Buffalo Wild Wings All Stars Draft - The Maury Conklin Group

Philip and I drafted our team (The Maury Conklin Group) for the Buffalo Wild Wings Fantasy Football League this past Monday night, August 30th. While we like our team and our chances, there are questions at RB and QB that only the season can answer. The league is very savvy, and it seemed every time we targeted 2 or 3 players for our next pick, we would be reduced to one of those options when it was our turn. Visit the league site on Buffalo Wild Wings' site, where all the bloggers will post their progostications and predictions all season long: http://ff.buffalowildwings.com/

Here are the rules/scoring for the league just in case it resembles a league that you are drafting: http://games.espn.go.com/ffl/leaguesetup/settings?leagueId=731393

YOU'VE GOT TO KNOW YOUR LEAGUE RULES BEFORE YOU DRAFT!!

12 TEAM LEAGUE - PPR - REDRAFT - SERPENTINE DRAFT ORDER
Roster: 1QB, 2RB, 3WR, 1RB/WR FLEX, 1TE, 1K, 1D/ST - 7BENCH

QB: We made the decision early on that we were going to wait on drafting our QBs by pairing a QB2 with Ben Roethlisberger. We got Eli Manning in the 7th and Roethlisberger in the 10th. Looking back, we probably could have waited a round to get Eli and grabbed Ricky Williams or Cadillac Williams with our 7th rounder - he was on our radar there. Ricky went to the FFLibrarian right after us, and The Sports Outlaw grabbed the Caddy a few picks later. Roethlisberger in the 10th round became a matter of urgency as we didn't want to miss out on him, kill our draft strategy and wind up with Kyle Orton or Matt Cassel. Ouch, that would've hurt.

RB: Wrapped up with the decision to wait on QBs was a deal made to NOT draft Shonn Greene in the 3rd round or earlier. When we did the mock draft for a 12 team league in the 8th slot (our slot), we both saw that Greene (our #17RB) could be available. In a PPR league, I see that as overpaying for a guy who didn't catch a pass last year, and may only catch 10 this year at most. We wanted guys who would be featured in the run game AND the passing game. Sure enough, Shonn Greene went in the 2nd round - not a good value pick, in my opinion. We went with Ryan Grant in the 3rd round - our #10RB - he was the 17th RB off the board, so we got some value there. Then, we were looking at Matt Forte, Ronnie Brown and CJ Spiller for our 5th rounder. By the time we got to our pick, we took the oft injured Dolphin because Spiller and Forte were gone. He's generally a strong starter to your fantasy season, though, so we made some plans to draft later in the year guys who may emerge as starters. We took Ahmad Bradshaw in the 6th round, Kareem Huggins in the 13th (did you see Derrick Ward was cut yesterday!?!), Rashad Jennings in the 16th, and if Dexter McCluster can be a RB for roster purposes (gotta ask Wingo), he's a flex option for sure - we got him in the 15th round.

WR- In a PPR league where you have to start 3 WRs and a FLEX each week, you can't have enough stud WRs to keep you competitive. We agreed that our first two picks should be stud WRs and we got just that in the first two rounds: Randy Moss and Austin Miles respectively. We took Derrick Mason in the 8th round - we both believe that the Baltimore offense will be improved in their 3rd down conversion rate with Boldin onboard. This will open up TD opportunities for everyone in the offense. We got Jerricho Cotchery in the 12th, Lance Moore in the 14th, and then our rookie sleeper Dexter McCluster in the 15th. We debated on Cotchery, but Philip convinced me he's going to catch 4-7 balls a game just to keep the chains moving. We went with Moore due to his health, very strong camp, and we're not buying into all of those WRs in New Orleans staying healthy all year long. When one of them misses time, here comes Lance Moore in the slot. McCluster was one of two sleeper players that I identified before the draft to take a chance on. He's going to line up all over the place, run reverses, catch passes, hopefully return punts as well. We love our WRs in the Maury Conklin Group.

TE- I really wanted to get a stud TE for our team, a guy that you just plug in and forget about him. So yeah, we overpaid for Antonio Gates in the 4th round, but who else is really going to catch TDs with VJack out of the picture? Malcom Floyd, sure, and maybe Naanee catches a few, but we really like Gates this year. When no one took a TE yet, and we're sitting there in the 4th round and have our #1 TE, one of three TEs to have over 1000yds receiving last year just sitting there? We had to grab him.

DST- We did it again - overpaid for a position, but saved ourselves some headaches on a week-to-week basis. We got our #1 (SF 49ers) and #2 (NY Jets) Defense/Special Teams in the 9th and 11th rounds. We shouldn't have to make any moves to fix our DST problems or pick up a DST unit for a particular matchup during the season. We just have to choose the better matchup for these two each week. And oh yeah, nobody can start the Jets or 49ers against us.

K- Matt Prater - yeah, he's a kicker and we got him in the last round, like everyone should.

RB Rankings 2009

This is last year's finishing order for RBs using standard scoring. I included the final fantasy point total so you can see the drop offs from RB1 to RB2 to RB3. If I gave you this equation at the beginning of last season: Knowshon Moreno + DeAngelo Williams = Chris Johnson, you would've said I was nuts. This list demonstrates the importance of getting a stud RB early, as there just aren't enough to go around in a 12-team league. It also shows why Johnson is holding out for more money...he's worth it!

1. Chris Johnson 342
2. Adrian Peterson 277
3. Maurice Jones-Drew 270
4. Ray Rice 245
5. Thomas Jones 229
6. Frank Gore 226
7. Ricky Williams 212
8. Ryan Grant 208
9. Joseph Addai 197
10. Steven Jackson 193
11. Jonathan Stewart 188
12. Jamaal Charles 185
13. Rashard Mendenhall 178
14. DeAngelo Williams 174
15. Cedric Benson 172
16. Fred Jackson 170
17. Knowshon Moreno 161
18. Matt Forte 159
19. LaDainian Tomlinson 156
20. Pierre Thomas 155
21. Marion Barber 153
22. Michael Turner 146
23. Jerome Harrison 146
24. Cadillac Williams 144
25. Willis McGahee 144
26. Tim Hightower 141
27. Kevin Smith 140
28. Brandon Jacobs 135
29. Ahmad Bradshaw 135
30. Beanie Wells 131
31. Laurence Maroney 130
32. Ronnie Brown 125
33. Justin Forsett 124
34. Darren Sproles 123
35. LeSean McCoy 117
36. Steve Slaton 116
37. Reggie Bush 116
38. Jason Snelling 114
39. Julius Jones 113
40. Felix Jones 93
41. Mike Bell 92
42. Correll Buckhalter 90
43. Chester Taylor 83
44. Michael Bush 82

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