New on the site is a cool feature tied into the mock drafts.  You can now use Football Guys’ Rate My Team tool on any mock draft that you participate in.

Just enter your email address on step two of the mock draft signup page and then you’ll see a button inside your draftboard.  When the draft is over, click on that button and your team will be sent to the Rate My Team tool.  You’ll then get an email with a link to your automatically analyzed team.  All of the league settings will be pre-populated for you.  Analyzing your team will also sign you up for Football Guys’ informative daily email newsletter.

Check it out the next time you do a draft.  The analysis is extremely thorough and you’ll get tips on how your roster could be improved from multiple Football Guys experts.

What’s your wide receiver strategy?

If you’re like most other people this year, there is less emphasis on wide receivers in the first round and more emphasis on second round wide receivers.

Thanks to the archived ADP data, we can see that in 2009 for standard 12-team leagues, there were:

• 4 first round WRs
• 4 second round WRs

Fast forward to the 2010 ADP for 12-team standard leagues and we have:

• 3 first round WRs
• 6 second round WRs

The shift could be because people went too crazy with wide receivers last year.  The combination of increased passing and more RBBC in the NFL seems to have caused a mini wide receiver bubble last year.

The lesson from last year may have been that wide receivers are important, but they’re too risky to take in the first round.  The second round offers a much better value for that position this year.

PPR Mock Drafts are finally here!  Just head on to the mock draft page, and click on the PPR/Flex tab to see drafts that are being offered in that format.

It’s been by far the most requested addition, and you can rest now that it’s officially part of the site.

The scoring format for the PPR drafts also include a change to the starting lineup.  Instead of 3 WRs, it’s now 2 WRs and a RB/WR flex.  That kind of format seems to be one of the most popular, and fits well with the one point per reception.

The rankings for the PPR drafts are nearly identical to the standard drafts at the moment.  However, as more PPR drafts are conducted, the rankings for the PPR drafts will eventually reflect more accurate PPR rankings over the course of the next few days.

Also, the ADP page will show average draft positions for PPR/Flex drafts after a few days worth of data have been built up.

Lastly, premium members have the new PPR/Flex option in the Draft Calculator and Draft Simulator as well.  If you have one of those formats for your main league, you’ll now be able to more accurately practice with that draft format.

Have fun mocking!

The ADP graph is live again on the average draft position page.  You can use it to see how players have moved in ranking so far this year.

The graph of Lendale White’s ADP in 10-team leagues shows that he’s gone from an undrafted afterthought to viable RB sleeper.

Go ahead and play with it.  It’s going to be a fun year.

This morning, the site was upgraded to bigger, faster servers.  You may have noticed the site being sluggish lately, and that’s because traffic is higher at this point in the year than it ever has been before.  It seems like everyone wants to get a head-start with their mock drafts for 2010.

Since traffic varies so much over the course of a year, the site always gets a hardware upgrade just before the big draft season starts, and moves back to smaller hardware in the off-season.

The upgrade is complete now, and you can knock yourselves out with all the drafts that you want.  Feel free to contact me if you notice any issues or problems with the site.

Starting at about 9:30 PM EST, the mock draft frequency will double from one every five minutes to one every 2:30.  There’s an emphasis on the 10 and 12-team drafts which have been filling up pretty quickly.

Also, just about all of the drafted rookies from the first few rounds have been entered and assigned to their respective teams.  Ryan Matthews is already a fifth round pick, and he may be on his way up higher.  Get your mock on and get ready for 2010!

You now have the ability to report an abusive user in a mock draft.  There is a new box below the chat box where you can send an abuse message against a particular user.  It automatically records information about that user and a copy of the chat transcript up until that point.

Don’t take it lightly though.  If you disagree with someone taking a player in round 2 when they could last until round 3, don’t report them.  However, if they take Taco Wallce in round 1, don’t hesitate to report them.

If a person gets enough reports filed on them, they can be banned.  The process for determining who gets banned is complex, and may change over time.  If you’re doing a draft and chatting normally then you don’t have anything to worry about, even if someone accidentally clicks the report button on you.  This is designed to keep out the extreme outlyiers who insist on actively destroying the drafts.

If you report a person, they will remain in that draft, but they may be prevented from joining future drafts.  If there’s a need to actively remove people from the draft they’re initially reported in, then that could be added later.  I think this solution should help solve most of the problem with abusive drafters.

If you think you may have been banned, send an email to support@fantasyfootballcalculator.com, and we’ll get it sorted out.  There may occasionally be times when a good user is accidentally banned, but if you send an email to support, your account can be whitelisted for the drafts.

I would also like to take this time to thank everyone who does participate appropriately in the mock drafts.  The vast majority of you take your drafts seriously and make the discussions fun and insightful.

Hey everyone!  The NFL season is winding down, so you know what that means.  Get a head start on the 2010 fantasy football season.

The mock drafts are open for business!  Get started now.

The rankings and ADP will take a few days to fully adjust, so feel free to leave comments in the draft room if you think someone is out of place.

The #1 running back in fantasy football last year has had an up-and-down off-season, at least as far as his fantasy value is concerned.

The combination of his strong pre-season performance and Jonathan Stewart’s injury status has resulted in a slow dip and sharp rise in Williams’ ADP.  In 12-team leagues, he is being drafted at 1.07, right behind Larry Fitzgerald.

There are a lot of questions about whether or not he can repeat his league-leading 18 touchdowns last year.  His great year-end stats hide the fact that he only had 2 TDs in the first 7 games. Is he for real, or did he just take advantage of a few bad defenses at the end of the year?

Fun Trivia

One other thing going for DeAngelo Williams is the fact that since 2000, a stud running back has been the #1 fantasy running back two years in a row.

This article from Fantasy Football Cafe shows that it was Marshall Faulk in 00/01, Priest Holmes in 02/03, Shaun Alexander in 04/05, and LT in 06/07.

Since D-Will was #1 in 2008, does that make him a lock as #1 in 2009?

Not only is Randy Moss snagging touchdowns in preseason, but he also just caught Andre Johnson in the ADP rankings.

Below is a graph of his ADP in 12-team leagues.  He’s slowly but surely been catching up to the Houston star since April.

Although Brady had a small injury scare, his shoulder looks to be okay.  Matt Schaub may be more of an injury risk than Brady at this point, and that could be keeping A.J.’s value from going higher than it is now.

The single-season TD reception holder may still be a steal as the #2 WR off the board.  He’s unlikely to reach 22 touchdowns, but it’s exciting to know that his ceiling is so high.