10. JT
Okay, confession time.
I really enjoyed making the cover photos for each of your draft previews. And to get those photos, I had to stalk your Facebook pages years-deep for the most photogenic faces, most interesting poses and most workable images to go with my chosen filter. I'll admit, not all of them are winners. For the life of me, I could not find a perfect Geoff photo. Images of Josh being crazy were actually hard to come by. And I may have had to stalk Greco's honeymoon shots to find the perfect still. (Yes, I had to Photoshop out the elephant she's petting in the original image.)
But for every hard-to-find photo, there were some really great poses as well. Nick's, Gray's and Alex's come to mind. Thanks guys. But I think my favorite is JT's. Shades on. Making it rain. It's just so on-brand. I loved it so much that I actually made it the profile icon for our league page. You can see it if you click that little hamburger menu icon at the top left (or bottom left on mobile).
But what makes it the most compelling to me is that it matches his fantasy persona. It's that of a man who values style over substance and gives his fantasy team names like "Sex by Surprise" and "Cunt Punt." It's Primetime. It's swagger. And it's a little untoward. But that's Dallas.
And if we dig into the numbers, that's just the way JT manages his fantasy teams. Because whereas most other owners favor RBs, JT places his value on the most JT-like position. Think about it. Which position is the most prima donna, the most likely to do sit-ups in the driveway surrounded by reporters, or the most likely to write a memoir titled "Just Give Me the Damn Ball!" In short, which position is the most JT?
It's WRs. Obviously.
And no owner loves himself some WRs like JT. Using our draft bias statistic, we find that for his career JT has a strong preference toward WRs. In fact, his draft bias is nearly double the next-closest competitor. RBs? JT doesn't have time for those plodding workhorses. That's why he's demonstrated the league's strongest aversion to the position, again nearly double that of his next-closest competitor.
While he has favored WRs to RBs in five of seven seasons, none were more exaggerated, more JT, than his 2012 draft. That year he went WR-WR-WR to open the draft, selecting Larry Fitzgerald, Andre Johnson and Mike Wallace. He then proceeded to draft a fourth WR in the sixth round. The result of this unorthodox approach was 28.1 ppg from WR, an 8-5 season and his first appearance in the playoffs. WRs for the win baby!
But that very result might be a tad misleading. In fact, 2012 was the third luckiest season on record. Despite his record, JT finished 10th in the Power Rankings. His TW% was just .371, indicating that he should have won fewer than five games, not as many as the eight he achieved. Furthermore, despite going all-in on WR, he only scored the third-most points from the position. Alex actually led the scoring at WR in 2012 with 31.4 ppg and he didn't draft a WR until the third round. And likely because he went all-in on WR, he got below-average scoring from both RB and QB in what was his worst season by TW%.
Ironically, JT's best season at WR was the year prior, when he averaged 31.8 ppg from the position—the most points ever in a single season. That record was thanks in part to the play of Greg Jennings (2nd round), Hakeem Nicks (3rd round), Marques Colston (5th round) and free agent Cowboy Laurent Robinson. Due to greater play from his RBs that season including his first-round pick Chris Johnson, JT actually had a better season by TW% (.556) despite the fact that he did not make the playoffs. Had he gotten more points at QB that season, he likely could have had a shot at the playoffs. Unfortunately, he drafted Peyton Manning in the fourth round in what would be Peyton's lost, last season with the Colts due to neck surgery.
So has this WR strategy been successful or not?
Despite the fact that JT has generally favored WRs, we have seen some variation to his approach over the years. Specifically, most drafts he's favored WRs. But in two drafts, he favored QBs. And in one draft, he actually favored... (gulp) RBs. Let's take a look now and see which approach was most successful.
Let's start with his favorite—WR. Here's a look at the first ten picks of the four drafts in which JT placed the greatest emphasis on the WR position:
16: RB-WR-WR-RB-TE-RB-QB-RB-WR-WR
15: RB-WR-WR-TE-WR-RB-RB-RB-QB-DST
12: WR-WR-WR-RB-RB-WR-QB-RB-RB-WR
11: RB-WR-WR-QB-WR-TE-RB-WR-RB-WR
In each draft above, we see that JT spent at least two of his first three picks on WRs and in the case of 2012, used all three on WRs. Over the course of these four seasons, JT went 26-26 with a nearly equivalent TW% of .491. He scored a league-average 86.2 ppg with 16.0 QB ppg, 19.6 RB ppg and 28.1 WR ppg. In these four seasons, JT made the playoffs once (2012), though it was a bit of a fluke as we noted. However, in 75% of these seasons he finished within the top-six of the Power Rankings, which is important to consider now that six teams will make the playoffs this year. Not bad.
Now let's look at the QB years:
14: QB-RB-TE-WR-WR-RB-DST-RB-WR-WR
13: RB-QB-WR-RB-WR-WR-TE-WR-QB-TE
In 2013 and 2014, JT spent one of his first two picks on a QB (Drew Brees, Peyton Manning) and in the case of 2013 spent another of his first ten picks on a backup QB (Tony Romo). The result was a combined 12-14 record with a .430 TW%. He averaged just 81.9 ppg with 20.7 QB ppg, 16.0 RB ppg and 21.5 WR ppg. In neither season did JT make the playoffs, nor did he finish in the top-six of the Power Rankings. So, not great.
Finally, last year was the only year in which he favored the RB most. Yuck.
17: RB-RB-WR-WR-TE-WR-QB-RB-DST-WR
In 2017, JT spent both his first two picks on a RB (Le'Veon Bell, Ezekiel Elliott). Despite the fact that he only drafted one other RB with his first ten picks—only JT could draft more WRs than RBs in a year he actually favored RBs—those early picks were still enough to push up his draft bias statistic to a healthy number. The result last year was a 9-4 record with a career-best TW% of .580. He averaged 88.7 ppg with 15.2 QB ppg, 35.7 RB ppg and 17.3 WR ppg. Of course, last year JT made the playoffs, finishing third and ranking fifth in the final Power Rankings. So, arguably his most successful season, though technically he scored more points and finished higher in the Power Rankings in 2011—a WR year.
So what conclusions can we draw from this analysis? Even the most WR-obsessed owner in the league fares a little better when he favors RB. (Aw, man...) That being said, it's not that much better than when he favors WRs, for which he also does reasonably well, fielding a team worthy of the playoffs 75% of the time. (Oh, yeah!!!) What we know for certain is that JT's QB strategy has never gone well. So avoid that one for sure.
Of course, I should caveat that these are all extremely small sample sizes and there are no doubt myriad other factors in play. But like JT, we're going to play fast and loose with the numbers here and say the WR strategy checks out. Swagger wins baby!
This year, JT will draft 10th.
After six years of the 10th pick never making the playoffs, Brandon broke the curse last year, winning the championship from that draft position. So perhaps the 10th pick has a little momentum. For what it's worth, JT previously drafted from the 10th position in 2015, selecting DeMarco Murray with this first pick.
2015 was also JT's best draft of the modern era, ranking 12th out of 48 drafts. But that's about as good as it's gotten in recent years for JT from the draft. He's actually one of the league's least successful drafters, ranking 10th in the modern era, leading only Terryn and Trevor, the latter of whom has been forced to auto-draft in recent years.
It may seem counterintuitive to suggest that 2017 in which JT drafted Le'Veon Bell and Ezekiel Elliott (with the 23rd pick!) and made the playoffs was a bad draft, but it was. The reality is JT actually squandered what was a really good start, and ironically that happened at his typical position of strength—WR. After Bell and Elliott, JT drafted Terrelle Pryor and Kelvin Benjamin (both busts) along with Jordan Reed who was plagued by injury. His best WR was Sammy Watkins who finished as the 70th overall player by VBD. The result was the only season in which JT got fewer than 20 ppg from WR. Had he done even a little better here, he might have had a real shot at the championship.
Finally, to properly scout one's opponents, it's important you know all their tendencies. And that includes homerism. For JT, that means knowing he might be targeting or even reach a round or two early on Dallas Cowboys. The draft logs reveal that JT has never not drafted at least one Cowboy in seven years. In fact, JT has drafted a total of 14 Cowboys in league history, which includes Dak Prescott, Dez Bryant, Dan Bailey and the Cowboys D/ST each twice. He's even gone so far as to spurn wayward Cowboys, which he did in 2015 when he auto-drafted departed-Cowboy-turned-Eagle DeMarco Murray, then promptly traded him to Josh for Matt Forte before Week 1.
This year, with the 10th pick, he likely won't have a shot at Zeke. But with Dak, new Cowboys WR Allen Hurns and rookie WR Michael Gallup all going in the 10th round or later by ADP, that leads me to believe that all of them could be in play for JT. Not to mention JT's favorite kicker, Dan Bailey. And if you're thinking of taking a flyer on Dez, know JT probably wants nothing to do with him now that he's kissed Big D goodbye.
Looking ahead to 2018, perhaps a little balance is what the doctor ordered. If JT can maintain his edge or sacrifice a little of it at WR for additional production at RB and QB, then maybe he'll be playoff-bound once again. Or more importantly, he'd benefit from trying to replicate the boost he got in free agency last year, scoring a career-high 399 points thanks in large part to the contributions of Robby Anderson, Latavius Murray and Evan Engram.
Or maybe don't do any of that. Party it up on a boat or do the #InMyFeelingsChallenge while drafting Odell and a slew of other WRs! I love it. Because in the end, it's your team. And you gotta do it your way.
You do you, JT.
