When Do We Panic? The McDowell-Malone DLF Live Draft Recap

Brian Malone Posted On July 31, 2016

Before the DLF live draft, I’d never co-owned a fantasy football team. And I’d certainly never co-drafted a team at a live draft. But I was partnered with the legendary Ryan McDowell, so I knew we’d be fine. Plus, McDowell and I both lean toward drafting young in startups, so I wasn’t worried about being talked into Adrian Peterson or Jordy Nelson.

We created a flexible strategy going into the draft. Of course we wanted to start young and heavy on wide receivers. But we weren’t ready to commit to a productive struggle. We planned to assess our team and the draft board after the seventh round and then decide whether to keep going youth heavy or pivot into a win-now approach. The “youth early, production later” strategy — or “the Fake Punt” — is one I’ve written about but hadn’t been able to try. So either we’d be going with McDowell’s pet strategy or my new curiosity. So far, so good.

[A quick note on the league format: it’s a superflex league with 0.25 points per carry, 1.0 points per reception, and 1.5 points per reception for tight ends. You must start at least one QB, two RBs, three WRs, and one TE, plus the superflex and two other flex spots. Unlike typical WR-heavy dynasty leagues, no position has a strong advantage in this format.]

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We weren’t thrilled with landing the 1.04 slot in the draft. As we guessed, Odell Beckham, Julio Jones, and Antonio Brown went with the first three picks. We debated DeAndre Hopkins, but news of his apparent holdout made us skittish. So, sticking to the plan, we grabbed 24-year-old Allen Robinson. When Russell Wilson fell to us in the second round, he was a no-brainer selection. Indeed, we were both hoping he fell because we didn’t have a good backup plan. We liked Randall Cobb, T.Y. Hilton, and Donte Moncrief, but we figured one of them would fall to us at 3.04. We figured wrong. With no tempting receivers on the board, we went with a young running back instead: 25-year-old Lamar Miller. We got back on track in rounds four and five, drafting back-to-back rookie WRs in Corey Coleman and Sterling Shepard. That gave us the following roster:

QB: Wilson

RB: Miller

WR: Robinson, Coleman, Shepard

TE:

Not too bad. Maybe not as WR-heavy as we planned, but no one is ready to fall off the age cliff.

You’ll recall that we planned to decide our team identity after round seven. But round six presented a moment of truth. There weren’t any youngsters worth drafting, and Drew Brees was staring us in the face. We knew that a Brees-Wilson combination in a superflex league made us instant contenders, so we snagged him. And then we grabbed Ryan Tannehill in the seventh to lock in some value and solidify our quarterback advantage. Now firmly in contender mode, we got a second RB, Dion Lewis, at 8.09.

That’s when it got weird. We needed some WR production. McDowell knew it. I knew it. But the veteran WRs left on the board looked like one big blob of mediocrity. We figured we could hold off a while and grab the last couple guys that fell. So we reverted to young upside, taking Breshad Perriman, Leonte Carroo, and Eric Ebron with the next three picks. Now we looked like this:

QB: Wilson, Brees, Tannehill

RB: Miller, Lewis

WR: Robinson, Coleman, Shepard, Perriman, Carroo

TE: Ebron

Five WRs and only one we felt confident starting in week one. Less than ideal. What’s worse, we missed on the veterans we were comfortable with. That blob of mediocrity looked a lot better after we blew our chance to grab some. Unfazed, we switched to best player available mode. And those best players turned out to be mostly RBs. In rounds 12 to 15, we drafted four RBs. The rest of the league drafted only eight. After round 16, we were sitting with this:

QB: Wilson, Brees, Tannehill

RB: Miller, Lewis, Jerrick McKinnon, Frank Gore, Jordan Howard, DeAngelo Williams

WR: Robinson, Coleman, Shepard, Perriman, Carroo

TE: Ebron, Jordan Cameron

And now it’s time to panic. We’re past “this guy could be a decent flex” territory. We’re past “this guy could get some targets” territory. We’re in “this guy should be on the field” territory. Which means Jaelen Strong. I’m actually pretty optimistic about Strong. The off-season buzz has been positive (ever since his marijuana arrest), and he was a second round rookie pick just 12 months ago. I’m also very high on Stevie Johnson, whom we grabbed in the nineteenth round. Johnson was a WR3 when healthy in 2015. True, he benefited from a few weeks without Keenan Allen, but I still think he can be a fantasy WR4. Plus, he’s a former Kentucky Wildcat, so McDowell got to relive some good college football memories when we drafted him.

Even though we needed the WR help, we couldn’t pass up what we saw as value at RB (Chris Thompson and Darren Sproles) and TE (Vance McDonald). We did grab Albert Wilson, a young WR who at least figures to be on the field plenty in Kansas City. That gave us this final roster:

QB: Wilson, Brees, Tannehill

RB: Miller, Lewis, McKinnon, Gore, Howard, D. Williams, Thompson, Sproles

WR: Robinson, Coleman, Shepard, Perriman, Carroo, Strong, S. Johnson, A. Wilson

TE: Ebron, Cameron, McDonald

Best case scenario, we have the best QBs in the league, a stable of productive young receivers, and plenty of high-touch RBs to survive by weeks and injuries. Worst case scenario, we have a solid QB corps, half of our RBs retire, and we have to decide whether to sell our young WRs next off-season before their value plummets. This wasn’t really the plan, but I don’t hate how it turned out. We built a balanced team with a chance to contend in 2016 and plenty of players that should hold (or gain) value heading into 2017.

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