Payne's Perspective: Breaking Down the Stopa11K Auction

Last Sunday afternoon I participated in RotoWire colleague Mark Stopa's $11K auction (#Stopa11K), which was held at the Aria Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, for the first time in a few years I was unable to attend due to circumstances beyond my control but was able to complete the draft via phone. Don't feel too bad for me either, while I would have loved to be in Vegas I completed most of my draft sitting at my pool with a cooler of Mexican adult beverages. The draft is made up of 11 other "experts" and myself who work for either RotoWire or Yahoo. Draft results can be found here

The draft is unique in that one of the two starting flex spots can be a quarterback (thus essentially making it a 2-QB league). There's a $200 budget, and the starting lineups each week look like this:

QB
RB
RB
WR
WR
WR
TE
TE
D
K
Q/RB/WR/TE
RB/WR/TE

There are five bench spots, making for tough decisions when it comes to bye weeks, waivers and injuries. Here are my projected starters, bench spots and commentary on all.

QB – Can Newton, $39
RB – Todd Gurley, $42
RB – Jeremy Langford, $9
WR – Golden Tate, $16
WR – Kelvin Benjamin, $15
WR – Kevin White, $5
TE – Jordan Reed, $23
TE – Ladarius Green, $12
K – Brandon McManus, $1
D – Houston Texans, $1
W/RB/WR/TE – Marcus Mariota, $19
RB/WR/TE – Corey Coleman, $3
BN – Paul Perkins, $6
BN – Derrick Henry, $3
BN – Kenneth Dixon, $3
BN – Jordan Howard, $2
BN – Vincent Jackson, $1

Quarterback

Let's start with quarterback, the position that scores the most fantasy points. I went in with the strategy of getting an elite quarterback and then spending $15-$25 on someone with upside. Cam Newton scored the most points in fantasy last season and was easily the top overall quarterback, averaging almost three points more than Tom Brady, who was second. His rushing ability is key, as he ran for 10 touchdowns in addition to throwing 35 touchdown passes, and gets top receiver Kelvin Benjamin back from injury.

Benjamin also was a target of mine as he should be 100 percent healthy and was the 16th top receiver his rookie season with 1,009 receiving yards and nine touchdowns; $15 seemed liked a good value as one of my strategies was to get No. 1 wide receivers who have a question mark or two.

Getting back to quarterbacks, I wrote up Marcus Mariota as a sleeper this season for the RotoWire magazine and backed that up by spending $19 on him. He's another mobile quarterback, and his injuries limited him to only 12 games last season. The expected growth from a quarterback in his second season coupled with his athletic ability (he had a 100-yard rushing game last season) should prove this to be a good value.

Running Back

I'll admit, I'm a mark for Todd Gurley. He's going to be one of the true featured backs this season and his 1,294 yards from scrimmage as a rookie is impressive. Looking deeper into those stats they show that he did all of that technically missing four games – three he never played a snap in and Week 3 against Pittsburgh he was eased into the offense with seven touches for 14 yards. While I expect Los Angeles to struggle this season, it's worth noting that in a few blowouts last season Gurley remained heavily involved in the offense in the second half.

As far as the rest of my running backs I expect Jeremy Langford to at least start and carry most of the load for the Bears, so $9 wasn't bad. My strategy next was to pick a bunch of rookie running backs who don't have a clear role or spot on their team's depth chart as of yet. Paul Perkins, Derrick Henry, Kenneth Dixon and Jordan Howard filled that criteria and cost me only $14 combined. Drafting in mid-July is tough because no one really knows how everything is going go shake out and what injuries will happen the next two months. All of those players have nice upside, though I might have taken someone besides Jordan Howard considering he's playing with Langford, limiting my team's upside somewhat.

Wide Receiver

I've already discussed Kelvin Benjamin, so he can be skipped in this wide receivers section. I'll be surprised if, health permitting, Golden Tate isn't the top wide receiver in Detroit, and he's had a ton of success with and without Calvin Johnson. Tate's two best games as a Lion – 151 receiving yards/TD, 154 receiving yards/TD – both came during a three-game stretch Calvin missed in 2014. This is a Lions team that is going to play from behind a lot and have to throw, helping Tate's cause even more.

From there's a drop off for my wide receivers, but every team is going to have their weak spots. If Kevin White were healthy going into his rookie season he would have gone much higher than his $5 price this season. He should be 100 percent healthy this year and should have gained some experience/knowledge of the playbook just being with the team all last season. Corey Coleman at $3 is a steal, considering it's likely he opens the season as the Browns' top receiver. Even on a bad team last season we saw Travis Benjamin just miss 1,000 yards and with Browns will play from behind probably more than any team this season. My only other receiver – Vincent Jackson – is something of an ironic pick given that I wrote him up as a "bust" this season. It was a little surprising to hear crickets after bringing him up, but it was late in the draft and money wasn't overly plentiful. This will probably be my first cut.

Tight End

The two-tight end format is unique, and I haven't been strong enough there in the past, wasting FAAB dollars for scrubs and still not getting production. I decided heading into the draft I would get two good-to-elite tight ends to, hopefully, avoid any problems this season. Despite missing two games last year, Jordan Reed was the third-best fantasy tight end, ahead of Greg Olsen, Travis Kelce and Delanie Walker. The price, $23, was pretty steep, though, considering Kelce and Walker each went for $14. The hope is that Reed stays healthy and those extra two games puts him only behind Rob Gronkowski in fantasy. Ladarius Green is a wild card, but at $12 it isn't some type of crazy risk. He has little competition at tight end with Heath Miller retiring and only Matt Spaeth and Jesse James behind him. There will be a lot of space over the middle for Green to operate with considering the Steelers' offense and wide receivers. There's easily top-5 upside for Green this season.

Kicker, Defense

I'll tie both my kicker and defense together. Brandon McManus is a kicker playing at altitude on a team that is stronger defensively than offensively. Taking the Texans defense means not only do I get the defense that finished sixth and second in fantasy scoring the last two seasons, but I get J.J. Watt. Pretty sure no further explanation is needed. It's a good debate as to whether I should have used these spots for other field players or spend the dollar and not have to worry about matchups week to week. I chose the latter.

You'll rarely find someone in a league like this say he doesn't love his team and he screwed the whole thing up. However, I like, but don't love, this team. I worry that in a .5 PPR format, while I have strong tight ends, my wide receiver talent and depth is lacking. I'm not sure if my "draft cheap rookie running backs" strategy will pan out as it took deep into last season until some of the rookies had significant roles for their teams. With a short bench I might not be able to wait that long and agonize over them going off for someone else's team if they're claimed off waivers.

What do you think I did right or wrong from a strategy standpoint? Any picks in particular look really good or bad? Let me know in the comments.