After closely studying the initial ADPs this year for the ADP article we posted on Friday and seeing how fantasy owners are scarfing up RBs like it’s going out of style, one of my main missions this year is to find some RBs who have a chance to be impactful but aren’t getting any love, and I have one in AFC East.

With veteran Mike Goodson having an ugly off-season that includes a May 17 arrest in New Jersey on drug and weapons charges, which could result in prison time, and a new paternity suit being filed this week (and he has others), it’s time to start talking about a potential sleeper RB for the Jets: Bilal Powell.

Goodson is still on the roster and has the speed they need in their backfield, but between his off-field issues and injury history, he’s very hard to count on. They obviously brought former Saint Chris Ivory in to be their lead back, and Ivory does run very hard and has good explosiveness for power back. But he’s also dealt with a multitude of injuries, despite never coming close to carrying the load for a rushing attack.

Bilal Powell was a solid goal line back [...]

The NFL and fantasy landscapes change quickly these days, so if you have a draft strategy, it had better be year-specific. I have already done several mock and real drafts for various publications, and the 2013 trends are pretty clear – so they dominate the following 10 draft tips.

Try to hold off a little before drafting a QB – To summarize the best 2013 draft approach in a word, it’s “patience,” and that specifically applies to the QB position. Just 2-3 years ago, I was all about getting as many impact players as possible, regardless of position, and QB was a big part of that approach. After the passing game bonanza that we saw in 2011, you’d think that I’d be all over the signal-callers as rock-solid early picks. I do still believe in the BPA approach (best player available), and the top QBs are almost always safe and extremely productive options. But in 2013, it doesn’t make nearly as much sense taking a QB early as it did even just one year ago. There are many paths to a championship, and there’s nothing wrong with using a No.1 pick on Aaron Rodgers, or a 2nd-round snag of Drew Brees. [...]

In about a month, I will be whipping up my initial and early Draft Plan, which will simply cover all the positions and how to approach them. In the summer, I’ll tweak that and quadruple the size of the article, as I always do in the summer. That will cover a plan of action by position, go pick-by-pick through the first 10 rounds, and much more.

But in order to formulate my Draft Plan, I have to actually draft, and I have been doing that this month. Today I did my second mock draft for a magazine, this one for USA Today’s fantasy magazine. I can’t share all the results, but I can share my picks and some general thoughts.

As you may recall, I thought last year a good way to zig when everyone zagged in a draft was to, as I put it, “kick it old school” and go RB-RB. That actually might have been bad advice, thanks to some RB injuries/poor play from namely Darren McFadden and DeMarco Murray. But I always try to be ahead of the curve, and it appears I was because going old school looks like a great way to go this year, since QB [...]

5/1 Edit: I have made a few small but key changes to the early rankings, as expected, so I’ve removed them in case someone stops by here and thinks these are the latest and (at least for now) final rankings. You can find our updated keeper rankings, including all the rookies, here:

http://www.fantasyguru.com/football/subscribers/ftdb.php?page=keepers&position=QB&print=N

There have been years in the recent past when our SOS analysis has been really strong and looking at strength of schedule has been very useful for fantasy purposes. This is always an element to inspect closely, but I have to say that looking back at least year’s coverage, the impact of SOS in 2012 was negligible. I’d say in terms of accuracy that it leaned to the positive, but overall the schedule’s impact was minor last year.

But certainly, inspecting each team’s schedule is something that absolutely has to be done, especially the key playoff weeks, when 1-2 good or bad matchups can mean the difference between merely making the fantasy playoffs and winning it all.

As we always do, we project the upcoming season’s SOS by assigning a number grade for each defense against the run and the pass. We then compare those grades for all 32 teams’ 16 matchups and attempt to predict SOS rather than go strictly off of 2012’s numbers.

We’ll do that after the draft, when we can properly grade each defense against the run and the pass, but for now here are some quick thoughts on the 2013 schedule.

Arizona – Their SOS will be tougher simply due [...]