The Mock Draft Army got off to an outstanding start on Monday night.  I was joined by Howard Bender and John Laub of FootballDieHards.com drafting with some MDA regulars and some first timers.   There was a lot of chatter, constant tweets from John @GridironSchol91, and just the beginning of compiling an ADP that we can all use later in the drafting season.

The draft was 20 rounds using RTSports scoring.  Starting lineups consisted of 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 K, and 1 DST.  Kickers were picked by team and not individually.  Enough with the formalities, let’s see how it went and you can follow along via the draft board.

The Lineup

  1. Cohen
  2. Jedi
  3. Spiteri
  4. Mishamoosha
  5. Bishphat
  6. Birdynumnumz
  7. Bender
  8. Iceethru
  9. Bye Week
  10. Gridiron Scholars (Laub)
  11. Tattooed LowLife
  12. Double Doinks

Being my first draft as commish, I decided to go with the best player available strategy and used the Fantasy Alarm’s Draft Guide cheat sheet for guidance.  We’ll see how that worked out. 

 

Round 1

The round went fairly chalk as expected.  The first four picks were Barkley, Kamara, McCaffrey, and Elliott.  Being a PPR format, Zeke fell to 4 but this could have also been due to his announced “I want to paid” declaration.  In all drafts, the 5th pick is the one where the rest of the first round is defined, and the pick here was David Johnson .  I’m not picking Johnson that high.  He has done little over the past two years to warrant that pick in my opinion.  There’s a new coach and system in Arizona and we can all speculate what that means for DJ, but there’s no guarantee that he’ll produce enough to meet those high expectations.

Le’Veon Bell went 6th and then Bender took DeAndre Hopkins with the 7th pick as the first WR off the board.  I asked Howard if he would have taken Bell with the 7th pick if he were available and his response of “I was hoping Hopkins fell to me” tells us he was happy with his fortune here.  The remaining picks of Conner, Mixon, Adams, Thomas and Gordon were not surprising as Double Doinks wouldn’t let Gordon drop into the second round despite his threatened holdout.  Joe Mixon at number 9 could garner some votes as worst pick of the round as analysts are dropping him in their rankings due to the hits the Bengals O-line has taken already this preseason.

 

Round 2

Double Doinks went with the double doink as he tapped Todd Gurley to team up with Gordon.  This could be genius or this could be a disaster.  A Gordon holdout and a Gurley balky knee could lead to a lot of FAAB being spent early in the season looking for RB help for this squad.  A true risk/reward set of picks.  John Laub tweeted out during the draft and his 2 WR strategy from the 10 spot landed him JuJu to go along with Davante Adams .  This is a duo that will give him consistency and make lineup decisions non-existent at the WR position.  Tyreek Hill coming off the no suspension announcement was taken at number 17.  This appears to be where his ADP is going to reset at.  Bender also went double wideout pairing Odell Beckham , Jr. with Hopkins. 

The love for Travis Kelce continues and he goes off the board at 19.  In the Scott Fish Bowl, where TE scoring is a premium and in the FFPC, where TEs get 1.5 PPR, he can go in the first round.  Will his ADP fall a bit now that HIll is in the mix for the entire season?  I’ll be compiling the MDA ADP after we get a week’s worth under our belts. 

I went with Mike Evans to go along with CMC.  I debated taking Chubb here, but felt Evans was the last of the premium WRs. 

Pat Mahomes went with pick 23 to long time MDA participant Jedi.  For me, it’s hard to defend this pick.  With so many QBs who can give you quality numbers, I’m not taking Mahomes unless he falls to the 4th or 5th round, which probably will never happen.  Andrew Luck went in the 5th round as the next QB off the board.  Mahomes has to seriously outperform the field to be worth this pick.

 

Rounds 3-6

Over the next 4 rounds we saw a mix of everyone adding RBs and WRs with a sprinkle of the top QBs and TEs.  During these rounds the wide receivers taken were pretty much all chalk.  None were taken too early and there weren’t any that fell and became a bargain.  Since the RB position is the shallowest, here is where we can find picks that can become boom or busts.  Bender took Derrick Henry in the third round.  Henry had a monster end of the 2018 but is this the beginning of his breakout or just a hot streak?  Laub took Fournette two picks later who burned many last season as a late first round pick.  Can he stay healthy and live up to his expectations? Josh Jacobs (Iceethruu) and David Montgomery (Laub) are the first rookies taken at 41 and 58 respectively.  They both have been touted by their head coaches as three-down backs who can handle the load.  Montgomery has Tarik Cohen to contend with and Jacobs barely had a full NFL season load over his entire career at Alabama.  Last year’s disaster rookie RB class of Freeman, Penny and Jones II makes me nervous to dive into this pool. 

The early QBs went in rounds 5 and 6 with Andrew Luck leading the way. Aaron Rodgers was Doinked at the end of the 5th and Deshaun Watson went to TatooedLowLife with the second pick of the 6th.  Matt Ryan (Birdynumnumz) was the 4th QB off the board.  Ryan was a QB2 pick last year and helped many to their fantasy playoffs outperforming his ADP.  Can he meet top 5 expectations?  If not, he won’t miss by much so I think this is a fair spot for him to land. The question is are you gaining enough in production to warrant jumping into the QB pool here rather than waiting until rounds 9 and 10 where the likes of Big Ben, Carson Wentz , and Drew Brees can be had?

 

Some Random thoughts on the rest of the draft:

Iceethruu went Coleman and McKinnon in rounds 8 and 10.  I didn’t think it was smart at that point in the draft, but looking at his well balanced team, it’s hard to knock it.

Bye Week went Andy Isabella in round 12.  With Fitzgerald and Kirk probably garnishing a majority of targets, may be a bit early here.

Bender bet that Geronimo Allison and not MVS will be the number 2 guy in Cheesehead country.

Only saw a few handcuffs taken with Pollard backing up Elliott and Bell backed up by Powell who may not be the number two with Montgomery in the mix.  If you take Gurley, I think you must take Henderson.  Henderson was snagged in the 8th round by Laub which may have been a bit early for Doinks to be thinking about it.

Each week I’ll focus on a different part of the draft in detail.  The projected standings as analyzed by the Fantasy Alarm draft evaluator has my team coming in first overall.  I was a bit surprised as I felt I was a bit weak in running back, but of course am happy to come away with the kiss of death that the preseason number one has to offer!  Here are the projections.

Thanks to this week’s participants for a great mock and chat room!  Next week’s schedule will be posted on Sunday at https://www.rtsports.com/mock-draft-army  or follow me on twitter @gasdoc_spit for updates. We’ll be adding 10pm drafts next week so the west coasters can join in on the fun at a more convenient time on Tuesday and Wednesday!