Mock drafting is a very important part of the preseason regimen that a Fantasy player should go through. I have already completed around 50 mock drafts this season. The process has been made much faster this season after I found the Mock Draft Simulator I wrote about here. Instead of taking an hour, the simulator takes the average draft positions rankings, and simulates a draft for you. You can pick various settings for the rosters and league size, making it a great tool for all kinds of leagues. An upgrade to the pro level on fantasy pros lets you draft against a higher level setting, making your draft game even better.
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| Image source: greeleytribune.com |
Drafting from all the different positions in the draft helps you discover the players that will be available at your picks, and prepares you for your draft.
Knowing the likely rounds you need to take the players you are interested in allows you to put together a solid plan to draft the team you want.
For the first in this series I have decided to pick from the 11 spot. The league setting is a 12 team PPR with two wide receivers, two running backs, and a flex.
So let’s take a look at the mock draft from pick 11.
When my first round pick came up I had some choices. There were some great players still available. Julio Jones, Odell Beckham Jr., Demaryius Thomas, Arian Foster, and CJ Anderson were all available. With only one player in between my first and second picks my selection process is skewed by the talent left at wide receiver. If I take a second tier high level running back there will still be at least one wide out that I would be happy to have on my team when my pick at 14 comes back to me. With only two running backs left that I am interested at this point in the draft, I would not be guaranteed one of them. So my selection was Foster. I wouldn’t fault you for taking Anderson, but as I wrote about Foster earlier this year, I like him a lot this season.
This was written before the injury to Foster in the preseason. That injury makes it imperative in my opinion that you would take Anderson at this spot. He is the best running back left and could be the end of a tier at the position. There will still be the same receivers behind this pick, but you have by far taken the best running back left.
As it turned out
the picks at 12 and 13 were Beckham and Jones, leaving me to take Demaryius Thomas at pick 14. This sets up the situation I am favoring this season in my leagues. In the past I have favored a zero running back approach to PPR leagues, but this year I am leaning more toward taking a running back if the right guy is available. In this draft I now have a great running back and an elite wide receiver to start my draft out. I know that when it gets back to me at the end of round three none of the elite wide receivers or running backs will be left.
When it does come my turn at pick 35
there were still some decent players available. For running backs Lamar Miller, Alfred Morris, Jonathan Stewart were all there to be selected. At wide receiver the available players were Brandin Cooks, Emmanuel Sanders, Kelvin Benjamin, and Julian Edelman. At this point in the draft quarterback can also be a consideration to me, and Peyton Manning and Russell Wilson were available. I am not a huge fan of Miller this year, Morris is not a great back in PPR formats because he doesn’t catch passes, and Stewart has a history of injury so I am not a huge fan of any of these players. If I didn’t already have Thomas as one of my receivers I might take Sanders, but I don’t want two receivers from the same team. With a lot of targets available in the New Orleans offense and a belief that Cooks will be getting his fair share of them, I selected him. Edelman would be a solid choice in a PPR format, but the possibility of Tom Brady missing four games sours me on him at this spot in the draft.
The round four pick, 38 overall left me in a similar spot. I am confident that a quarterback that can touch the elite level will not be around at the end of round five. I have two great wide receivers already so taking a guy I am not sure about in Edelman, and a guy who is unlikely to have the same level of targets and has drop issues in Benjamin is not on my radar. So I decide to do something I don’t usually do and take Peyton. This allows me to stack my elite wide receiver and his quarterback. As I wrote here, I like to stack an elite target and the guy throwing him the ball when it is possible. This satisfies my desire there.
By the time my pick in round five comes around,
59 overall, all of the Top 20 running backs and wide receivers were off the board. Russell Wilson has fallen to this spot, a slight miscalculation on my part, but I’m still happy with Peyton. The best available players on the board at running back are Giovanni Bernard, Carlos Hyde, Latavius Murray, and TJ Yeldon. Travis Kelce and Greg Olson are both available at tight end, but I am not a fan of early tight ends. Yeldon is my pick here. I am gambling on a rookie, but he is a rookie that has the job pretty well locked up. I have recently read some good reports on Yeldon and how well he has picked up the offense. If he can lock down pass blocking, he has a chance to be a three down back.
For my pick at 62 overall Carlos Hyde and Travis Kelce have now come off the board. Latavius Murray and Giovanni Bernard are still available at running back. I am not ready to go with another gamble on a guy who is unproven at running back and is on a team that will likely be trailing a lot. With Roy Helu on the roster, the Raiders have a pass catching back not named Latavius. I am still not a fan of Bernard at this spot so I switch up my thinking a bit. Greg Olson is the fourth ranked tight end on the blended rankings, and since I already have a fairly well rounded setup of starters, I decided to take Olson at this spot. My belief is that in later rounds I can find a few guys to platoon at my flex spot, but I now have a lineup that I am willing to run out every week of the season and take my chances with.
Between rounds six and seven a quarterback run position happens.
This is important to note because this is a likely spot that if you don’t have a quarterback, it’s time to get your man. Since I already do, that allows players to fall to me that were available previously. When my pick at 83 overall comes up, Giovanni Bernard is still on the board. Even though I am not a fan of him this season, as I wrote earlier, every player will have a place in a draft where the value is better than the pick. Bernard will be a great flex player in a PPR league, so he is my pick at 83.
When it comes back around in the eighth round at pick 86 overall there are still some decent values on the board. Rashad Jennings, Joique Bell, LeGarrette Blount are the best running backs on the board. Eric Decker and Larry Fitzgerald are the top receivers left for the taking. Seeing as I have a rookie and a guy I don’t believe in this year on my squad already, I decide to take Joique bell to bolster my running back depth. I don’t like to take Patriots backs since you never know what they are going to do, and Jennings has a hard time staying healthy, so Joique is my guy.
A stoke of good fortune finds me when it comes back to me at 107 and 110.
We find that both Decker and Fitzgerald have fallen to me. These are guys that in the later rounds I am a fan of getting on my teams. I don’t believe in Geno Smith as an NFL quarterback. I think that at some point this season he will be on the bench and Ryan Fitzpatrick gives Decker a lot of opportunity. Fitzpatrick is a decent NFL quarterback with the ability to run a good offense. He is not a top level quarterback, but he is a veteran who knows what he is doing. Fitzgerald is a bit more of a flier than I think Decker is. But in the 10th round he is a good value. If Carson Palmer can stay healthy this season, Fitzgerald should have better numbers than he did with the menagerie of terrible quarterbacks the Cardinals had last year. As my fourth wide out I could do worse.
When my pick comes up in round 11,
131 overall, I found a lot of late round values at the wide receiver spot. Brandon LaFell, Steve Smith, Anquon Boldin, Pierre Garcon, Torrey Smith, and Marques Colston are available. Not much left in the running back bin, so I am now rolling with what I have at running back and am taking the receivers due to their value this late in the draft. As I wrote previously about Boldin, I like him as a late round guy this season.
Pick 134 in the 12th round has me looking at two guys. Pierre Garcon and Marques Colston are my favorite picks left on the board. I love both of these guys in the 12th round this year. I wrote about Garcon in my late round ppr values article this week. I see him as a player with big potential to bounce back this season if he can get some consistent play from the quarterback position. I like Colston late this year too for the same reasons I like Cooks. But therein lies the problem. Having Cooks already on my team makes me not want to draft Colston. If Cooks isn’t already on my roster I would err on the side of the better quarterback situation and snatch up Colston. So Garcon is my guy.
At pick 155 overall in round 13 I pull a fast one.
I sneak in and take the defense I am targeting this year. The Jets are ranked 11th this season by the fantasy pros consensus rankings. To me this is a huge undervaluing of their defense. They have a great front line. Yes it would be better if Sheldon Richardson didn’t keep getting himself in trouble, but they will still have a solid front four. The glaring hole they had last year was at cornerback, and they addressed that in a big way this season. Adding Darrell Revis and Antonio Cromartie to their defensive backfield will bolster their defense and will likely decrease their points allowed, while increasing their turnovers forced. I don’t want to miss out on them, so I take them a little earlier than most would draft a D/ST.
At pick 158 overall, the second in the 14th round I decide to take the top ranked kicker as none of them are off the board yet. This allows me to have the best kicker over the past few years, and locks me in to a kicker I will be happy to run out there for the entire season. I can snipe the top guy and know that most of the other teams are only taking defense and kickers for the rest of the draft, so I can get most of the skill position players that are left on the board with my final pick. You can feel free to take a kicker based on any factor you see fit. Some like a kicker that plays indoors, some like the Denver kicker to add that distance from their thin air. I usually go with Stephen Gostkowski in this position. He’s good. He’s consistent. He’s my pick in round 14.
With my last pick, 179 overall, at the end of the 15th round it is time for a flier.
The best available players on the board are Kendall Wright, John Brown, Larry Donnell, Percy Harvin, Reuben Randle, Kenny Stills, Charles Clay, and Devante Parker. With the Justin Hunter situation in Tennessee probably keeping him out, you can’t really stab people, I decided to take Wright. He is the highest ranked, has the best situation, and plays for a bad team that is likely to throw a lot this year. I could also take Davante Parker in this spot, but I think he will be available a few weeks down the line on waivers when his situation becomes clearer. By that time you might be able to easily discard one or more of your current roster to make room for him as he rounds into playing shape.
A feature I like about the mock draft simulator is that it will give you a rating for your starters, bench, and overall team. My starters were the top ranked in the league for this draft. My bench was only the fifth best according to their metrics, but I would not be planning to use my bench a lot. I also have a fair amount of receivers that I believe have a good chance for resurgent production this year if the chips can fall right for them. I have great wide receiver depth on this team, and if one or two of them can hit, I might have some good trade chips for upgrading at another spot in my lineup.
So we reach the end of the first installment of this look at mock drafting. I hope this article has served to help you in your planning and preparation for your drafts this season. Look for my articles on other draft pick spots in the near future.
