2017 Startup Mock Draft: Rounds 9-12
It is hard to believe that week 12 of the NFL season is already underway. Hopefully that means you are right in the thick of the playoff hunt right now, vying for a top seed. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. If you’re in enough leagues, you are undoubtedly turning your gaze towards the 2017 season in at least a few of them. In order to help give you some additional perspective on your roster and your trade targets, myself and 11 other writers here at DLF got together to do a 2017 startup mock draft.
For this mock draft, we decided to do 12 rounds, and we did our best to put ourselves into the mindset of what we would do six or so months from now. Due to the issue of not knowing which rookies will actually declare for the NFL draft, we decided to draft rookie draft picks instead of actual 2017 rookies. This way you still have an idea of where these picks are being valued in relationship to the current group of players.
To help give some perspective with the picks, I asked each of the participants to answer three questions once the draft was complete.
- Which of your twelve picks are you happiest about?
- Which of your twelve picks do you wish you could have back and do over?
- Who are three players you would likely target in the later rounds if this draft kept going.
I’ll be mixing their comments in with a little bit of round by round analysis.
In terms of scoring and format, we went with your standard PPR scoring of 1 point per reception for all positions. There were no positional bonuses, and this is not a superflex or 2QB league. On with the show!
Here are the final four rounds of the mock. If you missed the first four rounds or the middle four rounds, make sure you check them out.
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Round 9 (97-108)
- Willie Snead, WR NO
- Delanie Walker, TE TEN
- Ameer Abdullah, RB DET
- Tyreek Hill, WR KC
- Matt Ryan, QB ATL
- Drew Brees, QB NO
- Rookie Pick 2.01
- Devontae Booker, RB DEN
- Eric Ebron, TE DET
- Dak Prescott, QB DAL
- Brandon Marshall, WR NYJ
- Allen Hurns, WR JAC
This is another round with a combination of the young players with red flags mixed in with the aging yet still productive veterans. My favorite picks in this round are the quarterbacks. I think all three quarterbacks are tremendous values at this point in the draft. Brees is the safest bet to produce, but much like Brady, how much longer will he do this? Of course Brees was taken several rounds after Brady, which makes the question of longevity a little easier to deal with. Ryan is right in his prime for a quarterback, and Prescott seems to be the future. Of course it is a very small sample for Prescott, and we’ve seen guys like Nick Foles and Matt Cassell have a great season before never doing it again, but I think Prescott is the real deal.
The other pick I love in this round is Ebron. He is one of the rising stars at the tight end position, assuming he can stay healthy. Jaron was very happy with his selection of Ebron. Here is what he had to say about it. “As the ninth tight end off the board, Ebron feels like a great value here. He is starting to emerge in his third season and he won’t even turn 24 until April, while he is getting peppered with targets as a primary red zone threat and one of Stafford’s primary receivers.” I think Ebron is trending up, and I’m trying to acquire him in several of my leagues.
Snead and Hurns are interesting players in this round. Just based on their production and age combo, both of them should probably be a little bit higher. However, it is very clear that people are concerned about their roles going forward. Snead is already turning into the third target in that passing game, and Hurns’s role seems to be slipping away on an almost weekly basis as he is turning into a bit of an afterthought. The roles these two play in the future are very much in question.
Round 10 (109-120)
- Duke Johnson, RB CLE
- Matthew Stafford, QB DET
- Jerick McKinnon, RB MIN
- Carson Wentz, QB PHI
- Julian Edelman, WR NE
- TJ Yeldon, RB JAC
- Larry Fitzgerald, WR ARI
- Tyler Boyd, WR CIN
- Kenny Britt, WR LA
- Breshad Perriman, WR BAL
- Eli Rogers, WR PIT
- Rookie Pick 2.02
At this point in the draft, when we are over 100 picks in, it starting to look like the Thanksgiving leftovers for a big family meal. There really isn’t a whole lot of great stuff left. There are always decent quarterbacks, because QB2s just don’t carry much if any value in a start one quarterback league. If you are looking at other positions, you pretty much are looking at one of three types of players. The short term rental like Fitzgerald, the player who seems to have limited upside like Yeldon, or the complete shot in the dark like Rogers.
This is when the personalities and the draft plans of the owners really start to show. The teams which are trying the late round quarterback strategy have some solid options here with Stafford and Wentz. Those going for the zero running back strategy have some lottery tickets in Johnson, McKinnon and Yeldon all going in this round. Any one of those three could turn into a very solid RB2 if they win a role in 2017.
My favorite picks of this round were the receivers. Fitzgerald and Edelman have shown once again this year that age is just a number. In my mind, Fitz will continue to be in the WR2 discussion as long as he is playing the game, and Edelman will be there as long as he is paired up with Brady. Britt has been sneaky good this year, and I think he’s vastly underrated right now. As for Perriman, he was Dwayne’s favorite pick of the draft and here is why, “I was very happy to land Breshad Perriman in the tenth round. The 26th overall pick in the 2015 draft has had some injury trouble and hasn’t preformed hot out of the gate, but I always looked at Breshad as a project player. At 6’2″, with 4.28 speed, and an ability to go after a football in flight, I’m looking at his ceiling rather than his floor.”
Boyd is an interesting pick. We will get a glimpse at what he can do over the end of this season, but he’s a player who could see a huge spike in his value if he performs well over the next month and a half. The pick I don’t really get is Rogers. I feel like there are a lot of players still available at this point which have higher ceilings and lower floors than Rogers, but everyone has their own views of course. In the tenth round you might as well take a shot on a player you believe in.
Round 11 (121-132)
- Rookie Pick 2.03
- Isaiah Crowell, RB CLE
- Devin Funchess, WR CAR
- Philip Rivers, QB SD
- Travis Benjamin, WR SD
- Mike Wallace, WR BAL
- Ben Roethlisberger, QB PIT
- Tavon Austin, WR LA
- DeAndre Washington, RB OAK
- Cole Beasley, WR DAL
- Dorial Green-Beckham, WR PHI
- Paul Perkins, RB NYG
Much like the tenth round, the eleventh round is where teams are working their various draft strategies. We see a lot of similar type of selections. There are a few more late round quarterback choices, some running backs with a chance for solid roles in 2017, and of course a bunch of receivers.
There are two players who really surprised me in this round, not because they were selected but because they fell this far. Crowell is the first. I understand that he plays for a historically bad team with more holes on their roster than an old ratty T-shirt. This means he is going to have some absolute clunkers, but he has also had some great games this year, especially earlier in the year. I think he’s one of the more promising running backs drafted in the last few rounds of this mock. The other player I’m surprised they lasted this round is Big Ben. For a player who was in discussions as potentially being in the elite tier of quarterbacks as recent as this year, I’m surprised he is the fifteenth passer off the board. The injuries seem to be sapping a ton of value from the Steelers QB. I still think he’s a great value at this price tag.
Another great value, especially since Tyrell Williams went back in the sixth round, is Benjamin at this point. Our own Ken Moody was pretty proud of this pick as well. He said, “I love the natural talent and the dynamic he brings to the Chargers offense. In coming seasons playing opposite Keenan Allen, and at only 26 years of age, he should be a solid WR2 in fantasy for several years under a Philip Rivers led offense. I think he’s a good value there.”
Round 12 (133-144)
- Rookie Pick 2.04
- Martavis Bryant, WR PIT
- Rookie Pick 2.05
- Quincy Enunwa, WR NYJ
- Tajae Sharpe, WR TEN
- DeSean Jackson, WR WAS
- Martellus Bennett, TE NE
- Austin Hooper, TE ATL
- Ladarius Green, TE PIT
- Josh Gordon, WR CLE
- Chris Hogan, WR NE
- Rookie Pick 2.06
Since this is the last round of our draft, I’m not going to fault anyone for reaching for a player. In a lot of mocks, the last round has several players who wouldn’t actually be drafted there in a real league or if the mock had more rounds. Instead they are taken just to make sure people don’t forget about that player or for a chance to talk about them a little bit. I think that is exactly the case with a few of the players drafted in this round.
I think it is interesting that both Bryant and Gordon showed up at this point in the mock. It is anyone’s guess what will happen with the two of them. They both clearly have talent, but the list of players to successfully return from a one year or longer suspension in the NFL is really, really short. They should definitely be on someone’s roster, and they have huge potential upside, but they are little more than a lottery ticket at this point in time.
My favorite picks of this round are Enunwa and Hooper. I think the Jets are a team about to enter a transition period. They doubled down on their playoff chances this year with players like Ryan Fitzpatrick and Matt Forte. It hasn’t exactly worked out as Jets fans had hoped, and I think they will look very different next year. Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker are both getting up there in years. Marshall will be 33 next season, and Decker will be 30. Enunwa could easily be the future of the position. As for Hooper, the Falcons desperately need someone to step up and help out Julio Jones. I think Hooper has the best chance of any players currently on Atlanta’s roster to be that guy. Well worth a pick this late.
That does it for the round by round look at our 2017 mock draft. The one final question I asked out mock drafters was to name three players they would target in the later rounds of this draft. I just wanted to see which players were on the radars of our mock drafters. A lot of aging veterans like Frank Gore, Adrian Peterson and Matt Forte received some mentions to fill out the rosters of teams looking to win now. There were three players who received mentions from at least a third of our drafters, which is a pretty significant portion, so let’s take a look at them.
Rishard Matthews was on the list of half of our drafters as someone they would target in the next few rounds. The Titans receiver has gone from an afterthought in a crowded and unsettled receiver group to the leading receiver for an up and coming quarterback. Another week or two of him keeping that role, and I think we could be looking at a player who could be going in the single digit rounds of a lot of startups. He’s talented enough and has the opportunity to push for WR2 numbers.
The second leading vote getter was Dion Lewis. It wasn’t that long ago that Lewis was being touted as a top 20 running back in dynasty leagues. A major injury later and Lewis is struggling to get his role back thanks to the work James White has been doing this season. Lewis was great over the first part of 2015, and it is worth a gamble late in a draft to see if he can get back to that level.
The last player getting mentioned a third of the time is rookie Malcolm Mitchell. The young Patriots receiver is quickly developing a connection with Tom Brady as a primary receiving threat on the outside. This is a role which hasn’t been overly productive for New England since the time of Randy Moss, but Mitchell gives Patriot fans some hope that it could be coming back.
That’s it for our 2017 startup mock draft. I hope you enjoyed it and it helps you in your planning for next year. Have a great Thanksgiving weekend!
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