A:

If I gave you the option of having the No. 1 pick in the first round, but only with the penalty of having to pick last in the 10th round, what would you do? You’d take that No. 1 overall pick, because guys selected in the first round are more important and more productive than players selected in the 10th round.

The same logic applies to a snake draft. The first round is more important than the second round. The third round is more important than the fourth round. The fifth round is more important than the sixth round. And so on. The guys who select earliest in the odd-numbered rounds are always a round ahead. (And they even finish a round ahead in a draft with an odd number of rounds).

Logically, then, it makes sense to always want to prefer to pick as high as you can in the odd-numbered rounds. The only exception would be if you could look at the available talent in a particular year and see some short of plateau or statistical dropoff that created an advantage to selecting earlier in an even-numbered round.

But really, an auction is the way to go. It levels the field for everyone.

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A:

You can't go into an auction with a "want" or "don't want" mentality. There has to be a gray area. I don't, for example, particularly like Tony Gonzalez. He's an older guy, and he's on a team that's headed in the wrong direction -- poor offensive line and perhaps a first-year starter at quarterback. He's not a guy I'd ever get into a bidding war over. But would I take him for the $1 minimum? Heck yeah. Would I take him for $2? Yes. Would I take him for $3? Maybe. Would I buy him for $6? No way. So with these kind of guys, you can't really say you're just going to sit out the bidding on them. What the market dictates will determine whether or not they wind up on your team.

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We hear this one a couple of times each summer. I don't, however, see any practical way we could implement a tier system. There's a dropoff below every player on the entire draft board. How much of a dropoff does there have to be before it would trigger a "tier"? How many tiers would there be on any given draft board? And keep in mind that we're dealing with scores of various league sizes and scoring systems. Best I can offer you is that we put out a stat projection file with our rankings. It says exactly how many yards and touchdowns we expect each player to produce. You could consult that to look for your tiers, then write them on their with a highlighter or something. Sorry I can't give you more help than that, but realistically, I think that's the best I can do in regards to this issue.

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The Bears still have Devin Hester. He's going to return some kicks for touchdowns. That's a big bonus. They've managed to resolve the Lance Briggs issue, and they're still in the NFC North, where the other three teams should cough up lots of sacks, interceptions and fumbles. So I think the Bears will help fantasy teams again this year. I see the Ravens as more similar to the other top defenses -- San Diego, New England, Dallas.

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I like flexible rosters. Let each owner decide how many of each position to carry -- just like NFL teams do. If you've got a quarterback like Peyton Manning or Carson Palmer, perhaps you decide to not even carry a backup quarterback after your bye week. That's all part of the strategy.

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It looks like the two most favorable positions to draft from would be No. 1 and No. 2, then not much difference between the rest. The following list shows the projected bang-for-your-buck production through the first five rounds of the draft. With the teams continuing to draft first in the later rounds, some of those teams would continue to sneak up a spot or two:

Team 1: 324, Team 2: 271, Team 16: 251, Team 8: 250, Team 9: 250, Team 10: 248, Team 7: 246, Team 12: 246, Team 3: 245, Team 11: 245, Team 14: 244, Team 15: 244, Team 4: 243, Team 6: 242, Team 5: 242, Team 13: 242.

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Jacobs is running a 4.44? I take it you read that in the fiction section. We are talking about Brandon Jacobs, right? The 265-pound guy who plays for the Giants?

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I'm not promising that Galloway or Ward is going to the Pro Bowl. They're both older guys. If everything goes right for Galloway -- he stays healthy and the team gets adequate quarterback play -- he could be a top-10 receiver. Ward is currently the No. 24 receiver on my list; I'm concerned about the number of multiple-receiver sets that team will use. If you draft these guys in the sixth round, I don't think you should walk out of your draft saying, "I'm going to kick everyone's ass at wide receiver this year." Just as it didn't make sense for you to count to heavily last year on Williamson, who was only the No. 35 wide receiver on our board. Note: You're being kind of harsh, aren't you, in labeling Jeff Garcia an injury-prone quarterback? This guy has started over 90 games in the NFL and has had I think two injuries. I don't think that's enough to get him in the "injury prone" class.

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Thanks for the nice words. If you look back into previous mailbags, you'll see some adjusted top 30 overalls for systems with double quarterbacks. Basically, it brings them up onto equal footing with the tailbacks. You'll definitely want to get out of your draft with a pair of quarterbacks that you can count on.

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There's something missing in this deal, right? Like the second-round pick in a keeper league or something? Some folks are concerned about Frank Gore's durability, but I expect he'll be selected in the top 10 of virtually every draft this summer. It would be ridiculous to trade him away for the chance to move up seven spots in later rounds.

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