During our annual company retreat to Las Vegas during the All-Star break, one of our activities is to do an early fantasy football draft. This year we had a pair of 14-team drafts being selected simultaneously. You can read about the results from the first of those two drafts by Chris Liss here.
The quick specs on the league:
- Standard (no-PPR) scoring
- We start one QB, two RB, three WR and a flex
- Team K and Team Defense
It's a pretty basic format, complicated only by the size of the league. With 14 teams, getting on the back end of a run is especially painful. I drew pick 12, here are the results:
1.12 - Julio Jones: In the drafts that I've done so far, there's been a core top-10 group of players, encompassing seven running backs (Gurley, Bell, Elliott, Johnson, Kamara, Barkley, Hunt) and three wide receivers (Brown, Beckham, Hopkins) - your mileage may vary with the ordering, but that group has essentially already been established. The real variance starts at pick 11, as I've already seen the likes of Jones, Melvin Gordon, Leonard Fournette, Jerick McKinnon, Dalvin Cook, Michael Thomas, Keenan Allen and A.J. Green all go there. With Gordon gone, I went with Jones. Of course the lack of red zone targets is a worry - amazingly, his last target from inside the five-yard line came in Week 11. But Jones's yards per target and yards per catch remain high - there's nothing physically wrong here. I'll take the chance that the Falcons will use the offseason to find more ways to set him free.
2.3 - Dalvin Cook: I was really happy to see Cook here, as I considered taking him at 1.12. The two risk factors are Cook's knee injury, which ended his 2017 season, and the presence of Latavius Murray to steal goal line carries. As to the former, I'm encouraged by his presence at OTA's in June, and to the latter, he got all of the Vikings' goal line carries before his injury - Murray only became viable after Cook was hurt.
3.12 - Travis Kelce: I didn't set out to take Kelce or any tight end here, as I knew that it would lead to chasing at other positions in the subsequent rounds of the draft, and that's always an uncomfortable feeling. But at pick #40 overall, I felt it pretty clear that he was the best available player on the board. Had Kenyan Drake or maybe even Demaryius Thomas fell, I would have gone that route.
4.3 - Allen Robinson: I hemmed and hawed over this one. Running back dries up so quickly in a 14-team standard league, yet I didn't see a back I really wanted here. Perhaps in retrospect maybe I should have taken the plunge with Jay Ajayi and simply bought into getting an important part of a strong offense, behind a great offensive line. Instead I swung for the fences with Robinson, gambling that not only will Robinson be fully healed from his knee injury, but also that the Bears offense will be more prolific following their coaching change.
5.12 - Lamar Miller: Here's the thing, I'm not a big Miller guy, and the projections on the Texans' OL aren't very positive. But he's going to get the bulk of the carries for the Texans, with D'Onta Foreman slow to recover from his Achilles' tendon injury. Having just one RB in the fifth round of a 14-team league is no fun. I wanted to lock in a baseline of touches, and did so with Miller.
6.3 - Tarik Cohen: Having settled for a boring volume guy with Miller, I swung for the fences on Cohen's upside here.
7.12 - Jimmy Garoppolo: Scott Jenstad made vague appeals to our friendship in trying to get me to pass on Jimmy G, and even took up sticker duty with me during the draft, but man ... sometimes you can push too far. It was time.
8.3 - Latavius Murray: Normally I'm not that concerned with handcuffing my running backs in leagues with plenty of transactions, but here it makes more sense, given Cook's pre-existing injury, my lack of starting running backs, and the notion that Murray is the clear next in line back, in a good offense no less.
9.12 - Tyler Lockett: Remember how I was panicking earlier about my lack of second RB in the fifth round? Yeah, see also third receiver in the ninth round. This is why people play the wait-on-the-QB and TE game.
10.3 - LeGarrette Blount: Consider this both a vote of no-confidence in Kerryon Johnson being an every-down back, and an endorsement of Blount's goal line ability. But he was more than just that last year, as he ran for 4.4 yards per carry.
11.12 - Paul Richardson: It wouldn't surprise me if Richardson emerged as the Redskins' #2 target this year, and perhaps even the primary red zone guy, given Reed's injury history and Crowder's lack of size.
12.3 - Ted Ginn: Ginn was just the best available receiver on the board. I hope to only have to use him in bye weeks.
13.12 - Rams K: Especially in a 14-team league, having a plus kicker or defense is a bit of an advantage. RB's and WR's are so picked over at this point, why not take a top-five kicker?
14.3 - Anthony Miller: I like him a lot in dynasty leagues, but my expectations are pretty low for 2018. Still, talent is talent. I actually held off for a couple of rounds, given that I already had two other Bears.
15.12 - CourtlandSutton: If Case Keenum really is as good as he was in 2017, the Denver offense will be considerably improved. Improved enough to support a third receiver that also happens to be a rookie? Maybe, maybe not. He is the current favorite in my "most likely to be cut first" pool.
16.3 - Bears defense: For a 16th-round defense, I'm pretty happy with this. The Bears were pretty nasty towards the end of the season last year.
What do you think? Who did well? Who did poorly? Jump in either on Twitter or Facebook.