2023 VIP Draft Kit

Table of Contents

-2023 NFL Schedule
-Strength of Schedule

MOCK DRAFT

Draft Strategy: Numerical Crunch Time Services vs. Value Based Drafts

In a nut shell, using Value Based Drafting (VBD) strategies can be both time consuming and error prone, but still, it's certainly worth a look in terms of support information on draft day. I find that VBD tools alone are most helpful when you are trying to formulate an overall strategy OR when you are trying to determine your strategy for your next few picks. It is also a decent supporting tool when trying to choose between two players.

However, I prefer our Numerical Crunch Time Services with the Point Differential Reference Guide, Generic Comparative Analysis Matrix (GCAM), and Customized - Comparative Analysis Matrix (C-CAM) and most specifically the C-CAM works better rather than a pure VBD. I am generally very fond of selecting a mix of players that would yield the most fantasy points, usually snatching up a lot of quality RBs that I have ranked fairly high and waiting on positions like WR a bit because I usually see very little difference between players after the top few WRs were taken. Along those same lines, QB fantasy scoring is fairly well bunched up towards the top of the fantasy QB Scoring list.

Why VBD tools on other sites may be time consuming and error prone

First, you probably need to adjust the fantasy scoring rules provided by whatever VBD tool you are using. This can take some time and the tool may not account for your exact rules, although it will usually be close enough especially if you use our (Point Differential Reference Guide).

Second, you need to get statistics over the last 3 or so years AND plug in projections for the upcoming year end totals. Most tools provide you with figures from the last three years and give you their projections, but you'll want to update many of the projections yourself.

Third, you need to rely on subjective opinions from the tool creator or your own personal subjective opinions to input projected year end stats for EVERY "draftable" player (probably 200 players). This is highly error prone AND very time consuming. Additionally, if you're a homer, you may overvalue players from your favorite team based on how you "hope" they will perform.

Fourth, you need to analyze past performance for trends and adjust your projections per the trends. If you play in the stock market you likely understand that past performance is not always an indication of future results. This alone doesn't always take into account trends in which offenses can take off and fly. For example, it is easy to "guess" that and the Chiefs’ offense (see: Patrick Mahomes and T. Kelce) shows a lot of potential this year once again. That said, Value Based Drafting would have undervalued many offensive players from, say, the Bills 2002 (a single season outlier for that team in which the offense was quite prolific) unless you adjusted their projected stats accordingly. Drew Bledsoe, Travis Henry, Eric Moulds, and Peerless Price were all fantasy studs that year as we predicted they would be. More recently guys like Trevor Lawrence and Tony Pollard's production took off last year.

Fifth, you have to look at the players schedule and formulate the ease or difficulty of their schedule. Most VBD tools only look at the projections based on how the opposition performed last year. You should notice that some teams made improvements to their defense this off-season, thus you would have needed to adjust the projections for the players that play them accordingly. This year we look for the Houston defense to show some improvement.

Lastly, most people don't truly understand that they need to look at the BIG picture when using VBD tools. For example, you really need to compare the difference between a QB that you will get in Round 2, versus a RB or a WR in Round 2 with an eye towards the "Value" you will get at RB or WR if you wait to draft them until later rounds.

When you add all of these factors together you are subject to multiple points of failure or multiple error controls. The AskTheCommish.com staff drafted in a number of expert leagues over the last few years. A number of the experts in these leagues stuck by their guns and went with their VBD formula. Meanwhile, we used our AskTheCommish.com rankings, our expert judgment, and sprinkled in our Average Value Based C-CAM Rankings and our Point Differential Reference Guide to draft.

Last year the VBD only experts loaded up on RBs left and right early in drafts, but we steered our course and drafted Justin Jefferson and Josh Allen in the first two rounds and then loaded up on RBs in the middle rounds, where there was still a lot of value at the position. After that, we looked at the players that we had ranked the highest and started drafting them. We snagged players later than we had them ranked because the VBD did not account for their potential to have a "breakout" year, thus, they were overlooked by the VBD experts.

Needless to say, we have won many leagues and have enjoyed much success in our fantasy leagues while reaping the benefits of taking players that other owners were leaving behind.

Additionally, some folks that use VBD take forever to select their picks as they may continually need to perform mathematical calculations to determine their best value. While we understand that fantasy football is about winning and the best way to win is to make the right picks, we ourselves get annoyed with the guy who takes upwards of 15 minutes to make their selection of a backup kicker, rather than a 5th WR.

Why VBD tools are useful

The VBD theory helps give each fantasy team owner a snapshot of value of players at any position with an apples to apples comparison using YOUR fantasy league rules. The VBD tools like our Point Differential Reference Guide are used to determine the value of drafting a RB versus a QB, WR, or TE at any point in the draft.

It can also be used to indicate when potential runs will occur on a particular position. We feel that it is best to be on the back end of a run on similarly ranked players rather than starting a run. Therefore, if you are drafting in the middle of a round you are best suited to let others start the run as you can likely get better value at another position as long as a run won’t dry up the talent pool.

Customized - Comparative Analysis Matrix

Our Customized Comparative Analysis Matrix (C-CAM), which was developed by Senior Editor Al Lackner, allows you to quickly compare your ranked players at one position to your ranked players at other positions. Now you can compare apples to apples to determine if a RB is more valuable than a QB, WR, or TE in terms of fantasy points. For instance, Josh Jacobs was surprisingly the RB1 for 2022, Jonathan Taylor was teh RB1 for 2021, Derrick Henry was the RB1 for 2020, Christian McCaffrey was the RB1 for 2019, Todd Gurley was the RB1 for 2017 and 2018, David Johnson was the RB1 in 2016, and Devonta Freeman was the RB1 in 2015.

Regardless of whom you have ranked as your RB1 this year, the Average Fantasy Point Value for the RB1 is 293.75 points. That is the average number of points that the top fantasy RB has scored over the last 3 years – with our projections for 2023 weighed as well. If you use these rankings, notice that you need to look at the BIG picture and compare the value that you’ll likely get at other positions later in the draft. You should also use these rankings to determine the drop off in production when debating between picking two players.

Let’s look at a practical example:

Taking it pick-by-pick, you see that the drop-off at the QB position from what you can get at 9 versus 15 is 10.49 points, at RB it is 10.75, and at WR it is 42. So the CCAM highly recommends that you take WR1 (in this case, J. Jefferson) with that pick. The variation for each respective position between pick 15 and 33 is 14 at QB, 21.75 at RB, and 47.5 at WR. Again the dropoff at WR is most pronounced, so we suggest going WR4 (Ja'Marr Chase) in the 2nd round.

Yes, it seems crazy to ignore the RB position with each of your first two selections – and the example I have provided is certainly over-simplified. You may be fearful, for example, that you have waited too long to address the RB position by waiting until the 3rd round or later -- as you can see by how few points the top RB available in the 3rd round is projected to score. But that is the whole point of the CCAM (and VBD, for that matter): you win by scoring the most points in your lineup versus your opponents': not by outscoring your opponent at the RB position (or any other position, for that matter).

Where you are lacking in production at the RB position, you will more than make up for it with the lethal combo of Jefferson and Chase each week! Bear in mind, that when using this method, you must account for how many players you will be starting at a given position. So, if you are in a league that only starts 2 WRs, you would not want to draft a 3rd one until you have fortified your starting RB position.

Notice that our C-CAM isn't time consuming for the fantasy drafter. The matrices are simply "Cheat Sheets" that provides the average slotted value for a player ranked at the corresponding position. More importantly, if you do not have the time and inclination to enter your own league rules and player projections to generate a true C-CAM, we have also provided a Generic Comparative Analysis Matrix (GCAM) based on purely objective numerical analysis and standard league rules. Whether using the GCAM or C-CAM, either can be used to compare values across multiple positions. For instance, you can quickly see that RB5 holds roughly the same value as QB22 and WR2.

If you take this one step further, you will see a difference of 152.5 points when comparing the RB1 to RB20, a difference of about 224.76 points when comparing QB1 to QB20, and a difference of 109 points when comparing WR1 to WR20. Our subjective rankings shows us that there is a realtively large difference separating fantasy RB5 from RB6 and a similar dropoff to RB7. Afterwards, the decline is marginal. The total dropoff from RB7 to RB16 is only about the same difference as RB5-RB6 and RB6-RB7. Thus, RBs 7-16 are pretty close before a sizeable drop. With the premium on bell cow RBs and the disparity between the top 5 versus the rest, it would make sense to see the top position go to a RB (Austin Ekeler) without a doubt this season with 2-5 bundled so tightly, it would not be unreasonable to expect all of the first 5 picks to be RBs -- or at least all 5 going somewhere in the first round. Furthermore, the emergence of more RBBC waters down the RB talent pool, so the top WRs are starting to fly off the board in the second round – and even the first -- in this case the 6-12 spots could be the prime spot to land Justin Jefferson/Cooper Kupp/Davante Adams if the top 5 RBs are all gone.

Our subjective rankings show us that there is very little difference between QB7 and QB14 and this is supported by our C-CAM with a difference of about 40 points. With, say, Justin Herbert coming off the board in the 5th or 6th round in many drafts, but, say, Trevor Lawrence falling 2-3 rounds later, you can likely wait for your QBs unless one falls into your lap at the right spot. As far as WRs go, after the first few WRs, they are typically a dime a dozen. Back in 2013 Players such as Alshon Jeffery, Antonio Brown, Keenan Allen, and Pierre Garcon weren't considered top 20 WRs -- and Allen was perhaps a waiver wire pickup -- yet they all finished as top 20 WRs in 2013.

Our C-CAM shows that there is usually a marked difference between the top 5 WRs and everyone else. Last year we saw very little difference from WR1 to WR2, but then a huge difference between WR2 to WR10. In fact, WR's 6-12 were virtually identical in production and there is not much that separated WR10 from WR 20 (26 points total). The moral of they story is that if you do not land a top 5 WR early, it is best to wait until the middle rounds to stock up on players who are not significantly worse than the WRs drafted in the 3rd or 4th rounds.

Now onto TEs, you typically notice a huge difference between the top TE and the 2nd TE. That is why Travis Kelce is a reasonable 1st round consideration in fantasy drafts with over 60 points separating him from the next best in 2022. The question is: do you have the intestinal fortitude to invest a 1st round pick on Kelce? While Travis Kelce stood head and shoulders above all other TEs -- while the next 2-6 TEs do score considerably more than the next tier, the point production is simply not enough to recommend pouncing on these other guys. That is to say, we suggest waiting until the middle rounds to consider any of the guys ranked in the TE2-TE6 ballpark (Kittle, Andrews, Hill, Hockenson, Waller). With many positions you see a run on players when someone drafts such a player; it would be foolish to fall into that trap after the top TE comes off the board. So do not over-invest in one of those top 6 guys just because Kelce came off the board. A line graph of the TE numbers would show the top 6 followed by a clear drop off. Afterwards the dropoff of about 2 points per ranking is pretty consistent. So here is what you should do: if you don't want to pay the premium price for Kelce, keep an eye on the top 2-6 TEs if you can. See if one of them falls to you in the middle rounds. If you can't land one of those top 6 TEs before round 6/7, then you might as well wait.

Now a note... If you're a Premium Member, then you’re probably wondering why we show the GCAM for only the top 32 players at QB, RB, WR, and TE, especially for RB and WR. First off, after the first few rounds of the draft, you will likely need to draft players that will fill positions of need on your team. Second, after you get past the 32 players at RB you’re mostly dealing with reach picks, sleepers, or RB by committee players that play second-fiddle to another player and there is very little difference between WRs 32-48 or even 60-75. NOTE: Kickers, Team Defenses, and Individual Defensive players do not belong in such a ranking as they should not be drafted until later in your draft.