Tournament Draft Results

Fantasy Draft Talk
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I’m playing the Fantasy Playbook Tournament, hosted by former FantasyPros analyst Kyle Yates. 276 players in 23 divisions of 12 teams each.

The format is quite interesting. Scoring is half PPR, with full PPR for TEs. Starters are:
QB
SFLEX (QB/RB/WR/TE)
RB
RB
WR
WR
WR
FLEX (RB/WR/TE)
TE

No K, no D/ST. 6 bench, so a 15 round draft. No trading is allowed in this league. Waivers are FAAB.

This setup looks pretty well balanced to me. You cannot really ignore any position. QB is important because of the SFLEX, WR is important because you start 3, TE is important because they get an extra 0.5 PPR, and RB is important anyway.

I drafted out of the #4 spot. The draft didn’t go entirely well for me, here’s the result:

1.04: Najee Harris
Josh Allen and Justin Herbert went first, the 1.03 picked CMC. I see a tier gap behind the top 2 QBs, so I decided to go RB and pick my favorite for the #1 crown.

2.09: Trey Lance
9 QBs were off the board by now, so I could not delay this pick any further. But I got exactly the QB1 I wanted, so I’m very happy with this one. He’s the QB9 in my rankings, but has top 5 upside.

3.04: CeeDee Lamb
D’Andre Swift was still there, and I was heavily tempted to take him, as he’s my #5 RB. But we start 3 WRs in this league, and while 6 WRs were off the board, my #3 candidate was still there. So I took Lamb.

4.09: Jameis Winston
My plan was to take Michael Pittman here, who is my #5 WR, but I got ninja’d by the team that picked ahead of me. That should become a theme in this draft. I have to admit I did not have a plan B here. Jaylen Waddle was still there, he’s my #12 in half PPR. But I decided to lock in my desired QB2 instead. Might have been a bit of a reach, but 6 more QBs came off the board in the following round. So in hindsight, I’m okay with this pick.

5.04: Dalton Schultz
This is a TE premium league, and I expect Schultz to have a monster season. 4 TEs were off the board, Schultz is my #4 TE, so why not take him now? In hindsight, I could probably have delayed this pick by a round or even two, as the main theme of the next 2 rounds was QB and WR.

6.09: Breece Hall
The plan was to take Travis Etienne here, but I got ninja’d by the team that picked ahead of me. Yes, that was copy&paste. Won’t be the last one. I’m not super sad with this pick, as the WR market had pretty much dried up by now, and the curses from the team behind me told me that Hall wouldn’t have been there next time I came on the clock. So okay.

7.04: Brandin Cooks
2 out of 3 picks were WR at this time, so this was the right time to pick the unspectacular, but always solid Cooks, whose volume this year should be in no danger whatsoever.

8.09: Tony Pollard
I got auto-picked here because of a miscommunication regarding the draft timer. This was a slow draft, 4 hour clock, that we had been told would stop between 10pm and 9am ET. Turns out it stopped only at 12am. So I woke up to find myself with Pollard on my roster. Not a terrible pick by any means, but Pollard has the same BYE as Najee Harris, reducing his usefulness as my 3rd RB. My only consolation was that my target player (Gabe Davis) had been taken a few picks ahead of me.

9.04: Chris Olave
This was a nice consolation, though. Olave is my favorite for most productive rookie of the year, I have him as my #19 WR.

10.09: Ken Walker
This pick I would like to get back. I felt pressure on RB because of the somewhat unfortunate selection of Pollard in round 8. My target was Rhamondre Stevenson, but he got picked… well, you got the theme by now. I was pretty high on Walker by that time (draft took place 2 weeks ago), but the hernia injury he picked up by now does concern me a lot. And Kadarius Toney was still on the board.

11.04: Nyheim Hines
Finally, a player I did not get ninja’d on. Hines is expected to see a healthy amount of passes this year. I full PPR, I even have him as a borderline RB2. In half PPR, he’s still a solid FLEX option, which is nice to get in round 11, and even nicer as he can serve as a BYE week RB, since he’s one of the few players who does not have a week 9 BYE.

12.09: Irv Smith
A few TEs had come off the board in the rounds before, Smith could have a fine season with the Vikings planning to pass more. He only needs to stay healthy…

13.04: KJ Osborn
Another solid FLEX option. I expect Osborn to get close to Thielen’s production this year. He could even finish higher than Thielen, if the latter gets injured again.

14.09: Jalen Tolbert
Another great depth piece. Tolbert should see plenty of action early in the season. This may change once Gallup returns, but it doesn’t look like that will happen all too soon.

15.04: Drew Lock
Ugh. The plan was to take Mitch Trubisky as my backup QB in the previous round. As long as he starts, he will be a solid QB2. But Trubisky has the same bye week as Trey Lance, which I had only noticed when I was on the clock. So his only use would have been to serve as the week 14 replacement for Winston. And I did not want to bet on Trubisky still being a starter by then. Why I then took Drew Lock instead, you ask? I honestly do not have a good answer. Romeo Doubs, DeVante Parker, Brian Robinson and Kenny Gainwell were still on the board. Should have gone without a backup QB.

My final roster (with BYE weeks):

QB: Trey Lance (9)
SFLEX: Jameis Winston (14)
RB: Najee Harris (9)
RB: Breece Hall (10)
WR: CeeDee Lamb (9)
WR: Brandin Cooks (6)
WR: Chris Olave (14)
TE: Dalton Schultz (9)
FLEX: Tony Pollard (9)

Bench:
QB: Drew Lock (11)
RB; Nyheim Hines (14)
RB; Ken Walker (11)
WR: KJ Osborn (7)
WR: Jalen Tolbert (9)
TE: Irv Smith (7)

I’m not unhappy with that team, but it would certainly look better with Pittman, Waddle and Gabe Davis on WR, in addition to Lamb, and with Travis Etienne on RB. Nothing I could do about Pittman, but I could have gotten Waddle or Etienne in round 5 if I had sacrificed Schultz.

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I’d have gone Swift. GL though!

I’d have taken Carr here, if available? If not, Winston isn’t a bad choice.

Definitely too early.

I’d have rather had Hall than Etienne anyway. Remember, Etienne plays for Jacksonville. How much upside can you have there? Even the Jets look better.

This is a classic example of overthinking in the middle of a draft, or at the end in this case. This is why we mock draft. I’d have grabbed Robinson and then dropped somebody else to get a backup QB later.

By the way, Drew Lock is already worthless:

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Keep in mind, we start 3 WRs in that league. 2 teams went WR-WR in the first 2 rounds. And we’re not allowed to trade in that league, so stashing a second top RB in hopes of turning him into an elite WR via trade is not an option.

Nope, he’d been taken in round 3. By the time I picked Winston, 14 QBs were off the board. 6 followed in round 5, so in hindsight, it was not much of a reach. And Winston was the best QB left, at least in my rankings.

Probably, but the TE premium made me want to lock the position in. I don’t know if Schultz would have lasted much longer, but in hindsight, I could have gotten Goedert in round 7.

It’s the pass catching upside that would make me prefer Etienne in PPR formats.

Yeah, that pick was terrible. Thankfully, it was only my last one. But I’d need Lock only in weeks 9 and 14, and I wouldn’t bet on Geno still being the starter by then. He’s even on the waiver wire, so I could see if I can swap the two for free. Or I can drop Lock and stash Michael Gallup. Other than that, there are few players on the waiver wire that I would like to have on a redraft roster.

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Well this is definitely one of the most terrible drafts I’ve ever seen anyone have the courage to post. Props for that, as hopefully others can learn from your errors and avoid the same pitfalls in their own drafts. Let’s put on a pair of rubber gloves and see if we can’t dissect this abomination.

1.04 - Gross error right off the bat, with the RB who was 43 points ahead of Jonathan Taylor when he got hurt last year still on the board. But no need for the best player in fantasy football for Zak! He’ll make it up with his second round pick…

2.09 - Or not. Seriously? Basically a rookie QB who has one 76 yard TD pass and 65 yards on 10 completions with 0 TDs for the rest of the preseason.

3.04 - Probably should have taken Swift, given how you missed out on any other credible RBs later in the draft, but having Lamb shouldn’t hurt you at WR, either.

4.09 - Another cut-rate QB so early, in lieu of an actual skill player.

5.04 - Two QBs and a TE by the 5th round. When you’re wondering why you don’t have enough legitimate starting RBs or WRs to fill out your starting lineup, you need look no further than your first five rounds.

6.09 - Seems a little early to be taking a guy who isn’t even the RB1 on his own team, but preseason buzz can be a terrible thing. The guy cursing after you will be blessing you by October.

7.04 - Finally, a legitimate pick! You only wasted 6 rounds thus far, let’s see if this will get you back on the right track…

8.09 - Or not. Another team’s RB2. Yay.

9.04 - About the best you can say about this pick is that he stacks with Winston–but there had to be better options than a rookie out there at this point.

10.09 - We’ve already invested three top-ten picks on rookies so far; what’s one more?

11.04 - Your second legitimate pick, but it may be too little too late to hold down your RB2 slot.

12.09 - Another TE? What, you couldn’t find a 4th-string rookie to waste this pick on, so you went with a second TE? Interesting strategy…

13.04 - Welp, if you’re going to take a team’s 4th and 5th receiving options, it might as well be from a team that passes a lot, but that’s about all we can say for the two Vikings here.

14.09 - You’d have been better off selecting Noah Brown, who will serve as the Cowboys’ WR2 until Gallup returns. Maybe Tolbert develops enough to help you by the end of the year–if you can afford to hold him that long.

15.04 - At least you recognize this was a wasted pick. I mean, you’ll recognize the others too, eventually–but it’s going to take a few weeks.

It will take some shrewd in-season management for this team not to finish in the bottom half of its 12-team division.