Fast & furious linking

Okay, stay with me here readers...I'm coming at you fast and furious with a bunch of links thrown up with very little commentary. I've got a sleeping baby on the verge of waking up and an auction draft + a dynasty draft tonight to prep for. Chaos, friend, chaos.

• For anyone else looking for auction assistance, here are a few links I'm scoping out today:
• Razzball.com's Non-PPR auction values, tiers, and drafting cheat sheet. Don't forget Doc's auction strategy post that I think I linked to earlier this month, too. If I didn't, I should have.
• FantasyFanPlay.com's A Fist Full of Dollars
• FakeTeams.com just posted their wide receiver rankings yesterday - only goes 40 deep but that should get you through the first half of the draft I hope. 
• I heart tiers: Rotoworld's Quarterback Tiers of Heaven
• Get target-licious with RotoProfessor.com's Looking for Value From Last Season's Top 20 Targeted Receivers. A few names that stick out for me? TO and Chris Cooley...interesting.
• This is the time of year when everyone is looking for that secret sleeper. Good luck to you. May you be drafting with a bunch of dolts. But you might as well keep reading gems like:
• ProFootballWeekly.com's Potential Breakout Receivers
• FootballOutsiders.com's awesomeness - 2011 KUBIAK vs ADP
• CBSSports.com's Public perception meets reality highlights some of the ADP changes and general draft trends that have been going on lately. Good to be prepped before going into the ol' draft room.

Finally (as I hear the gentle coos of a waking baby...), I owe the folks at Buffalo Wild Wings a whole heck of a lot for sending me to the Super Bowl in 2009 as my reward for winning their first ever blogger league. The league is going on hiatus this year but BWW has offered up all sorts of opportunities for prizes and whatnot for FFLibrarian readers, which is solid news for you wings lovers. In the meantime, give BWW some thought for your draft party host if you're still searching for a location. Also keep in mind that B-Dubs' free wing payoff is still coming - if you signed the Save Our Season petition, your coupon for 6 free wings will be coming via Facebook soon...lots of tastiness there. 

Preseason Week 3 review and more

There's nothing quite like getting a call from your child's daycare while your child is supposedly safely ensconced in the safety of their care...which is precisely what happened to me yesterday morning. After our initial phone pleasantries, I paused, waiting for his teacher to tell me what horrible event had befallen our son. I think for a moment there my heart stopped and I wondered why she sounded so calm when she was clearly about to tell me that our son was hospitalized with a missing head or something equally tragic. But no, it was far more minor: he had caught a virus going around daycare and could I come pick him up. Not a huge deal but after a lengthy visit to the doctor (oh and have I mentioned that our new health insurance doesn't actually kick in for a few more days?) and a long day of missed naps and general grumpiness from all parties involved, I missed my chance to get a post up yesterday, my apologies. But hey, Monday is always a slow day on the fantasy analysis front. So let's scope out today's links:

• First up, a quick summary of Preseason Week 3 games from RotoArcade: Week 3 takeaways - surging Hightower no mid-round stiff.
• Are you all set with your draft strategy for the first few rounds of your draft but aren't quite sure what to do with those later rounds? CBSSports.com has you covered with Running backs to target late - includes advice on which round to grab these guys in but we're talking mostly rounds 10 and beyond.
• Or perhaps your draft is already in the rear view mirror and what you'd really like are some names off the waiver wire that you could snag. Turn to The Hazean's Five Undrafted Fantasy Football Sleepers.
• My husband just commented on the growing momentum for Brandon Marshall from experts and he's absolutely right - lots of glowing feedback out there for BMarsh these days. Razzball.com's Manning off the physically unable to Peyton list includes notes on a bunch of players, BMarsh included, that might help you out come draft day.
• FFToolbox.com rightly noticed that more and more FFers are challenging themselves with a new scoring system: 2 QBs. Lots of you have asked for help with those leagues, and here's just a little bit more with their 2-QB Fantasy Football Strategy Guide.
• Keep up with the latest Position battles and player analysis from ProFootballWeekly.com. Don't let the starting analysis of Tarvaris Jackson vs Charlie Whitehurst turn you off; there are some gems in there if you get a bit deeper.

Updated Average Rankings Spreadsheet

I've got your updated 2011 Average Rankings Spreadsheet, my friends. Read my post from earlier this month for all the appropriate warnings and remember to use this wisely. I do have a few changes though this time around - I've included Razzball.com and ProFootballFocus.com and dropped FOX since they hadn't updated their rankings since July. July?! No dice. Only the best for you all. I also snagged way more than 100 rankings per your request so there are now a whopping 280 names. I'm sure you may find an error or something bizarre in here, but hopefully those are limited - do let me know if you see something though. I will say that somehow one site ranked kicker Dan Carpenter 103rd overall, which shot him way, way up the average rankings...he does not belong where he is listed. I can say that unequivocally and it's an excellent lesson for why you must use your brain and own opinions here, too.

I'm currently adding in bye weeks, which I know is something that you all wanted so hopefully they will all be there in the next day or so. I'm also considering compiling this list for PPR, but not sure I have enough time and rankings. If you know of a top 100+ list for PPR that you want included, let me know.

I'm linking you all over to the Google Docs version but if you want the excel version, e-mail me and I'll send it your way soon. If it's urgent (i.e. your draft is in 12 hours or less), note that in the subject line.

Happy drafting!

Delone Carter lovefest and more

As promised, I've been working on an updated average rankings spreadsheet - last night I gathered all of the updated rankings and today I'll be cleaning the names up and plunking it all into Stata, which is the program I use to help the analysis go much more quickly. I hope to have it all wrapped up and ready to be dispersed by tomorrow afternoon...assuming my son's nap schedule allows for a bit of work to be done! But before all that, we have a handful of links:

• Lots of Matthew Stafford love from the experts out there. Read up on FantasyPros.com's Who Will Break Through in 2011? for five experts' takes on the RB3, WR3, and up-and-coming QB that have the best chance for breaking through into the top 12 at their position this year.
• ProFootballWeekly.com offers up both Running back sleepers and Running back busts (including a list over overvalued players). Fairly standard suggestions here but it is worth noting that Delone Carter seems to be appearing on more and more lists these days.
• And for more on Delone Carter, see Roto Arcade's Indy's Delone Carter a Clydesdale in the making.
• It's strategy time at The Fantasy Douche - take a look at his QB Strategy and QB Projections Through Week 6. The FD uses an interesting assessment for determining his projections by looking at similar matchups from the past. It's intriguing and I'm interested in seeing how it plays out during the season. I hope The FD will join in on the annual accuracy contest, which The Most Credible and I are running again in conjunction with the FSTA, to look at sites' preseason rankings and projections to determine who is most accurate.
• Finally, I know many of you found this tool from FootballGuys to be very interesting in past years so I wanted to make sure you had a chance to use it again this season - Rate My Team, just plug in the players you've drafted already and bam, FBG will give you their expert assessment. I entered my team from The FFNerd's Expert League and was thoroughly impressed with the in-depth report that came to my inbox incredibly quickly. Good stuff including suggestions for in-season actions to make my team stronger.

Mid-week draft prep

Based on my twitter feed, it seems as though the football world is ablaze with Peyton and Kerry Collins news. Catch up if you haven't already heard and, yes, I'm in the camp that thinks this is not great news but probably thanks to the Peyton-awe that's been drilled into me by my dear Peyton-worshiping husband, I don't think this is worth too much hemming and hawing. By the way, how is Collins only 38? Seems like he ought to have at least a decade on me minimum. Also by the way, Peyton has 5-month-old twins. Dang if that isn't a lot going on in the ol' Manning house.

Lots of other stuff going on:

• A few rankings for you all on this fine Wednesday:
• The Sports Outlaw's Draft Prep pre-season rankings
• Razzball.com's Non-PPR 2011 Cheat sheet, printable and all
• For you, my IDPers, 2011 Redraft IDP Rankings: Defensive Backs from IDP Manor
• Athlon Sports offers up their Sleepers & Busts, this link goes to Running Backs. Far more sleepers than busts though really. Should be named Umpteen Sleepers with a Smattering of Busts. 
• Perhaps I'm alone in this but I always like reading about other people's drafts, hence why I post so many on here. No one has complained yet so here's your chance to do so in the comments section. Or you can scope out SI's One man's draft, plus players on the rise and players to avoid from Sports Grumblings' Thomas Casale.
• Earlier this week I posted links to 4for4.com's draft strategy depending on your draft position - they're fleshing that list out more and more and today's link is to Drafting from the #7 to #9 spots.

Fireplace critter update: my husband wisely/thoughtfully snuck a peek into the fireplace while I was a good 30 feet away and oblivious to his actions. Turns out it was just a (now) dead gigantic bug. The south certainly produces large bugs; years in Brooklyn and Colorado never produced anything this large and seemingly vivacious...at least until it's semi-unfortunate demise in the fireplace. Next up on the hooray-I-own-an-ancient-home-with-problems list: leaky tub faucet (I swear I'm watching dollar bills sink down the drain every time I'm in the bathroom) and gutters that are so beyond overgrown with plants and debris that they shall soon be dubbed The Forest that Sits on the Bottom of Our Roof. No complaints though really, I swear. Yesterday as our son rammed his toy train into the wall for the billionth time (cackling and babbling at volumes I thought impossible for a small child), with all his toys hidden inside said train spilling out all over the wood floors and causing a monstrous racket, I thought, thank God we no longer have downstairs neighbors who would want to claw their ears off by now.

Post-quake linkage

There is something alive in our fireplace. We've had a big moving box pressed up against the fireplace ever since we moved in a few weeks ago and discovered that one of our cats could easily jump up in the fireplace and half-disappear. So we've got the moving box all set up as a classy but effective baby and cat gate...and apparently a critter gate now, too, since there's been something fluttering or scratching around in there for a few hours. Being the uber girly girl that I am when it comes to bugs, vermin, or anything else that could appear in our fireplace, I have left whatever is in there to just stay there until my backup (my husband) comes home. Fingers crossed that the possible racket that's about to ensue as we unveil the fireplace critter won't wake our sleeping baby (nothing is more precious in our household than a sleeping baby...except maybe a critter-free fireplace).

So that's the kind of fun taking place at the FFLibrarian household tonight. Hope you all are enjoying your evenings and those of you who felt the east coast earthquake are all enjoying sharing your stories (and are of course safe and sound). Here are some links to keep you entertained and informed:

• First up a couple of articles that investigate players who are on the rise/fall after the preseason week 2 games:
• Rotoworld's Down with ADP, which looks at the current ADP and value for QBs and RBs in particular
• Fifth Down's Preseason Week 2, Ups and Downs
• ProFootballWeekly.com offers up a look at where rookies should be drafted - Rookie update: Where the first-year wide receivers stand and Where the first-year running backs stand.
• The convincing news that the new, more youthful Dallas o-line is gelling had me thinking big things for Felix Jones - looks like I'm not the only one. Read on to see why Roto Arcade is all about Jones in No playin', Felix Jones could lead your team to title.
• Want a deep sleeper at WR? Try on Dezmon Briscoe for size and to see why read KFFL.com's  Fantasy football wide receivers yielding in Year 2: Dezmon Briscoe (for Nick's take on why Golden Tate is worth a look, too, head here)
• For those who have been following along or sending in submissions to Razzball and Fan Duel's FF writing contest, be sure to check out Razzball.com's The Next Great Fantasy Football Writer: Round 3 Winner.
• Auction drafters will want to swing by The Fantasy Shrink's Step by step through another fantasy auction.
• FootballOutsiders' Wisdom of the Crowds series continues, this time with WRs and this is merely part I. The most valuable take home for fantasy folks might be the player synopsis written up by FO guys.

Finally, I'll have more details for you soon but my dear readers, I will be putting your fine accuracy to the test this season. FantasyPros.com is creating a weekly accuracy challenge where readers from different forums will vote on tight start/sit decisions each week and at the end of the season, one site will be crowned most accurate (for more, see FantasyPros.com's description of the contest). Since you're all a bunch of smarty pants after reading all these great articles, I have no doubt that we'll crush the competition. 

Draft strategy, draft results, draft heaven

Oy. Had my first draft of the season this weekend and all I can think of now are the things I'd do differently. I only had time to do one mock draft beforehand and let me tell you, it takes more than that to get the cobwebs out...even for someone who is constantly reading FF info all offseason. So I can't encourage you enough to swing by either your league hosting site, Mock Draft Central, Fantasy Football Calculator, or any other number of sites for easy mocking. I know you're all busy people but if you can squeeze in a mock or two, you'll be grateful you did come draft day.

Anyway, I participated in the FFNerd's awesome Experts League (part of the reason it's so awesome is that the Nerd is making a donation to the league champion's charity of choice) and you can find the results of the draft here. I will note that late in Round 6 there was some chatting during which it was discussed that our flex spot includes QBs. The commish had made this very clear prior to the start of the draft, but many of us weren't quite paying attention to the pre-draft chat and missed out on that piece...so you might see some drafting of QBs in this league that is unique to this flex spot, particularly around Round 6 or so. Very interesting though for someone like me who hasn't played in a 2QB league before. Really looking forward to it.

Now onto today's links:

• Let's start with some catch-up with preseason week 2 games and other news:
• LestersLegends.com has a quick outlook for Beanie Wells in 2011 now that Ryan Williams is out for the season.
• Roto Arcade's First Down: Foster, Tate highlight top Week 2 takeaways
• In honor of leagues with funky scoring, those of you who are in score-only leagues that don't care about yardage, take a look at KFFL.com's Rankings: Scoring only.
• For more "expert" draft results, take a look at Razzball.com's Team Razzball - An Experts Draft Breakdown.
• 4for4.com has a great series of draft strategy articles based on where your draft spot is: 
• Drafting from the #1 to #3 spots
• Drafting from the #10 to #12 spots
• The Bruno Boys came in #1 in my annual accuracy contest for 2010 so I can only imagine that you'll want to scope out their free 2011 Draft Kit, which includes rankings and a whole lot more - sleepers, cheat sheets, mocks, rookie info, etc.
• FFToday.com's Five to Struggle, Five to Shine - Bess is very much on my radar in PPR leagues in particular.
• Gregg Rosenthal looks video-style at the top QBs after Vick and Rodgers have been taken in The next best quarterback.
• I really like Athlon Sport's team-by-team quick look at players on each team that are sleepers, deep sleepers, overvalued, top rookies, bounce back guys, and top IDPers. No long analysis here but I do like the brevity actually. Sometimes you really don't need a ton of detail and this format works nicely.

First steps to a great 2011 team

Monumental stuff here in the FFLibrarian household: our 10.5-month-old broke out his moves yesterday and started walking. Big time. It's pretty amusing stuff, too, the way he wags his arms as he's walking, finding that sweet spot where he's balanced enough to move forward. I can only assume that he's so excited about football season being just a few weeks off that he's celebrating by toddling around the house. We've got plenty to get today so let's have at it:

• First up, based on my inbox I can guarantee that many of you have questions about your drafts or keeper leagues, so may I direct you to Rotoworld's Live Chat today at 1 PM eastern with Evan Silva. Evan is pretty awesome, so I promise you'll be getting good advice.
• National Football Post's The Next Big Thing is full of classic Jay Clemons stuff - a wide array of fantasy musings. Some highlights include a look at the top 7 picks of 2011, a ranking of the top 50 RBs, a look back at Jay's first draft of the season, and QB tiers.
• Razzball.com added a Top 150 for PPR Fantasy Football leagues in addition to the standard rankings they put up earlier this week. 
• More rankings from Fleaflicker, whom many of you might know as more of a league hosting site - but take a look at their cheat sheet, replete with IDP rankings.
• ProFootballWeekly.com's Del Pilar's diatribe: Injuries around fantasyland is a useful read for both those of you who have been scouring the news feeds for months now, and also those who are just now catching up on FF news.
• FootballDocs have their 2011 Fantasy Defense Strength of Schedule up - here's the explanation behind the chart in case you want the details.
• I have it on good authority that FantasyOmatic.com put a ton of time into their 2011 Sleepers and Busts article (and podcasts!) - take a look at which sleepers and busts are recommended for all leagues or just deep leagues.

I updated the 2011 Average Rankings Position spreadsheet yesterday to include positions and am actively color-coding the google docs version now. Still to come: bye weeks and hopefully by August 26th I'll have updated rankings. E-mail me if you want the current excel version.

Seeing through the fantasy jungle

As you regular readers know, my family just moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, for my husband's new job teaching at the university here. When we came for a house hunting trip, we were in town for about 3 days and made some fast decisions, including making an offer on our great, old, character-laden, 1899-built, beautiful, OLD house. Did I mention it's old? And when we moved in, the neighbors next door told us they thought it had fallen into foreclosure since the previous owner had clearly just let the place go on the outside. The backyard is literally a jungle. Apparently kudzu and Virginia creeper have combined forces and attacked what used to be a normal yard. There's even a gazebo out there that's so covered in vines and leaves that you can barely make it out. Sometimes that's how it is with the fantasy football landscape, too - there are just so many players and so much advice that it's impossible to make out the best plan for attacking your draft. Hence my average rankings spreadsheet that tries to narrow things down a bit - and of course this website in general that tries to steer you to some of the best fantasy sites out there. So onto today's linkage:

• Here's a little something that you'll want to breeze through now but bookmark for later in the season: CBSSports.com's Interactive Defensive Matchup Tracker. It will be updated as the season progresses, which should help when you're in a tight lineup decision spot. If this all holds true (which it's sure not to...) Bradford sure is looking at a sweet second half of the season.
• FFToolbox.com has pulled together a chart with a look at each team's offensive line - it notes average age, experience, and a look back at 2010 stats with a nice color-coded scheme for the best and worst teams. Bears fans I'm sure you really needed this 56-sack reminder, eh?
• If you'd like to look at a few recent drafts, take a look at one of these:
• AthlonSports.com has another mock draft up - this time a Standard League Mock Draft.
• Razzball.com has a Tale of Two Drafts up which amusingly notes that they drafted with some savvy folks plus a few idiots...kind of helpful for those of us in a similar boat, eh?
• ProFootballWeekly.com has the Fantasy Buzz for you, with the news for each team divided up by division.
• If you want more from ProFootballWeekly.com, you're in luck. Pat Fitzmaurice's preseason draft board has rankings by position up - and he did quite well with FantasyPros.com weekly accuracy contest last season.
• Speaking of FantasyPros.com, they've asked a few experts (Chet from Razzball.com, Kevin from NFL Soup and James from FantasySharks.com) for input on Preseason Risers & Fallers.
• Or for more rankings, head to ProFootballFocus.com's 2011 Top 150 rankings.
• You guys know I love tiers so I'm happy to report that CBSSports.com has their Running back tiers and strategies up.
• The Hazean delves into ADP and offers up Fantasy Football Busts, Steals based on Average Draft Position.

Finally, I don't normally link to items that aren't free, but I was intrigued by this so I thought I'd share...looks like RotoWire, MyFantasyLeague.com and LeagueSafe are bringing you a Virtual Fantasy Football Convention. It's this Thursday night and while I would like to see a lot more info about the sessions, it is most definitely an interesting idea. 

Preseason Week 1 wrap-up

This weekend my brother- and sister-in-law came into town along with their daughter who is just a few months younger than our son. So in between the preseason games we had a babyfest of a weekend replete with baby pools, double strollers, and more photos than I thought possible. Ah, how things are so different than just one year ago.

• Hope you all enjoyed the first preseason games. A couple of summaries for you if you missed anything:
• WalterFootball.com's NFL Preseason Recap and Fantasy Football Notes: Week 1
• Roto Arcade's First Down: Overlooked Hightower one of 10 preseason takeaways
• MMQB looks back at the weekend games and other musings from training camp in With their even-keeled leaders, the Packers could very well repeat
• Big congrats to Matthew Berry on his new family - go read the article to find out what major change is en route this fall, or to read his annual preseason Love/Hate article. And yes, you will find far more lovin' this year: More Love than Hate.
• Razzball.com's Top 150 Fantasy Football Players for 2011 - I'll be adding this ranking to my average rankings spreadsheet at the end of the month.
• See why you can relax and rest easy when it comes to tight ends this year in CBSSports.com's You'll be happy with tight end options.
• Want some studs? Those new to IDP leagues in particular could find this quick Top 10 IDP Studs list from FFToolbox.com helpful before going into draft day.
• Bruno Boys have their RB and QB rankings up with more on the way.
• The more preseason action we see, the more we can whittle down the value of various backs in tricky backfields. Stay updated with Rotoworld's Get the handcuffs out to figure out which backups you'll need to focus on.

Sign up for monster league!

Let the waiting list begin! If you'd like to play in the 2011 FFLibrarian Monster League, please send me an e-mail ASAP. I'll be taking players on a first-come, first-served basis. Just a heads up that MyFantasyLeague.com, which has generously comped our gigantic league on their platform, is having some issues with e-mails getting through to Yahoo accounts right now so if you have a Yahoo e-mail, please send me another account for communications with MFL.com.

In the meantime, here are just a few links to get you through the weekend:

• Once again I'll be running my experts' rankings accuracy contest and will be posting more about that as the deadline approaches (all of you in the FF content provider world are welcome to participate), but in the meantime, check out what Fantasy Pros have done in this realm. They use a different methodology and focus in on specific experts rather than sites in general (so they have multiple rankers from FootballGuys.com for example), but there is some overlap in our results, such as the dominance of FootballGuys.com with WRs...so if you combine our two analyses, then you have an impressive arsenal of accuracy reports. And yes, I know I'm painfully behind on my multi-year accuracy assessment and I do promise to get that done soon. Really. 
• Now I know many of you have no interest in kickers whatsoever...but some do! So if you're a real kicker hound, you'll be glad to know DR U Fantasy Football Guru has their 2011 Fantasy Football Rankings for Kickers up. Or scope out their Defense rankings while you're at it.
• You guys know I love o-line stuff so I was thrilled to see Rotoworld's 2011 Offensive Line Rankings up. Oh happy day.
• Fantasy Intersection (a great site for a daily dump of articles) put me on to a new site: Fantasy Man Crush. Check out their 10 Keys for Fantasy Football Auction Drafts.
• Finally, Roto Arcade's ADP Progress Report: Fitzgerald and fellow Cards flying high gives a nice list of flames and lames comparing their ADP from last week to this week. 

Enjoy the weekend!

Hello preseason games

Nice to see you again, old friends. Yes, I'm talking to you, preseason games. I know, it's not actual NFL action to most of you...but come on, you can't really hide your excitement can you? ProFootballFocus.com has a nice Preseason Primer with info on tonight's games and what you'll want to look for from each team.

I've got tons of material for you today. I was busy yesterday with the 2011 Average Rankings Position Spreadsheet that I posted last night so I have basically two days' worth of content for you now. Let's have at it.

• Remember Fantasy Pros? The guys who did some awesome weekly accuracy analysis? They've got lots of tricks up their sleeves and I thought I'd send you over to two recent articles from them:
• Love or Hate? Greene, Bowe, Freeman, and Holmes - one of the awesome things that Fantasy Pros is doing is tracking 50 different experts' rankings for every player and displaying the various rankings on every player's page. You can see which experts are high or low on a player and which are right on the average. Very cool stuff. For an example, check out Frank Gore.
• Also from Fantasy Pros - they're now doing IDP rankings, which pull from 9 different IDP experts. Excellent, excellent, even more excellent!
• Rotoworld has very handy updated depth charts for both offensive and defensive players - this link takes you to the AFC East.  
• Read up on a little draft strategy from Razzball.com's Value Based Drafting, their preferred strategy to take with you on draft day.  
• The Fantasy Shrink keeps rolling with rankings, this time PPR style. Take a look at the Big Board for RBs and more. 
• To keep with the rankings theme, scope out Fantasy Football Companion's 2011 RB Rankings - rankings for the top 72 RBs with a blurb for the top 39. You can link to other positions as well.
• Or cruise on over to Fantasy Alarm's Wide Receiver Rankings which is chock full of notes for the top 50 WRs.
• Think McFadden could finish the season as the top fantasy RB? Brad Evans from Yahoo gives some good food for thought in First Down: Dissed McFadden deserves top-five consideration.
• I found CBSSports.com's 2011 Draft Prep: Your quarterback primer to be full of helpful info - QB tiers, thoughts on 2QB leagues, the theory behind drafting 3 QBs (this seems to be very en vogue since I read another article about this exact topic earlier this week...), etc.
• For those of you who can't get enough info on sleepers, head on over to Fantasy Football Trader's sleeper section for a ton of recent articles on possible sleepers this season.
• Finally, last but not least is FootballOutsiders' 3rd annual Wisdom of the Crowds series. They put forth the names of 5 QBs to FO's twitter followers last week and asked for feedback on yardage, TDs, and INTs for those players. Here they've posted the best- and worst-case scenario from FO followers as well as the average and how they think that crowd average fits in with their expectations for the player. I always find this an interesting read.

All for now and remember, if you played in the FFLibrarian monster league last year, you need to sign up for the league by tomorrow night or else I'll turn your spot over to a newcomer. E-mail me if you haven't received your invitation yet (and you played last year!). Otherwise hang tight for news on the waiting list. 

2011 Average Rankings Spreadsheet

Greetings, fantasy football fans and welcome to the 2011 Average Rankings Position Spreadsheet. Last night I trolled around the web and gathered top 100 overall rankings from 10 sites and have averaged them together into a handy dandy spreadsheet for you. The rankings come from: ESPN, CBSSports.com, NFL.com, SI, FFToolbox.com, Yahoo!, KFFL, FFCalculator (ADP), FOX Sports, and Ask the Commish. I will update these rankings at the end of August for those of you who draft closer to the start of the season.

A few things to note before we get to the spreadsheet itself:

• This is just an average of Top 100 players across all positions. I'll try and update the spreadsheet this weekend to reflect the ranking within position as well, so look for that update in the Google Docs version of the spreadsheet in the next few days.
• I tried to ensure that the experts all used the same scoring system (non-PPR) but many sites didn't note their scoring system at all.
• I pulled all of these rankings within the span of an hour or two on Tuesday, August 9th so that they represent rankings from the same time period/news/injury updates, etc.
• I've included the standard deviation of each player's ranking so that you can get an idea of how much consensus there was on a player's ranking across the 10 experts. So the lower the standard deviation, the more of a consensus there is on the ranking for that player. In some cases where just one site submitted a ranking for that player, you of course won't see a standard deviation at all. I added the standard deviation to the average ranking position to create one number to represent both a player's ranking and the level of agreement on that ranking. I find this pretty interesting in and of itself, but it could be particularly useful for players that are a bit deeper in the Top 100. 
• I've included the rankings from these 10 sites (11 different rankings though since CBS offers one from each of their 2 experts) as separate tabs in case you just want to look at the data from each site - or want to do your own analysis. The names are about 99% cleaned up here in this version with a few errant misspellings from FOX. Sorry to call you out, FOX, but seriously, shouldn't you know how to spell Dwayne Bowe by now?

So enjoy the Google Docs version or send me an e-mail and I can get an excel copy sent your way. 

Monster league is back!

For the past several years I've been running a Monster FFLibrarian League with readers competing against each other in a 6-conference, 72-team league. I've had several questions about whether or not that will be happening again this year and yes, my monster league-lovers, it will. Later today I will send out an e-mail to all of last year's participants to see if you're interested in playing again. You will have until Friday night to let me know if you'd like to play again this year and on Saturday I will open the league up to any newcomers. As with last year, 1 of the 6 conferences will be done in e-mail style (the rest will be live online drafts), hopefully starting next Monday, August 15th. I will also be asking for 6 conference leaders again - if you played in the league last year and are willing to be a conference leader to help with the draft and any questions that come up during the season, please e-mail me ASAP. Without conference leaders I won't be able to run the league since I rely on you guys for much team/owner wrangling, so thanks in advance!

If you want to play in the monster league but haven't before, just stay tuned for more info at the end of the week about getting on the waiting list.

Today we're chock full of quality links including a hefty amount of info on sleepers and busts. Lots of good stuff so let's have at it.

• First up, a great (though lengthy) article from FantasyGuru.com's Jeff Brazil up on Yahoo, talking about draft strategy while taking into context how to interpret preseason rankings and incorporate (or not!) mispriced players. Great read, highly recommend it.
• Sleepers, busts, value picks:
• Bruno Boys' 2011 Fantasy Football Sleepers & Undervalued: Quarterbacks
• ProFootballFocus.com's Draft Steals & White Elephants
• Perhaps some breakout/sleeper contenders for you? Try FFToday.com's Breakout Receivers for 5 names you'll want to keep an eye on come draft day.
• FootballDocs offer up two potential busts (and their reasoning) in 2011 Fantasy Football Busts
• 4for4.com's Value WRs - get a sampling here, though the full article requires a subscription 
• More guys to target at the right value in FFToolbox.com's Mid-draft targets
• Fantasy Phenoms' rankings have a nice get-it-all-here touch in the way they've incorporated standard rankings, PPR rankings, and 6pt/TD for QB rankings all in one place. You can cruise around the tabs for the different positions or just see their overall projections here.
• Rotoworld utilizes an injury expert to determine just how concerned we should be about the injuries to MJD, Marques Colston, and Antonio Gates - and if they're worth their current ADP - in How risky is Jones-Drew?
• The 2QB league analysis continues - scope out Athlon Sports' 2-Quarterback League Mock Draft, which goes 16 rounds deep.

Tiers and o-line?! Oh my!

Dropping my son off at a new daycare this morning went like this: "Have a great day, love you, see you in a few hours" with a wave goodbye, then watching the little guy wail like he was losing his fantasy football championship game as I walked away...then finally stopping the already excruciatingly long wave goodbye and turning away, walking out the door. Sometimes it just ain't easy to do the everyday things, eh? Good thing there are fantasy football links to keep our spirits up!

• I love tiers. Next to offensive line rankings, they're my favorite fantasy football article that I provide. Gotta love a day with both tiers and o-line material. Let's start things off with Razzball.com's 2011 PPR Drafting Tiers.
• And then jump right over to the o-line action from CBSSports.com - Draft Prep 2011: Setting the lines.
• If you've been on vacay or just haven't paid an iota of attention to the free agency action out there, swing by the Fifth Down's Fantasy Football: Free Agency Recap for the highlights by position, all done with a fantasy spin.
• And now that it's training camp time, check out all the camp news with Fantasy Fanplay's Moore is More.
• There's so little love for Peyton Hillis out there that I can't help but feel some joy at reading Roto Arcade's First Down: Hillis detractors are about to get flexed. You can call me out on it and the end of the season if I'm wrong, but put me firmly in the pro-Hillis camp.
• Remember how I mentioned Razzball.com's The Next Great Fantasy Football Writer contest that I was a guest judge for a few weeks ago? The results from Round 2 are up and I know for a fact that some of my readers have made submissions, which is awesome.
• FantasyFootballXtreme.com posted the results of a recent Expert League Draft - the full results (though not the full commentary from FFX's Smitty) can be found here as well.
• Mario Manningham is on the break of a fantasy lovefest here, if it hasn't already happened. Figure out why he's a steal (for now...) with FanDuel's Expect a Big Year From Mario Manningham.

Cheat sheets, rankings, mocks, etc

I've been lost in a world of unpacking (43 boxes) and replenishing (big trip to Walmart, an experience of superstore gigantic-ness that we hadn't had since prior to our move to NYC a few years ago...for better or for worse). My apologies for the slow posting this week - I'll be back on track soon, I hope.

Starting next week I'll be gathering top 100 rankings from a variety of sites as I do every August (here's 2010 for an example), and will be putting together my 2011 Average Rankings Position Spreadsheet. I'll have one version up next week and another updated version available at the end of August. As you can see from last year's final spreadsheet, I included the following sites: Bruno Boys, ESPN, FFToolbox.com, CBSSports, FOX Sports, KFFL, NFL.com, SI, Yahoo, and Ask the Commish. If there are any other sites that should be included (that provide Top 100 rankings), please leave a comment with your suggestion.

Now let's get right to today's links since the fantasy world is really revving up:

• If you can't wait for my average rankings spreadsheet, then I highly recommend you head on over to FantasyPros.com who do a thorough job of creating a gigantic Cheat Sheet Wizard for you - you can pick which expert's rankings you'd like included, with two important notations: 1. how that expert performed in a weekly accuracy competition last year and 2. how recently the rankings were updated and added to FantasyPros.com.
• Roto Arcade is all about trying to steer you away from overrating players. Take a look at their Tip Drill: Identifying overrate draft commodities (sorry, Vick) or Rank review: Five players you're overrating and overdrafting.
• Razzball.com has PPR rankings up for WRs and RBs with up to 100 players for each position. You can take a look at their non-PPR rankings of course, too, if that's more your bag.
• For more rankings, you can take a look at the Fantasy Shrink's The Big Board: RBs (other positions can be found on that link), which includes a little blurb on each player.
• Meanwhile, Athlon Sports brings us their 2011 NFL Mock Draft: Complete Rosters. You can piece together the round-by-round results (or just go to their link) but I find it helpful to look at each team as a whole.
• You may have noticed that Razzball's PPR rankings are pretty pro-Felix Jones - for more on reasons to target Jones, see Fantasy Douche's Why I'm now VERY high on Felix Jones.
• If you're interested in what some of the young TEs might be doing this season, read ProFootballWeekly.com's What to expect as an encore for '10 rookie tight ends.

FA analysis for fantasy and more

Well we've made it to Knoxville with everyone's sanity still intact (at least I think the cats are still sane; hard to say for sure). We've got lots of activity coming up in our new house over the next few days as our furniture/moving boxes and new appliances are delivered...and drum roll please...as we buy a new car since we were car-less for the past 2 years in NYC. Lots of big purchases; I feel we're singlehandedly shepherding the economy along these days.

Let's get right on over to today's fantasy football links:

• Free agency news continues to roll in, as does the analysis:
• PFT takes a look at whether or not the Kyle Orton to Miami trade is really over in Conflicting reports emerge on whether Orton-to-Miami deal is dead. Obviously of interest to this Broncos fan...
• ProFootballFocus.com's Free Agency 2011: Five Days. Five Winners. Five Losers.
• Roto Arcade's First Read: Hightower traded to Washington, and other RB moves
• National Football Post's Double Jeopardy is full of random tidbits of advice ranging from sleeper suggestions, good/bad news throughout the league, and specific players to avoid in the first 12 rounds of your draft.
• Razzball.com has a nice Two Quarterback League Strategy article - I know my 2 QB link last week made many of you happy so here's hoping this one also gives you a little food for thought. I'm still on the prowl for 2 QB rankings...
• But for those in more standard leagues, FantasyFanplay.com has their 2011 Rankings: QBs up or try Athlon Sports' 2011 Fantasy Football Ranks: Top 240 with IDPs. As an aside, Athlon also has some college fantasy football rankings up now for those who might be interested.
• Finally, FFToolbox.com has a nice synopsis of some changes in the monthly expert mock drafts they run - take a look at players who are trending up and trending down.