
Dan Croop
Observations from a 20-Team Draft
I’m running a 20-team league through Yahoo this year with friends of mine. I feel like they are a decent gauge for the fantasy football community, as their knowledge range varies pretty evenly from addicts like myself and a few others to casual football fans. With that in mind, I decided to go back over the draft from Saturday night and pick out a couple of selections that stood out to me for one reason or another. The league has mostly standard scoring with .5 PPR.
Reaches
Michael Vick – Round 1, pick 13: While it’s obvious that Vick is one of the most explosive players on the field when he’s out there, he’s just not worth taking this high with how great a chance there is for him to miss time this season. Barring a significant change in his playing style that can help keep him healthy, I can’t see taking him this high over guys like Larry Fitzgerald and Matt Forte on the board, as well as safer quarterback options like Eli Manning and Matt Ryan.
Darren Sproles – Round 2, pick 24: I understand the love for Sproles here because he finished last season as the fifth-ranked running back with these league settings, but I don’t expect him to repeat that production. He’s stuck in what is probably the biggest timeshare in the league between himself, Mark Ingram, Pierre Thomas, and Chris Ivory. A safer option still available here was Steven Jackson, and guys with higher upside like Jamaal Charles and Ryan Mathews were also still on the board.
Reggie Bush – Round 2, pick 35: Bush put up over 1,000 yards last season for the first time in his career since his rookie season. He hasn’t played an entire season since his rookie year. Since leaving USC for the NFL, he has mostly proven concerns to be true about not being able to handle a full running back workload. Odds are against him playing all 16 games this season, as well as topping 1,000 yards again. Still available here were running backs like Fred Jackson, Trent Richardson, and Doug Martin.
Robert Griffin III – Round 3, pick 59: It seems that this was more of a hype pick than anything else. With comparisons in his game to that of Cam Newton, some seem to think he could put up similar numbers to Newton’s from last season. That won’t happen. Newton broke almost all the rookie quarterback records last season. Griffin’s season would be considered a success if he could even put up 70% of those numbers. Based on value, I don’t think I would have gone quarterback here, but if I had to, I would have rather had Ben Roethlisberger in Pittsburgh’s pass-heavy system this year.
Value Picks