Same Bye Week Draft Strategy – Spicing up my Drafts this year
Friday, August 28th, 2009
Now that I’m doing so much work in fantasy sports my invitations to fantasy leagues has tripled. I’m suddenly registered for 11 leagues. I’m having to turn down other leagues I know would be fun because I wouldn’t be able to keep up. I’ve got three drafts coming up on Sunday alone! With so many drafts I’ve decided I can’t really concentrate on all of these leagues so I may as well try experimenting with some different draft strategies, and that has inspired me to write this post.
My mind has been consumed the past two days with the “Draft all players with the same bye week” strategy. Riley and I have been discussing its merits and doing some mocks. It’s a strategy I’ve never really given serious thought, but the more we talked about it the more interesting it became. The idea is to gain an edge in the Wins column by running your team at full strength all season against teams weakened by the byes. You will most likely lose when all your players are on bye, but that may be avoidable as well with sharp drafting. I think I’m going to try this strategy in one of my upcoming drafts just to see how it goes.
To start considering this strategy check out which combo of teams are on the same bye:
4: ARI, ATL, CAR, PHI
5: NO, SD, GB, CHI
6: DAL, IND, MIA, SF
7: BAL, DEN, DET, JAX, SEA, TEN
8: CIN, KC, NE, PIT, TB, WAS
9: BUF, CLE, MIN, NYJ, OAK, STL
10. HOU, NYG
Strangely, the three weeks that have six teams on bye didn’t produce any home run teams by my projections. Weeks 4 and 5 did produce some interesting teams, with week 5 having the most potential. Your projections and rankings could make one of the other byes more suitable for your own Same Bye Strategy. Just make sure you have at least two backup plans in each round. At round 9 you can really open up and go for sleepers because your All Bye starting team will already be secured.. For example, I’ll be looking for Josh Morgan, Leon Washington, Ahmad Bradshaw, Chris Henry, and Chaz Shilens in those rounds regardless the draft strategy I’m using. Also keep in mind matchups for the week that your players are on bye. You want to draft a backup group with solid matchups that week so that you don’t automatically lose. Focus on RBs – in week 5 Parker plays DET, Bradshaw plays OAK, and Maroney/Taylor plays DEN. These cheap RBs could be week 5 monsters.
So, here’s a team I was actually able to get in a mock using this strategy, and I like it quite a bit. I’ve got pick 3 in an upcoming PPR Draft so I chose to mock from that spot. In parenthesis are other week 5 bye guys that may be available at that pick:
Mock Draft Results:
1. Forte (LT)
2. Jennings (Grant, Thomas, Colston)
3. Thomas (Grant, Colston)
4. Rivers (Gates, Bush, VJax)
5. VJax (Gates, Bush)
6. Willie Parker (vs det week 5)
7. Greg Olsen (Moore, Hester, Cutler, Driver)
8. Devin Hester (Moore, Cutler, Driver)
9. Ahmad Bradshaw (vs oak week 5)
10. Josh Morgan (Just a guy I target in all drafts, could start over Hester)
11. Chris Henry (another guy I target)
12. Laurence Maroney (vs den week 5, Taylor or Maroney usually here in the 12th)
13. David Garrard
14. Visanthe Shiancoe
15. Chaz Shilens
16. Dallas D
I can’t expect a real draft to go exactly like this, but this is about the right range for these guys. None of these picks were reaches or great ADP values. Week 5 offers enough options in each round that you can pretty safely field a team without making bad reaches. The real danger is that Rivers, VJax, Gates, and Bush all go before my picks in rounds 4-5. If that happens in a real draft I would deviate from week five byes to take the best available QB so as not to be left with Cutler later.
My full strength, every week line up is:
QB: Rivers
WR: Jennings
WR: VJax
WR: Hester, Morgan, or Henry
RB: Forte
RB: Thomas
RB/WR/TE: Parker, Bradshaw, or Maroney
TE: Olsen or Shiancoe
This is a very strong lineup that I would not want to face with one or two of my best players on bye.
With this draft in week 5 I would be running:
QB: Garrard vs Sea
WR: Josh Morgan vs Atl
WR: Chris Henry vs Balt, ugh
WR: Chaz Shilens vs Giants
RB: Willie Parker vs Det
RB: Bradshaw vs Oak
WR/RB/TE: Maroney vs Den
TE: Shiancoe vs Stl
If those RBs produce vs those matchups this team has a fighting chance to win on week 5.
There are seven bye weeks, so you’re doing all this to gain a significant edge in six games at the expense of a huge disadvantage in one game. There are many other issues with this strategy that make it a great one for debate.
I’d love to discuss this with people! I opened up a forum discussion on this topic here, please let me know your thoughts: http://fantasyfanatics.com/streams/all/draft/preseason/900
I couldn’t take a screenshot of my draft because I did it on MockDraftCentral, but Riley grabbed one from one of his mocks on FantasyFootballCalculator. He’s also in the three spot and using the Week 5 Bye strategy. This mock was not done in PPR format, though, so it’s a bit different:
As my other blog post with the picture of Favre crying below suggests, I had a lot riding on Favre in the early fantasy drafts. He was my backup in two leagues that drafted pre July 29th. I’ve been singing his praises here, in forums, and on Twitter as well, so I had to eat crow when he rererereretired. Now I’m back to sort of looking like I know what I’m talking about again!