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[wysija_form id=”1″]Mock Draft Round 1
In fantasy football, mock drafting is one of the best tools available to get you ready for your draft. Without doing mock drafts, you go into your draft blind. You might go in thinking, “When my turn comes up, I’ll know who to draft”, but what would more than likely happen, when you get to, say the tenth round, you’re looking at players on the draft board like Bishop Sankey, Breshad Perriman, and Devonta Freeman — and now you’re panicked. You had some grand illusion that Larry Fitzgerald would still be there in the tenth or you were thinking, “No one will take Jarvis Landry before the tenth round”.
You watched in horror as Fitzgerald went in the eighth and Landry went even sooner. Had you done a few mock drafts, you would know that these players, most likely, will not be available in the tenth round. I know what your thinking, “Mock drafts take to long”. What if I told you one could be done in about 10 minutes, and yield great results? If you read some of my other articles, you already know where I’m going with this one. Fantasypros.com DraftWizard is one of the best tools I’ve found for mock drafting. Instead of explaining how it works, I’ll let them explain:
“FantasyPros has the largest database of expert rankings and ADP data on the web. We randomly select these cheat sheets as your opponents in the draft. You can even decide to draft against only ADP sources, Experts or specific Pre-Draft Rankings. It’s important to note that we don’t simply grab the top available player on the opponent’s cheat sheet (if you see a team drafting four quarterbacks, please contact us!). Instead, we use a pick algorithm that factors in player rankings, team needs, and position scarcity. We do this to create realistic draft results.”
That was taken off their FAQ page, and trust me when I tell you, it really works. I’ve tried a ton of these mock draft sites, and this is hands down the best one.
Mock drafting is important, but mock drafting would be useless unless you also did some studying. You need to stay up to date with the latest news and notes. There are tons of smart phone apps that will give you player updates. My personal favorite is Rotoworld Fantasy News, though I just downloaded another by the name of “Ownersbox”, and so far it’s pretty good as well.
In this article, I’m going to be doing you a huge favor. I’ve collected 9 guys, whom’s opinion I trust, to do a mock draft. Not only will I be giving you the round by round picks through all 14 rounds, but I had each of them give a short recap as to why they took that player. This mock is for 14 round, 10 team, standard scoring league, which means there are 140 players selected in this draft. We did not draft kickers nor defense for this mock, I wanted as many players featured as possible.
You’re going to get a glimpse into the minds of 10 of the best fantasy minds I know (myself included), while at the same time getting free research on what — we as a collective — consider to be the top 140 players for 2015. What could be better than that? Lets meet our Mock Drafters.
Shane “The Jinx” – Huge Redskins fan. Pretty much anything he roots for, the opposite will happen, thus the nickname. Luckily his fantasy teams do better than the real teams.
Harrison – He is Chicago through and through. It’s fun to give him sh*t every-time Cutler throws a pick or Derrick Rose goes down with an injury. We take bets as to which of those things will happen more from year to year.
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Brandon – Fantasy Analyst and writer for this very site. He does NFL, MLB, and NBA. All round fantasy guru. His team is the Chiefs.
Dennis – DFS extraordinaire and fantasy football guru. His NFL team of choice is the Cowboys.
Josh – Writer for GoingFor2, he is best known for his “Why I Hate” columns, but he also dabbles in fantasy football as well. Teams of choice are the Redskins and Bills.
Fawad – The guy in this group I’ve known the longest. I trust his fantasy football knowledge, and sports knowledge in general. Team of choice, another Redskins fan.
Geoff (me) – Founder/Writer for this very site. Three time champion of my 12 team “experts” league. Fantasy aficionado. My team is the 49ers.
Dan “Rooster” – Don’t ask where the nickname came from. Dan has won the Expert League once, and if not for one roster mistake, benching Randall Cobb, he would have had a perfect season that year. And yet another Redskins fan.
Anthony – Trusted fantasy expert. He is the Andy Dalton of the Expert League, has a great regular seasons, but falters in the playoffs, actually being the runner-up in two straight seasons. His fantasy team is good every year though. His real-life team? You guessed it. Redskins.
Can you tell what part of the country we live in yet? Washington D.C..
And finally…
Tucker – Had the best overall record last year in a league we were in together, too bad I beat him in the playoffs, the same way my 49ers beat his Panthers. At least he isn’t a Redskins fan.
Now, let’s get to the Mock.
1.1 Shane – Jamaal Charles
No surprise that I am going with Jamaal Charles as my No. 1 pick. I am not letting the fact that he had ankle, knee, and hamstring issues in 2014 impact my decision. At 28 years old, Charles has 1,511 NFL touches on his resume. With the Chiefs trading for LG Ben Grubbs and C Mitch Morse, it is a no-brainer that Charles is going to be the core of Andy Reid‘s system and put up some HUGE fantasy numbers. …But hey, what do I know, I’m just the jinx.
1.2 Harrison – Eddie Lacy
The card is in….Lacy is the pick. His availability to start the season in week 1 is a pro that you cannot pass up. He showed good hands from the backfield and there is no real no 2 RB to steal his carries in GB.
1.3 Brandon – Le’Veon Bell
With my first round selection I’m going with Le’Veon Bell. Even though he’s suspended for three games, the only RB I see outperforming him is Charles. And with the growth in the Steelers passing game you won’t be able to stack the box. Standard or PPR you can’t go wrong with a RB that should get around 1800 total yards. Just stay away from the weed Bell.
1.4 Dennis – LeSean “Shady” McCoy
For the first time in his head coaching career, the “king” of ground and pound finally has a bell cow RB in his prime. While the o-line is a concern, I expect Ryan and offensive coordinator Greg Roman to run McCoy into the ground, so the sheer volume should make up for any o-line concerns. Finally, with CJ Spiller signing with NO and Fred Jackson being 34, I don’t see too much competition for carries.
1.5 Josh – Adrian Peterson
Torn between two backs. So as the chaos theory goes I’m probably picking the wrong one, but I’m going with AP. Coming back after practically a year off he’s going to have a huge chip on his shoulder, and is going to want to tell everyone to shut the fuck up. Since he can’t verbally do that he’s going to do that with the football. Not to mention the Vikings have gotten marginally better on offense which should help him. So since I drafted AP he’s going to blow out his ACL again or get suspended, and Lynch will rush for 2000 yards and 32 TDs.
1.6 Fawad – Marshawn Lynch
My pick will be Marshawn Lynch due to this mock draft being standard scoring. He rushed for over 1,200 yards and 13 TDs, despite having the fewest carries he has had in the last 4 years.
1.7 Geoff – Rob Gronkowski
His 82 receptions last year would rank him as a top 20 wide receiver. His yardage total of 1124 would rank 15th among wide receivers, and he was tied for third in receiving tds…..but he plays TE. Rob Gronkowski is like having WR production at TE, and with the lack of depth at position, he is a no brainer for me at 7. There won’t be any late round stud TE’s found in the draft. There is no 2014 tight end version of Odell Beckham Jr, or 2013 Josh Gordon, or 2014 CJ Anderson that I can strike gold on. It doesn’t happen at the tight end position. I’ll take my chances passing on a RB and WR in round 1 in hopes I can find some viable ones in later rounds.
1.8 Dan – Antonio Brown
For my first round pick I am going to be selecting WR Antonio Brown for a few reasons. Let me start off by saying I hardly ever pick a position other than a RB in the first pick of a standard league – although I have drafted Megatron as a late 1st rounder and it paid off then. I’m hoping this one pays off as well. That being said, there is a gloomy cloud of doubt over many of the running backs left in the eighth spot this year and the worst thing you can do in your fantasy league is waste your 1st rounder on a player that has you guessing week to week if he is even worth a start. I’m throwing my bets down on Antonio Brown to be a must start every week and finish in the top 5 of the WR position.
Brown is coming off an incredible 2014 season with 1,698 yards (league leader) on 129 receptions and 13 TDs and posted 10+ fantasy points in 14 of his games. The Steelers have some additional talent at WR but Brown will continue to be the #1 target downfield and I don’t see much change in the black and yellow to slow their production down this season. If they see a slump during Bell’s suspension, I fully expect them to bounce back in a big way, similar to the second half of last season. It’s a no brainer to get Brown this year with the eighth pick. The 2nd round will still be full of RBs that won’t make you lose your mind over wasting a first round pick on.
1.9 Anthony – Dez Bryant
I’m selecting Dez Bryant with my pick. He set a career high with 16 touchdowns in 2104, and has had at least 12 touchdowns and 1,200 yards over the past 3 seasons. Upside: he’s in his prime at 26. Downside: he plays for the Dallas Cowboys!
1.10 Tucker – Arian Foster
For my first pick I will be selecting Arian foster. He is still the workhorse back for the Texans who are still lacking a true offensive threat, other than Foster himself — especially with Andre Johnson gone. DeAndre Hopkins is coming into his own but teams still have to game plan for Arian Foster and his abilities.
Recap
Not a lot of surprises here in the first round. There was a mild surprise with how high LeSean McCoy went, as his average draft position (ADP) for Yahoo! leagues is currently 10th overall, but he went fourth to Dennis.
Personally I’m with Dennis on this one, I have McCoy ranked at No. 5 overall, so drafting him at No. 4 isn’t a big reach if you are using my rankings.
Two wide receivers and a tight end went in the first round as well. I’m not normally a huge fan of drafting a tight end this early, but I’m hoping in the later rounds, when everyone else is drafting their tight ends, I’ll be able to pick up some high upside wide receivers and/or running backs.
At the end of each round, I’m going to pick one mock drafter that I think “won that round”. I’ll keep a “boxing” type score card, and after the last round, I’ll proclaim the mock draft winner. For this round, I’m going to go with the aforementioned Dennis and his pick of LeSean McCoy. I had really hoped he would have fallen to me at seven, but Dennis had other ideas.
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