Big Board: Player Rankings

The first Yahoo Big Board of the year was released April 10. Some may have noticed, some may have not. If you want to see the full board, see this.

I just want to break this down into the first three rounds of the draft for us:

Round 1 Talent:
1. Adrian Peterson
2. Michael Turner
3. Maurice Jones-Drew
4. Matt Forte
5. Brian Westbrook
6. LaDanian Tomlinson
7. DeAngelo Williams
8. Larry Fitzgerald

Round 2 Talent:
9. Steven Jackson
10. Brandon Jacobs
11. Chris Johnson
12. Frank Gore
13. Steve Slaton
14. Clinton Portis
15. Drew Brees
16. Marion Barber

Round 3 Talent:
17. Andre Johnson
18. Peyton Manning
19. Calvin Johnson
20. Steve Smith
21. Randy Moss
22. Tom Brady
23. Anquan Boldin
24. Roddy White

Just to be clear, the rule is that if you keep, say, two 2nd round talent players, you lose your 2nd and 3rd round picks. Two 1st round talent players (Taylor) = loss of 1st and 2nd round picks, and so on.

Welcome One and All

Let me be the first to say that I am looking forward to the upcoming season, and am intrigued with the idea of the keeper league. TP and I have spent many minutes figuring out who everyone will keep. At least for me, there is no choice in the matter. You know damn well I am keeping Kevin Walter and Matt Cassel unless something absolutely horrible happens to one of them. Unfortunately for the rest of us, Jason has too many 1st and 2nd round picks on his team for me to predict his move. And for that very reason, let me bring up a proposed rule amendment for the keeper league:

No one is allowed to pick a player from his own team in the first or second rounds.

Let me be clear why this might be a problem. Jason's case is a perfect example. Assume Jason chooses not to keep Forte, but instead keeps Andre Johnson and Drew Brees. In my book, both of these players are 2nd rounders, but Forte is a first rounder. However, if Jason keeps Johnson and Brees, he will be able to select Forte with his first pick, effectively keeping 3 players of 1st and 2nd round caliber. Now, he will get the 3rd round's first pick, so he still could end up with these players, but he'd have to take a gamble at least by putting one of them on the board for rounds 1 and 2. While Jason does deserve props for assembling an amazing team last year, I think the awesome trophy and monetary winnings should suffice as reward enough.

Surprisingly, I actually have a little work to do currently, but I will be posting more in the very near future regarding the events that have transpired thus far in the offseason.