offensive strategy - the receiver

The receiver is without question the most important position on the field. The primary skill here is catching the disc - and it is crucial that the receiver has this ability. It is the only way to score in Ultimate (and therefore in Thursday Frisbee). While it's not too hard to catch a frisbee, the key issue in selecting a receiver in a draft is reliability. If I threw a disc at someone 100 times, how many times would they catch it? Let's take my unfortunately-named friend Sarby for example. If I threw a disc at him 100 times, my guess would be he could snag about 80 of them. (Good hands!) So we can go ahead and give him a high rating and therefore a good position in the draft.

But that can't be the only metric. It's pretty easy to catch a disc thrown directly at you, especially if it's only you and the handler having a catch back and forth. Unfortunately, that's not what we encounter in TF. Sarby will have to deal with defenders. He will have to move in order to catch the disc. He needs to be aware of the boundaries. He has in his mind the score and the current situation his team is in - and he is ever-increasingly aware of the importance that he needs to make a play!

Can you say pressure?

Just because someone is great at playing catch doesn't mean they're automatically a top draft pick for receiver. But there's grace for that :)