CFO Drew’s take on the Athlon Mock Draft

August 12th, 2009 by Vince Mullins

Chief Fantasy Officer Drew Smith provides his take on Athlon’s second mock draft of the preseason. Learn you will…VM

Surprises

Charles Clay moves to the main RB position for Tulsa in 2009 - will that add to his effectiveness? (Icon SMI)

Just like others have said, I was surprised with the early run on tight ends and just don’t see the value. I also was surprised that the quarterbacks didn’t come off the board sooner. I am someone that believes you can wait on the quarterback position in general but usually see people panic and select them early.

With just 11 QBs getting selected in the first 48 picks in a league format where you start two QBs just shows that no one in this mock was panicking knowing there would be plenty of value later in the draft.

One thing I noticed was with how people did not factor in the scoring of receptions. It seemed that draft strategy didn’t really adjust as high reception receivers (Meier, Shipley) and pass catching running backs (Charles Clay, Unga) didn’t get drafted any higher than they tend to in non-reception leagues.

My Team

As a general guideline to drafting, I like to let the draft dictate my draft strategy and take what it gives me without forcing picks. With that said I tend to gravitate to a drafting strategy of building my team around strong running backs who get plenty of touches on a weekly basis, a QB who runs some and wide receivers with big upside. I had the 1st pick overall which meant I was selecting Case Keenum and hoping that some running backs high on my board fell for the next 23 picks. I was fortunate to have Damion Fletcher fall to me but missed out on Eugene Jarvis by a pick. John Clay, Noel Devine and Brynn Harvey are all backs that should see 20+ touches a game that I look for. Getting Juice Williams who I think is a poor-man’s Tim Tebow 40 picks later plus Jarrett Brown and Riley Dodge late in the draft should give me one of the best QB squads.

This leaves the wide receivers as the critical part of the draft as I was forced to wait to the 72th pick before selecting my first receiver. Michael Floyd has too much upside to pass in Round 6 despite the low reception total but then add Ryan Wolfe and Naaman Roosevelt in Round 7 and 8 who I think were good values factoring in receptions into the scoring. Dwight Jones, Tim Brown, Edwin Britton and Tyler Stradford are all big upside receivers that round out my team.

I am usually leery of having the 1st pick overall but love how this draft played out for me.

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