Fantasy Football Mock Drafts

 I feel like I should have done a review of my three drafts after they occurred, but now that the 2025 Fantasy Football season is rapidly approaching, let me bring out my notes and try to go over what went well last year as I prepare for this season. Draft 1: August 25th PPR with PPA for rushing using NFL.com (Championship) This is a ten-team league started by one of the parents in my kids' coop nursery school; so it mostly features parents of kids who attended the school together. Because it was a coop school, most of the parents worked together at times. I drafted in the #10 (out of 10) spot. The defending champ drafted in the #1 spot and took McCaffrey. I got 1.10 AJ Brown and 2.01 Saquon Barkley with my first two picks. I preferred Jonathan Taylor to Barkley at this spot, but he had just been taken with 1.09. Puka Nacua and Jahmyr Gibbs were the next two off the board. I got 3.10 Jalen Hurts and 4.01 James Cook with my next two picks. Starting the draft with three players f...

I decided to try something new today. I took the player projections from FantasyPros and based on my real ten-team draft  picked a value for the best player not drafted, in other words, the value of a player on the waiver wire. Then, I calculated the difference in PPR points per game from that replacement player. So, I used Antonio Gibson (undrafted in my league) at 7.6 points per game as my waiver-level RB, and calculated Christian McCaffrey and his projected 20.6 points per game to mark him as +13.0 points above the player I could get off the waivers. For WR, my replacement player is Joshua Palmer (9.8 points per game). For QB, my replacement player is Kirk Cousins (15.7 points per game). For TE, my replacement player was Tyler Conklin (7.4 points per game). For DST, the Lions (7.0 points per game). For K, David Carlson (8.2 points per game). Then, I sorted all the players and tried to use the highest values as a guide for my draft. This draft was from position #5, and I was reas...

Yes, all my mock drafts were leading up to this, my actual fantasy football draft on NFL.com. Now, our league commissioner has built some idiosyncrasies into the league, which affected my draft slightly. In addition to being a PPR league, there is a 0.5 point bonus per rushing attempt. This kind of makes it like a half-PPR league in a way, but it also boosts the value of running QBs. Then, on top of that, there is an end-of-year payout to the team whose quarterbacks score the most points for the season. Similarly, there is an end-of-year payout for top-scoring defense through the season. There is a payout for the highest single-week running back performance, and a payout for the highest scoring week overall. I was randomly given the #10 position, which is probably my least favorite position this year, but I did notice that it does come with the bonus of getting the #1 waiver spot to start the season. Pick 1.10: A.J. Brown WR (bye 5). Pick 2.01: Saquon Barkley RB (bye 5). Team 9 took Jo...

Cramming in the practice drafts for my real draft tomorrow. This one was kind of the draft that always happens, where the players I'm waiting on get swiped just before my pick. Pick 1.06: Bijan Robinson RB (bye 12). Breece Hall went #5. Amon-Ra St. Brown went #7. Pick 2.05: Kyren Williams RB (bye 6). Starting with two RBs is not my norm, but I kind of like how it works here. Davante Adams was my highest-rated WR. Pick 3.06: Cooper Kupp WR (bye 6). Pairing Ram RB+WR up is probably not ideal, but I like the value of Kupp here. Pick 4.05: James Cook RB (bye 12). Was waiting for Jaylen Waddle here, and he went with 4.04. So, rather than take DJ Moore, I opted for Cook. I can still use him as a Flex in my league, if I want. Pick 5.06: DJ Moore WR (bye 7). And not taking Moore turned out to be the right move, as he made it back to me in Round 5. Pick 6.05: Tee Higgins WR (bye 12). I think maybe I should have taken Lamar Jackson or Patrick Mahomes here, given how my team ended up. Pick 7....

I tried to grab position 8, but I guess it was filled, and I got placed in position 10. Well, this will give me a chance to compare against the one I did earlier today , also on NFL.com and also from position 10. Pick 1.10: Garrett Wilson WR (bye 12). This draft started out much closer aligned to my rankings; so I got Garrett Wilson, who is my #10 ranked player, and I didn't get so lucky as in the last draft, where I got Bijan Robinson #4 and A.J. Brown #9. Pick 2.01: Saquon Barkley RB (bye5). I had Kyren Williams ranked higher than Barkley, but I didn't have the conviction to take Kyren when drafting here; so I've adjusted my rankings to move Saquon back ahead of Kyren. Pick 3.10: Deebo Samuel WR (bye 9). As with Kittle, if Brandon Aiyuk is going to hold out into the season, Deebo has big upside here at the end of Round 3. Pick 4.01: Rachaad White RB (bye 11). I don't have much faith in Rachaad, but nobody else does either; so I keep ending up with him. Kenneth Walker ...

My first draft is tomorrow on NFL.com; so I needed to go back to that platform to start getting used to it.  I was actually doing some positioning research during the draft; so I wasn't fully engaged on this one. Three or four of the other teams were on auto-draft; so it's not clear how useful this mock will be, but I did have some takeaways for myself. Most notably, the DST rankings on NFL.com are useless. I could have drafted my #1 (Ravens), but they were off the screen when I chose a DST; so I didn't even see them as an option. NFL.com doesn't give any kind of draft rating or even save the results once the mock is done; so you have to save your own copy if you want to review afterward. Pick 1.10: Bijan Robinson RB (bye 12). I'm moving Bijan to my overall #4, given the uncertainties at the WR position; so it was a surprise when he fell all the way to #10 here. Even Breece Hall fell to #8. Garrett Wilson went ahead of Justin Jefferson, and Patrick Mahomes was taken...