Auction league draft — before and after

The after: Flexibility leads to some major bargains

By Ron Pollack, Editor-in-chief
May 5, 2000

Flexibility paid off in a big way for me during the May 3 auction league draft held by the editors of Pro Football Weekly (each team has $100 to spend), the results of which will appear in PFW’s fantasy football annual (available on newsstands June 27).

I wrote in the before portion of this two-part series that I expected to spend very little money at the QB position since I am not usually a big QB guy in fantasy football, and I didn’t see much difference between quarterbacks ranked between eight and 20.

I did have a couple of exceptions in my game plan, however. I wrote: "I do not have the same concerns as many people as to whether Kurt Warner can post huge fantasy numbers again. I say he definitely will. If the rest of the auctioneers get cold feet and his price bottoms out (and I think this is the longest of shots), I might take him for $20 and completely tear up my game plan."

Guess what happened?

The very first player thrown out for auction was Warner, and there was very little market for him in an auction in which there was very little taste for paying top dollar for quarterbacks. I had Warner with a $37 value on my draft board. As I wrote, I was willing to go as high as $20 in reality, since I wanted to save enough money to get quality running backs and wide receivers, as well.

I couldn’t believe it when I got Warner for only $16.

Riiiiiiiiip went most of my game plans.

I quickly recalculated and instead of a budget of $47 for my running backs and $46 for my wide receivers as I had originally intended, I now budgeted $41 for running backs and $37 for wide receivers,

Very quickly a feeding frenzy for the elite running backs broke out, with many of them going for prices above what I thought was proper market value. Having already spent so much more on quarterback than most of my original game plans called for, I decided to sit back and be patient. Sure, I still could have gotten a Marshall Faulk or Eddie George, but that would have left me with so little budget at the position that I would have had a major hole at the my other starting RB spot.

Instead, I let the other bidders eat up big money on elite backs and game-planned to go after two second-tier backs. I figured that I would spend $38 on those two backs, leaving me $2 for my No. 3 back and $1 for my final back.

The players I really liked were Emmitt Smith, Dorsey Levens, James Stewart and Jamal Anderson. I like Smith the best and had a $23 value for him on my draft board. I figured if I got him at that price I would probably have to slide down a bit and take someone like Curtis Martin, Ron Dayne or Jamal Lewis as my No. 2 back.

Smith’s name got called out, and I got into the bidding for him. My last bid on him was $23, the amount on my draft board. When someone else bid $24, I let him have Smith at that price. I think the key to a good auction draft is to stay disciplined and not go beyond what you think is proper value, no matter how much you like a player.

I again followed this be-disciplined philosophy when WR Keyshawn Johnson was being bid upon shortly thereafter. I think Johnson will have a big year. I had a $19 value on him on my draft board. The last bid I made on Johnson was $18. When someone else bid $19, I stopped bidding, and he went for that price.

My patience was rewarded when Jamal Anderson and James Stewart went up for bid. I had a $20 value for Stewart and an $18 value for Anderson on my draft board. I felt I got guys I wanted at quality prices when I got Anderson for $18 and Stewart for $16. Since I had $38 in my adjusted budget for my starting running backs, I was very pleased to get them for $34. I liked Levens just a little bit more than Anderson and Stewart, but since Anderson and Stewart went on the market before Levens, I did not want to take a chance that I’d be able to get Levens later. As it turned out, Levens went for the bargain price of $13, but I think I made the correct decision in gobbling up Anderson and Stewart. I got them at prices I liked, and had I passed on one of them to wait for Levens, who knows if a bidding war — which maybe I would have lost — would have broken out between myself and the person who drafted him. Sometimes it’s better not to get too greedy.

At this point I had my starting quarterback and both my starting running backs. I had no wide receivers as yet, however. Several drafters also had yet to select a wide receiver, and they had more money to spend than I at that point. Thus, when it came time for me to call out a player for bid, I tossed out the name of Antonio Freeman. I really had no intention of adding him to my roster. To the contrary, I wanted to try to get some of the other drafters with more money than I to use up some of their cap room on a high-ticket player. That would improve my chances of getting one of the wide receivers at the tail end of the first tier at the position.

Freeman was the second-rated wide receiver on the Pro Football Weekly draft board, and I had given him a $33 value on my personal draft board. As for my own budget at that moment, I had $37 to spend on five wide receivers. My game plan was to spend $19, $10, $6, $1, $1. When there was little market for Freeman, however, I tore up this game plan and added him to my team for $22. This price was so far below the value I had on him that I felt it was worth adjusting my game plan yet again. For comparison purposes, the PFW draft board has Marvin Harrison No. 1, Freeman No. 2 and Randy Moss No. 3. Harrison went for $33, I took Freeman for $22, and Moss went for $30.

At this point I had spent $72 for four players, so there would be no more big-ticket players. I decided that what quality dollars I would still spend would be on two wide receivers (in the PFW system used for this draft, a team can start a No. 3 wide receiver half the time and only has to start a tight end half the time). I was pleased to get Patrick Jeffers (No. 10 on my draft board, No. 13 on the PFW draft board) for $7 and Kevin Johnson (No. 14 on my draft board, No. 17 on the PFW draft board) for $8.

Given how much I had watered down my budget at wide receiver, I was surprised at being able to get a top-two wide receiver and two more top-20 wideouts.

Although my game plan had changed dramatically at quarterback and wide receiver, my pre-draft game plan at tight end and placekicker worked to perfection. I knew there was no way I was going to spend more than $1 on any of these players. Thus, my game plan was to throw out the names of players just below the truly elite at these positions for $1 in hopes that no one would go any higher. The game plan was to do this earlier than just about everyone else. My thinking was that I would get players at the top end of the $1 players instead of the bottom end.

I started by throwing out the name of TE David LaFleur (the No. 6 tight end on my draft board) for $1. The bidding went to $3, so obviously I didn’t get him. I figured the next time it was my turn to throw out a name, I would pick Bubba Franks (No. 7 on my TE draft board). I changed that thinking, however, when Ricky Dudley (the No. 3 tight end on my draft board) went for only $1 shortly thereafter. Seeing this, the next time I got to throw out a name, I picked Shannon Sharpe (the No. 4 tight end on my draft board). The reason I took the highest-rated tight end left on my draft board instead of the player rated just after LaFleur is that since Dudley went for only $1, I thought that maybe all the people willing to spend more than $1 at tight end had been weeded out. This theory proved true when I got Sharpe for $1.

Then I turned my attention to placekickers when it was my turn to throw out names. I was successful in getting Jeff Wilkins for $1, lost out on Brett Conway when someone topped my $1 opening bid and then got Jason Elam. Wilkins and Elam were ranked No. 4 and No. 5 on my PK draft board, so I was happy how that turned out. That said, placekickers are so erratic from year to year that you never know how this will play out.

There was one other important pick for me late in the draft. I still had not taken my backup quarterback. I wanted to take Trent Green since I already had Kurt Warner. As much as I believe in Warner, getting Green would guarantee that I would have the starting quarterback of the Rams’ high-flying offense. Getting Green would mean I would have only one real starter. My thinking was that this was worthwhile since this should mean 30 TD passes or more. Even though I didn’t think anyone else would want to spend much on Green since he wouldn’t have the value to them that he would to my Warner-led squad, I decided to hold off on throwing Green’s name out. I had a maximum bid of $4 late in the draft, but there were other drafters who had larger maximum bids left, and they still needed a second quarterback.

The person who had drafted Brad Johnson was thinking along similar lines as I and threw out the name of Jeff George in the hope of locking up both Redskins quarterbacks for his fantasy squad. This person went up to $3 for George but lost out on him to another team that had a lot of money left, which had bid $4.

I waited until every team either had taken both of their quarterbacks or were down to maximum bids of $1, and then I threw Green’s name out and got him for $1.

The one area on my team that I am not in love with is depth at running back. The reason is that I had only $3 to spend on two spots, so I took a shot on boom-or-bust sleepers Richard Huntley and Doug Chapman. My theory in an auction league is that you want to spend most of your money on your starting lineup because if you hold money back to build depth, you will have a weak starting lineup. Unlike a regular, wait-until-your-turn draft, I think it is much harder to successfully draft a strong starting lineup and strong depth.

I think that if you follow my strategy, you give yourself the best chance of winning your league, but your team could also fall apart if you get unlucky with injuries. I take the approach that a league has a winner and then there is everyone else. Drafting for depth in an auction league means your team won’t be terrible, but I also think it makes it very hard to win it all because you are more likely to have so-so starters. This is simply a matter of personal philosophy.

As for my team, I got a lot of players I like for less money than I thought I’d have to pay. That’s all you can ask for, coming out of an auction. That’s a good start. Then comes the waiting to see if those players are as good as I believed.

What follows is the team I drafted:

To Part 1: Before the draft

Top of page

The Archives
2000 - 2001 Season