5. Greco
They make it look easy.
A soaring tomahawk jam. A 30-foot downward-sloping putt. A diving touchdown grab with just one hand—nay three fingers. No, it's not the level of difficulty of the task that distinguishes the world's greatest athletes, but the seeming ease with which they do it that makes them great. They make it look easy. And for the rest of us, it is anything but easy.
Sure fantasy football looks easy. I mean, how hard can it be? You pick a bunch of players. They score some points. You beat whatever hack is opposing you in a given week. Maybe you read an article with a list of sleepers. Maybe you listen to a podcast. Maybe you keep a spreadsheet with advanced statistics. But at the end of the season when you walk away with a 6-7 record and your tail between your legs, all that effort is revealed to be what it truly is—an exercise in futility.
"Why?!" you bemoan the fantasy gods. "Why hath thou forsaken me?" But the fantasy gods don't listen. Because even they have better things to do than hear you talk about your fantasy team. And they know the inevitable truth—that in all likelihood you will lose. Because fantasy football is hard. And more than that, it's random.
So when a team owner proves over the course of seven seasons to thwart the wrath of the fantasy gods, to field consistently great teams, you have to tip your cap. Maybe they outworked you on the waivers. Or outmaneuvered you in trade. Or maybe, most befuddling of all, they didn't need to do any of that. Because unlike you, they do the one thing mere mortals cannot—they can see into the future.
On draft day, they know who to select and who to avoid, who are the sleepers and who are the busts, when to wait on a player or a position and when to reach. So when it comes to the rest of the season, they just put it on autopilot. Wake me when it's time for the playoffs.
So try all you want. Submit those waiver claims. Make whatever trade you want. Because you're just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic and Greco is the goddamn iceberg.
And she makes it look so easy.
There is no doubt that Greco is one of the league's most successful team owners.
With an all-time record of 55-35-1, a career TW% of .549, a league-high five playoff appearances, and of course her 2012 championship, Greco is always a threat to be reckoned with. In seven years, Greco has made the playoffs a league-high five times (tied with Gray), including five of the last six. But I think my favorite Greco statistic—of which there are many good ones—is that she is the only owner to have never had a losing season. Ever! In her "worst" year, she still went 7-6. I mean, come on. Even Gray had a 5-8 season.
So if Gray is the Tom Brady of the league, then Greco is its Peyton Manning. She's polished, precise, efficient and cerebral. How else can you explain the way she plays? Year after year, Greco is one of the league's least active players (as measured by the sum of trades, acquisitions and activations) and yet remains one of its most successful because of one thing—the draft. Yes, she's scored a league-low 585 points from free agency and trade, but she also has a league-high 7,487 points from the draft. I mean, who needs the waiver wire when you kill it on draft night?
And kill it, she does. Over 92% of her points come from the draft—far and away the greatest proportion of total points for any team owner in the league—and with good reason. Greco is a phenomenal drafter. In the modern era, Greco ranks as the second-best drafter as measured by VBD. She and Jess are separated by a very slim margin, but they far outpace their next closest competitor (Gray). And if we had VBD data for 2011-13, I have no doubt Greco would rank first overall.
To be honest, Greco should probably be writing this. After all, it is a draft preview. And she's the expert, not me. But in the absence of her genius, I'll do the next best thing—analyze her drafts to figure out what she's doing right. In other words, we're going to cheat off the smart kid in class.
First, we'll take a look at her approach to positions. Does she favor any one position in particular, and if so, what does that tell us? It turns out Greco has a varied approach. Some years she drafts RBs early. Then others it's a QB. Two years ago, she opted for WRs. So let's take them group-by-group, starting with her favorite—QBs.
For her career, Greco leads the league in points from the QB position with 19.4 ppg. That's impressive considering she's not always selecting QBs early. In fact, she ranks eighth all-time in terms of draft bias toward QBs. However, there are three years in which she did favor QBs—2014, 2013 and 2011. Here are her first ten picks by position for those seasons:
14: QB-RB-WR-RB-RB-WR-WR-RB-WR-DST
13: RB-QB-WR-WR-RB-TE-RB-WR-DST-WR
11: QB-RB-RB-WR-WR-RB-TE-DST-RB-WR
Over these three seasons, Greco went 23-15-1 with a .515 TW%. She averaged 87.0 ppg with 23.3 QB ppg, 22.3 RB ppg and 18.6 WR ppg. She made the playoffs twice, but finished in the top-six of the Power Rankings just 33% of the time. While this may seem effectively average, that's because Greco had both her best (2013) and her worst seasons (2014) with a QB-first approach. So it's a mixed bag.
Now let's take a look at the years she favored RBs:
17: WR-RB-RB-RB-WR-WR-QB-RB-TE-WR
15: RB-RB-RB-QB-WR-WR-WR-TE-WR-WR
12: RB-WR-RB-RB-TE-WR-QB-WR-QB-TE
Over this relatively more recent stretch, Greco went 23-16 with a .537 TW%. She averaged 87.5 ppg with 16.4 QB ppg, 26.2 RB ppg and 24.5 WR ppg. Again she made the playoffs twice, this time with one championship, but again only finished in the top-six of the Power Rankings 33% of the time. But unlike the first group, I would say this average reasonably reflects the outcome of this approach, which is generally effective.
Finally, lest you think she only targets QBs or RBs, Greco favored WRs in 2016. Here are her first ten picks by position:
16: WR-RB-RB-WR-TE-QB-RB-WR-RB-WR
In what was her second-most successful season by TW%, Greco went 9-4 with a .685 TW%. She averaged 97.5 ppg with 16.5 ppg QB ppg, 31.5 RB ppg and 20.8 WR ppg. She made the playoffs this year and finished second in the Power Rankings. So, very effective.
So what can we glean from her positional preferences? It appears Greco prefers to go after RBs or QBs, but she's flexible. And in fact, one of her best seasons came when she drafted a WR first. With the fifth pick this year, that might just be Antonio Brown.
All that being said, I'm not sure this exercise has been all that useful other than bringing to light one revealing fact. For all her success, Greco really only has three seasons in seven years with a top-six finish in the Power Rankings. Those years are 2012, 2013 and 2016. So if it's not her focus on any one position, perhaps it's something else. What is she doing right in these three seasons?
Two of these years predate the modern era. So without VBD to guide us, it's hard to analyze the effectiveness of her picks from those early years. But what we can do is look at her overall production by position. And in those three seasons, there is one thing that sticks out. While her production at WR remains fairly consistent over her career, she averaged 30.4 ppg from RB in those three good years compared to just 21.5 ppg over the rest. So as Greco's RBs go, so go the prospects of her fantasy team.
But remember, the way she's gotten to that RB production has varied. In 2012, she went all-in on RB, drafting three with her first four picks. But in 2013, while she started with a RB, she didn't draft a second until the fifth round. And in 2016, she favored WRs.
So we know Greco varies her approach and that her team plays well when it gets good production at RB, but how does she do that? Luckily, we have four modern era drafts at which we can take a closer look. Let's dig in, starting with the most recent draft.
Last year, I remember thinking how foolish Greco was for going in on rookie RB after rookie RB after rookie RB, drafting Kareem Hunt, Dalvin Cook and Joe Mixon with back-to-back-to-back picks. Turns out the joke was on me. Hunt, who she drafted with the 20th pick, would go on to finish as the 3rd overall player by VBD. Meanwhile Cook got off to a fast start before a season-ending injury. And Mixon, though drafted too early with the 44th pick, showed flashes. But it wasn't RB, but WR where Greco got value, selecting two top-30 WRs in the fifth and sixth round in Davante Adams and Marvin Jones to go with first-round pick Julio Jones. They weren't sexy names on draft day, but they more than got the job done. At QB, Greco also got a steal with Matthew Stafford who finished as a top-50 player, but was drafted with the 77th pick. Overall, this draft ranked as the fifth-best draft of the modern era.
In 2016, Greco nabbed another top-three player in the second round, selecting LeSean McCoy with the 24th pick. And while C.J. Anderson, Philip Rivers and T.J. Yeldon all went bust, she snagged Isaiah Crowell with the 97th pick—another unsexy, but highly productive player who would finish as the 21st overall player by VBD. This draft, though not as good as the one that followed it, would go down as the 13th-best draft of the modern era and ultimately helped lead Greco to her second-best season.
In 2015, Greco found more value late. Yes, Eddie Lacy was a terrible first-round pick who was drafted third overall and failed to deliver top-50 value. But it just goes to show that you can still recover from a bad first pick. Because Greco immediately did so by drafting two top-10 WRs in the fifth and seventh rounds in Brandon Marshall and Allen Robinson. She then shored up RB with Lamar Miller in the third (VBD: 13) and Danny Woodhead in the 11th (VBD: 23). The result was her best draft of her career and the fourth-best draft of the modern era. Ironically, this season was fairly pedestrian with a TW% of .483. Not her best despite the great draft.
Finally, 2014 was her one bad draft in the modern era. It was also the only time she's had to draft near the back of the pack, selecting 12th. After grabbing Aaron Rodgers in the first round, she went bust with three picks in a row, drafting Doug Martin, Vincent Jackson, Ben Tate and Trent Richardson—none of which finished as a top-75 player. This year, there would be no late-round savior. Torrey Smith, Mike Wallace and Darren Sproles were serviceable, but they couldn't make up the difference. It's no surprise that 2014 was Greco's worst season by TW%.
I think the consistent theme across these drafts is value. So often we spend most of our pre-draft thought considering who we will select with our first or second pick. But those picks are rarely league-winners. The key to draft success is finding value in the middle and late rounds. Find a top-25 or especially a top-10 guy after the fifth round and you'll be hard-pressed not to make the playoffs. Of course, that's easier said than done.
Finally, I'd be remiss not to point out that Greco has had her fair share of luck. Remember, she has just three teams in seven years that finished in the top-six of the Power Rankings and yet has made the playoffs five times. Not to mention that she made the playoffs in 2014, her worst draft yet. In fact, that 2014 team was the eighth-worst team in league history and yet she went 7-5-1 and snuck into the playoffs. It was also the second-worst playoff team of all-time and as a result the second-luckiest team of all time as measured by the difference between her W% and TW%.
For her career, Greco actually ranks as the second-luckiest team owner in the league, having won five more games over her seven-year career than she should have based on her TW%. To be certain, she would still rank among the league's elites even without that luck. She has two of the top-six seasons of all time by TW%. But it's helped lift her to the playoffs on more than one occasion.
This year, Greco's luck continues with a pick in the first half of the draft.
For her career, Greco's average draft position is 4.5, which ranks second only to Erik. For a team owner that relies on the draft, it's helpful to get these early picks. Remember, her one really bad year was the season in which she drafted 12th.
This year, many consider there to be a solid tier of five guys at the top of the draft. By selecting fifth, Greco is guaranteed to get one of those players if she so desires. This is also Greco's third time drafting with the fifth pick and for the second year in a row. Just last year, she selected Julio Jones, the third WR off the board.
Finally, I have to be honest. I find this whole entry to be a little frustrating. We analyzed Greco's draft bias. Combed through the draft logs looking for patterns. Sought to divine the source of her luck with the fantasy gods. And yet, I feel we are still no closer to uncovering her secret. Maybe that's because there is none. She's just that good.
Come the end of the season, I won't be shocked if Greco drafts another winner, goes into hibernation mode, then posts an unprecedented eighth-straight winning season. Because that's just what Greco does.
And she makes it look so easy.
