If you’re a fantasy nerd like me, turn on notifications from your favorite NFL insider for breaking news around the league. If you are drafting early, work the waiver wire to your advantage if any major injuries arise. The draft is just the start of the season. I’m guilty of this myself - see Rashod Bateman - but I will try to go with different approaches in many of these mock drafts. Your favorite sleeper is probably someone else’s too. Don’t take the same players in every mock. Most important of all, be creative with your mock drafts. Remember, do not draft either before your final two picks! However, for the sake of this exercise, I’ll round out each draft by doing so. I’d rather add a few running backs who could end up being a starter in the event of an injury. If you read my draft guide, you know I’m not a fan of drafting kickers and defense if it’s not necessary. It is a 16-round snake draft in a half-point-per-reception (half-PPR) league. The mock drafts will assume that 12 teams are in the league with the following roster construction: quarterback, two running backs, two wide receivers, tight end, a flex (running back, wide receiver or tight end) defense, kicker and seven bench spots. The point of these mocks is to prepare for the unexpected. I’ll be doing mock drafts throughout the summer while offering scenarios and feedback for each position. Whether you have the first overall pick or the last of the first round, having a sense of who will be available in each round is key.

This is where we come in, and tell these jerks to CHANGE IT BACK and SAVE OUR LEAGUES!įor more information and Must Be Sunday (TM) Fantasy Football content, please visit mustbesunday.The key to any fantasy football season is preparation. The NFL and ESPN have enough problems on their hands, they shouldn’t be driving people away with a terrible Mock Draft platform. This was the system in place two years ago, when everything ran like a well-oiled machine and leagues could have a few practice drafts to test the waters and get an idea of what viable drafting strategies were at their disposal (without half the randos immediately going on auto-pick). You literally have around 30 cities as the names for the NFL teams to choose from! New York, Los Angeles, Buffalo, Jacksonville, Cleveland, the list goes on and on. It’s so obvious one city for each format and league size in any given time slot. You may be asking: is there a way to fix this clearly ineffective and confusing naming system? What could we possibly use to tell the different between one thing and another thing? You may be surprised to know that ESPN already HAD a system in place that did a GREAT job of doing this! They used the names of cities. I can’t tell you how many times The League has tried to get a majority of members into the same mock but having it be impossible due to these vague lobby titles! On top of this, since only three words are used there are multiple lobbies with the same identifier at the same times in the same format with the same number of teams. Now mind you, there is no difference in the difficulty of these mocks, no rules differences whatsoever, so on its face these are nonsensical words to differentiate between lobbies. After finding a timeslot with the correct amount of teams and the correct league format (PPR, auction, salary cap, etc.), the only way to distinguish which mock is which is by three different identifying words: Beginner, Pro, Expert.

However, for the past few years there has been a problem: coordinating a mock draft among your leaguemates has become near impossible.

Which established superstars will you be able to count on in rounds 2 and 3? Which rookies can you gamble on in rounds 4 or 5? If your research has to cover the entirety of the NFL’s player pool, you’re going to run yourself ragged for no good reason! This is where Mock Drafts save us, prepare us, excite us. These mocks are a good way of knowing what your options will be when the Best Day of the Year, Draft Day, comes around and your picks can mean life or death for your fantasy team. Every summer, people all over the country (in fact, all over the world) start to gear up for Fantasy Football season by taking part in Mock Drafts.

Espn fantasy football mock draft