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I’m not sure what the process is at the other magazines. Generally, we draw up a list of about four guys who work for the cover. Then we request shots of each, and hope there’s a shot there that jumps out as being “the one”. That was the case this year. The photo of Chris Johnson, I thought, was simply a lot better than the photos of Adrian Peterson and Drew Brees. We kicked around the idea of Shonn Greene – a breakout candidate – but he didn’t grade out quite well enough. He doesn’t catch the ball, and I’m not sure he can stay healthy. As for Peyton Manning, he’s been close many times. We’ve had a few good Manning shots, and I would guess that he’s been the runnerup for the cover either two or three times. With quarterbacks seeming to be rising in value, maybe that will be the position you’ll see more of in the next few years. Good photos of quarterbacks tend to be easier to find than running backs – they handle the ball more.

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I don’t consider Romo to be a second-tier quarterback. I think he’s right there with the top guys. I’d be very excited to select him in the third round of a draft. Hard to justify selecting a quarterback in the first or second round, in my opinion, if you can get Romo later. But there is substantial depth as well. If you could guarantee me that I’d get Kolb and Roethlisberger with a pair of a later-round picks, I think I’d be comfortable with that pair.

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I’m not too worried about the Benson issue. Maybe – maybe – he gets suspended for one game, but I doubt it. He’s been charged with misdemeanor assault. He released a statement that seems pretty credible. He says some female fans asked for him to pose for some photos in a bar. A guy at the bar didn’t like this, confronted Benson and got in a scuffle with him. As Benson was leaving the bar, he says, another guy came up to him. Benson thought this second guy was a friend of the first and punched him. He didn’t realize it was actually an employee of the club. That sounds like a pretty reasonable story. On the flip side, Benson has had some off-field issues before, and the league says it’s looking into the matter, so it’s possible Benson will be disciplined. Maybe you move him down a spot or two on your board. As for the Buffalo defense, I checked with Andy Richardson, who does our projections there. He’s confident that Kawika Mitchell won’t be a starter – that he’ll wind up in a reserve role at inside linebacker behind Paul Posluszny and Andra Davis. Donte Whitner has some ability, but he also be a reserve, behind Jairus Byrd and George Wilson. Andy says he didn’t list Leodis McKelvin as a starter in the magazine because he was coming off a broken leg. But with McKelvin looking sound physically, he’ll probably be a starter.

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I agree that age is a concern in the receiving corps. If Moss isn’t a playmaker receiver, than what do they have there? But they could be helped by some of their youngsters. Brandon Tate, from what I hear, is ready to be a contributor. And maybe they can get some production out of their rookie tight ends. Also don’t forget that Brady apparently played a good chunk of last year with bruised ribs that were affecting his ability to throw. He could play better. So while Miami and New York both appear to be teams on the rise, I think the Patriots are still the clear favorite in that division. Glancing at their schedule, I still see about 11 wins.

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I get very nervous when listing a top 35. I don’t want people using a top 35 unless it’s good. It has to be accurate; otherwise, I’m just giving them tainted advice. Most notably, the overall list varies wildly if you’re starting two or three receivers. It’s supply and demand; you increase the demand for wide receivers, and it increases their value relative to the other positions. So my preference is that customers take the 5 minutes to go to the website and click on “Custom Cheat Sheet” (in the gray navigation bar at the top of the page). Then they need to click on the “Scoring Profile” and enter the basics of their league. More importantly, they need to click on the league for “Auction Settings” (even if they’re not in an auction). They then answer a series of questions which basically set the overall parameters for their league – how many guys are going to be selected, and how many of those guys are going to be starters – basically, at what point do we get to where teams hardly care who they’re taking? The key questions in there are the ones where you’re asked to identify “how many quarterbacks (or guys at other positions) will go for more than the $1.00 minimum?” I will concede that seems like an unusual and meaningless question for somebody who’s not even using a salary cap format. But that’s how we determine relative values between the two positions. If you’re in a league where everyone is starting two quarterbacks, then maybe 36 players at that position will be selected, and their value will go way up. If you’re not in an auction league and are kind of thrown by the wording of the question, it may help to think of it in this way. “How many quarterbacks will be selected before we get down to the point where you don’t really care which one you get?” You would never be willing to give up a spot of draft position in the second round, for example, just to get a better choice of those lesser quarterbacks – it’s a guy you may wind up cutting later anyway, when some other free agent plays well in Week 2. In a typical 12-team league, I go with about 15 quarterbacks being worth more than $1, maybe 30 running backs, ~28 wide receivers (~40 in leagues starting three), maybe 9-10 tight ends, 2-3 kickers and about four defenses. If you’re in a league with flex players (which also affects the overall), you add those into the positions you believe they should come from. I realize that a lot of people don’t want to be bothered thinking about stuff too much. They just want a list. And I will discuss with the group the possibility of increasing the number of places that the default top 35 shows up (the one you see on the PDF file). But if you want to get a good overall top 35 – the one I’d recommend if I were sitting next to you at your draft – you’ll definitely want to tap into that auction area of the website. Then you’ll have an extremely accurate overall list (and one that goes beyond just the top 35). Try out it; it’s worth the extra time.

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I listed a couple of those charts yesterday. I will list the others today. They show the average distance of touchdowns last year. I think you will do better, however, by tapping into our custom rankings. Go to the “Custom Cheat Sheet” area of the website, click on “Scoring Profile” and enter in what kind of bonuses players get in your league for longer touchdowns. As part of my preparations, I grade every player for explosiveness – trying to gauge where those touchdowns might come from. For receivers, for example, they get a grade from 1-5. A “1” would be a player like a fullback or a blocking tight end who would be unlikely to ever score a touchdown from outside 10 yards. A “2” is an average tight end or wide receiver with limited mobility – with little chance of scoring touchdowns outside the red zone. A “3” is an average wide receiver or a tight end with unusual speed (somebody like Vernon Davis or Jermichael Finley). A “4” is a receiver with the ability to score from long range, but a guy who’ll also be used in the red zone; Randy Moss and Terrell Owens are usually in that category. And a “5” is a player with the explosiveness to score from long range but a player who won’t be used extensively around the goal line (so these are the guys most likely to average over 30 yards per touchdowns). By studying the touchdown distribution of the last 10-15 years, I’ve created a scoring profile for each of those types of players, showing the likelihood that touchdowns will come from any given length. For those very most explosive receivers, for example, what is the probability that one of their touchdowns will come from 40-plus yards? According to my calculations, about 36 percent (I’ve got them at 14 percent between 40-50 yards, 14 percent between 50 and 70 yards, and 8 percent from beyond 70 yards.

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I don’t think you’ll see anything new with tiers this year. I can, however, offer the following peace offering. When you use the custom rankings feature, I believe, it generates expected total points for each player (using your exact scoring system). So you can look at those figures and see what the exact dropoff is at each position. If a running back is projected to score 215 points, and the next two are listed at 213 and 211, I suppose those guys would be on the same tier. If you want to take it a step farther, you can use the custom auction values, translating those numbers into dollar values (again, customized to your exact scoring system). The top half-dozen wide receivers might come with dollar values of $40.03, $39.34, $38.75, $32.45, $32.01 and $31.21, allowing to see that there’s a dropoff after the top 3 guys.

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I like all four of those top running backs – Chris Johnson, Adrian Peterson, Ray Rice and Maurice Jones-Drew. But when you start pushing around the numbers, you’ll see that Andre Johnson projects to be just as good in a PPR format. So I advise that you fish around and see if you can put together a deal to trade down. Maybe you can move down to the 6th spot in exchange for an extra third-round pick. Then you could select Johnson there and pick up an extra significant player. That’s always a good avenue to explore.

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I believe that Vincent Jackson is the guy you want. You need another receiver, and Jackson will be very good once he completes his suspension. I don’t think you can count on Dwayne Bowe. If not Jackson, then Plan B (at least for me) would probably be to hope that Felix Jones puts together a breakout season.

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