
Gentlemen, we have made it to the 2018 NFL debut after a long stretch of waiting which featured 2 fantasy babies being born, another baby being conceived, and one of our league members has gotten engaged! We will soon have 6 married members of the league, compared to just Jarrett when the league began in 2011. Jake and Danielle's "snake baby" will be the 7th offspring of this league as we enter into our 8th season. And now we turn our attention from life events to sinister cutthroat fantasy swindling.
Each year, NFL.com grades everyone's draft. I have not seen the grades yet as of 11:00am on Wed, Sep 5, but those grades are dumb anyways because whoever takes the top player available according to NFL.com's rankings will have the best grade. Instead, you are going to get a grade from the commish, and this grading curve is going to be brutal (maybe?). Get ready to get pissed off because my red pen is dripping with ink. If you don't like it, well then tell me all about it in the comment section below.
JARRETT
QB: Sneaky ol' Jarrett waited on QB this season and picked up Matt Ryan in round 10. Not a bad choice, but I would've gone with Stafford who was still available at that spot. Did you know that Ryan has thrown for more yards than any other QB in their first 10 years? If Ryan returns to his 2016 form, Jarrett will have a locked-in weekly starter. It could happen especially since they’ve added Calvin Ridley to the offense. Seems like positive regression is inevitable with this talented Falcons team working under Steve Sarkisan for the 2nd year. QB Grade: B-
RB: Todd Gurley was the #1 back in 2017 and the reason why Erik dominated in the playoffs last year. Jarrett snagged him with the first overall pick, but it gets a little muddy after that. Marshawn Lynch and Dion Lewis will be competing for the #2 RB spot, which isn't a bad combo, but there are some chances for Lynch to get game-scripted out and Lewis might sit more if Henry is pounding it or if the Titans are winning. Not to mention the Titans had the slowest pace of play last year which means limited reps and touches. Maybe that changes with a new coaching regime. RB Grade: B-
WR: After keeping Adam Thielen, Jarrett went big on receiver at the 2nd-3rd round turn, selecting A.J. Green and Mike Evans. The problem with those guys is the offensive line. Can Cincy or Tampa give their QBs enough time to find these guys downfield? They are clearly the top targets on their team, but could disappoint in the touchdown department. But to have all three of these guys starting should be a recipe for success. WR Grade: A
TE: Delanie Walker is usually good for about 800 yards and 5-6 TDs, and he's consistent too. This timeless darling should be in for another steady year, although taking him 60th overall could be considered a stretch. TE Grade: C
Bench: Not much RB help on the bench with Latavius Murray and James White, but a decent core of guys at receiver should help. Corey Davis is a popular breakout candidate, while many believe Edelman will return to being Brady's top receiver (aside from Gronk) when he returns from his suspension. Jordy Nelson will need to be involved in the offense on an Oakland team that's lacking playmakers. Bench Grade: C+
Overall grade: B
AARON
QB: This handsome fellow Aaron made out pretty nicely at the QB position. He snagged the frontrunner for MVP last year before he was hurt, and that was Carson Wentz in the 8th round. For some insurance in the early weeks, he has the very steady Matthew Stafford. How is this guy such a value every year? The only thing lacking here is the top notch consistency that few QBs can provide, however if he plays his matchups right, he will be fine. QB Grade: A-
RB: He saddled a stud in Ezekiel Elliott which is great, but this is a concerning RB2 issue. Mark Ingram was his 2nd RB taken in round 4 who has a 4-game suspension and a bye week in the first 6 weeks. So when we get to mid-October, Ingram will have been available once (and how good will that first game back be?). Chris Thompson tore it up last year and was a more than serviceable player before his injury, but that’s his problem. He is a small guy who needs to have limited touches. His coach says he’s good to go, but Chris has been hesitant to say so, despite his trainers saying he should be fine. Thankfully, Aaron kept Jamaal Williams who will definitely be the starter at least at the beginning of the year if not all. In my opinion, I think he will be the guy which is what will save Aaron’s grade in this category. RB Grade: C+
WR: Maybe the best pick of the 2nd round, Aaron got Keenan Allen 19th overall. Follow that up with Michael Crabtree, Robert Woods, and Pierre Garcon, and you see this is a troubling wide receiver group. WR Grade: D+
TE: Hold on Aaron! Don’t rage quit your web browser just yet. Snagging Gronk makes up big time for your WR2 weakness. He’s hands down the best TE in the league, and many experts were willing to take him in the 2nd round. You got him in the 3rd. TE Grade: A+
Bench: Like I had mentioned, I don’t think there’s a lot of depth here to work with. I will throw in the fact that he his the Vikings D which should provide some quality starts, but this team will be very dependent on Zeke, Allen, Gronk and the QB. Bench Grade: D
Overall Grade: C+
JAKE
QB: Chase would love it if I just ripped into everything about Jake, but I shall gave him a fair trial and let Chase post his comments below. The ol’ snake took Deshaun Watson in the 5th round with the 43rd overall pick. That’s a high price for a guy who only played a handful of games at an unsustainable pace. But I’m not grading on draft value, and Watson does have who I think is the most gifted receiver in the league in Hopkins, and Will Fuller will be stretching the field. Look for this offense to be consistent and exciting with lots of opportunities for Watson to run. QB Grade: B+
RB: Jake would have knocked this out of the park if it weren’t for the mysterious Le’Veon Bell situation happening currently. He kept Alex Collins and picked up Devonta Freeman in the 2nd round, so this looks like a team that will be ok without Bell (especially since he has Connor), but presumably it looks like Bell will keep sitting. Throw in some late values with Al-Mo and Peyton Barber, and this team will be just fine at RB and potentially great at the position with Bell. RB Grade: B+
WR: This position is another story for the Snake. T.Y. Hilton and Allen Robinson will be the two main guys on this team, but there is a lot of risk/reward with these guys. Mostly because we didn’t see ARob last year which was preceded by a poor year. You have to go back to 2015 to make ARob fantasy relevant, while T.Y. struggled big time last year with Luck. Without depth at the position, this is Jake’s weakness. WR Grade: C+
TE: Jake picked up old Greg in the 6th round. Let’s just hope he can still stretch the field in his old age because he has never been much of a TD guy, and with the development of Christian McCaffrey and the addition of D.J. Moore, Olsen’s target-share could be affected. Regardless, he is still a probowl caliber tight end who will be on the field the entire game. TE Grade: B
Bench: The running back depth is good, the wide receiver depth is a little volatile. Robby Anderson had a great rapport with Josh McCown last year, but we didn’t see Darnold throw the ball downfield at all in preseason. I would guess that Anderson’s TDs will go down this year. Shepard could be a beneficiary of favorable coverages, but I think most of the TDs in this offense will go to OBJ and Saquon, while Evan Engram can also line up outside. He does have the best defense in Jacksonville and Gostkowski, so overall there is a lot to work with. Bench Grade: B
Overall Grade: B-
TERRANCE
QB: Terrance waited until rounds 11 and 12 to scoop up Andrew Luck & Jimmy Garoppolo. These two guys will likely be throwing a lot, because I think both of their defenses will struggle. We haven’t seen Luck play in a regular season game in over 600 days, and I’m not convinced he will automatically return to elite form. QB GRADE: B
RB: We all know how Terrance stacks his team up with RBs each year, and he’s always competitive, making the playoffs every year but one, and he scored the 3rd most points last year. He went all RB in the first three rounds, snagging David Johnson, Christian McCaffrey and Derrick Henry, not to mention Kerryon Johnson in round 5 as a potential breakout candidate. Terrance could have difficulty picking the right player to flex. RB Grade: A
WR: He chose Jarvis Landry as his keeper, and added Brandin Cooks, Emmanuel Sanders, Kelvin Benjamin and Allen Hurns. While there might be enough depth, I don’t see a true number one on this roster. WR Grade: C-
TE: The Bears fan took Trey Burton in the 7th round, and I like this pick a lot. With Shaheen on IR, look for Mitch to use Burton as a safety blanket between the 20s and in the redzone. TE Grade: B+
Bench: I didn’t mention Aaron Jones yet, but he could be a long term value. I don’t think he will get to the level of startable, but he likely won’t need the RB depth. The receiver depth is helpful, especially when you consider that Benjamin and Hurns are the number one receiver on their team. Bench Grade: B-
Overall Grade: B
SEAN
QB: I think Tom Brady was a stretch in the 5th round, but again this isn’t about draft value. I think Brady will continue to be a top fantasy option. Adding Big Ben in the 11th round will be a more than serviceable backup. QB Grade: B+
RB: Sean waited to take a RB, and this is going to be a problem for him all season unless he makes a move or finds someone on waivers. Jay Ajayi is the RB1, with Chris Carson, Duke Johnson, Ronald Jones and C.J. Anderson. I see a lot of dud games from this group. RB Grade: D
WR: After keeping Tyreek Hill, Sean snagged Antonio Brown and Michael Thomas. This is the best receiving corp in our fantasy league. WR Grade: A+
TE: Pissing off Chase in the process, Sean took Travis Kelce one spot ahead of Chase. He will have a locked up tight end for the season, but I expect regression with the first season of Pat Mahomes. TE Grade: A
Bench: Chris Hogan could be useful if one of his big 3 were to fall off, but I already mentioned how these running backs will definitely be the weakness of his team, and it will be difficult to pick the right player without chasing points from the previous week. David Njoku could be an asset to be traded, but there isn’t too much to see here. Bench Grade: C
Overall Grade: C+
CHASE
QB: Chase got last year’s 2nd best QB in Cam Newton who had a bounce back year after a disappointing 2016. Don’t forget Cam was the 2015 MVP and I like him to continue doing what he does. QB Grade: A-
RB: Saquon Barkley and Dalvin Cook will be fun to roll out each week. He will need those guys to consistently produce, and I don’t see any reason not to think that they will. (Hopefully week 1 will be a little rough ;-) RB Grade: A-
WR: Getting Stefon Diggs and Larry Fitzgerald in the 3rd and 4th rounds was very solid. Fitz should be a go-to target for Sam Bradford, and is usually much better at home than he is away. Diggs looks like a candidate who can make the leap to the elite tier with a better QB at the helm this year. Oh and he kept Davante Adams? That is quite the nasty trio of receivers, and will be a force to reckon with. WR Grade: A-
TE: Supposedly Jordan Reed is healthy and on track to play week 1, but how many games can we expect from Reed this season? I can’t reasonably project him to play a full season, and because of that this grade will get knocked down a little bit. TE Grade: C+
Bench: The only other RBs backing up his big 2 are Isaiah Crowell and Tarik Cohen. Things could get messy during Saquon and Cook’s bye weeks. Alshon Jeffery and Cameron Meredith are backing up the receivers and likely won’t be needed. Alshon could be a startable asset, but his touchdown ratio was high last year for his targets, and I expect him to regress. Bench Grade: C
Overall Grade: A-
RYAN
QB: One pick before Chase took Cam, I snagged Russell Wilson in the 8th round, the player with the most points in the entire fantasy realm last year. Russell was also a little banged up last year with an ankle and was limited in the running game. He’s healthy, they traded to reinforce the offensive line last year, and can’t possible have a worse rushing attack than they did last year. QB Grade: A
RB: I knew who I wanted and I got two bruisers in the first two rounds in Melvin Gordon and Jordan Howard. These are two guys I think will rush for over 1,200 yards and 12 TDs. They both are still developing as pass catchers as well, and they will likely be seeing 20-25 touches every game. Throw in rookies Rashaad Penny and Sony Michel for flex consideration, and there could be some damage done by this group. RB Grade: A-
WR: After keeping JuJu Smith-Schuster, I added Amari Cooper and Marvin Jones to capture shares of pass happy teams. Cooper was playing injured most of last year, and he has shown us historically that he can be a dominant number 1 wide receiver. With Crabtree departing, I expect more redzone targets for Cooper. Marvin Jones had an incredible deep pass catch percentage and contested catch percentage last year, and looks to be Stafford’s go to deep target. WR Grade: B
TE: I waited until the final round to choose Ricky Seals-Jones as my week 1 streamer. This will be a position to address on a weekly basis. TE Grade: D
Bench: Marquise Goodwin, Cooper Kupp and Randall Cobb are waiting on the bench while RBs Penny, Michel and Corey Clement wait patiently to take over the starting job for their respective team. This might be the deepest bench that I have ever exited the draft with. Bench Grade: A-
Overall Grade: B+
JACOB
QB: Jacob seems to be approaching a streaming strategy at QB with the potential of an every-week play with Jared Goff. Don’t get me wrong, I like Goff and I think he could improve on what he did last year, but this is an offense that moves through Todd Gurley. When they get a lead and their strong defense holds onto it, Goff’s upside could be limited in some games. QB Grade: C+
RB: Lights, Kamara, Action becomes the first team in league history to claim a keeper of such elite stature in Alvin Kamara. He basically got two first round picks back to back and stacked up with Kamara and Fournette. The only thing to be concerned about is hypothetical, either a Fournette injury or natural regression to the mean for Kamara. RB Grade: A-
WR: He snagged Julio Jones on his way back in the 2nd round, who had a very low, outlier redzone catch percentage which has to get better this year. Golden Tate and Will Fuller are the only two receivers on this team. There are consistency problems with both of those guys, and injury risk. They both have a quarterback who can get them the ball though. WR Grade: B+
TE: Evan Engram and Kyle Rudolph are a great pair of tight ends in a league that is fairly aggressive on tight end ownership. They both will prove to be useful. They don’t compare to the upside of Gronk or even a Kelce, but they will consistently be used in their offense and should be pretty safe plays. TE Grade: B+
Bench: Lamar Miller and Carlos Hyde are backing up the stud RBs, and it’s definitely good if your backups are starters. I think both of those guys are easy not to like, but I think they will exceed their expectations this year and prove useful. Tevin Coleman is a great value in the 7th round who will always be involved, and has RB1 upside if anything happens to Freeman. Nick Chubb is there too if/when he takes the lead away from Hyde. The RB depth balances out the complete lack of depth at wide receiver, along with the fact that his tight end depth is covered. Bench Grade: B+
Overall Grade: B+
SCHWEG
QB: Drew Brees and Kirk Cousins are the QBs on this roster, both of which should finish the year in the top 10. Brees had a lot of TDs vultured by the RBs, and it was almost a 50/50 split of passing vs rushing TDs for the Saints last year, something that is not sustainable, especially without Mark Ingram for a month. Either one of these guys could probably be started week in and week out, but having both of them to play matchups makes it better. QB Grade: A-
RB: His keeper was Kenyan Drake, and he re-signed his franchise boy Kareem Hunt and picked up this year’s Kareem Hunt, Royce Freeman. I love Drake as a flex option, because I think the other two will be the constant starters. A lot of unknown here, but I expect good things. RB Grade: A-
WR: Odell Beckham fell right to him in the 2nd round, and he picked up Demaryius Thomas, Josh Gordon and Devin Funchess is rounds 5-7. This is a group I expect Gordon to elevate from because of his talent. This could be a third straight year of success from Schweg. WR Grade: A-
TE: Schweg went early on a TE and got Zach Ertz in the third round. Ertz was amazingly consistent last year, and will likely be needed with the early injury to Jeffery. Aside from Gronk and Kelce, Ertz will round out the big 3 at TE of players you can start every week regardless of matchup. TE Grade: A-
Bench: He has a solid rotation of receivers to work with that could or could not include Michael Gallup, but his RBs are a little thin on the bench with the ancient Adrian Peterson and a handcuff Spencer Ware. Schweg clearly went all-in with his starters, but he may need to make a trade or hit the waiver wire this season. Bench Grade: C-
Overall Grade: A-
ERIK
QB: He’s the one with Aaron Rodgers, so he gets the automatic A+. QB Grade: A+
RB: He was smart and kept Joe Mixon while adding LeSean McCoy to the mix. I think it was quite a reach for McCoy that early based on some other names available, and I think McCoy will struggle as a 30-year-old back in a dismal offense. Rex Burkhead, Matt Breida or Marlon Mack could all emerge as usable players, but they are in crowded backfields, putting a lot of pressure on Mixon and McCoy. RB Grade: C
WR: DeAndre Hopkins is the best receiver in my opinion. He was the number one receiver and played most of the year with Tom Savage. All you have to do is throw the ball to him and he’ll catch it…in garbage time…against me! Doug Baldwin is a great pick at 30th overall and Sammy Watkins will be an excellent flex option. Watkins had great redzone stats last year, and could be isolated in coverage with Kelce and Tyreek demanding attention. WR Grade: A
TE: Erik is taking a chance on Jimmy Graham! They say he’s in great shape and is moving well on the field. We already know that he’s a huge redzone target which is perfect to replace the departed Jordy Nelson, and we saw Antonio Gates score TDs for years after he couldn’t stretch the field. Rodgers will get him the ball, and he will catch touchdowns. TE Grade: B+
Bench: Jamison Crowder and Nelson Agholor could have breakout seasons, Agholor especially. Some of his highlights last year were darn-right impressive. The problem with Philly is the QB situation, how much they spread the ball around, and how efficient they were as an offense last year. It might be hard for the TDs to come to Agholor. Matt Breida could be the guy in San Francisco in McKinnon’s vacancy. I like the depth that he has, but the overall upside of this team could struggle if the RBs don’t produce. Bench Grade: B
Overall Grade: B
RANKINGS BY OVERALL GRADE
T1: Chase: A-
T1: Schweg: A-
T3: Ryan: B+
T3: Jacob: B+
T5: Jarrett: B
T5: Terrance: B
T5: Erik: B
8. Jake: B-
T9: Aaron: C+
T9: Sean: C+
This means for the third year in a row, Schweg will lose the championship to none other than Chase Dooley! I will get my revenge on Jacob in the 3rd place game. Of course the draft is just one part of building a championship franchise. Do you guys think anything differently? Change my mind. I’m listening…
Sincerely,
The Commish
Overall, I think it was a relatively fair take on the draft. But, I do believe we are seeing the endowment effect (shoutout to Chase) in action. There is a lot of mention of regression to the mean for teams, yet Russell Wilson and Marvin Jones seem to have eluded this part of the critique. Marvin had a breakout year and Russell accounted for some ridiculous amount of his team's total production. With a running game no worse than last year's team and defenses keying on Russell, I think it is fair to assume he would regress. I knock you down one notch for Russell and Marvin production and one more notch for falling prey to something that, thanks to Chase, should have been top of mind. Overall draft, B-.