Last Place Wisdom: Draft Preview 2014

I have to be honest, the annual Fantasy Football draft is my favourite part of the entire season. It’s just about the only time you get (almost) everybody in one room at the same time talking football, along with the requisite jokes and trash talk (Aaron’s War Room, Shayne’s Giant Laptop, etc). It’s the culmination of at least 2 solid months of thinking about my strategy, what my team should look like, and what players I think are going to have big seasons. Best of all, after the draft, you shouldn’t help but be excited. Your team is still full of an immense amount of untapped potential, and you haven’t experienced any crushing defeats, season (or career) ending injuries, and it’s still possible to talk yourself into the fact that someone like Dwayne Bowe or Steven Jackson are still fantasy relevant before reality kicks in.

I wanted to do some kind of draft preview, but after thinking about it, I decided I really wasn’t sure the best way to go about it. To be honest, because of the change to starting 2 QBs each week, and the large number of players that are already being kept, I find it really tough to predict how the draft will play out at all. So rather than try and make predictions, I thought I would bring up what I see as some on the biggest question marks instead.

1.  When will the run on Quarterbacks begin? – 20 QBs will start each week, and 30 will be rostered. This is a huge difference from the 15 or 16 that typically get drafted. At some point, I think teams will want to get their QB position locked up for the year, and when that happens, I could see 7 or 8 QBs going one after the other. If I had to guess, I would say rounds 3 and 4 see a massive run on QBs, and those teams that aren’t keeping a QB (Andrew, Dawson, John) should be somewhat nervous about their options.
2.   Does anyone take a rookie QB? – There are 3 rookie QBs this year that have a ton of upside; Manziel, Bridgewater and Bortles (yes, even Jacksonville has someone to be somewhat excited about). The problem is, none of these 3 QBs will be starting the season for their teams. This lowers their value for this year, and makes them risky backups to take. However, if they were to be drafted late, only to go on to have a Cam Newton, RG3 or Andrew Luck type rookie season, they would be incredible keepers in the 10^th round. They’re some of the biggest high-risk, high-reward selections in the draft. It might be safer to wait and get them on the waiver wire, but a 6th round keeper can't compare to the 10th.
3. Will there be any trades? – For those not aware, I’ve made a trade with John to get the 1^st overall draft pick. With teams missing draft picks in certain rounds due to their keepers, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a trade or two where someone moved up a couple of rounds to take a player they really wanted.

Biggest Team Needs

While I won’t predict how the draft plays out with regards to specific players (I don’t want to influence teams to take guys I might be targeting), I do see each team having a specific need to target based on their keepers.

Keith – My keepers are pretty balanced, and form what I think to be a solid core with great value (John called them the Cate Blanchett of fantasy keepers, except for Lacy who is the Mila Kunis of RBs, whatever that all means) . I don’t think there is any glaring need, other than to keep filling out my roster with what I think to be the best players available.

Andrew – Quarterback, quarterback, quarterback. He’s one of 3 teams without a QB, and he’s the last one to get a draft pick. He could see his options limited when it comes time for him to finally begin drafting in the 4^th or 5^th round.

Steve – Again, his keepers are very balanced. He does have some injury risk to all of his keepers, so his key will be about finding depth and handcuffs to support a solid core. Other than Charles, he has all his draft picks till round 8, 9 and 10, so he’s in solid shape.

Stan – With Manning, Peterson and Ball, and a decent TE, his key need is a star WR. He should have plenty of options available to him in the 2^nd and 3^rd rounds, where there are lots of good but not great WR to be had.

Shayne – Shayne will need to find value, since he’s the last team to get a draft pick. His 4 keepers can all be stars, the key to his success this year will be who he can find at RB and QB in rounds 5 – 7. Nail those picks, and he’s golden. Miss on them, and he is a top heavy team lacking in depth.

Aaron – With only 3 keepers, he has more draft picks than anyone else. In my mind, he is going to need it, since he’s the only team missing both a #1 RB and #1 WR, both of which he will need to find to have a shot this year. Brees will be great, but he really needs to nail his first couple of picks to have any sort of shot.

Dawson – Perhaps more than anyone else, Dawson needs to nail his 1^st round selection. He doesn’t pick again until round 4, and could really use help at QB and RB. Fortunately for him, Green and Bryant will give him an advantage over every other team in the league at WR, so he doesn’t need to worry about that position till much later.

Curtis – The only team with his first 5 picks. Curtis’ team has upside, but no established stars. He needs to take the chance on players who have the potential to be top 5 players at their position, and hope that a couple of them have big years. If he does that, and one or two of his keepers break-out, he could compete this year.

Mike – As the only team to keep 2 QBs, it might be surprising for me to say a key for Mike will be to draft another QB, but hear me out. Both of his guys could be top 5 players at the position, but both come with big injury risks. If I’m Mike, I take a steady backup earlier than normal to protect his investment.

John – John has been thinking about the draft for longer than anyone (Week 6 of last season, according to him), so he should be prepared. John is in a similar spot to Dawson, in that he needs to nail his early picks to fill big holes at QB and RB. If he can do this, he’ll be ok, otherwise in a month’s time he might be thinking about next year’s draft.

In case any of you are curious, I’m not sure who I’m taking with the #1 overall pick. I’ve narrowed it down to 2 players (one obvious, one a little out of the box) and will probably debate them right up till draft time. I’ve been going through the draft in my head for probably the last month, and my excitement will grow right up to draft time. I’ll see everyone on Monday, and should have a draft recap up shortly afterwards.