I didn’t grab Hogan as a home run play. I took him because I thought he was locked in as a viable WR 2/3 for the first quarter of the season. How did I get it so wrong? How do so many of us get it so wrong when it comes to estimating the worst possible outcomes from the players upon whom we spend the most draft capital?

If the responses I received via email and from commenters are any indication, we get floors wrong for receivers more often than at any other position. Almost every response I received concerned a handful of WRs (Hogan, Larry Fitzgerald, Marquise Goodwin, Jamison Crowder). No one mentioned quarterbacks or tight ends, and only a couple of grievances were filed against RBs.

Bruce had the misfortune of being able to compare his disappointment in Hogan with his disappointment in Fitz firsthand: “Hogan was so bad I waived him quickly, but it's Fitzgerald's low floor due to injury that's been dragging me down the most, as I keep thinking I need to start him!”
A reader named Kilpatrick made the mistake of banking on Fitzgerald in multiple drafts:

Fitzy has to be the easiest answer for me. Took him 4th or 5th round in every draft this year; thought I was getting incredible value.

His hammy hasn't helped. Neither did Bradford. I am still holding out hope for him to bounce back in a week or two, especially if he can heal and if DJ2K gets back to dominating as well (the entire offense needs to get better)...thankfully he is my WR3 in each league...still sucks.

In both ppr and standard, getting him as a back-end WR2 seemed awesome. Name recognition will definitely induce incorrect expectations when you don't factor in what else is happening with the team (poor offensive line and Mike McCoy Syndrome for the Cardinals). Also, obviously, the unpredictable injury-bug will negatively affect any positive expectations had during the draft. "You have to draft as if players will be there for all 16 (15 in reality) games. Exceptions always exist, but you cannot predict injuries."

Kilpatrick touches on several “murk factors” that come into play when we’re trying to inspect the floor of a player: name recognition, team situation, and injury. Name recognition is always going to make a future Hall of Famer like Fitz seem extra tempting. We read team situations incorrectly all the time (especially when diagnosing offensive problems differently than the coaching staff). And when it comes to injury, there’s probably nothing more frustrating than the hamstring, which seems far more likely to become a nagging problem in receivers than in running backs.

RDB’s take on Jamison Crowder illustrates the problem of not visualizing quite the same offense for a team as the coaching staff:

For this week's question I would say Jamison Crowder. Alex Smith pretty much is back to being Alex Smith and so far is throwing primarily to his RBs and TEs. Crowder has had no more than 4 targets in any game this season. Additionally, Washington's playcalling has them leading the league in rushing plays per game. So, not the expected volume for the slot WR I got in the 8/9 round.

A reader named AZMaddog reported a similar frustration with a hamstrung player in Marquise Goodwin, though the mistake was compounded by owning Hogan as well:

I am with you on Hogan, I took him, ahem, in the third round thinking I was a genius and he would kill it for the first month and then at least be a #2 the rest of the way. Before he got hurt last year he was bordering a top 10 WR, most of the analysts agreed this year he would do well in the absence of Edelman and were very high on him. If he stinks it up tonight, I drop him.

I also thought I was being clever and took Goodwin in the 4th round. He was solid with Garoppolo at the end of last year and the two were doing well in the preseason and reports out of camp were promising. Can’t predict injuries; I have already dropped him.

But if you think burning a third- and fourth-round pick on Hogan and Goodwin is bad, consider the quicksand that Danny fell into:

Floor sinking? I wish! [My team is] more like the La Brea tar pit. 12 team 9 man roster, 6 on the bench, half PPR. Round 1 - LeVeon Bell - figured he wouldn't hold out long with $850,000 per game tag. Round 2 - Larry Fitz - 100 catches per year, but not when you're limping around the field. I think Rich Eisen could cover him. Round 3 - Royce Freeman - so much hype, so much hype. Round 4 - Chris Hogan - enough said. Round 5 - Tom Brady - okay, we're good here. Round 6 - Marquise Goodwin - really? Apparently I can't get out of my own way. But the hits continue...among my other picks....DeVante Parker (apparently Hogan and Parker have been talking to each other..."Who wants to be irrelevant the mostest?"). Oh yeah, did I mention I got Greg Zuerlein to boot? (Pun intended.) 20 years of FF and I decide to go fight club on myself.

Although Danny’s disappointment involved Bell’s holdout and Royce Freeman’s anemic production, he had receivers to be concerned about as well. The only person who wrote to me to focus strictly on a running back was Bill:

The [Ravens’] loss at Cleveland can be attributed [to John Harbaugh] and his coaches’ love for the passing game and not letting Alex Collins do what the fans and I know what he can do when given the chance. Letting him play just 30% of the snaps when he averaged almost 5 yards per carry is ridiculous. Collins is blamed for fumbling unmercifully by his coach and writers but nothing is said when Flacco throws an interception in the red zone, or plodder Buck Allen fumbles, which leads to a Cleveland field goal. WAKE UP Coach and let Alex PLAY.

I wanted to close with Bill’s rant because it shows how we feel about players with sinking floors when their lack of productivity has nothing to do with name recognition or injury and everything to do with team circumstances created by coaching decisions. In this circumstance, we’re almost always convinced that our perception of the player’s floor is accurate—if only the coach would use him properly. But for some reason, I’ve come to expect these kinds of disparities in perception when it comes to running backs. I think I could only get as worked up as Bill about a receiver. YMMV.

One topic I haven’t seen or maybe I missed, is how leagues encourage and embrace trading. Trading is such a great way to keep teams engaged, so I’d like to know if there are ways to further enhance our rules to increase and/or make it more enticing to make trades. Do leagues offer perks to teams that make trades for instance? Of course, this must be counterbalanced with collusion and/or teams mailing it in and trading away everyone for future draft picks.

I also wonder if anyone tracks trades throughout the season – I think it would be fun to have data to prove who were the trading winners and losers.