Wide Receiver #3 By Committee - WR3BC

  Posted 8/5 by Jeff Pasquino, Exclusive for Footballguys.com

Over the past few years, there have been two very popular articles written by our very own Chase Stuart that look at an interesting approach to building a fantasy team with late value picks. Based upon the theory of using both Strength of Schedule ("SOS") and taking two players as a combination to build one very good player, he has discussed both Team Defense by Committee ("TDBC") and Quarterback by Committee ("QBBC") as a general fantasy league strategy. In general I think that this is a wise move because very early on in fantasy drafts there are a ton of RB and WR prospects to go after to build a great team. While there are a few studs at QB and also a few choice defenses, I do not see a huge need in leagues to pursue either too hard in the beginning stages of a fantasy draft.

So with this in mind, I started to think about what else can be done with the committee approach. Tight end? Perhaps. Running back? Maybe. Wide receiver? Hmmm, that's really intriguing, but we should probably look at say the third starting option - "Fantasy WR3". What if you could grab two wide receivers later in the draft that could combine to perform on a WR3 - or even WR2 - level, based solely on their current projections and their schedule? Now we're talking. This really got my attention, so I went after this. Let's take a look at how I went about this and then we can digest and discuss the results.

Eligible Receivers

So how to begin? Defenses and quarterbacks are relatively easy to "committee" together. There's usually only one QB and certainly only one team defense per NFL club, so the approach is pretty simple as far as picking out which players / teams to try and pair up. When it comes to wide receivers, the line is not quite so easy to draw, but I needed some basis to pick which players it made sense to try and combine for a decent committee. I decided that I would use the following criteria to decide which players to start with for evaluating:

Criteria #1 - WR37 and Beyond

This seems pretty simple. If we want to have a duo that puts up WR3 numbers, that means we want WR36 or better production - else we would just draft WR36 or higher and forget the whole idea. So here is the list of players with which I started, based on their Average Draft Position (ADP):

Table 1: Wide Receivers WR37-WR60 Based on ADP

Note that while Table 1 has 24 names, I am excluding Derrick Mason (now that he is unretired, his ADP will likely increase), and Plaxico Burress (unsigned, legal issues). So now we have 22 guys to pair up and see how they do. That makes 231 potential committees, so there had better be a decent one (or several, we hope) out of all of those couplets. Now, before I go over the method of how to pair them up and the results, we need one more rule:

Criteria #2 - No more than one WR from Round 7 and one from Round 8.

This could get tricky here, but understand the overall goal. The point of WR3BC is to "free up" the first 6 rounds of your fantasy draft to pursue 2-3 receivers (especially in PPR leagues) after grabbing a stud RB in Round 1. This also gives you the flexibility of grabbing two receivers and a stud QB or TE, depending on your personal preference, or even to get RB2 and have the "WR3BC" be your WR4. Flexibility is the name of the game here. We all want value in our drafts, and having the ability to grab two WRs in Rounds 7 and 8 to act as our WR3BC gives us that ability.

Here is the good news - all of the wide receivers on the list above have ADPs that are Round 8 or higher (later). In fact, only one (Donald Driver) is being selected on average in Round 9. We will have to keep that in mind when we look at the result because if we decide to wait unit Round 9 to get our second receiver to make up our WR3BC we may be pushing it a little too far and may not get the combination that we want.

So what do we do now to figure out some WR pairs?

Criteria #3 - Use Footballguys' WR Strength of Schedule

This sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? Just take the WR Strength of Schedule to figure out when certain players are more likely to score well. What I did is similar to what the Projections Dominator and Draft Dominator do for you - take the projected fantasy points and slice them up over 17 weeks based on the strength of schedule. I call this result the "distributed fantasy points" for each receiver.

After I had all 22 wide receivers with distributed fantasy points on a weekly basis, I just compared all of the possible WR pairs to find the best duos for WR3BC. So here we are - time for some results.

Table 2: Wide Receiver #3 Committee Pairs

As we can see from Table 2, we have some very good pairs to select from for WR3BC. There are 23 pairs that are worth more than Donald Driver (WR37) by his lonesome, who is projected to come in with 192.8 (PPR) points. Let's also take a look at how often some of these guys show up on the table:

Table 3: Wide Receiver #3 Committee Pair Appearances by Player

As we can see from Table 3, Donald Driver dominates the list, but three other WRs show up on this list at least twice - Ted Ginn, Muhsin Muhammad and Steve Breaston. Three of these names should surprise no one that read Table 1, as these three guys are all near the Top of the WR37 and beyond ADP list. They should have good value and should make for good pairs. The biggest point to note is that Muhammad is an extreme value play at WR53, and should be a target for WR5 for your fantasy team.

Putting It All Together

Now that we have 23 possible pairs that are better than Donald Driver, what exactly does that mean? Should Donald Driver be the basis of our comparison? Of course not. Remember our goal - find a pair of wide receivers that can combine for WR3 (or better) fantasy production. To figure that out we need a better metric, so here are the projections for WR13 through WR36, using PPR:

Table 4: Projected Fantasy Points for WRs 13-36 (PPR)

Based on Table 4, we see that WRs beyond the Top 12 are really jumbled all over the place. Some are going to early in drafts (Brandon Marshall, Roy Williams) based on current projections, while others are available at what appears to be a discount. Filtering through all of this "noise", we see some players that catch our eye. Santonio Holmes (WR25, 202.3 fantasy points projected) is the last of the "upper tier" of wideouts that are projected to top 200 fantasy points in 2009. Looking at our possible pairs, we have 13 duos that beat 200 fantasy points, while the Top 3 pairs line up well against Donnie Avery (WR21). This tells us that choosing the correct pair can give us the result we wanted - WR3 production (and borderline WR2) on the cheap.

Considering all of the results, the recipe looks very clear - get Donald Driver. Nabbing him in Round 7 or Round 8 allows you to choose from 13 WRs that will post numbers comparable to a WR3. The best duo, in fact, will post numbers similar to a moderate value WR2. With Steve Breaston being limited by Fitzgerald and Boldin in Arizona, I like the first pair of wideouts. That is why I am recommending Donald Driver and Ted Ginn as the WR3BC for 2009, with the added suggestion of adding Muhsin Muhammad at WR5. Take Donald Driver in Round 7 or 8 and follow up quickly with Ginn in Round 8 or 9 to pair together for your WR3 committee.

For thoroughness Table 2 should be your guide on Fantasy Draft Day if you attempt to use WR3BC. Take Donald Driver in Round 7 and then grab the next WR on the list that you like, with a strong preference to Ginn or Breaston.

Here is a final summary of the combined schedules for Donald Driver and Ted Ginn, and when the committee approach suggests starting each one:

As always, feedback is welcome at pasquino@footballguys.com.