It is now the middle of August. At least one week of preseason games is in the books, and we are 1-2 weeks away from the heart of fantasy football draft season.
To prepare for my drafts, I’ve been mock drafting a lot. We’ve done a bunch in the PFN Discord and will ramp up the frequency as we make the final push in preparing for the real thing.
For today’s mock draft, rather than my usual routine of giving you my thought process as I draft against the computer, I am going to review an actual draft.
This is a default Yahoo Pro League. Yahoo’s standard settings are Half-PPR scoring with a starting lineup of one QB, two RBs, two WRs, one TE, and one Flex.
Reviewing a 10-Team Yahoo Pro League Draft
Normally, I put the draft board at the end of the article. In order for you to easily follow along with what I’m saying, I am putting the draft board up top.
I know what you’re thinking: “Wait a minute … that’s Sleeper!”
If you’ve played on Yahoo before, you know there isn’t a means to showcase draft results in an easily digestible way. So, for you fine people, my beloved readers, I took the time to manually input all 150 players into Sleeper.
Now, we can easily reference the draft board and see who went where.
General Observations
There is a ton of fantasy content out there. If you’re engrossed in the fantasy football Twitter world like I am, you can get lost in the echo chamber of high-level content and advanced strategy talk.
Most fantasy managers are relatively casual players doing simple 10-team leagues on platforms like Yahoo using default settings. If you’re a more knowledgeable player who does these types of leagues, you are going to look at this board and shake your head at some of the picks.
It would be easy for me to say, “Ignore this. It will never happen in a real draft.” Except this is a real draft and it actually happened.
Picks that make you do a double-take happen in almost every basic 10-team Yahoo draft. My job is to ensure that you are not the team making those mistakes.
Don’t Take Kickers or Defenses Before the Last Two Rounds
There are extremely narrow exceptions to this. For example, if you’re planning on using your last-round pick on a deep sleeper that you are very confident won’t get taken, then you can take your kicker and defense in the 13th and 14th rounds. That’s about it.
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It’s abundantly clear that Team 2 is a very novice fantasy manager. You can tell from the very linear nature of their draft. Team 2 filled their two WR positions, two RB positions, and Flex position in the first five rounds. Then, they finished their starting lineup completely by going TE, QB, DEF, K.
Team 2 will suffer from shallow depth due to bypassing startable WRs and RBs in Rounds 8 and 9 to secure no tangible advantage at defense and kicker.
Other than Team 10 reaching for the Ravens’ defense in the ninth round, this group mostly waited until the final 2-3 rounds for kicker and defense.
Secure Elite Options at QB and TE
In 12-team leagues with either 3 WRs or 2 Flex (or both), outside of unique circumstances where the value is too good to pass up, I will never take both onesie positions early. I want an elite QB or an elite TE in every draft, but never both. The opportunity cost of doing so is too high. I fall too far behind at either running back or wide receiver.
In 10-team leagues with shallow starting rosters, which is the Yahoo default (as well as the default on most fantasy platforms), everyone has a super team. Everyone’s RBs and WRs look great.
The determining factor in many matchups is whose superstar players spike more on a given week. The way to secure an edge is at the onesie positions: quarterback and tight end.
Three teams in this draft tried this (whether it was intentional or not, we have no idea). Team 5 executed it the best, which leads me to believe it was a deliberate strategy. They took Josh Allen in the third round, securing the best fantasy quarterback. They followed that up with Mark Andrews in the sixth round, which is incredible value. Andrews is one of my favorite targets at tight end this season. I believe he is the best value of the elite TEs.
Team 10 took Sam LaPorta in the fourth and Kyler Murray in the sixth. Murray is not considered an elite QB, but I consider him an elite QB. He is my favorite target at the quarterback position.
Team 3 got superb value on Dalton Kincaid in the seventh round to pair with Anthony Richardson in the fourth. That is definitely a bit early for Richardson. Their team would look better if they went Nico Collins or Brandon Aiyuk and got Richardson in the fifth, but there was no guarantee he would make it. QBs tend to go early in default leagues.
Meanwhile, take a look at Team 7. They started Ja’Marr Chase, Garrett Wilson, Chris Olave, Jaylen Waddle. Words cannot express how much I would love to have three of these wide receivers on any one of my teams. This seems awesome, right? Team 7 clearly has the best wide receivers in the league.
The problem is the league format punishes this type of approach. I have all four of these wide receivers ranked inside my top 12 at the position. Yet, Team 7 is forced to bench one of them every week.
As enticing as it may be to see Olave there in the third or Waddle in the fourth, you have to pass. Team 7 will be deploying Rhamondre Stevenson and Jaylen Warren at RB with Brock Bowers at TE. How is this team going to compete with Team 5 sending out Joe Mixon and David Montgomery — which isn’t even that great — when they also have Andrews at TE and Allen at QB?
The WR advantage is mitigated because Team 7 has to bench Olave or Waddle. Whichever one they start is likely better than Team 5’s DeVonta Smith, but CeeDee Lamb and Puka Nacua is arguably a better duo than Ja’Marr Chase and Garrett Wilson.
Team 1 didn’t do the best with their double-digit round picks, but the starting lineup is phenomenal. It will be tough to match the firepower of Joe Burrow, Christian McCaffrey, Kenneth Walker III, Mike Evans, Nico Collins, Brandon Aiyuk, and Travis Kelce. Those are elite or near-elite options across the board, save for Walker and Burrow.
Juxtapose that lineup with Team 8. By no means did Team 8 do anything wrong, except the reach on Jake Ferguson in the eighth round, which isn’t egregious. Team 8 has an awesome starting lineup, just like everyone else. Patrick Mahomes, Derrick Henry, Josh Jacobs, Stefon Diggs, Christian Kirk, James Conner, Jake Ferguson.
By now, you know what I’m going to point out. The clear spot to take advantage of in this lineup is at tight end. The teams with Kelce, LaPorta, Andrews, McBride, and Kincaid are going to clearly win this positional battle. Everywhere else, it will come down to which top players have big games. But at tight end, there’s a clear, discernible advantage.
The Best Value Picks In This 10-Team Yahoo Pro League Draft
Aside from the very specific strategic component of carving out edges in 10-Team Yahoo leagues by taking elite onesie positions, there is often a ton of falling value you can take advantage of.
Brandon Aiyuk and Nico Collins
Team 1 made two of the best picks of the draft in Rounds 4 and 5, grabbing Nico Collins and Brandon Aiyuk. This is a big reason taking Travis Kelce in the third round was such a good pick.
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The players that Team 1 passed on to take Kelce were guys like Collins and Aiyuk. Then, they wound up getting them anyway. These are clear top-30 picks that went at No. 40 and 41 overall, respectively.
Malik Nabers
At No. 64 overall, Team 7 grabbed Malik Nabers. It’s possible that Nabers’ foot/ankle injury ends up being more than the nothing burger it’s being described as. But if not, this is taking advantage of Yahoo’s broken price on Nabers.
For some reason, his ADP is way down in the early 50s. In expert drafts and high-stakes leagues, Nabers will often go as early as the late second round.
In many of these 10-team Yahoo leagues, managers are mostly drafting off ADP. Nabers’ name doesn’t pop up amongst the best players available until the draft gets to the end of the fourth round. That makes it a near-certainty that whoever drafts him will get incredible value.