Wednesday afternoon I had my last NFFC Online Draft, the second "Beat Jeff Erickson" draft. Because the league filled overnight, and because my KDS settings from the Prime Time draft didn't carry over to this league, I had a default list of my preferences for my draft spot. When I got the third choice, I ended up with the first draft slot. Following the Le'Veon Bell holdout fallout, this turned out to be welcomed news. I was more than happy to take the now relatively easy choice of Todd Gurley at #1, and pay the 3RR toll. This was my first time out of 13 leagues drafting from the first slot, and I like how this team ended up, in no small part due to what I was able to accomplish at the 3/4 turn. Full results after the break:
All draft season, one of the primary talking points has been how aggressively running backs have been pushed up. It was no different here, as the first nine picks were spent on running backs and Odell Beckham Jr. fell to 2.2. As Chris Liss predicted on our radio show Wednesday morning, Jordan Howard didn't come anywhere near reaching me at 2.12. So once Joe Mixon went at 2.11, I had to decide whether to push the next one up, or take the value at WR and gamble that I'd find an acceptable RB2 at the 3/4 turn. I went with Door #2 with Tyreek Hill. When LeSean McCoy went at 3.1 and Kenyan Drake at 3.4, I thought for sure that I'd have to wait on my second back, but instead I found two backs I still really liked in Alex Collins and Royce Freeman. Instead of choosing between the two, I decided to double up and try to make up in quantity at WR. Doing so freed up the rest of top half of the draft from taking part-time backs or ones I otherwise don't trust all that much.
Essentially this draft worked in opposite of my previous Beat Jeff Erickson, and I'm happier with the results. Of course, I also had the benefit of knowing the results of job battles and recent injuries - I *should* prefer the results from drafts completed later in draft season.
Another draft pool observation - maybe it wasn't as stark in my previous drafts, but there's another sneaky drop-off in RB/WR talent around the 10th-11th rounds, perhaps extending earlier into the mid-ninth round. When I took Drew Brees, I thought that he was clearly the end of the second tier of quarterbacks (I like Brees more this year than our rankings suggest - I think that there will be more volume for him), and there wasn't really anyone else I was passing on that really stood out. So he was easy to take at 9.12, whereas I really struggled with the second pick of that pair before settling on Kelvin Benjamin. It probably didn't help that I was in the middle of a radio hit with those picks.
This was a weird draft. Team 2 checked out somewhere around the 13th round and went on auto-pick the rest of the way. Maybe he was having internet issues, or was dodging a storm. Unfortunately for him, he didn't have enough players stacked in his queue, and as a consequence had the trio of Dez Bryant, Marqise Lee and Martavis Bryant all in a row at one point. Taylor Gabriel went in the ninth round to another team. Someone drafted D'Onta Foreman in the 15th round. Maybe someone else out there is discussing how I reached on Keelan Cole (I know, I did - but I really like him, better than the pack of remaining WR's and didn't think he'd come back at 9.12, so better to get him rather than settle for someone I liked less), but I felt that I was able to get some value later in the draft that I wouldn't normally get.
My full team:
QB: Brees
RB/Flex: Gurley, Collins, R. Freeman
WR: T. Hill, Robinson, Agholor
TE: Olsen
K: Tucker
D: CAR or CIN - probably CIN in Week 1.
QB-R: A. Smith
RB-R: Morris, Riddick, J. Samuels
WR-R: Cole, Benjamin, Godwin, Kirk
TE: Cook
Freeman is obviously a critical part of this team. I plan on starting three running backs most weeks, which isn't something I'll be doing as much on my two other NFFC teams.
What do you think? Hit me up on my twitter account.