Wendell Smallwood, RB, Eagles

We're not allowed to pick up existing free agents at this point right?

No, just process draft picks and trades for now.

Once the draft is done, I will create a waiver cycle (bit of a fudge, but basically I can change the settings to become continuous waivers which will do this, and then switch the rules back to normal once the waiver period has begun).  This will ensure that the post-draft transactions commence with a waiver cycle to keep everything fair, prior to the subsequent free-for-all after it clears.

I'm going to make the changes to the waiver priority (reverse finish order from last year) ahead of this, and will also sort out the randomisation of the divisions prior to the waivers commencing.

Cool, tyty.

The waiver period has now ended on the Yahoo site, so you can now process your draft picks via the Free Agent pool and carry out the trades you've already agreed.

If you traded a player for a draft pick you will need to add a 2017 draft pick to each trade for the site to recognise it as valid.  Just use the highest rounds available (e.g. I've just offered 3 players to ForthThistle with a 2017 Rnd 30 pick, in exchange for his 2017 Round 30 pick).  The site won't let you simply give players away to someone for nothing in return (and as far as it is concerned the 2016 draft has already happened).

We're not allowed to pick up existing free agents at this point right?

4-2-3-1

                 Hart
  Walker Cahill Smalling Rose
           Dier    Milner
      Alli    Rooney  Sterling
                Kane

[Why are we taking 5 strikers anyway?]

What a joke to leave out Drinkwater. Hodgson just taking his big club players even if they are unfit or injury prone.  Poor but unsurprising.

Was a supporter of Drinkwater being in the squad, but on the basis of the last couple of games, don't think he's quite good enough.

He could have picked with justification players to leave out based on form, injury proneness, not being ready or the fact they aren't match fit.  Wilshire, Henderson, Sturridge, Rashford, Sterling, Barkley.  But no - Drinkwater gets the bullet.  How depressing.

Why are we taking 5 strikers anyway?

Why did you want us to take 8 CM's!  Give me impact subs to fill the 23 out with any day.

its completely legitimate to do so. In professional and fantasy sport!

the game operates over multiple years where some years can be rebuilds for future success (or a chance of it)

nothing wrong with a team tanking and entirely the luck of the draw as to whether you draw a team doing so(in a ultiple season league not a single season league where i agree its frustrating to come across a team that isn't picked that week) towards the end of a fantasy season

But seeing as there were rules in place to prevent this from the get go it can't be a legit strategy as most, if not all parties believed it to be against he rules.

[Re the draft order in the D League, the system we use was intended to defend against abandoned teams, hence the emphasis on staying competitive through the consol.Agree with Tighty's sentiments regarding a rebuild being a legit strategy and it does penalise teams doing this. However it's the lesser of two evils for me to have it this way round.]

Agreed bobby, the whole point of the system was to stop people tanking it off when dead for the playoffs.  Which is exactly what this new system is going to provoke.

We even spoke about this at the time of the consolation playoffs, so not sure what has changed in the meantime.

Just caught up on the last few pages.

Re the draft order in the D League, the system we use was intended to defend against abandoned teams, hence the emphasis on staying competitive through the consol.

Agree with Tighty's sentiments regarding a rebuild being a legit strategy and it does penalise teams doing this.  However it's the lesser of two evils for me to have it this way round.

However, in sheer volume of picks there's still a huge draft benefit to come.  With maybe one or two exceptions there's no slam dunk rookie draft picks in Fantasy.  Consensus top 2 this year, from memory, were Gurley and Gordon and their fortunes have differed significantly.  Simply having plenty of 1st rounders will still achieve the overall aim of the strategy.

Also worth noting that Horneris did the initial draft last year with a similar strategy, as he took lots of rookies from memory.  He's reaping the benefit this season.

Just thought it was worth clarifying the reasons behind the slightly odd method of doing the draft order.

Well done JP, lovely touch!

Great stuff Rich. If we plan to do it, we need to do it immediately - thin markets etc.

Fine by me to go ahead. In case you were not aware, I'm not exactly up on NFL though.

restricted to £1.11 each

good luck everyone else!

Can get £3 on Lee @ 12/1, and missed the 9/1 on the Floyd :/

Think the %s they are betting to in draft markets make it a pretty bad idea to be dutching to oppose the "1/14" shot, you're giving Ladbrokes 1/4 on Jack/Spence.  Unless you think he's been that shockingly mispriced.

You'd find a way to back tails @ 10/11 if you'd managed to grab some heads @ 6/4 Chompy.

Makes me laugh seeing all the journos seeming to think the decision hasn't been made on which one to draft.

In!

Thanks for sharing this, just finished watching all the videos they have up so far.  Really cool channel.

On the subject of coral, they have a superbowl LI specials market up where they go 10/1 Cam Newton and 12/1 Tom Brady to win the superbowl and be named mvp.  I would think both are almost a good thing to be named mvp if they were to win.  The stakes are probably restricted to peanuts, any thoughts?

This is for next years Super Bowl btw.

Bump.

Can we get this sorted Sheriff, seems a bit daft that the £20 prize for best draft has held up all the straightforward payouts for this amount of time.