You’re fine. We just have a bit of a difference. No problem.
Don’t worry, we’re not all that terrible here. You risk that I’ll talk your ear off when you ask an open question here, but that’s about it. 
I prefer to explain how I came to my conclusions, so that you can decide to disregard my advice if you don’t buy my premises.
And for all the bickering and bantering, I have to give the Elf credit for shredding my initial 2021 projections for the Patriots. My projections on their skill position players wouldn’t have been as good as they were if he hadn’t told me that my initial team volume projection for them was all wrong. Which it was, indeed.
Oh yeah, and welcome on board!
What you describe is the way I did projections until 2 years ago. Just assigned random volumes to players, and if the resulting rank wasn’t to my liking, I added or removed some.
Since last year, I project team volumes, mostly based on roster and coaching staff changes. And I project volume shares for the individual players on each team.
When I do that, I have no idea what the resulting position rank for a player will be. I know that only once I’m done with all 32 teams. Only then I feed the resulting points into a single table and see what ranking this generates.
That’s why I said:
Lamb isn’t my #2 WR because I wanted him to be, but because he showed up there when I had processed all 32 teams. I didn’t expect him to come out that high, just like I would never have guessed Pittman to show up at #4. But there they are.
If this was about gut feeling and personal preference, I’d rank Diggs over Lamb. The reason why I have Lamb over Diggs is that both teams have about the same team volume (Dallas’ passing volume will be a little higher), but there are less pass catchers in Dallas in 2022 than there were in 2021. That means a bigger share for each of them.
Buffalo OTOH has more pass catchers in 2022 than they had last year. Their passing volume isn’t likely to grow, going by the potent defense they built. That results in a slightly lower production total for each player, even though the effect isn’t dramatic.
I have Diggs at WR#8, with almost the same stat line as in 2021. Gabe Davis is not a value pick any longer, I have him at WR#23, and his ADP is closing in on that range.
So now you’re assigning random team volumes AND random volume shares to individual players, and then drafting based on that.
You might as well set your draft rankings by drawing names out of a hat.
No. I rank all NFL teams #1-#32 in 7 different categories, and then assign the average volume of the past 5 years in that category.
E.g. I rank Green Bay 15th in terms of passing attempts. #15 translates into 607 attempts on average over the last 5 years (with the 16 game seasons being properly adjusted, of course).
That part is still relatively easy. Missing the exact rank by a few spots is not a big problem. #12 means 617 attempts, #18 means 588. So as long as I stay in the right range, I’m good. Except for BAL and SEA, I stayed in the right ranges in 2021 for almost all teams.
The tricky part is assigning passing and rushing shares to the individual players within a team. For some teams, that is indeed like drawing names out of a hat. The 2022 Chiefs are one of these teams that I cannot figure out at all. How will the backfield work out? Will we finally see a pass catching back in KC? Will Kelce start showing signs of age regression? How will MVS, JuJu, Skyy and Hardman distribute the receiving volume among each other?
My gut feeling is that Mahomes will pass the ball around a lot. The Chiefs’ biggest weakness in 2021 was that they had gotten predictable, and defenses figured out how to shut them down. The Chiefs will want to change that in 2022.
So the 2022 Chiefs could become the 2021 Cowboys: great passing offense, no top fantasy WR. Or one of them will become the alpha target and enter WR1 territory. If you have a good idea, enlighten me. I’ll listen.
Other teams are easier. If there aren’t many pass catchers on the roster, then it’s not that difficult to figure out where the ball will go. The Ravens are a prime example here.
My approach also identifies teams where the QB ADP and the pass catcher ADPs don’t match at all. Take the Colts for example:
Matt Ryan = ADP QB19 - I’m cool with that, have him ranked right there.
QB19 for a pocket passer means ~550 attempts, ~3,900 yards, ~28 passing TDs. That’s average metrics for the NFL
And then let’s look at the pass catchers:
Pittman = WR13
Campbell = WR83
Pierce = WR93
Alie-Cox = TE33
Jelani Woods = TE41
Nyheim Hines = RB51
Sure, JT is the RB1 in ADP. But JT’s target share wasn’t huge in 2021, slightly under 10%. And I don’t expect it to grow.
So something is wrong with the other Colts’ skill position player ADPs. Either we are too high on Matt Ryan. Or we are way too low on most, or even all of the above mentioned pass catchers. It’s impossible that both is true at the same time.
I agree with the Ryan ranking, but then I cannot agree with the pass catcher rankings. If I distribute the available volume, giving Pittman the lion’s share of 32% in targets and 35% in TDs (because who else will be the alpha receiver in Indy?), he comes out as WR#4, 9 spots above his ADP.
And if Nyheim Hines can establish himself as the #3 or #4 target, he could become a low-end RB2 in full PPR. Granted, that’s his ceiling. But he’s drafted as RB#51 at the moment. Expect him to end up on almost every of my rosters this year.
That is exactly the kind of value my approach allows me to find. It’s far from being perfect, but it did deliver some pretty good results in 2021. Which doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of room for improvement.
I’ll do my final projections adjustments in August, based on TC news and impressions. And then we’ll see how many of the value picks I projected will hit in 2022.
The 2021 list wasn’t too shabby. J Herbert, T Brady, K Cousins, D Carr, J Taylor, A Ekeler, J Mixon, D Harris (not least thanks to your help, to give credit where credit is due), J Jefferson, D Samuel, J Meyers, A St. Brown - all these players finished much higher than their pre-season ADP, as predicted by yours truly.
Not bad for drawing names out of a hat.
So just north of random then. Historically based, but unsupported for the current application. Basically what I said.
Most of us who have been playing a while do just as well as your claims of success without the kangaroo court of meaningless statistical projections to point at.
So you’re mocking me for “pulling names out of a hat”, only to then share that you are doing exactly that, but believe your hat is better than mine. Insert slow clap gif here.
This is very easy to fix. Head to head draft under same rules and guidelines.
Winner can talk for a year.
Nah, life’s too short to voluntarily spend time with toxic people.
I have shared many clear and precise projections here, to be reviewed after the season. I will post my final updates and a collection of value picks some time next week, for everybody to shred them after the season.
No, I’m mocking you for doing that which you accuse me of doing–pulling names out of a hat, and then believing that your hat is better than mine–and putting a lot more work into it, to boot.
Good luck for your season.
since u have Taylor… keep lamb…and mixon or Jones… whoever u like better…i go Mixon… great offense, run off some leads, less competition