I'm needing help in who to choose at #4 in my keeper league rookie draft. I play in a Standard PPR League

QB - Romo
RB - Peterson*, Gore, Stewart*, Moreno*
WR - Wayne, Jennings, Colston

My Rookie Draft has gone:

1) Moreno
2) Wells
3) Crabtree
4) ? (Maclin/Stafford/Sanchez)

Judging by my rosters who would be an ideal player to take for the future? Or even BPA?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Maclin

I don't think you could go wrong with either of those QB's either. You seem to be sitting pretty with your wideouts, so going with one of the QB's wouldn't be a bad thing.

Donald Brown over all of the rest.

With Romo as your only QB, I think I would go with a QB. You already have three good, young RBs plus a solid veteran in Gore. With Jennings and Colston, you have two young Top 10 WRs.

Depth is important here and I would think a young QB is the way to go.

On the other hand, RBs are a hot commodity, as well as being the most elusive position to fill. You could consider a RB here with the thoughts of trading one for multiple players, or future draft picks later.

NEVER, EVER, EVER draft for need. NEVER.

In a rookie draft (and any other draft), you take BPA. Best player available is always the way to go. QBs simply do not carry the same kind of value as RB's and WR's. Add in the fact that many fail to meet expecations and many take a very long time to develop and they simply aren't worth drafting that high.

Everyone is going nuts over Stafford and Sanchez because what Ryan did (and Flacco) is fresh in everyone's mind. How easy it is to forget what some other recent top QB picks have done so far.

How about the year before: Russell? Quinn? Stanton? Kolb? Beck? Troy Smith?

Year before that? Leinart? V. Young? Clemens? Croyle? Only one from 2007 was Cutler.

Year before that? Alex Smith? Frye? Rodgers? Sure, Rodgers is now a top QB. 3 yrs later. His value was nothing for a while.


So, in the last 4 yrs, the only guys out of all of those that were worth drafting were Ryan, Flacco, and Cutler. I won't even put Rodgers because it took 3 yrs for him to finally gain any sort of value. 2 of those were last year.

RB's have a much more immediate impact and can provide good return on your pick. Factor in that you can get a 1st round RB pick at the 1.4 that was drafted by an organization with a very solid 1st round pick history of getting top notch players and Donald Brown is an EASY choice here.

I'd go with Brown also.

The WR (and QB) almost has to produce to retain his value. The RB doesn't.

I believe that the main factor here is how many keepers you can carry over from year to year. With four solid RBs already the need for immediate production is not that great.

That gives him many options you don't usually have. He can consider either a RB, or a QB, or a WR. While a RB is the most important position in most of our minds, quality depth is essential. If one builds in the draft, this is a chance to get a quality QB or WR that won't be avaioable much later.

Yes there are riskd with any pick. How do we know that Addai doesn't hold off Brown and Brown becomes the next Cedric Benson or another stud RB who was a dud, at least initially.

The fact is that about 50% of all top picks flop. We can't play the game paranoid about making errors. We need to do whatever we can to minimize the risks.

My personal favorite way of doing that is through trading to gather high picks and then to use those picks to trade for veteran players that are an overall upgrade over the ones I agve up.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Nease:
I believe that the main factor here is how many keepers you can carry over from year to year. With four solid RBs already the need for immediate production is not that great.

That gives him many options you don't usually have. He can consider either a RB, or a QB, or a WR. While a RB is the most important position in most of our minds, quality depth is essential. If one builds in the draft, this is a chance to get a quality QB or WR that won't be avaioable much later.

Yes there are riskd with any pick. How do we know that Addai doesn't hold off Brown and Brown becomes the next Cedric Benson or another stud RB who was a dud, at least initially.

The fact is that about 50% of all top picks flop. We can't play the game paranoid about making errors. We need to do whatever we can to minimize the risks.

My personal favorite way of doing that is through trading to gather high picks and then to use those picks to trade for veteran players that are an overall upgrade over the ones I agve up.

Mike, no offense, but your post doesn't give any valid reason to select a QB over a RB at this point.

1. It doesn't matter if there is a need for immediate production or not. Again, you should NEVER draft based on need. As a lopsided example, if you own Adrian Peterson, MJD, S. Jackson, and Chris Johnson but you only have Jamarcus Russell at QB, who do you draft with the 1.1 pick? Moreno or Stafford? The obvious choice is Moreno. Reason being is he's worth significantly more and team need should play ZERO factor in it unless you have two equal values. At this point, Brown >>> Stafford or most anyone else at that spot. Even if you don't like Brown, you still select him to trade or trade the pick. It's pretty straightforward.

2. We don't know Addai holds off Brown. We also don't know if Culpepper holds off Stafford. We don't know which of these guys will bust. There are risks with each pick. That being said, RBs have the lowest "bust rate" of all positions and have more current value and retain their value longer than WR's or QB's.

3. Exactly right that you don't draft paranoid. Thus, you select the highest rated player based on talent and value. At the 1.4 pick, there is no one else but Donald Brown, IMO. And again, even if you don't like him, most everyone else does at that spot so you can trade him for that higher value.

Look, if D. Brown and Stafford were remotely close in value to each other, then I agree QB is the way to go. But they aren't and it's not very close. In virtually every rookie draft I've seen, Brown has been a top 4-5 pick at worst (and as high as 1.2) and Stafford has been a late 1st or even early-mid 2nd.

Gianmarco, I tend to agree with you on this one. Sometimes I like to play Devil's advocate just to make sure all the arguments get out. It's been a slow posting time on here and I thought we needed to stir it up a bit.

In the dynasty league I am in , as well as most other leagues I have ever been in, RBs are taken about 10 out of the first 12 picks, be it a rookie draft, or even a conventional re-drafter.

Unless there's a radical scoring method that favors QBs or WRs, I generally take 2-3 RBs first. The only time I have varied was last year when I decided there was a stronger than usual rookie RB group. I took some stud WRs earlier than normal and then picked up Johnson and Forte later.

Those moves worked, but occasionally they won't. Generally speaking I want two top 10 RBs, two top 15 WRs and a top 7 or so QB. Going RB-RB-WR-WR-QB usually will accomplish that.Depending on your draft slot (1st four or so), RB-WR-RB might work out a tad better. And of course you want to handcuff identifiable RB duos.

I was having a tough time justifying that QB pick and you outed me as a stud RB proponent. God job!

Now, we need to have some solid discussions on here as we count down the days to our drafts.