12-person draft with people at work. I wound up with the #1 pick. While awesome, it was a bit difficult having to wait until the 24th and 25th picks to go again; and so on in the later rounds. Here is my team with the likely starters bolded.


QB's:
Kurt Warner
Brent Favre (I know, I know..it was a late pick and I needed a backup)

RB's:
Adrian Peterson
LenDale White
Ricky Williams
Jamal Lewis
Shonn Greene

WR's:
Calvin Johnson
Lance Moore
Ted Ginn Jr.
Jeremy Maclin

TE's:
Tony Gonzales
Brandon Pettigrew

Defense:
Packers
Jets

Kicker:
Ryan Longwell

Eh, kind of rough, but you might be okay in a 12-manner. It looks like you only got one legit RB and one legit WR. By legit, I mean a RB or WR that starts for his team. You probably had to reach to get Gonzales... Something like your 4th pick, yeah? I rarely get Gonzales, Witten or Gates because they're taken way higher than I feel they should be. I'd usually rather grab another WR or RB around that pick.

Personally, I would ditch the backup TE and backup defense and grab a couple sleeper RBs. Other than that, it's not bad. If you make some good management moves the rest of the way, you should be competitive.

Look for James Davis. There's a decent chance he went undrafted in your league. He's the backup for Jamal Lewis (which works perfect for you, since you have Lewis) and he's been coming on really strong in the preseason. Apparently he's been racking up yards and the team is high on him.

Yeah, but in all fairness, I think everyone's draft was pretty rough in this league. After I took AP, I had to wait 23 more picks before selecting. By then, almost every big time running back was off the chart so I went with C.J. and a quarterback (Brees, Manning, Rodgers and Rivers were all gone, too).

As for the defense, I actually like keeping two defenses to play one based on matchups. I'm usually a pretty active waiver guy though, so hopefully I can make a few more adjustments early on.

Yeah, I hear ya' about the waiver wire. That's actually why I don't draft a backup defense. If I have a stud defense, then I'm probably gonna use them every week - so I don't need a backup. But if they're mediocre and I'll have to swap out based on matchups, then they'd probably be safe to drop to the waiver wire anyway, since no one else should be racing for them and I can just pick a defense off the wire each week. To each their own though - tomato, tomahto.

Out of curiosity, where did guys like Cutler, Romo, Palmer, McNabb, Ryan, etc. go in the draft? Usually if all the big dogs get drafted ahead of me (Brees, Brady, Rodgers, Manning, etc.) then I'll just say "screw it" and load up on more RB/WRs. After those guys, the next 5-10 QB's are pretty indistinguishable, and you can usually wait a few more rounds before that next tier starts to get exhausted. Basically, instead of using a Round 5 pick on a Tier 2 QB, I can grab another decent RB in Round 5 and then wait for Round 8 to get a QB, and still get a Tier 2 QB.

Your mileage may vary. It depends a lot on the guys you're drafing with. In my work league, we had a run of like 8 QBs in the 2nd-3rd round. All the big guys got taken. So I said screw it and loaded up on more RB/WRs while everyone else was wasting picks on QBs. I waited about 4 more rounds and was still able to grab Romo.

I love fantasy football strategy discussions.

Calvin Johnson at the end of the 2nd was a steal, but I think you reached on Warner if you got him at #25 overall. He's more of a late 4th rounder. According to the ADP data at fantasyfootballcalculator.com his average draft position is 49th (5th round, 1st pick). So that might have been a mistake. I also think this is a year to wait on TEs. That position appears to be pretty deep.

Yeah, you'll probably have to work the wire a little bit.

Good thoughts. I agree.

I try to take a page from TT's book - draft BPA, not need.

Its gonna be a rough lineup come bye time, but overall your number ones are solid, your number twos may be questionable. Lendale White lost like 30 pounds so he might be a steal. I also kind of like your Ted Ginn pick also.

That was the tough part. I could have drafted another RB/WR, but Brees, Rivers, Manning (the good one) and Rodgers were all gone by the time the 25th pick came. If I would have passed, I would have had to wait 23 more picks (48th) to get a QB which, by that time I can guarantee you Warner would have been gone.

I considered doing just that and waiting for like a Matt Ryan, Trent Edwards, Romo, etc. but I thought Warner looked decent the other night despite the Packers crazy D. And with Fitz and Boldin back, I think he could be solid.

And if he fails, I've always got Brent

Having the #1 pick in those 12 team leagues sucks.. overall not a bad team. Having AP and CJ isn't going to hurt. Your depth at RB and WR seems pretty weak tho. I don't think having favre will be a bad thing. Bye week start for him isn't going to be bad. (I too have favre as a backup in my $ league).

I would also use Jamal Lewis as your 3rd RB over williams. Lewis will see many more touches.

I got on the waiver action this morning and (conditionally) dropped Jamal Lewis (I hated that pick anyway) for Reggie Bush and dropped Brandon Pettigrew for Kenny Britt. Just something about Britt tells me he could really come on later in the season.

Personally, I don't like having the top pick like that...it's pretty tough and you almost always have to pick guys ahead of where you really think they should go, just because of the long wait between picks. Middle picks are good because you don't get stuck missing out on position runs. And picks toward the top and bottom work too, because you can often guess what positions the guys at the ends of the rounds are going to be focusing on during the snake-turn, if you're paying attention, and take advantage of them a little bit.

I'm not going to rip your team, Heat. Nice job...you did the best you could with the hand you were dealt, I'm sure.