After studying these players carefully for the last four months, I have finally made my first draft pick of the 2017 season: wide receiver Julio Jones. Can’t say I’m super excited about him.
After studying these players carefully for the last four months, I have finally made my first draft pick of the 2017 season: wide receiver Julio Jones. Can’t say I’m super excited about him.
With a draft, the first player tends to be dictated more by where you’re picking rather than which player you’d actually like to have on your team. If this were an auction, league I would never buy Julio Jones. But I ended up with the 6th draft slot, so I figured I’d be selecting whichever one of the top 3 running backs and top 3 wide receivers was left after the first five picks.
With Jones, he catches lots of passes, but he’s never been much of a touchdown scorer – tends to wind up with about 8 TDs most years. He’s also had some problems staying healthy, which worries me.
I didn’t see anyone else who merited serious attention with that draft pick. If I wanted to instead go with a running back, I could have taken Devonta Freeman, Melvin Gordon or LeSean McCoy.
This is a PPR league, and teams start three wide receivers plus a flex (RB-WR-TE). So the logical course is to each week start a QB, 2 RBs, 4 WRs, TE, K and DEF. Only you don’t actually “start” anyone – it’s a best-ball format, with you getting your highest-scoring lineup each week automatically. No waiver moves either – what you draft is what you get.
First round looks pretty typical. Five running backs, seven wide receivers, and no really wild picks. The PPR scoring and lineup parameters help caused the majority of picks to be wide receivers. If this was a standard-scoring league, with 2 RBs and 2 WRs, you’d probably see seven (maybe even eight) running backs chosen in the first round.
Draft will get more interested in the next four rounds, when there’s more difference between the player evaluations.
| FANEX ANALYSIS DRAFT | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Pick | Pos | Player | Owner |
| 1.01 | RB | David Johnson | Dolfi-Walls |
| 1.02 | WR | Antonio Brown | Nease |
| 1.03 | RB | LeVeon Bell | Pianowski |
| 1.04 | RB | Ezekiel Elliott | Satterlee |
| 1.05 | WR | Odell Beckham Jr. | Holm |
| 1.06 | WR | Julio Jones | Allan |
| 1.07 | RB | LeSean McCoy | Panizo |
| 1.08 | WR | Mike Evans | Harmon |
| 1.09 | WR | A.J. Green | Cahill |
| 1.10 | WR | Jordy Nelson | Nazarek |
| 1.11 | RB | Melvin Gordon | Adams |
| 1.12 | WR | Dez Bryant | Schauf |
With each pick, the owner submits a one-paragraph scouting report. If you’d like to read those, they can be seen at the league home page at MyFantasyLeague.com.
—Ian Allan