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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Quote: Originally Posted by davey225

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]

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.