If Patrick Mahomes is available in the third round, do you take him? What if you knew that other top quarterbacks like Dak Prescott, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Russell Wilson and Justin Herbert would be around three rounds later? I ran into that scenario in an ongoing draft.
This is the Fanex League.. It includes three wide receivers, a flex and PPR scoring. So it’s nice to get good pass catchers in this league, and running backs fly off the board early (hence Mahomes and Josh Allen still being around at the end of the third round).
My stat projections indicated Mahomes should be the pick at 3.09, so I selected him. Stay true to your board, they say, and my numbers suggested he was a really good value at 33rd overall. But when I made that pick, I didn’t realize I could have selected any one of those other really good quarterback in the sixth round.
Now that the draft is entering the seventh round, I can look back and decide whether that was a good idea. If we go the revisionist history route, I can look and see how I would have fared had I instead waited on a quarterback.
I selected Mahomes at 3.09 and used pick 5.09 on wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk. Let’s assume that instead of going QB-WR, I went WR-QB with those two picks. What would that have looked like?
Had I taken a wide receiver at 3.09, it would have been Adam Thielen, Robert Woods or Terry McLaurin. Those were the guys I was looking at, and they all clock out at about 260 points on my board. I ended up getting Aiyuk two rounds later, and I’ve got him at 239 points, so I’m taking about 21-point loss there. That is, that wide receiver position would be 21 points stronger had I addressed it two rounds earlier.
But Mahomes is better than Brady (and all of those other quarterbacks). I’ve got Mahomes chalked out at 451 points, and that’s 60-70 points more than all of those other excellent options I listed. You can debate whether my projections for any of these players is correct, but if we’re using the numbers I settled on, the correct play was to pick Mahomes and then the wide receiver later.
We can also audit the selection of a running back in the sixth round. I thought I would get Mike Davis there, but it was instead Travis Etienne. With Etienne being a pass catcher, I think he’s a pretty solid choice in this PPR format. I’ve got both Davis and Etienne graded out for about 207 points. Had I selected a running back at 3.09, it would have been Chris Carson. Caron is projected at 241 points, so I would have been 35 points better at running back by going with Carson.
But again, Mahomes beats those other quarterbacks by about 60-70 points, so there’s more bang for your buck by going QB-RB rather than RB-QB in the 3.09 and 6.04 spots.
It’s too early for me to have a feel for these team overall, but the number checking suggest that (according to how I have the players graded) I’ve been selecting the right guys for my position in the draft.
Andy, by the way, is in the other version of the Fanex (I’m in the “American”, and he’s in the “National”). His roster construction has been similar. He also opened with two wide receivers from a similar spot (Davante Adams, Tyreek Hill), and also selected a RB and falling quarterback in the next two rounds (Chase Edmonds, Josh Allen).
| FANEX DRAFT | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Pick | Pos | Tm | Player |
| 1.01 | RB | CAR | Christian McCaffrey |
| 1.02 | RB | MIN | Dalvin Cook |
| 1.03 | RB | NO | Alvin Kamara |
| 1.04 | RB | TEN | Derrick Henry |
| 1.05 | RB | IND | Jonathan Taylor |
| 1.06 | WR | GB | Davante Adams |
| 1.07 | RB | CLE | Nick Chubb |
| 1.08 | RB | DAL | Ezekiel Elliott |
| 1.09 | WR | KC | Tyreek Hill |
| 1.10 | WR | BUF | Stefon Diggs |
| 1.11 | RB | GB | Aaron Jones |
| 1.12 | TE | KC | Travis Kelce |
| 2.01 | RB | NYG | Saquon Barkley |
| 2.02 | RB | WAS | Antonio Gibson |
| 2.03 | RB | LAC | Austin Ekeler |
| 2.04 | WR | ARI | DeAndre Hopkins |
| 2.05 | WR | SEA | DK Metcalf |
| 2.06 | RB | CIN | Joe Mixon |
| 2.07 | TE | LV | Darren Waller |
| 2.08 | WR | TB | Mike Evans |
| 2.09 | WR | ATL | Calvin Ridley |
| 2.10 | RB | PIT | Najee Harris |
| 2.11 | RB | KC | Clyde Edwards-Helaire |
| 2.12 | WR | MIN | Justin Jefferson |
| 3.01 | WR | DAL | CeeDee Lamb |
| 3.02 | WR | LAC | Keenan Allen |
| 3.03 | WR | TEN | A.J. Brown |
| 3.04 | RB | CHI | David Montgomery |
| 3.05 | WR | CHI | Allen Robinson |
| 3.06 | RB | PHI | Miles Sanders |
| 3.07 | WR | CAR | DJ Moore |
| 3.08 | WR | WAS | Terry McLaurin |
| 3.09 | QB | KC | Patrick Mahomes |
| 3.10 | QB | BUF | Josh Allen |
| 3.11 | TE | SF | George Kittle |
| 3.12 | RB | SEA | Chris Carson |
| 4.01 | QB | ARI | Kyler Murray |
| 4.02 | WR | LAR | Robert Woods |
| 4.03 | RB | MIA | Myles Gaskin |
| 4.04 | RB | LV | Josh Jacobs |
| 4.05 | RB | BAL | J.K. Dobbins |
| 4.06 | WR | TEN | Julio Jones |
| 4.07 | RB | DET | D'Andre Swift |
| 4.08 | WR | MIN | Adam Thielen |
| 4.09 | RB | LAR | Darrell Henderson |
| 4.10 | WR | LAR | Cooper Kupp |
| 4.11 | WR | DAL | Amari Cooper |
| 4.12 | WR | TB | Chris Godwin |
| 5.01 | TE | ATL | Kyle Pitts |
| 5.02 | TE | DET | T.J. Hockenson |
| 5.03 | WR | SEA | Tyler Lockett |
| 5.04 | WR | PIT | Diontae Johnson |
| 5.05 | RB | ARI | Chase Edmonds |
| 5.06 | RB | CLE | Kareem Hunt |
| 5.07 | TE | BAL | Mark Andrews |
| 5.08 | QB | BAL | Lamar Jackson |
| 5.09 | WR | SF | Brandon Aiyuk |
| 5.10 | WR | CIN | JaMarr Chase |
| 5.11 | WR | CIN | Tyler Boyd |
| 5.12 | RB | ATL | Mike Davis |
| 6.01 | WR | PIT | Chase Claypool |
| 6.02 | WR | PHI | DeVonta Smith |
| 6.03 | WR | DEN | Courtland Sutton |
| 6.04 | RB | JAC | Travis Etienne |
| 6.05 | WR | CIN | Tee Higgins |
| 6.06 | QB | SEA | Russell Wilson |
| 6.07 | QB | GB | Aaron Rodgers |
| 6.08 | QB | DAL | Dak Prescott |
| 6.09 | WR | CLE | Odell Beckham |
| 6.10 | WR | CAR | Robby Anderson |
| 6.11 | QB | TB | Tom Brady |
—Ian Allan