do it is do offense first (Starters and backups) and then do defense. Seeing as though each side of the ball has 11 players you will have one of three scenarios....#1 is Great/Good Starter, Not So great backup....#2 Decent Starter and Decent backup.....#3 Mediocre Starter and Amazing backup.....

So it should go:

First 11 Rounds: QB, HB, FB, WR, WR, TE, LT, LG, C, RG, RT
Next 11 Rounds: RT, RG, C, LG, LT, TE, WR, WR, HB, QB

Having a top 10 pick would give you for starters:

Great: QB, FB, WR2, LT, C, RT
Mediocre: HB, WR1, TE, LG, RG

For the starters of a top 10 team you will have a great QB but mediocre top WR....a great offensive line with mediocre HB.

For a pick 21-32 you will get the opposite. Great WR1 and TE but weak QB....great HB but not so great OLine to make the holes

For Defense it will go like this....

LE, DT, RE, LOLB, MLB, ROLB, MLB, SS, CB, FS, CB
CB, FS, CB, SS, DT, ROLB, MLB, LOLB, RE, DT, LE

Top 10 will get:

Great: LE, RE, MLB1, MLB2, CB1, CB2
Mediocre: DT, LOLB, ROLB, SS, FS

So a top 10 team will have great outside pressure to rush the QB, great inside LB to stop runs up the gut, great corners to stop the outside pass

For a pick 21-32 has great middle stop up front, great OLB for blitzing or covering the short distances on the outside, and great safeties to cover the middle of the field....


I find this will equal out teams.....

[RedZoneD25]

Re: Random Fantasy Draft?

That had to take forever.

Haha. Not too bad. Bout an hour and a half. I had a system so it went faster than if I blindly picked for each team.

[mavfan21]

Re: Random Fantasy Draft?

I run 32 team franchises and I decided to do a draft/sim hybrid.

I noticed what some of you guys said, how the results were always in the same order, so I decided to hand pick the first few rounds.

I am going to go through the first round and draft a QB for each team, then a RB in the second round. Then a LT, DE, WR, CB and then sim the rest. I am going to just ick in order of OVR until it's "my" teams pick (I run a 32 team 'chise but let the CPU do most of the work for all teams but mine). For my team I'm going to pick a few of my favorite players to build around.

My hardest decision is going to be what team to use.

I'm thinking Chargers, Cards, or Falcons. I am a Cowboy fan but like doing other teams for variety.