Hindsight is 20-20. And with hindsight, we can now look back at the second-round decision I made on Monday in the Fanex Draft. In that PPR league, I was faced with the decision of whether to select a second wide receiver (Randall Cobb) or whether to instead go with a running back (Jeremy Hill), potentially saving me from being backed into a corner on a running back later.

Guys in this league tend to go hard after running backs, and you’ve got to pick up a few somewhere along the line.

At the same time, the scoring system strongly favors pass catchers. You want to get a core of those guys who’ll catch 90-110 passes, churning out the big points week after week. And wide receivers are more durable than running backs. That’s why Antonio Brown was the No. 1 player on my board overall.

I ended up going with Hill in the second round. I’ve got him projected to score 226 points in this format. I followed that with Emmanuel Sanders in the third round. I like Sanders, I’ve got him in that second tier of receivers, not far behind the really big dogs – Brown, Julio Jones, Dez Bryant and Odell Beckham Jr. I have Sanders scoring 263 points, so that 489 points from that RB-WR combo.

If, on the road not taken, I had picked Cobb back at 2.05, I would have gotten his 271 points. I’ve got him 8 points ahead of Sanders. But in the third round, with a WR-WR start, I probably then would have felt it necessary to select a running back. It would have been C.J. Spiller (I think he’ll catch 70-plus passes for the Saints). Spiller I’ve got at 194 points, which is 32 less than Hill.

The Cobb-Spiller combo is worth 465 overall, and that’s 24 less than what I ended up with from Hill-Sanders. So things seem to be working out OK.

In this case, I will also note that had I opened with Beckham-Cobb, when we got to pick 3.08, Sanders would have still been sitting there, and he’d have been awfully appealing. So there’s a pretty good chance I would have taken Sanders, thinking that Spiller most likely would have been there at 4.05. If it had gone that way, Matt Pitzer still would have nabbed Spiller at 4.02, and I probably would have been flustered into forcing my fourth-round pick on Alfred Morris or Mark Ingram. Those guys are decent players, but neither is a big enough factor in the passing game to be an elite option in this scoring format.

FANEX NATIONAL DRAFT
1.01MINAdrian Peterson
1.02PITLeVeon Bell
1.03GBEddie Lacy
1.04KCJamaal Charles
1.05PITAntonio Brown
1.06NERob Gronkowski
1.07DALDez Bryant
1.08NYGOdell Beckham Jr.
1.09ATLJulio Jones
1.10CHIMatt Forte
1.11DENDemaryius Thomas
1.12SEAMarshawn Lynch
2.01GBJordy Nelson
2.02BUFLeSean McCoy
2.03PHIDeMarco Murray
2.04DENC.J. Anderson
2.05CINJeremy Hill
2.06DETCalvin Johnson
2.07HOUArian Foster
2.08BALJustin Forsett
2.09SDMelvin Gordon
2.10GBRandall Cobb
2.11CINA.J. Green
2.12TBMike Evans
3.01INDT.Y. Hilton
3.02CHIAlshon Jeffery
3.03INDAndrew Luck
3.04GBAaron Rodgers
3.05PHIJordan Matthews
3.06INDFrank Gore
3.07HOUDeAndre Hopkins
3.08DENEmmanuel Sanders
3.09NOBrandin Cooks
3.10JACT.J. Yeldon
3.11SDKeenan Allen
3.12CARKelvin Benjamin
4.01INDAndre Johnson
4.02NOC.J. Spiller
4.03PITMartavis Bryant
4.04MIALamar Miller
4.05NEJulian Edelman
4.06SEAJimmy Graham
4.07DETGolden Tate
4.08NOMark Ingram
4.09OAKAmari Cooper

If you want to follow the progress of this league (each guy submits a scouting report for each of his picks) it’s being hosted at MyFantasyLeague.com.

—Ian Allan