Fantasy Mashup

The QB Platoon Theory

While we don't question the underlying logic of the Stud Running Back Theory, we're on the record as heretics when it comes to the widespread belief that uninspiring RBs should trump quality players at other positions on draft day. But what comes next? What strategy makes sense for 2007?

Well, here goes: Unless you can get Peyton Manning, Carson Palmer or Tom Brady, don't draft a quarterback in the first seven rounds. And no, we're not smoking crack.

"Stud RB" Theory, RIP

I'm from that generation of pre-Internet fantasy players who had to puzzle out the Stud Running Back Theory on our own. People tried all sorts of wild ideas at the top of drafts in the early 1990s, but ever since the rise of the Web and the explosion of professional fantasy pubs and sites, EVERYBODY knows that the key to success is acquiring two stud running backs ASAP.

I see two immediate problems with this development:

First, if everyone has the same strategy, that isn't a strategy anymore -- it's background music. It's the status quo against which you have to develop a new winning strategy.

And second: The Stud RB drafting theory would make a lot more sense if fantasy owners were better at telling the studs from the duds. Consider this "expert" mock draft from a year ago ("these are all fantasy football experts who have played in several leagues per year for at least a decade, so study the picks closely because there is a lot of knowledge here"). Check out how many of the RBs taken in the first and second rounds were either flat-out busts or season-killing under-performers...