2014 FF Draft Work: Team 1

Fantasy football season is upon us yet again.  I had 3 drafts the previous weekend.  Like any great artist, I like to take a moment to step back and appreciate my work. I am definitely caught in the HUB undertow at the moment but I surfaced for just long enough to write about my first draft.  Maybe I'll be able to write about the others before my brain is completely fried.  This league is comprised of all co-workers and it's also the one I expect to give and receive the most trash talk for. 

Unless you're in the league, I'm going to assume the likelihood of you reading any further is only slightly higher than my chances of landing a date with Jennifer Lawrence. Below is my team with the round I selected the player.  I'll humor myself that someone is going to click here to see the full draft results.  In addition to the thoughts on the players I acquired, my general draft strategy for this year is revealed.  Feedback on anything you see is always appreciated.

Setup - 12 team; .5 PPR; 4th pick

QB – Tony Romo (8th round)
RB – Matt Forte (1st)
RB – Rashad Jennings (4th)
WR – Jordy Nelson (2nd)
WR – Antonio Brown (3rd)
TE – Antonio Gates (11th)
WR/TE (WR) – Emmanuel Sanders (7th)
K – Dan Bailey (15th)
DEF – Bengals (12th)
BN (QB) – Phillip Rivers (10th)
BN (RB) – Toby Gerhart (5th)
BN (RB) – Pierre Thomas (6th)
BN (WR) – Terrance Williams (9th)
BN (TE) – Eric Ebron (13th)
BN (DEF) – Bills (14th)

There’s a clear-cut top 5 in most drafts so I was thrilled to pull a top 5 pick. In fact, #4 might even be the number I most prefer. I had no problem taking whatever was left and I got a sooner pick on the way back.

My starting WRs are both guys I have in my top 10. Generally speaking, in any draft this year, I find the back half of the top 10 WRs to be a better pool of players to choose from than the back half of the top 10 RBs. Especially with an elite RB, I was confident in my ability to cobble together a collection of RBs to compete for the #2 spot. (That went even better than I expected.)

If you can see all of my teams, you might think I’m the biggest Antonio Brown fan. I prefer consistency over the boom-or-bust guys (I’m looking at you, DeSean Jackson). Brown had at least 6 catches in every game last year. Plus he’s got the best smile in the NFL.

I had Bernard and Vereen snatched up 1 pick before me, but in the grand scheme of things, they were minor annoyances. I was, however, pleasantly surprised to see Jennings’ name still on the board when I was ready to return my focus to RB.

Gerhart’s carries might result in three yards and a cloud of dust, but it’s all about volume with him. I could do worse for a backup RB, and the same could be said for the criminally underrated (in PPR formats) Pierre Thomas.

I’m loving my flex selection of Sanders more by the minute with every Wes Welker concussion.

I feel that once you miss out on the big 3 at QB, you’re well served to wait and pair a couple quality options. That’s exactly what I did with Romo and Rivers who are both perfectly capable of delivering top 10 seasons at the position. People always seem to mistake real-football shortcomings for fake-football shortcomings when it comes to Romo. He often ends up my team because of that and I’ve never really regretted it.

It’s hard to be strong everywhere and TE is my weakest position. I’m banking on Gates being able to hold off Father Time for another season, and I’m not disappointed to call him my starter.

My biggest disappointments came when filling out my bench, which should tell you how strongly I feel about this team. Julian Edelman kept slipping and I would have been ecstatic to call him my #4 WR had he lasted just 2 picks longer. Instead, I went with Williams over the buzzy Brandin Cooks. I guess potentially using him with Romo some weeks was the tiebreaker.

I also wanted to double down on Chargers tight ends. In addition to being on everyone’s TE sleeper list, Ladarius Green would have made a nice insurance policy for Gates. My nemesis Scott poached both Edelman and Green from me.

The Bengals figure to be another strong DST unit again.

The Bills and Ebron are picks I’m already considering cutting but whatever; maybe I can pick up big ‘ol Matt Adams as my reserve TE (inside joke). 

So Yahoo graded my draft a B+ for whatever it’s worth (probably a place in the sewer). I felt that was a little low but it was also the highest grade they gave out. I should have little trouble reaching the playoffs again. I won’t predict a championship but that’s only because T.J. Housmandzadeh doesn’t play anymore.