RotoGrinders MFL10 Draft Recap - Part I
Football is not far away, which means it’s time to start thinking about NFL DFS. MFLs provide a nice way to starting thinking about football DFS by looking at the perceived values of players.
MFLs are draft-only best-ball leagues, meaning there are no roster moves or transactions throughout the year. The team you draft is the team you are stuck with for the whole season, but the best scores are used (like best-ball in golf). The league has the standard positions of most season long leagues: 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 FLEX, 1 D/ST. In spite of being the last DFS player who loves the kicker, there are no kickers in this league. MFL leagues use PPR scoring and award four points for passing TDs.
This article will include three parts, and I will talk about the picks I like and don’t like, as well as the star-studded RotoGrinders Experts who agreed to participate (and thanks to them for taking the time out to play in this league!). The goal is to talk about players you should be thinking about in DFS this upcoming season through the lens of a season-long league.
Round 1
There is only so much you can talk about in the first round – these are your superstars, so there weren’t many surprises. As you might suspect, this first round occurred before the news of the Le’Veon Bell suspension and the Ezekiel Elliott off-the-field concerns. I’ve asked both Stevie and Dan who they would have taken in the first round if they could re-do it today. Stevie said he would have actually stuck with Bell, and Dan said possibly A.J. Green or Rob Gronkowski. Probably the biggest controversy in the entire round was what I did on the end. I will admit I was caught off guard by BigT44 taking Allen Robinson, since I thought for sure he would take Gronk. After his selection, I had three players with first-round grades to pick from: Rob Gronkowski, Adrian Peterson, and Keenan Allen. The case for Gronkowski is that he locks up your TE position with the top guy. This is nice in a draft-only league where you don’t have the flexibility with matchups. While Gronk will catch passes from Jimmy Garoppolo rather than Tom Brady for the first four weeks, three of those matchups are at home, and the road game is against the Cardinals, who have been historically weak against the tight end. Also, Gronk’s best seasons were when the Patriots had two top tight ends.They have tried to fill the gap unsuccessfully the last few years, but with Martellus Bennett, they have the complement to Gronkowski that they’ve been lacking.
Adrian Peterson has been a beast every year he has played in the NFL. There is talk about him regressing this year, but the Vikings are one of the most popular teams on the over/under props in Vegas. The prop opened at over 9.5 -115 (bet 115 to win 100), but massive action on the over has it now at over 9.5 -160 (160 to win 100). The Vikings aren’t approaching that number without a top-five RB season from AP. Keenan Allen is a PPR beast and is really the only option in San Diego, but he has had trouble staying healthy. In the end, I took Gronkowski and Peterson. Brit thought it was insane to take Gronkowski over Allen because “if Gronk gets hurt, you have a punt TE the rest of the year and you are sunk.” Fair complaint, and most owners would pair Gronk with a punt. As you’ll see in Part II, Ihad other plans. Still, I think if I could do it again, I’d take Allen and Peterson. Keenan Allen is a top-five WR this year if he stays healthy. In hindsight, I should have chased the upside there, and he will be a guy I roster a ton in DFS.
Round 2
I thought Round 2 went pretty much to order, for the most part. Cal got Keenan Allen and was happy with the pick: “Absent a fluke lacerated kidney, I’m expecting 110+ catches, 1300+ yards, and 7+ TDs with this pick.” In the era of zero-RB strategy, it was interesting to see both Dan and Eric go RB-RB in the first two rounds. I don’t mind Freeman over Jeffrey, and Eric taking Doug Martin in the late second with both T.Y. Hilton and Brandin Cooks on the board was a mistake in a full PPR league, as both Hilton and Cooks are excellent core plays. Andrew Luck was as bad as we will probably see in his entire NFL career last season, and T.Y. Hilton was still a solid fantasy option in both season-long and DFS. Eric explained the decision to draft Martin by saying, “I love to zag when everybody else is zigging. It came down to Martin or Cooks for me, and I’m still not sure I made the right decision. I knew going in I was going to be RB heavy while everybody else was chasing WRs. I knew I wanted three RBs from the start since they tend to be a bit more consistent than WRs.” It’s a fair point, but in a full PPR league (just like on DraftKings), it’s hard to not have a star WR on your squad (and as you can see, it’s about to get worse)
Round 3
The third round of this draft might have been the most interesting round in the entire draft. It started once again with a RB going off the board in an interesting spot. Eric adds a third RB to his stable with Eddie Lacy, passing up on WRs like Amari Cooper, Julian Edelman, or Demaryius Thomas, which would have been decent #1 options with a heavy RB core. Eric explained, “Lacy in a contract year is somebody that I’m absolutely interested in. At least two and as many as three RBs will count toward your score every week, so I wanted three RBs who will be a big part of their teams’ plans week in and week out. I felt like there would be a lot of WR value later on since everybody was loading up early, so I decided to corner the RB market and load up on high-upside WRs later in the draft.” I’m not sure the high-upside WRs in a sharp league will be there, but it will be interesting to check back in on.
Two picks later, Nicole took Dion Lewis, which was disappointing for me because he was a player I was hoping to be available at the turn. Nicole was quite happy with the selection: “ In a 12-team league full of running back hoarders, I felt I needed a back or they’d all be taken by round five. I had it down to Forte, Woodhead, and Lewis as the best available PPR guys. As odd as it sounds, I think Lewis’ role is the safest (of the three) and I wanted a piece of the Patriots offense. He had 50 targets in only seven games and was the RB5 in PPR-per game scoring last year.” (Author’s Note: Dion Lewis has since required a second surgery on his knee. He’ll be out 8-10 weeks but could still be solid playoff performer). I was scared a WR wouldn’t fall to me, which would have been a disaster, as I didn’t have one yet. Thankfully, Randall Cobb fell, and I was happy to select him on the end. Cobb had a down year last year, but with the return of Jordy Nelson, I think he puts up good numbers. Overall, I think Dion Lewis and Eddie Lacy are solid players to gamble on early in the DFS season, as people will remember the bad about both of these guys without remembering the good. Brady won’t be around for the Patriots, so lots of dump down passes to Lewis seems fairly likely early on, and Eddie Lacy is in better shape and could prove to be the guy. I love taking veteran RBs early in the season before the rookies have had a chance to prove themselves, as they get larger parts of the workload.
Round 4
The most controversial pick in this round was once again by me, when I selected Carlos Hyde as RB14 in the fourth round. Let me start by saying I wanted to take Golden Tate – he was actually the highest player on my board – but I deviated for a couple reasons. Running backs were going at a fast rate, and I feared I wouldn’t be able to get a quality RB2 later and I’d be chasing the rest of the draft. This proved correct, as 10 of the next 22 picks were running backs. Also Carlos Hyde isn’t getting the respect he deserves. Last year with the Eagles, Chip Kelly’s offense ran the ball 442 times, and even with four different running backs getting carries throughout the year, DeMarco Murray (who also was bad) got 200 carries. Shaun Draughn, Hyde’s backup, isn’t as talented as Sproles or Ryan Mathews, the backups with the Eagles. In fact, there is talk Kelvin Taylor (the kid from Florida with the fumbling problem), will win the backup job.
If Hyde is healthy, he should get 200-225 carries. Additionally, Kelly uses a zone blocking scheme, which is what Hyde used at Ohio State to put up his massive numbers. The 49ers get a Week 1 matchup against the Rams in that late Monday night game, and people will stay away, but I will have tons of exposure in DFS. He crushed at home in Week 1 last year in that time slot game, running for 200 yards and two TDs against a strong Vikings D. Week 2 and 3 matchups against the Panthers and Seahawks will cause his price to plummet just in time for his matchup with the Cowboys in Week 4. That will be a prime spot to roster him.
Rounds 5 and 6
Eric did pretty well to land Michael Crabtree and Allen Hurns in Rounds 5 and 6 to help strengthen a very weak WR core. Both Crabtree and Hurns are WR3-types on most teams, but Eric will need one of them to emerge into a WR2 role for him to be successful this year. A lot of the mid-tier RBs that I’m not high on went in the fifth round. Matt Jones has injury concerns and might not get a full workload. Matt Forte has been injured a ton and saw his passing value decrease last year, which is normally the first sign of a decline. Jeremy Langford has never held the NFL workload, so it’s a question whether he can keep it up for an entire season.
At the turn, I was able to get Emmanuel Sanders, who I am very high on this year. Sanders, in my opinion, will be the Broncos #1 WR no matter who wins the QB battle. Demaryius Thomas was 10th in the NFL in yards after the catch, thanks to all the bubble screens they ran, and Peyton Manning was one of the best in the league at the bubble screen. Without those easy completions, I think they are going to have to go more vertical, which plays into the strength of Sanders. John Brown is a guy that unfairly gets the reputation as a boom-or-bust player, but he was actually very consistent throughout the season, and as Larry Fitzgerald ages, Brown could be in for even a bigger role this year. There were some other really good picks in the sixth round, namely Ryan Mathews and Coby Fleener. Mathews will be the #1 guy in Philadelphia as long as he’s healthy and will be a very chalky Week 1 DFS play against the Browns. Coby Fleener goes to a Saints offense that resurrected Benjamin Watson from the dead and turned him into one of the most productive TEs in the league (74 catches, 825 yards and six TDs). Coby Fleener wasn’t asked to run routes all the time in Indianapolis and showed upside when Dwayne Allen was out in that category. Fleener will annoy you with drops, but his overall production will be very good for a sixth-round pick.
That wraps it up for the first six rounds. In the next article, I’ll take note of players to watch the rest of the way in the draft. Thanks again to all the RotoGrinders experts for partaking. Any questions or disagreements, I’ll gladly answer in the comments section!