TTR - Saturday Edition

Here are the criteria I kept in mind as I re-graded the draft:

- Value in each round.

- Avoid the bust/injury.

- Hitting on sleepers, high upside.

This isn’t about how well you see into the future, but rather about how you manage your draft. Every draft has variance, this hindsight analysis is about how you accounted for it. Look, it is certainly possible to draft all “sure things” and end up with a roster full of busts or to fill up your draft board with risky, high ceiling, low floor flyers and end up with dominant team. The high percentage reality is we probably all fall somewhere in between. Maybe this helps you shape your team for the second half, maybe this helps you at next year’s draft, maybe this just leaves you sleepless thinking about “what coulda been”, or maybe you just finish taking your shit and move on to Week 7. In any case, we’re 46.15% of the way through the regular season, and both the Championship and the Huevo loom large.

**By and large I’ll restrict my comments to drafted players as we’ll analyze pickups and trades next week.**

Rich: B-

The big challenge with having the #1 pick in the draft is the pressure of absolutely nailing that pick since you have to wait another 22 picks for your 2nd selection. Well, no problem for Rich, through 6 weeks Gurley is absolutely the best player in football. Unfortunately, that’s all there is to celebrate for the next several rounds as Rich has lost time with 3 of his top 5 picks to injury. Freeman, Hilton, and Ajayi all have injury history and stacking them up early has come back to sting Rich. While Vance McDonald has been sporadically, adequate, his results certainly don’t deliver value for an 8th Round pick. Rivers and Sanders were good to great values in the mid rounds. This is a C level draft, but I am giving a bump because Gurley is that good.

Jason: C-

Almost the exact opposite of Rich, Jason completely whiffed with his top pick and has suffered mightily. Even though he had the foresight to back up LeVeon with Conner it hasn’t been enough to keep his team afloat. You could make the case that Jason missed on 4 of his first 5 picks as Howard (8.8 ppg), Freeman (8.6 ppg), and Gordon (5.2 ppg) have all failed to provide value for where they were drafted. Even worse, only Gordon looks likely to improve anytime soon. Brees was a nice pick in the 6th Round outscoring, on a per game basis, players drafted significantly earlier, such as Rodgers, Watson, Brady, Cam, and Wilson.

Josh: C

I have been beating this drum since the draft, A A Ron in the 2nd drastically influenced Josh’s draft and not for the better. Consider this QB-A has scored 141 total points, 23.5 ppg while throwing for 1997 yards and 12 TDs with only 1 INT; QB-B has scored 135.1 total points, 22.5 ppg while throwing for 1921 yards and 12 TDs with 3 INTs with a rushing TD. QB-A is Aaron Rodgers drafted in Round 2 by Josh, QB-B is Kirk Cousins drafted in Round 10…also by Josh. On the plus side, the rest of Josh’s draft doesn’t feature any MAJOR busts (although cases can be made as DT is a disappointment for a player drafted as a WR1 and Dion Lewis also fails to meet the RB2 threshold), but also doesn’t feature any “boom” players either. Unfortunately 1st Round pick DJ has not met the high ceiling expectations while only barely meeting his high floor.

Jeff: B

The early rounds of my draft were a veritable mixed bag. In rounds 1 and 3, I scored by drafting the #2 RB and #1 WR on a points per game basis. However, in rounds 2 and 4, I drafted a RB that never saw the regular season and a WR that might as well have never seen the regular season (and also single-handedly cost me a win). Luckily in Round 5 I selected the #1 TE and the #11 RB in Round 6. And of course in Round 10…QB1…my homey…Mahomes. The jury remains out on late round flyers John Brown and Aaron Jones, but at least they are still on my roster (although truth be told JB took a week or so vacation on the wire).

Zak: B-

For Zak, the early rounds go from good, to OK, to bad, while the rest of his draft hovers in mediocrity. Zeke and CMC both find the top-12 for RBs which is exactly what you want from your top pics, however neither has found that truly elite form. Cooks and Jeffrey are not bad, but Cooks isn’t the best WR on his team, and Jeffrey, while scoring a nice 16 ppg since returning, missed the first 3 games of the season. Zak’s Russell Wilson pick has to be categorized as a bust, especially given that all but 3 (Rodgers, Brady, and Watson) of the top 15 QBs were drafted after Wilson or undrafted completely.

Eric: A-

This is as close to a perfect draft as we’ll see this year. Melvin is RB3 (by less than 0.5 points) and Davante is WR2, each certainly providing more than adequate value for rounds 1 & 2. And while Lamar Miller is a bust for a RB drafted in Round 3, Eric found HUGE replacements in Sony Michel in Round 6 and James White in Round 15. Jack Doyle was definitely a miss at TE in Round 7, however this is offset by OJ Howard in Round 14. Finally, getting Matt Ryan, QB2, in Round 11 was a stroke of genius. No one found more value in the late rounds than Eric.

Blas: C+

Only Jason had a worse opening to the draft than Blas. Fournette has only played in 2 games and scored a total of 11 points, and Gronk is only TE6 behind the likes of Eric Ebron, Jared Cook, and George Kittle, hardly the value for a 2nd round pick. Hill, Luck, Kupp, and Big Ben provide nice value in the mid-rounds, but those are countered by total misses in Rounds 6 and 7 where Blas selected Ronald Jones II and Chris Hogan. Fortunately for Blas, the schedule has helped him get off to a quick start, canceling out an average draft.

Matt: D-

Here are the busts in Matt’s draft: Dalvin Cook (Rd. 2), Derrick Henry (Rd. 3), Delanie Walker (Rd. 6), Jimmy G (Rd. 7), Robby Anderson (Rd. 8), Josh Doctson (Rd. 9). For those keeping score at home that’s 6 of the first 9 rounds resulting in a bust. AB is WR5 and far from a bust, hut he has only delivered one truly dominant week. Baldwin and Ingram are just now rounding into form after coming back from injury and suspension, so while not technically busts, Matt really couldn’t afford to chalk up 7 missed games between his 4th and 5th picks. The Kommish is 2-4 (and just 0.8 from 1-5) a true reflection of a horrendous draft.

Manny: C

Saquon Barkley may end the season as high as RB2, so Manny is good with his 1st rounder. Additionally the Rams duo of Woods (WR6) and Goff (QB7) provide nice value in rounds 5 and 7. The problem with Manny’s draft lies in the rest of the top half, where Keenan (WR 25), Shady, (RB45), Amari (WR55), and Burkhead (IR) are all busts. These four tie Blas for the most busts in the first 6 rounds. Manny needs Dalvin’s hammy woes to continue in order for Latavius Murray’s value to increase.

Travan: D+

Having 3 of your top 6 picks ranked in the top 12 at their position is a great feat for any draft…except, when those three players all play at the same position. The negative is amplified when your other 3 top 6 picks are busts. Travan is good at picking WRs, but not so much with RBs. None of their RB picks were able to make up for going WR/WR with the first two, and 5th Round pick Greg Olson just played his first meaningful game. This draft was filled with gambles from the beginning (is that surprise with Evan at half the helm), and unfortunately the majority (Johnson (who has some potential moving forward), Garcon, Stafford, Chubb, Foreman) of the picks came up as bust or underwhelming at best. Only DHop, AJ, JuJu, Ridley and Kittle crack the upper ranks at their respective positions.

Angel: D

Hunt, OBJ, Watson, and Graham are all top-15 at their position, however none of them are close to cracking the top-5. Angel got average value out of the top end of his draft, except for the truly atrocious Penny in the 4th pick. However, it is the shit storm of picks that followed that are sinking the season for Angel thus far. Funchess, Prescott, Nelson, Benjamin, Anderson, and Moncrief are all complete busts. Only Edelman, who was suspended for the first 4 weeks, has any life in him. That makes 6 of 7 rounds in the middle of the draft that were bombs. Angel needs his top players to move toward their elite potential because after Graham in Round 5, it isn’t pretty.

Wes: C+

This is the draft I love to hate, but results are results, and Wes actually hits most of the targets for a successful zero RB draft. Nail the WR picks in Round 1 and Round 2…check (Julio and Thomas are both in the top-12). Get top players at other non-RB position early in the draft…check (Brady is QB12 and Kelce is TE3). Find value at RB in the mid to late rounds…check (Hyde in Round 10 and Breida in Round 13 are both in the top-15). However, Gostokowski (K5 in the 6th round) and the Jax D/ST (D/ST21 in the 7th round) are really bad values. And with a risky draft strategy, even one as intriguing as the “No Research Method”, these types of costly mistakes can really hurt a roster.