Can’t say any of us saw that coming.

While there was a lot of skepticism about McNabb when he was first traded to the Vikings, the concern seemed to be more that we would just have another pointless, mediocre, 7-9 win season.  Close enough to the play-offs that McNabb would be a full time starter, but not quite good enough to make a run into the postseason.

The disaster that has been the first four games has been mind boggling. Though McNabb  is certainly not the complete cause of the problem, it’s not as if he is making the team better.

At 0-4, the Vikings have basically no chance of making the playoffs. According to nfl.com, only one 0-4 team in the last 2 decades has gone on to make the playoffs. Based on this reality, there is absolutely no point in keeping McNabb in.  It’s not like he is suddenly going to improve at this point in his career. He is an average QB playing average football. Regardless of whether the Vikings have a midseason revival and go 8-8 or if they decide to become the second team to not win a single game, having McNabb as QB is not going to be beneficial in the long run.

At the very best we might win 7-8 games with McNabb. What good does that do us?  Does anyone really think that after this debacle that he will be the QB next season? At this point, winning with McNabb sets us back. The more wins we get with him, the further back we are in the draft order, making it all the more harder to get more talent to make the inevitable Ponder era successful (let’s face it, Ponder is more likely to start then Webb).

And if we go 2-14 with McNabb and get the first overall pick. What are we going to do about Luck? Drafting a QB in the first round when you have a QB on your bench that hasn’t had a chance to play yet isn’t a good use of the Vikings resources. If we don’t know what Ponder can do, we could be faced with some very difficult choices next April. I’m not saying we should try to lose so we can do better in the draft, but if we are going to be bad, let’s be bad while developing a rookie QB and actually give ourselves a chance of being better in the future.

If we win with McNabb we make it harder to build the team through the draft, if we lose with McNabb, then we should have played Ponder to see what he is capable of. Nothing good is going to happen if we keep McNabb as the starter.

On the other hand, there is absolutely no downside to playing Ponder because one of two good things will happen. We will win, or we will lose.

If we win with Ponder and somehow manage to get to 6-8 wins (or at least show good improvement from the first 4 games), we would know that we were right in picking him and could look to build around him in the draft. We’ll be able to focus on getting some lineman that can block and receivers that can catch, instead of worrying about who the next QB will be.

If we lose with Ponder and he is just completely awful; well, we might very well be able to go after Luck or another top tier player. If we are going to have a high draft pick next season, we need to know what we have in Ponder. Look at Carolina, they drafted Clausen and watched him completely fail for one season. Because they knew that Clausen wasn’t the answer, they were able to easily move on to Newton who by all accounts looks like he will have a good career. If we fail with Ponder we fail, but at least we know that we have to move on.

With McNabb, at best we get mediocrity and lose a good chance to build for the future through the draft. At worst we end up with one of the worst records in the NFL, without knowing whether or not we can move forward with Ponder. Neither option works at this point.

Starting Ponder will be beneficial to the Vikings regardless of whether we win or lose.  If we win with Ponder, or at least show some significant improvement. We will know that we can go into next season without any type of QB controversy and spend the offseason building the offense around Ponder.

If we Ponder is the next Ryan Leaf. Well, our record will be bad enough that finding another QB in the draft shouldn’t be too difficult.

Could starting Ponder be ugly? Of course, but it won’t be uglier than having him sit on a bench for a wasted season.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article saying that the Vikings need to get a kickoff specialist. People were split about 50-50 on the idea. Most of the opposition to it was based on the fact that the new NFL rule putting kickoffs at the 35 (instead of the 30) would make it a lot easier for Longwell to get touchbacks.

With every team having finished four preseason games, there are enough stats with the new rule to see what kind of effect it is having.

The stats are uglier than Aaron Rodgers championship belt celebration.

Percentage of touchbacks per kickoff (only including kickers with more than 10 kickoffs)

Don’t try to tell me the rule affects everyone equally after looking at this chart.

The stats are showing that the extra five yards are giving the best kickers the little boost they needed to send the ball into or past the end zone nearly every time. The rest of the kickers also benefit, but not nearly as much. This is a clear case of the rich getting richer and the poor staying poor. Unfortunately, the Vikings are one of the teams that are staying poor with regards to touchbacks.

Really, how hard would it be to find a person who can do better kickoffs than Longwell?  There are over 100 division 1 college teams. Out of all those teams you would think that it would be possible to find a kicker who is significantly better than Longwell at kickoffs. If the Vikings wanted to find a guy who would be an improvement in kickoffs, they would be able to do so.

The Vikings have needed to get a kickoff specialist for a while and this new rule is only making that need greater.

The scoring system for this is PPR with .5 points for each reception. So players with a lot of receptions will sometimes be above players who have a lot less receptions but who get more yards and touchdowns. If you want to use this for a non-PPR league, just remember to adjust players up and down depending on whether or not they will have a high total of receptions.

Don’t worry too much about the order the players are within their tiers. The tiers are setup to have players of basically equal skill in the same group. The order I put the players is how I would draft them. There can be other factors in what order you would take players in the same tier such as bye weeks or wanting to match a receiver with your QB.

Alright here is the list:

Tier One

Roddy White
Larry Fitzgerald
Andre Johnson
Calvin Johnson
Hakeem Nicks
Greg Jennings

There isn’t a whole lot to say about the first tier. The first four are consensus top 5 receivers; Nicks and Jennings are the top receivers in very solid passing offenses. Any of these guys is a solid pick in the late first to early/mid second round.

Tier Two

Reggie Wayne
Mike Wallace
Miles Austin
Wes Welker
Vincent Jackson
Dwayne Bowe

I put Wayne in tier two because of the uncertainty of Manning’s injury and because there is always the chance that the Colt’s starters will sit the last few games of the season.

Wallace and Austin are both solid receivers, but not quite good enough to be in the top tier. Pittsburg isn’t as much of a passing offense and Austin plays with Bryant and Witten which decreases his targets.

Welker is a PPR machine; he catches way too many passes to not draft him this high. The addition of Ochocinco isn’t going to change much. Welker played well alongside Moss, and will be well worth picking up for your team.

Vincent Jackson is hard to place. He wasn’t that spectacular in all but one of the 4 games he played last season. His talent and connection with Rivers seems too good to pass up, but he shouldn’t be drafted before the guys above him. They are much less of a risk.

Bowe is another one of the guys that is difficult to place. I’ve seen him anywhere from the 6^th ranked receiver to somewhere in the 30’s in the draft rankings I’ve looked at. I like him at the bottom of tier 2. He is Cassel’s top target which counts for something. While he may not repeat his numbers from last year, he should be reliable enough to be worth drafting this high.

Tier Three

Jeremy Maclin
Desean Jackson
Percy Harvin
Stevie Johnson
Mike Williams TB

Yes that’s right; I’ve got Maclin above Desaen. In my PPR league last year, Maclin had more points than Desaen who caught less than 50 passes last season. Picking Maclin before Jackson isn’t something you will see very often, but in ppr I’d recommend it.

Harvin, Johnson, and Williams are number one receivers with average quarterbacks. They will get the most targets from their QBs. Both Harvin and Johnson will likely be in situations where their teams will have to pass a lot to catch up in the second half which is a boost to their value.

Tier Four

Chad Ochocinco
Santonio Holmes
Brandon Marshall
Brandon Loyd
Michael Boldin
Dez Bryant
Marquis Colston
Syndey Rice
Plaxico Burress
Bernard Berrian

This is a large group of guys who I like, but wouldn’t want to pick that high. The guy with the most upside is Ochocinco, but I’m not convinced yet that he is going to have a Mosslike transformation with Brady.

Burress and Berrian are players that might not be getting drafted most of the time. Buress looks like his time in jail has not affected him at all. Berrian somehow got on the wrong side of Favre the last two years, but is really clicking with McNabb. If you were to grab one of these guys as your first backup receiver it would be very much worth it.

At this point you should have your three starting receivers and depending on your league size your first backup receiver.

Tier Five

Austin Collie
Mario Manningham
Santana Moss
Pier Garceon
Braylon Edwards
Jonny Knox

Not too much to say about these guys. I hope to get my first 4 receivers out of the previous tiers. I’d probably grab the guy in this group that best fits with my by weeks. The players in this group are mostly  either number two receivers with decent quarterbacks or number ones with bad QBs.

The Good

Musgrave showing that we intend to run the ball a lot. The Vikings had close to a 50-50 run-pass ratio during the first half which is a wonderful change from what went on during the Favre era.

Peterson was running the ball very well which was a big reason they were able to have that kind of ratio. He had 81 yards on 14 carries. He looked ready for the season opener.

Berrian had two catches for 64 yards and a touchdown. He was tied with Harvin for the most targets at 4 apiece.  If he actually plays as the player we picked up in 2008 the Vikings will not be missing Rice too much.

McNabb’s passing was improved. With the exception of an unlucky interception he was keeping the Vikings offense moving. As I’ve mention before, I’m really warming up to the idea of having him as our QB for a year or two. All you have to do is make the playoffs and anything can happen from there.

Joe Webb’s running was extremely good. Both Webb and Ponder have a lot of work to do on their passing, but with how well Webb is running the ball it’s clear that at this point he should be the second QB simply because he will be able to make more positive player than Ponder.

The Bad

Peterson getting more carries then he should. We already what Peterson is capable of. There is no need to be giving him 14 carriers in a preseason game. The Vikings need to be limiting Peterson’s carries so he won’t wear out as fast.

Webb still hasn’t gotten a passing touchdown. This has been bothering me for a while. Webb    had one pass that would have been a TD if not for a fumble by the receiver. Even counting that,    he needs to show improvement as passer and move beyond being a good athlete to being a good QB.

Ponder’s accuracy wasn’t that great. Yes, he was in hurry-up mode trying to get the winning touchdown, but his 3 of 8 passing didn’t look good at all.

Griffins in jury was a little scary, but it looks will be fine.

Frazier’s challenge of a sideline catch was a bad call. He needs to do a better job on the challenges. Even a biased Vikings fan like myself could see that it was very unlikely that the call would be overturned.

The Ugly

Turnovers are still killing us. The blocked field goal and the tipped pass interception cost the Vikings two good opportunities to score. Stats wise the Vikings had better numbers in nearly every category. The Vikings have a habit of shooting themselves in the foot whenever they have a good chance to win a game.

Longwell: He can’t get a ball 66 yards to the endzone on a kick-off and he was short on a 52 yard field goal attempt. There are better kickers out there that we could use.

Many people, including myself, thought that McNabb’s career was basically over after that whole debacle in Washington last season. I mean, McNabb was benched for Rex Grossman. Being benched for Grossman has to be one of the top ten reasons you can know your NFL career is over. You really don’t get much lower than that.

To be honest, I’ve never been a huge fan of McNabb. I’ve always seen him as overrated; good, but not good enough to ever take his team to a Superbowl championship.

When Minnesota first traded for McNabb, I was very surprised. I figured the Vikings would know better than to grab another old, worn out QB. My first mental picture of McNabb in a Vikings uniform sure wasn’t him winning the Superbowl for us. It was more like him getting benched for Ponder around week 6. That would not be nearly as humiliating as getting benched for Grossman, but still nothing close to making any sort of playoff run.

Despite all this, I’ve begun to warm up to the idea of having McNabb as our quarterback. Now, I’m not nearly as excited as I was about Favre, but I’ve begun to think that we may have a chance to get back into the playoffs. If McNabb get us to the playoffs while bringing his career back on track, him getting the comeback player of the year award might be in the realm of possibility.

The requirements for comeback player of the year are as follows:

“The player named Comeback Player of the Year shows perseverance in overcoming adversity, in the form of not being in the NFL the previous year, a severe injury, or simply poor performance.”

While McNabb was in the NFL and did not suffer any major injuries last season, you could definitely categorize his performance as poor.

In 2010 McNabb threw for 3377 yards, completed 58.3% of his passes, and threw 14 touchdown passes and 15 interceptions for a quarterback rating of only 77.1. It was an ugly season for him and possibly one that will permit him to be considered for the comeback player award if he were to play well this year.

With the exception of maybe the Bengals and the Raiders, I think any team could easily claim to be a better environment than Washington. Dan Snyder runs the Redskins like they are his own real life fantasy football team. Except, the average fantasy football player is probably a lot more knowledgeable about football than Snyder is. The Redskins are the dictionary definition of dysfunctional. I mean one week they bench McNabb because they say he can’t run a two minute offense. Then, the next week, they give him a 30 million dollar extension which turns out to be worthless. The Redskins are where careers go to die.

I’d argue that the main reason McNabb had such a horrible season last year is not because he was declining. It was because the Redskins make everyone bad. The ineptitude of the owner and the coaches, as well as the lack of talent around him were the reasons behind McNabb’s low production.

While Minnesota did have a rather chaotic season last year, a lot of it was caused by people who are now gone. i.e. Favre, Childress, and Moss.

Though the entire 2010 season had lots of crazy events, the way Frazier took control of the team in the last 6 games shows that he at the very least is going to be able to keep the team steady regardless of what else is going on.

The Vikings also have a much more talent on offense than the Redskins. The Vikings have three solid receivers in Harvin, Jenkins, and Berrian and a very good pass catching tight end in Shiancoe. Peterson is one of the best running backs in the NFl. McNabb is going to be surrounded by a lot more talent here than he was with the Redskins. It would be a huge surprise if his play does not improve at all.

So far in the preseason McNabb has completed 12 of 19 passes for 121 yards with no touchdowns or interceptions. Not the greatest stats, but he looked comfortable in an offense he has only had a few weeks to learn.

Another thing that caught my attention is that back in the offseason, the NFL network had a lot of players vote on whom they think is the best in the NFL. McNabb made the top 100 which was a major surprise considering how poorly his last season had gone. I think it shows that even though most of the media has been very critical of McNabb, his peers still believe he can play at a high level. Players understand that a bad season can happen due to circumstances not under your control.

A few months ago, that inclusion into the top 100 looked like a joke. However, now it shows that the people, who should know the most about football, believe McNabb still has it in him to play good for a few more seasons.

Preseason predictions are always hard to make, but I wouldn’t be surprised if at the end of the year McNabb gets the comeback player award.

Agree? Disagree? Please leave a comment. Thanks for stopping bye.

There are many, many strategies for drafting running backs. Before I get into my rankings for this season I want to explain my main plan with running backs.

My goal going into a draft is to take two running backs back to back if it is at all possible. Usually you can’t pull this off if you are in the top 1-3 slots but it really depends on what positions are getting taking early. The running back depth isn’t very good this season. If you can get your two starters  in your first 3 picks, you will be doing fine.

I’ve seen some people carry 4-6 running backs on their roster. While this works when you have a big bench or can start more than 3 guys, I prefer to keep three solid guys and not load up on the position. Here are my rankings.

Tier One

Adrian Peterson
Arian Foster
Ray Rice
LeSean McCoy
Jamal Charles
Chris  Johnson

Peterson has always been in the top 5 in points for running backs in each of the last three seasons. There might be one or two guys that get more than him, but good luck figuring out who it will be. Peterson is the safest pick in the draft and a near lock for top 5 production. He provides the certainty that you want with a first overall pick.

Foster may be a one year wonder, but he was just too good last year to pass up. As long as the Texans offense continues to run as it has done that last few seasons, he should be well worth his draft slot.

With Mcgahee gone, Rice should get more goal-line opportunities, increasing his fantasy value rather nicely.

I placed McCoy ahead of Charles and Johnson because the Chiefs are going to have a lot harder of a schedule and I see his play declining as a result. I have Johnson low because his holdout is just making me too nervous to risk drafting him and not getting anything in return. If he were to end his holdout I would have him number at number two or three

This group of player should be taken with the top 6 draft picks. Consider yourself lucky if someone reaches for Vick or Rodgers and one of them falls to you. The fall-off after the top 15 running backs is too steep to skip on taking one of the top tier guys.

Tier Two

Maurice Jones-Drew
Rashard Mendanhall
Steven Jackson
Michael Turner
Frank Gore
Darren McFaddon

These are all players that could be elite, but most have some risk of injury, which lowers them to tier two.

All of these players have fairly even value to me so the order doesn’t matter too much with this, though it is how I would end up drafting.

Tier Three

Peyton Hillis
Ahmad Bradshaw
Matt Forte
Shonn Greene

These four have some big boom or bust potential.

Hillis will be facing the madden curse. Bradshaw still shares carries so you never know what may happen with that. Forte last season had a lot of really good games, and a lot of really bad ones.  A lot of people are predicting that Shonn Greene will have his breakout season this year. I’m skeptical of that which is why I’m putting him in this group. He could be great but with L.T. around it’s still hard to tell what share of the carries he will be getting.These guys could be the reason you win one week and then become the reason you lost the next week.

Tier Four

LeGarrette Blount
Jahvid Best
Knowshon Moreno

LeGarrette Blount was a solid player last season. Again he has been labeled a “breakout” guys by some people. I don’t see that happening to the point where he is elite, but he does deserve to be in the top 20.

With the Lion’s rookie running back getting injured and being out for the season, it looks like Best will have another chance to prove himself as a starter. He had some good games last season so the outlook on him is hopeful.

I had Moreno at the start of last season. He played very well for me before he got injured. Since the Broncos didn’t bring in a major free agent running back. It looks like he could get the majority of carriers in Denver.

Ideally you’d have your starter by now in the draft. Unless circumstances are really weird like it was for me when I picked first overall and there was a massive run on running backs in between my 1-2 and my 3-5 picks.

Tier Five

Felix Jones
Cedric Benson
Fredrick Jackson
DeAngelo Williams

These four guys would all be decent starters if you needed them to be. I ended up with Jones in one of my drafts. But they really are straddling the line between starters and back-ups

Tier 6

Benjarvis Green-Ellis
Ryan Matthews
Daniel Thomas
Mark Ingram
Marshawn Lynch
Ryan Grant
Addai

I would classify all of these players as backups, but for the most part they do all have the upside to become a regular starter. This is another list where I’ve just put them in a group and not in order. At this point a big factor in picking one of these guys will be the bye week of your starters.

Agree? Disagree? Please leave a comment let me know what you think. Thank for stopping bye. I’ll be adding a position each day to my rankings so come back if you like it or check out some of my other articles on fantasy football.

Explaining the Tier Drafting System
My Rules For Fantasy Football Drafting
My 2011 Fantasy Football Quarterback Rankings

I thought about adding a clever intro, but then realized that you aren’t here for that so let’s get right into the rankings.

I’ll be ranking my top 24 quarterbacks in a tier system (more on using that here). I’ll be going with normal rules: 4pts for passing TD, 1pt per 25 passing yards, -1 per interception.

One note: I basically consider all the players in a tier to be of equal value as in they would be projected to get similar amounts of points. While the order in a tier does matter, it’s not really that important.

Tier One:

Vick
Brady
Rivers
Brees
Peyton Manning
Rodgers 

Vick has to be first, there is really no other option. He is the only player right now who can singlehandedly win a game for you. He is an injury risk, and you would want to grab a respectable backup to go along with him, but there really is no other competition for the top spot.

Brady-Brees are all very solid QB’s there not a whole lot of distinction between them. They are four of the safest picks in the draft.

Manning is very good, but there are two reasons I have him at 5 instead of 2-3. First, his injury makes him a slight risk. Though he has yet to miss any games in his career, his neck injury is beginning to make people nervous. The second risk is the fact that if the Colts are good, there is chance he will be sitting weeks 15-17 which would definitely interfere with your chancing at getting a fantasy championship. Manning is another guy you would want to have a decent backup for this season.

Yeah, I hate the Packers and am definitely biased against Rodgers and that is one reason for having him this low. However, Superbowl teams generally decline a lot the next season and I see Rodgers getting affected by that and having a down year.

Tier Two:

Rothlisberger
Eli Manning
Romo
Matt Ryan
Flacco
Schaub

This next group is just a nice set of 6 solid guys. Usually, I try and grab a guy from tier 2 and can grab one of them in rounds 6-8. The order for this tier isn’t all that important, all of them would make for very good starters and are good value if you can get them late.

Tier Three:

Kolb
Fitzpatrick
Freeman
Cassel
McNabb
Cutler

These guys in tier three all have the potential to be fantasy starters but aren’t quite there yet. This is one list where I feel good about the order.

Kolb is definitely the top of this group simply because of Fitzgerald. Kolb was rather mediocre QB in most of the games he stared in Philadelphia, but does have the best potential of this group to be a good starter.

I have Fitzpatrick higher than Freeman which is something that I don’t think many other writers are doing. If you look at the stats it makes sense. Fitzgerald averaged only .2 points per game less than Freeman. With how bad Buffalo’s defense is Fitzgerald should have a lot more attempts than Freeman which should give him the edge in this comparison.

I don’t think there is a whole lot of controversy over the last three guys. I’ve seen McNabb play the last two pre-Season games and it looks like he is going to be much better than last year. Cassel has turned into a solid player, and Cutler is still Jay Cutler.

Tier Four:

Ortan
Campbell
Stafford
Bradford
Sanchez
Garrard

This last tier is the one that is the most messed up. If you can help it, don’t get this far in your QB drafting. If I could know that Tebow wouldn’t be replacing Ortan I would place Ortan mid-top tier 3, but I don’t know that so I can’t. The next five guys you can really place in any particular order. Stafford might be the best of the bunch, but injuries have been killing him the last few seasons so I’m hesitant to draft him. Anyone past this point is probably not worth picking up unless you really don’t care what happens when your starter has a bye week.

Hey Guys, Agree? Disagree? Let me know in the comments. Thanks for stopping by. This is the first article in a series going through all my fantasy football rankings. I should be putting one up a day. So come back if you like it.

Just some observations from last night’s game when the Vikings beat Seattle by a score I can’t even remember because it really doesn’t count for much. Yeah, I’m not a huge fan of the preseason, but its football so it’s still fun to watch.

The Good:

• Kick-off and Punt coverage looked really solid; I didn’t see any big, bad blown tackles. Longwell wasn’t kicking far but they made him look good with their tackling .
• Our D-line was getting a lot of pressure on the QB, they missed a few sacks, but they were definitely making Jackson uncomfortable.

• The run defense played very good on obvious running downs. The goal line stand was reminiscent of how good we were playing back in 2008.
• McNabb’s accuracy was good considered that he has only been on the team for a little more than two weeks. I’m beginning to think that it wasn’t McNabb that declined last year but Washington.
• Seeing Tavaris Jackson in a non-purple uniform.
• Seeing the Vikings win, even if it didn’t mean anything.

The Bad

• Seeing Rice in a non-purple uniform
• Our run D on first downs was atrocious. I’m not sure what the cause was but for whatever reason the seahawks were getting some good yards running on first and ten.
• Our defense again failing to play well against screen passes
• Our offensive line not giving our QBs enough time on most plays.
• Ryan Longwell still not being able to hit the endzone. Spotting him five yards still wasn’t enough to get any good kicks out of him.
• Our offense settling for field goals in the redzone. We need to finish much better.
• Peterson touching the ball 8 times (6 carries, two catches). We know he is good. He should have gotten the ball 2-3 times and been off the field. No reason for him to be out there. Runningbacks already have short careers, no need to make it worse for him.

In previous years, I’d always list all the players by rank. I would end up with a list of 150-200+ players. While in theory this works well, I always feel that it is much better to be flexible in a draft. Plus, it makes for a much more difficult list to set up. I’m not sure why I never used a tier system for my drafting before; but now that I have I can definitely say that for myself it worked a lot better than any of my previous strategies.

While grouping players in tiers isn’t an original idea on my part, this is my advice on how to setup and use that type of draft strategy.

For setting up a draft system, it really doesn’t get a whole lot simpler than this. The first step is ranking the top players in a position, How long your list is will depend on how big your league is. For a 10 team league with starting 3 receivers you would want to have 50 guys in your rankings. Whereas you would only need around 20-25 quarterbacks ranked for that league size.

I’m going to do demonstrate how I get this set up with quarterbacks, as they are probably the easiest position to work with. Here are my top 24 quarterbacks for normal league rules.

Side note: please don’t argue about who is ranked where, that really is irrelevant.  I’m just trying to show how I set up my system.

Vick
Brady
Rivers
Brees
Peyton Manning
Rodgers
Rothlisberger
Eli Manning
Romo
Matt Ryan
Flacco
Schaub
Kolb
Fitzpatrick
Freeman
Cassel
McNabb
Cutler
Ortan
Campbell
Stafford
Bradford
Sanchez
Garrard

For making my list, I found it very helpful to just google up around 5-6 different rankings just to get a look at what other people how saying about any particular position. In the end, you’re usually best off if you don’t just grab someone else’s list verbatim. It can work, but if you make your own list you are going to know it a lot better.

Tier One
Vick
Brady
Rivers
Brees
Peyton Manning
Rodgers (yes, I am biased against him)

I separated the players where I saw their value drop off. Between Rodgers and Rothlisberger, Schaub and Kolb, Cutler and Orton are where I saw the biggest gaps in value and that is what I used to make the separation for the groups.

This should give a general sense of how you would set up your draft board. Now your tiers don’t have to be equal in size, it just kind of worked out for me like that. I really suggest setting your stuff up in excel, it is a lot easier to organize lists in there than it is on a word type program. You should be able to get your entire draft board onto one or two pages.

Once you have it all set up, using it is fairly easy. My advice for this can be summed up in five words.

Be flexible. Go for value.

One of the best advantages of using a tier system is that it allows you to be flexible in your drafting. It requires paying a lot of attention to the draft, but it is completely worth it.

If you are using a combined list it’s often hard to draft for proper value. Consider the following scenario.

You need a runningback and a receiver; there are 8 runningbacks in your highest runningback tier whereas there is one receiver left in your highest receiver tier. You would consider the runningback to be a better player than the receiver.

If you were using a combined, list you would take the runningback.  However, though taking the top player in a tier can be good, it’s usually not the best strategy to use. Taking the receiver now, then waiting and grabbing a different runningback from the same tier would be the best move in that situation.

Generally, with a tier system you want to avoid picking someone at the top of the group, as you usually (but not always) will be able to get another player from that group with your next pick. Obviously if you are on the far ends of a snaking draft you will sometimes have to take a pick that isn’t a perfect value as you will be waiting 20+ picks in between turns.

Using a tier system puts you in a position to get the most value out of your draft picks. I’d definitely recommend doing this instead of using a list combining all positions.

Usually, we talk about wins and losses when we are discussing how good (or bad) we think the upcoming season will be for the Vikings. While that is fun, it doesn’t really say how we feel about the team.

For example, one guy could think that the Vikings will be going 8-8 and he would be happy with that because to him it would show they are improving.

On the other hand someone may think that the Vikings will also go 8-8, but wouldn’t be happy with that result as he would view anything less than a playoff spot as disappointing.

So instead of asking you guys how many wins/losses you think are team will get. I want to get a sense for how we all feel about the upcoming season. Here’s a brief description of these moods/views; some are rather self-explanatory, others, not so much.

Purple Cool-Aid Drinker

Basically, you are excited about the Vikings to the point where you have hugely irrational expectations of them. E.G. Peterson rushing for 3000 yards, Vikings going 19-0, Ponder is instantly turning into Brady. Fun for day dreaming, but can be kind of disappointing once the season starts. (Not to burst any bubbles, but the odds of those things happening are unfortunately rather slim). I know this is how I was feeling heading into the first year of Favre. For some people, this is how they start off every season. Looking back, I think it’s a little crazy, but to each their own I guess.

Present Optimist

Mainly, if this is your view you are going to be very positive about the outlook of the season, most likely you see us in a McNabb led playoff run, or Ponder having a season similar to Flacco or Matt Ryan for example. It could be something else, just as long as it is something of a more or less a positive outlook on this current season.

Future Optimist

This is slightly different than a present optimist. A future optimist will see the coming season as most likely being rather bad, but sees that as just being part of the process towards eventual becoming a better team. For example, the Vikings could go 3-13, but if Ponder is showing good signs of being the QB of the future, than that season would have been good for them.

Hopeful Pessimist

Yes, I know this is an oxymoron, but that’s the point. This is where I fit in. I’m excited about the season, but really have mixed opinions on how I feel about the team. On one hand there is all the optimism that comes from have a rookie QB. On the other hand it doesn’t feel like the team is going to be good this year. I’d like very much to be wrong, but I just don’t see this being a good year. But at the same time I’m thinking that it’s possible that the team can still get its act together and be in the hunt for the playoff.  All I know is that I’m excited for football regardless of how it turns out.

Pessimist

It’s not difficult to be a pessimist about this coming season. Let’s see, it could be easily argued that:

We are in arguably the best division in the league, we lost four solid players in Edwards, Rice, Leber, and Pat Williams, the replacements for these players most likely won’t be as good, we have a washed up QB in McNabb, a rookie who some say shouldn’t have been in the first round. I’m sure I missed something, but just looking at the stuff on this list. I’d say it would be easy to fall into this category.

Obviously the list is not all encompassing, I’m sure there are things I missed and things that overlapped.

Anyway, vote for whichever option best fits your mood about the season. Obviously, we are all excited for the coming season, but have different expectations for our team. I think it will be interesting to see how this turns out.

This was also posted on dailynorseman.com, a cool vikings site, you can go there for the poll, thanks for stopping by.

If you want to, please leave a comment so I can see that you were here.