Two down, one to go. A few days after CeeDee Lamb rejoined the fold as a newly minted mega millionaire, it was Brandon Aiyuk's turn. Yesterday morning it appeared talks were at a standstill. It was later reported that San Francisco had been trying to acquire Courtland Sutton. If successful, they would have flipped Aiyuk to Pittsburgh. Instead, the defending NFC champs turned to Plan B (or C or Z) and paid their co-#1 receiver.
Of the three big-name WR holdouts, now only Ja'Marr Chase remains.
The falling dominos followed a pretty logical progression. As arguably the NFL's #1 or #2 receiver, and with a pretty steep drop-off at the Cowboys' #2 WR spot (compared to Cincy and San Fran), CeeDee got a deal done first. The Cowboys are one of the 49ers' biggest rivals for this season's NFC crown. They'll face off in Week 7. Signing CeeDee was a necessity, and (I believe) it marked yet another compelling reason for San Francisco to keep their offensive core together.
Because the 49ers are in the worst salary cap shape among these teams beginning next year, and league-wide they're actually in the third-worst shape. It's win-now mode for a squad that might have to jettison talent after this season. Like I wrote a few weeks ago, draft picks alone don't help win-now clubs. The Niners were boxed in. Aiyuk surely understood this. And once CeeDee signed, in hindsight, Aiyuk's payday was close to inevitable.
Now let's see what the Bengals. I still believe they'll meet Chase more than halfway. Bur the dynamics are a little different for a franchise whose first four opponents are the Patriots, Chiefs, Commanders, and Panthers. Without Chase, those are arguably three winnable games. As a result, he's gone from a slight bargain to a slight fade on my draft board. CeeDee is #1 as always. Aiyuk is holding steady as a solid bargain at his WR17 ADP. And Brock Purdy gets a small bump, and probably deserves a bigger one. But since I'm not confident about CMC's durability, Purdy's realistic ceiling takes a hit.
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Tonight kicks off the final weekend of fantasy drafting (at least among the fantasy purists). My two cents is to spend a few minutes (or hopefully longer, though not everyone has time) identifying which players you want to target in each of the first few rounds. Forget about ADP, mostly.
Heading into last year's 14-team Premier Fantasy Football League draft, I knew which 20-30 bargains I wanted to target, ranging from early rounders to late rounders and many in between. An hour before the draft, I learned where I was picking. (I think it was 9th.) CeeDee's overall ADP was 12. He was #4 in my rankings. So that was an obvious first-round pick. When it got to me, I didn't have to think about it.
My first six picks were CeeDee, DeVonta Smith, Justin Herbert, T.J. Hockenson, Isiah Pacheco, and D'Andre Swift. They were among the roughly 15 guys I was actively targeting in those opening rounds. After getting, I remember thinking that -- barring injuries -- I had a near-elite QB, two top-12 RBs, an elite WR, a top 12 WR, and an elite TE. Didn't entirely turn out that way, though it was fairly close. They key is that I got players I wanted, rather than players I felt obligated to get.
That's my goal in every draft. Come overly prepared and stay laser-focused on your targets, ideally snagging them in the same round as their ADP or slightly earlier, depending on the draft's flow.
If you think my rankings will help, sign up below and I'll send them to you roughly within an hour.
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