I felt my process was solid. I couldn't trade down in this format. I felt strongly that Fournette was going to outscore both Barkley and Gordon. I wasn't ranking Fournette's ceiling against Barkley and Gordon's average range.

The Jags were planning to build their entire offense around Fournette. I bet on my read of the three situations coupled with the talent.

Thanks for the feedback. I respect 2+2 a lot and it's an awesome place to dicsuss stuff like this.

Barkley and Fournette were close though......

I probably would have passed on Barkley for Fournette myself.

I would have been wrong, but absent the injury, I'm not as sure.

My order was Barkley - Fournette - Kamara, but went for Fournette in auction because I knew he'd the cheapest, and these 3 were very close for me.

Lost this week bad. Cooks zero hurt and Mahomes/Tyreek had a tough match up.

2-3 but I've lost 4 of my first 5 draft picks to injury.

Getting Engram back this week maybe but if not this week next will help out.

Mahomes/Tyreek schedule

NE/Cin/Den/Cle/Ari/RAMS/Raiders/Bal/SD/Sea

Mahomes going to get hot and Tyreek is going to benefit imo.

It was close for most people. Rafiki just liked the other guys more but Fournette was basically a consensus 1st round pick.

Yeah, I just think that the Giants were planning to similarly build their offense around Barkley, and in PPR it really matters that he's an elite pass catcher for a running back. Not even a pretty good one, an elite one. I was high on Fournette's chances entering the season, but I also play in a dynasty league where you get points for rushing first downs so that really benefits him. If they're both getting 300 carries then give me the guy whose range for receptions is 50-80 balls over the guy whose range is 30-50.

Yeah I agree. Barkley was a rookie though. So I didn't feel he was a proven RB just yet. That's what tipped the scale in Fournette's favor for me. I also felt Fournette was in for more passing work. So I had his ceiling on catches a little higher than 50.


It was close though......

Rookie RBs don't have to be proven if they have pedigree. I mean, look at Hunt / Kamara last year. Cook was on a good pace until he got hurt. Fournette did pretty well. McCaffrey even got 1,000 yards from scrimmage. Zeke in 2016, Gurley in 2015.

Trent Richardson says "hi". Last year was a historic year too. So citing it as a standard year isn't correct.

Trent Richardson who had 1300 yards from scrimmage and 12 TDs his rookie year?

People looked at the weak classes of 13-14 and decided RBs were dead. They are not.

Not saying RB are dead. I'm saying there is no sure thing in the NFL and there is a chance for any RB to bust. That includes Barkley. So when I cooked that into his price he was less valuable than Fournette before the season started.

No one was drafting hunt, kamara, cook, mccaffery or even gurley in the top 10 though. I would agree saquon was coming in with all the right pieces - starter, offense that will feature him, clear talent, etc but to say he was clearly a better pick than fournette is meh

I think in standard you can definitely make a case for Fournette but in PPR Barkley's standout receiving ability makes it clear-- when one catch is worth 10 yards rushing, that matters. I said 50-80 receptions as a projection but he's actually on pace for 99 receptions. (And I was definitely negative on him as a draft pick and a boom-bust runner, but in fantasy it doesn't matter how you get your yards and catches.)

Picked up 4 players today.

Added
Drake
Cohen
Zuerlein
Vinatieri

Dropped
Cobb
Prater
Hines
Gio

I'll drop Vinatieri after this week and grab Cobb again. Doubt anybody will pick him up.

One of those RB lottery tickets hits I'll try to trade someone for an upgrade at WR.

What kind of league has Cohen and Drake on the waiver wire?

It's a 10 team league with only 16 roster spots.

Drake was dropped for Clement.

Cohen was dropped for Crowell.

I don't agree with either drop but dropping Cohen for Crowell isnt terrible. I wouldn't do it but I value Cohen more than most.

Didn't you already own Cohen?

I did. I was hit with a rash of injuries and he wasn't being used. Then they used him like I thought they should have been from week 1 and he blew up. Dude dropped him for Crowell and i grabbed him up.

That’s fair, but I think pre season you could make a case that bortles would dump it off to fournette just as much as Eli would to Barkley. I don’t think Eli’s lack of being able to throw 10 yards down the field was that predictable. Mainly I just think you can make a case for either and I’d take the proven guy over the rookie.

Fournette averaged 3.9 ypc last year. It's not like he is a proven star. Their roles were clearly going to be very similar, so going with the guy without a history of lower body injuries is better. If Eli was better it wouldn't really be that much of a negative for Barkley since it would mean fewer loaded boxes and more scoring opportunities.

Fournette was facing a lot of stacked boxes. That's why his efficiency had suffered. He's one of the best RB in the league when healthy. The jags signed the best free agent guard on the market. They had big plans for Fournette this year. He just got hurt.

I'm at risk of repeating myself, but:

I don't think you can make that case, at least not accurately. Fournette gets replaced by T.J. Yeldon on most passing downs. Give me the guy who's playing ~100% of the snaps over the guy who's playing ~2/3 of them, especially in PPR, especially when the 100% guy is, again, an elite receiver.

But none of that is a reason why he wouldn't be facing stacked boxes this year.

Again, it comes down to three things, two of which are more significant in PPR:

-Barkley is an elite receiver; Fournette is not.
-Barkley is a three-down back; Fournette is frequently replaced on passing downs by T.J. Yeldon.
-Barkley doesn't have an injury history and is an elite athlete. Fournette both has an injury history and was a poor testing athlete; while I don't have proof of this, I do have a theory that worse-testing athletes are more injury-prone because their bodies are less capable of doing what the NFL requires of them.

Looking at that draft again-- you reached for a ton of guys you liked. You can do that if you want; doing things your own way is half the fun of the game. But as others said, you probably could have gotten another top-tier player and drafted almost everyone else a round later. If you just want to roll with guys you like, do it. But you made a thread here because, I assume, you want critique of your strategy.

Pretty much this. I had no idea this was a 10 team league when I saw the OP. In a 10 teamer some of those were big reaches that you could have gotten later.

Sometimes the problem is the players that you like and the fact that you can't trade picks or trade during the draft. That probably contributed to the problem, but it obviously wasn't the sole cause.

If you correctly evaluate a player is a 3rd round value when the rest of the world thinks he is a 4th round value, that's sharp. But if you take that player in the 2nd round, then you've just undone your savvy player evaluation with a different kind of mistake. I'm not saying that you did exactly this, it's just an example for illustrative purposes.

My draft was a little different. My neighbor was taking a lot of guys I was right after me if I didn't take them.

How could you have known this at the time the decision to draft was in front of you?