6.08 Philip Rivers, QB SD - QB15 [10]
9.09 Jake Locker, QB TEN - QB25 [9]
4.08 Ray Rice, RB BAL - RB21 [11]
5.09 Bishop Sankey, RB TEN - RB27 [9]
10.08 Khiry Robinson, RB NO - RB43 [6]
13.09 Donald Brown, RB SD - RB55 [10]
15.09 Christine Michael, RB SEA - RB61 [4]
1.09 Dez Bryant, WR DAL - WR3 [11]
3.09 Percy Harvin, WR SEA - WR14 [4]
7.09 Golden Tate, WR DET - WR40 [9]
11.09 Aaron Dobson, WR NE - WR63 [10]
12.08 Denarius Moore, WR OAK - WR69 [5]
17.09 Chris Givens, WR STL - WR89 [4]
2.08 Julius Thomas, TE DEN - TE3 [4]
8.08 Antonio Gates, TE SD - TE18 [10]
14.08 Steven Hauschka, K SEA - K3 [4]
16.08 Giants, D/ST NYG - D19 [8]
18.08 Colts, D/ST IND - D29 [10]
Going to try a round-by-round commentary here instead of my usual position-by-position:
1.09 - Was planning to take Peyton if he made it here, but once he went at 1.07 I decided to punt QB and was set on Dez as a fallback plan. Think he has a better chance of finishing the season WR1 than anyone else not named Calvin.
2.08 - Didn’t see anything resembling good value left among RBs (apologies to Valence and Comet, but Stacy and Ball are not 2nd-round values IMO. They’re just not), and with the top 3 QB gone it was down to a choice between Alshon and Orange Julius. I didn’t want to have to wait at both the start-1 positions, so I pulled the trigger on Thomas here, figuring Decker’s red-zone targets have to go somewhere and OJT is likely to be the primary beneficiary.
3.09 - Really agonized between Ellington and Harvin at this spot, and would have been happy with either - but ultimately I think, unlike Ellington, a healthy Harvin is a near-lock for 1st-round production, and didn’t want to be kicking myself all season for missing out on that upside. A little of the pressure is off this year in Seattle on the heels of their title, and I really think that as a result we might see Carroll open up that offense a bit, with Harvin placed in all sorts of formations and capacities. Also, I’ve never punted RB for my first 3 picks in these survivor leagues, and honestly I kind of wanted to see how it would play out.
4.08 - Figured I had to get myself something resembling an RB1 eventually. 4th round seems like fair value for Rice even if he misses a couple of games; he'll still get the lion's share of the backfield work in Baltimore and should be consistent if unspectacular. My concern here was virtually locking myself into taking another RB coming back in round 5 given the high likelihood of a Rice suspension, but I saw quite a bit of value still on the board behind Rice and figured it was a risk worth taking.
5.09 - File under “NFL management isn’t stupid, Part 1” - while I didn’t watch much of Sankey in college, you don’t take a guy like him in the hgh 2nd as the first RB off the board if you don’t see talent you can put to good use. Higher ceiling than Bell or Gerhart with a higher week-to-week floor than the WRs available at this spot (Floyd, Wright, Wallace). Would have grabbed Brady or RG3 if they’d been here, but after they went ahead of me in the 5th there were only two guys without QBs left behind me, so I knew I’d get one of Kaep / Big Ben / Rivers on the way back.
6.08 - Love the way this draft broke for me in a few spots, including here. The gap between Rivers and anyone else outside the top 6 QBs is slim-to-none in my mind, so I was happy to stock up on talent elsewhere and let a true mid-tier QB1 fall to me at QB15. Rivers’ primary advantage over Cutler (the other guy left there I’d put in that tier) comes from his not missing a game since 2005, which carries significant value here, with just 18 roster spots to go around.
7.09 - Rivers is a solid enough QB that I didn’t feel the need to back him up immediately - plus drafting from the middle doesn’t make you as fearful of missing a crippling run at something like QB2. Going WR here rounded out my starting lineup, which in turn would allow me to go straight BPA from this point on. Tate ought to feast in the shadow of Megatron, who obviously limits his ceiling but Tate can still score points in bunches. He’s put up WR2 numbers in the pedestrian Seattle pass offense ... he should be able to do the same in the prolific Detroit one.
8.08 - Gates was far and away my BPA left here, so despite having a top-end TE1 I gritted my teeth and grabbed him … as I said upthread, there’s a fine line between principled and stupid, and we’ll see which this winds up being. We've seen the FBG community shovel dirt on old vets' graves many times before when there's a shiny new toy out there, only to have the old guy keep truckin' and prove us all wrong; I expect this to be demonstrated yet again in this case. My TE combo should stand toe-to-toe with Graham and put a lot of distance between me and the pack.
9.09 - Rivers' durability gave me latitude to gamble on a "high-upside QB2 who can't stay healthy" type ... Jake Locker, come on down! He's in a contract year with young up-and-coming WRs, and faces a schedule full of porous pass defenses. Yes, he's inconsistent, but that may work to my advantage in this format. Rivers' late bye week is a concern given Locker's injury history, but sometimes you just gotta roll the dice.
10.08 - Now that I was set at QB and TE, I planned to spend the next few rounds bolstering my RB and WR depth. Robinson in the 10th added high upside to my RBs, which I felt I needed more than safety at this point. Robinson could be #1 on the Saints' depth chart by the time camp breaks (though I don't think it's likely), and in any case he'll be in line for heavier use out of the backfield with Sproles gone.
11.09 - A straight BPA play in this round. I’m not sold on Dobson's talent, to be honest, but if they're going to improve their passing attack the Patriots almost have to get him more involved this season. I've seen (and owned) enough of LaFell to not be worried about him as any real barrier to a possible Dobson breakout. Woods was another option here, but in the end I'd rather wager on a Brady return to form than on a Manuel breakout.
12.08 - My choice here was between T. West and D. Moore as I don’t like going D/ST early, and went with Moore as I thought there was a chance West might make it back to me in the 13th. Moore has plenty of talent and may get traded before the season starts, which would be a shot in the arm for his fantasy value. I still think Streater emerges as at least the co-#1 guy in this offense, but Moore may be more valuable at this stage and in this particular format due to his big-game capabilities.
13.09 - Considered a D/ST here, but the top 11 were already off the board, and is there really much of a difference between the #12 and #20 units? So this pick of Donald Brown became “NFL management isn’t stupid, Part 2” - the backfield may be crowded in San Diego, but no GM gives a RB a 3-year, $10M+ contract in the first week of FA if he doesn’t intend to make use of him as best he can.
14.08 - With only 18 roster slots some compromises have to be made, and I decided I'd rather build RB/WR depth than worry about a backup kicker ... kicker scoring is more consistent than any other position, and they rarely get hurt (the top 16 guys missed a combined 13 games last year). That meant getting a good one early. Hauschka is relatively young, will get lots of FG opportunities in a hard-nosed defensive division, plus his Week 4 bye was key to me flying solo and gave him the nod over Tucker.
15.09 - Given that Michael is such a Shark Pool darling, I was shocked he was still around for me in the 15th, so even though I had planned on making my 5th RB a deep flier in the last round I had to grab him here. In this format I really don't care about consistency from my #5/#6 guys and would rather have home-run hitters like Michael who can score for me multiple weeks. My 5 RBs were all in the top 50 RBs by ADP in the PDSLs, so either they were way overdrafted there or I picked up some good value here.
16.08 - My three remaining picks clearly needed to be a 6th WR and two D/STs (whose week-to-week scoring is much less consistent than kickers, making a backup important). Didn’t see any compelling receiver values, so jumped on the best D/ST available. The Giants should be an improved squad overall in 2014, leading to more opportunities to play from ahead, plus they get a weaker schedule including some bottom-dwelling AFC South offenses.
17.09 - As I noted above, I'm looking for upside out of my end-of-draft guys, not someone who’s just going to put up a 3/40/0 stat line every week. And I’m not a big believer in the “third-year WR breakout”, but if it’s going to happen to anyone this season, Givens is a good candidate. He’s put up decent reception and yardage stats his first 2 years in a crowded WR field - with anything like a full year of Bradford, someone in that field is going to put up a career year, and Givens is just as likely as any of them.
18.08 - Thrilled that the Colts’ D/ST made it back to my final pick, as I had them head and shoulders above the other three units left on the board (as well as a handful that went ahead of them). They play an aggressive style that should produce sacks and turnovers even if they’ll never be among the league leaders in yards or points allowed. Playing on the fast turf of the dome should increase opportunities for special teams TDs as well.
Overall: Feel like I set myself up with a solid core early on, then got some luck on my side the rest of the way as value kept falling to me at positions where I needed to go anyway. Loved being in the 9-spot (in each of my four previous survivors I was at or near the ends) and thought it added a lot of flexibility to my draft strategy. Looking through all the SSLs, of all the teams mine seems to bear the strongest similarity to Ref's ... which makes me feel pretty good about the upcoming season.
