Worst takes:
1. Mentioned this upthread but it starts with Ridley. By the time the season had rolled around I had him as WR11 and felt cocksure about it.
2. Cole Kmet and DJ Moore. I don't believe in Justin Fields ability as a passer so had no interest in either of these but Moore was producing at a high level with him and Kmet with and without him in TE premium leagues. Not consistent, but overall strong and if Fields had not gone down I think I'd have looked more off.
3. Mostert. I don't like old RB's, he had never really done a lot and Miami seemed to constantly be on the hunt for another RB and I had no interest in this guy who heading into this week might be best pick of the year.
4. I said Bigsbly would be as problematic for ETN as Charbs would be to Walker. This actually looked like a solid call the first few weeks of the season but is now way off. This did not lead me to drafting much of Bigsb, but it did led me to pretty much not touching ETN at his price.
5. I wanted to refrain from injuries as that's not the spirit of this IMO but I saved this one for last as it was the biggest negative to my fantasy season. We had that tier of WR's who were usually late mid first to very early second round picks which usually included ASB, AJB, Diggs, Lamb and Wilson. I had Mr. Wilson atop that list and again this was super impactful to me as high majority of my drafts I drew picks in the later part of round one. Now if Rodgers does not go down maybe I stood a chance, but Garrett would have needed to increase his production 50% to really be in the mix with the others. Maybe he would have and this is just injury related but again hard for me to do this and not list what has been my biggest negative impact to my teams on the year.
Best takes:
1. The league had shifted smaller on the defensive side and there was not as much reason to be down on smaller players or to be a slave to stats like "no player this small had done this since X" type of mindset. Achane, Tank, Downs, Keaton Mitchell just to name a few.(***Just to note if you still are not a fan of the small WR's this draft class was made for you!****)
2. I'll tie two things together. Being more confident in ACL recovery timelines and along with that investing in players that due to returning from an injury or suspension did not project as much use early in the season. Kamara, Kupp, Taylor, Breece and Javonte headline this group which might soon if not already include Kyler. Varying degrees of success here with Kupp maybe the only one everyone would consider the miss? But this all relative to where they dipped so when I mention Kupp I'm talking more of a third-fourth round buy,Taylor 6-7th, Breece 4th-5th, Javonte and Kamara 6-7th. The two RB's coming off ACL I had little expectations for early in the season so I'm not really focusin on YTD PPG which is why I put them in this group asI thought both of them would struggle the first few weeks and I trying to bench them both if I could. I just think the discounts on this group was a nice win on the whole so far, Kupp again being the major one I'd say was not, but if you got any of them at their low prices and are still in the mix I bet you are glad you did on all of them.
3. Jamhyr Gibbs now and forever. I said at one point I was not sure he was ever going to be a top 3 RB at any point in his career but I thought due to his age and that he'd not be overused that if his health held up he could give you 6+ RB1 seasons-which is more of a dynasty take. I might have lowballed him a little tbh. but my belief in him was strong. Now it did waver a little after the first few weeks but I'm keeping this as my pre-season thoughts.
4. Najee Harris. I did a few FFPC Main Event drafts with a friend of mine who allows/makes me decide on every pick. He usually has a few players he likes and I'll try and get some of them on a team or two, at minimum use it to decide close calls and maybe a way for me to work a player or two on my team I'd not normally draft. We've been doing some drafts together for over 20 years and I can't recall being as adamant about not drafting someone relative to where he was going(which was third/super early 4th at the time) as I was about not drafting Najee and I can't recall him fighting harder for me to draft someone. We did 3 drafts, drew mid to late picks in each one and in each of those I had to firmly hold despite some uncharacteristically strong pushback from my friend. Typically when he's that passionate about a player I'd work him in one of those 3 leagues but this was not a case where I wanted to cover my bases or work someone in, was not having it.
5. A bit low hanging fruit since a lot of QB's are super close but I did have Jalen Hurts as QB1 and he's the only QB in non Best Ball leagues I used a top three round pick o draft and took him as high as top of round 3.
