Fantasy Football Party Mock Draft #3

Another awesome mock draft event in the books! Thanks so much to Tin Whiskers and to all our participants for coming out to support the show. We had mock drafters AND folks there just to hang out and watch, ask questions, and enjoy the fabulous Tin Whiskers brews. Now, to the mock review…

This was a two-horse race for my favorite team, one of them being mine, and the other being Bobby’s. I’m supposed to be OK at this so I’ll simply note the values I got at QB and TE (seriously, wait on those positions on draft day) and move on. Bobby got great value all over the place as well. This is a standard league draft, but David Johnson dropping that far is surprising. There’s some risk here that Chris Johnson and Andre Ellington sap some of David Johnson’s volume, but that offense is explosive enough—as is David Johnson—that it shouldn’t matter much. Following up with Brandon Marshall and CJ Anderson was wonderful too. And that Tom Brady pick followed by Eli for the first four weeks, bravo!

Dave LaVaque went against the grain with Aaron Rodgers second overall, though being a 10-team league his team didn’t wind up suffering much from it as a result. Not handcuffing Christine Michael to Thomas Rawls is a mistake, and there are other sleeper TEs I prefer to Kyle Rudolph, but all-in-all not bad for a guy who admittedly hasn’t played fantasy football in six years.

Mike D did well to snag Gronk at the turn after going Antonio Brown #1 overall, and I also like Brees in the sixth round. I’m just not feeling Carlos Hyde this year, but that pick is fixable with LeGarrette Blount and Ryan Mathews backing them up. Also a lot of risk here with three rookie wideouts, which historically don’t produce well enough for Mike’s team to be a championship contender. But with Brown/Brees/Gronk, he’s got as much week-to-week upside as anybody.

Jake picked a great team (of players others had already selected in previous rounds). He was understandably distracted having just come from a full-day fantasy football draft event, but still did well for himself with Cam/Gurley/Evans/Watkins as a formidable top four. I also like the Fitzy pick in the seventh round, but Bortles in the 8^th after already snagging Cam was ill advised.

Adrian Peterson continues to fall to mid-first round in these, which I think is a mistake—one that Doogie capitalized on. AJ Green also inexplicably fell, giving Doogs arguably the best 1-2 punch in this league. From there I didn’t love the combined risk of Jordy (injury), Demaryius (quarterback) and Langford (injury, average talent), but a return to form from Andrew Luck and two of those three question marks turning out and Doogs has a squad that week-to-week would be among the toughest to face.

Rob went four straight wide receivers—all four can start—which I commend for the ballsiness but overall I feel like is unnecessary. There’s enough RB value out there to go three straight WRs if you want, but in a standard league I wouldn’t go four even though you can start all four of them. As John Tuvey noted at our draft, Matt Forte has never finished outside of the top 12 at his position. And Frank Gore should be a workhorse in a great offense. But both guys are long in the tooth. Danny Woodhead should help some and Bilal Powell provides at least Forte insurance—if not just being the better fantasy player at some point this season. But in non-PPR, those two don’t offer as much value. I probably would’ve passed on taking two more bench receivers after starting the draft with four straight just to give me a couple more bites at the apple to make sure the RB position works out.

Mitchell (not Bo—he went straight MC on us for the event) would dominate in a Raiders-only league. He’s obviously bought into the retooled offensive line there and is expecting the Silver and Black to rise again. Overall I wouldn’t recommend that many pieces of any offense, regardless of how good it is. It simply limits your upside too much. A big Latavius game means the Carr/Cooper combo is less likely to go boom. Same for the inverse. I liked that he locked up Tennessee’s backfield and handcuffed in Atlanta (a situation I think warrants it in all formats), but overall I think the Raiders-heavy approach dooms this squad to nothing more than a .500 finish.

Tuvey, meanwhile, went RB early—which is an approach I love near the first turn in both 10- and 12-team leagues. It used to be RBs would fly off the board and this is where you’d zig towards WRs. Now the opposite is true. And Tuvey, in a standard league, landed two of the probably six or seven guys in the running for RB1 overall this season. I loved the TY Hilton follow-up too, and don’t mind Baldwin. I’m not in love with Hurns, though, an area where Tuvey and I are gonna agree to disagree. I just see too much regression coming from that passing game, and think it’s going to ultimately ding Hurns the most, after Bortles.

Thanks again to everyone who showed up to Tin Whiskers. Our next event is this Sunday, August 28^th, at Northgate Brewing. We’ve still got mock draft spots available! Just reach out on twitter or email FFparty@zoneblitz.com if you want in. And special for this one event: If you bring your league draft to Northgate, we’ll add a $50 Zubaz gift card to the pot for the league champ. Just let us know you’re coming and bring along at least 8 league members and the gift card will be entrusted to your commissioner.

We look forward to seeing you!