14 drafts in 14 days!

Fantasy Draft Talk
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14 DRAFTS IN 14 DAYS

It is now 2 weeks until opening night, and Axe Elf is sitting on 46 drafts completed this summer. 14 more would give me a nice, even 60 for the season. So that’s my plan… 14 drafts in 14 days. I may not do exactly one per day, every day, but I will get 14 drafts done in the next 14 days. Most of them will be Yahoo Best Ball drafts (snake drafts that take less than an hour), but I’d like to get another 5 managed auction leagues in as well.

And so, with the clock ticking, here is Draft #1 (or #47, if you will)–$10 Yahoo Best Ball, #2 draft position.

1.2 Derrick Henry
2.9 Stefon Diggs (IKR? The salmon are running, I tell ya…)
3.2 CeeDee Lamb (Probly shoulda gone Carson here, given that both Lamb and Diggs have a Week 7 bye, but man it’s hard not to pair up Lamb and Diggs.)
4.9 Darrell Henderson, Jr.
5.2 Robert Woods
6.9 Damien Harris
7.2 Robby Anderson
8.9 Matthew Stafford
9.2 Raheem Mostert
10.9 Tyler Higbee
11.2 Kirk Cousins
12.9 Marvin Jones, Jr. (I know, I know, he’s another Week 7 bye. So I’ll only have 3 active WRs in Week 7. Jones at this point is too much value to pass up.)
13.2 Mike Gesicki
14.9 Daniel Jones
15.2 Evan Engram
16.9 Tre’Quan Smith
17.1 Mark Ingram II

One down, 13 to go…

1 Like
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Overall, not a bad draft.

Forget the bye weeks. My rule on bye weeks is this: I’ll worry about it when it comes. You don’t even know if that player could be on IR by then, and you could be starting some scrub you grabbed on the waiver wire with a different bye week. This is comparable to the real life worrying about a potential recession in 10-20 years. This is just too early to plan for this kind of thing.

Your WR’s are freaking awesome!

Your RB’s are solid, until you get to Ingram. This is too early in the season for an old washed-up RB. I’d grab a younger stud with potential first, even in the 17th round.

Same with your QB’s. Stafford and Cousins are solid, albeit not glamorous (although Stafford could surprise big this year). Jones is…well, we’ve had this discussion before.

Your TE’s are meh. I’m ok with meh. If you don’t grab a top 3 TE, meh works. Gesicki is solid. Engram is a warm body. Not knowing who was available in the 15th round, I can’t suggest alternatives.

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This is the second time you’ve advised me about in-season management in a best-ball league, so I may need to do a little remedial education here. You see, in a Best Ball league, also sometimes called a Draft Master league, there is no in-season management. There is the draft, and that is all. It’s like a mock draft, except the results are tracked. There are no trades, no waivers, no setting lineups–you automatically get your top scorers as your lineup for the week. This is the appeal–all the fun of drafting, without the hangover of league management–it’s like birth control for fantasy football.

So I can’t make adjustments on the fly for bye weeks, or injuries, or cuts. If all five of your RBs are injured or on bye in Week 7, you get zero points at RB in Week 7–but I definitely won’t be starting some scrub I grabbed off the waiver wire, because there is no waiver wire.

Dealt with that criticism in a previous post, but it’s the same response as above. Whoever I draft, I’ll have to live with all season long. Best balls aren’t about taking disposable chances, best balls are about getting points every week at every starting position, at a minimum, and getting the most points possible per week. Ingram gives me a reliable, if unspectacular floor from week to week.

Again, best balls are a little different beast. Three 5-TD TEs are as good as one 15-TD TE, if they all have the courtesy to score their TDs in different weeks. Of course, that’s unpredictable, but the point is that even Kelce isn’t going to outscore a trio of pedestrian TEs–and I believe all three of these will be top 10 by season’s end.

You should try some best-ball leagues. They’re great if you love drafting but hate lineup decisions and poring through waivers for 100 leagues on Tuesdays.

4

Which begs the question, why are you worrying about it? So you toss out one week. If you nail the rest, you win.

Nah. That’s half the fun of regular leagues to me.

5

LOL

Ok, I will leave you to your willful ignorance of best-ball league strategy.

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Number Two (#48)

I wasn’t feeling the draft slot draw, so I only ventured $5 on a Yahoo Best Ball league–and sure enough, I drew the dreaded 8 slot.

It was all the more tortuous when Davante Adams and Nick Chubb went at #5 and #6, leaving Derrick Henry still on the board at pick #7! CURSES!!!

Then I almost got Barkley in the 2nd, but he went at pick #12! CURSES!!!

If you told someone a month ago that you got Henry and Barkley with your first two picks from the 8 slot, they’d have never believed you. Jones and Taylor is close, but you might have gotten them in the opposite rounds before Rodgers reported to camp.

1.8 Aaron Jones
2.3 Jonathan Taylor
3.8 CeeDee Lamb
4.3 Robert Woods
5.8 Brandon Aiyuk
6.3 Damien Harris
7.8 Robby Anderson
8.3 James Conner (I had to make a quick pivot when my target, Kenny Golladay, fell at 8.2, and my backup target, Tyler Higbee, had fallen at 8.1.)
9.8 Matthew Stafford
10.3 Brandin Cooks
11.8 Kirk Cousins
12.3 Marvin Jones, Jr.
13.8 Mike Gesicki
14.3 Evan Engram
15.8 Daniel Jones
16.3 Mark Ingram II
17.8 Anthony Firkser

12 to go…

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Number Three (#49)

Tonight’s draft was a 10-team Private Prize League on Yahoo, $150 entry fee, called “It Takes Two.” Start 2QB, 2RB, 2WR, 2TE, 2Flex, 2K and 2D, with 7 bench slots, and 2IR. Pretty typical PPR scoring, but 6 pt pass TDs (and -2 INTs)–and 2 pt bonuses for 40+ yard TDs. Standard $200 budget auction draft. My team name is “Pair o’ Dice Found.”

Just as at a poker table, it’s important to read the room in a fantasy football draft. My read on the room in tonight’s draft is that they were moderately experienced at auction drafts–enough to know that patience is a virtue–but they seemed to be a little freaked out by the extra starting slots and were maybe TOO conservative early on.

I’ve drafted several “deep roster” teams lately, including a league with 3 starting RBs, 3 starting WRs and 3 Flex positions + a Superflex–so I had a pretty good idea of what I could spend on my starters–and other than McCaffrey at $62, a lot of the top RBs seemed to be going for entirely affordable prices. Chubb at $35… Cook at $45… Kamara for $44… Barkley at $36… I mean there really aren’t THAT many extra starters–it’s basically just a double-flex league with extra starters in the support positions.

So when I had the chance to roster Zeke for $40, and then Henry for $42, I took it. If I literally had the first two picks in a conventional draft, I would draft Henry and Zeke. So that couldn’t possibly be better.

It must have cost me at WR, right?

Not really, I’ve got Ridley and Lamb as my starters, with some combination of Mike Davis, Kenny Golladay, Brandin Cooks and Mike Williams rounding out the Flex positions.

QB: Kirk Cousins (7) $18, Daniel Jones (10) $10, Matt Ryan (6) $9
RB: Derrick Henry (13) $42, Ezekiel Elliott (7) $40, Mike Davis (6) $13, James Conner (12) $2
WR: Calvin Ridley (6) $23, CeeDee Lamb (7) $15, Kenny Golladay (10) $3, Brandin Cooks (10) $1, Mike Williams (7) $1
TE: Mike Gesicki (14) $4, Anthony Firkser (13) $1, C.J. Uzomah (10) $1
K: Chris Boswell (7) $3, Graham Gano (10) $2, Chase McLaughlin (13) $1
D: Pittsburgh Steelers (7) $4, Washington Football Team (9) $4, New England Patriots (14) $3
REMAINING: $0

I might have overspent on defenses a little, but I don’t think I really hurt the rest of my team by doing it, and I may have the top 2 Ds in sacks this season (PIT and WAS), plus a team that has a weaker schedule than it’s used to, and that gets the other half of its defense that opted out last year back this year (NE). So I’m hoping to salt away a few extra points per week with the extra $5 or so I spent at the position to give myself strong streaming options.

I have a Ryan-Ridley stack and a Jones-Golladay stack to promote scoring variance, along with a Ridley-Davis stack and a Zeke-Lamb stack to promote consistency.

I think I’m loaded for bear.

11 to go…

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Number Four (#50)

Back to a $10 Yahoo Best Ball league–still need 2 more $5s, 2 more $10s and 2 more $20s after this one. And of course four more managed leagues.

Drew the 9 slot again, so that’s two consecutive from the badlands. Better make the next one a $20 draft; I’m due for a top half slot.

Not real excited about this one; it was just to get today’s draft over with. I mean, when you’ve just drafted Henry and Zeke in the previous draft, and now you’re in the 9th slot, there’s a palpable sense of regression. It does represent my first-ever share of Tony Jones, Jr. (starting to try to counterbalance all my early shares of Latavius Murray), but I don’t know if I’m popping the champagne over it. RBs took kind of a back burner in this one, at least after the opening rounds. The Sony Michel trade has caused Damien Harris to move up a bit, and now he’s going too early for me to snag him at his “usual” target zone–so yeah, RBs are definitely a weak spot.

Not to be outdone, the WRs are unusually weak as well, partially due to missing out on Lamb and Aiyuk by a slot each.

But hey, I have one of my strongest trinities of TEs in this one…

1.9 Saquon Barkley
2.2 Najee Harris
3.9 Terry McLaurin
4.2 Robert Woods
5.9 Adam Thielen
6.2 Mike Davis
7.9 Kenny Golladay
8.2 Tyler Higbee
9.9 Matthew Stafford
10.2 Kirk Cousins
11.9 Mike Gesicki
12.2 Mike Williams
13.9 Evan Engram
14.2 Daniel Jones
15.9 Mark Ingram II
16.2 Amon-Ra St. Brown
17.9 Tony Jones, Jr.

10 to go…

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Number Five (#51)

Since my last two Yahoo Best Ball Leagues, a $5 and a $10, had me drafting from the 8 and the 9 slot, I figured chance should favor a top-end of the draft pick for tonight’s $20 contest.

But no, I still had to draft from the Badlands (picks 7-8-9), albeit from the best pick of the Badlands this time. Given that the top half of the first round went according to script and I was forced into the alternate strategy of picking a WR in the first round, I am fairly pleased with the results. It seems better than the other two Badlands teams; but then it should be, given that it is from the best of the Badlands slots.

That said, I had to fight and scratch and retreat and change course and refocus all the way through this draft, it seemed, so it had the potential to have really gone sideways…

…but Axe Elf finds a way.

Things got started in the first round when I was holding out hope of Aaron Jones falling to me, but with Chubb and Jones left on the board for pick #6, he chose Jones. So, first pivot…

1.7 Tyreek Hill (Davante Adams can’t score on 12.1% of his targets forever, and the Chiefs’ offense will be setting records. Hill is the WR to own in 2021. At this point I was toying with the idea of drafting Mahomes in the third for the Biggest Forking Stack Anyone Has Ever Seen, since I usually draft Lamb as my WR1 there and I already had Hill for my WR1–but I had to abandon that strategy when Mahomes fell in the 2nd. Pivot #2)

2.4 Najee Harris (Fork yeah! He’ll score more than Chubb anyway…)

3.7 CeeDee Lamb (Was kind of looking at Carson as the safer choice here, but when he fell a couple of picks before me, I figured what the heck; pivot #3.)

4.4 Robert Woods (Kinda committed to the whole Monster WR Team idea at this point; targeting Gus Edwards, Mike Davis, Damien Harris, etc. in the upcoming rounds… So now my usual top 2 WRs are my second 2 WRs… behind Tyreek Hill… mwahahahaHAHAHAAAAA!!!)

5.7 Brandon Aiyuk (Gus Edwards fell at 5.2, bah. Pivot #4 to target Mike Davis. He falls at 5.4–CURSES! He usually lasts into the 6th! Fine, I can’t have a RB2, I’ll put another top tennish WR into my flex slot. Pivot #5.)

6.4 Trey Sermon (Ok, surely I can get Damien Harris 6 picks later around the turn in the 6th, right? Nope, 5.9. Really? Pivot #6 to target Darrell Henderson. He lasts all the way to 6.1. Allrightythen, I didn’t want to have to do this until the 7/8 turn, but if y’all are gonna hoover up RBs for the first ten rounds, I’ll attempt the Sermon/Mostert coup in Rounds 6 and 7. Pivot #7. Really kind of genius way to draft a RB2 by committee in a best-ball league, don’t you think?)

7.7 Melvin Gordon (You have got to be kidding me!!! Raheem Mostert drops at 7.2 Pivot #8 to target Gordon and Javonte Williams for my RB3/RB4.)

8.4 Kenny Golladay (Javonte Williams goes at 7.9 and I slap my forehead. Pivot #9. Tyler Higbee was there for the taking… but hey, this is the Monster WR Team, yeah! One more top tennish WR can’t hurt! And I’ve sometimes seen Higbee fall into the double-digit rounds, so I’ll take a chance on targeting him in the 9th.)

9.7 Matthew Stafford (You guessed it–Higbee goes at 9.6! Pivot #10–though I felt better about nabbing Stafford here than hoping he made it through the turn.)

10.4 James Conner (Forking-A! I axually got my 10th round target! Party at the Elf Institute! Now get out there and show that poosie Edmonds how a cancer survivor carries the mail!)

11.7 Kirk Cousins (Also my target here.)

12.4 Mike Williams (It just never ends. I wanted Marvin Jones here; he went one pick too early at 12.3. Pivot #11 to another WR with a Week 7 bye.)

13.7 Evan Engram (Well, at least Mike Gesicki had the courtesy to go TWO picks ahead of me, instead of just one, so I had an extra 30 seconds for Pivot #12.)

14.4 Daniel Jones (OMG-OMG-OMG-Matt Ryan is still on the board! I axually have him ranked a little higher than Daniel Jones, but I ALWAYS take Daniel Jones in the 15th! This is a draft where I’m trying new things! Yeah, but I have Galloway and Engram for a three-way stack! In the end, I went for the upside of the stack because it was a Best Ball league. In a managed league, I probly take Ryan, but when I’m actively promoting high variance scoring to skim the big weeks off the top, a QB/WR stack is the way to go. And I ALWAYS take Daniel Jones–so I’m comfortable living or dying by my convictions. Toughest draft decision I’ve had to make in a while, though. Guess I can’t really count it as Pivot #12, since Jones was pretty much my target all along and I was just hoping Ryan would get picked so I wouldn’t have to make the choice.)

15.7 Anthony Firkser (Target. Would rather he was my TE3, but I kinda punted the TE position when I eschewed Higbee back in the 8th, so, hope for the best.)

16.4 Mark Ingram II (Target. At least he provides a solid 6-8 point floor every week, at my weakest position.)

17.7 Jared Cook (I will count THIS as Pivot #13, because I had C.J. Uzomah in my queue as my last round selection for the past two rounds now, but with Cook being available, and Uzomah sharing Engram’s Week 10 bye, I made the pivot to Cook. See, I CAN abandon my convictions and pivot to a higher-valued player when appropriate for my team.)

So it may not be my BEST team of all time, but I worked hard not to let this one devolve into a hot mess of disappointment, what with all the snipes and concomitant pivots I endured (13 pivots in 17 rounds!). So I’m kind of proud of it.

I’ll be expecting a lot out of Gordon and Ingram early in the season, with Sermon and Conner set to come on later in the season, if at all. And of course I’m hoping Najee is a strong RB1 all season. So hopefully everyone will work together to hold down the fort in the backfield while the WRs do the heavy lifting.

Those WRs tho…

9 to go…

10

Did a little maneuvering in this league, bordering on genius, if I do say so myself.

Players were locked after the draft until waivers ran last night. We have two IR slots. CeeDee Lamb is on the COVID list, so I dropped him on IR and picked up Amon-Ra St. Brown for free.

This is where it gets good. I’m a little worried about Chase McLaughlin, since he missed a long FG attempt AND an extra point in the last preseason game, and the coach has kind of hinted that they might look at who gets cut this week… SO, even though most of the Ks in this league are rostered (at least the ones with secure jobs), I dropped Chase McLaughlin and picked up Wil Lutz, who is currently out following core muscle surgery that is expected to keep him sidelined for the first four weeks of the regular season. Then I stuck HIM on IR too, and picked up Mark Ingram II, the starting RB for the Texans!

So now I have two skill position prospects “borrowed” at least until such time as I need to reinstate CeeDee Lamb. I’ll coast along on Boswell and Gano at K through six weeks. Lutz can take his time coming back, whether he misses 4 weeks, 5 weeks, or stays on the shelf through their Week 6 bye, as long as I can activate him for Boswell’s Week 7 bye. Then when Boswell returns, I cut Gano and run the rest of the season on Boswell and Lutz! So I’ve effectively insured my bye weeks at the K position while at the same time freeing up an extra roster slot for the season!

It’s good to be king…

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Number 6 (#52)

Tonight’s draft is a managed $100 Yahoo Public Prize League auction draft (10 team half-PPR, 1QB/2RB/2WR/1TE/1Flex/1K/1D/6Bench/0IR).

It had been a while since I drafted me some Mahomes…

QB: Patrick Mahomes (12) $34
RB: Aaron Jones (13) $54, Chris Carson (9) $34, Mike Davis (6) $14, Damien Harris (14) $12, Mark Ingram II (10) $1
WR: CeeDee Lamb (7) $20, Robert Woods (11) $15, Brandin Cooks (10) $4, Kenny Golladay (10) $2, Marvin Jones, Jr. (7) $2, Amon-Ra St. Brown (9) $1
TE: Mike Gesicki (14) $2
K: Younghoe Koo (6) $2
D/ST: Los Angeles Rams (11) $3

The only small regret I had was a little buyer’s remorse at spending $15 on Woods, when I could have had both Aiyuk ($7) and Thielen ($5) for approximately the same money shortly thereafter. But then I got Golladay for $2, and it was ok again…

8 to go…

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Number Seven (#53)

Dang, I almost forgot I still had a draft to do tonight… So I threw $5 at another Yahoo Best Ball…

…and I got another #9 slot. Good grief. At least it wasn’t a $20.

No cheating in this one–the first round went pretty much exactly by script–CMC/Cook/Henry/Zeke/Kamara/Jones/Adams so I’m mentally rolling my eyes and mumbling “Here comes Kelce” and then I was gonna take Barkley and aim for Najee around the turn, but 1.8 was smarter than 90% of the 1.8ers out there and picked Barkley himself, likely thinking that he’ll trick me into taking Kelce with all the glee of an early Christmas present.

Hey, I’m a Chiefs, fan, ok?–but I’m not an idiot.

1.9 Tyreek Hill

1.10 manages to go RB/RB without taking Najee (Chubb/Taylor–thank you, preseason hype!)…

2.2 Najee Harris - BOOM! goes the dynamite… A nice balanced start, with a low-end RB1 and the best WR in fantasy football.

Keeping the balance theme going, I’m targeting Lamb and Carson as my top two targets at the next turn–but which to take first? 1.10 made it easy when he went RB/RB at the first turn…

3.9 CeeDee Lamb

Sure enough, he goes Kittle and Kupp. Love those early TE picks!

4.2 Chris Carson - If he HAD taken Carson, I was ready to get me a piece of the Gus Bus. But I like Carson better.

5.9 Brandon Aiyuk - That’s it, just keep alternating WRs and RBs… Balance… Balance… Ommmm…

6.2 Damien Harris - This is a milestone–the first time in 53 drafts I have chosen Damien Harris over Mike Davis when both were on the board in the 6th. Cutting Cam was a game-changer.

Parenthetically, our 5th grade teacher was Mr. Harris, and we always used to call him Mr. Hairy Ass, because, you know, we were in 5th grade. So now whenever I have both Harrissesses on my team, I want to call it “The Hairy Asses,” but I don’t think anyone else would get it. Or find it funny, if they did. Unless they were in 5th grade, and then they would find it hysterical. But I digress…

7.9 Robby Anderson - REALLY wanted to take Anderson and then Golladay at this turn for complete global domination at WR, but there’s that crafty #8 slot guy sniping me again at 7.8!

8.2 Raheem Mostert - So yeah, no Golladay, but hey, that would have broken the WR/RB cycle anyway… so… RB… RB… hmmm… Mostert has the spiky upsides and downsides to his season that I don’t want to deal with in a managed league, but which are great in a best-ball RB4. And now I have 4 WRs and 4 RBs. And balanced on top of them, I carefully place my first QB…

9.9 Matthew Stafford - JENGA!

10.2 Brandin Cooks - I suppose when I have two Brandins/Brandons and two Harrissesses, I can name my team “Brandin’ Hairy Asses.” ::: snort :::

11.9 Kirk Cousins - Standard drafting position.

12.2 Marvin Jones, Jr. rounds out another stellar WR corps–and continues the recent QB/WR cycle that has subtly replaced the WR/RB cycle, culminating in…

But first, a little story. So after I drafted Cousins–you know, the QB3 over the back half of 2020?–Fields was taken next. You know, the rookie from Ohio State drafted by the Bears? Over the next two rounds, the QBs drafted were, in order… Jameis Winston… Trevor Lawrence… and Trey Freakin’ Lance… leaving behind for me a QB who has only finished lower than QB12 one (1) time since 2015 (and that was when he was the QB15 in 2017)…

13.9 Matt Ryan . You read that right. Rookie QBs… even rookie QBs who are not currently starting, and in Lance’s case, have a very real shot at not starting all season long… oh, and the only QB to ever throw 30 TDs and 30 INTs in a season (who is in a tight QB competition in the first place)… these QBs were drafted before Matt Ryan! In the 12th and 13th round!! Not even last round flyers!!! Just brazenly drafting these scrubs right in front of MATT RYAN!!!

The salmon are swimming, I tell ya…

14.2 Jared Cook - Thought for sure I’d get Engram here, with his injury, but he went even before Ryan at 13.7. Still, I need 3 TEs in my last 4 picks, so…

15.9 Anthony Firkser

16.2 Mark Ingram II - My RB5 is my floor, the guy who will get me 6-8 points each and every single week, just in case all my studs decide to take a vacation the same week.

17.9 C.J. Uzomah - The worst thing about these Yahoo Best Ball drafts is that they are an odd number of rounds (17), so if you have a late pick in the first round, you also have a late pick in the last round. There was always a little sense of justice when having a late pick in the first round meant that you got the best Kicker in the last round–but you don’t even get that in a Yahoo Best Ball. Picks 7-8-9 are nothing but shame, from start to finish. Of course, Yahoo Best Ball leagues don’t use Kickers, so there’s that, but it still doesn’t feel fair somehow. And your last-round target better be COMPLETELY off of everyone’s radar–like Uzomah.

The balance looks good; I like it. Possibly a weaker group of TEs, without a headliner like Higbee/Gesicki/Engram, but if I’m going to be weak somewhere, that’s the place to be weak. Hopefully they all take weekly turns scoring their 5-7 TDs.

7 ( ONE WEEK! ) to go…

13

Number Eight (#54)

$10 for 10… a $10 Yahoo Best Ball, drafting from the 10 slot. Hey, at least it’s not 7-8-9 like the last FOUR consecutive drafts… Sheesh.

I briefly toyed with the idea of doing something absolutely ridiculous–like Hill/Kelce at that first turn–and I would have done it, too, if I could have been guaranteed of getting both Mahomes and Carson at the 3/4 turn. But the chances of one of them not making it back was just too high to pass up the Barkley/Harris bam-bam. (And I was right, Mahomes made it; Carson didn’t. I would have had the Chiefs mega-stack, but my RB1 would have been Gus Edwards.

1.10 Saquon Barkley
2.1 Najee Harris
3.10 CeeDee Lamb
4.1 Robert Woods
5.10 Brandon Aiyuk
6.1 Damien Harris - Thought I was going to have to pick him over Mike Davis again, but 5.9 spared me the agony by “sniping” Davis in front of me and clearing my conscience.
7.10 Kenny Golladay - I had my eye on doing the Mostert/Sermon coup at this turn to make my RB corps strong like bull, but Sermon fell halfway through the round. Pivoted to giving my WRs some steroids, with Golladay and Anderson. And then Anderson fell. So, Golladay and Higbee it’ll be, by golly.
8.1 Tyler Higbee
9.10 Matthew Stafford
10.1 Brandin Cooks
11.10 Kirk Cousins
12.1 Marvin Jones, Jr.
13.10 Evan Engram - This time Matt Ryan fell a few picks before me, but not until after Fields and Lawrence again. Astonishing.
14.1 Daniel Jones
15.10 Anthony Firkser
16.1 Mark Ingram
17.10 Tony Jones, Jr. - Yeah, RBs are a little weak after shooting for the Mostert/Sermon coup and missing. I’ll need Barkley and the Harry Asses to come through.

6 to go…

14

Number Nine Number Nine Number Nine (#55)

There’s something magical about a midnight auction draft in the wee hours of a weekend night just a few days before the season kicks off. This one was a $100 Yahoo Public Prize League (10 teams, half-PPR, singleflex).

I gave this team the name, “Team of Extraordinary Genitals” before the draft, as a part of my Classic Fantasy Football Team Names Series (also including Victorious Secret, It’s On Like Ndamukong, Stakes on the Gridiron, Snake Pigsskin, Sons of Overtime, and Mike Ditka in a Box).

Team of Extraordinary Genitals

I didn’t have this planned at the time, but when you see it, you’ll understand why the name turned out to be entirely apropos.

But first, I have to tell you about the salmon team… With the 9th nomination in the draft, he jump-bid Kelce from like $40 to $57–and won him, of course. With the 11th nomination in the draft, I bid him up to $35 on Mahomes, but then he jump-bid me to $42 and I was like… dude… yours. With the 18th nomination in the draft, he pays $53 for Davante Adams. With the 24th nomination in the draft, he pays $27 for Kittle to corner the market on top 4 TEs. And by the 31st nomination in the draft, he was in the dollar store the rest of the way, after paying $11 for Raheem Mostert. His other RBs are Mark Ingram, J.D. McKissic, and Todd Gurley. His other WRs are Sterling Shepard, Jarvis Landry, and T.Y. Hilton.

So that’s one down, 8 to go…

And now MY team…

QB: Dak Prescott $14, Kirk Cousins $7
RB: Ezekiel Elliott $53, Najee Harris $48, Zack Moss $2, Devin Singletary $2
WR: Justin Jefferson $30, CeeDee Lamb $20, Diontae Johnson $15, Mike Williams $2, Marvin Jones, Jr. $2
TE: Jared Cook $1, Chris Herndon IV $1
K: Greg Zeurlein $1
D/ST: Washington Football Team $2
REMAINING: $0

Have you seen it yet?

No?

I’ll give you another moment, but I’ve already sent an open message to the league, questioning whether or not my Week 7 opponent has the balls to face me D on D…

I’d like to lie to you and tell you that I had the Pittsburgh D, but I can’t risk my eternal salvation by breaking a commandment just for a silly fantasy football team. No, the Washington D came out with the 8th nomination, and I had already purchased them for $2 by the time I figured out what direction the draft was taking me. But I will tell you that I’m considering trying to TRADE for the Pittsburgh D, straight up. We both paid $2 for them, so surely he could grant me that indulgence. The only thing that’s holding me back is that my Week 7 opponent does have the Rams D, so he might be goaded into axually facing me D on D in Week 7–which would mean I’d have a fighting chance of winning the only week that I won’t be at full strength, the only week in which every other single one of my players will be on bye!

Wouldn’t THAT be something! A Team of Extraordinary Genitals indeed!

It’s kind of funny that I got to dump my last $7 on Kirk Cousins (only one other person had $7 left)–and that technically, this draft took place on the 7th day of the week.

And on the 7th week, they rested…

5 to go…

15

Number Ten (#56)

Din’t want to wait until the last minute today, so I dropped my last $5 Yahoo Best Ball this evening, expecting a $10 on Monday and a $20 on Wednesday to wrap the drafting. Having had like 5 straight drafts from the back end, I probly should have done them in reverse order and dropped the $20 today, because of course I got the #2 slot. Ce la vie.

But being that it was only a $5 league, I figured I’d experiment a little. I thought maybe after Henry, go WR/WR at the 2/3 turn, hoping to hop on the Gus Bus at the 4/5 turn, or even execute the Mostert/Sermon coup at the 6/7 turn. And this almost worked out beautifully, as Hopkins was still on the board at 2.8 and I was all giddy over a Henry/Hopkins/Lamb start–but of course 2.8 snagged Hopkins. Jefferson’s probly the only other WR I’d want there, and he shares a bye with Lamb, so I snagged Mixon. AND Gus. AND the Mostert/Sermon coup. Which of course means that with 5 RBs in the first 7 rounds, I kind of punted my WRs in hopes that some of my sleepers come through–and to make matters worse, Woods would have been my 5th round pick, but he was sniped on the 4/5 turn, so I had to settle for Aiyuk as my WR2.

But those RBs tho…

1.2 Derrick Henry
2.9 Joe Mixon
3.2 CeeDee Lamb
4.9 Gus Edwards
5.2 Brandon Aiyuk
6.9 Trey Sermon
7.2 Raheem Mostert
8.9 Kenny Golladay
9.2 Matthew Stafford
10.9 Kirk Cousins
11.2 Robert Tonyan
12.9 Evan Engram
13.2 Matt Ryan
14.9 Bryan Edwards
15.2 Tre’Quan Smith
16.9 Anthony Firkser
17.2 Amon-Ra St. Brown

4 to go…

16

Number Eleven (#57)

Good grief, I had to work for this one.

Today’s draft was supposed to be my last Yahoo Private Prize League, and my biggest league of the year, a 16 teamer–but it didn’t fill, so I’m currently shooting for a deep 14 teamer tomorrow afternoon instead–and I pivoted to my last remaining $10 Yahoo Best Ball League tonight.

Seems like there wasn’t much interest in $10 Yahoo Best Ball Drafts tonight, though, and after sitting there with one other guy for 15 minutes, I went to do something else for a minute… which turned into more like ten minutes… and by the time I got back, I discovered I had drawn the #3 slot, and my first two players had been autodrafted for me! OOOOoooo! I hate that!!!

So who was I autodrafted for my #3 and #18 picks? Ezekiel Elliott and Jonathan Taylor.

LOL. I couldn’t be TOO mad. But I would have picked Henry over Zeke. Dang autodraft.

At the time I joined the draft, it was just after my second pick, going into the 2/3 turn… and Mixon and Najee Harris were both still on the board?

WHAT???

That means I could have started Henry/Najee, if I had been paying attention. I have four Henry/Najee starts from earlier in the summer, but the last one was in draft #37. You just don’t see Najee falling into the back half of the second round any more. Maybe you get some Zeke/Najee starts from the 7 slot or something, but you just don’t get Henry/Najee these days. I had despaired of ever starting with that pair again, and here I could have done it in draft #57 on the Sunday before opening night. Sigh.

Of course Mixon went at 3.1 and of course Najee went at 3.2, so even with the autodrafter, I came ONE PICK AWAY from a Zeke/Taylor/Najee start, which would obviously be insane. I don’t think anyone could even get that in an auction draft, and have any kind of a team behind them. Double-sigh.

1.3 Derrick Henry Ezekiel Elliott
2.8 Najee Harris Jonathan Taylor
3.3 CeeDee Lamb
4.8 Robert Woods
5.3 Gus Edwards
6.8 Brandon Aiyuk - I thought about executing the Mostert/Sermon coup at the 6/7 turn again, but that would be pretty much just like my last draft–total RB overkill at the expense of my WRs–so I decided to flip-flop it entirely and double down on the WRs at the 6/7 turn instead.
7.3 Robby Anderson
8.8 Kenny Golladay
9.3 Matthew Stafford
10.8 Kirk Cousins - So I figure I’m getting either James Conner or Brandin Cooks here, with Kirk Cousins around the corner in the 11th. Conner falls 10.3 and Cooks 10.4, so I just took Cousins here and gave myself the corner to figure out who I’d take next.
11.3 Nyheim Hines - So Gesicki was still on the board, and I queued him up. He falls at 11.2. Now I kinda panic and I’m just like, ok, I need another RB, here’s Hines. Click. Oh wait! HINES? After Taylor was autodrafted to me?? Dumb. Triple-sigh. Yeah, this just wasn’t my draft.
12.8 Matt Ryan
13.3 Mike Williams
14.8 Evan Engram
15.3 Jared Cook
16.8 Anthony Firkser
17.3 Mark Ingram II

3 to go…

17

By the way, this one isn’t full yet either, so if you want to come Pirating & Pillaging with me tomorrow afternoon (or tomorrow evening, depending on when it fills), this is the link:

Pirates & Pillagers

CAUTION : This is a 14-team league with no Ks or Ds and fairly standard PPR scoring (all TDs 6 pts) with big distance bonuses. Starting lineup is 1QB, 3RB, 3WR, 1TE, 2Flex, & 2Superflex, with 10Bench and 2IR–with a $250 auction budget and FAAB waivers.

So we will not be playing nicely…

Oh, and the entry fee is $214…

Ahoy there, mateys…

Snake Pigsskin

18

Pushed to 9 pm EDT tonight, but it kinda looks like crickets in here anyway…

As someone said in another thread the other day, “Tell me you’re casual without telling me you’re casual.”

lol

19

Okay, not enough Pirates, so the last of us jumped ship to a Monopoly themed draft, which after pushing back itself once, is now full and scheduled to begin at…

2AM EDT!!!

It’s not as deep as the other one, only 12 teams, 2 RBs, and 1 Superflex (plus a D), compared to the other one, but I’d call that mildly deep–and it pays off $2000 for 1st place on a $250 entry fee!

Sure was a battle to get this last Yahoo Private Prize League in… but I’ll tell you how it goes tomorrow…

lol

EDIT: OMG! THIS guy is in the Monopoly draft too!

20

Number Twelve (#58)

Ok, so Yahoo Private Prize League, $250 entry, 12 teams, pretty standard PPR scoring with small distance/yardage bonuses and 5 pt pass TDs for some reason. Start 1QB, 2RB, 3WR, 1TE, 2Flex, 1Superflex and 1 DST, with 6Bench and 2IR. Drafted from 2am until 5am EDT. lol

So first the salmon guy—you know, the guy who went to the Dollar Store after buying Mahomes, Kelce, Adams, Kittle and Mostert in the draft where I took all Week 7 bye players? Well, he didn’t learn anything. He again got only five players before hitting the Dollar Store in this draft—Mahomes, Garoppolo, McCaffery, Kamara and Henderson. Parenthetically, he also paid the two highest prices for any players in the draft with $70 for CMC and $60 for Kamara (with Cook coming in 3rd at $58, and Najee Harris 4th at $56!!). By comparison, Zeke and Henry both went for $46. And of course the highest price paid for a QB was his $41 bid on Mahomes (he only spent $3—his LAST $3—on Garoppolo). His WRs are Jalen Reagor, Christian Kirk, T.Y. Hilton, Parris Campbell, Emmanuel Sanders, Nelson Agholor and Randall Cobb. RB depth consists of Tarik Cohen and Le’Veon Bell. So that’s at least $350 that Salmon Guy has donated to the Axe Elf Christmas Fund.

You are appreciated, Salmon Guy, wherever you are!

Despite Salmon Guy’s exuberance, the rest of the league seemed to be kind of conservative at first, maybe in awe of the extra flex and superflex positions, so I was able to get Derrick Henry with the 13th nomination for some $10 less than CMC, Kamara and Cook. I briefly had visions of a Henry/Najee backfield, but when Najee was the focus of the “last elite RB” bidding war, I had to drop out (he eventually went for $56, two dollars less than Dalvin Cook!). It’s just as well anyway. If I had spent more than the $28 I eventually paid for Chris Carson on my RB2, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get all the other players I eventually drafted (still wasn’t able to get Golladay).

So overall, I’m pretty pleased—I was able to fill out a complete starting roster for $190, with $10 left for my 6 bench slots, so I just started dropping $2 bids on the nominations of the Dollar Store shoppers until it was time to add my own last couple of $1 guys.

QB: Matthew Stafford (11) $19, Kirk Cousins (7) $9, Tyrod Taylor (10) $2
RB: Derrick Henry (13) $46, Chris Carson (9) $28, Damien Harris (14) $16, Mark Ingram II (10) $2
WR: CeeDee Lamb (7) $26, Robert Woods (11) $20, Brandon Aiyuk (6) $14, Adam Thielen (7) $9, Marvin Jones, Jr. (7) $2, Amon-Ra St. Brown (9) $2, Bryan Edwards (8) $1
TE: Mike Gesicki (14) $2, Evan Engram (10) $1
DST: New England Patriots (14) $1
REMAINING: $0

And now, my last auction tonight, about 6 hours from now, and then the final $20 Yahoo Best Ball league on Wednesday…

2 to go…