Mock draft Monday

By: Josh Frey-Sam

You must experiment in your mock drafts.

It’s the only way you’ll get better and be prepared for when the real bullets start flying on draft night.

The reality is, most of us are going to select a running back and a wide receiver with our first two picks in fantasy drafts. And oftentimes, that’s the right move.

Sometimes, however, you’re backed into a position where it might make sense to draft a tight end with one of those picks, and it can completely change the course of your draft.

I must admit, historically, I’ve been pretty timid to draft a onesy position (TE/QB) early. Usually, I identify a few late sleepers at both positions and load up on RBs and WRs.

My philosophy is that I see more value in being deep at those positions, and it can be easier to surf the waiver wire for TEs and QBs.

That’s served me pretty well, but there have been many occasions where it might’ve been better for me to select an elite TE early on instead of punting on the position altogether.

I’ve forced myself into that position TWICE for today’s Brief, and I want to show you what a draft can look like by going in on these onesy positions early on. I will give my takeaway below.

We’re drafting from the 1.11 spot today.

Here’s where I stand after this: I loved one of these drafts, and I hated the other.

I think you can guess which one is which.

If I’m in this position in August, I just don’t see myself drafting a tight end with either of my first two picks. Brock Bowers and Trey McBride are going to be great this year, but by drafting one of them, I felt like I was subpar at WR. Now, I could’ve avoided this by selecting Nico Collins over CMC at 2.2 — and, in hindsight, I probably should’ve done that — but then I would’ve felt a bit fragile at RB.

In my opinion, there’s a clear tier break for WRs after Brian Thomas Jr.. I would rather have BTJ and George Kittle than Brock Bowers and Mike Evans. Not to mention, I could also have Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson as my QB in the first option.

The second draft worked out great beucase it provided me flexibility in the middle rounds. I selected my WR2, Jaylen Waddle — a potenatial bounce-back candidate — in the sixth round, then was able to grab a pair of RBs I’m high on in Brian Robinson and Kaleb Johnson.

With that, I had a solid stable of rushers, and an elite QB and TE, and was able to throw some darts to round out my WR core. I stacked a breakout candidate in Coleman with Allen, then snagged a pair of stellar depth options in Jennings and Egbuka.

To me, my second draft left me without any super pressing needs and gave me elite options at three positions (and possibly four, depending on how you feel about Chase Brown).

As I’ve said before, I will be targeting WRs early this season. After the first round, there are question marks across the board. Meanwhile, I can still get Josh Jacobs, Kyren Williams and Chase Brown in the third round, and George Kittle in the fourth.

There are going to be circumstances where it makes sense to grab one of the top-two TEs, but today’s exercise showed me that I’m much better off waiting on that position once again this season.

Thanks for reading and, as always, have a great day.

Josh