Draft Strategy - When to Draft a Receiver or Quarterback Early By Christopher Liss RotoWire Managing Editor If this is your first year doing fantasy football, or half of your league is new to the game, you should probably ignore much of the advice I'm going to give below. In leagues like that, just take two running backs out of the gate, wait on quarterbacks, and stock up on back up running backs and wideouts in rounds three through six. Just as when you're playing poker against beginners, there's not much point in doing anything fancy. But this is 2005, and the game has been popular for a while now, so I'd imagine most of you have lots of experience in leagues, and also that your league-mates aren't fools, either. For that reason, the "automatically draft two-RB strategy" won't work for everyone, especially in deeper 14- and 16-team leagues. Consider that if everyone employed that strategy, then there would necessarily be one owner who had the worst combo of backs (depending on where he drafted). And so in most experienced leagues where everyone is using their early picks on backs, it's going to make sense for some of you to grab a wideout or quarterback early on occasion. Late in the first round, you might want to draft Randy Moss over aging backs like Corey Dillon or Ahman Green. Or maybe snag Peyton Manning (very little downside there) over riskier propositions like Priest Holmes or Clinton Portis. In that case, you'll grab a solid starting back early in Round 2, and then fill in with multiple upside plays (Larry Johnson, Mewelde Moore, Eric Shelton, Brandon Jacobs) in the middle and later rounds. If one of those guys hits, and there's a good chance one will, you'll have your two backs and a superstar at QB or WR, to boot. The key point is that a Randy Moss or a Torry Holt are more reliable than any but a handful of backs. There might be slightly more week to week variance among receiver stats, but year to year, the top wideouts are far more reliable than a late first-round running back. If you pick early in the first round, you pretty much have to take a premium running back because you're not likely to get one you want on the way back. But late in Round 2 and early in Round 3, it's a great time to grab Holt and Marvin Harrison and lock down two excellent receivers. Again, you can draft multiple upside backs in the middle rounds, and you'll most likely be better off than someone who gambled on an aging or unsettled second back early. Some proponents of the must-draft-backs-in-the-first-two-rounds theory will point out that running backs are more reliable because they touch the ball 20 times per game at a minimum, whereas wideouts only get the ball four or five times. But as my colleague Mike Salfino pointed out, backs touch the ball with 20 people between them and the goal line. Receivers sometimes get it with none. Consider also that receivers average 14, 15 and sometimes close to 20 yards per touch. A top running back averages close to five, and the workhorse backs like Willis McGahee and LaDainian Tomlinson often produce less than that. And we might also consider a failed run - one of less than two yards when there's more than seven yards to go for a first down the equivalent of an incomplete pass. There's really no difference fantasy wise, so running backs don't get as many more touches as it seems. And even a successful short-yardage conversion isn't worth anything if it's not around the goal line. Moreover, running backs are more likely to get hurt due to their large number of touches. In fact, running backs get drilled on all 20 touches even when they get nothing for it, whereas receivers don't get hit all that often on incomplete passes (going over the middle, maybe, but otherwise, they usually get off scot free). Finally, because running backs get the ball so reliably, it's easier to expect production out of a fill-in starter (like last year's Nick Goings, Jerome Bettis, Mewelde Moore or Larry Johnson), than a fill-in receiver who might see just two passes thrown his way. If you don't have reliable receivers, you're much more likely to get a zero from a roster spot with a guy you just picked up off the waiver wire. In a league with experienced owners, then, you're much better off taking what the draft gives you and going for value than blindly adhering to the strategy that everyone else is following. Article first appeared 8/10/05