14-team, 1/2 PPR, QBs get 6 points for passing TDs, (1 QB,2 RB,2 WR,1 TE,1 Flex), 13th slot in draft. My custom rankings (using 4F4) indicate that my first two (possibly 3) picks should be RBs. Yet John is favoring picking WRs early. Seems to be a contradiction to be picking other than best player available principle.. Please explain. Thanks.

Skoals

Brandon Niles 4for4 Scout

Hmmm... I might just play with the settings a bit and see if you can get to what you might think would be a little more realistic for your league. Personally, I've kind of been going strong at RB lately as a counter-strategy since I've been able to get some pretty top level RB's in the second round and I'm having an unhealthy pre-season love affair with Todd Gurley. That's allowing me to get some value throughout my roster since it seems like everyone is following zero RB this year, and if I'm drafting late in a snake draft or auctioning the top WR's early on in auction drafts, then it puts me in a better spot. So the auction values on our cheat sheet have allowed me to skip "over-paying" on WR's and to "under-pay" backs, as arbitrary as that might mean based on your strategy.

Try 3.5 WR's and 1.5 RB's in our custom value sheet to get the numbers up a little for WR's, but remember that the cheat sheet is about value more than strategy. I hope that helps a little more.

Also, this may also be helpful, John's response to another similar question:

John here. RV at 4for4 = Relative Value. It is basically the difference between a player's projected points and the baseline at his position. We use a Core Roster draft plan which means teams will typically draft their starters at each position and a backup at RB and WR before drafting a backup QB/TE. So a 12-team league with roster settings of 1-2-2-1, will have baselines of 12, 36, 36 and 12.

The Full Impact and Top 200 rankings are meant as a general guide to player value and not the end-all, be-all of my 2016 draft plan. Last year was a historically bad year for running backs, so if you run the numbers for 2012-14, you may get different results. This does not mean that you should necessarily draft a RB in the first round. Our projections do not account for the historically higher bust rates among early-round running backs than the early-round receivers. That is something we're talking about, but it's quite difficult to implement.

If you have a flex, you can play with your roster settings to assume that your flex is a WR. This should serve to boost WR value in the early rounds. But a better way to do it is to map out your draft plan for the first 2-3 rounds and then generally follow the rankings the rest of the way. I like the RBs that are available in the 3rd-6th rounds this year, so I'm inclined to start WR/WR (unless Lamar Miller is there in the 2nd) before turning my attention to the RB position.

Jul 24, 2016 ยท 8:55 PM EDT