When you've developed rankings you feel pretty good about, the next step is conducting mock drafts. A lot of mock drafts. 30, 40, 50 mock drafts. You can't do enough of 'em.
Mock drafts are rehearsals before a major performance. Drafting can be stressful. It's easy to get lost in the moment and overreach for a guy you later regret drafting, or forgetting about a guy you'd been heavily targeting. Your rankings should guide you through each mock draft, ensuring that you get the most value on each pick, while also keeping track of which positions need to be filled and which ones you can afford slack off on.
Below is 12-team mock draft I did yesterday, in which I used my rankings as a guide on each pick. I went into it wanting to go 16-for-16--getting steals on all 16 picks. Didn't work out that way; never does. But I think it's useful to briefly walk through what happened.
I chose to pick eighth overall. My goal was to get two of the following three guys with my first two picks: C.J. Anderson, Andrew Luck, and Jeremy Hill. Goal achieved.
By round 3, with Luck and Aaron Rodgers gone and all of the elite and near-near-elite RBs and WRs off the board (not to mention Rob Gronkowski), I focused on WRs--what I believe is the deepest position by far, but where it made sense to find value. Jordan Matthews is of my tepid targets: I'd be happy with him, but I don't want to reach for him. Maybe I did in this case. On the way back down, the guy right before me took Brandin Cooks. I had a choice between Latavius Murray, Joseph Randle, and Andre Johnson. If this were a real draft, I might have gone with Murray. But in the moment, without a strong feeling about either guy as a fourth rounder, I went with Johnson, who should produce 1,000 and 6+. A safe, unglamorous pick at this stage of the draft.
Ben Roethlisberger fell in my lap in the fifth round, largely because one of my long-time big targets, Martavis Bryant, was grabbed three spots earlier. Coming back down in the sixth, I'm staring at Ameer Abdullah, Victor Cruz, Jarvis Landry, and some other guys who could be fantastic or who could be busts at that price. So I went big and picked the Seahawks DST. In a real draft, I might have waited another round. But as I've written often on this site, when elite defenses are scoring on par with the 20th to 30th best flex players, using a sixth or seventh rounder on one is a fantastic value pick.
And what did I lose by landing the Seahawks? Not much. My next two picks were Arian Foster and Charles Johnson. One could be an RB1 in the second half of the season, and the other is a WR3/4 with WR2 potential.
The fact is, there's a ton of underrated guys remaining in the middle rounds of any draft. Doesn't matter who you're competing against. It's why I'm increasingly regretting taking Andre Johnson in the fourth round. Will he really be that much better than Charles Johnson? Now that I think about it, I should have taken an RB with my fourth pick to ensure I'm protected if Anderson or Hill get hurt. Lesson learned.
Rounds 9-12 were all about cashing out on prime pre-draft undervalued targets: Tre Mason, Pierre Garcon, Terrance Williams, and Knile Davis. I don't think Davis will fall past the ninth round in most drafts, so getting him in the 12th was an unexpected fluke.
With Shaun Suisham gone for the year, I'm on the lookout for a high-upside, underrated kicker. Since my research on that front hasn't yet started, I played it safe and grabbed Stephen Gostkowski in the 13th. Why not? Get one of the best at a position and move on.
The 14th was interesting: I had a choice between TEs Austin Seferian-Jenkins and Vernon Davis. In addition to Tyler Eifert, they're the three TEs I'm targeting at the ends of drafts. Eifert went in the 12th. So I took Seferian-Jenkins thinking Davis would come back to me in the 15th. But Davis was taken next. So I've got a boom-bust TE. Lesson learned: I need to get two of those three targets in a draft to increase the odds that one of them will pan out.
My draft ended with Andy Dalton--one of my three prime undervalued QB targets, and a useful backup when Big Ben's on a bye or if he gets nicked up--and Eddie Royal. Royal was a steal, hands down. In a real draft, I'd be so lucky to get a WR4/5 with consistent WR3 upside with my last pick.
So a few takeaways:
(1) I shouldn't have reached for Andre Johnson in the fourth round. Instead, adding a potential top 20 RB would have made more sense.
(2) I want two TEs toward the end of my draft, which will give me a trading option if both pan out, and which won't hurt my team at all even if only one pans out.
(3) There are about 10 extremely undervalued WRs available in later rounds. If after seven rounds I've landed a top 3 QB, four top 20 RBs (including at least one elite guy), a top 15 WR, and the #1 DST, I can then load up on 5-6 top 40 WRs with significant upside and be in good shape.
QB1 Ben Roethlisberger (PIT)
QB2 Andy Dalton (CIN)
RB1 C.J. Anderson (DEN)
RB2 Jeremy Hill (CIN)
RB3 Arian Foster (HOU)
RB4 Tre Mason (STL)
RB5 Knile Davis (KC)
WR1 Jordan Matthews (PHI)
WR2 Andre Johnson (IND)
WR3 Charles Johnson (MIN)
WR4 Pierre Garcon (WAS)
WR5 Terrance Williams (DAL)
WR6 Eddie Royal (CHI)
TE Austin Seferian-Jenkins (TB)
K Stephen Gostkowski (NE)
DST Seattle Seahawks
Mock drafts are rehearsals before a major performance. Drafting can be stressful. It's easy to get lost in the moment and overreach for a guy you later regret drafting, or forgetting about a guy you'd been heavily targeting. Your rankings should guide you through each mock draft, ensuring that you get the most value on each pick, while also keeping track of which positions need to be filled and which ones you can afford slack off on.
Below is 12-team mock draft I did yesterday, in which I used my rankings as a guide on each pick. I went into it wanting to go 16-for-16--getting steals on all 16 picks. Didn't work out that way; never does. But I think it's useful to briefly walk through what happened.
I chose to pick eighth overall. My goal was to get two of the following three guys with my first two picks: C.J. Anderson, Andrew Luck, and Jeremy Hill. Goal achieved.
By round 3, with Luck and Aaron Rodgers gone and all of the elite and near-near-elite RBs and WRs off the board (not to mention Rob Gronkowski), I focused on WRs--what I believe is the deepest position by far, but where it made sense to find value. Jordan Matthews is of my tepid targets: I'd be happy with him, but I don't want to reach for him. Maybe I did in this case. On the way back down, the guy right before me took Brandin Cooks. I had a choice between Latavius Murray, Joseph Randle, and Andre Johnson. If this were a real draft, I might have gone with Murray. But in the moment, without a strong feeling about either guy as a fourth rounder, I went with Johnson, who should produce 1,000 and 6+. A safe, unglamorous pick at this stage of the draft.
Ben Roethlisberger fell in my lap in the fifth round, largely because one of my long-time big targets, Martavis Bryant, was grabbed three spots earlier. Coming back down in the sixth, I'm staring at Ameer Abdullah, Victor Cruz, Jarvis Landry, and some other guys who could be fantastic or who could be busts at that price. So I went big and picked the Seahawks DST. In a real draft, I might have waited another round. But as I've written often on this site, when elite defenses are scoring on par with the 20th to 30th best flex players, using a sixth or seventh rounder on one is a fantastic value pick.
And what did I lose by landing the Seahawks? Not much. My next two picks were Arian Foster and Charles Johnson. One could be an RB1 in the second half of the season, and the other is a WR3/4 with WR2 potential.
The fact is, there's a ton of underrated guys remaining in the middle rounds of any draft. Doesn't matter who you're competing against. It's why I'm increasingly regretting taking Andre Johnson in the fourth round. Will he really be that much better than Charles Johnson? Now that I think about it, I should have taken an RB with my fourth pick to ensure I'm protected if Anderson or Hill get hurt. Lesson learned.
Rounds 9-12 were all about cashing out on prime pre-draft undervalued targets: Tre Mason, Pierre Garcon, Terrance Williams, and Knile Davis. I don't think Davis will fall past the ninth round in most drafts, so getting him in the 12th was an unexpected fluke.
With Shaun Suisham gone for the year, I'm on the lookout for a high-upside, underrated kicker. Since my research on that front hasn't yet started, I played it safe and grabbed Stephen Gostkowski in the 13th. Why not? Get one of the best at a position and move on.
The 14th was interesting: I had a choice between TEs Austin Seferian-Jenkins and Vernon Davis. In addition to Tyler Eifert, they're the three TEs I'm targeting at the ends of drafts. Eifert went in the 12th. So I took Seferian-Jenkins thinking Davis would come back to me in the 15th. But Davis was taken next. So I've got a boom-bust TE. Lesson learned: I need to get two of those three targets in a draft to increase the odds that one of them will pan out.
My draft ended with Andy Dalton--one of my three prime undervalued QB targets, and a useful backup when Big Ben's on a bye or if he gets nicked up--and Eddie Royal. Royal was a steal, hands down. In a real draft, I'd be so lucky to get a WR4/5 with consistent WR3 upside with my last pick.
So a few takeaways:
(1) I shouldn't have reached for Andre Johnson in the fourth round. Instead, adding a potential top 20 RB would have made more sense.
(2) I want two TEs toward the end of my draft, which will give me a trading option if both pan out, and which won't hurt my team at all even if only one pans out.
(3) There are about 10 extremely undervalued WRs available in later rounds. If after seven rounds I've landed a top 3 QB, four top 20 RBs (including at least one elite guy), a top 15 WR, and the #1 DST, I can then load up on 5-6 top 40 WRs with significant upside and be in good shape.
QB1 Ben Roethlisberger (PIT)
QB2 Andy Dalton (CIN)
RB1 C.J. Anderson (DEN)
RB2 Jeremy Hill (CIN)
RB3 Arian Foster (HOU)
RB4 Tre Mason (STL)
RB5 Knile Davis (KC)
WR1 Jordan Matthews (PHI)
WR2 Andre Johnson (IND)
WR3 Charles Johnson (MIN)
WR4 Pierre Garcon (WAS)
WR5 Terrance Williams (DAL)
WR6 Eddie Royal (CHI)
TE Austin Seferian-Jenkins (TB)
K Stephen Gostkowski (NE)
DST Seattle Seahawks