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Draft day in NFL Fantasy

Being an NFL fan from England

By Rob WatsonPublished 3 years ago 18 min read
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I have been following the NFL from England since it was first shown over here. The Superbowl at the end of this upcoming season will be my fortieth Superbowl. I have decided to chronicle my following of this season by way of written articles. Some will be weekly updates on how the season is going, others will be my thoughts on the Sport and there will be some stories ‘from the ’vault’ as well as I relive past seasons and write about some of my favourite players, teams, coaches and stories from the NFL. This article is about my experience of drafting my NFL Fantasy team.

It was the evening of Wednesday 31st August that I entered a live draft on NFL Fantasy. I do think that this fantasy game is so much better than our fantasy football. One of the reasons I like it better is the concept of playing against another player each week, so every point seems important and you are checking your team every week to make sure you get the best starting line-up for your latest contest. The other reason I like it so much is the draft itself. It is so much more exciting than taking all the time you need to choose your fantasy football team, being able to pick whichever players you want as long as you stick within the set budget. The fantasy draft gives you a tiny insight to what it is like to be calling the shots in the real draft. You can make your plans but ultimately you cannot know for sure what the other teams in the draft are going to do, so your plans must have plenty of contingencies in place.

. Last season had been the first time I had played along. I had found it wonderfully addictive and it helped me keep track of the regular season even more than I usually do. I liked the way that your team had a match each week, with the players you had selected going head to head with one of the other seven teams in your division. The draft itself had caught me completely off guard. Having no idea how it was going to work, I signed up for a draft and was put in one a few minutes later. All of a sudden, I was taking my turn along with the other seven people to draft real life NFL players into my team. The time allocated when it was your turn to draft was enough to pick someone, but not enough to dither too much. I made what turned out to be the big mistake of drafting Carson Wentz early, thinking that he would get back to the level of play he produced before he got injured in the season the Eagles won the Superbowl. Instead he went completely the other way. My first pick was Julio Jones, who also had a bad season by his own high standards, but that was mainly down to injury so I can’t be too harsh on my judgement with that one. Despite those two high profile errors, my team turned out to be decent and I had a winning season. Throughout the season my wide receivers were my strength, with DeAndre Hopkins and Tyler Lockett joining Jones to make a high profile trio. When Jones started getting injured, I also had Robinson from Chicago and McLaurin from Washington to contribute plenty of points. Roethlisberger covered bit for the Wentz error, but I spent most of the season trying to trade for a better quarterback, whilst also looking to get a big name running back or tight end. I realised early on how important the draft was, as people were reluctant to trade. So I resolved to make sure I would be much more prepared for the next draft.

Before signing up I had done my planning. For each position I have an A5 piece of paper with a list of players I want to draft from, in the order I would draft them if I could. I had twelve quarterbacks, fourteen running backs – including a couple of rookies I thought might be worth taking a risk on in the later rounds, nineteen wide receivers including a couple more rookies and twelve tight ends. I also have what I think will be the best ten defences on one piece of paper and ten kickers on another. All those pieces of paper were put next to each other on the dining table, so I could see them all that the same time whilst still being close to and in sight of the laptop screen. I realised that I would probably need to draft players who were not on those lists by the end of the draft but thought that if I made the lists too long I might be making it a bit too complicated and have too many names to look at. The other part of the planning was about what positions to prioritise. Last year the gap between the top few tight ends and running backs and the next best was noticeably bigger than with wide receivers and quarterbacks. In fact the top ten or so quarterbacks hardly had much between them at all in terms of fantasy points. With that in mind I had decided that I would draft a tight end first, unless Kelce and Waller had already been taken, then I would go for a running back first. Only once the elite tight ends and running backs had been drafted would I start drafting wide receivers and quarterbacks. The difference between the highest scoring defences and the worst was not that much and even less so amongst the kickers, so I would not be in a rush to draft either of them.

I logged in and signed up for a live draft, as soon as nine other random strangers from anywhere in the world were ready to draft, I would be in action. It does not take long at all for it to be ready. Unfortunately the older of my two laptops let me down a little bit, when it said it was getting ready to launch the draft, it started buffering, at first I did not know whether it was the site on the laptop that was being slow. After I while I thought that it was getting ridiculously long to wait, I switched on my newer laptop. You are probably wondering why would I not use that first. That laptop has a problem with the keyboard that means that virtually none of the keys on the top row work. I had recently bought a USB keyboard for it, but the spacebar does not work on that, so that becomes a faff to use. Welcome to my world or technology constantly trying to screw me over. Having logged in on the newer laptop, with the keyboard attached, it logged me into the draft relatively quickly, but I was devasted to see that they were already in the twelfth round. I had obviously been having my pick taken for me by the ‘autopick’ option every time my two minutes on the clock had run down. A quick glance at my team showed me that I had a couple of players that were high up on my own charts in Dalvin Cook the running back from Minnesota and Stefon Diggs the wide receiver from Buffalo. Other than that the first thing I noticed was that my quarterback was Hurts at Philly. No doubt he is a talented young man but the thought of him being my only quarterback sent me into a mild panic, he was not one of the twelve quarterbacks on my list. So I quickly looked at which quarterbacks were still left in the draft and the only one from my list that was there was the twelfth and final name on that list Kurt Cousins, so I took him with the first pick that I had control over. Before I knew it the draft was over. Upon closer inspection I noticed that I had been allocated Gronk at tight end which is never a bad thing. The running backs were strong, as well as Cook, there was Robinson from Jacksonville, who had been ninth on my list and Harris from Pittsburgh who I had down as one of my exciting rookie running backs. On top of those three I drafted Sony Michel with my last pick, who was not on my shortlist but I knew he was a solid running back. Other than Diggs, the only wide receiver from my shortlist that had made my team was Woods from the Rams who was fifteenth on my list. I actually had two tight ends from my short list, with Hockenson who was sixth as well as Gronk who was eighth. With Butker from the Chiefs doing the kicking and the always strong Ravens as my defence I could not complain about either of them two. All in all it definitely could have been a worse squad. The point was though that I had missed out on the vast majority of the drafting process, something that I had put so much planning into and been so looking forward to. I do not care how geeky that makes me sound.

Despite it being past ten o’clock at night already I decided to sign up for another account, using my other email address. That only took a couple of minutes and soon enough I was ready to enter a draft again. This time I was there from the start I would be doing it properly. The nine random strangers that I would be going up against were Akeem, Jay, Dayne, Claudia, James, Gonzalez, Jessica, Alex and Jeremiah. That was the order we would draft in, with me tucked in between Gonzalez and Jessica in seventh place. We had a five minute countdown before the draft started, presumably for the amateurs to do a bit of last minute research, or maybe to make allowances for people whose laptops do not like connecting reliably to the internet. As the clock ticked down my excitement levels rose. Again, I do not care how geeky that sounds.

Being honest I was hoping for at least some duffers amongst the nine random strangers I was going up against. The kind that had no clue what they were doing and would select players because they liked their name, end up picking six quarterbacks because they were the only ones they had heard of or loaded their team up with kickers because they knew they were the guys who scored points in real games. As it happened there were no obvious signs of any duffers amongst those nine.

Akeem chose Kamara with the first pick of the draft, could not argue with that, indeed that might have been my first pick if I had the opportunity. Jay then chooses McCaffrey, a slight risk with him coming back from injury but again another excellent fantasy player chosen and definitely one I would have wanted in my squad. Then Dayne makes what I believe to be the first mistake of the draft when he goes for Mahomes. Phenomenal quarterback though he undoubtedly is, there is no guarantee that he will be the top scoring fantasy thrower this year and even if he does turn out to be, the chances are he will not be far ahead of plenty of other quarterbacks. A waste of a third choice in my opinion, as any quarterback would be. Claudia gets us back on track with the elite running backs by opting for Henry and I cannot find fault with that one. When James selects Cook next that is the top four running backs from my list gone already. Now without question I will be drafting a tight end first. Gonzalez goes before me and with a name like that you would think that he would appreciate a tight end, especially one playing at Kansas City, but he becomes the first person to take a wide receiver, opting for Adams. A bit like the Mahomes selection that is understandable to go for a superstar with your first pick, and probably the best wide receiver in the game, but with so many excellent options at wide receiver I think that is a wasted pick. As each pick was made, I was crossing them off my list.

Now I am on the clock and take all of one second of the two minutes allowed to choose Travis Kelce. If I had been going first I probably would have gone for him over kamara, so with me coming in at seven I was delighted to be able to choose him, even though I was a bit worried about how many elite running backs had already gone. By the time I get to pick again, more top running backs have been selected, Ekeler, Chubb and Elliott. With Kelce already secured I had no doubt that I wanted a running back with my second choice. Going down my list the first one available was number six Edwards-Helaire, so again I did not take much time to make the selection. Two picks down and both of them were members of the Chiefs high powered offence, so not the worst start.

Just as it was coming round to my third pick there was more laptop related drama. I got that most irritating message on my screen saying that the webpage was not responding, I clicked on ‘wait’ rather than ‘exit’ and hoped for the best. The clock counting down on Gonzalez, who was picking before me, froze on my screen. By the time the page refreshed it was my turn to draft and the clock was already well into the last minute. With a few wide receivers already having been taken I was starting to wonder whether it was time to take one of them now, if I had more time to look around at which wide receivers were left then I may well have selected one. The suggestion for me was to draft Mixon the running back from Cincinnati, to be honest he was not someone who had made my top twelve, but if he was back to his best after an injury last season then he could be an excellent addition. With the clock ticking down and not wanting to risk moving around too much on the page and risk losing connection again, I decided to opt for Mixon, bolstering my running back options. This was also around the time that the speed of the draft and loss of connection was making it almost impossible for me to keep up with ticking players off my lists.

In the fourth round I lost my nerve a little and went for a quarterback probably a round too soon, especially as I did not have a wide receiver yet and already many of the top ones had gone. With Mahomes, Allen, Brady and Rogers all chosen already and knowing there would be another twelve selections before my fifth round choice I did not want to risk not having an elite quarterback. Tannehill was third on my list and he was still there, so I thought that was probably my last chance to get him, so I pulled the trigger on that selection.

By the fifth round it was definitely wide receiver time. Many of my list had already been selected, but eighth on that list was Lockett from Seattle who served me well last year, so that was an easy selection for me. Next I continued to bolster my receiver ranks by taking number fifteen from my list Robert Woods from the Rams, hopefully with Stafford throwing the ball to him this year he can be even more successful.

After six rounds I felt like I had an elite quarterback and tight end, plus two strong running backs and receivers. Now I needed to select players to give me cover at quarterback and tight end and depth and options at running back and wide receiver. Of course I also needed to still choose a defence and a kicker, but neither of them would take much thought time. Next up with Edwards the running back at Baltimore still available I took him to provide that depth I was looking for.

Again I probably went a round or two too soon when it came to selecting a back up quarterback. When I saw that Herbert, last season’s rookie sensation at San Diego, was still on the board I decided to draft the tenth quarterback off the my list. When Tannehill is having a bye week, I will be happy for Herbert to fill in that week, as I would be if Tannehill got injured. Plus it stopped any other player having Herbert in their team, and if he progresses on from last year’s performance he could prove to be one of the top scoring quarterbacks and I might even be tempted to swap him into the team when he is going up against a weaker defence than Tannehill is that same week.

Then I switched my attention to wide receivers. First I noticed that Waddle at Miami, one of the rookies I wanted to keep an eye out for was still available, so he became my ninth pick. In rounds eleven and thirteen I added more wide receivers, first another rook in Heisman Trophy winner Devonta Smith at Philadelphia and then a non-rookie in Fuller - a Miami teammate of Waddle. In between those receivers I selected Miami’s defence in round ten, probably at least one round too early to be drafting a defence, but I got drawn into it because many of the other players had begun to choose their defence. Looking back I should have thought that defences already been selected was a reason to delay my choice as few more defences would likely go between rounds ten and fourteen. In round twelve I got some back-up for Kelce at tight end, deciding to take a risk on a veteran returning form injury in the shape of Zak Ertz at the Eagles, now that he seems to have settled on playing for the Eagles again this year after putting in a request to be traded earlier in the year.

In the fourteenth round I took one of my rookie running backs Travis Etiene from Jacksonville. When it came to kickers I learnt my lesson from drafting a defence too soon and waited for the last round to select Lutz from New Orleans. When it was all over I was pretty happy with my choices, especially given the complete absence of any duffers amongst the people I was drafting against.

When I got the email about who had won my draft it was complimentary. Giving me a grade of A-. They ranked my team as the third strongest in the league and given that I was seventh in drafting order, they reckoned that was a sign of an excellent GM. Also commenting on the all round nature of my team, drafting four different positions in my first five picks. For all I know they might send something just as positive to all players, but it was still fun to read.

Within a day a few cracks had already begun to appear, but thankfully only with my back-up options. Turns out that Etiene is likely to miss the whole season, having already been placed on injury reserve. So I waived him and replaced him with Drake at las Vegas, hoping that the speedy running back will get enough game time to be a useful option at least some weeks. Also Lutz my kicker is looking doubtful for a few weeks at least, so I replaced him with Gould at San Francisco. Fuller, one of my back up wide receivers, is still suspended for a drug violation. Despite him only missing one or two games I was not comfortable with him being in my squad given that violation so I swapped him with Buffalo’s reliable slot receiver Beasley.

So the team I will be starting the season with is:

QB – Ryan Tannehill – Tennessee Titans

RB – Clyde Edwards-Helaire – Kansas City

RB – Joe Mixon – Cincinnati

RB – Gus Edwards – Baltimore

WR – Tyler Lockett – Seattle

WR – Robert Woods – LA Rams

TE – Travis Kelce – Kansas City

Kicker – Robbie Gould – San Francisco

Defence – Miami.

On the bench I have:

QB – Justin Herbert – LA Chargers

RB – K Drake – Las Vegas

WR – Cole Beasley – Buffalo

WR – Devonta Smith – Philadelphia

WR – Jaylen Waddle – Miami

TE – Zach Ertz – Philadelphia.

Overall I like the squad, a couple of superstars that I think could top score in their position in Kelce and Tannehill. Solid options at running back and wide receiver, with a couple of potential outstanding rookie receivers too. The defence and kicker should not let me down either. Of course I will be looking right up to the deadline to check injury reports and to see if I should make any late changes. No doubt I will do plenty of chopping and changing during the course of the season. I would be interested to hear other people’s fantasy draft experiences and their opinions on my team. To the nine players in my league, excellent drafting, I look forward to our season of going up against each other.

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About the Creator

Rob Watson

I love writing, and I love sport. So many of my stories will be about sport. But I also love writing fiction too, so there will be short stories, extracts from novels and maybe some scripts and even some poems too.

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