Draft Day Live: Hits, Misses, and Steals!

Smashville Fantasy Football 2024: Live Draft Day Fun & Expert Analysis

Join host Andrew Banta and analyst Will Ott on the Smashville Fantasy Football Podcast as they dive into the 2024 Draft Day with lively discussion and expert insights! Experience their armchair analysis, friendly banter, and strategic tips firsthand. This episode covers the entire Smashville Fantasy Football League Draft, with real-time reactions, evaluations using Fantasy Pros, and in-depth analysis of team selections. Key players like Jordan Love, Dak Prescott, and Luke Musgrave are highlighted alongside discussions on roster moves, kicker and defense choices, and trade opportunities. Perfect for any fantasy football enthusiast looking to enhance their lineup before the season starts. Tune in for an informative and entertaining Draft Day experience!

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to the Smashville Fantasy Football Podcast!
• 0:16 Draft Day Live: Pre-Draft Banter
• 1:08 Corrections and Clarifications
• 2:22 Draft Strategy and Player Picks
• 7:40 Live Draft Reactions and Analysis
• 25:17 Remaining Rounds Recap and Reflections
• 42:13 Evaluating Gus Edwards and Injury Concerns
• 43:18 Drafting Strategies and Missed Picks
• 45:47 Quarterback Selections and Backup Plans
• 47:06 Wide Receiver Choices and Aaron Rodgers Discussion
• 49:30 Kickers, Defenses, and Final Draft Rounds
• 55:53 Post-Draft Analysis and Team Rankings
• 56:31 FantasyPros Analysis and Team Breakdown
• 1:02:43 Steals, Reaches, and Value Picks
• 1:20:19 Roster Moves and Trade Strategies
• 1:22:24 Outro

Transcript

Welcome to the Smashville Fantasy Football Podcast! I'm your trade-addict host, Andrew Banta, joined by our analyst who swears he can predict the future, Will Ott.  Get ready for armchair analysis, friendly banter, and a whole lot of fantasy fun! 

Welcome to the Smashville Fantasy Football Podcast. It's Draft Day Live, and we're about to dive into one of the most exciting nights of the year, the Smashville Fantasy Football League Draft. I Don't live a very exciting life.

How's it going for you?

It's going, I've got a beverage of choice here. 

I should have grabbed

One of those or something stronger.

I'm going with the something stronger, 

we'll see, how that pans out for me. 

it's my son's birthday today, so he has gone full feral. Skipped over the age of six and actually gone straight into, feral wildcat. Completely different species tonight, so it's been insane. And that's not even counting this younger brother, so I am like twitchy.

Don't have nerves of steel for this draft, but I'm gonna do the best I can after a truly sensory overloaded evening here in the Bonta household. 

While we're waiting in the draft room here, we got 8 minutes, 45 seconds left. I understand we have some business to take care of. You had a couple of corrections you wanted to talk about from,  the last aired podcast.

Yeah. A couple of things that I noticed that  when I was initially speaking them, I was hesitant to say them. And I should have been more hesitant to say them. First things first our commissioner, Chris, let me know that it was not the first time that he beat me. It's the first time they'd beat me since I joined the league.

So the first season I went, Oh, and two against Chris. And then I had beaten them every single game up until last year where I went, Oh, and two again. So thank you for the correction on that one. Another one that I knew that. I definitely was a little bit off on I said, DeAndre Swift referring to the style of play of having a receiving back out of the backfield and I was thinking about no Sean Moreno and , that's just what, eight years off or something like that.

Just a small error he's out of the league and stuff, but before I take too much criticism of, Hey DeAndre's Just a fine player. I don't know who you're talking about. I was thinking about Nosho Marina, who played for the Broncos and didn't quite pan out to the hype of that first or second round pick that I had him.

All right glad to have the record corrected. Don't at us, everyone. We are aware we make mistakes. I'm sure we made a million more but we're doing the best we can here. So what we can expect here in the next seven minutes. We'll maybe talk about very high level, what we're thinking approaching this draft, rough strategy, Will and I don't want to tip each other off to exactly what we're doing, but maybe a thousand foot view of it.

And then once we dive into the draft, we'll just be giving our reactions as we go, trying to note other players that are drafted the best we can, but I'm also going to screen share that because first and foremost, I'm researching my next pick. I may not be the best multitasker. I may not be able to figure out what everyone else is doing while I'm just trying to figure out what the heck I want to do with my next pick coming up.

And then after we're all done we'll review it. I'm going to use Fantasy Pros to pull up some expert grades and see how we did on each positions and we can do a post mortem on the whole draft and look ahead to the rest of the season. So Will, what are you thinking? How you feeling heading into the draft? Have you done any more mocks since we last did it?

I haven't done any mocks but I have tried to take some time to look at players and some changes throughout the league. There were a couple trades or free agent signings that I wasn't quite super aware of.  That definitely would affect how I view a specific player on a specific team. So looking through some of those has mildly change the direction I possibly would go. Considering I'm picking six, it's not exactly my most favorite because I basically have to wait just as long round one as I do round two.

Yeah, I don't like that range either.

I prefer to draft a little bit closer together and with the auto draft and the style of competition that we have here.

I tend to like to draft in the more of that nine to 12 position.  This year I feel like I would like to draft 1, or 9 to 12,

Yeah. I like either the first few or the last few.

 I just feel like I'm always under the gun if I'm somewhere in the middle. It's like close enough where I have to worry about it, and I can't, I don't know. Relax for a minute but still long enough that I can't rely on the players that I'm scoping on actually being available I like my picks much closer together.

Even if I have to wait a long time between  a couple rounds I am drafting second. So I like that position. That's pretty good for me. Christian McCaffrey's there at the top of the board He does have some injury news. Do you think that's going to change anything?

I didn't really look into it because I saw it was drafting 6, so I didn't bother

I don't think it should change anything, to be honest.  probably going to get taken. and if he's not, then  going to be looking that way. C. D. Lamb did get his contracts all

That's a big 

marks I was able to get him much later pick six or seven or so in a mock draft.

And I had been regularly picking him much earlier. So I was pleased to see him fall. He may not fall anymore, given that that's all locked up, and some of the question marks are removed. But it looks like I was right to pick him in our mock draft at least under the basis of thinking that he will be there to start the year. 

One question I would have about that is Who are you picking? Because you're going to be picking second. I'm at six, so I can't really influence your decision.

So do you know who you're going to pick second? Or if Christian McCaffrey gets picked number one?

Obviously, McCaffrey, if he's available second, it's gonna be very close between Tyree Kill and C. D. Lamb.  I am leaning Lamb, but being second. I'm a little less sure. Maybe one of them will get taken. Number one and I won't even have to 

choose. But,  

considering who the first person picking is Caitlin and her having the best wind percentage of our league.  And I think she has been in it every single year or almost every single year.  So I think she's going to be thinking McCaffrey. 

I'll probably

also that was another correction, by the way, I don't have the actual percentage wind percentage, but I'm actually third in wind percentage just behind Andrew.

I think when I said that I had the second best winning percentage, that was either some point in the season last year or before the last year started, 

not that it matters that  I know it's so close though. I think like 61, 62 or something like that. 

So yeah, I'll probably get Lamb unless I pull an audible at the last second. He has a very, very minor injury, but that's the case with a lot of people. We've really seen the injuries start to crop up now that all the preseason games  are in the books. I think DeAndre Hopkins has a pretty significant injury that could take him out for as much as four to six weeks, but there's been some news that maybe he'll be available week one. But yeah, they're really adding up, I'm going to view that as a chance to get some upside.

I'll try to take care of my starring lineup early on and then start drafting some of those injured guys that should be back later and have a lot of upside.

and our commissioner has joined. He said that the kids just went down. He made it in by about a minute. So we will have our commissioner, his wife, Sarah, will also be here.  Allegedly, I'm assuming your wife is not going to be here for the draft. She's going to be 

I asked her and she said she's auto drafted in the past. So she's going to use that in the future.  She doesn't think that she could do better. But she could have been watching our podcast and had a little more background knowledge, but she chose not to.

She could actually listen live. She'd be able to just sit out right outside the door and just listen to you talk

could be also running interference for the kids. So I'm not going to badmouth her too much on that.

Hey, there's no bad mouth thing about taking care of kids.

That's 

right. We are getting underway here. The moments of truth. Who's it going to be to kick off the draft?

 I have some filters set to take care of things, like making sure it doesn't flood my view of kickers and defenses. Since I know I don't want to consider them until later. And I'm also ignoring titans for the most part, just in my view. I can draft one if I feel like it. There goes McCaffery.

Here, I have that close choice here between C. D. Lamb and Tyreek Hill. Hill has a minor hand injury, I see. It shouldn't be too concerning.  These guys are almost a coin flip for me. I've been pretty consistent in going with Lamb, so I'm not gonna change it up right now. And I lock in Lamb with my second pick. Only 20 picks to go.

Caitlin, who's actually at kid swim practice and trying to multitask. So that's the reason why McCaffrey took a long time to get going.

We got Tyreek Hill off the board by our commissioner there, Chris Cookley. Good choice, yep, I think. That's who you take there. Now we've started to see some of the running backs who I've been a little wishy washy about. They're certainly great players, but are they fourth and fifth pick?

Brees Robinson?  I don't know. Could be a little boom and bust in there.

I didn't really expect Jamar Chase to be available. That's my pick.

Yeah, I think that's really good. I'd put Jamar Chase below, Hill and Lamb, but possibly ahead of those running backs. 

I think ahead of the running backs and also ahead of Justin Jefferson.

Yeah I'm not surprised to see Jefferson go though. He's been climbing the draft.

Yeah, it would be a first round draft pick. If I were 10, 11, a hundred percent, we'd be picking him before he got to round number two.

So we're nearing the end of the first round here, and there's been no head scratching surprises, which is actually a little rare for our league. We got Derek Henry just now picked, that may be a tad bit early for him. I love Derek Henry. I've been looking for him. In some round twos and if I get lucky even early round threes But definitely not in round one.

I haven't come across him 

 I would expect him to be a late round two, early round three pick. 

Yeah,  really no big surprises though. I, nothing I can take advantage of and take what the draft gives me.

Knowing Lamar Jax is going to be that mobile quarterback. I don't think Derek Henry is going to see  many touches, although they might be changing their offensive game plan to be more.  Let Derek run the ball rather than have Lamar run the ball to try to keep him healthy.

He's had at least one major injury that kind of hampered their season. So going the route of maybe giving the ball to Derek, that might be where that hope is coming from in the first round.  Jonathan Taylor's an interesting 

yeah, yeah, I agree with that. Who would you take first? It's only by one pick, but AJ Brown or Amon Ra Saint Brown. They went Amon Ra, then Brown.

I like Amun Ra better.

Okay. I was flip flopping on them, and I'm glad I didn't have to choose. 

Yeah I, it was one of those flip floppy things for me as well. I would have gone on Manasseh Brown. I think you're more likely to get consistent gameplay from  Jared Goff compared to Jalen Hurts who might go into a scramble mode late in the game, whereas Jared Goff is going to be throwing the ball  if they're down,

 lead First pick of the second round, we got Puka Nuka, Puka Nkwa, I'm butchering that name. 

I like him a lot, I think he's gonna do great this year. He was drafted about where I'd expect to see him, too. In a mock draft earlier today, I got Marvin Harrison Jr.

for the first time because he fell a little later in that second round. 

And that's who I'm 

my other mocks, he'd been going super early second round or even late first round. Which, 

still, maybe it's too early, but That was the

I'm,

a mock.

I think I might take him if he's available to me.

 And you are in how many picks here?

I'm 19.

And we're on 16. Yeah, I don't think that's unreasonable at that point. That's about where I got him earlier.

There's really been no surprises, so I think people are being really disciplined in our league this time around. No one's  jumped really far for an aging

Awww.

Was he

Awww.

Yeah, 

And this is where do I go? Devante Adams. I don't really like their situation in Las Vegas. That's my biggest 

I don't love that situation either. I like DevanteAdams, I've had him on my team a number of years, but 

And then I'll pick up Travis Sentien. I think he's a very solid player. 

Yeah. I hate it when my hand gets forced to pick him second round. But I have taken him second round plenty of times.  If it falls that way, I'll do it. But I hate when it falls that way for me.

Alright, looks like I'm up. Who did we just have taken? Devonta Shane, Devonta Adams, Isaiah Pacheco. 

Chris is going back to his roots from

not looking at QBs. I'm looking at either a wide receiver or running back. Kenneth Walker is available there. Josh Jacobs, who  I don't love as much or I could go wide receiver heavy and get a guy like Brandon, I yuck, or maybe Devo Samuel.  Think I'm going to go a little wide receiver heavy here.

I think I can still find value in the running backs later on as much as I like Kenneth Walker. I get them a lot of times. There's still a lot of writing backs I can make do with in my starting lineup. So I'm going to go Devo Samuel, do you take him or I yuck on this on. San Francisco 49ers, it's tough, but I would give the edge to Samuel.

You'll see him running the ball a little bit more. They have a weird system, I think, down in Francisco, but I think it caters more towards Deebo.

We got Nico Collins, taken by No Hard Feelins,

That was one that I was definitely hoping would fall to round three, and that didn't 

Oh, here's a situation where I

ahead and take a yuck. You don't quite get the benefit if one of them's injured. You don't quite get that benefit of a running back going off getting injured and you have both running backs in a  two RB system.

So I think I'm going to finally take a running back here instead of Iyuk, instead of completely loading there.  Do I go Jacobs or Kenneth Walker? 

That's a I want Joe Mixon. Yeah. 30 seconds here so I can think about it a little bit.

That is tough. What other wide receivers do I have? There's Drake London. He'd be very solid. It's like, how heavy do I want to go? It's almost tempting to look at Iyuktu even though I discounted it.  I'm gonna do Kenneth Walker. 

I really like him. I may be biased and Maybe that wasn't the best pick. But it at least wasn't far off.

No, and it's relative and you don't really know. And that's one of the joys of playing fantasy football. I do not like drafting two wide receivers from the same team ever.

Yeah,

I feel like I'm

limiting my upside. 

yeah. Cause if the quarterback has a bad game, then. Guess what? Both your players did nothing.

Yeah 

I think the only time where I would feel kind of comfortable was a few years ago with Mike Evans, Chris Goblin kind of situation where they were basically both on that almost wide receiver one level. And here's a situation where I want to go wide receiver. I don't know if I like the wide receivers more than I like pick that I'm probably going to go with.

No hard feelings, bid at quarterback. So Josh Allen's off the board. Are we gonna start a run at quarterbacks here in the third round?  I've taken Josh Allen third round, so I don't think it's crazy.

 Yeah I'd rather get better value in the skill positions.

People have been, very measured with this draft so far. There's been no just crazy moves. No one's jumped on the quarterbacks in round one, which happens all the

time 

that's a lot.  I think I'm going to go with Josh Jacobs. I'm a big fan of his running play style. I don't know how well he's going to fit with the Green Bay offense, but at the same time, he's also not going to be put, I think, in a position where he's going to get injured like he was with the raiders where he was an extremely big part of the reason why they finished as good as they did. And I think that really put a toll on his body.

And so I think he's going to be less injury prone this year, but also he's not gonna score as many fancy points as he did last year, but at the same time, I'm also not picking him in the same round that I did last year. I believe I picked him in round one or two. I feel like having that extra cushion, he'll have more support, but at the same time, be a pivotal role  with an aggressive running style for green Bay. That's the reason why I picked him.  Have an idea of who I want to pick next in terms of wide receiver and I value having  Josh Jacobs at running back more than I value that wide receiver for that next pick. So if I miss someone, I'd rather miss on that other wide 

 I'm looking at wide receivers now. I still have twelve picks to go, so a lot are gonna get taken, I imagine. D. K. Metcalfe was taken. I would have loved him, but there was no way he was going to fall 12 picks for me.

Honestly, I'm one of those people that I love DK Metcalf. I felt like he was really good. I still think he's pretty good, but I don't think he's good for fantasy. Especially going from Russell Wilson in his prime to  I don't feel like it's working out the way that it could've. He's not able to stand out and shine like a Tyreek Hill or CD Lamb.

Someone I just realized that was taken, and I want to check where Cooper Cup is off the board. Sometimes he was going much later than I thought made sense.

He went to Simple Jack at 31.

In my mind, he's still a beast, 

I fade on him. 

Really?

yeah, I've never really drafted him in any of my leagues.

Yeah, I've been hearing more people fade on Stefan Diggs than Cooper Cupp. People 

And that's 

 In other fantasy podcasts and stuff that I've listened to that, he is definitely over the hill and is not the same guy anymore. And I think you'll see that in the ADP too.

Part of it I think is also up to Sean McDermott and the offensive coordinator for Buffalo Bills  being in Buffalo versus Minnesota, different environment being in the cold weather environment Buffalo versus indoor at Minnesota. My wide receiver that I was talking about, I do want to pick up Stefan Diggs,  but at the same time, I'm also looking at some of the other wide receivers that are open right now, and I  figured the two that I'd be most interested in would be gone by then.

So Jalen Waddell is one that I would like to pick up.

I was thinking about him as well. One thing I've heard interesting is that while he played all 16 games, I believe, from what I've heard last season, he was injured for a very large portion of those games. So that's a consideration. He is kind of injury prone and it takes him out for a valuable playing time, so that could affect his points, but he always finds his way back in.

So that's a little trade off to consider with him.

for Yahoo, it's showing when I click on it he played in 14 games last year.

Oh, 14? Okay, maybe I'm thinking of the year before, or someone just quoted wrong, but there was discussion that I heard today about just the amount of time he's in a non contact jersey. He's in a non contact jersey right now, in fact. 

He's gone now though. 

Yeah, he is gone. Digs in a blanket, took him.

I was looking at Michael Pittman Jr. I like him. Still not a hundred percent sure exactly where, how I feel about Anthony Richardson, whether he can stay healthy, whether he's actually going to be good in the NFL for more than just like a couple of games that he's shown in the previous season.

So I'm going to go with Stefan Dex. 

Oh, okay. 

Think him being in a dome in Houston  in the AFC South is going to be a big benefit for him in his production versus playing most of his games in Buffalo in the cold.

Yeah, I am up. None of the running backs right now excite me at this pick. There's solid guys in there. But, I feel like I can wait on a few of them.  So even though I only have one running back right now and two very solid wide receivers, I think I'm going to look at my wide receiver list because I like David Montgomery, Alwyn Kamara, James Connor,  but I just don't think I want them next.

I might be able to get one of them later.  So  I'm going to take Amari Cooper.

And that's going to be very dependent on whether Deshaun Watson's actually going to come to fruition in Cleveland.

Yeah. I don't even know if I want someone else to come in instead, but I'm just giving Cooper the benefit of the doubt there. And he's my

I'm not really a big fan of Deshaun Watson. I think  the scandal thing went down and that was a big distraction for him when moved to Cleveland. And   seem to, he doesn't really seem to have any sort of meshing. I don't know if that was just, Hey, I need to have more experience with our offensive coordinator or what, but I didn't like it.

So I stayed away from Amari Cooper and Deshaun Watson.

I'm up again here. The top four quarterbacks have been taken. Allen, Hurts, Mahomes, Jackson. I could get Richardson but it feels like a bit of a reach. CJ Stroud is available and that's interesting. It's at least tempting to me. But I'm not quite convinced to go in round five on a quarterback without those top four guys being available, so  Let me see who I think I can get  hopefully a running back possibly another wide receiver and just be almost done with the wide receivers  The problem is I'm not too many picks later so the same running backs that didn't excite me still don't excite me. I can get them later, so not much changed. Long story short, T Higgins it is.

Rock solid at wide receiver now. But I need to do something about that running back position sooner rather than later.

 Yeah, we talked about CJ Stroud and how I kind of  him going into the mock draft. With his average draft position, I don't like him. I'm not looking at the same list of players in the same order that everyone else is. For instance, right now, CJ Stroud is showing as my  top pick that I had looked at,  but I don't think I'm going to go there yet. I see other quarterbacks that I'd be happy with knowing that CJ Stroud is probably going to get picked by one of the auto drafts we have four auto drafting.

round Five? It's just a tad early. Round seven, I'd probably pull the trigger.

I'm basically going wide receiver. I already have my two starting running backs in Travis Dentian and Josh Jacobs.

You zig when I zag, so that works. We're not competing against each other's picks at the

I know, it makes it a little bit more interesting for the podcast too, right?

Yeah. 

I go George Kittle.

Really? You've liked him? I'm  not as high on him just because I've seen how inconsistent  tight end

 gonna go Terry McLaurin. I feel like it's a mistake.

I like Terry McLaurin. 

I like him as a player, but I don't like him on the commanders. With a team with an established quarterback, like let's say Josh Allen, I feel like he would be  probably a third round pick, but on the commanders who have shown to be incompetent on many different levels and a first year quarterback don't like it.

I don't, but at this point we're so far into the draft where I think it's okay for me to quote unquote reach or go up and get him. 

He's ranked on this as the wide receiver 30. You could have had the wide receiver 26 in George Pickens. What are your thoughts on him? 

Justin Fields or Russell Wilson, especially with the way Russell Wilson  that's a tandem, that's a tandem position. Historically, Pittsburgh and Mike Tomlin have been pretty defensive oriented, not to say Ben Roethlisberger wasn't a good quarterback or anything like that,  but  I feel like the game plan  wasn't as much reliant on offense.

And that's what I'm looking for. In fancy football is I'm looking for a system that revolves around offense scoring points in one way or the other. And  it could be running the ball, then which case I'm going to be picking up like Derrick Henry when he was on the Tennessee Titans or  picking up Tyreek  Hill, for instance, for Miami Dolphins. 

It just has to be a position that's likely going to score. And when you're tandem, you need to have a decent quarterback to a good or great wide receiver.

I need a button for this, but whoo whoo whoo! We have taken the first defense! Round 5, pick 9. MintberryCrunch took the Baltimore Ravens.

Auto 

drafting, 

Why is the autodraft doing that to him?

I believe the way it works partially is having a position player in every single position, so They need a quarterback at least one running back at least like one or two wide receivers or something like that And then be the best in their position of the one that they'll have.

That's the best the Autodraft could do, huh? Also of note, CJ Stroud has been taken. he is off the board to Wu Tang Financial. That's pretty significant. I think past Stroud I'm a lot less tempted to jump early now in quarterbacks.

There's a lot of really solid. QBs I can wait on at this point, so I'm gonna really try to find a running back that sits at the right spot. Unfortunately, David Montgomery was taken by Best Eater Around . I would've loved for him to fall to me.

I didn't think he would, because I still had ten picks to go.

If you'd be able to use the other screen and click on the draft results and positions drafted grid.

You can see that there's still four people that haven't drafted a single quarterback.

I feel like we're in pretty good position, I feel like someone would have to be drafting. A backup quarterback before I'm drafting my first quarterback

Yeah,

in order for me to get a quarterback that I don't want.

Yeah, agreed. And I'm fine I'm gonna have rated the  11th or 12th  best quarterback, so I'm gonna be at the bottom of those ratings. But, I should be okay with it. 

Will, what happened? Why are we suddenly in different clothes?

Magic.  

 Are we in the past or the 

I guess that's a real question. But anyway The draft happened last night, and during the draft, we had a technical malfunction, so we recorded the post draft the same night,  but now we're doing a recap of the section of the draft that was missed, pretty much round six and beyond.

I think the last thing from the live draft was Aaron Jones being picked by Mitchie Mitch. This is going to be more of a retrospective from this point on. After Mitchie Mitch, early round six still, we had Dixon the Blanket taking Jaden Reed.  Then Mark Andrews at tight end. Will, I know you had some thoughts about Mark Andrews. Do you want to touch upon them?

To me, I don't feel like he's like that receiving style tight end. He has the ability to catch the ball, but he's not going to be a big enough focus my liking to have picked him. I thought he was a little bit earlier. I would have taken George Kittle and I ended up taking George Kittle.

So that's the reason why I took that. 

Yep.  And, for me, I'm not doing tight ends. We got Ramondra Stevenson. Do you like him 

It's a little bit difficult. Now that New England isn't the same team as they used to be,

Yeah, that's where I fall on. It's just the Patriots offense I have no faith in, so I don't really want their running back.

the goal is to be on a team that scores a lot of fantasy points and then hope that your player is one of those players that scores a lot of those fancy points. And I don't see New England really being that team. So It doesn't really almost matter who it is. I'm not gonna go that route.

Yeah, after that we got a SimpleJack taking James Conner, and then you did take George Kittle at tight end. That would be the first of two tight ends for you, actually. 

I believe we also discussed in during one of our previous sessions that I don't think I'd ever taken a tight end in our league. 

And then I took two this 

 Yep. Raheem Mostert, you've had him last year, I know, and liked him a lot. Were you not feeling him as much this year?

 The way the draft panned out, I had already picked my two core running backs with the league still making an evolution towards passing the ball more or spreading the ball out more with wide receivers. Our fantasy league also has more slots for wide receiver tight ends.  Having that extra running back  quite as valuable as having a better receiver,  in my opinion, and it worked out okay for me in previous years. With Shane, he seemed like he was going to be the go to guy or they were going to split  pretty close down the middle in terms of who gets how many carries. I can't really. tell if they're both going to replicate the results that they had last year. I think it was a pretty magical year.

Lightning, I don't think we'll strike twice. I don't think he's a bad pick at that spot. I also wanted to go a different route this year.

Next we had Naje Harris. Then joe Burrow at qb.

One of those that I was looking at as a potential first quarterback was Joe burrow.  little bit underrated. I think he also got injured last  I feel like be better this year  he, has in the past.

Then I really had no choice at this point. I had to do another running back. So I was looking at Deandre Swift. Or Zemir White here and I ended up taking Swift and I was just like I hope I can get White the next round and since I was only three picks later, only two people picking before me, I thought I had a decent chance of loading up some mid tier rainbacks here. Then one Dalton Kincaid and Calvin Ridley later.

I was able to get Zemir White.  I really like Calvin Ridley as well, but I knew I was going running back, because I was pretty loaded at wide receivers, having taken four already through round five. 

so you thinking that well, loves is going to make a good connection with Calvin Ridley and then 

I don't know, I'm just going off the pedigree of the player with him He's the guy I've gone to in a couple of fantasy seasons at least. Here in the 7th round, 3rd pick, we had an exciting development. Our Commissioner Chris took Dallas Kicker, Brandon Aubrey.

I have so many questions. 

the justification that he used in the draft chat was he outscored the other kickers by about 20 or 30 points last year.

Yeah, and I don't know how that looked during the season.  His outscoring all the other kickers. I don't know if there was a particularly compelling reason for that or if it just got lucky that way, but  I think most people end up taking Justin Tucker kicker one when they do take a kicker.

That won't always be the case. Justin Tucker's been around 

Yeah. And he ended up going in round nine as we see, but

yeah, I don't get this pick. More than just quibbling over if it's Tucker or Aubrey, I don't get doing the kicker in round seven. I know Chris, for his part, likes to just fill out that starting roster.

Had he even done that at that point?  He hadn't taken defense. With six positions, even then you should have eight players between your QB, running backs, and wide receivers. So why wouldn't he fill out his flex spots at that point?

Moving on, we got Deontay Johnson. Taken by Under the Radar. And then my wife, the Meg, took Dak Prescott at QB. I like Dak.

him. I was going to take him that pick because I picked Nick. So then I was like, okay I'll take Gall Pits then.

Yeah, so then you took Kyle Pitts. I like Dak Prescott. I've had him, I think, the past two years.  At least last year, but I don't like him that early. I would have hoped to wait a couple of rounds. Here we're coming up on a group of wide receivers that I love.

I already mentioned Calvin Ridley in there. Then Chris Godwin getting picked up, Keenan Allen Christian Kirk. Especially the first three I mentioned,  I like to at least look at those guys every draft I'm in.

Tony Pollard I've been looking at in various mock drafts as a first off the bench running back. Then we had Devin Singletary coming around the snake draft.  First pick by Best Eater Around is Jackson Smith and Jigabah  and then a Brian Thomas Jr. was taken by Wu Tang Financial. And a running back that I was looking to grab. Had he still been available, I would have just gone three running backs in a row was Brian Robinson Jr. But he was picked up.

would have been the best pick really at that point in time. RB1 even on the commanders, if they're struggling,  still going to be probably better than most of the other options you have at that point. There were some others that I think were still available, but it was I felt like a pretty decent pick at the time.

Yeah. Do you think I should have taken him before as Zemir White?  

I think Zemir White did a good job of filling in for Josh Jacobs when he was injured, but  that's a pretty short term environment to really get a good read on whether or not he'll be  for that kind of production value.

 Here we have the quarterback that I was looking to take this round. Jordan Love. I can't say I'm surprised that you scooped him up. Being a Green Bay Packers fan and all.

 I tried not to. He had a pretty good year last year. had a slow start to the year. And then they figured out exactly what they should be doing on offense, and how to best utilize Jordan Love and then he started balling out a bit more in the second half of the season, which was exciting.

Looking back I wish that I didn't. Pick him. I panicked mildly in terms of seeing Oh, Jack's gone. And that was a good option for me. Joe Burrows gone. CJ Stroud's gone.  Some of those are some of the names that I was definitely looking at. And so I panicked and then went ahead and went Jordan Love.

And then shortly after that, I looked at the rest of the quarterbacks and I was like, Oh,  Let me go ahead and add some of these because they'll be possible, like in my queue, I'll add them as possible backups because  Tua was still available, Jarek Goff is still available. Not saying Jarek Goff is going to be a baller like Tua was last year or anything like that, but I think he's a pretty good pick and I  could have gotten him a lot 

Yeah, I feel you there. I very much feel the same way when you took Jordan Love. I may have panicked a little bit  taking Jane Daniels later this round. 

The other thing is that it was me, you and Caitlin  really the only three that hadn't drafted a quarterback yet, 

Yeah, so it was kind of, 

during the draft as well when we were talking. 

yeah, so I don't know why I pulled the trigger so hard if it were like, Hey, we have,  four or five people still to draft a quarterback, then you need to start looking at, Who you want to take in round nine and 10, because you're going to have a player like Dak Prescott or CJ Stroud still available, but  I don't know, kind of got in my own head a little bit.

I'm not upset about taking Jordan love, but at the same time, I don't think I would have done the same thing if I rewound it just a little bit and said, Hey, take a minute. You still have Tua, Trevor Lawrence, Jeric off all quarterbacks. I was considering also as a In case Jordan Love got picked, so oopsied on that one, but it'll be fine. I think it'll be okay. 

I think I will go as far as to say that I want that one back.  I wish I 

I would take that one back. 

I'll look at who was drafted between then and  the next quarterbacks I would have wanted. And there's quite a lot of players that I'd probably be better off with.

Between you taking QB and me taking QB, we had Evan Ingram, Christian Watson, who I like a lot in that tier with Chris Godwin, Keenan Allen, and then I took Jaden Daniels.

Starting round nine,  DeAndre Hopkins.  I  was hoping to steal him even later given his injury that cropped up it's a little bit of a question mark, will he be ready in week one, could he miss as much as four weeks?

I was hoping that was gonna hurt his draft position more and that I could snag him in a couple rounds, but it didn't happen. Xavier Worthy is who I took instead. I would have rather had Hopkins there especially considering how stacked I was at wide receiver, I would have felt just fine with a guy that is injured for a while and won't see the field until maybe a little bit later.

Here we have a real run at defenses. We had our first defense picked way back in round five with Baltimore Ravens, but with our Commissioner Ridiculous taking San Francisco 49ers, that seemed to be late enough to get some people rolling on defenses. We had the New York Jets taking quickly, the Cleveland Browns, the Dallas Cowboys, and a few more through the next round or so.

Under the radar and the bag were both, I believe, auto drafting. So that was one of the factors that came into that, those defense picks.

Oh, that's a good point. So it's going to use who's being taken 

as a cue 

to fill the roster spot. 

Yeah. 

Yeah.  

it's not going to try to start filling the bench until it's filled out  those primary positions and I'll typically do defense and then kicker is the last two on your roster 

But you didn't fall in line for that. 

ZQ Elliott I know he's getting a little bit older, but I think he's still got plenty of gas in the tank.

In a, 10 manager draft I would have expected Ezekiel Elliott to be in that round nine position, and the fact that we're in a bigger league, I was very happy to take him, and I believe I only had my starting two running backs. So if he's coming off the bench or if I put him in the flex, I felt like he was a good spot to get points on any given week.

A couple of picks later we had our next kicker taken, Justin Tucker, by Wu Tang Financial. Then we had the Steelers taking to round out round nine and then snaking around for round ten. Best eater round kicked us off, taking kicker Jake Moody. Really seeing a lot of  and defenses in these two rounds, which is a few rounds too early for me.

Absolutely.

I don't know when the last time I drafted a kicker before the last round and defense outside of the last three 

Hollywood Brown was taken. He's a guy that I've had in years past, and  I'd feel good about him on my team on the bench. It'd certainly be better than probably any wide receiver I'm getting off waivers. And then Here You Came In, the middle of round 10, with Nick Chubb.

I like this pick a lot.

Yeah. I think he's in line with Ezekiel Elia. I think he's got a similar storyline of, hey, he's doubted in the league a little bit. And I think people want younger running backs or ones that have, Produced on a different level, maybe some slight injury problems with Nick Chubb, but 

is still out injured, right? 

I wouldn't be surprised, but I don't need him to start week one. So

by 

any means, I believe that was the scenario is that I picked him knowing that, Hey, he's not going to be there and that's okay, he's going to 

be, I believe the minimum, the first  was, I 

on the pup list right now. He's physically unable to perform, but I still like the pick because you get more value for him there. You already have your starting Riding Backs, so he can maybe be plugged in later in the season. 

And then here I took Jonathan Brooks, and this isn't a player that I really know. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe he's a rookie, and he is coming off a pretty severe injury.

Was it an ACL tear?

Lemme look that up real quick.

Yeah, I may have to check too, but Yeah. He is on the pup list. Yeah. Yep. No, that's right. You're right on that one.

I don't know how that'll work out for me, but I at least have my starting running backs taken. So I was hoping to maybe have a breakout rookie possibility. 

To round out the end of round 10, we had the Bill's defense taken. 

Start of round 11, with no hard feelings, we had Jerome Ford. Then, I took Jameson Williams, solid wide receiver. At this point in the draft, I'm relying heavily on rankings because I don't know these players as well. Even if I recognize their names, I'm definitely not familiar with their body of work. So I'm looking at my roster balance and at the projections. I'm not using projected total points because I want to consider who I might get on the waiver wire as well. So I'm using a lot of the value based stats value over replacement player and value over next available to evaluate some of these guys on the fly who I don't know much about.

Khalil Shakir was taken, and then Caleb Williams at quarterback. This was the next quarterback taken after I took Jaden Daniels, so that makes me feel bad about jumping on QB foolishly thinking that there might be a run at quarterback at that point, which, as Will said, it didn't really make sense that there would be, because everyone pretty much had their starting quarterbacks.

People shouldn't want to draft their second quarterback yet.  But, I got spooked.  David Njoku was taken next, and then here's where you got Tua.  I was a little surprised you got him. I guess I thought it was gonna be Jordan Love or Tua and not both.

I don't normally like to draft my second quarterback till probably closer to round 13. I was looking around at the wide receivers that were available because that was my heaviest need because I had now four running backs. One pup, two running back, and then I could use that other running back as a flex, or if they had to buy, I just pull them out of the lineup and put a wide receiver in. Then once Nick Chubb comes back, then I would have my four.  So trying to hit that fifth running back wasn't really my priority.  And I didn't really care for the wider sewers as much. I went ahead and said, Hey, maybe two strikes magic twice, in which case I would rather have him. And then if Jordan Love gets injured or Jordan Love isn't producing like I was hoping he would, I would still have a very good  player as a quarterback.

That kind of made my pick a little bit more justifiable in my own mind.

Yeah that's understandable. I feel the same way about the wide receivers in this range. They're not exciting me. I'm hoping they don't see the field on my team. And I think that's why I get tricked into inevitably doing quarterback earlier than I intend. It happens every year. Whenever I intend to take a quarterback, subtract three rounds from it.

This year I think was the earliest I've ever taken a quarterback

Yeah.

I might've had eight in another year or two, but I don't think I've ever done seven.

Next we had Jared Goff taken by simple Jack and then Wu Tang financial took Austin Eckler, who.  Years past could be excited about, but now as the RB2 on the commanders, it's just not 

little 

as appealing. Yeah. 

The only thing that he can really bring to the table that I could be excited about is  when Washington got sacked on first down or had a bit decent loss on first down,  more likely to actually so you play on second down as a second to long receiving back outta the backfield or be able to get a good screen off.

Meant very crunch took Gus Edwards. And if I'm remembering correctly from yesterday, I think Gus Edwards was below his ADP at this point. I had looked at him, but I just wasn't excited about a rain back who. We'll probably finish in the 30s of the RB ranks.

I think he'll get consistent production, but like not a high ceiling at all. So I wanted to find guys in these next rounds that could have the potential for upside if injuries happen or they overtake a starter, stuff like that.

And Gus Edwards also has a terrible injury history.

Brandon Cooks was taken, who I've seen a lot of injuries with him, so I'm avoiding him a bit in drafts. Tyler Lockett, taken by Wu Tang Financial. Lockett's a guy who I think is just not making an impact in fantasy anymore. He's on the wrong side of 30, which is terrible to say, given that we're older. I feel my age and once you hit 30, things really do slow down.  Dallas Godere was taken by SimpleJack. Did you say you were looking at him a couple rounds earlier? 

no actually, the next pick was me and I picked Trevor Lawrence and he was one of those quarterbacks that I was considering as a backup quarterback. So I put him in my queue. I never removed them after I drafted Tua and I was like, Oh, I wanted to draft  Myers. Oh, he got picked. Oh, I want to draft Tyler Lockett. Oh, he got picked. All right. Maybe I'll just go with Dallas here and nope, he got picked. So I had gone down my list and I was still trying to figure out exactly where I could recover to and so I was considering between Mike Williams, Jerry Judy and time ran out. And so it went to the player that was on my queue.  So I have Trevor Lawrence, 

So you're not gonna try to rationalize that after the fact and pretend that was part of your bold strategy.

Nope, that was completely unintended. I haven't gotten rid of him yet. I might as well hold on to him and see if someone's QB1 goes out and maybe I can use him as trading material, 

Yeah. Despite the fact that you have three QBs,  they may have been value picks for you. They may have even been steals. little bit foreshadowing there for the post draft analysis. Yeah.

maybe.

And then I took Chuba Hubbard here, and that was part of the strategy of taking Jonathan Brooks two rounds earlier.

I was hoping to get them both because there is some uncertainty with Brooks. If he doesn't perform well, Hubbard can overtake him and get a lot more potential points in playing time. And Brooks is recovering from that injury. So having Hubbard here gives him a lot more upside.

Gives you a stronger start to the season. And then if things don't necessarily go super well with Brooks's recovery, still got that RB one.

Yeah, so I like that pick. I don't regret that pick per se, but it did cost me dearly my other handcuff who I wanted. I really wanted Zac Charbonnet. And no Hearthelens took him one pick after I took another handcuff. In retrospect, maybe Zac was at greater risk of being taken in the next round than Chuba. 

I just can't say with certainty.  Let me see where they were ranked. RB46 for Zack Charbonnet. RB44 for Chubis. Hard to say really. But I had witnessed in Mock Drafts, Zack Charbonnet going on his own merits and not being only picked as a backup there. I just hoped I could get them both.

I thought I would because I only had to wait two more picks till I went again, but it didn't work out for me there.  To start round 13, we had some more quarterbacks being picked up. These are, I think, all second quarterbacks? 

Yeah, we would have been the last two having quarterbacks to pick. 

Yeah, 

so I was the last person.

I didn't think I would be at round 8. 

And it just feels bad when you draft Jayden Daniels. 

I didn't choose the right guy. Don't rub it in. But I picked Justin Herbert here. And I really like having him. I think he has a little bit of an injury right now. Index finger injury. But,  I like him as a backup for sure. If I knew he was fully healthy I would have felt okay waiting super late for him as a starting quarterback. So I'm going with a little bit of a one two punch to at least get one good quarterback out of these two and maybe even play the hot hand approach or play the opponent a bit to see which one I'm going to start on a given week.

I could see starting Herbert some weeks that I don't start Jaden Daniels. Next, we have Matthew Stafford who I also like a lot. I wouldn't have felt bad if I had to have him either And when I look at all these quarterbacks that I would have felt fine having it makes me question again Why did I take Jayden Daniels?

I would have been okay with any of these guys we've been talking about lately. Brock Bowers was then taking it tight in Keon Coleman and then you took Mike Williams. 

had three right receivers on my mind at this point.  Mike Williams, Jerry Judy, Adam Thieline. I probably should have included Rashad Bateman in my brain, but I didn't. I was just like, okay, which one do I like the most out of all these?

I'm still not a fan of Deshaun Watson as a player.  And Aaron Rodgers might be past his prime, but  he might still be able to throw the ball better than what I might give him credit for. So going with Mike Williams gives me that option of, Hey Aaron Rogers is going to be the guy in New York that will propel the jets to make the playoffs or to be that shining success story that everyone had hyped him up to be last year. It was like the big deal that he was in new york. And I was watching his last season in Green Bay, I felt he forced a lot of throws and decided to just try to chuck it down there and see whatever happens.

Kind of almost more of a Brett Favre esque a little bit more reckless, not really using his brain. I remember on their last game, they needed to win in order to Be in contention or to go to the playoffs and I think it was fourth and 15 or something like that with a minute 20 left and instead of throwing it to the guy who's 15 yards down the field wide open, he tries to think throws it down there for Romeo Dobbs or Christian Watson or something. I don't remember who and into triple coverage. And then he had done, he'd done that a lot. Especially I remember, it was the first game of the year in his last season in Green Bay, and he just did not make smart decisions and it was a consistent theme I felt like in that year.

And it really blew up the relationship in Green Bay. And I'm just expecting him  I'm old enough. I don't really care what anyone else thinks ball. So it might not work but if it does work, then I feel like Mike Williams is going to be a big part of it. for the players that are left in the draft at this point, I feel like he'd be a big part of the success for their team versus Wicks or Rashad Bateman,  so on and so forth. So getting him felt like it was a minor risk to take.

I think Aaron Rodgers has made it clear he definitely doesn't care what anyone else thinks anymore.

Next up we had Pat Fryermuth Rico Dowdle, Deshaun Watson.

Yung Ho Koo was taken here, which, too early for me for kicker, but I was hoping that I would get Koo in a couple rounds. I had him on my  team the year that he really burst onto the scene and it was just some crazy field goals that he was making that was really exciting. Not a big deal that I didn't get him, but it's just kind of someone who I was hoping would wait a little bit. 

To start round 14, we had Best Eater take Khalil Herbert, and 

then 

think he's on. That's an underrated player, I think.



He's got the bears to deal with,  but, you like him at this point in the draft, huh?

Yeah, I think he's shown that he's got enough skill to be involved as more than  just a third down back or every other drive back just to give DeAndre Swift a break. He's more than that. 

Next we have the Dolphins, and then another quarterback who I would have been okay as my starter if I went late round quarterback strategy, Baker Mayfield. Towards the very bottom of the list of startable quarterbacks for me, but he was one that I was thinking if I waited until, I couldn't possibly wait anymore, I might be able to get Baker Mayfield.

And then you did take Jerry Judy, who you had  considered him a round previous, and he was still available for you.

yeah, I think he has potential, but I don't really expect much. Pick someone that has that potential and hope for the best. And if it doesn't work out, it's a 14th 

Yeah, he's young at least. Things could change. I ran out of patience last year with him on my team.  But who's to say that he can't make a leap this year. 

Round 15, Rashad Bateman, Tyler Bassett kicker. That's who I ended up going with. You know at this point, I'm not too fazed by which kicker I get. They're in rough tiers but you could  move any one of them up or down three spots relative to the other kickers.

So it's hard to say who to get there. And probably won't matter too much at the end of the day. Taysom Hill. This was a very interesting pick by Under The Radar. I love this pick.

We'll talk about it later, but yeah, I really love Taysom Hill there. Good on him for picking him up because none of the software is probably recommending him. That's just, using intuition and creative thinking to pull him out of the players available. Gino Smith was taken next by the Meg, and then you took J. K. Dobbins.

J. K. Dobbins, Gus Edwards are both the running backs in  Los Angeles.  So Gus Edwards and J. K. Dobbins both have a history of injuries, but I also believe that they both can be very productive runners if they were to stay healthy, pretty good chance that one of them is going to get hurt and the other one's going to have to hopefully not get hurt, but can get a bunch of yards.

In the 15th round, I'm okay with picking J. K. Dobbins.

Chris here, round 16, took Marshawn Lloyd, and then I took Tyler Algier here, since I didn't get Zach Charbonnet earlier. I wanted maybe a little bit of a higher potential running back here. Definitely nothing guaranteed, but given that he is backing up Bajon Robinson. 

Yeah. If something should happen, he could be the RB1 easily for Atlanta there. Aside from that, he was also below his ADP. He's running back 47 currently. But I think he has the upside that I'm looking for in these picks. 

And then last round. I got another handcuff player here. I wanted to load my team up with handcuffs so that injuries at the running back position, aren't going to bother me. I like that even more if I did have the top tier running backs, which I don't but I still think it's a viable strategy for me.

I got Rashaun Johnson so that I have a backup for DeAndre Swift here. Adam Thielen, who you were considering. I think there's debate over how effective he is anymore. 

He's what? 32, 33 now. Adam Thielen.

34.

He's definitely older and Bryce Young didn't really seem to have a great first year. And  Caroline doesn't really seem to have enough together to really turn around the franchise.

Like Jacksonville had done with Trevor Lawrence.

A couple years ago, you'd be getting them in the first couple rounds. I Like this pick here. He could be himself he could find success. He hasn't in the preseason, I know, but it's round 17. You might as well. 

You gotta take some gambles. You need to look for the edge.

 MitberryCrunch took MarvinMemsJr, and I believe that was an auto draft, right?

Maybe,

I believe his ADP is pretty low WideReceiver77.  

I believe he joined in later, or he at least made a comment in the draft chat,  but I don't remember if he was actually here for 

I don't know anything about Marvin Mims, but I do know that he was not  being drafted in any of the drafts that I was participating in. That stood out to me a little bit there. Final three picks of the draft. Diggs in a Blanket took Ray Davis at Running Back. And then, Mitchy Mitch took Dawn to Foreman.

And last, Mr. Irrelevant. Unfortunately, it's not an actual player. But it is the Cincinnati Bengals defense.  And that's actually the second defense taken by Best Eater around. Years past, I've definitely done the two defense approach, but then I found that I could find defenses on the waiver wire that I would end up subbing out for the other two anyway.

And then I suddenly find myself with three defenses that I'm trying to hoard for a specific week. And that's taking up way too many valuable roster spots for me. I definitely had times when I was like, Oh, I got three defenses because they are facing a cupcake offense  each of the next three weeks.

And so I try to have one for each week and really plan ahead with that. Given the matchups, but it is tough later in the season to do that when your guys are getting injuries left and right and you have bye weeks come in and then I'm like, how do

I'd rather 

defense? Yeah. I'm like, I just need this defense for two more weeks.

But a lot of times I couldn't do it and I was wasting time trying to manage it all. 

So that was our draft. We made it through. And coming up you'll see what we did last night after the draft officially ended. We were able to use fantasy pros to analyze our teams and see how people performed.

One note on that. There's a section where we're completely confused about Our rankings, specifically Will's ranking in the overview of the league. We were looking at the bench rankings at one point and thought that it had changed when it showed us the overall rankings. So I just didn't notice which tab I was looking at there.

So that'll save some confusion in a few minutes when we get to that.

Alright, yep Fantasy Prose gives me an A it's not a big shock because I am using Fantasy Prose rankings, so, unless I just Had bad overall strategy.

I think I was gonna get a pretty decent grade on there. But let's go ahead and analyze so we can look at how we did, how everyone else did. First I wanted to run down my team. QB, I'm heading it with Jaden Daniels, backing him up with Justin Herbert.

Running backs, I got Kenneth Walker III, DeAndre Swift. At my wide receiver flex spots, we got CeeDee Lamb, Deebo Samuel, Amari Cooper, Tee Higgins,  and Zamir White as that flex.  Kicker, Tyler Bass, defense, Houston Texans. And then sitting on the bench, ready to come in at any time, we got Xavier Worthy, Jonathan Brooks, Jameson Williams, Chuba Hubbard,  we mentioned Justin Herbert, Tyler Algier, and Rashawn Johnson.

We got a, couple of handcuffs in there, Hubbard and Johnson, should my starters go down. I didn't get Zach Charbonnet. That was the one that I really felt bad about not rounding out my bench with.

Here we have projected rankings. Overall  first starters first, we can flip over that and see how everyone else did. Bench. First. It feels good. We'll see how it actually translates to wins and losses, but,

And that's the difference, right?

Yeah, that is the difference.

We got quarterback 11th. I waited a bit But, that's no surprise. That was my game plan coming in. I'm actually surprised I didn't wait   For either,  Tua or Justin Herbert being my first quarterback, sometimes I wait super long on them. Running backs, I'm a little weaker at because I went so wide receiver heavy.

Ranked 10th in running backs, we'll look at who my RB1 and RB2 are coming up here. The trade off was the wide receiver flex spots being ranked first. And then I actually came in a little earlier at kicker and defense than I thought. I thought I might just end up with a 12th for both, but I got 8th and 9th, so that's okay.

I've only managed to get one player ranked at the top three. CdLamb.

Here's a little stat it pulls in. Sportsbooks have set the over under for Jane Daniels passing yards at 3, 150. I may have considered drafting Brandon Nyuck at 3. 2 and drafting a running back later, and I would have had 35 points higher.  I decided to do Deebo Samuel, and he was my second round. So yeah, I could have done that. Samuel, then I yuck two and three. I just  didn't want to go all or nothing on the offense and have some really bad days.

Week 7's a somewhat bi heavy week, but not really. CD Lamb, DeAndre Swift, Rashawn Johnson. Rashawn Johnson's not going to be a factor too much. Really I don't have a bi week that's heavier than the rest, I would say. Week 10 is a similar deal. 

With just three out. No big deal. I like that I drafted Justin Herbert in the 13th round, three rounds later than he's ranked. And then Tyler Algier, which I highlighted. I had noticed that Tyler Algier was left quite later than his ADP. And even when I was considering handcuffs to my own players I abandoned that to get Algier, the handcuff to be Jon Robinson.

He has a lot more upside if Robinson were to get injured. I got him four rounds later than he's ranked.  It's saying I reached on defense and kicker, but not really. It was 14th and 15th round. Had to pick him sometime. You are number two, Will, so I think you did really well according to this as well.

Yeah. There's a significant difference between 102 and 86, but at the same time I don't think I did that badly. I think the biggest problem is going to be the fact that I drafted three quarterbacks

Yeah.

I  had it in my queue and I didn't pick in time and therefore I suffered.  But I think that's going to be my major knock.

Yeah. I didn't realize it was your third quarterback.

 The list. This is how everyone in our league did. Obi Wan Mahomey, that name will change based on my team, but currently, first, Dying on this Hill, second, Digs in a Blanket, third, Tied with No Hard Feelings, fourth,  Wu Tang Financial, fifth, and Mitchy Mitch, Simple Jack, Mint Berry Crunch, Best Eater Around,  My Wife, The Meg,  Ridiculous. The Yahoo rankings  Always give him the draft winner.

I actually have that pulled up. He's number one.

 He is

A plus. A plus number one. With MinBerryCrunch being A plus number two. NoHardFeelings being in A at number three. MitchyMitchA minus number four. And then you, with ObiWanMahomey at B minus. Wu TangFinancial B minus.

BestEaterAround D plus. DiggsInABank at D plus. Then there's me dying on this hill. D plus Mikey, with under the radar D plus. I don't know if I've ever done, quote unquote, better on the Yahoo rankings than B since they've reworked it, or since I restarted playing fancy football a few years ago with this league.

Whenever I've looked at it, I'm like, I think I've got a B and I don't really know why I got a B. It doesn't make sense to me. And then I outperform my projected ranking and surprise, surprise, because I don't feel like Yahoo is really good at grading the drafts.

It has Chris, our commissioner at 12 and 2, projected 12 and 2, has you at 8 and 6, and has me at 6 and 8.

Yeah. So it happened again. And I guess that just tells us that Chris did go with what Yahoo was telling him. Because it ranks him first. So he probably really looked at those rankings and I'm not casting shade. I rely a lot on the fantasy pros rankings. 

Where do you place your 

not a surprise then that it ranked me first. Not saying by any means that I have the best team.

And I feel like I'm my own individual man, and I don't need no experts telling me what I need to do.

Rank 12th, though, we have Under the Radar. Mike, maybe he's right. Maybe he did get screwed over with the autodraft, because it does have him ranked last on this platform, at least.

I feel like he's see. 

not doing so good.

See how it all shakes out. Some different expert rankings, if any of those names mean anything to you, but I don't really follow them.

Other than saying that Jordan Eisen has no idea what he's talking about, because he gave me a C minus.  Moving on I like to look at the steals and the reaches. The steal is considered drafting them two rounds ADP. So I got Justin Herbert and Tyler Algier in there. Herbert's injured, so that contributed to it, but I hopefully won't need him right away. And Tyler Ruggier, maybe that'll pay off.

That would be, if he gets some major playing time, that would be maybe the steal of my draft. 

And then where did I fall in for,

Oh, you got a lot of value in there. Jordan Love. If you hadn't picked him, I would have had him. But that's the way it

And this is where part of it is. All three quarterbacks. 

know, if you had drafted five quarterbacks, you could have had even more steals. 

I know. Right. 

Jeez. 

I feel like having Trevor Lawrence in there is definitely an outlier and should not be really credited for. So it would take off a value of my draft. I'm surprised that Ezekiel Elliott wasn't a better or Nick Chubb one of those two was not more of a steal.

But again,  it's hard to compare having a 12 main league to a ten main league or an eight main league. The  variation between the average draft position is huge and they all get clumped together when it comes to the statistics

if you only have eight people in your league  and you have 16 rounds, your  average draft position for some of these players are going to be really high because you're not going to be drafting three quarterbacks for an eight man league, you're only going to be drafting two. So  in some of those leagues, Trevor Lawrence might not get drafted at all,

Which drops his average draft position. So I will not credit Trevor Lawrence as being a steal again due to the fact that I ran out of time and my Q still had Trevor Lawrence, and I forgot to take him out.

Sure. I had some of those in my mock draft too that it credited me with a steal, but that wasn't me.

J. K. Dobbins. I liked that one though. He was falling and I thought someone could steal him, and you decided to. 

I know, and the funny thing too is that other people drafted a kicker or defense,  and I decided to not do that, and I drafted J. K. Dobbins.

Yeah, I had my

own planet right in the back that didn't, it didn't involve Dobbins, but I saw him and was like, oh, it would have been pretty good to have him. Let's see if anyone else stands out. Matthew Stafford there. Ridiculous got him.  Adam Thielen finally got taken the final round there.

It was Seems like the quarterbacks are easier to get steals on. We got Aaron Rodgers, Baker Mayfield, all considered

In a 4 12

cause you only need, yeah, it's just cause you only need so many. Kirk Cousins, steal. 

Mitchie Mitch had zero steals.

Yeah, we'll see if he gets any value picks there.

Lot of tight ends in there too. A lot of quarterbacks a lot of tight ends

One of the most unique players in the whole NFL is Taysom Hill, because he's a quarterback tight end flex.

That is so interesting. I know.

that's one of the things that really is like, how do you rate him? Because you could theoretically put him in tight end every single week and also have a regular quarterback in play.

So you can get credit for two quarterbacks.

Yeah. That's interesting to pick him. Yeah.

but he's not the starting quarterback. That's the only problem. So,  round 15 yeah, it'd be worth to take him as a backup quarterback that ends up playing quarterback and tight end, put them in, you have your Derek Carr gets injured and then you have whomever as your main quarterback, and then you have Taysom Hill, who's getting credit for both quarterback and tight end. extreme amount of points. It's really risky in terms of the fact that it might not ever come to fruition. But if it does, then all of a sudden you could be starting basically two quarterbacks, in which case that gets you huge advantage. Even if Tyson Hill is a bad week and he only scores like 14 points for a quarterback, that's pretty low number.

Typically that's still pretty decent for your third running back.

I'll give Mike under the radar some credit there that I think that was a genius pick.  In the season, I always remember that Taysom Hill exists, and I'm like, Oh, that would have been great to have. But I did not even cross my mind in the draft

Probably his best pick ever. Granted, I haven't been playing every single year that Mike has been playing.  So I don't know that to be true, but I would not be surprised if that was his best pick. I honestly like it a lot 

let's check value picks. I had a lot of value in here according to this. Guys guy around later than they'd been going.  Jaden Daniels, Xavier Worthy, Jonathan Brooks, Jameson Williams, Chuba Hubbard, and Rashaun Johnson. 

and that's not inclusive of steals, right?

Nope, not inclusive. So that's an addition. That's probably the most value picks I've seen in a draft. So this draft went pretty well according to this. I was not having more than two in my mock drafts. Jalil McLaughlin, Jalen Hurts. Yeah, Jalen Hurts going to round four. That's okay.

I think that's a reason to me. That's not a value pick. I think that's expected but that's 

I mean, it's the first pick of the fourth round. I would have had him late third round, so it's not huge, but yeah.

Here you are, with Mike Williams, I like that pick. Jerry Judy, I don't like that one. So I like one, I don't like the other.

that's okay. I'll take

I'm biased because of my horrible experience with Judy. Mark Andrews, who has an injury. I 

I'm also not a fan 

of 

was.

he's just not a to me he's not a wide receiver like a wide receiver first height in like george kittel or kyle pitts or  Travis kelsey That's the reason why I don't like, I don't like Mark Andrews.

Not to say that he can't put a points. In our league,  I feel like there's plenty of other picks before him 

In a traditional league where you have to have a tight end, there's no flex part of that. I feel like that would have been a great time. That's where I don't know how this software or this website can analyze having a tight end because it's saying, Hey, average draft position Includes a Titan only position,  whereas we don't have that. Like how can you really compare apples to oranges?

It's like AI if it doesn't know it's gonna hallucinate. it's gonna 

confidently tell you what your grade was.

Yeah, 

confidently wrong in some cases.

 That's just my critique on that pick and why I don't like it as a value pick. 

Yeah we have Mitchymish who didn't have any steals. He does have two value picks here in George Pickens and Tyler Conkland. No hard feelings took Charbonnet from me. That's gonna be hard for me to swallow. I've had a hard time getting Charvenet before. Because he's pretty good in his own right. He doesn't only have to be a handcuff always. He can get some playing time anyway.

I see the quarterback that I would have drafted if they were available instead of Jordan Love is Dak Prescott.

The Meg got him. Luke Musgrave.

I'm surprised that was considered a value pick. Not to say that he's not valued or doesn't have a place in the league or a place in fantasy football, but I had a mediocre experience with him.  I feel like maybe year two might be a little bit better, especially because in the beginning of the first year of Jordan loves starting career.  They had a hard time kind of identifying what style of play they should use him in, in terms of play calling. They did more check downs or shorter throws, and then as the year went on, they went ahead and let him air it out a little bit.  Luke Musgrave, I believe, is 6'4. Having that kind of more lengthy tight end that can extend the play just from being tall can lend you to having better goal line situations where you're throwing up the ball instead of to a six one wide receiver six foot wide receiver you're throwing up to a six four tight end i think that athleticism wise he's okay but i yeah i'm just gonna leave it at that

Let's get to the good stuff then. Let's see the reaches. This could be fun. 

it's my favorite part 

it noted I supposedly reached for defense on kicker. I'm not gonna

yeah which we knew was 

not 

happen

Chris, I am gonna count. 

Ridiculous reaching for kicker and defense in rounds seven and nine. I will count that every time he does it until he stops doing it.

Best eater around also reached rounds nine and ten for defense and kicker. I'm 

seeing a theme here. 

at least round 13 is kicker like you know round 13 yes i feel like  it's not it's it's definitely reach but  It's not like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you drafted in the first 10 rounds of kicker.

Hey, congratulations. You win. The No Reaches Award. Well done.

I believe we did that also for the mock. I had no reaches. 

But I also had no steals, in the mock.

Yeah. More de I'm not gonna spend too much time on it because we got more defenses, more kickers. Going too early. Bills round 10. At least it's double

Oh,  who drafted the Eagles defense? Was that John? Yes, it was. Okay. Alright, that makes sense.

He's an Eagles fan, by the way.

Yeah, I don't hate that pick anyway, even if he wasn't, but that makes sense.

Kickers and defenses. Slight reaches.  Kenneth Walker was a slight reach in the third round. What do you think about that?

 Because you were early in the second round, I think that's like the big reason why I would say yes, I agree. If you were round three pick all 11, I would have said, that's fine. I 

wouldn't be 

I've been getting him a lot of times in the third round, but yeah, sometimes it was later in the third round.



Devana Shayne, I think is definitely a reach,  

slight reach, by one

feel like he's probably going to be a better third round pick. I don't think he's going to be productive enough to warrant being in the second round.

Stop me if you see anyone you want to talk about, Brock Purdy I'd say is a reach at, at round five. There are guys I like better than Purdy that I wouldn't take in round six or seven, 

I agree. I think Jaden Reid is fine at round six, maybe later round six, but being round six pick three, can't really do too much about it. I don't think it's really that much of a reach. Yeah. I

who else? 

Considered him before he got picked. I think I would have taken him more towards the round 11.

But again, having pick 3 in round 10 versus pick 10 in round 11, you can't really do too much. And so if you liked him, then he's going to pick him. Stefan Diggs, I'm not surprised, but at the same time I'm cool with it. I think it's a warrants because of his change environment is going to be  the biggest factor I am surprised that Ezekiel Elia is considered a slight 

thinking, you were thinking it was gonna go the other way, and you might have a

Yeah, to me, it's a value pack.

 Okay. Mint Berry Crunch.

Alvin Kamara, I feel like it was a reach, not a slight reach. I think he's past his prime. I  don't think it's the end of his career, but I think it's the end of his career of being a primary running back. Especially in New Orleans.

Maybe in another system he might be able to perform  at that kind of a level. 

Here's where it says what I could have done. We discussed the Brandon and I yuck pick and the reasons for not doing that. I'll stand by my reasons for not doing a yuck



Gus Edwards. I was looking at Gus Edwards later on and I forget exactly who I picked at the time, but I was going for more upside and Gus Edwards was just more  adequate for me.

I'm not aware of a path for great production for him,  rather than just middling production. Could have jumped on Jalen Hurts, it says, instead of taking that Kenneth Walker pick.

Team Strengths. Okay. I got the wide receivers locked in.

You mentioned that you were going to hammer that home. 

Yep. So I like the fact that the  running backs, quarterback are not more abysmal. So I can live with that. I have a lot of flexibility in my starting lineup with all those flex spots.

And let's get you in here.

What's going on here?

Our scores all changed. 

Yeah, because you had over a thousand points.

It still ranks me as first, but a lot of other things have changed. I know Under the Radar jumped from 12th to 8th. You've dropped somehow from 2nd to 11th.

I have no idea what's going on with that.

I think Jordan Love is going to pass for over four thousand yards.

I'll take the over on that.

You got Jamar Chase. I liked your Jamar Chase pick 

number six.

Yeah, I liked him at six. If you drafted Devo Samuel,  your score could have been 40 points higher, and then mine would have

Yeah, 

it was in consideration. I drafted, I believe, Travis Antion at the time, and  part of it was,  I know he, I think Debo had something going on. And so that's why Brandon, uh, was rated higher than Debo on a lot of sites by a lot of experts, and I'm cool with having Josh Jacobs, Jordan Love, Nick Chubb, Jerry Judy, Las Vegas Raiders, all on the same bi week. That's fine by me. The struggling thing I think to me would probably be more like week 12. The fact that I basically have two bi weeks that are,  So I'm probably going to end up taking two losses automatically off the bat, but  I also feel like I will  be decent across the rest of the season.

Good reason to cheer for Green Bay, so that works for

Yeah, I hate drafting Green Bay because then it's like, great. I've got to double down and be disappointed two times.

Or celebrate twice. Sleeper alert! Trevor Lawrence, who you

The one that I didn't, 

is the number one QB in this sleeper rankings. 

I can see it. I feel like he can perform super amazing, but he also be mediocre. One of the things I was trying to think of when we were drafting and this happened, did I want to immediately cut Trevor Lawrence and pick up someone else off the free agency? Or do I want to leave him?

And I think right now I'm going to leave him.  And then I think by week three, I'll have an idea of, how do I want to proceed with three quarterbacks? Who am I cutting? I cannot foresee myself having three quarterbacks through week three.

Let's check your pick analysis here. That makes sense with the reach on Stefan Diggs, according to this at least.  

Setien, I just, I don't like taking him that point, but I understand why you did. I don't fault you for doing it.

Yeah. 

I like avoiding it. It feels early. I don't want my second round pick to be him if I can help it,

I think he's more foundational to Jacksonville than others will give him credit for.

Yeah, it's got a lot of different combinations here for you. What ifs? We got the Deebo Samuel options with some other guys could have been

we talked about Mike Williams during the actual drafting.

I'm okay with thinking Mike Williams. I don't see that being a big problem or game changer with my pick. 

Right here it thinks straight up SimpleSwap that the better kicker in defense would have been Ev Macpherson in the Colts.

Disagree. Part of it is  harder to rank the kickers. And also I know Las Vegas has definitely invested some into adding to their defense. Therefore I put more stock in adding Las Vegas than to add a kicker.

Skipping down here we go. Josh Allen, you want him in the second round?  No, I agree. No. Too early.

Let's check out your strengths here. So you didn't go all in on running back or wide receiver, right? 

I played the field a little bit.

Yeah.

And I don't think, with the way our league is set up I think it went better than what this is telling me it went,

would agree too.

Especially being Jordan Love, like at the 10th,  number 10.

If you want to say Travis and TN was a little bit overrated. Okay, fine, whatever. But I think it was a calculated risk for me to take Travis Dentian and Stefan Diggs,  and I'm okay with that. I think Kyle Pitts is a little bit underrated, especially now that Kirk Cousins is down in Atlanta instead of Redder. I think he's going to be a bit better. More of a focal point or not necessarily more of an option, but the focal point will not be on Kyle Pitts.  It'll be Kyle Pitts and whomever wide receivers that he's with because Kirk Cousins can actually throw the ball. So now all of a sudden there's going to be more safety and cornerback help on wide receiver number one rather than tight end number one.

Yeah, and here you are with two tight ends. I don't know how to rank the tight ends in comparison with

George Kittle is just basically a wide receiver. In my opinion he's a receiving tight end. Cal pits is similar deal, but George Kittle has got more speed.  Don't quote me on these because I don't remember everyone's height or 40 time, but in my brain, I remember seeing George Kittle be a little bit more agile, a little bit more quick, whereas Kyle Pitts has got a little bit more of the natural size to be able to contest throws, especially in the red zone, which is where Atlanta is. if they have a chance to win the game or like a chance to separate themselves from their competition is going to be in the red zone receiving. 

with the tight ends I just don't know where to rank them to say, Oh, they're better than this wide receiver, 

but not better than this wide receiver. So I just avoided them as a rule, 

I just looked it up. Kyle Pitts is 

It just made it easier for me. 

And that's where we're getting Jermichael Finley kind of vibes. If you're not familiar, Jermichael Finley being tied in that got drafted to Green Bay and was amazing until he got a  major neck injury, I believe, and basically ended his But yeah when you have that kind of size, it is a game changer for sure.

will do you have anything else you want to highlight from  the rest of the draft?

No, but I did make a roster move already. 

You did already?

Two minutes ago, I made a roster move. I remembered that  Chubb is on the pup list, and so I moved him to my Irish slot and picked up 

Darius  So 

I basically made an extra roster spot.

Someone else had picked up someone too. Probably used an IR slot.

Yeah, no hard feelings picked up Jordan Mason. 

She must have had a roster given someone

yeah, with a pot on the pop. Yeah. 

Or IR or something like that. Under the radar, he cut Greg's airline added Clyde Edwards Hilaire, and then dropped Hilaire for Emmanuel Wilson.

Within one minute, no less. 

Making some moves early. I haven't looked into doing that yet, but I did, at least look briefly at the makeup of our teams to see what teams I could be offering trade offers later in the season. It's just seeing where I'm strong at one position and they're strong at a different position. Seeing which teams have the most potential for that. And, you stood out to me actually.  I don't have any offers at this point. But I, see you as a potential trade partner later in the season.

Because you went a little more running back heavy and I went a little more wide receiver heavy. 

Or if you want Trevor Lawrence. Because you did pick up Jayden Daniels,  

We'll see. I'm gonna wait and see how Jaden Daniels does. Who knows, maybe Trevor Lawrence gets thrown in a three player deal four weeks down the line.

No, you're not gonna keep him for four weeks. You're gonna 

not, but we'll see. 

Yeah, so I wouldn't offer much there. I'm just looking at positions and I think that we may end up having players that could benefit each other specifically when an injury changes the makeup of our team all of a sudden.

I also mentioned to my wife that she had the John Robinsons so if she ever needed a backup to him. I'm the guy to talk to. And her reaction is, I don't know who any of those people are. Don't talk to me about traits.

 That's it for this episode of the Smashville Fantasy Football Podcast! As always, we have aspirations of adequacy, so come back and we'll try to do a bit better next time. Who knows? We may even reveal that one sneaky trick guaranteed to win your fantasy league. But until then, keep those trades rolling and get your lineups set before kickoff. 

See you next week!