5 things I learned drafting in a Fish Bowl
Can you believe we are less than 50 days away from NFL football!?!? I’m getting pumped for the return of the pigskin, especially after the incredible Scott Fish Bowl Expert Fantasy Football League started drafting last week. If you aren’t aware of the Scott Fish Bowl (SFB), check out their website, or search for the hashtag #SFB7 on Twitter. There are 720 teams led by both analysts (Fanball, ESPN, PFF, The Fantasy Footballers, etc..) and “regular fans.” I put regular fans in quotations because the fans that draft in this league are often times just as knowledgeable as the “experts.”
The 720 teams are divided into 12 conferences and 60 divisions underneath those conferences. You compete during the regular season against the 11 other owners in your division. Essentially, half the teams make the playoffs in each conference, and everyone competes against everyone in the playoffs, with the top 50 percent scoring teams each week advance. It’s a little more nuanced than that, so feel free to click here if you’re super interested in the details.
So now, without further ado, here are the five things I learned while drafting in the 2017 Scott Fish Bowl:
1) Tavon Austin is being overlooked
I am in no way advocating that you rely on Tavon Austin to win your league. Tavon isn’t particularly talented. Advanced metrics (besides his speed), don’t support a breakout year from Austin. So why I do believe he is being overlooked? I drafted him in Round 20 of the SFB. Just two seasons ago, in 2015, Austin finished as WR21 in a standard league.
Austin has played his entire career for the underwhelming offensive mind that is Jeff Fisher. Now he gets to play for one of the most respected up and coming offensive minds in football, Sean McVay. 2016 was rough for Austin, but he had to move his entire family from St Louis to Los Angeles (as did all of his teammates), and he had to catch balls from a rookie QB. If Austin can come even close to a WR3, he is great value late in drafts. The ultimate late round lottery ticket.
2) The Fantasy Football Community is incredible
What I love most about the SFB are the discussions it sparks about fantasy football within the community. I’ve had so many great conversations on Twitter with amazing fans and analysts that simultaneously educate myself and others on certain players, while strengthening the bond within the fantasy football community.
I could talk all day about what I love about the SFB, but that isn’t as helpful as giving you actual insights from my experience drafting this season.
3) Every draft is different
I tout this point regularly whenever someone asks me for advice with their fantasy football draft. EVERY DRAFT IS DIFFERENT. Although I was able to wait and draft the aforementioned Tavon Austin in Round 20 of my draft, he was drafted in Round 17 in the Tinkerbell Division. There are countless examples like this that show a huge variance from draft to draft. So how does this help you?
Too often, owners fall into the trap of trying to predict who they might take in different rounds of their draft. They scour ADP to determine if they should take a RB in round 1, WR in round 2, so on, and so forth. You are better served ranking your players by tiers for each position, and identifying trends during the draft. A perfect example was in Round 6 of my draft within the Mad Hatter division of the SFB. I had already drafted Julio, Brady, Miller, Lynch, and Walker. I noticed that 20 QBs had been drafted up to this point, and that Blake Bortles was the only QB remaining that was a full tier above the remaining QBS (Flacco, Tannehill, Bradford, Smith). I was tempted to draft Bilal Powell, but was comfortable replacing Powell with one of the other potentially available RBs (Ingram, Ware, Gillislee, Lacy) instead of risking one of those QBs over Bortles. I was lucky enough to take Bortles in round six and still get Powell in round seven.
4) #FEGTE
I’m in an active group chat with a few of my friends within the fantasy football industry. In this chat, Jeremy Marin (who recently started writing for Rotoviz, congrats Jeremy!), came up with a great hashtag we all started using with each other when discussing our SFB strategy of “F*** Everything Get Tight End” or #FEGTE. I think it’s a great strategy (tight ends get an extra 1.5 point per first down than any other position) and I was tempted to take Kelce in round 2 instead of Brady. A lot of my favorite teams drafted in the SFB went tight end early, but it’s still possible to draft a great team without getting one of the stud tight ends. What you can’t do is wait until the end of the draft and only draft two like you would in a normal league.
Although this advice is specific to SFB scoring, I think it highlights an important lesson for all drafters…know your league scoring! Too often, first time fantasy football players, follow the expert rankings without even realizing those rankings were based on scoring that is different from their league. Please do not do this! I know this seems self-explanatory, but you’d be surprised.
5) Rookies are being drafted too damn high!
This isn’t an issue specific to the Scott Fish Bowl. I’ve seen ADP data from across multiple sites that show rookies going much higher than I’m comfortable taking them. In full re-draft leagues on MyFantasyLeage.com that have drafted after July 1, 2017, you have rookies like Christian McCaffrey and Dalvin Cook being drafted over 30 picks earlier than the likes of Mark Ingram, Spencer Ware and CJ Anderson. This is unacceptable.
I get it. The appeal of a rookie is great because it’s easy to see potential and a high ceiling, but we haven’t seen any of these rookies actually play in an NFL game. On the flipside, you have aging veterans like Larry Fitzgerald (I’m still pissed at @rotobahn for sniping him from me!) and Frank Gore getting drafted in round nine. Don’t overpay for rookies when there is other great value like this on the table.
That’s it! I learned a lot more during this draft so feel free to reach out (@joshkelleytime) on the Fantasy Life App or Twitter if you have any questions or there is anything I can do to help.
Thanks for reading!
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