Yesterday I did my first mock draft of the summer. Many of you probably embrace mock drafting, which is kind of like stretching before a morning run (or if you're like me, stretching before eating). Mock drafts are a great way to size up where opponents might be targeting certain players, and by extension, where we need to reach for certain players vs. remaining patient.
And of course, mock drafts aren't the real thing. Sometimes half the opponents walk away after the third or fourth round, and their auto-draft picks have little bearing on how your *real* draft will go. Other people experiment with different drafting styles. A few years ago I did a series on this page where I walked through a zero-RB mock draft strategy one day, then a zero-QB strategy the next, etc. Each day highlighted a different approach to securing a strong roster.
So there's only so much we can learn from a mock draft. But after five or 10 or 50, we start to get into a rhythm and, if we're taking notes, really hone in on real-draft best practices. For example, if I'm all in on Jalen Hurts (QB8 ADP) as a top-3 QB, after a dozen mock 12-team mock drafts, I'll have a pretty accurate sense of which round I'll need to take him, depending on whether I'm drafting early, in the middle, or toward the end of the first round.
I won't walk through yesterday's mock draft in much detail, except to highlight two things that might be useful. First, I picked at #1, which enabled me to take some RB tandems. Picking in the middle rounds, if I'd snagged Marlon Mack in the 11th, I might not get Dameon Pierce coming back in the 12th. But picking at the turn (my favorite place to pick, in case it's not obvious) gives us more flexibility than most of our opponents. I had time to grab a solid core, then reach a bit for Rashaad Penny and Kenneth Walker, then select Mack/Pierce much later.
I'm not drafting these guys to start. Two of my first three picks were Jonathan Taylor and Alvin Kamara. Ideally, backfield tandems are middle-/late-round cushions. If one of the other guys breaks through as a bell cow (most likely Penny currently), then we have a third weekly starter for the price of a middle rounder. If we were picking at the #6 spot, we're waiting at least 10 picks to see if we can get that tandem. I've gotten burned multiple times (too many) trying to score two parts of an RBBC in the middle/later rounds, with an opponent drafting the other half a few picks later.
Coming back to mock drafting, this is why it's important to practice at various starting points. Because if I did another mock draft from the #6 spot, I'd wind up with a very different team.
The other thing I wanted to mention: at the start of the fifth round I picked Patrick Mahomes. His overall ADP is 30. I got him at #49. All sounds great. And in fact, that went through my mind in the moments before I clicked his name.
But that's the wrong way to draft. And I use "wrong" loosely, though if you've been reading this page for a little while, you know I'm tough on myself when I don't follow the script. Although Mahomes was a small steal based on market value, based on my rankings, drafting him was a bad decision. I've got Herbert, Hurts, and Burrow ahead of him. Yes, I know: feel free to tell me I'm completely wrong. But here's the key: we need to stick to our game plan as much as possible, because we came up with our game plan when we were thinking rationally. Drafting is not a rational period of our lives. It can be at least somewhat stressful. We have very little control over what happens. Yet we *do* have the power to select our best-value player at each turn.
Mahomes was someone else's best-value player. I picked him instead of some very good receivers still on the board, because I preferred Mahomes over those receivers. However . . . Hurts and Burrow were still available at my next two picks. But the same-caliber non-QBs weren't. So I took a worse (according to my rankings) QB, and then was left with worse non-QB options 22 picks later. That's not an efficient way to pick a team.
This is why it's so important to enter a draft with the discipline to wait for the right moment to take your best-value positional players. Don't draft based on what the market says. Draft based on what you believe--as long as you're confident in what you believe, and why you believe it.
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And of course, mock drafts aren't the real thing. Sometimes half the opponents walk away after the third or fourth round, and their auto-draft picks have little bearing on how your *real* draft will go. Other people experiment with different drafting styles. A few years ago I did a series on this page where I walked through a zero-RB mock draft strategy one day, then a zero-QB strategy the next, etc. Each day highlighted a different approach to securing a strong roster.
So there's only so much we can learn from a mock draft. But after five or 10 or 50, we start to get into a rhythm and, if we're taking notes, really hone in on real-draft best practices. For example, if I'm all in on Jalen Hurts (QB8 ADP) as a top-3 QB, after a dozen mock 12-team mock drafts, I'll have a pretty accurate sense of which round I'll need to take him, depending on whether I'm drafting early, in the middle, or toward the end of the first round.
I won't walk through yesterday's mock draft in much detail, except to highlight two things that might be useful. First, I picked at #1, which enabled me to take some RB tandems. Picking in the middle rounds, if I'd snagged Marlon Mack in the 11th, I might not get Dameon Pierce coming back in the 12th. But picking at the turn (my favorite place to pick, in case it's not obvious) gives us more flexibility than most of our opponents. I had time to grab a solid core, then reach a bit for Rashaad Penny and Kenneth Walker, then select Mack/Pierce much later.
I'm not drafting these guys to start. Two of my first three picks were Jonathan Taylor and Alvin Kamara. Ideally, backfield tandems are middle-/late-round cushions. If one of the other guys breaks through as a bell cow (most likely Penny currently), then we have a third weekly starter for the price of a middle rounder. If we were picking at the #6 spot, we're waiting at least 10 picks to see if we can get that tandem. I've gotten burned multiple times (too many) trying to score two parts of an RBBC in the middle/later rounds, with an opponent drafting the other half a few picks later.
Coming back to mock drafting, this is why it's important to practice at various starting points. Because if I did another mock draft from the #6 spot, I'd wind up with a very different team.
The other thing I wanted to mention: at the start of the fifth round I picked Patrick Mahomes. His overall ADP is 30. I got him at #49. All sounds great. And in fact, that went through my mind in the moments before I clicked his name.
But that's the wrong way to draft. And I use "wrong" loosely, though if you've been reading this page for a little while, you know I'm tough on myself when I don't follow the script. Although Mahomes was a small steal based on market value, based on my rankings, drafting him was a bad decision. I've got Herbert, Hurts, and Burrow ahead of him. Yes, I know: feel free to tell me I'm completely wrong. But here's the key: we need to stick to our game plan as much as possible, because we came up with our game plan when we were thinking rationally. Drafting is not a rational period of our lives. It can be at least somewhat stressful. We have very little control over what happens. Yet we *do* have the power to select our best-value player at each turn.
Mahomes was someone else's best-value player. I picked him instead of some very good receivers still on the board, because I preferred Mahomes over those receivers. However . . . Hurts and Burrow were still available at my next two picks. But the same-caliber non-QBs weren't. So I took a worse (according to my rankings) QB, and then was left with worse non-QB options 22 picks later. That's not an efficient way to pick a team.
This is why it's so important to enter a draft with the discipline to wait for the right moment to take your best-value positional players. Don't draft based on what the market says. Draft based on what you believe--as long as you're confident in what you believe, and why you believe it.
---
Sign up for my 2022 Fantasy Draft Rankings ("PFN Pass") or 1:1 Advisory Services ("Touchdown Pass"):
https://pass.profootballnetwork.com/