It’s Draft Day and the pressure is on….Who should I select?

Strength of positions, from the fantasy perspective, is a very important factor when choosing your team.  Taking a running back in the first round is often a good move…taking a kicker is not.  Bidding high on an all-World WR is acceptable; bidding high on a Sun Belt defense is not.  Even the most accomplished of fantasy owners differ on which position you should draft first or most often.  The publishers of Fantasy College Blitz offer their advice and opinions on strength of positions.

John Huss – Fantasy College Blitz CBO

RB – Build around a top RB first since RB should be the cornerstone of your team.  From a management standpoint this is the safest way to go.  High risk, high reward is not a good strategy for your top picks. You also want to act first in this area to avoid being left to draft guys who are in a running back by committee scenario.  You also might find you’re being forced to take a RB from a lesser system or school.  I would argue that you should have both of your starting RB’s before you get your first QB or WR.

QB – Just like the pro game, if you don’t get one of the top 3 QBs, you can wait it out as there isn’t much difference between QB #4 and #12.  Let other owners reach early for their QB while you sit back and build depth across the other skill positions.  However, if you have one of the top 5 picks and can take one of the top 3 QBs that is a different scenario.  You should consider taking a stud system QB first over a RB since a Graham Harrell, Tim Tebow and Dan LeFevour is too much to pass on.  I underlined system QB because you know that the situation is geared towards that QB having unbelievable numbers.  It is for this reason that QB ranks over WR for attention during the draft.

WR – Granted this is the thinnest position in all of college football.  In theory, you would think that it should be the focus of your top pick in order to set you apart from the other owners.  However, there are too many nuances that can impact the effectiveness of your WR.  Even a top WR who is an obvious pro talent can disappear in games because he didn’t get the ball.  WR’s are the least able to dictate their stats.  Too much depends on the abilities of the QB and the effectiveness of the RB.  Also, if the WR is on a team with a strong defense, the need to throw may not present itself.  Based on this, I think you can scour the waiver wire during the season.  Spot start WRs based on match ups that might better maximize your chance for points instead of relying on "stud" wideouts.

Daniel Freer – Fantasy College Blitz Historian

In fantasy college football, like pro fantasy, certain positions are better fantasy producers than others. However, there is more of an extreme in the production numbers in fantasy college football. Also, one main offensive position is not as consistently valuable in the college game than in the pro game. In fantasy college football, the RBs are the most consistently productive followed by QBs and WRs.

RB – They are usually consistent, with the best college backs almost assured to get 100 yards per game and a TD or two. Few of the top RB’s truly build up stats with just one or two big games. RB’s in college also are more valuable than in the pros. Note that college RB’s, although they play fewer games, put up as many yards and score more than their pro counterparts. Even more important, college RB’s average more rushing yards per game and more scores per game than in the pros. This is due to the college game having more snaps per game due to the differences in time-keeping. Starting in 2008, the college game will intorduce some new variations to time-keeping (like starting the clock again…after an out-of-bounds play…where the clock will start after the ball is set by the referee), but these new time-keeping procedures will not drastically alter the college game much.

QB – In the college game, QB’s also put up a lot of stats, especially rushing yards and TD’s. Like in pro fantasy football, there are a few QB’s who command an immediate first round pick on draft day while most of the other QB’s can be grabbed later. Although you have college QB’s like Texas Tech’s Graham Harrell or Florida’s Tim Tebow who can blow up the stats page each week, most college QBs tend to be less consistent in week-to-week production in comparison to college RBs.

WR – This position is the least consistent, even the WR’s who put up huge numbers during the season. For every Jeff Moturi (UTEP WR), who caught a TD pass in ten straight games in 2007, most college WR’s build up stats in one or two games (for example: In 2006 South Carolina WR Sidney Rice had 10 TD catches, but 5 of those were in one game). A good WR is nice to have but they can be so inconsistent in the college game. Pro WR’s tend to be more consistently productive throughout the season. In fantasy college football the most important positions are RB, QB and then WR. The gap between QB and WR is much greater in college than in pro ball.

Vince Mullins – President of Fantasy College Blitz

My fantasy college football draft strategy is based on scarcity – in other words, why draft a loaded position if you feel you can grab the top of a thinner position?

Specifically, as happens every year in my 16-team All FBS (Football Bowl System) draft, I get a chance to grab my #1 or #2 WR when the top five QBs and sometimes top ten RBs have been selected.  Give me the #2 WR over the #11 RB any day.  Certainly a RB pick is safe (as my data will show in a moment), but safe rarely wins a championship.  So my approach is to get top WR’s early, fill in with Tier 2 RB’s and then grab a QB no earlier than round six.

2008 could be unique because I see four players worthy of the #1 overall, but with different levels of probability – QBs Harrell, Tebow, and LeFevour, and WR Crabtree.

Let me illustrate what I mean by scarcity – I will build off the Official Scoring System of Fantasy College Blitz to do my statistical comparisons.

First table is TOUCHDOWNS – how many RB’s or WR’s eclipsed 10/15/20 TD’s and how many QB’s threw for 20/30/40 TD’s?

WRs have rarely cleared 20 TD’s (2006 Rice’s Jarret Dillard was the first one since Larry Fitzgerald of Pitt in 2003, Crabtree last year) and except for 2006, they have trailed the other two positions at the first threshold much less than RB and QB.  You may ask "But RB and QB look pretty close, why not go for a signal caller"?  You don’t draft a QB early because you only need one, where as you need at least two RB and WR for most league systems.  If you are in a sixteen team league, notice that at least half of the fantasy squads should start one 30-TD guy at QB but you can’t fill every team with two 15 TD RBs.

The second table is YARDS PER GAME – this time broken out by 100/125/150 for RB/WR and 200/250/300 for QB.

If your league favors yards more than TD’s, wide receivers are even scarcer.  Did you notice that not one WR achieved 125 yards per game receiving in 2006!  Teams that secured a top WR that year most likely made average teams even better if they at least had decent options at QB and RB.  Another interesting point is that the QB position shows a much higher supply at all the thresholds, devaluing QB’s even further down your draft board.

Drew Smith – Chief Fantasy Officer

In the football there is a saying that we all have heard a million times…"Offense wins games, defense wins championships".  Well in the world of fantasy college football I believe that "Running Backs win games but Wide Receivers win championships".  What I mean by this is that you have to have good consistent running backs in order to compete against other teams that have good consistent running backs on a weekly basis.  However out of these teams, it is most often the ones with the stud WRs that goes on to win the championship.

Therefore it is clear to me that the WR position is the most important position in fantasy college football.  However the problem lies in acquiring these receivers.  The best college receivers do not always put up big fantasy stats and to further complicate matters many great fantasy receivers from the year before don’t even repeat in the current year.  In most seasons at least half of the top 20 WRs will be low-round or undrafted players.  The running back position is much deeper and certainly more predictable so drafting them early reduces your risk

You can take two approaches here…You can draft your running backs early as it is important to not gamble with early picks then trust that you can identify the stud receivers in the later rounds.  The upside with this is that if you miss on the receivers you are not attached to them because you didn’t spent a top draft pick on them.  The other approach is to take the receivers early because the running backs are deep enough that you can still get good consistent backs in the third to sixth rounds.  The downside to this approach is that if you miss on the WR’s and they are not “great” fantasy receivers, then your backs will probably not be strong enough to carry you.  Plus you are probably married to those highly drafted receivers forcing you to play them every week despite them potentially under-performing.

The least important position in fantasy college football is the QB position.  Yes it is correct that you need a good QB but there is little difference between the #3 fantasy QB and the #13 fantasy QB.  There is even less difference between the #7 and the #17.  The point is that is not a good draft value to use a high pick on a QB.  It is true that every year there is a special QB who puts up stats that are by far better than any other QB.  However, it has been my experience that those teams with that QB don’t win championships either because one “off” game or an untimely bye week in the playoffs by the QB and the team is done.

As you can see, there are some differences regarding what position to choose first.

In the first two analyses, both John Huss and Daniel Freer prefer a more conservative approach which focuses on drafting RB’s first, QB’s and then WR’s.  With RB’s, according to Huss and Freer, they are consistent producers and there is an abundance of talent at that position.  Obtaining the best RB’s early will build a foundation for your team.  As this method implies, there are just not enough WR’s to build a team around.

In the next two analyses both Vince Mullins and Drew Smith recommend going with a more aggressive/progressive approach where you select a top WR first.  Although all agree that there are fewer worthy WR’s than RB’s, the "high risk-high reward" (endorsed by Mullins and Smith) by getting a good WR early can mean the difference between a good team and a championship team.

All four analyses concur, for the most part, that a QB should be selected in later rounds.  There is not much difference between the 3rd best college QB and the 12th best college QB.  Perhaps any QB not the top-rated or second highest rated should be held off for later in the draft.

Even with the variation on strength of position, it should be noted that all of our analysts have been successful playing fantasy college football and other fantasy sports.  As you can see, there are some different ways to approach strength of position in regard to fantasy football.  The key is to determine which one fits your style and enter draft day with a plan.

Related posts:

1. GOING DEEP: More stars out, but let’s focus on who is in
2. Big 12 Position Battles & Updates
3. 2010 Athlon Mock Draft: Sorted by position (QB)
4. 2010 Athlon Mock Draft: Sorted by position (WR)
5. 2010 Athlon Mock Draft: Sorted by position (RB)

Tags: fantasy strategy