RolStoppable said:
The Chiefs had Tyreek Hill emerge as a deep threat last season; that's what opens up lanes in the middle of the field where the TE is commonly located. Surely you understand that such circumstances raise the TD potential of a TE who is a proven entity to haul in targets. I had Latavius Murray of the Raiders on my fantasy team last year. He scored a lot of TDs because the Raiders offense got into the redzone plenty of times and ran the ball in goal-to-go situations. With Murray being gone, Lynch was the destined RB to take over that role. You make the mistake of using hindsight as the measurement for good draft picks, but at the time of the draft it wasn't expected that the Raiders offense would stall on the back of Amari Cooper's insane percentage of dropped balls. Likewise, the Rams turning into a power offense after ranking in the bottom of the league last year wasn't expected either. Todd Gurley used to get stuffed on a regular basis because of a poor passing game and Goff wasn't predicted to have a breakout year in 2017. Lynch was a much better choice than Gurley. Similarly, Hopkins and Miller of the Texans were huge question marks in a franchise that still had a QB problem. You also questioned my decision to draft Montgomery early, but I did that because the Packers have a high-powered offense and Montgomery can run and catch the ball, making him a dual-threat with high TD potential. I mean, we are talking about a former WR getting matched up against LBs. It's funny that you say I built my team around Aaron Rodgers and then go on to point out that my team wasn't much better when he was still playing. Then you point out some cherry-picked stats while being oblivious to the main problem of my team. Said problem is not under my control: 1. I had Rodgers go down early in week 6 and on injury reserve. You say that my team usually never showed up anyway, but you fail to realize that that was in large part because half of my designated starters couldn't play at all or only in limited fashion. My team is ranked is 7th in breakdown with a 64-68 record. LudicrousSpeed and sethnintendo both have a 68-64 record. I am 4-8, they are 8-4 and 7-5, respectively. That's quite a big difference for such a small difference in breakdown records. Then there's dongo8 who is 50-82, but 6-6. My team wasn't and isn't poorly drafted or poorly managed. You can pick pretty much any category of stats and Lousy Pack will be the unluckiest or close to unluckiest team in the league. Now go find who SCAB is. |
I can ask SCAB for his email, but I'm not allowed to see the individual participants emails. I can email them, and anyone involved with the league can email me, but the only thing that comes through is an email saying "This person has emailed you and says: blah blah blah." The individual's email address isn't included.
As for fantasy...I don't think you quite understand the decision making process behind fantasy drafts if that's the kind of logic you're using for your second pick. Your second pick shouldn't be based on someone who may be put in a better position to catch more touchdowns if a rookie keeps up a torrid pace from the previous year. 2nd picks should be known quantities, someone you can rely on to consistently put up big yards. There's a reason that Kelce was a late third/early fourth round pick in most fantasy mocks; you're taking a major risk by assuming that Hill will continue to open up passing lanes. Even more so when you consider that there were options with just as high a ceiling and a more consistent history available at the time; Todd Gurley, DeAndre Hopkins, Carlos Hyde, Kareem Hunt, Lamar Miller, etc.
And, sure, Todd Gurley has exceeded expectations this year, but the thing is he's a very safe and viable 2nd/3rd round pick because, as you mentioned, we've seen how he did on a shit offense. The Rams had the worst and fourth worst offenses in 2016 and 2015 by yards, and Gurley still went over 1100 total yards both seasons. I can pick him with as much confidence as I can pretty much anyone in fantasy because, despite being on a shit offense, he's still put up tons of yards. The breakout year he's had has largely just been icing on the already delicious cake; if he had just replicated his performance from 2016 or 2015, it still would've been a perfectly reasonable pick. Same sort of deal for Hopkins and Miller; if they put up the stats they did with Brock Osweiler and Tom Savage leading the offense, then having DeShaun Watson for a few games is just a bonus.
Lynch falls under the opposite problem. This is a guy who's been retired, which is always a big question mark, being put on a team that has started to become more reliant on its passing game, another question mark. Yes, Latavius Murray has played quite well from a fantasy standpoint over the past two years, and if it were somehow set in stone that things would proceed exactly as they did last year, just with Lynch instead of Murray, it wouldn't be an unreasonable idea. Again, however, this is where the issue of consistency comes into play. Not only are you banking on a formerly retired RB instantly gelling with a new offense, but you're also banking on that offense continuing to play as efficiently as it did the previous season so Lynch is constantly put in the position to score. Oakland jumped from the 17th ranked offense by points scored to the 7th in the span of a year, and whenever you see a jump that drastic, there should be a pause as to whether this is something that can be trusted long term.
The Rodgers joke was more of an opportunity to take a jab at Ted Thompson, but I do think it's worth noting that your draft was basically Rodgers + a bunch of high risk picks. Again, when you pick players that are hold that quantity of unknowns, you shouldn't be surprised if a sizable number of them turn in duds. If you want to run your team on a high risk basis, then hey, more power to you, but going out and saying that the winning players have just stupidly lucked their way into success is disingenuous. I won't so far as to say your team was poorly drafted (although I still think spending a 2nd and 3rd round pick on a retired RB and a TE whose value is based almost entirely on speculation rather than past precedent is questionable to say the least), but I will say that if you're going to gamble like that, you should be prepared for the possibility that things fall through. Yeah, you got unlucky, but you built your team in such a way that you're very susceptible to chance. You don't have any guaranteed playmakers besides your QB. If things go great, Kelce and Lynch take off and Rodgers keeps up his MVP caliber form, great, you're all set. But there's a sizable chance those things don't happen, a much more significant probability than Gurley slowing down, for instance, and if that is the case you've got serious trouble.
As an example, Round 4 was my first "risky" pick, Tyreek Hill. I went with Hill because I was confident that my RB duo of Gurley and Bell could consistently support my team, and that Brandin Cooks would be a solid WR #1. Hill was a riskier option; he doesn't have the precedent of Gurley, Bell, or Cooks, but if he turns out as well as I hope, then I've got the chance for a TD every week or so. So far, he hasn't been everything I wanted, but he's been decent. But if he had just flat out sucked; I've got a number of reliably high scoring players to make up for it.
And yeah, you're probably closer to the 7th best team based on the number of points you've put up. Regardless, at best, you're still a mediocre team. Whether you did so intentionally or not, you spent several high draft picks on high risk players, and they ultimately didn't pan out that well.
