No, 1 QB league, so I figured that would rule out the QB's, I was mostly struggling picking 2 of Freeman, Gronk and Adams.

Fournette and Gronk are easy calls.

I’d actually keep Freeman over Adams.

I just think post-Nelson, Adams is gonna go ham. Should be a great year barring injury.

Adams was a legit WR2 with Brett Hundley at QB, he should for sure go off this year

I suppose I’m of the thought that Graham will steal some of those TDS. Also think Freeman is undervalued this season.

I'm in a free diamond status only league (with a couple spots open if some1 is interested), that is 1QB, 2RB, 3WR, 1TE + flex full PPR.

Where does AB rank there in the first round? How early should Gronk go?

Think the only part of that offence I now want a piece of is Thompson in PPR, it seemed to have dumpster fire potential before the injury

Idk man even he scares me a bunch given his injury. RBs are already so likely to get injured at some point in the season, it’s tough for me to take one that is injured already, especially one with no bell-cow potential.

Doctson’s price doesn’t seem bad, but I never end up with him so I must have guys in that area I like more.

Also, I’m probably just an idiot, but Reed’s price seems quite attractive to me. I’ve been ending up with Gronk everywhere, but if I missed out on the top 5 TEs, then I think he’s the guy I’d target given where he tends to go (though you might have to pick a backup TE to feel comfortable with it, which can be more or less feasible depending on the roster limits).

AB is 3 or 4.

I’d take Gronk mid second.

Wheat I am with you on Reed. His injury issues are more than baked into his ADP. He’s a risk, but if healthy, could have big year with Smiff.

I'll do what I did last year and tell myself not to draft Reed but the 10th will come around and he'll be sitting there

What are people's general auction strategy here? Any good resources on the topic?

1st tier RB DJ/Gurley

David Johnson looked ready to go with his 2 carries yesterday. I'd have no issue drafting him 1.01 but can understand a case for Gurley. Gurley is a safer pick and both have win your leagur upside. I think it's between them two for the top spot.

Tier 2 Bell

Bell is in a tier below for me with him missing camp. He is going to start off slow again this year.

Fournette/EE/Kamara are in that 3rd tier.

Fournette is in for a monster year. Word out of camp is they are using him on more 3rd downs. EE is super safe but not quite the PPR monster the top 3 are and less talented than Fournette imo. Kamara was so hyper efficient with his touches last year a regression is probably coming but there is little doubt left that he's good. Kamara is just very hard to tackle. I thought he was getting lucky at first but he just continued breaking tackles.

Mixon is really close to that 3rd tier. He gave everybody a little taste this weekend. He's going to break out this year. Footwork is so smooth and he can do it all.

If you pick 6th or later coming away with Fournette/Mixon/Tyreek/Engram would put you in a great spot.......

Since I'm not in any auction this years, I will give you all I have. It's not much, but it's better than nothing:

I think creating mock teams based on who you perceive as good value is pretty key. There are players that are routinely undervalued, I like to break down my spending assuming I can get a couple of those.

So nothing world beating, make your budget with X$ for RB's, Y$ for WR's, Z$ for QB, you get it. Based on your scoring system it helps to know how much you want to spend at QB for example as it tends to have a big impact on the rest of your auction. The same is true at TE. Fundamentally you have to decide if you want to spend that $ at TE on a Gronk, or not. If the answer is "not", you can get really good TE value later.

I find where my auction game got stronger was when I realized that you have to overspend on a stud. It's tough to win without players that are 1st or 2nd round ADP. That means at some point you have to fight for 1 or 2 even if it's a few bucks above where you value them. Some people wait way too long to spend their $ and then get a bunch of players from rounds 3-4-5-6 and $30 left over. That $30 left over is the biggest crime in auction. That's why knowing your per position budget is useful.

One thing that's interesting is when prices are too high early on. When that happens, the price of all other players drops because the dollars in circulation drops. So sometimes when prices really start to go nuts I like to get my 1-2 studs and then do nothing for an hour ( i nominate expensive trash I don't want and bid it up). You wind up with a whole pile of value later and an incredible bench for trading.

Try not to spend more than $1 on kicker or D. That means nominating the ones you like early on to try and land them for that $1. You may not be able to do that with the Jags D, but maybe if you nominate them for $2 you get'm. Let someone else have them for $3.

Nominate a lot of guys you dislike. Get people spending money there. Or guys you think are going to have bad years but may still go for a lot of $ due to people liking that team etc... If you're going to try and do something like platon Ben + someone else at QB and spend under $10 total, then nominate the expensive QB's early.

The hardest part of auction is knowing when to bid players up. If you know someone cheers for that team, bid them up. There's a lot of psychology in bidding up because nothing is worse than bidding up and then being stuck with the guy. But you'll start to get a hang of it early on. My recommendation early is to only bid players up if you feel you could use them. With time you'll get used to bidding up guys you would never want, because you're like 95% sure the other guy is going to try to outbid. Bid up small, like $1 at a time.

Sometimes nominating a guy right at his projected price works well. If he's projected at $10 and you want him early on, just nominate him at $10. Later on obviously always nominate at $1 as people will be broke. The exception to that is You've got $10 left, everyone else has max $2 left per player (the software will tell you everyone's remaining max spend). So nominate at $3 and you auto-get the player. The late rounds tend to be a lot of people just selecting $1 players because that's all they can afford. So it's huge to have $2 per player left where you can get really reliable guys still.

Expect that people will know you need a cuff. Expect people to bid up your cuff. Sometimes getting the cuff first is interesting.

And lastly early on to save 30 mins of drafting, I like to nominate my guys a few bucks short of their $ ADP. Nothing more boring than nominating Le'Veon at $1. Yes, nobody is gonna bid on that. Just nominate him at $40 and save a lot of time. Anyone with an ADP in the first 4 rounds is worth nominating for realistic money.

Fournette more talented than EE is a pretty bold statement imo.

Good post rafiki

Also look up “U theory” so you’re not surprised when it happens. (That is, if there are, say, 4 guys in a tier that you’d be happy drafting for the same amount of $$, make sure to grab one of the first 3 so that you don’t get yourself into a bidding war on the 4th guy).

Where did the top 3 QBs go? I’m in a couple 6 pt pass TD leagues and I never see adp or draft rankings for 6 pt pass TDs leagues. I’ve read so much about how 6 pt pass TDs shouldn’t effect where you take QBs but that seems way off. I always want to ask those writers if they’d think the same if pass TDs were worth 15 instead of 6.

A couple things with Zeke vs Fournette.

First Fournette sees more stacked boxes than anybody (somebody check that, the numbers are somewhere on the net). That's because Bortles sucks bad. Teams pray that the Jags throw it. EE has Dak so teams have to at least respect the pass.

Neither RB is used a lot in the passing but with Fournette's 75% catch rate even Jags can't deny he was underutilized in that area. 50+ is easily attainable for Fournette. EE is unlikely to catch more than the 40 he caught. Dallas doesn't use him like that.

With the weight loss, the news from Jags camp I got, and how I had both rated coming out of college. I suspect most people will have Fournette ahead of Zeke after this season.

It takes a lot for me to change my mind. I changed my mind with Kamara but even after his insane rookie year I still am holding to my original rating with Zeke. He's a good RB not a great or elite RB who is somewhat limited in the passing game.

Everything was looking pretty good until you (again) think Engram should go in the 4th.

I don't think Fournette is a good pass catching back. The 300 touches is nice though. I have to imagine that QB play gets better (couldn't be worse than last year), so I think we get a little less in the running game. Just IMHO.

Don't miss out on Engram. If you wait and have to settle for the next tier it sucks. Two guys in that first tier. Gronk/Engram. If you have other people in that tier then by all means wait. Engram's my guy.

Fournette had a 75% catch rate last year. He's a good pass catching back. That nonsense was just the media's echo chamber saying he can't catch because they heard he can't. Then he came out and looked great catching the ball. You'll feel differently after this year if the Jags aren't blowing smoke up everybody's ass. Fournette's in the game all 3 downs unless he's tired.

Rodgers went 4th round.
Watson (!!!) went 5th round.

After I took brady they started to come off the board.

Russell fell. Cam, wentz and cousins all went before him.

Just off the top of my head Cam/Rodgers/Wilson/Manning/Brady all won owners their leagues when they went off for a season or part of a season.

Also 6 Pt pass TD definitely matters. Moves up Brady and the like.
Lowers the value of the running QBs.

Need to choose my 3 keepers. 12 team league with standard non-PPR scoring, other than 20 passing yards/point and INTs are -2, so good QBs are slightly more valuable.

Easy keepers are Kamara and McCaffrey.

Options for third keeper are Rodgers, Hilton, or Cooks. Leaning Hilton, but as always concerned about Luck's health. Also, people in the league tend to overvalue QBs, so if I don't keep Rodgers, will likely be going with a couple late round guys (last year people kept 5 QBs, including Carr, Cousins, and Winston).

McKinnon getting a MRI tomorrow on his knee. Injuried today in practice.