Draft Grades

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sorry this is late, It's been a tough scene at work but at least Saturday is quiet. Come time for the regular season I will do whatever it takes to be more timely.

After what seems like an eternal offseason of me making false promises of providing content, the blog finally has a purpose besides advancing my own agendas or trolling. The 2019 draft came and went with a lot of drama and booze to boot.

This draft had a lot of firsts; this was the first draft on the new Sleeper platform, the first draft as a keeper league, and the first draft that Roberto bothered to show up for. This made draft night quite the spectacle both on and off the app, with a slew of trades happening during and immediately after the draft.

Here are draft grades, in order of picks. FYI- this only takes into account trades made before and during the draft. Trade analysis for everything else will be in tomorrow's post.

1. Roberto

Roberto finally shows up to a draft... solely to make a flex for his gram story

and to roast me for showing up late and to claim that I've changed since winning the TS1 lows on SNKRS. I may have changed, but Roberto's draft strategy sure hasn't- with him spending the number one pick on a Quarterback yet again. This time, Roberto puts trust in Patrick Mahomes to be the franchise star this team did not find for itself last season. Joe Mixon and Keenan Allen are very solid pickups to round out his haul of top picks- but the severe lack of RB depth (only 4 RB picks the whole draft) and the way-too early QB grab (along with a head-scratching pick of Carson Wentz in the 9th) shows poor strategy. I will say that Roberto does have very good depth at wideout- which can hopefully be useful for inevitable trades down the line.

Grade: C

2. Alex

Our newest owner was a no-show on draft day for unknown circumstances– despite telling me sources he would show up at 7 and then proceeding to autodraft after round 10. I can't knock him too hard as he did inherit this team from our former taco in Weege, but I just don't hope he takes the throne for himself. Alex sure had a lot of homer picks for the time he was drafting- picking up 2 Broncos and 3 Rams in the first ten- and added Adam Thielen alongside his Keeper Diggs for a dynamic duo. Alex, like Roberto, is hurting severely at running back (arguably a worse group) and needs to hope his WRs perform if he wants to contend- or to flip for RB depth/future picks.

Grade: C-

3. Nauch

Our first keeper team- and one of the first to get a trade off after swapping running backs with Chuck nearly a month before the draft (trade analysis to come in the next blog post) and ending the Le'Veon Bell era on his team. Nauch's strategy of streaming QB/TE/DEF, along with a solid foundation of starting RBs, gave him reign to cast his net out wide for WRs to support Juju. Also, bonus points for the gag picks of Daniel Jones and Gronk- the 17th and 18th rounds are a crapshoot anyways.

Grade: A-

4. Ant

Ant decided to have some fun on draft-day, and about 12 rounds in decided to make a splash with Gio, executing 2 trades involving 9 players and 2 keepers. When reached out for comment, Ant stated that he initiated trade talks to boot out AB after his move to the dysfunctional Raiders and to acquire his homer pick in Michael Thomas. As for the players he drafted and kept, Ant's trades have him in a very strong position, albeit a bit weak at WR compared to the rest of the league. He also decided to listen to a bunch of morons who had been drinking and burned 2 picks on a kicker lol. Ant's team is looking stronger than last season, let's hope Injury Reserve 3 isn't set to hit theaters this November.

Grade: A

5. Hurtado

Middle-of-the-pack is a foreign place for Hurtado, and his draft performance reflected this. Hurtado retained a top 5 wr and top 3 te to start the draft, and while he did seem to try to address Running Backs by picking Damien Williams in the third round, seemed to focus on bolstering his wideouts and hoping to solve the RB problem through trades. Hurtado's pick of Baker Mayfield makes me feel like he has a type with QBs, second-year gunslingers. I'm curious to see if he is some sort of whisperer after all. Also- shoutout to the homer pick in NKeal Harry.

Grade: B-

6. Gio

Gio had one of the best sets of keepers going into the draft and started with a strong first few rounds, which makes me scratch my head as to why he decided to engineer the trades he did with Ant. Without giving too much trade analysis away, it seems like Gio made slight upgrades to WR and a slight downgrade at RB. But he at least got MBC himself now that he is officially a Raiders' fan again. Outside of his trades, I'm in shock that this guy's rolling the dice on Fournette again, good luck with him and Melvin Gordon joining the ever-increasing holdout club.

Grade: B

7. Joe

Joe's white privilege gave him a surplus of keeper-worthy Running Backs at the end of last season, which meant an easy decision to go RBx3 and focus on every other position in the draft- a dream. While Joe also needed to autodraft, he had a valid excuse due to work (cough cough Alex) and did queue his players up before going offline. Overall- his RB-heavy keepers and queueing strategy has left him a bit weak at WR, it is definitely a better problem to have than most of the other teams who have the opposite situation, the trade market will be under his control once the RB injuries start to pile up. I also don't like Andrew Luck at round 6. Overall, I learned my lesson not to shit on your draft- this was definitely a good one.

Grade: B+

8. Chuck

As soon as Ant-Gio set off the trades, Chuck was already letting out his inner slut and requesting everyone anything... but Saquon was off limits! Chuck started this draft well, establishing a deep RB corps with his keepers and picks- including a reunion with LeVeon Bell from his championship season. However, the rest of his draft was not as flashy. At WR, Chuck took a classic Chuck gamble with the problematic Tyreek Hill and is very thin outside of him, with a streaky Calvin Ridley and a currently injured Sterling Shepard. Hunter Henry may return to form, and Kyler Murray may indeed be Arizona's savior, but I do think those picks could have been spent better.

Grade: B 

9. Erik

We have lost the video evidence- but Erik, with the Dick Heads as witness, claimed that if he won the league this season he would purchase Off-White sneakers. Just wanted to get that in writing. The 2019 runner-up was among one of the best keeper classes, having a shutdown player at every key position. The rest of his draft provided him a fantastic group of pass-catchers and a serviceable group of RBs. With CMC, though, do you really need anybody else?

Grade: A 

10. Champ

The Champ did not start off his fantasy season on the right foot- showing up an hour late to the draft with 0 research done and the fact Zeke is holding out nagging the back of my mind. Having spent the first 10 rounds drafting in the car and having the 10 spot, I definitely made some reaches throughout the draft- with a lot of high-ceiling, low floor players drafted rounds 5-10. I also decided I wanted to get the band back together- with Kittle and Robby Anderson returning to the team to try and lead me on a second quest for glory. This is a ragtag group for sure, but you know who else was a ragtag group?

I ain't dethroned till I'm eliminated from contention- come get some.

Grade: B-