In a typical draft, you end up with a mix of players you were targeting all along – guys you’ll be picking on most of your teams. And you get some players that are dictated by draft position. I’ve gotten a mixture of both in the early rounds of the Fanex Analysis Draft.
There are some notable rules in this league. It’s PPR scoring. You start three wide receivers and also a flex (RB-WR-TE). It’s best-ball scoring. And there are no roster moves – the 20 guys you pick are the 20 that have to carry you for the duration.
I drew the 4th draft slot, so I went in thinking it would be Ezekiel Elliott, Alvin Kamara, Kareem Hunt or Antonio Brown with my first pick. I didn’t want LeVeon Bell. He’s a great player, of course, but he’s had some injury issues (no roster moves in this one) and there’s also the holdout issue – I expect he’ll probably show up in September, starting slowing.
I ended up going with Kamara. Had it been a standard-scoring league, I would have gone with Hunt. (I have Elliott as my No. 2 player in both formats, but he was chosen 3rd.)
Brown is a PPR monster, but if you operate under the assumption that you’re picking a running back and a wide receiver in the first and second rounds, look at the combined production for both of those two roads. Using my stat projections, Alvin Kamara and Amari Cooper comes out 10 points ahead of Brown and Devonta Freeman. (Those are just my stat projections, of course; you might get a different result with your own numbers).
Anyway, Kamara isn’t a guy I’m champing at the bit to select. He was dictated by where I was picking. Similarly, Zach Ertz in the 4th round isn’t a player I expect to select in a lot of leagues. He just happened to be sitting there as a great value. I think he looks pretty similar to Travis Kelce and Rob Gronkowski, and they both went a round earlier. It’s kind of thin at tight end this year, so I like the idea of nailing that position down. This is a no-moves league and you select only 20 players, so it’s not really practical to select three tight ends.
My other three players are guys I expect to choose in a lot of leagues. Amari Cooper at 2.09, JuJu Smith-Schuster at 3.04 and Alex Collins at 5.04.
I’ve been banging the drum for Cooper throughout the offseason. Jon Gruden likes to build his offense around his featured receiver (jamming a lot of balls in his hands) and Cooper is going to be in that role. Gruden’s last 13 offenses have all featured receivers going over 1,000 yards (most also catching 80-plus balls), and he’s done that with a lot of older and lesser receivers – Keenan McCardell (at the end of his career), Michael Clayton, Antonio Bryant and Irving Fryar (at the end of his career).
Smith-Schuster was pretty remarkable last year, and I’m thinking he’ll continue to grow and develop. Pittsburgh has a lengthy and remarkable history with receivers – Plaxico Burress, Hines Ward, Santonio Holmes, Mike Wallace, Antonio Brown, Martavis Bryant – and Smith-Schuster put up better rookie numbers than all of them. Trivia note: last Steelers’ receiver to put up better rookie numbers than JuJu: Louis Lipps (1984).
I liked the way Alex Collins played as a rookie, and I think he’ll get better now that he has a better offensive line in front of him and a better command of the offense. Collins caught only 23 passes last year (PPR scoring), but all of those came in the final nine games of the season. All of his 6 TDs came in the second half of the year. I think he’s a top-10 back, but others don’t seem to like him much.
In typical leagues, I expect Cooper, Smith-Schuster and Collins will be on my team. Those Kamara and Ertz spots are more likely to be dictated by where I’m choosing.
The Fanex FAD draft is an ongoing slow-crawl draft. It’s being hosted by MyFantasyLeague.com, and the 12 owners are posting analysis comments as they pick.
| FANEX ANALYSIS DRAFT | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Pick | Pos | Player | Team |
| 1.01 | RB | Todd Gurley | Rito/Nazarek |
| 1.02 | RB | LeVeon Bell | Dolfi/Walls |
| 1.03 | RB | Ezekiel Elliott | Aquaviva |
| 1.04 | RB | Alvin Kamara | Allan |
| 1.05 | WR | Antonio Brown | Holm |
| 1.06 | WR | DeAndre Hopkins | MacGregor |
| 1.07 | RB | David Johnson | Valverde |
| 1.08 | RB | Melvin Gordon | Lung |
| 1.09 | RB | Kareem Hunt | Tinker |
| 1.10 | RB | Saquon Barkley | Satterlee |
| 1.11 | RB | Dalvin Cook | Panizo |
| 1.12 | WR | Odell Beckham | Nease |
| 2.01 | RB | Leonard Fournette | Nease |
| 2.02 | WR | Keenan Allen | Panizo |
| 2.03 | WR | Michael Thomas | Satterlee |
| 2.04 | WR | Tyreek Hill | Tinker |
| 2.05 | WR | Julio Jones | Lung |
| 2.06 | WR | Mike Evans | Valverde |
| 2.07 | WR | Davante Adams | MacGregor |
| 2.08 | RB | Christian McCaffrey | Holm |
| 2.09 | WR | Amari Cooper | Allan |
| 2.10 | WR | A.J. Green | Aquaviva |
| 2.11 | WR | Adam Thielen | Dolfi/Walls |
| 2.12 | RB | LeSean McCoy | Rito/Nazarek |
| 3.01 | WR | Doug Baldwin | Rito/Nazarek |
| 3.02 | RB | Jerick McKinnon | Dolfi/Walls |
| 3.03 | QB | Aaron Rodgers | Aquaviva |
| 3.04 | WR | JuJu Smith-Schuster | Allan |
| 3.05 | RB | Joe Mixon | Holm |
| 3.06 | RB | Devonta Freeman | MacGregor |
| 3.07 | WR | Stefon Diggs | Valverde |
| 3.08 | RB | Jordan Howard | Lung |
| 3.09 | WR | Allen Robinson | Tinker |
| 3.10 | TE | Travis Kelce | Satterlee |
| 3.11 | TE | Rob Gronkowski | Panizo |
| 3.12 | WR | Brandin Cooks | Nease |
| 4.01 | RB | Derrius Guice | Nease |
| 4.02 | RB | Rashaad Penny | Panizo |
| 4.03 | RB | Jay Ajayi | Satterlee |
| 4.04 | WR | T.Y. Hilton | Tinker |
| 4.05 | WR | Larry Fitzgerald | Lung |
| 4.06 | QB | Russell Wilson | Valverde |
| 4.07 | TE | Evan Engram | MacGregor |
| 4.08 | WR | Jarvis Landry | Holm |
| 4.09 | TE | Zach Ertz | Allan |
| 4.10 | RB | Kenyan Drake | Aquaviva |
| 4.11 | WR | Demaryius Thomas | Dolfi/Walls |
| 4.12 | WR | Josh Gordon | Rito/Nazarek |
| 5.01 | WR | Marvin Jones | Rito/Nazarek |
| 5.02 | WR | Alshon Jeffery | Dolfi/Walls |
| 5.03 | WR | Golden Tate | Aquaviva |
| 5.04 | RB | Alex Collins | Allan |
| 5.05 | WR | Corey Davis | Holm |
| 5.06 | RB | Derrick Henry | MacGregor |
| 5.07 | RB | Royce Freeman | Valverde |
| 5.08 | QB | Deshaun Watson | Lung |
—Ian Allan