This draft was a fun draft for me. My friend Evan was participating in his first draft, I got to FaceTime him an hour or so before the draft and just implement all my draft strategy and thoughts.
It was like having my first baby boy and teaching him how to throw a ball, at that moment, I was a proud draft papa.
I told him I could help with the start of his draft, but I was heading out for date night with my lady and couldn't stay for the whole draft. As a fantasy junkie, I couldn't help but text him a time or two during the date asking who was left at what position and so forth. Thank god we had gone to our local bar with our best friend bartenders because I was not as attentive as I should've been, but they helped distract my girlfriend during the lulls where my mind drifted to his draft.
Some of the players Average Draft Positions (ADP) were drastically different on ESPN and that threw me a little. My big board was constructed off of Yahoo ADP, be sure to always construct your draft analysis/strategy off of your own app's ADP.
A good example of this was Cooper Kupp. Coming off his torn ACL injury, his Yahoo ADP was as low as pick 65 and I knew I could wait to pick him later in the draft. His teammate Robert Woods had a much higher Yahoo ADP at pick 40, so it made it obvious to draft him first.
For ESPN, Kupp's ADP was at pick 42 just 4 spots below Woods's ADP at pick 38. Since the ADP was almost the same, it was less likely to draft both players in a snake draft. By the time the turn gets back to you, 10 picks later, whoever you didn't draft was likely to be gone.
That being said, the value of players differed but the talent and situation would be the same, so my big board worked sufficiently as a reference in this draft.
Evan picked 5th in the draft, the players available would be much different from my draft. I was excited to see how my big board would hold up in a much different draft, even with one of my least favorite draft positions, 5th, behind the sure-fire top 4 RBs.
Here's how our draft began:
Round 1, Pick 5: James Conner
At pick 5 we had a choice between James Conner, David Johnson, or Dalvin Cook, those were my top three running backs on my board. Johnson was ESPN's consensus RB pick, they had him as RB 5, but I had Conner slightly higher believing in his talent, their offense, his o-line, and his Strength of Schedule (SOS).
That far differed ESPN's consensus ADP for Conner, they had him as low as 16. I told him I know it looks dumb at pick 5, but I have this running back highest on my board right now and he said he was in. This is a spot where if I had time to study my draft position and ESPN's ADP I might've picked a pick with more value, Conner's ADP on Yahoo was as high as pick 9 and wouldn't have lasted until our 2nd pick.
After week 2 the Steelers lost their starting QB for the year, Conner missed 5 games with his own injuries, and played injured with less than 8 attempts in 3 games. Through the first 8 weeks, in games he rushed 10 attempts or more he averaged 17.8 points per game (PPG). So there is talent there still, but I miscalculated his injury susceptibility. Ironically I had Cook lowest on my list because I believed he was more injury-prone.
Round 2, Pick 16: Travis Kelce
This was a spot we were looking at all along for Kelce, I got him in 2nd round anywhere I could.
Round 3, Pick 25: Adam Thielen
Bit by the injury bug again. Thielen was injured scoring a TD in week 7, prior to the injury he was averaging 16.45 PPG. Thielen was basically injured the rest of the season.
Evan really wanted Thielen on his team because his dad was a Vikings fan. I told him to go for it, it's a good spot to take him. Looking back at ESPN's ADP, this is the pick where my draft strategy would have changed a little bit. Instead of taking a WR as I did in Yahoo, I would have looked at RB. RB choices really slimmed by the time we would have picked again at 36. Chris Carson was a bargain on Yahoo ADP at pick 53 so I was able to stall on that position on my Yahoo team, that would not have been the case in an ESPN draft.
The targeted Carson was already taken at this point, but my highest-rated running back Aaron Jones was still on the board and would have been the pick to go with here. A lesson to all you kiddos: you shouldn't draft just from your favorite team, as hard as it is, we blinded ourselves from the No. 2 RB on the year because we played favorites.
Round 4, Pick 36: Mark Ingram
We were able to grab Ingram as our RB2. RBs were already shallow at this point, the drop off in talent would be after pick 46, Melvin Gordon, he was the 2nd RB taken after Ingram.
Going down that rabbit hole of what-ifs: If Jones was the pick above I would have likely gone with Woods as my WR 1.
Round 5, Pick 45: Tyler Lockett
Best WR on my board, ESPN had him ranked at 20th, I had him two spots higher at 18th, he finished as WR 13.
I'll try and play the what-if game the rest of the way down. It's like a double draft, you get double the analysis for the price of one.
If I have Jones and Woods, I'm probably going back for my 3rd RB. Looking at my draft board and who was available, I think I would've taken Sony Michel.
Round 6, Pick 56: Duke Johnson Jr.
We went after our 3rd RB and as stated before the RB pool was already thin. We took a shot on the pass-catching back who showed promise in Cleveland and asked to be traded for an expanded role... There was upside with Deshaun Watson at QB and an awful O-line causing several check-downs, but that didn't really pan out.
Hypothetical world: I now have Jones, Woods, Michel, I'm going after my WR2 and I draft Allen Robinson in round 6.
Round 7, Pick 65: Allen Robinson
This is where I left for the bar with my girlfriend Kelly. My first texted pick was Robinson, pretty good second-hand pick if I do say so myself.
From here on the draft gets a little hazy. It becomes a combination of delayed insight and almost a weird texting version of telephone. I'm trying to pretend not to look at my phone, as he's sending me texts of, "Who do I take here?" And I say, "Rattle off three names at this position." So not sure if we got the best value, but we had a gist of a plan.
Hypothetical world: I have Jones, Woods, Michel, and I already have Robinson a round earlier, I hit the WR well again and take Calvin Ridley.
Round 8, Pick 76: Robby Anderson
A decent WR who finished strong after week 12. This was the first discretion of drafting through text, at this point I would've taken QB Cam Newton. Newton's impact on my team would have been far greater than a 4th WR. The text simply read: Anderson or Green which was an easy decision.
Thank god, I didn't get my hands on this pick. My targeted QB1 was Newton, but my targeted QB2 was Lamar Jackson who had a pretty good throwing year for a running back. Missing out on QB1 turned out to be a lot more advantageous.
Round 9, Pick 85: Matt Breida
Great pick. This is where I would say worlds collide. Both the hypothetical world and reality merge and Breida would have been the pick for all; rounding out the 4th RB slot on our team. A potential starter for the 49ers, I liked his draft value more than Tevin Coleman whose ADP was 63 while Breida's was 84. Breida went on to win the starting job week 1 out of camp.
It's around this time I remember to tell Evan about taking QB Cam Newton, who is already gone...
Round 10, Pick 96: Michael Gallup
I turned down Davis, Crowder, and Sutton because in all fairness I didn't like the offenses they were on. All three of their offensive efficiency rankings heading into the 2019 season ranked 26th, 24th, and 22nd. Crowder and Sutton actually became useable WR 2s, so no need to be hated on, but Gallup did as well, putting up 212.7 points while missing 2 games to injury. He finished as the WR 23, a great value in round 10.
Round 11, Pick 105: Will Fuller
It's around this time I start to get back to my date, more full-on attentiveness. I remind him to take Jackson and basically clock out for a bit. Jackson's ESPN ADP was later at pick 124, so we leave him out there another round and go back to WR. The clock hits zero as Evan selects Fuller, which is an excellent pick for not knowing any of the players at this point.
Round 12, Pick 116: Lamar Jackson
MVP of the league, MVP of the draft. Easily the best value in all the draft. The track for rushing for 1,000 yards was predictable after he ran for 695 yards in 7 games as a starter in 2018. No other QB had that upside, his improvement in the passing game was just a bonus.
Round 13, Pick 125: Anthony Miller
I was buying all the Miller hype. Having 7 TDs as a rookie that only started 4 games, I was excited to see his game expand this year. It took until week 11 for that talent to blossom, but weeks 11-15, Miller was an absolute monster.
Round 14, Pick 136: Stephen Gostkowski
Patriots kicker who has been a fantasy stud for years. No brainer. Just got hurt early this year. I usually like to take kickers at this round because you can grab an elite kicker instead of a defense I'll most likely drop while streaming during the year.
We almost missed Gostkowski and signed Geronimo Allison as our kicker instead haha.
Round 15, Pick 145: Ravens D/ST
The dolphins were going to get destroyed in week 1 and everybody knew it. The 59-10 score was even worse than we imagined.
Round 16, Pick 156: Justin Jackson
The last pick was a definite value. A RB who would share the starting workload and receive goal-line carries. Austin Ekeler just dominated and made Jackson irrelevant.
For fun, I'll put my hypothetical roster up against the roster Evan and I drafted:
Evan's Team:
QB: Lamar Jackson: 421.68
TE: Travis Kelce: 254.3
WR 1: Adam Thielen: 114.4
WR 2: Tyler Lockett: 235.2
WR 3: Allen Robinson: 254.9
WR 4: Robby Anderson: 162.3
WR 5: Michael Gallup: 212.7
RB 1: James Conner: 145.5
RB 2: Mark Ingram: 242.5
RB 3: Duke Johnson: 154
RB 4: Matt Breida: 103.3
Total Points: 2300.78
Hypothetical Team:
QB: Cam Newton: 17.68 after week 1. I probably would've streamed QBs to survive the year but for the experiment, I'll say I grabbed one player to replace Newton, Philip Rivers was an available QB I'd take with: 255.5
TE: Travis Kelce: 254.3
WR 1: Robert Woods: 232.9
WR 2: Allen Robinson: 254.9
WR 3: Calvin Ridley: 197
WR 4: Michael Gallup: 212.7
WR 5: Marquez Valdes-Scantling (MVS): 84.1
RB 1: James Conner: 145.5
RB 2: Aaron Jones: 314.8
RB 3: Sony Michel: 152.6
RB 4: Matt Breida: 103.3
Total Points: 2,207.6
Evan's team gains double advantage for the Jackson pick. Jackson was miles better than injured Newton/Rivers replacement and Robby Anderson was much better than MVS, the WRs we would have taken in the spots where the other took a QB.
Hypothetical team's WRs had a slight 6 point advantage only because Thielen got hurt, had a 70 point advantage at RB, but had a 166 point disadvantage at QB. Hard to say how far that 166 points was skewed with options like Ryan Tannehill, Matthew Stafford, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Josh Allen, and several others being available for more optimal lineups. Luckily QB is one of the easiest replacements to find, regardless it stresses to take Qbs late and take 3 RBs before the talent craters.
The most optimal lineup would have been Conner, Jones, and Ingram instead of either WR option we took (ie. Thielen or Woods) and then sticking with Lockett and Robinson late WR talent, we drafted.
RB talent cratered at pick 46 as stated above, but could have been as early as pick 35, Ingram's ESPN ADP. Plan draft according to apps ADP, 35 was a much higher mark than Yahoo's 50 ADP where Josh Jacobs was the last pick before a crater of talent. Try to grab 3 RBs from who you consider the top 20 RBs are, wherever that ADP may land.