Early Look at 2019 Fantasy Football Drafts

I know the 2018 fantasy football season just ended, but best ball drafts have already begun. The thing that makes best ball drafts even better than mock drafts is the buy-ins. Players need to buy in and there are real money prizes on the line so they tend to bring their A game instead of drafting weird to test out strategies.

The following screenshot is from a best ball draft that's still underway. There is no setting line ups, trades, or waiver wire moves throughout the year in best ball leagues. You draft a team(Normally 18-25 players) and let it ride. This league is for standard scoring with 1 Point per Reception (PPR) and a TE premium meaning TEs get 1.5 PPR.

The back half of the draft is going to change quite a bit following free agency and the draft, but there are some interesting talking points from the first few rounds of this draft:
![BB draft Jan27 2019.png]

If you see anything that looks odd to you leave a comment, but here's what I'm seeing:

Top 6

You're probably going to see five RBs taken within the first six picks. DeAndre Hopkins snuck into the fifth position in this draft, but Alvin is a popular fifth pick now and will almost be a lock in the top five if Mark Ingram signs with another team. In any event, Hopkins and Davante Adams(normally. Weird to see him fall) will compete for the first WR taken in the middle of the First Round of most drafts.

2018 was the second year in a row where Todd Gurley finished as the overall RB1. It's a bit surprising to see Saquon Barkley taken over him, but Barkley's arrow is pointed up while Gurley was benched in favor of C.J. Anderson in the Conference Championship game against New Orleans. I'd still draft Gurley first, but if I was in multiple drafts where I had the first pick, I would draft Barkley over Gurley about half the time.

Christian McCaffrey and Ezekiel Elliott probably don't play on offenses good enough for them to finish as overall RB1s, but the volume won't be an issue making them top-5 picks.

Michael Thomas/Davante Adams

This is a weird draft spot for Michael Thomas and Davante Adams. In the other drafts I've seen, Adams was taken right behind Hopkins so I'm shocked he fell this far. I'm also shocked Thomas was taken this high. I think you're going to see these two swap draft spots in most drafts. Adams now has three straight seasons with 10 or more TDs. With little else for Aaron Rodgers to throw to, Adams has a future Hall-of-Famer targeting him early, often, and in the red zone.

Thomas has some of the best hands in the business converting 147 targets into 125 receptions, but he has yet to eclipse 10 TDs and he's competing with other offensive weapons in NO. Don't get me wrong, he's in my top 5 WRs, but I think he's one notch below Adams.

James Conner

Conner is the reason I decided to write this in the first place. I can't wrap my head around drafting Conner in the first round. I actually really like him. I liked him before he got drafted, I was drafting him in most of my leagues when it looked like LeVeon Bell would only miss a few weeks, and I picked up Conner when he was available on the waiver wire the two times I didn't draft him.

The thing with Conner is that he's extremely replaceable. We know Pittsburgh will get an RB in free agency and/or the draft. We also know that as good as Conner was in Bell's absence, Jaylen Samuels was about as good as Conner. Conner and Samuels are both really good football players, but neither are exceptional. Throw in Conner's injuries from this year and you have a bust in the making. I'd much rather draft Damien Williams if I can get him in the Fourth Round or later (and even that carries a lot of risk).

Travis Kelce, the Top Three TEs, and Everyone Else

You're probably going to see Travis Kelce drafted in the Second Round of most leagues, but this is a TE premium league so he skipped into the first round. The amazing thing about Kelce is that he scored about the same number of points as you would get out of a top-5 WR. Not only is his raw fantasy score elite, the TE class is extremely shallow. Like Gronk and Graham in years past, TEs like Kelce, Zach Ertz, and George Kittle are in a tier of their own compared to the TEs below them.

I think this draft spot was a little early for Kelce, but I don't hate it. In normal PPR or .5 PPR leagues, I wouldn't mind drafting Kelce around the middle of the second round. We'll have to wait and see, but I suspect Ertz and Kittle will be drafted too high for me to take them. It's not that I don't like them, it's just that there are players I'd rather have where they're likely to be drafted.

TEs beyond that get real ugly real quick. I like Hunter Henry for a bounce back for the LAC following his lost 2018. David Njoku might be one of my highest owned TEs because I think the CLE offense can do some damage and 2019 will be his third year as a pro and second with Baker Mayfield. O.J. Howard is worth a look if he's cheap enough, but we're not sure what the TB offense will look like.
The way the TE position is shaking out, I'm drafting Kelce around the Mid-Second Round and looking for Henry, Njoku, or Howard if they fall. If I don't get one of them, I'm basically punting on TEs and getting at least two of Jack Doyle, Chris Herndon, and Vance McDonald(my very favorite sleeper at the TE position-athletic, rapport with Ben Roethlisberger, good offense, and double bonus if Antonio Brown and his targets make their way to another team).

Patrick Mahomes

There is a strategy developed and popularized by JJ Zachariason called Late-Round-Quarterback or LRQB. The strategy works because identifying top QBs is often deceptively difficult. Look at the top QBs for the last few years and you'll see that they tend to regress the next year. It's not that the top QBs (Cam Newton, Matt Ryan, Russell Wilson) are bad, but there tend to be QBs that come out of the latter stages of the draft and put up huge years. Enter Patrick Mahomes.

Mahomes is the poster child for the LRQB strategy. He was drafted very late in drafts for 2018 and had one of the most dominating seasons in fantasy QB history, but his season may have been too good. He's effectively moved the entire market for QBs up.

You normally see 'anchoring' in auction drafts. You can do two drafts with the same budget, same rules, same scoring, and even a lot of the same fantasy players, but values may change a little bit. Let's say in Draft A, Todd Gurley goes for $70 and Saquon Barkley gets nominated next. I'm willing to bet Barkley goes for $69-71. If you do another draft and Gurley goes for $65 and Barkley is nominated next, I bet Barkley goes for $64-66. Barkley's price is essentially anchored to Gurley's. The same thing happens in serpentine drafts although it's not as obvious and it's generally limited to position groups outside of WR and RB.

It wasn't that long ago that QBs were commonly drafted in the First and Second Round, but as LRQB became popular (and successful) the average draft position(ADP) of the first QB drafted slid further and further back. Last year Aaron Rodgers and Deshaun Watson were drafted in the Late-Fourth to Fifth round in most leagues(the sharper the league, the later the draft spot but I know QBs were probably drafted in the first couple of rounds in home leagues). Rodgers is consistently going about a round behind Mahomes-a trend I expect to continue to see. Once Rodgers is drafted, Jared Goff, Andrew Luck, Deshaun Watson, and Russell Wilson fall quickly into place.

The naysayers will point out that QBs who had a tremendous year tend to regress. He might regress, but the offense is the same, the weapons are the same, and he's so young that I don't think another 45+ TD season is out of the realm of possibility, but he's probably being drafted too soon in best ball leagues. This is best ball specific, but I think I can get similar fantasy production from a trio of QBs that are taking later in the draft allowing me to draft someone like Sony Michel, Aaron Jones, Devonta Freeman or A.J. Green who may end up being on more winning teams than Mahomes. Remember that in best ball, the top scorers are automatically placed into your lineup. This makes QBs that are more volatile like Josh Allen very useful.

My first QB drafted is probably going to be Deshaun Watson, Russell Wilson, or Jared Goff-basically whichever top-12ish QB falls. My second QB is probably going to be Jameis Winston, Matt Ryan, Kirk Cousins or Mitch Trubisky. My third QB will probably someone the fantasy community despises drafting like the a fore mentioned Josh Allen whose rushing production makes him an awesome fantasy producer capable of putting up 30+ points....or fewer than 6.

Drafting from the One, Two or Three Spot

I tend to like to get elite WRs and sprinkle in a third or fourth round RB in auctions, but your draft spot is going to have a lot to do with whether you start out WR or RB heavy in serpentine drafts. If I'm picking in the back half of the draft, I'm probably going to be very WR heavy, but the closer I am to the One Spot, the more likely I am to go RB heavy.
I'm looking at the first three teams and I mostly like how they started. Barkley and Gurley is a toss up to me and I think Ezekiel Elliott should be the third RB taken so I have no issues with the first three picks. I'll start with Team 3 since the first round pick is pretty obvious, but things get murkier from the second round and on.

If I was team 3, I would have drafted Mike Evans over Nick Chubb. I like Nick Chubb a lot this year, but Evans is the last WR on the board that I think could get the TDs and volume to finish as the overall WR1. The other reason I take Evans there is that I'm going to be able to draft Dalvin Cook, Nick Chubb, or Sony Michel with my third pick. In other words I'd rather have Zeke, Evans, and (Cook, Chubb, or Michel) than Zeke, Chubb, and Hilton. Not that it's a bad team, it's just not my ideal team. I really like the Brandin Cooks and Doug Baldwin picks. The rest of their players might not be awe inspiring, but they should be solid.

Team 2 starts with Gurley and Evans. That may be my favorite two round start to the draft. It mostly falls of the rails for the next three rounds though. Leonard Fournette was highly inefficient, suffered through injuries, and struggled on a JAX offense that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. I'd much rather have Sony Michel, Aaron Jones, or Marlon Mack. All of them performed really well on offenses that can score. I'd also place T.Y Hilton or Keenan Allen above Fournette.
I'd like Tarik Cohen if he was drafted one or two rounds later, but not in the fourth round. Cohen is good in best ball leagues, but his upside is capped. Even if Jordan Howard is out of the picture, Cohen will still be a timeshare guy. I like him, but you can get similar production from an RB later. I'd rather have Cooper Kupp or Jarvis Landry. I'd also consider Hunter Henry(who went way too late), O.J. Howard or David Njoku in that spot. Kenny Golladay is OK, but he was in a prime spot last year and didn't do a whole lot given how much opportunity he had. That offense is going to be much different with Kerryon Johnson and Marvin Jones back. I'd rather have Jones a round or two later.

I like Team 1, but I would have gone Barkley, Cook, Michel and then focused on WR. I could still see the argument for getting a WR in the first three picks, but I would have taken Hilton or Allen above Thielen. Thielen's awesome, but his production dropped off a cliff for the second half of the season and I think the second half is more indicative of what the MIN offense will be in 2019. Thielen isn't a horrible pick at 3.01, but I like him more as a mid- to late-third round pick.

My Favorite Team

This is cheating a bit, but I really liked what Team 6 did. I love the Alvin Kamara/Julio Jones start. I'm obviously high on Michel. I may have picked Devonta Freeman or Brandin Cooks over Derrius Guice, but I like Guice too so it comes down to personal preference. The only pick I didn't like was Andrew Luck. Luck is solid, but I would have drafted Henry and maybe Kupp over him and then nabbed Deshaun Watson or Russell Wilson in the next round. The reason I said I was cheating a bit is because you can't see Team 6's Ninth Round pick. They got another solid sleeper WR in Dante Pettis. If this team had drafted Hunter Henry and Deshaun Watson instead of Andrew Luck and Mark Ingram, I would have said their draft was perfect. Maybe they go on to draft Vance McDonald to redeem themselves.