First Fantasy Football Draft of the Season: A Review
My first fantasy football draft of the season came and went last night, and a lot of knowledge was gleaned from the event. Most importantly is this: Don’t schedule a draft for 6:45 East Coast time when you have players participating on the west coast. Out of 12 teams, only 5 showed up, and one of those was in about round 12 when he had already drafted most of his team.
With that said, I am going to do a round by round review (up until round 10 when it’s more or less a crapshoot), showing you both my pick and the pick that I think was the best pick. Without further ado, let’s get to it:
Round One
My Pick: Matthew Stafford (12th overall)
Best Pick: Aaron Rodgers (4th overall)
First of all, how in the world does the commish of a league end up with the 12th pick? That should be illegal. My strategy going in was if I had a high pick, go with Rodgers, Brees or McCoy or Rice and if I had a low pick, just to go with the best QB available. So when it came my time to pick, I had to go with Stafford or Cam Newton. It was a tough call, but in the end, I went with Stafford.
Beenusbangsyou drafted Rodgers at 4th overall, which is fantastic since I think that he is the number one pick this year.
Round Two
My Pick: Jimmy Graham (1st pick of the round)
Best Pick: Jimmy Graham
Such hubris. But I gotta say, looking at the players who were drafted after Graham, I’m glad I made the pick. I definitely would not want Larry Fitzgerald, Jordy Nelson, Marshawn Lynch, Jamaal Charles, MJD, Victor Cruz or DeMarco Murray instead. The only picks that I liked that round were A.J. Green, Julio Jones and Cam Newton.
Since I already had a QB, I went with the best TE available. By the way, how sad is it that it’s round 2 and people are already drafting the likes of DeMarco Murray. Yeeesh.
Round Three
My Pick: Steve Smith (12th pick of the round)
Best Pick: Steven Jackson (11th pick of the round)
Since I wanted to draft Jackson, I have to list him. You have no idea how pissed I was when he was AUTO DRAFTED right from under my nose. Not cool. Luckily, Stefanie made me a nice bean and rice burrito and some cornbread around this time, so my anger quickly passed.
Round Four
My Pick: Greg Jennings (1st pick of the round)
Best Pick: Michael Turner (7th pick of the round)
I really like Michael Turner in the 4th round. By the way, Wolfman picked him up and that gave him McFadden, Peterson and Turner. If that ain’t a fancy stable of running backs, I don’t know what is.
I picked Jennings after Smith just because I’ve had him for the past 2 years in a row so it’s kind of tradition that I get him on my team.
Round Five
My Pick: Tony Romo (12th overall)
Best Pick: Brandon Lloyd (5th overall)
I picked up Romo here as trade bait, so hopefully I will be able to unload him before the season starts. If not, Stafford is kind of injury prone so it doesn’t hurt to have him as insurance.
Brandon Lloyd is going to have a great year, so that was a great pickup by my buddy Bob.
Round Six
My Pick: Vernon Davis (1st pick of the round)
Best Pick: Peyton Manning (7th pick of the round)
I was strongly considering grabbing Manning and just hoarding all of the QBs to later trade to all those who auto picked, but then I thought that I could do the same with TE’s. Also, the league has a flex position so if I can’t trade Davis, it never hurts to have him on the roster.
I like Peyton here because he could put up monster numbers and if he doesn’t, the next picks were Jermichael Finley, BenHarvus Green-Ellis, Vincent Jackson, Michael Bush and Fred Davis so it’s not like your missing out on anything special by drafting him.
Round Seven
My Pick: Rashad Jennings (12th pick of the round)
Best Pick: Phillip Rivers (2nd pick of the round)
I like Jennings because of MJD’s holdout. It means that he is going to be the man for at least the first two weeks and he catches a good amount of passes. The Rivers pick is the best of the round because he could actually turn out to be better than the QB Randy took in the 3rd round (Eli Manning). It also lets him relive the 2004 NFL Draft each week of the season.
Round Eight
My Pick: Reggie Wayne (1st pick of the round)
Best Pick: Jason Witten (7th pick of the round)
Reggie Wayne is a like a house on Property Brothers. It looks crappy now, but just wait until those magicians and Andrew Luck get their hands on it and turn it into real estate (and fantasy) GOLD!
Wolfman again! Witten could be the 3rd best TE this year, so to get him in the 8th round is good stuff. Maybe some dumbass who took Vernon Davis 2 rounds earlier should’ve considered this, eh?
Round Nine
My Pick: Cedric Benson (12th pick of the round)
Best Pick: Kenny Britt (2nd pick of the round)
Britt will be suspended for at least a game, but once you get past that week, he is going to light it up. Mark my words: Titans all the way.
I had to get a running back here, and now my back field looks BEAUTIFUL! Just kidding, I have Rashad Jennings and Cedric Benson for crying out loud!
Round Ten
My Pick: Toby Gerhart (1st pick of the round)
Best Pick: Toby Gerhart
Considering everyone else took kickers and defense, I have to give this one to myself.
Looking back, I took 5 RBs in the next 6 rounds. I am just hoping that one of them hits. My team definitely needs to improve but hey, I like my QB, WR and TEs so of course the RB position is going to be weak. Sometimes, you just gotta compromise.
That’s it for me. Good luck with your drafts!
2 Comments
I have to say I at least pre-ranked my autodraft. Sorry to miss out though.
Kenny Britt has been hurt his past 2 seasons, so I’m not too keen on him to be honest. I suppose the QB is irrelevant, because Hassleback made him look good, but still….