This coming season will mark the sixth year I have participated in The Huddle Expert Auction League. Over the previous five seasons, FF Today has made the six-team playoff every season (finishing with nothing worse than a No. 4 seed) and advanced to the championship game in each of the last four years – winning the last two. Four championship games in four years is a run that is unparalleled in the nine-year history of the league, so suffice it to say that my methods have proven to be fairly effective. It should be noted that I have relied exclusively on my Big Boards and the “value” on those boards to determine the dollar amounts I assign to players in preparation for my auction drafts.

This year’s draft was held on August 7, so keep that date in mind as you review the prices below (both the price each player went for and the value at which I set for him). Below, you will find the values I used to prioritize the players and the rationale I used in selecting my team.

Pre-draft

While I don’t find it necessary to land the top running back on my board every year, I feel it is very important to single out the 4-6 players each year that I feel will be the most consistent players in the game and make sure I secure one of them. My auction plan usually consists of taking the safest RB1 that will cost me the least and pairing him up with at least one of my top 10 receivers and a top-five quarterback. (If I can squeeze in a top-five tight end or another top-10 back – or sometimes both – into the mix, I am willing to sacrifice quality depth because experience in this league has taught me that I will be able to build my bench from the waiver wire. In auction drafts, I am less concerned about entering the season with depth and more concerned with acquiring “special” players (i.e. players that will cost a fortune to acquire via trade during the season).

I also make it a point to pay less than my valuation on just about every player, knowing the depth at receiver will allow me to find a bargain or two. Ideally, I’ll come away from a draft with two surefire starters at running back and another mid-priced player I believe will be an RB2 to use as my flex, but it doesn’t always work that way. In a year like this one where it seems the position is as shallow as it has ever been, it isn’t always going to make good budgeting sense to enter an auction draft with a must-have-two-stud-backs approach.

Although it is a complete departure from conventional auction-draft strategy, I’ve never been a big fan of setting pre-draft positional budgets – such as spending 30 percent on my top two receivers or 50 percent at running back. My method isn’t unlike my approach in serpentine (snake) drafts: highlight the players that I really want to build my team around, put them in tiers and set them aside in a different place on your spreadsheet.

Much like a snake format, value is only truly recognized during the course of the draft. If half the owners are willing to spend nearly half of their budget in order to lock up top-flight running backs and you are not (but still entered the draft placing a high priority on the position), you are forced to reassess your budget in the middle of the draft or face the possibility of ending up with a deep team with few superstars. While that strategy can win, superstars tend to carry the day in fantasy while complementary players can generally be found on the waiver wire throughout the year.

One of the best things an owner can do in the days leading up to the draft is to identify players in predictable situations (in terms of role, scheme and past performance) and set them at the top of the draft board. I find it amazing how often I end up with players from New England, Denver and Green Bay each year without giving it a second thought. (Not surprisingly, nearly a third of my players hail from one of those three teams.) If you are consistently drafting players with defined roles from good offenses, fantasy success should not be too far behind.

In my experience, auction drafting is all about believing in your evaluations of players, anticipating what elite players will be the cheapest option in their tier and asking yourself: “Can I build my team around him?” Every dollar saved in auctions will often help owners snag 1-2 more important players they may otherwise not have been able to afford.

The Draft

Below you will find the prices that secured that player’s services (Actual $) and the price I valued them at before the draft (My $). A dash in the first column reflects the fact that player was not drafted. The yellow highlight represents winning bids for FF Today. Finally, I will follow each position with a brief comment.

All values are based on a $200 cap and players are organized by “My $”.

Required starters: 1 QB, 2 RBs, 3 WRs, 1 Flex, 1 K and 1 Defense/Special Teams unit.

Observations: I nominated Peyton Manning to kick things off, but I found it interesting nonetheless that Brees and Rodgers were the next players to be put up for bid, taking all the elite quarterbacks off the board right away and clearly setting the bar for the position. Although I don’t play in any other leagues that give quarterbacks four points per passing touchdown, the format makes the mobile signal-callers slightly more valuable. The consensus at quarterback this year is that it is Manning-Brees-Rodgers and then everyone else and the winning bids certainly reflected that in this draft. Although I don’t feel like there were any great bargains, Cutler ($9), Newton ($10) and Ryan ($12) shouldn’t have much problem meeting or exceeding their dollar value in this draft. Just as a point of reference from last year’s draft, Rodgers went for $25, Brees $24 and Manning $20.

Post-draft

The FFToday team
QB: Andrew Luck, Ryan Tannehill
RB: Adrian Peterson, Arian Foster, Jonathan Stewart, Khiry Robinson, Chris Ivory, Mike Tolbert, Ronnie Hillman, Roy Helu
WR: Jordy Nelson, Roddy White, Wes Welker, Anquan Boldin, John Brown
TE: Kyle Rudolph
K: Mason Crosby
D/ST: Baltimore Ravens

I felt last year was the best team I had drafted in the five years I had been involved in this league and it played out that way, even though injuries wreaked havoc on it (Steven Jackson, Vereen, Julio Jones and Rudolph were among the regular starters I lost for significant parts of the season). This team is not as good as that one simply because the odds of owning the top quarterback (Peyton Manning) and running back (Charles) on the same team like I did last year are pretty small.

I think most fantasy owners acknowledge the only thing keeping Luck from being considered an elite quarterback is his offensive coordinator. Given the Colts’ issues blocking for Richardson in the run game, riding Luck this year may be the only way they can expect to win 10-plus games again. Even if Nicks does nothing more than give Indianapolis just a little bit more than Darrius Heyward-Bey did last year and the Colts understand that Hilton is now their best receiver, Luck should be in line to take another step up production-wise. (I’d also be lying if I said I didn’t take a look at the Colts’ late-season schedule, which includes Washington in Week 13 and Dallas in all-important Week 16.) I was thrilled to snag Tannehill, who I expect will be one of the league’s leading rushers at his position in new OC Bill Lazor’s offense. Between the Dolphins running more plays and Tannehill’s athleticism, I see potential for something more than just a bye-week starter.

Peterson wasn’t so much a must-have for me as he was the best combination of fantasy upside and price, at least in my opinion. New OC Norv Turner has a well-established track record of getting a ton of production out of his running backs, none of which were more talented than “All Day”. Foster is the wild-card; a (mostly) healthy season from him means I should win the battle at running back just about every week. A repeat of last year means a few weeks of counting on Stewart, Tolbert, Ivory or Robinson until I can find a replacement. Despite some injury issues early in camp, I do believe Stewart will give me enough to offset a potential long-term injury to Foster.

While the overall depth of my team isn’t quite on par with last year’s (I do think it is close, however), I am thrilled to have one of the best and deepest receiver corps in the league. Nelson (seventh), White (ninth) and Welker (15th) all rank inside the top 39 players on my latest PPR Big Board and among the top 15 at their position. Barring an injury or bye weeks, I can’t imagine I’ll spend more than a couple of minutes each week thinking about what receivers I will start. Boldin has to be among the best players that will be used in the flex spot each week and he will probably remain in that spot until I build some trustworthy depth at running back. Brown is a bit of a lottery ticket that I have landed in my redraft leagues so far, but it would not surprise me at all if he found his way into my lineup a time or two during the season.

In addition to running backs, Turner has developed a reputation for getting incredible production from his tight ends. If that alone isn’t enough incentive for you to draft him, consider that the Vikings signed him to a six-year contract, $37.46 M contract a few months after he was lost for the season after eight games. Contracts of that magnitude aren’t just handed out to players that have amassed a rather tame 129 receptions for 1,055 yards and 15 touchdowns through 2 ½ years in the league. Front-office people often say that contracts aren’t offered to reward past production, but rather expected future production. Rudolph has Gronkowski-like upside; don’t miss out.

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